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 The moment I hit “publish” on this post, it will already be outdated.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.

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.

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.

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.

Body is such a weird word to describe liquids, isn’t it? I can’t help wishing there was a better word to describe the fullness, weight and texture of wine. Body, to me, just feels so fleshy. As in, in the flesh. Not at all how I think of wine.

But it’s the word that’s widely used, so I’ve accepted it too. This tasting groups styles of red wines together by a body-related characteristic. All of these red wines have light bodies, which in wine’s case, means that their weight is more akin skim than whole milk. Hopefully, I haven’t deterred you with mentions of flesh and milk, because these are some of my go-to styles of red wine.

I love Champagne. Love the wine, love the place, love the people, love the stories. I am completely biased when it comes to Champagne, but I still hope this tasting helps you sort through what is marketing fluff and what is actually true about these wines. And as always, I hope it helps you discover your own preferences and favorite styles of Champagne.

There’s a reason I called this “Wine for Dessert” and not “Dessert Wines.” For whatever reason, dessert wines have gotten a bad rap. There’s a tendency to think of sweet wines as the bottom shelf, gas station-style swill that tastes sweet like soda, but also not quite like soda, and that just screams future headache. These wines are not that.

And if you do serve wine for dessert, know that it is one of the easiest (read: laziest) desserts you can offer…and yet it’s somehow one of the classiest choices you can make.

Bubbles! Effervescence captured in a bottle. Just the sound of a cork popping is enough to inspire a cheer…even though ok, fine, these days I carefully & quietly pop those bottles. And not just because of proper etiquette, but because emergency room visits from poorly popped bottles are a real thing. Safety first, folks. Keeping a grip on the cork once the wire cage and foil are off and carefully twisting the bottle (not the cork) while holding it at a 30-45° angle pointed away from faces and breakable things is not just fancy, it’s smart.

Champagne usually comes to mind first when we start talking about sparkling wines, but this tasting will include 5 other classic styles so that you can get into what makes each style distinct and decide which you prefer.

First up, there are two things about rosé that I firmly believe to be true:

1. The color of a rosé doesn’t tell you anything about its quality.

2. Rosé is not just for spring and summer.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into it. This tasting is focused on the still rosé wines from around the world. But don’t worry, there will be another tasting focused on sparkling rosés too.