Wine 101: Wine, Explained Well

The best chillable reds to try now: light, low-tannin natural reds built to serve cold. Lambrusco, Gamay, and carbonic-style bottles for easy drinking.

The best orange wines to try now, from easy entries like Gulp Hablo and Field Recordings Skins to benchmark ambers from Denavolo and Ruth Lewandowski. Real, in-stock skin-contact natural wines.

The best natural wines to try now, from $25 crowd-pleasers like Gulp Hablo and Folicello Lambrusco to cellar bottles from Radikon and Frank Cornelissen. Our real customer favorites and staff picks across red, white, orange, rosé, and pét-nat.

A thorough journey through every stage of white winemaking, from the vineyard to the bottle and the decisions that shape every glass. Introduction White wine is…

A step-by-step journey through every stage of red winemaking, from the vineyard to the bottle and everything in between. Introduction Red wine has been produced for…

A deep examination of how phenolic maturity shapes wine quality, from vineyard development to harvest decisions and cellar consequences. Introduction Every harvest decision comes down to…

Great wine starts underground. Soil texture, structure, minerals, microbes, and water dynamics govern vine vigor and berry chemistry—and, ultimately, a wine’s aroma, texture, and aging potential.…

Low-sulfite wine is made with minimal added sulfur dioxide (SO2), just enough to protect freshness, and sometimes none at all. Sulfites also occur naturally during fermentation.

Organic wine is made from grapes grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers, and vinified under certified rules that limit additives. It offers verifiable, chemical-free farming.

Natural wine is wine made from organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, fermented with native yeast, with little to no added sulfites and nothing artificial. Often unfined and unfiltered, it expresses grape and place over recipe.

Vegan wine contains no animal-derived products, especially the fining agents (egg white, casein, gelatin, isinglass) used to clarify conventional wine. Unfined, unfiltered natural wines are often vegan by default.

Biodynamic wine comes from grapes farmed biodynamically, a holistic organic-plus method based on Rudolf Steiner’s ideas that treats the vineyard as one living ecosystem, using natural preparations and a lunar calendar.