Essays & Features

Renovating Wine

Updating wine’s metrics of interest

Feb 9 • Meg Maker

Toward Metamodern Wine

Wine evolves along with culture. Wine commentary, too.

Jan 28 • Meg Maker

A Pigeon and a Pinot Noir

Twenty-first-century wines of Merry Edwards meet the nineteenth-century illustrations of Pauline Knip

Jan 20 • Meg Maker

Vegetarian, For Now

Being alive means deciding what to eat

Dec 17, 2025 • Meg Maker

That Time I Played Chef at the CIA

My two-day culinary romp through the teaching kitchens of the Culinary Institute of America

Nov 25, 2025 • Meg Maker

Epokale: Sweet Gewürztraminer for the Ages

The author visits Alto Adige to taste a novel wine aged for seven years in an ancient silver mine

Nov 5, 2025 • Meg Maker

Just Sit and Watch

A lesson in observation from a not-so-stranger.

Aug 27, 2025 • Meg Maker

London, Backward and Forward

Revisiting London with pen in hand

Jul 21, 2025 • Meg Maker

The Wine Comes First

Wine has been grown on this Tuscan hilltop for centuries. Not the same wine.

Apr 23, 2025 • Meg Maker

An Apologia for Terroir in an Era of Tribalism

The fashion for political tribalism suggests terroir might be a concept for a closed élite. Not so.

Mar 23, 2025 • Meg Maker

The Piedmont Diaries

Notes and sentiments from four days tasting wines in the cradle of the Alps

Mar 16, 2025 • Meg Maker

Genotype, Phenotype, and the Essence of Wine

Wine is a constellation of traits fixed and mutable. The taster must understand both.

Mar 1, 2024 • Meg Maker

#nojs-banner { position: fixed; bottom: 0; left: 0; padding: 16px 16px 16px 32px; width: 100%; box-sizing: border-box; background: red; color: white; font-family: -apple-system, "Segoe UI", Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 13px; line-height: 13px; } #nojs-banner a { color: inherit; text-decoration: underline; } This site requires JavaScript to run correctly. Please turn on JavaScript or unblock scripts