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Number (in millions) of cases of Sauvignon Blanc sold in the U.S. last year, according to Impact Databank. That’s a steady rise over the last several years. Since 2015, imports of Sauvignon Blanc are up 40%. Domestic Sauvignon Blanc is up just over 25%. Retailers surveyed by Impact say the challenge remains—to convince consumers that great Sauvignon Blanc is made in many places, not solely in Sancerre and New Zealand.

Prosecco is Italian; Champagne is French; and Cava is Spanish, but they are made in the same way.

Answer: False.

The complex and painstaking process by which Champagnes are made involves a second fermentation during which natural carbon dioxide gas is trapped inside each bottle ultimately creating Champagne’s bubbles. To be labelled Cava, a Spanish sparkling wine must also be made by the método tradicional, (the Spanish terminology for secondary fermentation in individual bottles). However, a vast majority of Proseccos from Italy are made by the Charmat process, whereby the second, bubble-inducing fermentation takes place relatively quickly inside large tanks (not in each bottle).

“Perhaps the nearest I come to gluttony is with wine. As often as possible, when a really beautiful bottle is before me, I drink all of it I can, even when I know that I have had more than I want physically. That is gluttonous.
But I think to myself, when again will I have this taste upon my tongue? Where else in the world is there just such a wine as this, with just this bouquet, at just this heat, in just this crystal cup? And when again will I be alive to it as I am this very minute, sitting here on the green hillside above the sea, or here in this dim, murmuring, richly odorous restaurant, or here in this fisherman’s café on the wharf? More, more I think—all of it to the last exquisite drop, for there is no satiety for me, nor ever has been in such drinking.”

**—M.F.K. Fischer, An Alphabet for Gourmets, 1949.
Fisher lived in the Sonoma Valley for much of her life.**

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