LATEST NEWS AND REVIEWS

Ever since our tasting panel started Uncharted Wines and Spirits, our plans have continually gone out the window. We planned on writing reviews but not doing publicity. People found out about our site and that went out the window. People started subscribing to us and we had no idea how they found out about us. We planned on keeping it small but we get now get several hundred unique visitors a day. We are gratified by the readership and know it just proves people want to kno

Micro and craft distilleries have established a foothold in every state with legislation that allows them. It has been interesting seeing them go from clear spirits to finally being able to release some spirits with some age to them (though many still buy those wholesale). Many seem more focused on in-person cocktail sales than retail sales, but there is nothing wrong with that. The local tavern making the booze they served you in not exactly a new concept after all. Our tas

Crafted Meadery has been making meads since 2012. Located just outside of Akron, Ohio, they have an interesting and expansive lineup of offerings, which often straddle and blur the lines of mead, cider, beer, and wine. Great labels too, but we don’t award points for that. We recently sat down with the Bananas Foster Forever, which provides novice mead drinkers an easy entry into not only Crafted’s lineup but mead in general. Petillant in the glass, medium gold in color. Coffe

We love tasting new grapes. We especially loving sitting down with indigenous grapes being grown or made in a traditional way. So when our tasting panel got the chance to taste the 2017 Shalauri Cellars Kisi out of the Republic of Georgia, we jumped at the chance. Kisi is a native Georgian grape. While long thought to be an offspring of Rkatsiteli, DNA analysis showed he was not the father. Extremely sensitive to climate, its difficulty to grow limits its acreage to just a fe

Amari are a great class of spirits, and one of the best things about them is despite many becoming widely available here in America, there are many more obscure ones that will never reach our shores. Gives you an excuse to go there and seek some out. One that is here now is Cardamaro. Hailing from Piedmont, with a Moscato base, aged six months in oak, and clocking in at only 17%, this is more akin to a vermouth than an Amari. Despite the name, it does not have cardamom in it,

Whenever someone says “I don’t like gin” we have a whole stable of classic cocktails that will change their mind. Gin is the workhorse of the cocktail bar, with only bourbon being as widely used. But for many cocktails, it is subsumed by the other ingredients, and a well-stocked cocktail bar could probably get along just fine with a bottle of Beefeater for the London Dry category, Porter’s for Old Tom, and Plymouth and call it a day. The standard is include another bottle on

The 1970s and 1980s are known as the Dark Ages when it comes to cocktails, with one of the main culprits being the ubiquity of cheap artificially flavored liqueurs. What was often forgotten until recently is that dreck was based on fine original spirits with local pride and history. Amaretto is one that immediately comes to mind, but sloe gin is not far behind. The liqueur is best known for the sloe gin fizz cocktail, which was an unfortunate mix of lemon-lime soda and the af

Blumenpflücker, like many good liqueurs these days, has a fanciful story behind it, but with a name like that, you expect it. Supposedly, a German princess made the transatlantic crossing in 1721 and brought with her herbs and spices to make the booze on board her ship more palatable, which other German immigrants likewise adopted, becoming the Blumenpflücker distilled and bottled in Texas today. Not quite as fanciful as villagers biking down bouquets of elderflowers, but it

Fruit wines are often a mixed bag. What those who drink only grape wines don't realize is they require a skilled hand that balances the varying acidity levels of your source fruits with the desired sweetness all the while maintaining color and ensuring that the wine actually tastes like the source fruit. There are a whole new generation of winemakers who are doing innovative things with fruit wines, and we will be featuring them here in the next several months, but let's not

Cabernet Blanc is a grape you likely haven’t had. American Cabernet Blanc (sometimes called White Cabernet) is a style of Cabernet Sauvignon made in a rosé style, similar to White Zinfandel. This Cabernet Blanc is an actual grape varietal of 1991 Swiss origin that is a cross between Cabernet Sauvignon and an unknown hybrid grape, though the mystery parent is likely of the Silvaner x Chancellor family, with several other previous crosses before we got to where we are now. Gra

When trends converge. The Finger Lakes, Riesling, and Sekt are all hot right now, and Red Tail combines all three in this bottling. What is Sekt? Basically German sparkling wine made in the traditional style, and it has greatly improved in the last several years. If you see a bottle on the shelf of your local wine shelf, buy it. The ones that now make their way out of Germany have some assurance of being vetted by good wine buyers and are worth trying. As for Red Tail, it i

Thanks to cocktail enthusiast Jamal Lacour for submitting a "new classic" cocktail and his wonderful photo. Interested in sharing your inspirations? Email us at unchartedwine@gmail.com. This "new classic" cocktail is from famed New York bar Death and Co . They recently came out with a great cocktail book which you can buy here. While many of the cocktails can be a little too much for the beginning or intermediate home enthusiasts, this one is easy to make and shows off each

Sokol Blosser has been making wine for 50 years, with a focus on sustainability (the bluebirds on the label refer to a project the winery has to preserve their habitat). It is a lovely property, so lovely in fact that one of our tasting panel members was so caught up in the scenery he drove onto their property a few years ago. Don’t worry, no vines were harmed. Sokol Blosser has also been making some elegant sparkling wines and the 2018 might be the best one yet. Made from 5

Haus has been getting a lot of attention lately with their slick marketing and massive social media campaign. Made from a wine base and designed as less bitter and less boozy vermouth-type aperitifs, they market themselves as embracing cocktail culture without the hangover. They also bring up their lower sugar content, which seems to be a centerpiece of many recent social media fed marketing campaigns relying on the average person’s ignorance of the fermentation process to ma

Once down to only two Italian producers, Arneis has been plucked from obscurity into a sort of winelover’s handshake, one that separates the fans from the enthusiasts. It has established enough acreage in Piemonte that sparkling versions are now being made, and our tasting panel sat down with the non-vintage Malvira Rive Gauche. Made in the Charmat method, this bubbly is a great wine for those seeking obscure sparklings. Pale yellow, nose of lemon and apples, pear, lime bloss

Long available only in Hawaii, Kōloa Rum is now making its way to the mainland, though it is still hard to find. Our tasting panel recently sat down with a bottle of their Dark Rum, brought back by a lucky friend. Some of us aren’t much for sipping rum, but Kōloa can change your mind, and given its price point, will find itself very popular if it can increase its distribution network. Kōloa is distilled six times in Kaua’i, Hawaii in a steam powered copper pot still, and cut

If you are looking for a place full of indigenous varietals you won’t find anywhere else, you are heading to Italy (with a jaunt after that to Spain and Portugal). Some of these grapes are already finding their way to American wine regions, especially Texas, and we expect more to follow, especially as the Southwest ramps up wine productions. Several Italian grape varietals have been plucked from the obscurity in the last few decades, going from only a few acres planted to eas

We make a point of championing cider here, and with good reason. For many colder climates, it is often a more reliable fruit than grapes (colder climate varietals are changing that), it is an ancient and great beverage, it is often a GREAT value, typically has a lower ABV, and it is just plain good. Several northern wineries also include ciders in their lineup, as it provides an alternative to “people who don’t like wine” and is a hedge against a less than ideal grape harvest

Thanks to cocktail enthusiast James Thompson for submitting another classic cocktail and his wonderful photo. Interested in sharing your inspirations? Email us at unchartedwine@gmail.com. The Scofflaw cocktail debuted in Harry's Bar in Paris in 1924. The term "scofflaw " actually originated the year before when prohibitionists held a contest with a cash prize for whomever came up with the word that would best shame those who flouted the law and continued to drink. As we have

Cachaça is the national spirit of Brazil. Made from fermented sugarcane juice, it is clear and by law must be between 38-48% ABV. Just as you would expect from a national spirit, a few large producers dominate, but the countryside is filled with home stills and hundreds of small producers that will never find its way to our shores. Often called “Brazilian Rum,” cachaça has struggled to differentiate itself from that other sugarcane spirit. Better labeling laws have helped, as