Grape Collective

08/27/2025

🍷✨ Sicily’s Hidden Gem is Having a Moment ✨🍷
Meet Frappato - the indigenous Sicilian grape that’s redefining what we expect from Italian reds! 🇮🇹
From the limestone-rich soils of Vittoria, this rare variety (covering fewer than 2,000 acres worldwide!) produces wines that are:
🌊 Light yet complex
🍎 Bright and food-friendly🌸 Aromatic with notes of pomegranate & violet
🧂 Mineral-driven from ancient marine fossils
Once just a blending grape, visionary producers like Arianna Occhipinti and Giusto Occhipinti have championed Frappato as a solo star - and wine lovers are finally catching on!
“Talking about Frappato is like talking about love” - Arianna Occhipinti 💕
Perfect for today’s trend toward elegant, food-friendly wines that speak of place. Plus, you can literally chill it and drink with everything from pasta pomodoro to elegant fish dishes! 🐟🍝
Read ’s beautiful deep dive into this Sicilian treasure on (link in bio) 👆

08/26/2025

The Secret Wine History That Influenced Literature And Art
"Homer’s Odyssey provides one of literature’s most strategic uses of wine when Odysseus offers the cyclops Polyphemus strong, undiluted wine—described as a divine gift—that intoxicates the giant and enables the Greeks’ escape. This episode establishes wine as both civilizing force and narrative catalyst, representing the triumph of cunning civilization over brute barbarism." By Jason Borrows

Ancient Foundations: Wine as Divine Inspiration Wine has been humanity’s most literary beverage, flowing through the pages of history as both muse and metaphor. While we often think of wine simply as an alcoholic drink, its profound influence on literature and art reveals a hidden narrative that h...

08/26/2025

# 🍷 What Wine Shop Owners Really Want You to Know

**Summer’s ending means peak wine buying season is here!** asked wine shop owners across the country what they wish their customers would do more (and less) of. Their answers might surprise you! Read the column at GrapeCollective.com - link in bio

# # ✨ DO MORE:
• **Slow down and browse** - wine shopping should feel like treasure hunting! 🏴‍☠️+++++

# # 🙅‍♀️ DO LESS:
• **Shopping only at big box stores** - support your local wine shops that give back to their communities +++

**The bottom line:** Your local wine merchant wants to take you on a journey from “Well… it’s wine” to “OMG this is AMAZING!”

**Tag your favorite wine shop below!** 👇

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*Featured shops: Cork Wine Bar & Market (DC), Happy Cork Wine & Spirits (Brooklyn), Harlem Wine Gallery (NYC) Urban Grape (Boston) and 3 Parks Wine (Atlanta)

08/23/2025

Two Things Your Wine Merchant Would Like to Tell You This Season
"We would love guests to ask for “brand” name Champagne less! People are very familiar with all the big houses — but grower Champagne is where it’s at!" Read the column by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher

A few days ago, we strolled over a newly restored footbridge in Central Park, surrounded by just-planted landscaping including lots of ferns. The air was unusually crisp for an August afternoon and the older vegetation’s vibrant greens had dimmed a bit, for us a sign that summer is drawing to a cl...

08/20/2025

💕 A love story rooted in Alexander Valley soil 🍇

When two kids who grew up tending vines in Sonoma’s Alexander Valley found each other as adults, magic happened. Meet Justin and Karin Warnelius-Miller of Garden Creek Vineyards - where three generations of winegrowing passion have created something truly special.

From Justin’s family planting their first vines in 1969 to Karin’s Swedish heritage bringing old-world wisdom to new-world freedom, their story is about more than wine. It’s about home, heritage, and the deep connection between land and love.

✨ Their intimate 100-acre estate produces just 1,800 cases annually
🌱 Pioneers in sustainable farming
🏆 Recent 98-point score from Decanter for their flagship Tesserae

“When we speak our wine’s story, it’s not just the wine, it’s the family. Our wines are deeply personal.” - Justin & Karin

Read their full story by .a.wine.journal and discover what makes Garden Creek so special in our latest feature ⬆️ Link in bio

08/16/2025

Garden Creek Ranch Vineyards Winery, Where Home is for Justin and Karin Warnelius-Miller
"In the wine world, there is a special emphasis for wineries that remain family owned. Maybe it’s the romanticized notion, believing they put more attention and care into the vineyard rather than meeting production targets. Maybe it’s the freedom that comes with independence, allowing them to focus on quality instead of the bottom line. Or maybe, just maybe, it is the belief that these families actually love their vineyard, because it is quite literally their home." By Lee Pai

In the wine world, there is a special emphasis for wineries that remain family owned. Maybe it’s the romanticized notion, believing they put more attention and care into the vineyard rather than meeting production targets. Maybe it’s the freedom that comes with independence, allowing them to foc...

08/14/2025

21 Wine Historical Moments That Are More Dramatic Than Any Movie 🍷🍷

Check it out at GrapeCollective.com

08/13/2025

21 Wine Historical Moments That Are More Dramatic Than Any Movie

Wine has been humanity’s companion through triumph and tragedy, love and war, prosperity and ruin. Behind every bottle lies centuries of drama that would make Hollywood screenwriters weep with envy. From ancient betrayals to modern-day heists worth millions, these 21 moments prove that wine histor...

08/13/2025

🍇 The Last Zinfandel on Zinfandel Lane 🍇

In the heart of Napa’s prestigious Rutherford AVA, where Cabernet reigns supreme, there’s one extraordinary vineyard that tells a different story. Dickerson Vineyards is the ONLY Zinfandel grown on Zinfandel Lane - a beautiful irony in wine country. Read the column by link in bio 🔗

💔 This isn’t just about rare wine; it’s about legacy and love. The vineyard was owned by Bill Dickerson and Jane Hagen Dickerson, who tragically lost their lives in the 2004 tsunami in Thailand. Several of our Zinfandel acres date back to over 100 years old - these ancient vines continue their story.

🍷 The legendary Joel Peterson of made the famous “Dickerson” Zinfandel from these grapes, and now creates a special “Tribute” wine in the Dickersons’ honor. Tribute Zinfandel is not available for sale. That is for our close friends and very special occasions.

In a valley where land prices and vineyard management prices make it cost prohibitive to grow anything but Cabernet in the highly sought after Rutherford Bench AVA, these old Zinfandel vines stand as a testament to passion over profit.

Sometimes the most precious wines aren’t the ones you can buy - they’re the ones that carry stories of the people who loved them first. 🌿

08/10/2025

Napa’s Only Zinfandel on Zinfandel Lane: A BYOB Tribute
"In 1999, when we wrote that the best Zinfandel we’d had in a decade was a 1992 Ravenswood “Dickerson,” Bill Dickerson wrote to us saying in effect, “If you like what Ravenswood does with my grapes, you should taste my own wine.” So we did and it was a stunner. The next year, we invited Dr. Dickerson, a prominent psychiatrist, to our “Vintners’ Open That Bottle Night” in St. Helena and he brought two amazing Zinfandels: a 1916 from Italian Swiss Colony and a 1947 given to him by Louis Martini. The local newspaper ran a picture the next day of Dr. Dickerson uncorking the 1916 wine with Dottie’s help." Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher

We recently took our own advice and opened a wine that we had considered too special to open. We know. That’s why we invented Open That Bottle Night in 1999. Even though it’s officially celebrated globally on the last Saturday in February, we advised you to open those bottles as frequently as po...

08/05/2025

🍷 NEW FEATURE: The Epic Story of Mendoza’s Wine Revolution is LIVE! 🏔️
From Spanish conquistadors in 1562 to today’s world-class high-altitude vineyards - discover how Argentina’s Mendoza transformed from desert outpost to global wine powerhouse in our latest deep-dive feature!
What you’ll discover:
✨ How indigenous irrigation systems still feed today’s vineyards
🚂 The railway that changed everything in 1885
💫 Why planting vines at 5,000 feet was considered “crazy”
🍇 The fascinating rebirth of Malbec from forgotten French grape to global star
🗺️ Exclusive interviews with Laura Catena, Paul Hobbs, José Alberto Zuccardi & more!
The Uco Valley now produces only 8% of Mendoza’s wine but commands the highest prices - find out why these ancient seabed soils at extreme altitude create magic in the glass.
📖 Read the full feature article: Link in bio
🎥 Watch our documentary (revisiting our decade old trip to the Uco Valley) Also linked!
This 500-year journey through political upheaval, economic crisis, and ultimate triumph shows how immigrant dreams and visionary risk-taking built one of the world’s most exciting wine regions. Link in bio 🇦🇷🎯

08/05/2025

AI Says These Wine Quotes Will Make Perfect Instagram Captions (with maybe a little cheese)
“In wine, there’s truth.” Being truthful is good, so says Claude: “Use this for intimate gatherings, heart-to-heart conversations with friends, or posts about authentic moments. It suggests that wine helps us connect with our true selves and others.”