Wine

Elway's, Udi's and Cru proposals for DIA approved by council committee for vote

​Denver International Airport has always been sadly lacking a real taste of Colorado cuisine (witness the cup of Nobel Sysco green chile I downed on Concourse A last Friday). And that makes the presentation before Denver City Council's Business, Workforce and Sustainability Committee yesterday ... More >>

Three reasons to embrace drinking white wines -- even during winter

Something's been bugging the hell out of us lately. We can't understand why, come the first frost, people suddenly become allergic to drinking white wines. While you might think it horribly uncool to wear white after Labor Day, there is absolutely zero reason to stop drinking white wines once the da ... More >>

New Year's Eve bubbly: Five of the best bottles of you've never heard of

Over the past four weeks, we've ponied up a list of wines guaranteed to make your Thanksgiving a party, the perfect set of locally sourced, wine-themed gift ideas, and our picks for the twelve most holiday-worthy bottles of 2011. And you know what? We are officially exhausted. And because you're lik ... More >>

The twelve wines of Christmas 2011: the rest of the best

​With only a few days to go until Christmas, it's time to 'fess up: Have you been naughty or nice? For goodness' sake, here's hoping you've been on your very best behavior this year -- because then you're fully deserving of these six stupendous bottles. Read on for the continuation of last ... More >>

The twelve wines of Christmas 2012: part one

​Much like the little elves busy helping Santa at the North Pole, we've spent the better part of the year hard at work. tasting of hundreds of wines -- all so that we can serve up this listing of bottles worthy of only one thing: drinking your way through the most stressful wonderful time of t ... More >>

Silver Vines Winery opens in Olde Town Arvada

​Brothers Jeff and Danny Chayer are originally from Minnesota, but they've spent the past four years working in the Texas wine industry. "He was a winemaker," Danny says of Jeff. "I was a manager of one of the wineries." There, they learned the ropes of the craft, and, Danny says, developed ... More >>

Four ways to give the gift of wine (and buy local) this holiday season

​With all the talk lately about Occupy This and The X Percenters, if you're like us, you're wondering how to align your gift giving instincts with your urge to support businesses hustling to make ends meet just like you are. And since we can't imagine a better way to spread a little joy this ... More >>

Five wines that are guaranteed to make Thanksgiving feel like a party

Sometimes, just sometimes, big holiday celebrations can feel like a bit of a grind. Whoops, did we say that out loud? It's not that we don't love our families -- we do. But we suspect that you'd agree that occasionally these annual gatherings can feel like more of an obligation and less of a celebra ... More >>

Beaujolais and Beyond, CANniversary and more on this week's culinary calendar

​Oskar Blues is celebrating its CANniversary, the coveted Beaujolais varietal gets released, and there's a lot more in food-and-beverages happening in this week's culinary calendar. Here's a taste of what's ahead:

Four wines that taste like a million bucks but cost less than $15

​How come no one ever seems to talk about how expensive it is to be a wine drinker? Think about it: Thanksgiving is a scant three weeks from now, and according to the near-endless refrain of shopping mall adverts, Christmas shows up in precisely 54 days. Heap on top of that myriad holiday coc ... More >>

Boulder Wine Merchant's Burgundy Festival was a smashing success

​Yesterday morning, sixty people huddled over rows of glasses in the new addition at The Mediterranean in Boulder, feverishly writing notes while sniffing and sipping. While they worked, a panel of master sommeliers highlighted comparisons and characteristics of wines from Burgundy, walking th ... More >>

Five soul-warming Colorado wines to savor during the snowstorm

​Like it or not, for years people have habitually lumped wines from Colorado into its own special (read: inferior) category of domestic winemaking. Bottles from other, more mainstream wine-producing regions in the U.S., like California, Oregon, and Washington State, seem to score all the props ... More >>

The latest Colorado company to jump into winemaking? Colorado State University.

Flickr photo​Way to support drinking, Colorado State University! Look for wines made by CSU starting next spring. Blended at Stoney Mesa Winery because CSU is still in the process of applying for the necessary licenses, the bottles with the CSU mascot -- called Ram's Point -- will sell for $10 ... More >>

Three Cool Things To Know Before You Try Infinite Monkey Theorem's Monkey Shine

​Last Friday night, at a pop-up speakeasy on the rooftop of Ghost Plate & Tap, Denver wine lovers had their first opportunity to sample the latest cool kid offering from The Infinite Monkey Theorem: Monkey Shine, the winery's brand-spanking-new keg wine. IMT certainly isn't the first to join ... More >>

Four crave-worthy harvest season wines

It's finally October, and our crisp, cooler weather serves as a harbinger of harvest season. This time of year also has our mouths watering for fall's more luxurious, soul-satisfying menus. And you know what that means, right? Richer food calls for wines that can step up to the challenge. If this su ... More >>

The Boulder Wine Merchant will host a Burgundy festival later this month

Master Sommelier Brett Zimmerman, who took over at the Boulder Wine Merchant just over a year ago, was recently consulting on a customer's cellar when a conundrum led to a new activity. "The client said, 'I want to reload with a bunch of Burgundy, but I don't get a chance to taste those things,'" Zi ... More >>

Six Denver fast-casual restaurants with super-cool wine lists

Madison Street is a good-looking restaurant, made better by its wine list. ​Why is it that so many of Denver's more moderately priced (referred to in the industry as "fast casual") restaurants have wine lists that make the oenophiles among us want to just give up and order a beer? It's as if t ... More >>

Five rockin' rosés that transition from summer to fall..and beyond

​Congratulations, wine lovers: In 2010, the good ol' U. S. of A. officially consumed more wine than France for the first time ever. And as we predicted earlier this year, America's love affair with pink wine just keeps getting hotter -- evidenced by the fact that exports of rosé (and red) wi ... More >>

Three September Colorado wine events you won't want to miss

​With Labor Day behind us and summer's sun-soaked days and sizzling temperatures vanishing before our eyes, we aren't traditionally all that psyched to welcome the month of September with open arms. This year, though, we're seeing things differently, given the tantalizing array of wine event ... More >>

Top five porch-pounding wines of summer 2011

​A great many learned individuals spend a significant amount of their time advancing the notion that the enjoyment of wine is an incredibly serious, sophisticated pursuit. And some of these people, having spent countless hours in pursuit of the ever-nebulous nuances of what makes a particular ... More >>

Three great reasons to judge a wine by its label

​It's a well-known fact in the wine industry that the majority of consumers decide which bottle of fermented grape juice to spring for based solely on their attraction to the label. If you'd count yourself as a member of that particular buying demographic, we feel compelled to tell you're gen ... More >>

Three reasons why somms adore grüner veltliner (and you should, too)

​ We sommeliers have a tendency to spend an inordinate amount of time sussing out all kinds of weird and interesting wines (partly because it's our job, partly because we're total wine geeks). And most of the time, those slightly off-kilter bottles are best appreciated by, well, let's face it ... More >>

Tired of rosé? Pour one of these supremely quaffable wines instead

​We almost choked as we typed the words "tired of rosé" just now. While there's simply no other wine we'd rather drink on a sultry summer evening, we're willing to concede that not everyone is as equally enamored as we are. More optimistically, we prefer to consider alternative scenarios to t ... More >>

200-year-old bottle of Chateau d'Yquem sets record for most valuable bottle of white wine ever sold

The Antique Wine Company​What could you buy with $117,000? A really nice luxury vehicle. Some sort of tricked-out boat. A home away from home. Or one bottle of wine.

Gary Vaynerchuk takes notice of Colorado wines, and so does the Washington Post

​Gary Vaynerchuk, New York Times-bestselling author and host of the Daily Grape video podcast, has real power with wine purchasers. And when he said that the 2007 Guy Drew Vineyards Metate, from a vineyard in Cortez, was "surprisingly good," the viewers that regularly leave 700-plus comments o ... More >>

The five best rosés for mid-summer sipping

​So many delicious rosés, so few languid, warm-weather days to enjoy them. This is simultaneously our favorite and most dreaded part of the summer; the temps are sizzling (which we love), but the days are getting shorter (which we hate). The sad fact of the matter is that there are only about ... More >>

Three reasons why Colorado wines still suck (and three Colorado winemakers who are getting it right)

​Last month we attended the first annual Colorado Winefest - Denver, and for the first time tasted a number of truly delicious, locally produced wines we could recommend to you without pause. So you can certainly understand how we were legitimately fired up about an already scheduled wine-tast ... More >>

Reader question: so what IS the proper temperature for serving red wine?

​In my review of Row 14, I had very little to gripe about, since the restaurant served me one of the best meals I've had in a long time. But I did take issue with the temperature of a glass of pinot noir, which hit my table a few degrees too warm. This problem isn't unique to Row 14. In fact ... More >>

Five things every man needs to know about wine

Men: You don't have to get Sideways, but you should be able to navigate a wine list.​True story: We recently made the acquaintance of the creator of a local website dedicated to all things male. After we inquired about the topics typically featured on the site, the author responded with someth ... More >>

Four stay-cool wines to savor this summer

​Last week we celebrated the official first day of summer, and the veritable heat wave that followed only served to drive the point home. Several days of 90 degree temps later, we found ourselves forced to confront what surely must be the most pressing question of the season: What sort of win ... More >>

Three great reasons to think inside the box (wine, that is)

​Let's face it: Boxed wines are not exactly perceived as the pinnacle of wine-drinking chic. Don't believe us? Just try showing up with a box of wine -- any box -- at next week's graduation/barbecue/baby shower and observe the look of utter disdain creep across your friends' faces. Yeah, they' ... More >>

Five Colorado wines (finally!) worth drinking by the case

​Have you ever gotten the impression that Colorado wines kinda suck? If you're really, really honest with yourself, you probably answered yes - and you're not the only person who feels that way. A glance at the wine list of many of Denver's top-rated dining destinations routinely reveals fewer ... More >>

A Wine Time

Four perfect-for-summer Italian wines

​Italian wines can be hard to love. They're unabashedly old world, full of mouthwatering acidity, brazenly tannic, and as terroir-driven as they come. They're also endlessly intriguing. Each of Italy's winemaking regions tells the unique, richly historic tale of its evolution from independent ... More >>

Three major sommelier service don'ts

​ A few months ago, we ranted about four all-too-common restaurant wine service mistakes that drive us absolutely mad. And while it's one thing to have a less-than-transcendental wine experience when there's no trained sommelier on staff, it's quite another to have one when there is. After a f ... More >>

Four zesty New Zealand sauvignon blancs to sip while you wait for summer

​While the arrival of summer is mere weeks away, it's been too damned cold here to think about any of the best springtime wines, never mind all the fantastic rosé that's piling up on liquor and wine shop shelves around town. But while it's still chilly outside, in our hearts and minds we're a ... More >>

Moscato: The wine to drink when you don't feel like getting drunk

​Last weekend's back-to-back Cinco de Mayo and Kentucky Derby party shenanigans left us feeling more than a little ready to lay off the sauce for a minute. Yet by noon on Sunday, there we were, staring down the wine list at brunch, feeling that familiar urge. That's when it hit us: There is a ... More >>

Get ready to run for these five winning rosés

​We knew something was up when we noticed Denver-area wine shops stocking up and tasting customers on the 2010 rosés a good four weeks ago. And by "something," we mean the notion that maybe -- just maybe -- dry rosés have finally kicked that monkey of pink wine-prejudice off its undeserving ... More >>

Are organic wines worth the hype? Here are four worth trying

​You're a wine lover. You love our planet. So how many bottles of organic wine did you drink on Earth Day? Oh, yeah, that's right -- zero. And if our guess is correct, it's not because you didn't want to; it's because you had no idea how to drink organic wine. Getting to the straight-up truth ... More >>

Three mouth-watering reasons to make torrontes your new spring white

​There are a few key elements that seem to magically define what makes a perfect spring wine. Much like the lighter foods you're likely craving come April or May every year, your ideal wine should be as clean, bright and flavorful as a salad of just-picked berries and as aromatic as the seaso ... More >>

Five best burger-worthy wines for less than $20

​Last week, we gave you the lowdown on our picks for Denver's top five burgers, piquing the ire of quite a few local burger-loving peeps. In the spirit of fueling potentially even more controversy, we felt it only proper for us to spark a whole new debate: What kinds of wine pair best with bur ... More >>

Taste of Vail

The top three reasons why food and wine pairings absolutely matter

​You know how hard you've been working to master the basics of food and wine pairing? Well, if you've been reading the same handful of recent articles we have, then you might be wondering if all that effort has been a big fat waste of time. The flames of this controversy have been fanned by a ... More >>

Three more old world wines worth checking out

​Last week I threw down a challenge: taste an old world wine next to its new world counterpart and judge for yourself whether old world wines truly deserve their reputation as best in class. Even though I screwed up and included tasting notes from a Rhône wine instead of the Burgundy I was t ... More >>

Tonight: Ototo Food and Wine Bar's Pinot Noir-tasting and benefit for Japan

​Over the past week, Ototo Food and Wine Bar, Izakaya Den and Sushi Den have raised over $50,000 for the Japanese Red Cross. Each of the restaurants will have donation buckets out for the rest of the month, so that diners can make direct contributions to relief efforts. But from 6 to 8 p.m. t ... More >>

Two wines that prove old world still rules

​There's been a lot of debate in the wine world of late, the gist of which revolves around whether popular, top-selling new world wines deserve their acclaim. It's an interesting debate, for sure. Are Napa Valley cabs every bit as good as their Bordeaux-based brethren? For that matter, should ... More >>

Tonight: Sasa Radikon at Frasca Food & Wine

Radikon​"This one is really important to me," says Bobby Stuckey, co-owner of Frasca Food & Wine. "I've wanted to get these guys out here since we opened, but I never thought I'd really be able to do it." He's talking about Stanko Radikon and his son, Sasa, who make wine in Friuli, the Italia ... More >>

Four fantastic weekday wines to drink with dinner at home

​While there's less than four weeks remaining until spring the final days of winter still feel like they are literally crawling by. We're between major holidays, so there's not much to look forward to...unless you can find a way to get excited about the tasty, homemade (or, let's be real -- ta ... More >>

Think wine scores don't matter? Three ways to use them to help you drink better wine

​ Wow. Who knew that The Infinite Monkey Theorem (aka Denver's little winery that could) scoring Colorado's first 88-point Wine Spectator review would stir up so many passionate responses about the validity of wine reviews? Laura Shunk's scathing critique of most wine industry rags' random, s ... More >>

El Diablo, Ototo dinners should whet your appetite for Denver Restaurant Week

​Although Denver Restaurant Week, which starts on February 26, is the real movable feast, two new kids on the restaurant block are offering major deals on Tuesday, February 22. El Diablo, which opened last August at 101 Broadway, is offering its second tequila dinner featuring Republic Tequil ... More >>