The Wine Lab
The Wine Lab is an educational wine podcast where wine meets science, history, culture, and the occasional myth that deserves to be retired. Hosted by wine scientist and enologist Dr. Andreea Botezatu, each episode explores how wine is grown, made, tasted, misunderstood, and enjoyed. Created for curious wine lovers, students, winemakers, and anyone who wants to understand wine a little better, The Wine Lab combines accessible wine education with wine science, grape varieties, wine regions, sensory science, winemaking, history, and culture. Expect clear explanations, curious stories, and enough technical detail to be useful without making you feel as though you accidentally enrolled in a chemistry class.
Episodes
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Why does wine make perfectly intelligent people feel inadequate? And when did knowing something about wine become a way of feeling superior?
Wine snobbery has been around for at least 2,000 years. Ancient Roman poets complained about hosts who kept the good wine for themselves, and modern wine culture has developed its own elaborate hierarchies of prestige, prices, scores, and tasting voc...
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Why does Beaujolais Nouveau taste so different from other red wines, and what exactly is carbonic maceration?
In this episode of The Wine Lab, we go inside the grape berry to explore the unusual fermentation science behind Beaujolais Nouveau. We’ll look at how intact Gamay grapes can begin producing alcohol before conventional yeast fermentation takes over, why carbonic and semi-car...
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Joseph Stalin drank the semi-sweet Georgian red Khvanchkara. Fidel Castro developed an unexpected enthusiasm for Chablis. Nicolae Ceaușescu’s preference for the obscure Romanian wine Zghihară de Huși reportedly helped determine what the communist state planted. Josip Broz Tito produced his own presidential wines. Mobutu Sese Seko accumulated an extraordinary wine cellar and sought ...
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Texas is far too large and diverse to have a single wine climate, grape or style. In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea travels through the state’s major wine-growing regions, from the High Plains and Hill Country to North, West and Gulf Coast Texas, to look at what makes winegrowing here so distinctive. We explore Tempranillo and Tannat, the surprising promise of Picpoul Blanc,...
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For thousands of years, winemakers have been trying to solve the same problems: wines that were too acidic, cloudy, unstable, oxidized, or simply didn't taste very good. The solutions, however, could get interesting.
Ancient wines were treated with seawater, pine resin, herbs, honey, cedar oil, powdered marble, gypsum, ashes and, in some cases, dangerously, lead. Later winemakers clarifie...
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Thomas Jefferson knew his Bordeaux, traveled through European wine regions taking meticulous notes, ordered Château Lafite directly from the source, and spent years trying - mostly unsuccessfully - to grow European grapes at Monticello. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we follow Jefferson from the vineyards of France and Italy to his own stubbornly uncooperative vines in Virginia. Along ...
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What does “dry” wine actually mean? How much sugar can a dry wine contain? And why can two wines with the same residual sugar taste very different?
In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explores the science and sensory side of sweetness in wine. We look at residual sugar, acidity, aroma, temperature, and balance; how winemakers create sweet and off-dry styles; and why Riesl...
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Cork or screw cap? For many wine drinkers, the answer feels surprisingly personal.
In this episode of The Wine Lab, we explore the history, culture, science, and occasional drama of wine closures. We’ll look at how natural cork became part of the ritual of wine, why screw caps gained a serious following in Australia and New Zealand, how sparkling-wine corks get their familiar mushro...
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Why is Pinot named after a pine cone? What makes Tempranillo “the little early one”? Why does Saperavi mean “the dyeing grape,” and who decided to call Xinomavro “sour black”?
In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea Botezatu explores the fascinating origins of grape names across France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Romania, Greece, Georgia, Croatia...
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Rioja is famous for Tempranillo, oak barrels, and the familiar classifications Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva. But behind those words lies a remarkably diverse region shaped by the Ebro River, mountain ranges, changing elevations, and the meeting of Atlantic and Mediterranean climates.
In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explores Rioja Alta, Rioja Alavesa, and Rioja Oriental; the...
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Alsace is one of France’s most distinctive wine regions: deeply French, shaped by Germanic influence, and known for aromatic white wines that can feel ripe and expressive while still staying fresh and focused. In this episode of The Wine Lab, we travel to northeastern France, between the Vosges Mountains and the Rhine, to explore why Alsace wines taste unlike anything else.
...
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In this episode of The Wine Lab, we travel through the Loire Valley, one of France’s most diverse and historically layered wine regions. Following the river from the Atlantic coast inland, we explore Muscadet, Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Crémant de Loire, rosé, and lesser-known varieties such as Romorantin and Pineau d’Aunis.
The episode examines how geograp...
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In this episode of The Wine Lab, we continue our series on the great wine regions of the world with Burgundy, or Bourgogne, one of France’s most influential and fascinating wine regions.
Burgundy is famous for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but its true identity is built around place: villages, vineyards, slopes, soils, and precisely delimited parcels known as Climats. This episode expl...
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Bordeaux is one of the most influential wine regions in the world, but it can also feel intimidating. In this episode of The Wine Lab, Andreea explains Bordeaux through the features that define it: rivers, climate, soils, grape varieties, blending, classifications, aging, and wine style.
The episode covers the differences between the Left Bank and Right Bank, the roles of Cabernet S...
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Wine is usually described through aroma and flavor, but some of its most important qualities are physical. This episode of The Wine Lab examines wine texture and mouthfeel: body, viscosity, acidity, tannin, astringency, alcohol warmth, residual sugar, carbon dioxide, lees aging, malolactic fermentation, serving temperature, and aeration.
Andreea explains why two wines with similar flavors...
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A glass of rosé often feels effortless - light catching a pale pink hue, a hint of summer in the air - but its story runs deeper. In this episode, we trace how rosé is shaped, from fleeting skin contact to the saignée method and the precise art of blending in sparkling wines. Along the way, we place rosé within a longer human narrative, from early winemaking to Mediterranean tables where...
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Episode description
Wine seems like one of the most plant-based products imaginable, so why are some wines not considered vegan? In this episode of The Wine Lab, we look at the cellar practices behind that question. From egg whites, milk proteins, gelatin, and isinglass to bentonite, PVPP, and plant-based alternatives, this is a closer look at fining, clarification, labeling, and the...
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What happens when wildfire smoke becomes part of the story of a wine?
In this episode of The Wine Lab, Dr. Andreea Botezatu explores smoke taint through the eyes of the consumer. Why do wildfires in places like California and Australia matter so much for wine? How can smoke travel far from the flames and still affect grapes? And why can a wine seem perfectly normal at first, only to finis...
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What does it mean when a wine smells like rotten egg, burnt rubber, cabbage, garlic, or canned corn? In this episode of The Wine Lab, Dr. Andreea Botezatu explores sulfur and reductive faults in wine, explaining what wine professionals mean by “reduction,” why these aromas appear, and how they can evolve over time. Along the way, she looks at hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, thi...
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This episode of The Wine Lab explores the long and layered history of women in wine. We move through ancient cultures, literature, religious life, art, Champagne history, and modern wine science to look at the many ways women have influenced how wine is made, understood, and experienced. Some of these stories are well known, others are easier to miss, but together they reveal a muc...
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