“It’s difficult to export wine because we drink a lot” is the response I got when asking why Swiss wine does not exist on the international market. Switzerland, a tiny independent country in the heart of Europe with a population of 7.5 million, is divided further by languages; French, Italian, German, and Romanche.

In recent years there has been a lot of controversy about decanting. Do you decant everything or just older wines? Recently, seven wine experts weighed in on the subject and offered the current consensus, which is still very polarized.

The practice of opening a bottle of wine an hour before enjoying it to let it breathe amuses many wine experts. “How much air can get into the bottle?” asks Amy Reiley, author and wine expert. “Really you just give your arm a rest after before you drink it.” Letting a wine breathe in its own bottle won’t help improve the wine’s palatability. What the wine may need is more oxygen in order to age a big, young red. “To have contact with O2, more surface area has to be in contact with the wine. A decanter has the widest possible surface area. It is less vertical and spreads out horizontally. The O2 permeates the outer skin of the wine as thin as an inch, aiding it along, opening up the wine,” says Tyler Wesslund, wine director of Canoe in Atlanta.

He's been named as one of the “fifty most influential people in the wine world" by Decanter Magazine . Bartholomew Broadbent The company he founded was nominated "Importer of the Year for 2005" by Wine Enthusiast . Prior to launching his own firm, he worked for a "Who's Who" list of the world's elite wine establishments with names like Harrod’s, Harvey’s Fine Wine Merchants, and Christie’s in London, the Rothbury Estate and Yalumba Winery in Australia, Hennessy and L’Academie du Vin in France, and Schenley in Canada, gracing his resumé. His work in Canada even resulted in the Canadian press labeling him the "Wayne Gretzky of Wine". He's widely considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Port and Madeira. He's also credited for the growth of North American Port consumption during the mid 1980’s and was responsible for the re-introduction of Madeira to North America in 1989.

A Proud History Spain’s most famous wine region has been producing wine since at least the 9th century. Because monastic communities throughout Europe made wines and other products to sell, Spanish monks were Rioja’s first large-scale wine producers. As early as the 17th century, Rioja’s local winemakers began to work together, establishing the Royal Economic Society of Rioja Winegrowers to promote their interests. This tradition continues today with the Control Board of the Rioja Designation of Origin, the governing body of Rioja’s Denominacíon de Origen Calificada (DOCa).

Italy makes a wide variety of sparkling wines that are wonderful values and great tasting wines suitable for the holidays. In the last article, we discussed the sparkling wines of Asti in the Piemonte ( Moscato d’Asti and Asti Spumante). I would like to continue to explore the sparkling wines of Italy. The first region one encounters when heading east from the Piemonte is the region of Lombardia.

As I mentioned in part one , where we looked at some whites to pair with your Thanksgiving dinner, this holiday dinner presents somewhat of a conundrum when it comes to wine pairing .

Everyone’s seen the labeling on wine bottles: “Contains Sulfites.” There is no shortage of opinions as to whether sulfur should be used at all in the vineyard or the winery. Much like anything, with opinions comes confusion. As a wine-industry professional, I would like to dispel some of the myths. When it comes right down to it, there is always going to be some sulfur in wine. Sulfur is a natural byproduct of the fermentation process (yes, small amounts of sulfur can be found in bread too) and it is one of the most useful tools a winemaker has.

So, it is time to think about the racks for the wine room. There are three ways to approach the racking: have a carpenter build them, buy kits or use a professional wine cellar company. Each approach has its own set of pro’s and cons’ so lets just look at idea of having a carpenter build the racks.

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." That’s what Shakespeare said about Cleopatra and while I never knew Cleopatra, you could say pretty much the same about the wines of Bordeaux. There are a lot of them. In fact, the infinite variety can be downright confusing. How to sort out all the subregions of Bordeaux into some sensible framework would confuse Einstein, who concerned himself with simpler stuff like the theory of relativity. But that didn’t stop the French.