One of my favorite sitcoms of all time is Night Court. For some reason, one scene's always stuck in my head. Dan Fielding, the Lothario of all prosecutors (played brilliantly by John Larroquette), finally gets his chance to bed his nemesis, defense attorney Christine Sullivan. Always the…ahem…gentleman, Dan takes Christine out for dinner, orders some bubbly, and the maître d' delivers a classic line...

No…no more talk of mullets and the like, but I was inspired by the Gewurztraminer after I heard of a grape I hadn't experienced: Grüner Veltliner. While this sounds like a German plane, it's a white grape widely grown in Austria. Pronounce it GREW-ner felt-LEE-ner, or just call it, as one wine writer did, "GruVey."

Vine reader Jason M. suggested that I write a column about Vinho Verde, the Portuguese "green wine." What follows is...well, I'm not quite sure -- but I know apologies to Dr. Seuss are in order.

When he’s not screaming about genitals or censorship with his alternative-metal band Tool, Maynard James Keenan works on a vineyard in Arizona, where he makes his own wine. He’s serious about winemaking, but not above using his own cult celebrity to market his product, so he tours Whole Foods locations around the country to sign bottles and drum up publicity (something he’s been quite successful at, given all the exposure his wine...

Though Maynard James Keenan is best known as the raging frontman for the alternative metal band Tool, he’s also a professional winemaker who lives on an Arizona vineyard. He’s aware of the novelty. “In some ways, the low expectations work in my favor,” Keenan says.

One of the founding missions of the Vine was to alleviate "wine anxiety" -- the sinking feeling that comes when presented with either an overwhelming array of wine choices or a "think fast" situation. Not long ago, I was at a conference in Chicago. On successive nights, I found myself out to dinner with groups. Each night, a colleague...

One of the interesting bits about building up an archive of columns is discovering my own little quirks -- whether it's reusing vocabulary, falling back on certain varieties of wine, or just the evolution in tone as I've written more and more entries. For instance, I've likened all sorts...

Quick Quiz: Name the country in the Western Hemisphere with the longest tradition of wine production… Considering I've already given away the answer, if you answered "The United States," "Peru," or "Trinidad & Tobago" - you may stand in the corner for the duration of this installment. Observant readers have already fixed their collective gaze south past the Equator to Chile - the nation stretching thinly...

I like to know what I'm drinking. One nice thing about American wines is that they're generally pretty easy to figure out. A sauvignon blanc will say "sauvignon blanc" right there on the label. Merlot is "merlot." White Zinfandel is...well...pink. No great mysteries...

Beaujolais is the quintessential "gateway wine." Many casual wine drinkers who find red wines "too strong" often give Beaujolais a try, only to be drawn inexorably into the world of berries and tannins. Before long, they're planning trips to Sonoma, building shelves for a wine cellar, and debating the merits of syrah or cabernet for their rare...