There are many ways in which to broaden your knowledge of wine, and several avenues to take you there. While it is our sincerest hope that you are enjoying and getting enriched by our blog, there are many other blogs, and podcasts, that you may want to consider. There are probably hundreds, if not more, articles, collections, and editorials on wines, wineries, and locations to choose from. However, weeding through all of them may be a bit daunting. Blogs and/or podcasts can often be more streamlined, and more of an effortless way to gain knowledge about a certain subject, and you may find one you wish to follow on a regular basis to stay in touch with the current state of the wine world.

There are wine varietals that you find to be most common, when you plunk down at a restaurant, open the menu, and turn to the wine selections. The normal, everyday suspects that grow anywhere and whose names just roll off the tongue—Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Grigio. Sure, there are differences by regions, and even differences by producer. But do you get bored by the same five or six kinds, regardless of where they are from? Is the world only in eight-bit color to you? There are more than 10,000 grapes in the world that have successfully fermented into wine, most even produced commercially. This week at City Vino we are exploring the obscure varietals.

It is pretty typical to say that what grows together tends to be together. The phrase seems not to be confined to just food, but it also seems to extend to food-and-wine pairings. One step further, in the world of making wine, what grows together tends to get blended together. Old World traditions have been formulated to produce the same style of wine with very little interpretation year-to-year, other than how the microclimate had differed.

With the holidays just around the corner, literally, are you ready with dinner party wines? Do you still need a unique gift for that wine lover, and want something with some character? Do you struggle with the imminent small talk that accompanies holiday gatherings? To help, here are some wines to consider, and a little conversation to go with them. There are wines that not only inspire sonnets on what is going on in the glass, and then there are those that encourage more in-depth conversations on the history and the story of the how, and who, of that wine.