The Liberal Arts of Wine
by Charlie Leary
The first time someone in authority takes your fingerprints is among life’s tiny transitional moments. I wasn’t under arrest, thank goodness; I’d just applied for a state liquor license. But...
Charlie Leary
Charlie published Leary’s Global Wineology, a comprehensive guide to wine education programs worldwide in late 2022. He earned his PhD in modern Chinese history from Cornell before briefly teaching at Tulane. He then abandoned academics and became an organic farmer, artisan cheesemaker, and restaurateur in Louisiana. Charlie went on to direct wine programs in Nova Scotia, Costa Rica, and the Dordogne. Random House released his Creole cuisine cookbook in 2004, and he later developed a wine & food column for the Halifax Chronicle-Herald while starting a vineyard in Andalusia. Now residing in Panama and specializing in wine history, he writes for a range of outlets, from California wine shops to timatkin.com to Jane Anson’s Inside Bordeaux.
Articles by Charlie Leary
Vintage Intrigue
by Charlie Leary
One-time Deputy Paymaster to the British Forces, Richard Hill (1655-1727) had an honest soul and functioned as a forthright servant of His Majesty’s Government. For although he loved wine, perhaps...
Pouring Politics
by Charlie Leary
A recent article in Punch argued that we must re-inject politics into wine: “Without politics, terroir is just soil.” The article’s pretext was that some sort of ideological power play...
Navigating A Complex Terrain
by Charlie Leary
There are mixed bags and wild ferments, threats and inert gases, stability and prestige Champagne. The content of the 2023 Master of Wine exam presented an extremely high hurdle for...
The Colour and Clarity of Wine
by Charlie Leary
Wine as a metaphor has a long history. In the 8th century BC, Homer wrote that “flashing-eyed Athena sent them a favourable wind, a strong-blowing West wind that sang over...
The Disenfranchised
by Charlie Leary
If you search in Google for “countries without a wine culture,” it returns an entry for “What countries are dry?”: “Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Mauritania, Libya, the Maldives, Iran,...
The Tale of the Angelo Petri
by Charlie Leary
In 1966, the US Senator and presidential candidate John McCain’s father, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. spoke about wine in congressional testimony: Gallo’s “Thunderbird,” to be exact. Yes, that “fortified”...
On Marginality
by Charlie Leary
In the early 1990s, I tried growing wine grapes in Louisiana, near the Mississippi border. As I recall, Ruby Cabernet, the cross developed in 1936, was among the selected varieties....
The Tale of Two Château Palmers
by Charlie Leary
What would Major General Charles Palmer think of Château Palmer being turned into a public cinema in 2022? This is a different Chíateau Palmer from the one most wine lovers...