Press

German street art star Hoker, hip-hop–rooted wine educator #asktoni, and Bergkloster winemaker Jason Groebe join forces for an unlikely cuvée.

The zero-proof wine market has come a long, long way in just a few short years, and it’s now ripe with interesting, complex-flavored options that promise to intrigue your palate just as much as their alcoholic counterparts.

One of the most important aspects of a sommelier’s job is leading wine tastings. More than just opening bottles and describing flavor profiles and pairings, leading a tasting is about facilitating an experience that gets attendees excited about the artistry behind the wine they’re drinking.

Given its heritage and the level of acclaim it enjoys in the wine trade and among critics, it’s perhaps surprising that German wine doesn’t enjoy a higher profile on the secondary market – but that’s beginning to change.

The cashew’s uniqueness starts on the tree, where what we know as the cashew is actually the seed of the much larger cashew fruit. Even stranger is that the cashew is in the same plant family as mangoes and poison ivy. When snacking on cashews or using them as the centerpiece of a dish, pull out some of their subtle flavors with the right wine.

Growing up in the Bronx, I didn’t see traditional wine culture. There was no wine on the bodega shelves, no swirlin’ and sniffin’ going down a Friday night. But the respect level was always there.

The universe of wine is full of once-revered regions or styles that ceased to be celebrated. Certain wines are unfairly dismissed as one-dimensional archetypes: Rieslings are all sweet, Chardonnays are all oaky. Wine Spectator asked 11 wine professionals to share their favorite out-of-fashion wine and explain why it deserves to reclaim its rightful place at the cool kids’ table.

“Dry” describes what wine drinkers overwhelmingly profess to desire. And “trocken” can only appear on labels of German Rieslings with less than 10 grams of residual sugar.