Unreserved Wine Talk

If your wearable device knows your cortisol level, your heart rate, and the ambient light in your dining room, should it also choose the perfect wine for you? The Romans raved about Falernian. The Georgians were fermenting in clay vessels eight thousand years ago. Could AI finally let us taste what they were drinking? Conversely, can AI write an accurate tasting note for wine still in the bottle before a single human lifts the glass? When every appellation is covered, every vintage scored, and every back label written by an algorithm, what is a wine writer actually for?
You're going to discover the stories and tips that answer those questions in this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I'm going solo rather than interviewing a guest, as I'd like to share these thoughts that have been on my mind.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.
 
Highlights
What first drew Sarah toward Champagne, and why did the region capture her imagination so strongly early in her wine journey?
How does Champagne's chalk soil influence vine behavior and the overall character of the wines produced there?
Why does the concept of terroir in Champagne depend as much on blending decisions as on vineyard origin?
How do reserve wines shape the consistency and identity of non-vintage Champagne?
What role does dosage play in balancing acidity and texture in finished Champagne?
Why do some producers choose to eliminate dosage entirely, and what stylistic risks does that decision create?
How does extended lees aging transform both aroma and texture in traditional method sparkling wines?
Why has grower Champagne gained so much attention over the past two decades?
How do small grower producers approach vineyard expression differently from the large Champagne houses?
What tasting clues help distinguish Champagne made primarily from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Meunier?
Why do many Champagne producers still rely on blending across villages rather than highlighting single vineyards?
How does the Champagne region continue adapting to climate change while preserving its traditional style?
Why does Champagne remain one of the few wine regions where blending is considered the highest expression of craftsmanship?
 
 
 
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/380.

Why do some cultures embrace wine as a cultural expression while others see it simply as a beverage? Why do some cultures embrace wine as a cultural expression while others see it simply as a beverage? Can fine wine actually be defined, or is it something subjective to be debated? Why is it so important to identify both the aroma and structure of wines when tasting?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Sarah Heller, Master of Wine.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.
 
Highlights
What was it about tasting Barolo for the first time that completely changed Sarah's understanding of wine complexity?
How does Nebbiolo grown on clay soils in Piemonte create a sense of density and structure that feels different from Tuscan Sangiovese?
How has Attilio Scienza's perspective on synesthesia shaped Sarah's approach to wine education?
Why does Sarah believe wine should be understood as a cultural artifact rather than just a beverage?
How does the ancient figure of Bacchus in Ovid's Metamorphoses reveal wine's power for both chaos and redemption?
Why does Sarah feel that studying wine deeply increases enjoyment?
How do different cultures respond differently to studying wine before enjoying it?
What is Sarah's pragmatic definition of a fine wine?
How did Sarah train for the Master of Wine tasting exam?
Why did Sarah design the Elements glass collection around fire, water, air, earth, and balance instead of grape-specific shapes?
Why does Sarah see wine education and global exchange as a two-way dialogue?
 
About Sarah Heller
Sarah Heller MW is an internationally acclaimed wine expert and visual artist whose work explores the cultural history and multi-sensory experience of wine. She is the Italian wine reviewer for Club Oenologique, Faculty of the Vinitaly International Academy and Wine Editor for Asia Tatler. Sarah has co-hosted the series Wine Masters and Wine Masters Class and has collaborated with Lucaris Crystal on a line of hand-blown glasses.
 
 
 
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/379.

Why is spitting essential if you want to taste wine seriously? What made Hong Kong's wine boom in 2010 feel both extravagant and generous? Does formal wine tasting language strip the emotion out of wine writing?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Sarah Heller.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.
 
Highlights
How did Sarah's wine career almost end before it began?
Why did her accident in southern France strengthen her commitment to the wine industry?
What was it like to represent a restaurant alone at age 20 at the world's largest wine trade fair?
How did an early lesson about spitting wine become a memorable introduction to professional wine culture?
What's the difference between wine marketing and wine education?
What made Hong Kong's wine scene during the 2010s feel both extravagant and unusually generous?
How did Burgundy tastings in Hong Kong highlight the intersection of rarity, money, and shared passion?
How did Sarah's fine art training at Yale shape the way she thinks about wine?
What inspired her to move beyond traditional tasting notes to creating visual tasting notes?
Why does Sarah believe conventional wine descriptors can feel sterile?
How do shape, color, mood, and texture form the foundation of her visual tasting method?
How does the shape of a wine differ between a plush Australian Shiraz and a structured Barolo?
 
Key Takeaways
Why is spitting essential if you want to taste wine seriously?
Sarah: You're really meant to spit when you try wines. There was a little bit of a macho culture around it, like, oh no, real, real, real people don't spit. And I was like, I don't know, that doesn't seem very smart. But, there I was. And so by the end of the day, the people who had been assigned to take me under their wing were decanting me into a taxi. I made it safely home, thank goodness.
What made Hong Kong's wine boom in 2010 feel both extravagant and generous?
Sarah: Something about Hong Kong that I think distinguishes it, certainly from the UK collector scene, which was sort of my reference point to a certain degree, is that people open their bottles. I mean, some people have generational collections, but most people this was the collection they started. They can remember starting it and they want to share it with people. Obviously showing off is part of it, there's no denying that. But there's also an incredible spirit of generosity in wanting to share these incredible treasures that you have in your cellar with everybody around you, with the people that you care about.
Does formal wine tasting language strip the emotion out of wine writing?
Sarah: After having finished the Master of Wine, which is very, very much a bounded problem. You have to accept that this is the way that things are done. It's very directed and clear, which I think is useful if you're trying to create a standardized certification. But having got out on the other side of that and broken my writing style down so that it was as objective as possible and as simple and direct as possible, I was just a bit done with it. I don't want to talk about red versus black fruit. It had become sort of sterile at that point for me. It's not that I don't think people should study that, but it was just the phase that I was in, and I wanted to figure out what my voice was going to be.
 
About Sarah Heller
Sarah Heller MW is an internationally acclaimed wine expert and visual artist whose work explores the cultural history and multi-sensory experience of wine. She is the Italian wine reviewer for Club Oenologique, Faculty of the Vinitaly International Academy and Wine Editor for Asia Tatler. Sarah has co-hosted the series Wine Masters and Wine Masters Class and has collaborated with Lucaris Crystal on a line of hand-blown glasses.
 
 
 
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/378.

Should wine competitions give judges the option to say that none of the wines in a category deserve a medal? Why have some classic regions become inaccessible while others remain within reach for wine drinkers? What does it mean for a wine to gain wisdom as it ages?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Neal Hulkower, a PhD rocket scientist, who has just published his first book, Grape Explications.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.
 
Giveaway
Three of you are going to win a copy of Neal Hulkower's terrific new book, Grape Explications. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you've posted a review of the podcast. I'll choose three people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!
 
Highlights
What was one biostatistician's objection to the way wine competitions were scored?
Why does Neal fundamentally disagree with the view that some judges' opinions should carry more weight?
What are the Power of None and the Stars and Bars method and how do they change the way judges assess competitors?
Why did Neal apply these ranking methods to historic tastings like the Judgment of Paris, and what did the results reveal?
What did revisiting his tasting notebooks from the 1960s and 1970s reveal about wine prices, aging, and accessibility?
How did Neal set a personal ceiling on wine price, and how does that shape what he considers drinkable?
Why have some classic wines remained attainable while others are now priced out of affordability?
How did opening a carefully chosen older bottle reinforce Neal's belief that wine can gain wisdom as it ages?
 
About Neal Hulkower
Neal D. Hulkower is an applied mathematician and freelance writer living in McMinnville, Oregon. His first contributions to a wine publication appeared in the early 1970s. Since 2009, he has been writing regularly about wine-related topics for academic, trade, and popular publications including the Journal of Wine Research, the Journal of Wine Economics, American Wine Society Wine Journal, Oregon Wine Press, Practical Winery & Vineyard, Wine Press Northwest, the Slow Wine Guide USA, and The World of Fine Wine and on wine-searcher.com, trinkmag.com, and guildsomm.com. Neal is a member of the American Wine Society, the American Association of Wine Economists, and the Circle of Wine Writers. His first book, Grape Explications, was released in 2025. He can occasionally be found pouring some of Oregon's finest in a tasting room at the top of the Dundee Hills.
 
 
 
 
 
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/377.

How can a single bottle of wine completely change your understanding of what wine can be? What makes a wine so remarkable that you can almost taste it again in your memory decades later? Why are people drawn to tasting notes even when words can never fully capture the experience of tasting and smelling wine?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I'm chatting with Neal Hulkower, a PhD rocket scientist, who has just published his first book, Grape Explications.
You can find the wines we discussed at https://www.nataliemaclean.com/winepicks.
 
Giveaway
Three of you are going to win a copy of Neal Hulkower's terrific new book, Grape Explications. To qualify, all you have to do is email me at [email protected] and let me know that you've posted a review of the podcast. I'll choose three people randomly from those who contact me. Good luck!
 
Highlights
What surprised Neal most when he reread five decades of his own wine writing while compiling Grape Explications?
How has his palate, perspective, and choice of writing topics evolved throughout his life?
Why did self-publishing matter so much to Neal?
How did Neal's first experience with wine shape his early expectations of wine?
How did tasting classified growth Bordeaux as a college student completely reset his understanding of what wine could be?
How did the Duncan Hines Memorial Bon Vivant Fellowship turn academic milestones into structured wine rituals?
Why did Neal choose a 1959 Steinberger Trockenbeerenauslese to mark his PhD, and what made that bottle unforgettable?
How did keeping meticulous notes help Neal develop his palate and his writing voice?
What pushed him to leave academia for industry?
Which emerging wine regions was Neal exposed to through moving across the US?
What changed when Neal left a high-level technology career to become a freelance wine writer?
How has Neal merged his two passions, wine and mathematics?
 
About Neal Hulkower
Neal D. Hulkower is an applied mathematician and freelance writer living in McMinnville, Oregon. His first contributions to a wine publication appeared in the early 1970s. Since 2009, he has been writing regularly about wine-related topics for academic, trade, and popular publications including the Journal of Wine Research, the Journal of Wine Economics, American Wine Society Wine Journal, Oregon Wine Press, Practical Winery & Vineyard, Wine Press Northwest, the Slow Wine Guide USA, and The World of Fine Wine and on wine-searcher.com, trinkmag.com, and guildsomm.com. Neal is a member of the American Wine Society, the American Association of Wine Economists, and the Circle of Wine Writers. His first book, Grape Explications, was released in 2025. He can occasionally be found pouring some of Oregon's finest in a tasting room at the top of the Dundee Hills.
 
 
 
 
 
To learn more, visit https://www.nataliemaclean.com/376.