A.

Ok, this was a hard one, but every avid wine lover should know about Clos de la Coulée de Serrant, in Savennières, in the Loire Valley of France. Considered one of the greatest white wines in the world, Coulée de Serrant is made on the single estate also called Coulée de Serrant. The prized vineyard (first planted in the year 1130 by Cistercian monks—whose small monastery still stands) is owned by the Joly family, and today consists of vines aged from 35 to 80 years old.  Current winemaker, Nicolas Joly, was among the earliest and remains one of the most ardent practitioners of biodynamics in the world. The vineyard is cultivated partly by hand and partly by horse because of the steep slopes overlooking the Loire, and because the hooves of horses loosen the soil perfectly without compacting it. Though it is just 17 acres (7 hectares) in size, Coulée de Serrant has its own appellation. Only a handful of other appellations in France are made up of a single property, including Romanée-Conti, La Tâche, and Clos de Tart, all in Burgundy, and Château-Grillet in the Rhône.

A.

Of the hundreds of different sweet wines produced in Italy, the best known may be vin santo, holy wine, so named because priests have drunk it during the Mass for centuries. Vin santo is the customary finale to even the humblest Tuscan meal, served after espresso, almost always with a plate of small biscotti called cantucci, stubby, twice-baked cookies meant for dunking. Most vin santo does not taste as sweet as, say Sauternes. The wine has a delicate, creamy, honey-roasted flavor, and the color can be unreal, from radiant amber to neon orange. True vin santo is fairly expensive because the ancient process of making it remains artisanal and labor intensive. Indeed, the grapes (generally malvasia bianca lunga or trebbiano) must be partially dried for three to six months before they are crushed and then left to ferment slowly for three to five years in small, sealed barrels in a warm attic called a vinsantaia.

C.

The so-called “puzzle jug” was popular in homes and taverns in the 18th and 19th centuries. It descended from earlier drinking puzzles, such as the fuddling cup and King/Tinker mug, examples of which date back to medieval times. An inscription on the jug typically challenges the drinker to drink from the vessel in such a way that the beverage does not spill. The solution? The jug has a hidden tube, one end of which is the spout. The tube usually runs around the rim and then down the handle, with its other opening inside the jug and near the bottom. To solve the puzzle, the drinker must suck from the spout end of the tube. To make the puzzle more interesting, some jugs had a number of additional holes, which had to be closed off before the contents could be drained.

A.

A wine’s “nose” is its aroma.  Wine pros will say, for example, that a given wine has a nose of apricots and peaches.  Similarly, a wine’s “legs” are the rivulets of wine that inch up the inside surface of the glass above the wine, then run slowly back down.  It’s often said (erroneously) that the thicker the legs, the better the wine.  Legs are a complex phenomenon related to the amount of glycerol and alcohol in the wine, plus the rate of evaporation of the alcohol.  A wine’s “body” is its weight on the palate.  Light-bodied wines feel about as heavy as skim milk on the palate, while full-bodied wines feel like half-and-half or even cream.  Medium-bodied wines are somewhere in the middle. Head?  Um, that falls in the beer department.

B.

Despite being born in Argentina, Pope Francis—Jorge Mario Bergoglio—comes from an Italian family with deep wine roots. His grandfather, Giovanni Angelo Bergoglio, was a winemaker near Asti in Piedmont, Italy, known for its bubbly dessert wines. However, Giovanni made a still red from the area, called grignolino (GREEN-yoh-LEE-noh). While still Cardinal Bergoglio in Buenos Aires, the Pope wrote often to his relatives in Piedmont, asking them to send more bottles of grignolino. Derived from grignòle, a Piedmontese dialect word for “many seeds”, grignolino is the source of light-reddish colored, frothy, crisp wines that can also have a tannic bite.

D.

In Sherry production, the process of replenishing the wine in one row (criadera) with wine that has been extracted from barrels in the criadera above it is called rocio (row-CEE-oh). The word means “morning dew” and is a reflection of how gently the wine must be handled when it is moved between criaderas. This continual process of extracting wines from barrels and replenishing other barrels has a lovely name. It’s called correr escalas—running the scales, and it’s done several times a year.

B.

Pinot noir earned this nickname because, even though it is one of the most fickle grapes to grow, it can become what many consider to be the most poetic, compelling wine in the world.  In fact, an entire book on pinot noir by the author, Marq de Villiers, is entitled The Heartbreak Grape (McArthur & Company 2007).

C.

Argentina places 5^th behind the perennial trifecta of Italy, France and Spain, and then a distant United States.  In fact, the production of the U.S. and Argentina combined is less than Spain’s which is currently in third place.  Australia and South Africa, despite their relatively large land masses, come in at numbers 7 and 9, respectively.  Despite the perception that wine production in China has boomed in recent years, it still finishes in 10^th place, perhaps because table grapes represent a significant amount of its plantings. The top 10 are:

Italy

France

Spain

United States

Argentina

Chile

Australia

Germany

South Africa

China

B.

Doble pasta [DOH-blay PAHSS-tah] is a traditional style of red winemaking in the Alicante, Jumilla, Utiel-Requeña, and Yecla districts in the Spanish Levante.  Wines are macerated and fermented with twice the normal amount of grape skins and pulp, resulting in a wine of intense concentration, tannin and color. Doble pasta wines are often produced from the indigenous bobal grape variety and used to strengthen lighter blends.

D.

In Burgundy, during the early Middle Ages, chardonnay arose as a seedling―a natural cross of the noble red grape of Burgundy, pinot noir, with the white grape, gouais blanc (GOO-ay BLAHNK) , thought to have been brought to eastern France by the Romans from Croatia.  DNA testing in 1999 uncovered the unorthodox parentage, a shock to the international wine community at the time, as gouais blanc is considered so mediocre that several French districts tried to ban it and it is no longer even cultivated in France.

D.

While De Niro has invested in many restaurants–Nobu, Rubicon, and Tribeca Grill, hotels and a spirits brand, VDKA 6100, he has never pursued a wine brand.  A. As a kid, Wayne Gretzky watched his grandfather make his own wine.  Today, “The Great One” presides over Wayne Gretzky Estates, producing wine from the Niagara Peninsula and Okanagan wine regions, as well as Canadian whiskies.  B. Dubbed “Liz’s Fizz” by the London press, the Queen’s sparkling wine is made from 7 acres of classic Champagne grapes on the monarch’s estate outside Windsor Castle.  C. A blend of syrah, merlot, grenache and cabernet sauvignon from California’s Santa Ynez Valley, Fergalicious is the most high-profile offering from Ferguson Crest winery, a collaboration between Fergie and her father Pat Ferguson.