Great Chardonnay wines are as classic as pearls. And just like pearls, they go in and out of style, ubiquitous in some decades, less so in others, sometimes styled one way, sometimes another…but always persisting, frequently imitated and with huge variations in quality.

If you thought of pearls as grandma’s go-to before finally picking up a version of your own, it’s probably time to revisit her Chardonnays, too. They’re so much more than the 90’s-style butter bombs you might have tried in the past. This tasting highlights the regions and countries that have defined modern Chardonnay while offering 3 style categories to help you figure out where your own preferences lie. After all, no two pearls are exactly alike, even before being styled…and neither are Chardonnays.

Orange wine. A wine style that’s been considered faulty, painfully trendy, overblown and undeniably hip. Whether you call it orange, amber, macerated, skin-fermented or skin contact, orange wines are essentially white wines are made like reds. Rather simple for wines that inspire such polarized opinions.

Orange wine has become trendy in recent years, but the style is ancient. Orange wines are made all over the world, from different varieties of white grapes using different methods by different winemakers in different terroirs. This tasting zooms in on some of the styles and countries that have come to be the best known in the wide range of shades of orange.

I’ve intentionally avoided Dry January or Sober October for this tasting theme because I view non-alcoholic drinks, as complementary options to wine at any time of the year.

Sometimes, life gives us circumstances for which we or others in our lives need to or want to avoid alcohol. Sometimes, we just want to pace ourselves, zebra-striping our way through a lengthy gathering. Other times, we want to imbibe, but someone has to be the DD, and it’s our turn to take one for the team. And yet, no matter what else is going on in our lives, alcohol is still an indelible part of socializing as an adult.

Luckily, the non-alcoholic drinks space is getting more and more interesting every day. The moment I hit “publish” on this post, it will already be outdated. And I love that that’s the case.

This tasting is all about the alcohol-free drinks that are made from wine or made to be enjoyed like wine, and is intended to give you a chance to taste the products you’ve cast into that “I should try that sometime” space, as well as to understand better how they’re made.

Sherry, Sherry baby! If you haven’t heard the Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons song before, you’ve been warned that it will be on repeat in your mind for at least the time it takes to read through (or skim) this tasting guide.

I have to be honest; my first tastes of sherry were baffling. I couldn’t decide what to think about the strange, strong flavors that were sometimes reminiscent of a yeasty beer, sometimes coffee, sometimes briny seawater. I’d never tasted wines like sherry before, and I couldn’t entirely wrap my head around how they were even considered wine, much less how the extremely different styles were all considered sherry.

If you’re British or read as much as I do, you might think of sherry as the stuff grannies keep in their cupboards, that sweetened stuff drunk out of a teeny little glass at the end of a long day, or to prevent the so-called swoons I find it hard to believe anyone ever actually had. Or, you might only know sherry in the context of cooking, often showing up in recipes with chicken, mushrooms or gravy, Thanksgiving-style.

If, on the other hand, you’ve never given sherry much of a thought, and haven’t yet developed your own opinions about the various styles, I hope you’ll take this tasting as your chance. If nothing else, this theme is the perfect opportunity to go all-in on tapas, the OG girl dinner.

We all know and love Champagne, but who can realistically splash out on Champagne on any kind of regular basis? And the next best thing is Prosecco or Cava, right? Perhaps, but French Crémants are actually a closer budget alternative stylistically, with many that are under-valued and delightfully complex, with teeny, persistent bubbles and subtle hints of brioche-y goodness. So yes, you can swap in a Crémant for your mimosas, but these wines are also delicious enough to be served solo.

France has eight different official appellations for Crémant, and this tasting will narrow in on some of the most widely available styles so that you can decide on your favorites.

In contrast to last week’s full-bodied fruity reds, this week’s tasting is focused on the savory side of big, bold red wines. Now, I get that “savory” is yet another one of those words that when used to describe wine just isn’t entirely clear. In this case, I’m referring to wines that usually do have ripe fruit flavors…but also flavors that lean more floral, herbal, meaty, earthy, spicy or leather-y. These are wines in which the fruit plays in the chorus line, instead of taking center stage. Wines that might not seem immediately attractive, but like your secret crush, reveal themselves more fully on a second (or third) glance.

Body-wise, these wines are all biggies. They have the grape ripeness, alcohol and tannins that stylistically feel more akin stout than IPA on your palate, or whole milk rather than skim. Body is always going to be a weird word for a liquid, but in lieu of a better alternative, we’ll let it slide.

I have to admit, I don’t often reach for full-bodied fruity red wines. I’ve also judged some unfairly, as many a too-cool wine geek is wont to do at some point or another. But the great thing about studying and working with wine is that you get to taste everything, often, and there’s nothing like regular tasting to convince you that there are top-notch wines in every style, no matter which are supposed to be trending. And just like with food; one should never rule out a whole category from just one “meh” experience. Count this tasting as my mea culpa: full-bodied fruity red wines will always deserve a place on my wine rack.

Some clarifications:

1. I will forever maintain that body is a weird word for a liquid, and I have mixed feelings about “full-bodied” as a descriptor, too. But the words have been in use long enough that they’ve been enshrined in wine lore, so in this case, I’m using “full-bodied” to talk about wines that carry plenty of weight on the palate, thanks to grape ripeness, alcohol and tannin that together, make them feel more akin to a stout than an IPA, or whole milk rather than skim.

2. This tasting is focused specifically on the fruity reds within the full-bodied red wine category. “Fruity” here refers to how fruit-forward the wines taste, not how sweet or dry the wines are. In these wines, ripe fruit flavors take center stage, usually with supporting cast members like spices and herbs adding complexity to the show.

Ok, now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk tasting.

As an American Millennial, *Under the Tuscan Sun,* Diane Lane’s post-divorce rediscovery of life and love cemented my idea of Tuscany as a region that’s essentially one big romantic idyll, so this theme feels apropos for Valentine’s Day today. For the Danes, you might feel this way about *Toscana* or *Madklubben,* both of which I watched while trying to improve my Danish language skills. Made in Italy is on my to-watch list, too, and even the Hallmark movie-esque *La Dolce Villa,* since I fully expect romance, heartstring tugs, abundant sunshine, picturesquely historic properties and food and wine galore.

This is the romantic idea of Tuscany that far-flung Italophiles have cultivated, and without having been there myself (yet), I’m unwilling to listen to anything that might change it. Sure, I’ve lived in Europe for years now and have visited other parts of Italy, so I know that the reality won’t exactly match the film ideal, but my experiences with Tuscany’s food, wine and people have only cemented the region’s draw.

If Tuscany tugs at your heartstrings (and tastebuds), too, I hope you’ll treat this tasting as an opportunity to share some of the region’s best-known red wines and foods with people you love - or could grow to love - too.

Since next Friday is Valentine’s Day, this week’s tasting theme is focused a grape variety that produces some of the most plush, velvety wines around: Merlot.

Merlot has been the unfortunate recipient of some hate over the years, especially in 2004’s Sideways, in which main character Miles screams that he’s “not drinking any fucking Merlot!,” a line that tanked Merlot sales for years afterward in the United States.

If you’re giving Merlot a second (or first) chance, I think you’ll find that many of these wines are like the warm, cozy and always-forgiving cocoon coats of the wine world. Comforting, yet with structure that gives them a simple sophistication in a Scandi style kind of way.

And even if you’re a fellow Valentine’s Day skeptic, a mid-February hug in a bottle shared with people you love sounds pretty good to me.

I am, admittedly, very much a sucker for a great nose on a wine. Tasting many wines over the years has taught me to seek other things, like texture, concentration, balance and length, but I will probably always remain a sucker for a really pretty aromatic bouquet.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to smell all the things, whether you’re at a spice shop, a glamorous Diptyque boutique or in one of those over-the-top gas stations with tchotchkes and scented candles galore, I am your people, and this is a must-try tasting. All of the white wines in this tasting have aromas that practically leap out of the glass, making it clear that they’re something worth sniffing at.

Whenever I picture Piedmont, it’s autumn. Even though I’ve been on calls with producers, watched videos and seen plenty of photos from other seasons, it’s somehow always autumn in Piedmont in my mind. Clearly, I need to plan a visit to Piedmont in the autumn and make this picture a reality. Until then though, let’s talk about tasting the wines from this beautiful Italian region.

All the way up in northern Italy, amongst the foothills of the Alps, Piemonte, which roughly translates to “at the foot of the mountains” is a continental region where long, slow growing seasons and late autumn harvests result in ethereal wines with haunting, kaleidoscopic aromas and flavors. Oh, and this is also the region of egg-based pastas with butter and white truffles galore. Autumn or no, tasting the best of Piedmont is always a good idea.

In the spirit of heading somewhere warm, sunny and beautiful in our glasses, even if not in real life, this tasting focuses on red wines from the Italian islands. There are nearly 450 islands in Italy, but not all of them make wines that are widely distributed internationally, so more specifically, we’re going to take a look at the wines from the big islands: Sicily and Sardinia.

In the Tyrrhenian Sea, Sicily and Sardinia are each very much their own place. While both islands are technically part of Italy, they’re also considered autonomous regions. In addition to Italian, each has their own language - languages, really. If you were to ask someone from Sicily or Sardinia whether they were Italian, the answer would likely be that they’re Sicilian or Sardinian first and foremost. And of course, each island has its own food and wine culture, developed over centuries, with both indigenous and foreign influences. Each has developed a flavor that’s entirely their own…and always worth tasting.

Rosé in winter, whaaaaat? I know, it’s an unusual take. But winter is exactly when dark rosés should be a go-to part of your repertoire, especially once the holiday indulgences are over and meals shift back toward balance. With, you know, vegetables other than potatoes. We’re well into that curry, soup and stew-y time of year, and it’s also the season for brassicas like cabbage, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts and kale, which aren’t known for being the easiest wine pairing-wise.

Enter: dark rosés, the Swiss Army knives of wine selections. There’s room on your table for wines whose color ranges from beet juice purple to candy-bright pink-fuchsia to almost-a-light-red-wine. The ones you might be afraid to pick up off the shelf, for fear that they’ll be sweet or unpopular. This tasting is for those wines.

Prestige Champagnes. The name alone says it all. This is a splurge of a tasting. If you’re the type to pop fancy bubbly on New Year’s Eve, this tasting will be right up your alley. If you, like me, prefer a low-key New Year’s Eve, a quieter way to reflect upon the year that’s passed and usher in the one to come, this tasting might be something you tackle at a different time of year, bringing some luxury and “special-ness” to less-traditional seasons. However you do it, I just hope you savor it. These are Champagnes that are quite literally years in the making.

I will forever maintain that body is a weird word to apply to liquids, but since we don’t have words like skim and whole or categories like lager and stout in wine, I’ll leave it alone and accept that it is what it is. For this tasting, we get to focus on full-bodied whites: the white wines that feel as weighty on your palate as most reds, with richness that is sometimes buttery, sometimes oily, and always decadent.

If you’ve shied away from the very much untrendy full-bodied white wines, take this as your sign to give these wines a chance. What have been at times homogeneously overripe, buttery wines are now often richly nuanced, with clear varietal and terroir expression in addition to the luscious effects from winemaking choices. They’re the wine equivalent of a succulent, satisfying bowl of lobster bisque.

Syrah, Shiraz, tomato, tom-ah-to. Whichever name you give it, it’s a grape variety that makes some of the world’s greatest (and in my totally biased opinion, sexiest) wines.

The thing is, I’m a total sucker for a great nose on a wine. I was the kind of teen who lifted the lid to sniff every single candle in the White Barn Candle Co. store in the mall, even though I had zero intention of buying anything. Drugstore shampoos and body lotions, melons in the grocery store, even cleaning products all needed to pass my sniff tests as a young adult. I haven’t changed a bit, so it’s not at all surprising that sticking my nose into wine glasses is an activity endlessly entertains me.

Even if you reserve your sniffing for more “normal” activities like perfume or cologne shopping and cooking, I encourage you to let yourself abandon all self-consciousness about your wine expertise (or lack thereof) and to just stick your noses deep into these glasses of Syrah and Shiraz to experience how incredibly fascinating these aromatic red wines can be.

If “fortified” made you think of those cereal ads in which vitamins are somehow added back to crunchy grains (or sugar bombs, let’s be real), don’t worry, fortified wines are not the same thing. In wine’s case, fortification is essentially the process of adding a spirit to a wine, which creates a ‘fortified’ wine with higher alcohol. From there, other winemaking decisions around when to add the fortifying spirit, aging, blending, oxidation and the addition of aromatic herbs can further alter the original wine, creating something entirely new, complex and delicious.

These are the wines that sit somewhere between wine and spirit, best between dinner and bed. Whether treated as digestifs or bodily fortification against winter’s chill, fortified reds are for everyone. If you thought Ports, Vins Doux Naturels and Barolo Chinato were only for fusty old Brits who call each other ‘gents’ in smoking rooms with heavy wood paneling, think again. I love me some history and am a total sucker for all things romantically aged, but fortified reds are very much worth bringing into your present, especially at the holidays.

Some of the wildest tasting notes I’ve ever taken are from Rioja’s Reds. It’s a region that’s as famous and historic as any in the world, yet somehow frequently under-valued…which means you can find insane prices on some stunners. One of the misperceptions that affects Rioja’s popularity is that its aging classification system, with the Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva categories, is the primary - and sometimes only - way to understand its wines.

I’ve taken an alternative approach in this tasting, focusing instead on the two factors that have the most impact what you’re tasting in the glass:

1. Location, location, location

2. How the wine is made

If you get red wine teeth as easily as I do, take your selfies before this tasting really gets going. American red wines are known for being some of the wine world’s biggest, boldest, ripest reds. That means your teeth could end up looking like you’ve befriended Dracula. I can also recommend wearing dark clothes or busy prints, because red wine spills and splashes are real, even for the highly experienced among us.

That said, more and more American producers have dialed back on the ‘bigger is better’ approach, making extremely elegant, nuanced and restrained styles of red wines, so consider mentioning your preferences when shopping for this tasting if you already know that you like one style more than the other.

Either way, this American Reds tasting is going to focus on monovarietal, or single-variety red wines. There are plenty of fantastic red blends in the US too, they’re just not the focus of this tasting, which will help you get to know the differences between the best-known varietal wines in the United States.

If you’ve made it this far without running away from the word “sweet,” congratulations! You’re in for a real treat. Sweet Rieslings, like most sweet wines these days, are just not all that popular, despite the unassailable fact that humans both love and crave sweets.

Even in Denmark, right next door to Germany, where the crème de la crème of sweet Rieslings are made, these wines aren’t exactly flying off the shelves. Wines that were once among the most premium wines in the world are simply not commanding the market interest or prices commensurate with the high level of effort and risk required to produce them.

Selfishly, part of me wants to gatekeep these wines from the massive American market, since increased interest will drive prices back up. But the dedicated producers of these wines deserve the sales, and let’s be real, I couldn’t gatekeep if I tried. I guess that’s the American in me, always ready to share a good find.