Reinventing 'Mom Wines': New Lives for Pinot Grigio, White Zinfandel

About a month ago, I was dining with a friend at St. Anselm, a cozy steakhouse in Brooklyn, when I saw something on the wine list that I never expected to see: Pinot Grigio. Not only was this a strange choice for a steakhouse—a wimpy white for a caveman-caliber piece of meat?—but this wine list was also pretty hip. Which, well, Pinot Grigio just…isn’t. It’s thin, sometimes too fruit-forward, lacking in character, and often tastes mass-produced. Like some $7 White Zinfandel or a super buttery Chardonnay, it’s what I thought of as “mom wine.” Read More

—Danielle Walsh

The Best American Vermouths

Ask an American winemaker how they wound up in the business of making vermouth, and most of them will respond by saying the first step was figuring out what exactly vermouth is in the first place... Read More

—Emma Janzen

The Pursuit of Pinot Grigio With Personality

ASK ANY SERIOUS wine drinker to describe Pinot Grigio, and a stream of less-than-flattering adjectives is likely to follow: Watery. Insipid. Neutral. Boring. Few wines underwhelm as thoroughly as Pinot Grigio. Yet it's a consistent best seller—retailers tell me that they can't keep the stuff in stock. How to reconcile these seemingly opposing facts? Read More

—Lettie Teague