John Mariani

While perusing the 1,800-selection wine list at New York’s Aureole restaurant, my wife nudged me at about number 785 and said, “Pssst. I’m still here.”

They are the color of gold but not at all rare; They are inexpensive yet hard to find on a wine list. Yet they are among the most versatile white wines, not least with dishes that contain a good dose of spice.

With growth in global wine sales waning, Spanish wine makers have introduced better quality and more attractive pricing to woo customers.

Ask people to name a rye whiskey label, and they’ll probably squint and mumble, “Uh, Canadian Club?” (Which is a blended whiskey, not a rye, according to the U.S. Standards of Identity.)

Not long ago sommeliers fell into two stereotypes: the overbearing yet aloof Frenchman, and the overly effusive American uttering “killer cabernet” and “awesome viognier.”

On a recent trip to Seattle I had the chance to revisit the wines of Washington state, the nation’s second largest premium wine producer after California.

After nine years of economic boom, Argentina again teeters on its own fiscal cliff. Yet the one continuing bright spot in the country's economy is its wine industry, which has record sales abroad based on high quality wine at remarkably modest prices.

Twenty years ago few wine lovers outside Spain ever talked about the country’s wines, with one exception: Vega Sicilia, long considered one of the greatest red wines in the world by connoisseurs who rank it alongside France’s Premier Cru Bordeaux.

The most illustrious names in Bordeaux -- the First Growths like Lafite, Mouton, Margaux, and others -- show no signs of drop-off in sales, despite prices that rise into the hundreds of dollars per bottle.

When Italy surpassed France in wine production for the first time two years ago, the news was not greeted as a welcome achievement.

Except for Beaujolais nouveau, Burgundy’s red wines have long been regarded as keepers, wines you buy in the most recent vintage then stick in your cellar until they mature, hoping you will live long enough to enjoy them at their peak.

To paraphrase Shakespeare, in the vineyards of the world, something worrisome this way comes. Over the last decade, global warming has started affecting those narrow zones best suited for growing wine grapes.