environmental issues

Posted: April 30, 2012 By Dana Nigro

News & Features : Unfiltered

Wineries Make It Easy to Be Green This Earth Day

Help save the planet this Earth Day with these eco-conscious vintners

Posted: April 19, 2012

March 31, 2012 Issue : Features

Going Beyond Glass

How different types of wine packaging stack up

Posted: March 31, 2012 By Dana Nigro

Learn Wine : Ask Dr. Vinny

What's with these "biodynamic" wines?

Posted: March 19, 2012

News & Features : News

U.S. and Europe Have Different Definitions of Organic Wine

A fight over labeling leaves American producers at odds over the meaning of organic, even as the European Union allows added sulfites

Posted: February 24, 2012 By Dana Nigro

News & Features : Unfiltered

Best of Unfiltered 2011

All eyes were on the scantily clad pin-up princesses of the Austrian wine industry and the hunky Sonoma winemaking Bachelorette suitor in 2011, but a looming international wine crime wave demanded attention as well

Posted: December 29, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Cows on Wine: More, Better Milk and Less Gas?

Plus, David Chang Down Under and Robert Mondavi wines on hand for Madonna's directorial debut

Posted: December 15, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Celebrity Nuptials in Wine Country

Plus, St.-Emilion's budget crisis and some impressive charity donations from Opus One and Heron Hill

Posted: October 27, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Dave Matthews' Wine Dream

Plus, AOC controversy in France and a Champagne-inspired art auction raises $10,000 for charity

Posted: October 20, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Tragedy Meets Wine Irony in New Zealand

Plus, Domaine Clarence Dillon supports the Clinton Foundation for the president's 65th birthday and a best-selling Japanese wine comic gets its U.S. debut

Posted: October 13, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Padma Asks, Are You a Good Wine Host?

Plus, an Argentinean winery gets behind an effort to save mountain communities from climate change, and a new gateway wine (?)

Posted: September 15, 2011

News & Features : Unfiltered

Mother Nature May Not Be a Wine Fan

Hurricanes, earthquakes—and stink bugs—strike the northeast's winemaking regions

Posted: September 1, 2011

News & Features : Wine & Health Q&A

Is organic wine better for you than regular wine?

Posted: July 20, 2011 By Margaret Raber

Blogs : Harvey Steiman At Large

Would Hotter Summers Hurt Wine Quality?

Stanford scientists take a stab at what could happen by 2040

Posted: July 13, 2011 By Harvey Steiman

It's a standing joke, though a somewhat nervous one, among winegrowers when the subject of global climate change comes up. "Well, I guess they'll be growing Cabernet in Burgundy," someone is sure to remark, "because it will be too hot to grow Pinot Noir there anymore."

But how true is that idea? Is it likely that whole regions will get too hot for what they currently grow? That would change the dynamics of wine profoundly. Noah Diffenbaugh, a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University, enlisted colleagues at Utah State and Southern Oregon universities and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory to plug in conservative climate models and analyze what would happen region by region in California, Oregon and Washington if those models come true.

News & Features : Unfiltered

New Jersey Wineries on the Brink

Plus, former Dallas Cowboys coach Barry Switzer opens a winery, Bordeaux's strange new neighbors, counterfeit white Zinfandel of all things, and more

Posted: June 30, 2011

Blogs : Harvey Steiman At Large

How Big Is Your Wine Bottle?

Big Canadian wine buyer puts a limit on bottle weights

Posted: June 13, 2011 By Harvey Steiman

James Laube and I have a standing joke. In our blind tastings, whenever we pour ourselves a sample from a bottle that feels heavy for its size, one of us is bound to mutter, "It must be a great wine. I can hardly lift it."

Of course, the rule of compensatory judgment suggests that we probably make it tougher on those wines, because it's almost like the wine is bragging. Nobody likes a showoff. Well, apparently, consumers do, because wineries use extra-heavy bottles to send exactly that message—that the wine must be really good, otherwise why would the vintner spend so much on a fancy container?