Category: Guest Column

We’ll be hearing a lot about Thomas Jefferson this year, it being the country’s 250^th birthday and all, and Jefferson of course had a rather large role in all of that.

But at least as important was Jefferson’s role in being sure the new country he helped to create had an appreciation for good wine.  It is, he said, “a necessity of life for me.”  That is right up there with “all men are created equal.”

Jefferson’s appreciation for wine blossomed during his tenure as Minister of France in the early 1780s.  An avid note taker, Jefferson kept a record of his visits to a host of wine regions in Europe, developing a special fondness for Burgundy and Bordeaux.  (One of his favorite wineries was Chateau Haut-Brion, proving he was no slouch.) 

On his return to the U.S., Jefferson began applying what he learned in France to the grounds surrounding his home, Monticello.  He had studied soil, climate and different grape varietals, noting how different regions produced distinct styles of wines.  He eventually gave a parcel of his land to an Italian winemaker and thus fathered one of the first commercial wineries in the U.S. 

Continue reading “WineLines: Thomas Jefferson, Wine Guy”

I’m going to build on last month’s WineLines, “Wine in America” and give my take on the question “What’s America’s special wine grape?”

IMHO, it’s Zinfandel, specifically red Zinfandel.

Many grapes are grown and vinified the whole world over: Cab Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, to mention just a few, but there’s one that’s (almost) unique to America. I’m not going to include our native grapes in this, such as Muscadine, Scuppernong, Concord and Niagara – the less said about them, the better.

It’s known that Zin’s not native to North America. Like so many of our wine grapes, it was imported from Europe, in this case from Croatia via Italy and Austria. In Croatia, it’s known as Tribidrag or Kastelanski, and has some close relatives. In Italy it’s known as Primitivo. It appears to have been grown in the U.S. Northeast 200 years ago, and found its way to California, where it found a home, around the time of the Gold Rush.

Continue reading “WineLines: America’s Special Wine Grape”

Consider this a very brief history of wine in the United States, highlighting some fun and perhaps surprising facts. Maybe try a few of these at your next party trivia game or test that friend who claims to be a wine “expert.”

With apologies to Native American tribes, some of whom did cultivate and make wine fermented from wild grapes and other fruit long before the arrival of Europeans, wine after Europeans arrived has been produced in America since the 1560s. It was then that the first Spanish missionaries and settlers in what is now St. Augustine, Florida, planted Muscadine and Listán Prieto (“Mission”) grape vines brought from Europe. As Spanish exploration continued, the Mission grape and other varietals were planted in 1629 at the San Gabriel Mission, near what is now Santa Fe, New Mexico, with the first vineyards in California planted by Franciscan missionaries in 1769 at Mission San Diego de Alcalá.

While Spanish missionaries were clearly early wine growers in America, they were not alone. In 1619, the House of Burgesses, America’s first Colonial legislative assembly, passed “Acte 12,” requiring every male household in Virginia to plant and cultivate at least 10 vines of European vinifera grapes to make wine, in theory to ship back to England. For the most part, the plan failed, and it was not until 1768 that Virginia wine growers successfully shipped wine to England.

Continue reading “WineLines: Wine in America”

On this day, the best present one can hope for
is time together with family and friends.

May your home be filled with joy and laughter,
your heart with love,
and your life with hope.

Wishing you a Christmas filled with
warmth, peace, and quiet joy.

-Your Tidelines team

(We are taking the day off!)

The holiday season brings with it all sorts of reasons to drink wine:  to celebrate, to complement enormous meals, and of course, to help endure annoying relatives.

Herewith, a few suggestions for those willing to experiment a little bit non-traditionally:

While the big meal is cooking:  Try serving Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier blend.  It’s light and crisp, came in at #27 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines of 2025 and sells for less than $15 a bottle at Costco and Total Wines.

For the roast beef dinner:  You want a red wine, for sure, but instead of a heavy cabernet sauvignon, try a Spanish Tempranillo from Rioja; be sure it’s marked “Reserva.”  Or try a cabernet sauvignon blend from Chile or Argentina, where a Malbec, for example, will lighten up the cab.

Continue reading “WineLines: Holiday Wines for the Adventurous”

That’s how long experts think wine has been made in Georgia, no, not the land of red clay and Jimmy Carter, but the beautiful country in the Caucasus, on the north coast of the Black Sea sandwiched between Turkey and Russia. How and when grape cultivation and wine-making spread, mostly westward into Europe, is a topic of speculation, and little has been researched on the DNA relationships between current Georgian vines and the best known western grapes. The Georgians claim, too, that the word “wine” is the same as their word. So maybe our Cab and Pinot Noir are descended from a Georgian grape, and maybe not. Do we care, if it tastes good?

There are thought to be 525 native varieties, many very ancient, mostly unpronounceable! Saperavi may be the best known, a red grape which makes a wine similar to Blaufrankish. We’ve seen a semi-dry wine made from it in Costco.

Continue reading “WineLines: Land of 8,000 Wine Harvests”

Port has been produced for over three centuries and is enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world. It’s a unique, classic wine, most often served after dinner in small glasses, and can be paired with a robust cheese.

Port has a long history, deriving its name from the city of Porto, Portugal, where for hundreds of years, producers along the Douro River Valley would deliver their wine to merchant houses for shipment to other countries. England was a primary market, and in the early days, merchants would often add brandy to preserve it for long sea voyages, which led over time to the production of Port as a “fortified,” higher alcohol, sweet wine.

Port wine is usually a blend of red grapes, the most prominent being Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, and Tinta Roriz (called Tempranillo in Spain). There are variations of Port wine, but today the three primary Ports commonly available in stores are Ruby, Tawny, and Vintage, all of which are sweet and have an alcohol content of 19-20%. They vary in how they are produced and aged, how they taste, their color, and, of course, their price.

• Ruby Port has a deep red color, fruity flavors, and is usually aged in barrels for three years before bottling and release. (avg. cost $15 to $25)
• Tawny Port, which gets its name from its tawny or amber color, is aged much longer in wooden barrels, giving it a smooth, nutty, and caramel-like flavor. After as much as a decade(s), it’s bottled and released. (avg. cost $20 to $60)
• Vintage Port is made from grapes of an exceptional growing year, as designated and agreed upon by the growers, often from specific vineyards, and is not blended. After a short fermentation, the wine is aged in oak barrels for about two years and then bottled and aged another two or three years before release for sale. Vintage Port can easily age in the bottle for decades, developing intense, rich flavors of dark fruit, chocolate, and spice. (avg. cost $100 to $200)

If you are looking for a bottle of Port, some of the top producers are Graham’s, Taylor, Fonseca, Dow’s, and Warre’s.

Cheers!

-Submitted by Jim Wolitarsky

(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)

Wine snobs love to talk about a wine’s terroir, a French word that has no direct translation. To French wine snobs, it is meant to suggest not only the ground where the wine is grown (from the Latin terra), but also the more holistic notion of its total growing environment. In other words, the soil characteristics, topography and weather can affect a wine’s distinct flavor.

American wine snobs just like to say the word because it sounds really snobby.

The idea of terroir, however, helps to explain why the French typically use the region where the wine is produced in its labeling and marketing. So, for example, they have Bordeaux and Burgundy wines in France, but in the U.S. we speak more about the wine’s varietal (e.g., it’s a pinot noir, not a Willamette).

It is undeniably true that the soil and climate where the grapes are grown affect the wine that comes from those grapes.  There is much debate in the wine world about the effect on wines of different climates, and why, for example, there are good wines produced in such disparate places as Texas and New York (and not so good in, say, Oklahoma).

In cooler climates, grapes typically contain less sugar and more acidity. In warmer climates, grapes have higher sugar levels – which can result in higher levels of alcohol and fruitier wines. 

And there is no doubt that weather plays a crucial role in determining the best time to harvest the grapes. The goal is for the grapes to have the proper balance of sugar and acids at the time of harvesting. Heavy rain can fill otherwise good grapes with water and ruin that balance, and prolonged heat can cause the grapes to ripen too quickly, leaving the winemaker at the mercy of the elements when it comes to scheduling their harvest.

So yes, the terroir matters. Just make sure you pronounce it correctly (tehr-WAAR) in polite company.

Cheers!

-Submitted by Bill Good

(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)

Since we’re in France for part of this summer, it seems appropriate to write about the position of wine in today’s French culture. Wine has been grown in France since time immemorial, well Greek and Roman times anyway. So, wine has a place in French culture that’s special. But, during my lifetime, that’s changed considerably. The great wine growing regions – Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne, Alsace and the Rhone valley – continue to turn out world beating wines, but the culture (and fast growing environment) is changing, both in production and consumption.

Competition from New World wines has forced a more professional approach to wine making. Gone are the days when the only way to become a wine maker was to be apprenticed to an experienced master. Even the University of Bordeaux now teaches wine making; the department opened up long after University of California at Davis, for example

Today, almost every store sells wine, sometimes from a barrel; you bring in your empty bottle and fill it yourself. Why put your empty bottle in the recycling bin (often a bottle bank outside a store in Europe) when you can just refill it? The motorway service areas sometimes sell wine alongside food. Truck stops may have a fixed price and good value menu for commercial drivers, which can even include wine.

Continue reading “WineLines: Wine in Today’s French Culture”

Simply stated, Vinification is the process that’s employed by the winemaker to turn harvested grapes into bottled wine. But it’s hardly simple and can employ many varied steps.

Harvesting: Timing is critical and varies year to year due to growing season and harvest-time weather, the grape variety itself and ripeness. Harvesting can be by machine or by hand.

Crushing: If you’ve ever seen the funny grape crushing scene with Lucille Ball on “I Love Lucy,” from 1956 or many similar clips on YouTube of crushing grapes in large vats by foot, it really was the common method historically. Today it’s accomplished often using large, sophisticated machines that can remove stems and seeds and achieve the primary goal of breaking the skins to release the juice.

Fermentation: The juice from the crushing goes into tanks made of either stainless steel, concrete or wood, either with or without the skins, where the natural yeast from the grapes or added yeast, converts the sugar into alcohol. Fermentation usually takes from one to two weeks but can last much longer. Red wines often go through maceration (a soaking process) during fermentation to release color, tannins and flavor compounds from the skins.

Pressing: For red wines, the fermented juice usually goes through pressing to release more juice and flavors but for white wines, pressing normally is done before fermentation.

Aging: Wine can be aged for long or short periods of time in wood barrels, usually oak, stainless steel or sometimes cement. It depends on red vs. white and many other factors based on what the winemaker wants to achieve. Chemical changes occur during aging, softening tannins and supporting flavor development. Aging takes place in a dark area with an environment of stable temperature and humidity.

Filtration: This is usually done before bottling to improve clarity by removing any remaining sediment and particles but some producers may choose to leave their wine unfiltered.

Bottling: The final step in the vinification process is bottling. While most wines remain in the bottle for further aging for short periods of time, some, depending on the wine type, regional requirements and the winemaker’s specific goals, may remain in the bottle for many months or even years of additional aging before being released for sale.  

Cheers!

-Submitted by Jim Wolitarsky

(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)

Get ready to learn about clubs and organizations!

Beginning on July 10, Tidelines will launch a twice-a-month column devoted to presenting information about the many and varied opportunities there are on Seabrook Island to get involved, meet new people and have fun.

Have you been feeling bored lately? Looking for a way to meet new friends or give back to the Seabrook community? You might just find out some useful information about a group just right for you!

The column will be published on the second and fourth Thursday of the month for the next six months and will inform and educate readers on many of the clubs and volunteer organizations that are active on Seabrook.

Each group has written their own piece showcasing their organization or club and outlining information to give you a flavor of what they offer and are about. There will also be contact information within each post so that you can get in touch with the appropriate people if you’re interested in learning more or getting involved. We hope you find this series helpful!

–Tidelines Editors

Readers of this column ask us all the time about our favorite wine movies. (OK, we don’t even know for sure that we have actual readers, but it’s nice to imagine at least one of you might ask that question.)

So, here is a brief recap of three of my favorite movies involving wine:

Days of Wine and Roses (1962)

Spoiler alert: This is not a great movie to enjoy with a glass of wine since the lead characters, played by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, have some serious drinking problems. It must be added that Brandy Alexanders played a much bigger role in the movie than either wine or roses.

Interesting fact: Both Lemmon and Remick sought help from Alcoholics Anonymous, albeit quite a while after the film was made.

Favorite quote: Joe Clay, played by Lemmon, “You and I were a couple of drunks on the sea of booze and the boat sank.”

Sideways (2004)

Spoiler alert: Miles Raymond (played by Paul Giamatti) winds up drinking a bottle of 1961 Cheval Blanc by himself in a Burger King. Assuming the food cost about $10, the value of his meal was about $5,510. (And – see below –  the primary wine in the Cheval Blanc is Merlot.) 

Interesting fact: Pinot Noir production in California has increased roughly 170% since the movie was released in 2004.

Favorite quote: Miles Raymond, “If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving.”

Bottle Shock (2008)

Spoiler alert: Chateau Montelena’s Chardonnay wins the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. The victory is credited with giving instant credibility to California wines.

Interesting fact: Mike Grgich was the winemaker who crafted the prize-winning 1973 Chardonnay. However, he elected not to be part of the movie and was never mentioned in it. After the Paris Wine Tasting, Grgich was in high demand and wound up partnering with one of the heirs to the Hills Brothers Coffee estate to form Grgich Hills Winery. (And their chardonnay is superb, by the way.)

Favorite quote:  Jim Bartlett (winery owner), “Why don’t I like you?”; Steven Spurrier (tasting organizer), “Because you think I’m an arsehole. I’m not, really. I’m just British and, well, you’re not.”

Cheers!

-Submitted by Bill Good

(Image credit: Pixabay.com and Vinepair.com)