UberYour Next Gig: Taming Travis Kalanick?Yik YakYik Yak Officially Calls It QuitsAirbnbAirbnb Will Let California Screen Some Hosts For Racial Biasdonald trump presidencyPeople’s Climate March Fills D.C. Streets On Trump’s 100th DayWalmartWalmart Is Selling This Award-Winning Wine for $7Madeline FarberYou can now get one of the world's best wines at Walmart for a mere $7.La Moneda Reserva—the award-winning Chilean Malbec wine—is set to arrive at 500 different Walmart stores across the nation. Earlier this year, the Malbec won the “platinum best in show” award at the Decanter World Wine Awards, a prestigious wine competition. The cheap wine also beat out 16,000 others in a blind taste test, winning the “2015 Best Red Single-Varietal Under £15” as well.Judges reportedly loved the Malbec for its “freshly crushed black fruit, creamy vanilla yoghurt, and pepper spice," and also said it "presented an excellent freshness." According to Walmart, it's best when paired with barbecued meats, lamb, pork, and dark chocolate.

Before now, the award-winning wine was exclusively offered at the British supermarket chain Asda, a subsidiary of Walmart (wmt), for about $6.29 (£4.37). And since Thrillist reported that the wine promptly sold out at Asda grocery stores after it received the awards, you better act fast: The wine will only be available while supplies last, according to Walmart. Sign in if you're already registered. Vintage showed its trump card in this year’s wine releases, influencing key shifts in the makeup of the 2014 Top 100 list, which includes wines from 14 foreign countries and three U.S. states. California, France and Italy play major roles as in years past, but with an atypical mix of grape varieties and regions. Meanwhile, some countries saw big upticks in their numbers on the list, due to magnificent vintages and continued improvements in the vineyards and wineries. Our editors found dozens of thought-provoking wines among the 18,000 we tasted in 2014. Whether from emerging labels and regions or historic estates upholding tradition, these wines turned our heads for a singularity and authenticity we call the X-factor.

Our selection also prioritizes quality (based on score), value (based on price) and availability (based on the volume of cases either made or imported). best years for wine chartThese criteria were applied to determine the Top 100 from among the more than 5,400 wines that rated outstanding (90 points or higher on Wine Spectator’s 100-point scale) this year.best wine delivery deals Overall, the average score of the wines in this year’s list is 93 points and the average price $47—an excellent quality/price ratio and a slightly lower average price than the 2013 list.wine by post usaAs such, our Top 100 is not a “shopping list,” but rather a guide to wineries to watch in the coming months and years, comprising the producers and wines our editors were particularly passionate about in 2014.best south american wine tours

We hope you enjoy this exciting list of great values, rising stars and veteran producers that make up Wine Spectator’s Top 100 of 2014.food and wine best vegetarian recipesPoliticsHow do you think Trump did in his first 100 days in office? wine for sale france What's the world's best-selling wine book?best 4 week wine kits Anyone in publishing will tell you that wine books just don’t sell. where to buy wine bottles wholesaleReference books like “The Oxford Companion to Wine," edited by Jancis Robinson, yes. best rose wine under £10Wine importer Kermit Lynch’s classic “Adventures on the Wine Route”  or Alice Feiring's "Naked Wine," yes, certainly (there's even a French translation).

Possibly.But single subject wine books, tomes on the science of wine, memoirs of travels in Burgundy or treatises on fermentation yeasts. And yet there is one wine book which has been a mega-seller (11 million copies sold so far around the world) for 38 years: "Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book."Each year, the British wine writer, who penned the first book in 1977, comes out with an updated edition of his wine guide. In a concise, abbreviated text that covers the wine regions of the world, Johnson suggests which vintages to buy, which to drink now and which to put away for a few years, which wine producers to seek out and why. Johnson has a tremendous track record. He wrote his first book  “Wine” in 1966 when he was just 27 and has gone on to write many more in the past four decades, including “The Story of Wine” and “The World Atlas of Wine, co-authored with Jancis Robinson. And now "Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book 2015" (Mitchell Beazley/Octopus, 336 pages, 2014) is here.

His first little pocket wine book came out way before the internet or the era of smartphones when you can look up anything at any moment. For the book, he early on adopted a format similar to the famous French Michelin guides, using symbols and stars along with concise, abbreviated entries to help readers navigate and pack a tremendous amount of information into a book small enough to slip into a pocket or a purse. (It has gotten a bit fatter through the years.) In this year’s introduction, Johnson writes, “All the indications are that orthodoxy in wine has had its day. We are in the Age of Divergence—of regions, grape varieties, winemaking methods and philosophies—and of course tastes.” Amen.The book is also available starting today as an iBook from the iTunes store. Follow @sirenevirbila for more on food and wine. © 2017, Los Angeles TimesIt’s a great opportunity to meet lots of new people.Out of the way Avon and Pampered Chef. Wine is the newest excuse to throw a party, sell things to your friends and neighbours — and make a little money. 

“I tried selling cosmetics and nutritional products, but couldn’t make a go of it,” said Diane Nozik, a 35-year-old mother of two married to an active-duty sailor in the US Navy. Then Nozik had a flash of inspiration after her husband took her to a number of wine tastings “and I really enjoyed them.”Since she had wanted to make a little extra money, without the hassle of storing boxes of goods, Nozik had found the perfect solution.“What I wanted at the beginning was just a product. I didn’t want to have to have an inventory. I didn’t want to have to deliver it. I didn’t want to have to deal with bounced checks,” said Nozik, who now earns more than six figures from her work for WineShop at Home. “I just wanted something that people would like. That it would be fun. That it would be consumable. And that describes a wine tasting. Nozik isn’t alone in her enthusiasm. Around the world, people are seizing the opportunity to work in the wine business through what is known as direct selling.

Similar to an Avon representative who comes to a customer’s home with cosmetics to show, try and sell, representatives who handle direct-to-consumer wines arrive with five or six bottles for a tasting. To comply with various laws, the representatives don’t actually sell the wines. They take orders and send those back to the company, which then handles billing and shipping the wines.While there are no global figures on how many people have turned to direct sales of wines, US wineries have reported a surge in shipments to consumers. According to Wines and Vines, a trade publication, direct-to-consumer winery shipments were up 13% to $1.75b for the 12 months ending in October.St Helena, California-based Boisset Wine Living is less than three years old yet it now has more than 600 “wine ambassadors” throughout 29 US states, says founder Jean-Charles Boisset.Germany’s WIV Wein International AG has been selling wine through home tastings since 1953. In that time it has expanded into 23 countries, including Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.US wine companies that have direct sales programs include WineShop at Home, Boisset Wine Living and Traveling Vineyard.

New sellers pay one-time fees — ranging from $49 to $199 — and in return, the wineries send them a set of glasses, notes about the wines, help in setting up a website and a home business, and depending on the package selected, up to six bottles of wine for the first tasting.Most of the estimated 16.8m direct sellers in the US are women trying to earn extra cash while setting their own schedules, according to the Direct Selling Association. View image of Diane Nozik leads a tasting for clients in California. (Credit: WineShop at Home) In Europe however, “the wine business is a man's world,” said WIV spokeswoman Sandra Beck. WIV has about 2,000 direct sales staff in Europe and those wine consultants do not pay any fees.Founded by the Pieroth family, which has been making wine since the 17th century, WIV  also has a foothold in France and Japan. Since import duties were eliminated in March 2008 in Hong Kong, that region’s wine market has been booming, as has Pieroth’s share of it.

The company’s China website says it has grown by almost 80% in the last four years and it advertises job openings for wine consultants in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.   No matter where wine consultants work, their pay is commission-based. Commissions range from 15% to 40% depending on the amount of wine sold during a month. Wine prices range from $14.50 a bottle all the way up to $200 depending on the company. Each company has a slightly different monthly average sale. On average, a tasting will generate $500 in sales for Traveling Vineyard, $600 in sales for Boisset Wine Living, and $500 for WineShop at Home. Depending on the total at the end of the month, the wine consultant may see as little as $75 for each tasting.Boisset of Boisset Wine Living grew up in his grandfather's vineyards of Burgundy. His business “provide(s) people a way to get into the wine world with minimal costs,” he said. Now “they have the opportunity to get into the wine trade and yet still do what they do.”

Some 70% of direct sellers in the US work 15 hours a week or less, according to a 2014 Harris Poll study for Direct Selling News. The study of 3,549 people found the annual median income for a seller was about $6,200. Some 40% told the researchers they were working to supplement their income, while 23% said they wanted to pay down debt.Business is simple, but not easyJenny Kuzbek was a part-time elementary school teacher living in a small town near Colorado Springs, Colorado, with her husband and three children when she signed up with Traveling Vineyards in March. By late 2014, she had stopped teaching and focused exclusively on direct selling. She holds six tastings a month and the work has provided her with enough income to allow her to be a stay-at-home mother.“One of the things I really like about it is you start with your friends and then you quickly move out to people you don’t know at all, so it’s a great opportunity to meet lots of new people,” Kuzbek said.To be sure, selling isn’t for everyone.

For one, the time spent going to a client’s house and conducting a 3-hour wine tasting event may only result in few dollars in profit. Another drawback is that most consultants are just that and not full-time or part-time employees, While they can enjoy the flexibility, they lack the benefits employees enjoy. Most direct sellers realise this job is good for only short stints. “We do have people who will come into the business for a certain period of time. They come back at the holidays,” said WineShop at Home’s CEO Jane Creed. “People are always coming in and out of the business.”To boost income, Kuzbek is forming her own team of Traveling Vineyard wine guides whom she will help train and mentor. She will earn a slice of their sales, just as her mentor earns a small portion of her sales. None of the wine consultants would disclose their compensation.WineShop at Home’s Nozik is way ahead of her.“My first goal was if I could make $3,000 to $4,000 a month, I would not have to work full-time ever again,” she said.