Wine
Wine coverage from CrushBrew — boutique wineries, varietals, tasting guides, and the winemakers shaping American wine from vineyard to bottle.
Alsace Wine: The Most Misunderstood Region in France
Alsace is the most misunderstood major wine region in France — and possibly the most rewarding one to understand. It sits on France’s eastern border…
Boxed Wine Gets Serious: What’s Changed and What’s Worth Buying
The rehabilitation of boxed wine is complete. Tablas Creek — an acclaimed, certified organic estate in Paso Robles — put a portion of its Patelin…
Driftless Glen Distillery: How Wisconsin’s Ancient Geology Made a Great Bourbon
Fifteen thousand years ago, the glaciers that flattened most of the Midwest stopped just short of a corner of southwestern Wisconsin. The ice retreated, the…
Italian Biodynamic Wine: What the Best Producers Are Actually Doing
Biodynamic wine sits at the intersection of serious agriculture and genuine mysticism — which is either its most compelling feature or its most off-putting one,…
Gamay: The Most Underrated Grape in the World
In July 1395, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, issued an edict banishing Gamay from the Burgundy wine region entirely, calling it the “disloyal Gaamez”…
Three Ways Champagne Is Beating Its Climate-Change Problem
Champagne’s climate-change problem is simple to state and hard to solve: the region’s identity is built on cool temperatures, high acidity, and slow ripening. Rising…
Long Island Wine in 2026: How Cabernet Franc Finally Put the North Fork on the Map
In 2016, wine writer Lenn Thompson posed two questions about Long Island wine that he said might not be answered for decades: would the North…
The Cape Winelands: Why Your Friends Who Went to South Africa Can’t Stop Talking About It
The friends who come back from South Africa’s Cape Winelands all say the same thing: they knew the wine would be good, but they did…
Why You Buy Wine by the Label — and What It Actually Tells You
Every wine drinker has done it. Standing in a wine shop with forty bottles at eye level and no particular guidance, you reach for the…
Wine and Food Pairing: Five Things Actually Worth Knowing
Wine and food pairing has accumulated a reputation for being complicated, rule-bound, and slightly intimidating — which is unfortunate, because the actual principles behind it…
Natural Wine: What It Actually Is, Why It Matters, and Where to Start
On April 16, 2026, France became the first country in the world to establish a legal definition for natural wine — a milestone that would…
The Placer Wine Trail: California’s Best Wine Secret
People who have visited both places will sometimes say it: the Placer Wine Trail feels like Napa Valley fifty years ago. The tasting rooms are…
San Diego’s Best-Kept Wine Secret — Vesper Vineyards and Stehleon
San Diego County is not famous for wine. It is famous for beaches, biotech, the Navy, and fish tacos. When people think about California wine…
Paul Mathew Vineyards: The Graton Winery Where You Forage for Mushrooms Before Lunch
Once a year, the wine club members of Paul Mathew Vineyards drive out to a seasonal bed and breakfast on 20 acres in Cazadero, meet…
How Uncle Benny’s Apple Schnapps Became a Finger Lakes Wine-Spirit Hybrid
It started with Uncle Benny. In 1986, Herman Young visited his wife Wilma’s uncle in Germany and spent a day tasting the neighbor’s apple schnapps.…