Celebrating an article milestone

If you’re reading this, congratulations for managing to be online still!

For anyone in the United States, I can’t blame you for avoiding all forms of mass communication for the next 48 hours or so as it’s been an intense, way, way up in your face election cycle. But, if you’re managing to read this (or for those who US politics are but a casual freak show) I present you with some distracting news in that a couple of weeks back, we passed a rather excellent milestone here on the site of having published 1,000 articles!

That’s a lot of words. In fact to date, the word count for the site sits at 755,000. This makes the articles on the site equal about 1.5 War and Peaces which is easily one of the weirdest figures I’ve ever stated.

In light of this, I wanted to go back and share a number of articles from the past by taking them out from behind the paywall to let anyone in the general public enjoy them for a limited time. If nothing else, I hope that it can give a bit of distraction to everything else that’s going on at the moment…

An introduction to Armenian wines
Exactly what the title states as this is an account of my first trip to the country, experiencing a very, very different side to the wines of the Caucasus which has nothing in common with the Republic of Georgia, other than sharing a border and a love of grilling meat.

Guzzling with the stars; six new celebrity wines
A little bit of levity here as I take a look at some “new” celebrity wines that you just might have missed during the whole insanity brought on by creations such as that Avaline thing.

Yes, #WineToo
Given everything that’s happening with the whole Court of Master Sommeliers America scandal, we should go and take a look at some of the previous events that showed why this revelation really wasn’t a surprise to most of us, sadly.

Not Tinto, Blanco. Tempranillo Blanco
This white mutation of Spain’s most-planted variety, Tempranillo, has been making inroads in recent years since its discover in a vineyard years back. This piece takes a look at its history and a number of the wines now being made from this “new” grape.

Üllo: Why the wine sulfites & headaches myth never dies…
Oh sulfites, poor, poor sulfites, you are so misunderstood and berated. Here I took a look at some of the outright silliness that still surrounds the believe that a nice dose of SO2 makes you feel bad after drinking wine when in fact it’s probably the best thing in the bottle.

The definitive wine guide for Thanksgiving
Yup, Thanksgiving is coming up soon and even if that means munching on turkey via Zoom, there’s nothing to say you can’t have something tasty to see you through these days. Here are the definitive wines you must have. Don’t listen to anyone else’s silly list. This is the only list you need!

Dr. Carole Meredith, a little wine in a big market
If you don’t know about her, Dr. Carole Meredith is pretty awesome. Refreshingly outspoken and infinitely knowledgeable in the world of wine, especially in terms of discovering variety origins. This article takes a look at what she’s doing with her own small project in the hills of Napa.

Driving in Georgia
With a bit of guilty pleasure, I never really get tired of this one as it’s a chapter in my Georgia book and despite many trips to the country, it’s never ceased being true.

Israel digs into its terroir
Israel has only recently defined legal regional names, but for some time, the most forward-looking of the producers have been striving to produce terroir-driven wines that speak of place. Here I take a look at some of them.

Canned wine? Sure
Let’s close out with one of the most polemic topics on Wine Twitter: canned wine. Sure, “natural” wine gets people more fired up and closure discussions arguments bring out the nerds, but canned wine is always fun to watch people debate as it usually digresses into so many other, non-related subjects above and beyond, “Do the wines taste good?”