Cabernet Sauvignon is the world’s most-planted red wine grape. Both a blessing and a curse, if you ask me. Formidable popularity is always polarizing, after all.

Inevitably, with the sheer volume of Cabernets on the market, there are some “meh” wines amongst the options. Then again, are some great finds, and of course, a whole bunch of age-worthy and even investment-worthy beauties.

Cabernet Sauvignon, originally from Bordeaux, France, is one of the few grape varieties that’s fully claimed “international” status, long proven successful even in far-flung locales. It’s also a grape that can stand alone with aplomb while playing just as well with others in red blends.

This tasting focuses on Cabernet’s solo and predominantly Cabernet-based bottlings and the countries and regions where the grape has proven its mettle, year after year..

Every year, I come across posts and articles galore recommending dry wines with Halloween candies. They always make me cringe. Everyone should feel free to explore the wide world of wine and food pairings - that’s not the issue. It’s that wines without a trace of residual sugar just don’t taste the same when paired with candy. Don’t take my word for it - try it for yourself. Both the dry wine and the candy will suffer in juxtaposition on your tongue. Acidity and tannins become harsher, and the candies’s flavors are dulled, as though a film has wiped away their best qualities.

Instead, try pairing Halloween candies with sweet wines. When wines are as sweet as the eats, everything just makes more sense. Chocolates taste more chocolate-y. Sour candies pop. Nutty flavors are echoed and become amplified, like toasty nuts on steroids.

In an effort to do right by Halloween, which I find myself missing while living abroad, I’ve created not just one but two Halloween-themed potluck-style wine tasting guides: one for the sweet wines, and one for the dry wines (which are not paired with sweets!).

Think of this guide as your invitation to go all-in on the sugary nostalgia from your trick-or-treating youth…while indulging in very grown-up wine pairings that take your go-to candies to a whole new level.

I have to admit that Halloween isn’t my favorite holiday, at least not as it relates to grown-up costume parties. On the other hand, my childhood Halloween memories are wonderful; stretching cotton-y faux spider webs across bushes and trees in our yard, blasting Monster Mash and the Addams Family theme song from the boom box, watching Hocus Pocus, visiting pumpkin patches, carving the pumpkins and lighting candles inside, bobbing for apples and eating as many caramel apples as I could get my hands on during the season. And yes, those sugar-swathed apples were in addition to my annual trick-or-treat candy haul. I can only imagine how much fun my siblings and I were to be around with our sugar rush-influenced behavior.

There’s that shift in the weather, too. October is the season for falling leaves, hot apple cider, soups, stews and pot pies. My dad often made his Texas-style chili around this time of year, sometimes making two big pots’ worth: one with plenty of spice and a milder one for us kids. If we were really lucky, we might even get Tamale Pie the next day made with the leftover chili.

All of this to say that Halloween is a bigger deal to me than I realized before moving outside the US, so to honor the holiday, I’m creating not just one but two Halloween-themed potluck-style wine tasting guides: one for the dry wines, one for the sweet, since candy really is best enjoyed with dessert wines that are equally as sweet.

First up: the dry wines, each with a Halloween twist: ghosts, vampires, witches, skeletons, spiders and the devil are all coming out to play in this spooky tasting guide.

Sangiovese is a quintessentially Italian grape, and yet it’s also one of the most-planted grape varieties in the world, grown with varying levels of success in Australia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Brazil…pretty much the very definition of an “international” wine grape. Somehow though, Sangiovese manages to eschew an international association, remaining steadfastly Italian, even Tuscan in nature.

Maybe it’s because most Italian wines made from Sangiovese are not known as “Sangiovese wines,” but rather, Chianti Classico, Brunello or Vino Nobile. Maybe it’s because Sangiovese’s greatest heights are still reached in Italy, with limited success in its many other homes. Maybe it’s just because it’s still not all that common in those other homes, with the vast majority of Sangiovese grapevines spending their days bathing in the Italian sun.

Whatever the reason, Sangiovese is a picky, mutable grape that doesn’t entirely resemble even itself between its various regions and clones, and the wines made from it are just as widely varied, from pale, youthful easy drinkers to hauntingly beautiful masterpieces that can age for decades and still sing. This tasting is an introduction to Sangiovese’s wonderful breadth and memorability, in all of its many forms.

For those of us who grew up in the United States, Australian white wines were essentially just Yellow Tail Chardonnay. Maybe one of Yellow Tail’s Sauvignon Blancs or Pinot Grigios if the local grocery was really well-stocked. Now, there is nothing wrong with Yellow Tail - in fact, their Chardonnay was without doubt the best performer in a lineup of popular inexpensive white whites tasted blind in one of my WSET Diploma study sessions in San Francisco.

The problem isn’t Yellow Tail or other inexpensive Aussie “critter” wines…it’s the a general lack of knowledge, availability and awareness of other Australian white wines in the United States. And of how outstanding they can be.

If you’re reading this post from countries like the UK, New Zealand, China or Australia, you might be thinking duh, of course there are fantastic white wines in Australia, how could you not have known this?

All I can do is shrug and say that the wine market is a complex, living thing, ever-changing and often fickle. Where you live matters a lot - even in today’s global economy. Culture and access can change one’s perspective on everything when it comes to wine.

Wherever you live and wherever you grew up, this tasting guide is intended to give you a taste of what Australian white wine has to offer. I have no doubt that you’ll find an ace.

German, Austrian and Hungarian red wines…even the title of this tasting theme is rather unwieldy, I’ll admit. I could have called it Central European red wines, but then, which countries make that cut isn’t always clear, and I’d be skipping interesting wines from other Central European countries, like Slovenia, Croatia and Switzerland.

Referencing prior connections between these 3 countries seems even worse, automatically dragging our minds back to the Central Powers, even though their respective histories - and in particular, their wine production histories - stretch back much, much further than WWII, so that doesn’t work either.

Hence this tasting’s unwieldy name. Though all 3 countries are known for their white wines, from Germany’s Rieslings to Hungary’s sweet Tokaji to Austria’s Grüner Veltliners and Rieslings, they all have quality red wines, too.

This tasting is for those who aren’t afraid of an umlaut or an impossible-to-pronounce-on-the-first-try wine. It’s for anyone who is curious about wines from lesser-known regions, or just in finding a really good deal. And for anyone who wants to become that guy who gets to spread the gospel of lesser-known wine.

Chenin Blanc is a bit of an oddball grape variety in that it straddles the line between “nobility,” thanks to its capability to produce many styles of wine, including age-worthy ones, and “workhorse” status, since it’s pretty easy to grow. Almost too easy, some might say.

It’s also kind of an “insider” grape, since it’s just not trendy, and hasn’t been for a while. Not for any lack of quality, mind you, far from it. Chenin just hasn’t become a wine world darling in the same way as Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling or Chardonnay. The upshot to this is that Chenin Blanc wines in general tend to be under-valued. Even the increasingly hard-to-get South African Chenins, like those from The Sadie Family, aren’t (yet) hitting the kind of price points that top Chardonnays reach, though there are a few crème de la crème wines in the Loire Valley, like those by Nicolas Joly at Coulée de Serrant, Domaine Huet, Richard Leroy and Stephane Bernaudeau that tend to command top dollar.

For this tasting, though, there’s no need to splash out (unless you really want to). The wines included in this Wineluck Club tasting guide cover the full range of classic Chenin Blanc styles, from sparkling to sweet, while allowing you to share the costs - and more important, the fun - with people you love.

If your impression of Chianti is associated with inexpensive fat-bottomed straw-wrapped “fiasco” bottles, often used as candle-holders once empty, you are in for a treat. This tasting zooms in on Chianti Classico, a region distinct from Chianti, and even better, on its recently approved additional geographic units within the region, the UGAs (Unità Geografiche Aggiuntive).

In some ways, it’s a pretty geeky tasting theme, one that dives into terroir, grape varieties and winemaking methods, requiring a bit of work to find the right wines and allowing you to taste some of the many shades of Chianti Classico and form your own impressions of the region’s wines.

In other ways, it’s one of the simplest tastings of all, since Chianti Classico is the OG Chianti, defining wines from the hilly region between Florence and Siena, iconically represented by the black rooster on every bottle. It’s arguably the most famous Italian wine, the one you were probably introduced to long before you knew anything about wine, especially if you were lucky enough to grow up eating out on special occasions in old-school Italian-American joints with red-checked tablecloths and “sauce” (or even better, “gravy”) on everything like I did.

It’s always interesting hearing others’ opinions about American wine as an American living abroad. First in France, and now in Denmark, I’ve heard so many things about the wines from my native country. Many of which are quite different from my own perceptions of American wine, as an American.

Only about 3-5 percent of American wine produced each year is exported, a very small percentage, especially compared to European wine-producing countries, which tend to export 25 percent or more. And even those small amounts of exports have had it rough lately with the current president’s policy changes. Suffice it to say that only a teensy little bit of American wine gets to represent the entirety of the country abroad. And that makes for some interesting perceptions.

I’ve been told that all American white wines are overripe and buttery with high alcohol levels. I’ve been told that all American whites are overpriced. I’ve been told that American whites don’t age well. I’ve been told that “classic” American whites are made entirely in the cellar, especially with clear malolactic fermentation and oak aging, resulting in creamy, buttery wines with prominent flavors of vanilla and toasted hazelnuts.

It hasn’t always been easy to decide when to jump in and negate these ideas, and when to just shrug and let others have their (sometimes intractable) opinions. Let me say here though: American whites are not just buttery Chardonnay and oaked Sauvignon Blanc, even if those wines do exist, and are often utterly delicious. American whites can age beautifully. And American whites can be highly indicative of their terroir and vintage. Sure, there are some big brands who craft blends that prioritize consistency over a focus on showcasing terroir and vintage variation, but that is true in every wine-producing country, not just the United States.

This tasting guide covers 6 “classic” American whites, including the oak-aged beauties that have come to dominate foreign perceptions, but also including the unoaked wines that deserve just as much of your attention. If you currently believe that American white wine is just one thing, I hope this tasting will change your mind.

It’s a truism in Burgundy that the small, walled town of Beaune is the capital of the Burgundy wine world, though Dijon, further north, is the capital of Burgundy, the region. To make things even more fun, the Côte d’Or is the heart of Burgundy’s great vineyards, with its swath of appellations that comprises the northerly Côte de Nuits and the southerly Côte de Beaune…but when it comes to Pinot Noir, often considered Burgundy’s greatest triumph, the Côte de Nuits (much of which is closer to Dijon) reigns supreme.

Somehow, the Red Burgundies of the Côte de Beaune, even with the beating heart of the wine world beckoning visitors inside its town walls, tends to be discussed only after the great Red Burgundies of the Côte de Nuits. If we tally up the Grand Crus dedicated to Red Burgundies, the Côte de Nuits has almost all of them, with just one, Corton, looking down from its hilltop at the northernmost edge of the Côte de Beaune.

Knowing this, you could decide that the Côte de Beaune’s Red Burgundies are somehow second class…or you could decide to taste for yourself, forming your own opinions (while thanking your lucky stars that such world class wines tend to command slightly lower prices than those in the Côte de Nuits).

This tasting guide is for those who might have heard of Red Burgundy, but aren’t entirely sure what the grape variety is, much less why the wines are such a big deal. It’s for anyone who’s read a wine list littered with French words, then slid their eyes toward something less intimidating instead. It’s for anyone who finds a wall of similar-looking bottles, all with ivory labels and French words in thin, loopy cursive text overwhelming. This tasting is your opportunity to clear up the confusion in a relaxed way, amidst people with whom you know you can react however and say whatever you want, regardless of what you did or didn’t know before.

If you’re already well into the world of Burgundy, you can use this tasting as a refresher or an experience guide, a way to compare the best-known villages in the Pinot Noir-dominant Côte de Nuits side-by-side. Just know that it’s written for those who are new here, and that 6 wines will never cover the beast that is Burgundy in its entirety. Even one of my beloved (and heavy) 800-page Burgundian tomes can’t cover every single thing.

I won’t pretend that anyone could cover all of Red Burgundy, or even just the ones from the Côte de Nuits, in just 6 wines. But. It’s still possible to explore some of the region’s best-known Red Burgundy appellations with friends, and without even breaking the bank.

This tasting guide is for those who might have heard of Red Burgundy, but aren’t entirely sure what the grape variety is, much less why the wines are such a big deal. It’s for anyone who’s read a wine list littered with French words, then slid their eyes toward something less intimidating instead. It’s for anyone who finds a wall of similar-looking bottles, all with ivory labels and French words in thin, loopy cursive text overwhelming. This tasting is your opportunity to clear up the confusion in a relaxed way, amidst people with whom you know you can react however and say whatever you want, regardless of what you did or didn’t know before.

If you’re already well into the world of Burgundy, you can use this tasting as a refresher or an experience guide, a way to compare the best-known villages in the Pinot Noir-dominant Côte de Nuits side-by-side. Just know that it’s written for those who are new here, and that 6 wines will never cover the beast that is Burgundy in its entirety. Even one of my beloved (and heavy) 800-page Burgundian tomes can’t cover every single thing.

How can you taste all of White Burgundy in just 6 wines? The answer: you can’t. But. You can still use this tasting guide to explore some of the region’s best-known White Burgundy appellations with friends without breaking the bank.

This is a tasting guide for those who hear the words “White Burgundy” and think, so what is that, exactly? Why are White Burgundies considered the Chardonnay wines? Is it Burgundy or Bourgogne? Why are there so many French words on the bottles, and why doesn’t it just say on the label that it’s a White Burgundy?

These questions and others will be answered within, promise.

If you’re already well into the world of Burgundy, you can still use this tasting as a refresher or an experience guide, a way to compare the best-known villages side-by-side. Just know that it’s written for those who are new here, and that 6 wines will never cover the beast that is Burgundy in its entirety. Even one of my beloved (and heavy) 800-page Burgundian tomes can’t cover every single thing.

There are certain wine grapes that are considered “lesser.” They’re considered workhorses of the wine world because they’re reliable, adaptable, easy-to-grow, long-lasting and versatile. They’re grapes that show up year after year, usually as supporting cast, blended with other, more prestigious grapes.

There’s no real caché in making “great” wine from these grapes, even though more and more winemakers are re-discovering old workhorse vines that, when treated well, make excellent, or at least thoroughly enjoyable, wine. There are also new winemakers who can only afford to buy these “lesser” grapes, using them as an opportunity to showcase what they - and the grapes - can really do.

And what’s wrong with a good, affordable workhorse, well made? I am, after all, a sucker for “peasant foods,” all the ugly-delicious dishes made from cheap cuts of meat or plants that grow easily, even in challenging years. Who doesn’t love a bœuf Bourguignon, a feijoada, a ribollita, a ratatouille or a properly slow-smoked barbecue? If peasant food has earned its place in top restaurants, workhorse wines deserve their moment in the sun too.

The Jura is just a tiny little region, but it’s gained international notoriety in recent years as wine aficionados have discovered just how special these wines are. There aren’t many places in the world with so many different and entirely individual wines packed into such a small area.

When I visited Jura for the Percée du Vin Jaune in 2019, the streets of Lons-le-Saunier were bustling and my friends and I ducked down into cellars to taste the newest vintage of Vin Jaune, the Jura’s famous aged white wine. Banners streamed across the streets, music and laughter abounded, and informal parades, costumes and Comté cheeses of all ages were everywhere. There were sandwiches of Morbier and Morteau to fortify you between tastings, and when we left the city to visit producers, we were immediately transported to bucolic settings, complete with adorably chunky and floppy-eared pet bunnies welcoming us before tastings.

The sparkling Crémants punched well above their weight class, the whites were powerful and the reds were delicate. I savored every second and would go back in a heartbeat. Consider this tasting your chance to experience the best of the Jura from wherever you are.

Fruity red wines tend to get all the love, in the same way milk chocolate always out-sells dark chocolate, with its near-universal appeal and versatility. But there’s something to be said for those who appreciate the savory side of things, in both chocolate and wine. Sure, there might be a bit more bitterness to contend with, but there are also intriguing flavors that add depth and complexity to the fruit, unfolding in leisurely fashion across the palate. Not to mention that sometimes, that kick of bitterness is exactly what we need.

There are Wineluck Club tasting guides for light-bodied reds, full-bodied fruity reds and full-bodied savory reds…but so far, I haven’t written a guide for the wines in the middle. The Goldilocks-esque “not too this, not too that” wines. This tasting guide is for those wines, and is the first of two, since fruity and savory reds each deserve their own moment in the sun.

First up: medium-bodied fruity red wines, and just in time for peak grilling season.

I’m a big fan of the bubbles. Champagne, Crémant, Franciacorta, all the Sparkling Wines. But I also know that feeling when you’ve just had enough bubbly for the night, when that tickle in the back of your nose is getting stronger and you’re starting to feel a bit burbly from the sheer amount of bubbles that have entered your belly. If you’re someone who is extra sensitive to that feeling, it might even keep you from enjoying sparkling wines altogether.

Softly sparkling wines offer an alternative, a mid-way point with a gentler bubbly experience that can be enjoyed longer before any back-of-the-nose-tickle, or even just during those more casual gatherings when a full “pop” feels extravagant, whereas a soft “psssst” feels as chill as cracking open a beer. These are wines that go by many names in many countries: frizzante, pétillant, perlant, perlwein, pearlwine, spritzig, vin con aguja or vinho frisante. Whatever they’re called, they’re always softly, gently sparkling.

I haven’t been to Greece yet. “Yet” being the operative word here, since the country and its widely varied regions are high on my to-visit list. Even without personal experience, Greece has managed to push its way to the top of my list of Wineluck Club themes this week thanks to several synchronicities. It’s been one of those weeks where I have to wonder if I’ve been noticing Greek things more because it was a contender for this week’s theme, or if the Universe decided to send me signs. Friends have mentioned Greek travels in various regions. The MBA program I attended just posted a recap of a wine trip to Greece. Summery Greek recipes have been littering my inbox. You get the idea.

Greece is demanding its turn in the spotlight, so here I am, doing my best to give this ancient country’s wines their due.

This time of year six years ago, I had just finished all of the MBA final exams, projects and papers and was finally feeling the giddy exhaustion of accomplishment. Our class toasted and danced at our local cocktail bar in Dijon, and then my classmates began to move away to their respective corners of the world. I hung on for a few weeks, just as long as my money would stretch. And I set off with a friend and classmate to spend a weekend in Alsace.

Alsace is one of those regions where the borders have shifted time and again while the residents and their traditions resolutely endured. Not quite French, not quite German, Alsace is a place all its own. The villages here served as inspiration for Beauty and the Beast, a fairytale apropos to the region’s over-the-top charm. And that’s all before you’ve even begun to taste the wines. Wines whose breadth is tremendous, with character to spare.

Summer reading list season means that it’s also light-bodied white wine season, because honestly, what’s better than the simplicity of a great summer sipper?

These light-bodied white wines are, as you’d expect, refreshingly zesty with flavors that tend toward citrus in all of its varied forms. Almost like squeezing said citrus onto your tacos or watermelon for that zingy kick. What they’re not, though, are the usual Pinot Grigio, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling that you might expect in this tasting.

Why not? Because I think it’s more interesting to host a tasting focused on the lesser-known light-bodied whites. And because it’s usually true that lesser-known styles are more affordable than their more famous counterparts, even at similar quality levels. And if one thing is true this summer, it’s that pretty much all of us could use a good deal.