Introducing Common Road Wine

A few years ago, I couldn’t explain the difference between Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon. This would have been fine — normal, even — if I hadn’t just been hired as a waitress at La Jambe, a French wine bar in Washington, DC. How I got the job is still beyond me (perhaps a combination of a trusting owner and sheer dumb luck), but to my surprising delight, this job sent me on a journey that would change the course of my life as I knew it. What started as a part-time gig on the weekends to make some extra cash would bring me to quit my day job at NRDC, a very well respected, international environmental nonprofit organization, to pursue a management job at the wine bar full time. La Jambe would grow my passion for wine to the point that I would choose to say au revoir to this delightful establishment, pack my belongings, and fly across the ocean to Bordeaux, France to begin a master’s degree in Wine and Vineyard Sciences.

And this is how, after several years and many amateur moments, I am here today, writing on the subject of wine science with the singular goal of making this topic more accessible to normal people who like to drink (and are interested in) wine.

My plan is simple: take labyrinthine topics (think wine aromas, malolactic fermentation, wine faults, sulfites, appellation laws, natural and biodynamic winemaking…) and break them down concisely, accurately…