Mousiness is one of the most elusive and unsettling faults in wine. Unlike many defects, it doesn’t appear in the aroma. Instead, it emerges after the sip, lingering on the finish in a way that can surprise even experienced tasters.<...

Sometimes a glass of wine smells like dark fruit and spice. Other times, something unexpected appears — leather, earth, even a hint of barnyard. For some wine lovers, those aromas add intrigue. For others, they signal a flaw.In this epis...

Why does a wine sometimes smell like vinegar, or even nail polish remover?In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explores the science behind volatile acidity, one of the most confusing aspects of wine aroma. While small...

Is that wine flawed… or just different?In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explores the difference between wine faults and flaws before turning to one of the most powerful forces in wine chemistry: oxidation.What cau...

Have you ever stood in the wine aisle holding a bottle and thought, “Am I overthinking this?”In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea  unpacks why wine labels can feel so confusing, even to people who work in wine.

Piquette is one of wine’s oldest ideas and one of its newest obsessions. Made by fermenting grape pomace with water, this light, often sparkling wine has roots in ancient Roman practices, European vineyard culture, and everyday resourcefulness....

Ripasso wines are made by giving a finished Valpolicella wine a second pass through fermentation, pouring it over the grape skins left behind from Amarone or Recioto and allowing renewed microbial activity and extraction to take place. In this ...

What happens when grapes are asked to wait?In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore appassimento, the traditional practice of drying grapes before fermentation, and how it reshapes wine long before yeast ever gets invo...

Orange wine often feels contemporary, even radical, yet its roots stretch back thousands of years. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we travel to Georgia, widely considered one of the birthplaces of wine, to explore qvevri winemaking, e...

Welcome back to The Wine Lab. In this episode, we take a closer look at Marsala, one of the most misunderstood fortified wines in the world.Often dismissed as a cooking ingredient, Marsala has a long history as a serious wine sh...

Vermouth is everywhere, yet rarely examined on its own.Often encountered through classic cocktails rather than the glass itself, vermouth plays a defining role in balance, aroma, and structure while remaining largely unacknowledged. In t...

Madeira is one of the most resilient wines ever produced. Fortified during fermentation, intentionally heated, and slowly oxidized, it defies many of the rules that govern wine aging and thrives because of it.In this episode of The W...

Step into the steep, sunlit terraces of Portugal’s Douro Valley and explore how landscape, law, chemistry, and culture shaped one of the world’s most distinctive wines. In this episode of The Wine Lab, host Dr. Andreea Bote...

In this episode of The Wine Lab, host Dr. Andreea Botezatu explores the scientific brilliance and cultural heritage of Sherry. From Andalucía’s luminous albariza soils to the flor yeasts that sculpt its aromat...

Icewine is one of the most challenging and extraordinary wines ever produced,a liquid born from winter itself. In this episode of The Wine Lab, Dr. Andreea Botezatu explores how a frozen accident in 1794 became one of the modern wine wor...

Before Champagne perfected the art of bubbles, there was pétillant naturel or pét-nat -  the ancestral, gracefully imperfect  way to make sparkling wine. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore th...

What makes Prosecco so different from Champagne or Cava? In this episode, Andreea takes you inside the tanks (almost literally) to explore the Charmat method, the clever bit of winemaking engineering that gives Prosecco...

Across Europe, bubbles tell stories. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore two sparkling legends - Champagne and Cava -  both born from the same meticulous process yet shaped by different lands, grape...

In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea takes you inside one of winemaking’s most iconic tools — the oak barrel. From Celtic craftsmanship to modern coopering, we’ll explore how fire, oxygen, and time turn simple wood into a vessel of...

In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore the science and story of tannins: what they are, where they come from, and why some wines feel silky while others grip your gums.From the ancient craft of leather tanning to modern bar...

What do Port, Sherry, Madeira, Marsala, and Vermouth all have in common? They’re wines with an extra ingredient — spirit. In this episode of The Wine Lab, Dr. Andreea Botezatu explores how fortification began as a practical solution fo...

Everyone knows the story of Dom Pérignon — the monk who invented Champagne and declared he was “tasting the stars.” But history tells a very different tale. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we uncover the truth behind one of wine’s mos...

In the late 1800s, an almost invisible insect began destroying Europe’s vineyards. This episode of The Wine Lab takes you inside the phylloxera crisis — from the first mysterious vine deaths in France to the desperate experiments, scie...

Cork is everywhere in the world of wine, from the quiet of a cellar to the noise of a celebration. But how did this small stopper come to influence the way wines age, the rituals of opening a bottle, and even the way we think about quality? In ...

 Is wine really “full of sugar”? What about those “zero sugar” labels, or the idea that wine is keto-friendly? In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea breaks down what you need to know about sugar in wine — from grapes on the vin...