To me this new invention: the winebeer sounds quite weird. Just hearing its name I start getting all kinds of flashbacks as: cherrycoke, this drink with cherry and coke mixed together (puaghhhh!) about which it was nothing good except for the melody of its ad (mostly because it was catchy) and K2, and I’m not talking about the mountain but about that invention that some enlightened mind had of mixing dark and Virginia tobacco in one cigarette ... (no comment).

Luckily the ideologues who have taken this step have not gone further than white wine so we will not have to hear about a grotesque mix of red wine with beer. To mix red wine with something we already have the Coke which also originates such a social, cheap and rooted in popular culture drink as the “calimocho”, which even has its name in Spanish and all. That’s quality.

Bastardo (Bastard), Periquita (lovebird), Rabigato (tailed cat) ... we are speaking, of course, of the names of grapes.

There are plenty of vines to make wine, many of which are very popular in the world. But these grapes have more than just one name, usually due to their areas of origin where they are called by different names. That's why we have compiled for you the most famous grapes and their other names. Read more

California is a U.S. state known for being home of the film Industry, Hollywood, for its beaches, for Los Angeles, San Francisco, ...and also as a region that produces some of the best wines in the world.

The most famous wine region of California is Napa Valley, Napa Valley, ancient region of the Wappo Indians. It is believed that the name of Wappa was gaven to them by the Spanish, so the Napa Valley would actually be "beautiful valley".

The Wine production in Napa Valley took place during the nineteenth century, though a plague of phylloxera, first, and the US Dry Law and the Great Depression later made the success of the wines from Napa Valley to wait more than 100 years. Read more

Classic questions in those who approach to the world of wine tasting are on the aromas. How does this wine smell? What should you smell? The smell of one thing or another, is it good or bad?
If you've ever seen in movies the classic sketch in which an expert is able to reveal the vintage, type of grape, the origin, the make and even if the keeper of the wine cellar had cached a cold in October, you cannot help feeling frustrated, when then you go and smell a wine and you’re not able to identify any does things. However, it is normal at first not to know how does the wine you taste exactly smells. 

In my case, the transition has been far more natural than that. I tasted a wine, and if I liked it I would look at the label and tried to remember the name. Later, what type of grape was? In varietal wines, went gradually finding matches between a Chardonnay, for example, and a different grape. So I learned the aromas given off by each grape.
I could not name the aromas, but I knew the difference between a Macabeo and Riesling.
I always recommend start on tasting white wine, because the range of aromas are much different between each other (floral, fruit, herbs, honey ,...) than red wines, which can also include aromas of barrel aging .

In an exciting convergence of technology, CSR, and wine, yesterday Twitter launched it's first wine, called Fledgling Wine. The 2009 vintage includes a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, sourced from "top-flight California vineyards", crushed at San Francisco's DIY custom crush facility Crushpad, and on sale on $25 a bottle, but probably the most interesting thing about the wine is where your money goes. $5 from every bottle will be used to promote literacy in Uttarakhand, India through the non-profit Room to Read organization. It's part of Twitter's declared larger effort to increase access to information and use open communication to bring about positive change, and as the company points out, " if you can't read you can't Tweet!" In true Twitter style the winemaking process has been shared with users along the way, allowing them to participate in the process. 

Supporting educational efforts simply by enjoying your wine seems like an attractive idea to me...find out more about Fledgling Wine or buy a bottle here. 

The introduction at Marks & Spencer of Le Froglet's Wine-in-a-glass, an individual serving of either Chardonnay, Rosé, or Shiraz in a covered plastic glass has spurred a great deal of online discussion. Part of the story is the owner of the idea, Mr. James Nash, had his vision unkindly shot down by the BBC's Dragon's Den panel, who have been evidentially been proven wrong as Marks & Spencer reportedly cannot keep the glasses in stock.

However, some commenters have decried the environmental impact of the single use glasses, which is valid, but why should wine not be permitted in single use containers when so many other beverages are? (Target in the US offers more environmentally friendly single use wine tetrapacks, kind of like grown up juice boxes, but that concept hasn't taken off yet.) And some seem offended by the very idea, that it's déclassé and  "unromantic".

Wine has survived the introduction of wine cooler and white zinfandel, so I doubt it will suffer at the hand of a plastic glass. If anything, it's one more way for wine lovers to enjoy the product- and what's wrong with that?