VINOGRAPHY: a wine blog
Wine and food adventures in San Francisco and around the world
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Garagiste Winemakers of Chile: Introducing MOVI
If I were Hugh Johnson or Jancis Robinson, I could clear my throat and begin my story with a distinguished pronouncement about how I've watched several wine regions around the globe evolve from their infancy to later stages of maturity. But I lack the perspective of someone who's been a professional observer of the industry for decades. While I may not be able to tell you how, exactly, I do know that wine regions evolve over the course of their history, and that Chile finds itself in a particular stage of evolution that most regions probably encounter after a few... continue reading 
- Posted by: Alder on January 23, 2010 11:37 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Ramblings and Rants , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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Jemrose Wines, Bennett Valley, CA: Current Releases
Some people like to go to flea markets, where they will spend hours wandering around the stalls hoping to stumble on something wonderful. I spend hours wandering through huge public wine tastings in much the same way, and every once in a while I stumble across a winery that I've never heard of nor seen before, whose wines pull the needle off the record and bring me up short in breathless surprise. When I first tasted the wines from Jemrose in just such a fashion, they immediately impressed me, not just because they were so high quality, but also because... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 17, 2010 11:50 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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2001 Renaissance Winery Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, North Yuba
Every time I review a wine from some little producer whose wines I adore, I experience a pang of regret, because I know that by writing about these wineries and their wines, I only make them more expensive and harder to acquire for myself (and others). I do occasionally get e-mails from ticked off wine lovers bemoaning the fact that I've divulged one of their secret sources for great wine. But that's just an occupational hazard for me, and doesn't outweigh the joy of being able to say things like this: Listen up people. There is some seriously amazing wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 12, 2010 10:22 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 Potel-Aviron Fleurie Vielles Vignes, Beaujolais, France
Should one of your New Years' resolutions be to broaden your wine horizons without breaking your wine budget, one of the places worth exploring would certainly be Beaujolais. Much maligned, or at the very least avoided -- and rightly so -- by many wine lovers whose experience with Beaujolais consists of a glass of banana-scented Nouveau in November, the region actually produces some truly wonderful wines that can be tremendous values. The Beaujolais region has seen a renaissance of winemaking in the past decade, with many serious, small producers trying to make wines that have much more in common with... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 5, 2010 10:45 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Errazuriz Winery, Chile: Current Releases
The Aconcagua valley presents the first time visitor with a surreal vista. From the flattened floodplain of the valley floor, mountains rise steeply on either side but only their rocky peaks are visible. Starting only a short distance down from their spires, and extending all the way to valley below, the mountains are wreathed in a bumpy, dense green outgrowth that makes them look like they've been carpeted with a dark Astroturf on a grand scale. How someone figured out that they could grow avocados on slopes so steep I'd love to know. But once upon a time they did,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 2, 2010 10:15 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Corison Winery, Napa: Current Releases
It's hard to get attention in the world of wine. Many wineries and winemakers struggle their entire careers for recognition, both deservedly and some, not quite. In the days of big marketing budgets and cult wines that are only figuratively on everyone's lips (and literally on the lips of very few), it's easy to overlook wineries that have quietly been doing their thing for decades. I can't tell you how many times I've driven by the understated Corison Winery on Highway 29 without ever going in. The number must literally be in the hundreds. While I've still not actually stopped... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 29, 2009 9:28 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Veramonte Winery, Chile: Current Releases
It's hard to believe that in the early 1990's less than 100 acres of vineyards were planted in Chile's Casablanca valley. In little more than two decades, this region of Chile has surged in growth and popularity, and is currently producing excellent wines that generally represent excellent values on the world market. The region is currently home to more than 10,000 acres of vineyards. Back when the grape acreage was still in the triple digits Agustin Huneeus decided that the Casablanca valley was one of Chile's most promising wine regions, and that he needed to start making wine there. Not... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 25, 2009 11:47 AM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Olson Ogden Winery, Sonoma: Current Releases
I take a special interest in a particular class of winery. I call them estateless wineries, but they are wineries that have no permanent physical presence. These types of operations have no vineyards, own no buildings, and sometimes don't even own any equipment. Such wineries are most often the result of someone taking small steps towards their personal dream of being in the wine business, and are often sources for great wines at reasonable prices. Olson & Ogden winery is a perfect example of such a label. Proprietor John Ogden worked in the high tech corporate world for most of... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 19, 2009 10:51 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Odfjell Winery, Chile: Current Releases
Many of the people I spoke to in Chile were quite proud of the diverse European immigrant populations that have seeded the country in previous centuries, especially those that brought with them skills, knowledge, and entrepreneurship. Even more recent immigrants, like Norwegian Dan Odfjell are welcomed, especially when they come bearing gifts. Odfjell brought two things to Chile with him. The first was his shipping empire which quickly established itself in Chile's busy ports. The second and perhaps more romantic gift, was the Fjord Horse. While you won't exactly find these horses running around all over Chile, you certainly can't... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 16, 2009 11:59 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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The Best Wines from Chile?: Tasting Notes for Wines over $40
As some of you know, I spent the last week traveling around Chile trying to get a sense of the country and its wines. It was my first trip there and I was quite excited to taste a lot of wine -- education by immersion, so to speak. With that in mind, my hosts for the week, the Wines of Chile organization, pulled together a tasting of what in Chile they refer to as "Icon Wines." These wines are usually the top wines in many wineries' portfolios, in some cases they are the only wines, and they generally retail for... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 6, 2009 10:49 AM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Casa Marín Winery, Chile: Current Releases
For me, great wines always have a story behind them. It can be the story of the people who made it, the place it comes from, the story of how the grapes became the final wine, or a thousand other things that make a wine more than just the flavors and aromas in the glass. The best wines are overflowing with such stories, and discovering them for myself is one of the greatest joys of being a wine lover. In the far reaches of Chile's San Antonio valley, on a road that winds its way over the rolling hills towards... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 2, 2009 7:40 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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2003 Descendientes de J. Palacios "Moncerbal," Bierzo, Spain
This is one of those wines that I live for. The kind that begins with an unknown bottle thrust in front of me by a friend with a twinkle in their eye, and ends with a profound memory of taste that becomes one of those moments that wine lovers cherish. Such wines are not common, at least not for me, but they are what keep me passionate about drinking and writing and enjoying the world of wine. Occasionally still described by romanticizing writers as "off in a forgotten corner of Northwestern Spain," the winegrowing region of Bierzo can no longer... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 17, 2009 11:49 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 Smith Madrone Riesling, Spring Mountain District, Napa
There are more legends, stories, fairytales, and fables than anyone could count that all involve some guy up on a mountainside somewhere. Sometimes a hermit, sometimes a wizard, sometimes a troll -- sometimes just an old man who went to sleep under a tree for a long, long time. No matter what the story, there's always something a little different about the guy on the mountain, something that is both scary and alluring at the same time. Stu Smith might be living out yet another version of one of these tales. The fact that Stu sports a big gray and... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 11, 2009 10:19 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , White Wine , Wine Reviews
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NV Henri Billiot "Cuvee Laetitia" Grand Cru Brut Champagne, Ambonnay, France
It seems that this week has me on a sparkling wine kick, and I see no reason to stop. As I often say (to myself and others who bother to listen): it took me a while to get here, but now I realize that we are all drinking far too little Champagne. These days, the whole world isn't drinking much Champagne, which is why the industry is in a bit of a crisis -- at least the really big players are. But this is not the wine of a big player. To say that Serge Billiot runs a small winery... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 4, 2009 9:03 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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Farmer Fizz: Tasting the Terry Theise Champagne Portfolio
Ask most people to name a good Champagne, and most will likely stall after a couple of well known names like "Cristal" or "Dom Perignon." Like many industries, the world of Champagne (and at this point I'm not talking about sparkling wine in general, but literally the stuff from the Champagne region of France) is represented in the minds of many and the world media by a few mega-brands whose very identities have come to stand for Champagne, and who often literally eclipse many others with their popularity. By some estimates, however, there are more than 3500 producers within... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 3, 2009 10:23 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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2002 Ferrari "Perlé" Blanc de Blancs Sparkling Wine, Trentino, Italy
Who knows what it is, exactly, about sparkling wine that entices us so. But go to any wine region around the world, and you're bound to find someone making sparkling wine there (for better or worse). Most, even the best contenders, have a hard time holding a candle to the benchmarks of Champagne. There are a select few regions and producers outside of France, however, that manage to make sparkling wines that are truly exceptional. Two of them (at least) are in Italy, and this is the story of one of them. At the turn of the 20th century, Champagne... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 31, 2009 10:37 PM
- Filed under: Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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Tasting the Wines of Lodi
I suppose you might measure my enthusiasm (or insanity) for learning about wine by the glee with which I look forward to the opportunities to taste several hundred wines from a particular region, vintage, or variety. The public tastings that afford any wine lover the chance to taste in this fashion are the single most valuable way to educate the palate as well as to find out what's going on in a particular place or vintage. So when the chance came to hang out on Treasure Island for a few hours to taste the wines of Lodi a couple of... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 27, 2009 10:41 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Activities , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Oriel Wines: Current Releases
There are those who suggest that the moment that wine went wrong when it became more than just what a few family members could manage to carefully wring out of a few acres. Wine's romance and magic tends to be bound up in a picture of how wine gets made that increasingly does not accurately portray the reality of today. And with good reason. The world of wine is bigger and more complicated than the local villages it grew up in, and there is both room and reason for there to be many size, shapes, and strategies for wineries throughout... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 20, 2009 9:10 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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The Best Wines of the Year: Tasting the Wine & Spirits Top 100
The difference between a good public wine tasting and a bad one can be quite dramatic. The bad ones are in crappy locations, are poorly organized, offer no food, and only mediocre wines. The good ones are, well, just the opposite -- nicely organized, well catered, and offer great wines. And the best ones? Well, they throw in a jazz quartet, and all you can eat oyster bar, a dessert bar, and wines that sometimes retail for hundreds of dollars, if you can find them, at all. All of which nicely describe the annual Wine and Spirits Top 100... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 17, 2009 9:59 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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2007 Craggy Range "Zebra Vineyard" Pinot Noir, Central Otago, New Zealand
A relatively compact landmass, New Zealand nonetheless seems to possess every possible topography and climate. Tropical rainforests, glaciers, arid plains, high deserts, rich low country farmlands, coastal beaches, and alpine foothills, to name just a few. While the country may perhaps be known best for its cool-climate winegrowing, it should really come as no surprise that its winegrowing regions mirror the diversity of its larger geography. The fact that the country has a growing region with a climate like Bordeaux or Rioja, however, still remains somewhat under the radar for most wine lovers. The Hawke's Bay region of the Northern... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 16, 2009 11:04 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Blackbird Vineyards, Napa: Current Releases
As you likely know, I make it my business to keep my eye on new California wineries, especially in Napa and Sonoma, as much as I can given the fact that I do a lot of other things besides write about wine. Whenever possible, I like to taste the first releases from these wineries. They are not always fantastic - some are good, some show potential, and some simply need to be written off as first efforts and retried again later. That's the thing about wines, just because they're not good now, that doesn't mean they won't be later, and,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 10, 2009 11:45 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Bond Estates, Napa: A Retrospective Tasting
Like the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time I'd heard or read about a winery "sparing no expense" to get the "best possible fruit" to make the "best wine they could," I'd be a rich man. Winery owners and winemakers are like proud parents -- they see the best in their operations, and if they are aware of their flaws or shortcomings, when company is over, they put on their best face. After all, they're ultimately trying to sell wine. As someone who has spent a lot of time visiting wineries, and hearing the owners and... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 7, 2009 11:44 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Perfect 10s , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Tasting Notes for Top Champagnes of the World
You might call me a born-again Champagne fanatic. There was a time when I didn't care for the stuff, but that was only because I had lived my life without ever tasting really good Champagne. Now, unfortunately, I've had the chance to understand the difference between the stuff you can get for $30 and the stuff costing around $200, and I live in a constant bittersweet state of longing that marks the lives of the truly devoted. I've written before about the travesty of wine and its associations with upper class sensibilities in this country. Equally as tragic, and no... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 29, 2009 10:00 PM
- Filed under: Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 S.A. Prüm "Wehlener Sonnenuhr" Riesling Kabinett , Mosel-Saar-Ruwer, Germany
As you know, I think wine reviews should be more than just tasting notes and scores. They should be the stories of the people and the places behind the wines. While the people quite often bring the most life to the story of a wine, sometimes the place, even the vineyard itself, can be the most prominent character in the drama. In the case of this wine, the story consists of the inextricable link between a family and a vineyard. By most accounts, the Prüm family has owned vineyards in and around the town of Wehlen in Germany's Mosel river... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 27, 2009 10:39 PM
- Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Cadaretta Cabernet Sauvignon, Columbia Valley, Washington
I make it my habit to pay attention to new, small wineries. Generally that means seeking them out at public tastings, perking up my ears when I hear the names of wineries I don't know, and approaching each box of unknown wine I get on my doorstep as the potential to be something new and exciting. Generally, whatever you might like to call these efforts of mine, if they can be described as efforts, tend to be focused on California. This has nothing to do with my preferences, so much as it does with where I live, who I know,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 24, 2009 10:46 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Top Wines of Sonoma: Tasting Notes from Sonoma Wine Country Weekend
Two weeks ago, under idyllic clear skies, I joined about 700 other wine lovers to wander around a winery lawn in Sonoma County soaking up the bounty of Sonoma. Known as TASTE Sonoma Weekend, this event combines two previously separate annual events: The Sonoma County Showcase of Wine and Food and the Sonoma Valley Harvest Wine Auction. The main attraction consists of hundreds of wineries and scores of restaurants plying their wares under beautiful white tents set up on the lawns of the Gallo-owned MacMurray Ranch winery. Perhaps one of the single best opportunities to taste through a large swath... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 18, 2009 11:12 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Kutch Wines, Sonoma: Current Releases
Every wine has a story behind it. Some are better than others. Every wine has a dream behind it. Some are bigger than others. While some people are content to drink wine their entire lives, and never once feel the urge to make it, there are those wine lovers who yearn for something more than they get out of even the best bottles. This is the story of a guy whose enthusiasm for wine got the best of him, and whose passion for his dreams got under the skin of some people who couldn't help but show him how to... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 15, 2009 10:59 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Girard Winery "Artistry" Red Wine, Napa
You can often tell just how much someone loves Napa wine from their familiarity with the sub-appellations or American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) that divide the larger Napa Valley into select, smaller sections. Many consumers have heard of the Stag's Leap District, and possibly Rutherford or Oakville, but there are more than ten other AVAs in the Napa Valley. AVAs are not enough for some people, however, especially those that pursue the most expensive and difficult to acquire wines of Napa. Discussions of the finer points of these wines rarely begin with appellations or AVAs. Instead they invoke individual vineyards and... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 13, 2009 9:17 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The World's Best Sake: Tasting at the Joy of Sake Soiree 2009
One of the public wine tastings I most look forward to every year doesn't serve a single drop of wine. There aren't many opportunities (OK, there are almost none) to taste a large number of high quality sakes anywhere outside of Japan, let alone here in San Francisco. Which is why I make an annual pilgrimage to a yearly event called the Joy of Sake, which is effectively the largest sake tasting outside of Japan. This event highlights the finalists and winners of something called the Annual U.S. Sake Appraisal, which is the largest (and only?) sake competition held outside... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 12, 2009 8:04 PM
- Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews
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California's Best Boutique Wines: Tasting Family Winemakers 2009
For those unfamiliar, Family Winemakers is a marketing association that represents family owned wineries throughout California. By virtue of its focus, this means that the membership consists of many of California's boutique wine producers. The annual tasting put on by the association every year claims (with reasonable credibility) to be the single largest tasting of California wines in the world each year, and remains one of my favorite wine tasting events. This tasting has become a victim of its own success, however, and has grown to a simply unmanageable size. Unmanageable, that is, for anyone looking to thoroughly explore the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 6, 2009 10:12 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Anaba Wines, Sonoma: Inaugural Releases
One of my greatest pleasures remains the surprise and delight of opening the very first wines made by a new winery and discovering in them both enjoyment and the signs of great potential. Alas, such pleasures are only occasional, which make them all the more exciting when they do occur. My latest opportunity to celebrate the beginnings of a new winery came at the hands of a few bottles that showed up on my doorstep bearing the name Anaba in beautiful looping script. I was immediately intrigued to note that the first releases from this new Sonoma County winery were... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 31, 2009 10:47 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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2001 Gravner "Anfora" Ribolla Gialla, Friuli, Italy
When it comes to winemaking there's New World, and there's Old World. There's new school, and of course, there's old school. And then there are a select few people and wines who make the old school winemakers look like young tykes with newfangled toys. In a world where "traditional" or "natural" winemaking has now become a self imposed designation of the most extreme proponents of biodynamic and non-interventionalist winemaking, Josko Gravner puts them all to shame. These people proclaim how in touch they are with the "traditional" methods of winemaking, but they're still using what Gravner would call modern technology:... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 29, 2009 9:56 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , White Wine , Wine Reviews
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Patz & Hall Winery, Napa: Current Releases
The story of two friends drinking late into the evening and fantasizing of one day owning their own winery has been reenacted countless times over the past few decades in California. Remarkably, though, these dreams have frequently become a reality. Countless wineries spring forth from the passion and hard work of "just a couple of friends" and a surprising number of them become great successes. Maybe after watching this phenomenon for twenty more years I may be able to pin down the reason that so many wineries that begin as passing fancies, even in the heads of people who are... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 25, 2009 10:57 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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2005 Savanna "Sogno Due" White Wine, Campania, Italy
Despite all kinds of advice to the contrary, we continue to judge our books by the cover and our wines by the label. As humans we find it quite hard to turn off the part of our brains that rushes to judgment based on the surface of things. Presumably our lightning-quick opinions were advantageous to us at some point in evolutionary history, to the point that our first impressions are often so powerful we can't move past them. From racial stereotypes to celebrity obsession, we're often captives to our own psychology, whether we like it or not. So tell me,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 22, 2009 7:34 PM
- Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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2007 Quivira Vineyards "Wine Creek Ranch" Grenache, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma
If there's one thing you can bet on in the wine industry, it's change. Nothing stays the same for long -- that goes as much for any of business aspects of the industry as it does the conditions from vintage to vintage. Despite this variation, our judgments as consumers about wineries and their wines tend to be absolute. Casual wine drinkers are likely to treat wines like candy bars -- they taste them once and if they don't like them, they never buy again. There's a certain amount of sense to this, and it certainly fits my mantra of "life's... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 16, 2009 9:55 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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1994 Zind-Humbrecht "Brand" Riesling, Alsace, France
For anyone who drinks Alsatian wines on a regular basis, let alone someone who considers themselves a fan or an aficionado of the unique wines from this narrow slice of northeastern France, it's pretty much impossible to have a discussion about the area without the name Zind-Humbrecht coming up. While everyone is reticent to pronounce any one winery "the best" no matter which region you're talking about, many people would be hard pressed to find a reason why you couldn't say that Zind-Humbrecht has the position fairly well covered for Alsace. The Humbrecht family has a long history in winemaking,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 9, 2009 11:20 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , White Wine , Wine Reviews
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Piña Napa Valley: Current Releases
If one were to speculate on the wine market as a savvy investor might in the small-cap stock market, the game would be the same: follow people you know with good track records. In the wine world, we'd also have to include a corollary about betting on great vineyard sites, but leaving aside the raw materials, it's clear that most good wines don't happen by accident. They're made by talented people. Finding talented people in Napa isn't hard at first. There are a lot of them, many of whom have big brand names. When they start working for a winery,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 8, 2009 10:32 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Last Drops: Miscellaneous Tasting Notes from IPNC 2009
I like to tell people that when it comes to reviewing wines, my tasting notes are the least important part of the wine review. As you know, I like to focus on story: the people, places, and history behind a wine. But sometimes, I get the opportunity to taste a lot of really damn good wine, and I can't simply do individual reviews of all the wines because I haven't got the time. So on rare occasions, I write a little report like this one. If you recall from last week and the prior weekend, I spent a couple of... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 5, 2009 11:38 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Patton Valley Vineyard, Willamette Valley: Current Releases
When it comes to wineries I generally know I'm in for something good when I drive down a long dirt road (unsure if I'm headed in the right direction) and finally come upon some vineyards and a couple of small aluminum barns with harvest bins stacked outside. For many small winery operations, the barrel storage, the lab, the office, and the tasting room are all under one corrugated roof. I had the pleasure of winding my way down just such a road on a rainy Autumn day three years ago to arrive at the little operation that is Patton Valley... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 2, 2009 10:16 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Tasting Oregon Riesling...At the International Pinot Noir Celebration?
Adulterous. Maybe a little sneaky, and a tiny bit rebellious. There I was at the International Pinot Noir Celebration in Oregon -- a whole weekend dedicated to the glory of Oregon Pinot Noir and it's Burgundy forebears -- when someone in a trench coat pulled me aside and whispered, "Hey buddy, wanna taste some Riesling?" The thought, frankly, couldn't have been the furthest thing from my mind at that point. But when the shadowy figure suggested that this was a nearly comprehensive tasting of all the Rieslings made in the state of Oregon, give or take a few, my interest... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 30, 2009 11:00 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , White Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Notes from the Al Fresco Tasting at IPNC 2009
I go to a lot of wine tastings, and have come to really appreciate those that are done right. It may not be immediately apparent how easily a large public tasting can be screwed up, but all it takes is one small thing to make it a really miserable experience. For instance, a lack of spit buckets has turned more than one big tasting event into a nightmare. The spacing of the tables, the labeling of the stations, the number of wines available, the availability of water, the offering of food, the temperature of the building -- these can all... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 27, 2009 9:58 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Oregon's International Pinot Noir Celebration: Day One
Under the towering trees and across the sprawling green lawns of Linfield College in the little town of McMinnville, Oregon, several hundred people are plowing through the International Pinot Noir Celebration at the kind of pace you would expect for 80 degree days filled with Pinot Noir and good company. My day began with breakfast on the lawn and a welcome by Master of Ceremonies Jancis Robinson. Jancis recounted her memories of past IPNC attendances, going back to the early years of the festival, which was pioneering in its singular focus on Pinot Noir. Perhaps the most interesting moment in... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 24, 2009 7:40 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Arista Winery, Russian River Valley: Current Releases
Given the chance, I highly recommend anyone to make the investment of time and money to watch a winery evolve from its very first vintage. It doesn't take much, just buying a bottle or two every year from a brand new winery that you think shows some promise, and then drinking them. Such observation is a wonderful study in personality. You get to see, or perhaps more accurately, taste, how a winemaker settles into a winery and its vineyards, and how he or she begins to express whatever it is that can be expressed through the wines. I've had the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 17, 2009 9:49 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 Point Concepcion "Celestina" Pinot Grigio, Santa Barbara County
I make it my habit to seek out and try a particular kind of wine that flies well under the radar of most wine lovers. Indeed, this kind of wine is all but unknown to most, yet some of my favorite wines in the world fall into this category -- a category that is not included in any book, classification, or encyclopedia of wines anywhere. These wines have something very special in common. Not the grapes used, nor the soils on which they are grown; not the country they come from, nor the climate in which they are grown. The... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 12, 2009 10:14 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Pink Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Domaine Tempier, Bandol, France: Current Releases
There are two types of people in the world, the joke goes: those who believe the world can be divided into two types of people and those who don't. Substitute wine for people and you might just as easily be charting those who firmly believe in the wall of tradition, history, and style that divides the so called Old World, from the New World. In principle, I object to a wine world so starkly divided, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't occasionally resort to the use of these labels and the generalizations they imply to make a... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 9, 2009 10:30 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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Lang & Reed Wine Company, Napa: Current Releases
All of us wine lovers inevitably discover, in the course of our explorations, our own secret wineries. These are the wines that we hold close to our chest, revealing them to those with whom we share only our choicest of morsels, which often include such things as parking spaces, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and great movies and books. As I'm in the business of sharing great wine with readers all the time, I can't really afford to hold much back. But I'd be lying if I told you I had reviewed or written about all my most favorite wineries around the world.... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 6, 2009 10:08 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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2007 J. Rochioli "River Block" Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
It took me a long time in my evolution as a wine lover to truly understand the amount of money and sweat and energy that goes into building a world class winery over decades, even centuries. Many wine lovers early in their education (and in their earning power) are often flummoxed by prices for wines that start to head north of $80 or $90 per bottle. Should they pursue their love of wine long enough to really learn (and see for themselves) what kind of work goes into some of the world's best vineyards, and to taste the wine that... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 2, 2009 9:46 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Joy of Spätlese: Tasting the 2008 German and Austrian Vintage from Terry Theise
The wine world needs more people like Terry Theise, the man I call the Shakespeare of Terroir. It's so easy to get caught up in the stuffy, over-intellectualized world of wine geekery, where people endlessly debate the smallest aspects of winemaking or vintage ratings. All of us who spend enough time talking, thinking, and reading about wine get sucked into that world occasionally. But I find myself attracted to those who fall into that trap with the least regularity. As luck would have it, there are several simple cures for me readily at hand whenever I forget that wine is... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on July 1, 2009 11:09 PM
- Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best Pinot Noir in California?: Tasting Pinot Days 2009
The Pinot Days grand tasting event, which took place yesterday at Fort Mason in San Francisco, brings together one of the largest collections of Pinot Noir producers in North America for the tasting pleasure of the public. I was interested to see whether attendance at this year's event would be noticeably lower, but if it was, I couldn't tell. The place seemed just as packed as ever, which is a good thing -- the California wine industry needs all the help it can get in this recession. So needless to say, I was in good company tasting yesterday with 3500... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 29, 2009 10:32 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Giacomo Conterno Barolo and Barbera: Italy's Greatest Wines?
Because of our deep history with wine, the standards by which we judge today's efforts must be placed within the context of tradition. While we can judge California Pinot Noir on its own merits, we cannot understand or evaluate it completely without reference to Burgundy, its ancestral home. Burgundy will always be the benchmark for Pinot Noir, as it has been for centuries. Just as there exist regional benchmarks for grape varieties or wine styles, there also exist some individual wine producers, and even individual wines, that manage to define the uppermost limits of quality or the epitome of a... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 27, 2009 10:07 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Denshu Hyakuyonju "140" Junmai Daiginjo, Aomori Prefecture
By W. Blake Gray One of the main characteristics of Japanese is its vagueness. Language is culture, and Japanese helps people get along in crowded, resource-poor cities by preventing hard feelings in conversation. Here's a good example of how this works: In a business meeting, everyone sits around the table vaguely feeling out each others' position until eventually everyone realizes what they're expected to say. Thus the first and only vote is almost always unanimous. Here's a more frustrating example: I think this sake is named "140" (hyakuyonju) because it's the 140th attempt at crossing Aomori's native Hanafubuki rice with... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on June 24, 2009 9:42 PM
- Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews
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2006 Hourglass "Blueline Estate" Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa
There is no single recipe for greatness when it comes to Napa wine, but starting with a great plot of land can take you a long way. The only problem is, a lot of people don't necessarily know a great plot of land when they see one. Sometimes these plots of land can be hidden in plain sight until the right person comes along to notice. When Jeff Smith's father moved the family to St. Helena in 1964, he wasn't thinking about wine, he was thinking about real estate development. He was also thinking about the tiny trickle of tourists... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 17, 2009 9:55 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Hall "Exzellenz" Sacrashe Vineyard Proprietary Red Wine, Rutherford, Napa
The pleasures of childhood call to us as adults. The tug of nostalgia is so great that we so often find ourselves indulging in little things that remind us of our early years, and in some cases we throw ourselves passionately into the pursuit of the things we have lost. Kathryn Hall lost the vineyard that was her childhood playground. Despite having managed the vineyard for nearly a decade, letting it go after her father's death was the right thing to do. But her memories of growing up among the grape vines in Redwood Valley, coupled with her enduring love... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 13, 2009 11:57 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Fontanella Family Wines, Napa: Inaugural Releases
When it comes to family-run wineries, I always enjoy seeing how the many different roles and responsibilities involved in a full-fledged winery are divvied up among the family. Often, the winery benefits from the luck of a child that has gone into marketing as a career, or a sibling that has gone back to school to learn about enology. The combined skills, passion, and familial bond that makes such wineries tick can sometimes make for quite a powerful operation. I don't think I've ever seen quite the combination represented by Jeff and Karen Fontanella. They're just a young couple in... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 10, 2009 10:53 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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2004 Erba Mountainside Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa
In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of science fiction books, the main character has invented a science called Psychohistory for predicting the behavior of large groups of people. And by large groups, I mean the entire galaxy. Based partly in sociology, partly in history, and heavily in math, the psychohistorians have developed algorithms that can be used to figure out what big groups of people will do in any situation. I'm not so sure there isn't some sort of algorithm that we might be able to construct to figure out the kind of person (apart from trained winemakers or wine business... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 6, 2009 9:51 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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Flowers Winery, Sonoma Coast: Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs
I love the places where wine grows in spite of the adversity heaped upon it by the place, the climate, and the geology. I also love the places where wine grows despite all conventional wisdom to the contrary -- the places everyone else avoided, but where visionary winegrowers and winemakers have staked their claims and bet their futures. Often times these two types of places are one in the same. Call them extreme vineyard sites. The places that most people would dismiss as infeasible for making wine, for one reason or another. Some of these places stay extreme, and the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on June 2, 2009 11:18 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Jack Larkin Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa
The allure of Napa is legendary, even clichéd. The wine country lifestyle, or whatever you want to call it, combined with the love of wine has inspired countless people to sell everything they own and head to Napa to try and live their own personal wine dream. There must be people who simply flounder and fail in these endeavors. Like many of the unfortunate, their stories never surface for most of us. We tend to only hear about those that succeed in turning their dreams into reality. Yet I continue to be astonished at just how many people seem to... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 30, 2009 10:46 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best Wine in Washington State: Notes from Taste Washington 2009
The first week of April I got the opportunity to do an "immersion" course in Washington State wine. No, this didn't involve repeatedly dunking me in a vat of wine, amusing though that would have been. Rather, it involved attending the annual Taste Washington wine festival in Seattle. I flew up to Seattle for two reasons. I was asked to give a seminar at the event, which I gladly did, focusing on wineries that made their wine in unconventional places like garages, barns, airplane hangers, fire houses, etc. But mostly I was excited for the opportunity to taste a ton... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 27, 2009 11:17 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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Peay Vineyards, Sonoma Coast: Current Releases
As a wine reviewer who gets paid next to nothing for his work, I have the luxury of only reviewing wines that I think are worth writing about. I've got no deadlines, no quotas to fill, and no obligation to anyone. All of which means that it's always a great pleasure to say nice things about a wine or wines that I enjoy. But this is perhaps the most pleasurable kind of review I write. The review of a winery whose wines I can safely say are all spectacularly good -- so good that I will simply buy any wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 18, 2009 11:28 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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2005 Peacock Family Cabernet Sauvignon, Spring Mountain District, Napa
I have a hard spot in my heart for peacocks. Spending summers with my father in Sonoma County as a kid, we had a neighbor with a bunch of peacocks that would wander over towards our house and hang out in the trees nearby. Beautiful birds? Yes. But they also have an incredibly loud, piercing call that at 5:00 AM makes you wonder what peacock stew tastes like. I recently learned what Peacock wine, er, rather Peacock Family wine tastes like, and we won't hold the bird's reputation against Christopher and Betsy Peacock, because the wine they're making from their... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 16, 2009 9:33 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2003 Adagio "Premium" Malbec, Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina
Every time Spring rolls around, I find myself thinking wistfully of Argentina. I spent a wonderful three weeks there a few years ago just after the harvest eating, drinking, and generally appreciating everything about the country. Now, especially as our family budget gets tighter, I reminisce about amazing dinners for $25 and great bottles of wine for $15. So I dug through my notes a little just for nostalgia's sake and found a really nice wine that I discovered while I was there, but didn't end up writing about for some reason. I had asked the sommelier at Cabaña Las... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 5, 2009 10:38 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Outpost Wines, Napa: Current Releases
To the casual visitor or inexperienced wine lover, Napa may just be a name on a bottle, or a vision of vineyards stretched between Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail. But like many wine regions, Napa is only a word on a map and an official designation for a group of winegrowing regions that, at times, seem to have little in common. The extreme variations of climate, soils, and topography among the various sections of Napa County make the subdivision of the region into separate AVA's (American Viticultural Areas) an inevitability. The variety of terroirs represented by these 14... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on May 3, 2009 10:59 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 Morgan "Metallico" Chardonnay, Monterey
It's not a huge leap from veterinary medicine to winemaking, and that leap is made even shorter when you're enrolled at UC Davis which happens to be the top school in the nation for both. Dan Lee initially thought he wanted to work with animals, but a few courses as electives during his vet school tenure were enough to convince him to immediately enroll in the Enology program as soon as he finished his undergraduate degree. While he still loves animals, Dan hasn't looked back, graduating and continuing on to become a winemaker for Jekel and Durney (now Heller... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 29, 2009 9:41 PM
- Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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2005 François Blanchard "Violoncelite" Cabernet Franc, Touraine, France
Perhaps some of the most interesting wines in the world are made by cranks, crackpots, and wackos -- iconoclasts that keep time to their own secret rhythms and make wine in ways that often make sense only to them. You might say that I'm a collector of such wines and winemakers, in the same way that young boys collect baseball cards. And today I'll add another to my growing menagerie of eccentric visionaries that make extraordinary wine. François Blanchard is a jazz musician who one day found himself the owner of his family's (somewhat decrepit) wine estate and decided that... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 25, 2009 11:04 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Tasting the Wines of Mendocino
The wine regions of California are in various states of evolution when it comes to marketing themselves as a region. The best known areas, namely Napa and Sonoma, have been long organized and motivated to promote their regions as a whole, marketing their geographies like brands, with great success. This success derives from both their maturity as wine regions, as well as the concentration of wineries (and therefore funding for such initiatives) in each. Other wine regions of California continue to evolve, of course, and are doing their best to increase their visibility and identities in the minds of wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 14, 2009 11:39 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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The World's Best Kosher Wine?: Tasting The Covenant
The more stories I hear about how some wineries get started, the more I tend to think that by far the best way to start a wine brand is almost by accident. Ten years ago if you had told wine writer Jeff Morgan that he'd eventually be making the best (and most expensive) Kosher wine in the world, he would have probably fallen off his chair laughing. At that point, his exposure to Kosher wine consisted of the seven consecutive years he wrote (what he says was) essentially the same story on Kosher wine for the Wine Spectator. I'm not... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 9, 2009 10:20 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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1999 Washington State Cabernet: Perspectives and Tasting Notes
This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Taste Washington, the state's annual showcase of its wines. My ratings for the more than 200 Washington wines I tasted will take some time for me to transcribe and tabulate, and will be posted here on Vinography later this week. In the meantime, however, I thought I'd share my tasting notes from one the seminars I had the opportunity to attend during the first day of the festival, a look back at some top Washington Cabernets from 10 years ago, and a comparison with their recent 2006 vintage. Moderated by Bob... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 5, 2009 11:12 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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New Cabernets from Napa
When I was a kid, I wanted to be an archaeologist or an exploratory marine biologist. I had dreams of discovering lost civilizations or new species in the oceans or jungles. I never quite managed to fulfill that dream, but I have managed to channel some of that passion into the discovery of new wines. In the past few years, there has been an explosion of new wineries in Napa. Other than the market forces that made making Napa wine pretty attractive, and therefore something people wanted to try, I'm not entirely sure what might be responsible for this serious... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on April 2, 2009 10:42 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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Merry Edwards Wines, Russian River Valley: Single Vineyard Pinot Noirs
Meredith "Merry" Edwards drives an SUV with a license plate that matches the title on her business card: Reina de Pinot. With far too few female winemakers in this country, claiming to be the Queen of Pinot might not involve much competition no matter what your real qualifications. But anyone would be hard pressed to find a woman winemaker in the Western Hemisphere that has more experience growing and making Pinot Noir than Merry Edwards. Frankly, there aren't many winemakers, men or women, that have been making Pinot in the state of California for more than thirty years. Edwards started... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 24, 2009 10:41 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best Italian Wines: Tasting Tre Bicchieri 2009
I pride myself on my broad tastes in wine. I like wine from everywhere, and don't believe I have a specific bias towards one region or another. However, each year, that claim is shaken a little bit as I emerge from what is one of the best wine tasting events held in San Francisco, The Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri tasting. For those unfamiliar with the Gambero Rosso, it is essentially an organization focused on the promotion and evaluation of Italian food and wine that each year publishes a guide by the same name. The Gambero Rosso is the Italian Wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 19, 2009 11:00 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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2007 Burgundy: Tasting the Frederick Wildman and Sons Portfolio
The average wine drinker doesn't think much about distributors and importers. And why should she? There's not much need to interact with the folks behind the scenes who are responsible for getting wine into stores and restaurants where the public gets a chance to try them. Despite a general lack of familiarity with this whole tier of the wine industry, it should come as no surprise to most wine drinkers that there are a lot of different kinds of wine distribution companies. Just as there are different kinds of wine retailers, from the corner liquor store to the highest-end wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 8, 2009 10:43 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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Rivers-Marie Winery, Sonoma Coast: Current Releases
The creation of a new winery is always an exciting thing, especially when it is founded with the goal of being small, conscientious, and expressive of a particular place and grape. Like turning the corner in a new neighborhood and discovering a tiny shop that sells exquisite crafts, or finding a hole in the wall restaurant that serves the perfect version of a favorite dish, tasting great wine from a recently begun boutique winery is one of my favorite experiences in the world. We hear a lot (and I certainly write a lot) about wineries or wine labels that represent... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on March 2, 2009 10:19 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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The Best Cabernet In Napa: Tasting Premiere Napa Valley 2009
One of my favorite events each year involves the opportunity to sample some of the best wines that Napa produces in a given vintage. At Premiere Napa Valley, an auction that serves as the world's most expensive "bake sale" to support the efforts of the non-profit Napa Valley Vintners Association, journalists like me get a chance to sneak a taste of hundreds of unique wines that are purchased by the nation's top wine retailers at staggeringly high prices. This year, as every year, 200 member wineries each crafted a unique auction lot of wine that in most cases represents the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 25, 2009 10:17 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Kapcsándy Family Winery, Napa: Current Releases
Napa has a way of turning modest dreams into major productions. Lou Kapcsándy and his wife Bobbie decided to retire to Napa mostly out of nostalgia for the picnics and wine tasting they used to do as a young married couple living in Sausalito. Forty years after the first of these romantic escapes, their retirement dream included only a little cottage with at most an acre or so of vines, so Lou could putter in the garage and make a barrel or two of wine from his backyard fruit. Three years after the family, including their son Louis, made the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 21, 2009 8:40 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best Zinfandel in California: Tasting ZAP 2009
In this tough economic climate, people are spending less on the discretionary side of their budgets. If you had asked me to make predictions, I would have told you that this would likely have led to fewer people attending this year's ZAP Zinfandel festival. Certainly market data are showing us that people are buying less expensive wines, and I would have thought that meant spending $69 for a chance to taste a whole lot of Zinfandel would be hard to justify. But the line snaking around the edge of the parking lot, and the crowds inside proved me entirely wrong... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 16, 2009 10:03 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2005 Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon, Howell Mountain, Napa
I've been drinking wine for more than 30% of my life at this point, taking notes on wine for ten years, and writing this blog for five, but despite that fact, it's not exactly common for me to be able to say with certainty that I've tasted every vintage of a particular wine made by any one winery. Even those wineries whose inaugural vintages debuted since Vinography became a going concern I am generally not able to taste their wines with regularity every single year. But there are a few wineries whose wines I have been buying and tasting since... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 8, 2009 8:02 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best of Brunello: Tasting the Latest Wines from Montalcino
Anyone who doesn't fall even just a little bit in love with Tuscany the first time they visit should probably be locked away from the world. There's something magical about the place that suffuses every bit of the landscape, the food, the people, and the very air. The first time I visited with (then girlfriend) Ruth we managed to hit it perfectly at the peak of Spring -- the hills were green, the poppies in full bloom, little puffy clouds in the sky, 80 degrees... you get the picture. Makes me misty-eyed just thinking about it. While we were there,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on February 1, 2009 3:55 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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2007 Cooper Mountain Vineyards "20th Anniversary Reserve" Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon
One of the great pleasures of wine appreciation will always be the process of tasting the wine of a single winery over a very long span of time. Tracking the products of a winery's labor over the years can be remarkably rewarding regardless of whether the experience is one of consistency, or of progress and change. I've only had the pleasure of tasting the last two vintages of wine from a little family winery in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Despite my recent introduction to Cooper Mountain Vineyards, I can almost taste the twenty years that came before this, their 20th vintage.... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 29, 2009 10:36 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best 2006 Bordeaux: Tasting the Union des Grands Crus
Every Spring the wine world begins to buzz with the anticipation of tasting through the latest vintage of Bordeaux. I've never been to the En Primeurs tastings, but I would like to go sometime to see the pomp and circumstance, but not really to taste the wines. Young Bordeaux are some of the most difficult and unpleasant wines to taste in the entire universe, especially when they're not made particularly well. A tasting of the 2006 vintage a few days ago, sponsored by the Union de Grands Crus des Bordeaux, was a both a good reminder to not open any... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 26, 2009 11:30 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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2004 Domaine de la Bouissiere Gigondas, France
The best known and highest quality wines of the world continue to get more expensive over time. This is a function of the increasing value of their brands, the increasing recognition of the regions they are grown in, and the rising demand for top tier wines. These price and popularity gains filter down from the most well known wines to those that are slightly less well known, producing the aggregate effect of price increases in most of the world's famous wine regions, at least for the wines that represent the upper end of the regions production. As a result, regions... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 17, 2009 10:14 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Croatian Wine: Some Tasting Notes
There are a lot of wine regions I have yet to visit in the world, and with a young child I don't think I'll be getting to many in the next few years. But now that I've ticked South Africa off the list (a list that I've never really sat down to write), the region at the top may very well be Croatia. And this was before I tasted through the recent case of Croatian wines that arrived on my doorstep. Now that I've tasted them, I'm kicking myself for not dragging myself and Ruth there while we were childless.... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 13, 2009 11:03 PM
- Filed under: Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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2003 Smith Madrone Cabernet Sauvignon, Spring Mountain District, Napa
There are more legends, stories, fairytales, and fables than anyone could count which all involve some guy up on a mountainside somewhere. Sometimes a hermit, sometimes a wizard, sometimes a troll -- sometimes just an old man who went to sleep under a tree for a long, long time. No matter what the story, there's always something a little different about the guy on the mountain, something that is both scary and alluring at the same time. Stu Smith might be living out yet another version of one of these tales. The fact that Stu sports a big gray and... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 10, 2009 6:23 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Kubota Manju (Junmai Daiginjo), Niigata Prefecture
When people often ask me how I "got into wine" I have a sense that they are expecting me to relate some story of a revelatory mouthful -- that one wine which struck me like a lightning bolt and sent me down the path to become the wine fanatic that I am today. Strangely, I possess no story like that about wine. I remember merely a pastiche of many special and prosaic moments with wine that have gradually led to me to the depths of my current passion. I do, however, have a story like that about how I fell... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 5, 2009 10:18 PM
- Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews
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Alfred Gratien Champagne, Epernay, France: Current Releases
The more good Champagne I have, the more it seems to me that you really get what you pay for. Unfortunately, what you have to pay for the really good stuff is out of the reach of most wine lovers, which was why I didn't like Champagne until several years after I started getting into wine. Now I love it, but only because I've been able to taste Champagnes like these. Alfred Gratien represents an interesting class of Champagne producer. When we speak of those who make Champagne, we most often talk about the Champagne "Houses" -- the massive brands... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on January 3, 2009 10:50 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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Two Hands Wine, Barossa, Australia: Current Releases
One of the things I love about the wine world is the way in which it rewards people with vision, initiative, talent, and above all, passion. I find it magical that someone can fall in love with wine, and decide that the most important thing for them to do for the rest of their lives is to make wine, and then actually make a living following that passion. Maybe the same thing happens in a lot of industries, but you just don't hear such stories about accounting. Or maybe we only ever hear about the success stories in the wine... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 24, 2008 8:45 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2007 Rosemount Estate Show Reserve Chardonnay, Mudgee, Australia
In this day and age of farmers markets, boutique stores, and micro-breweries, it's easy for the upwardly mobile wine lover to forget that there are a lot of great wines on the market that are made in quantities well north of 5000 cases. There are big wine companies that make great wine, and big wine companies that make lousy wine. And some that do both. I've had mixed luck with Rosemount Estate wines throughout the years. I've had some wines that were everything I wanted them to be, and others that sent me running for the hills. In particular I... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 22, 2008 10:33 PM
- Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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2002 Bressan "Special Bottling" Pinot Nero, Friuli, Italy
I'm not entirely sure why some of the best wines in the world are made by people who are more than a little crazy, but there are enough wacko winemakers out there to make it clear that the connection between great wine and reclusive eccentrics is more than mere coincidence. Even more telling are the number of these "eno savants" (to perhaps coin a phrase) that live in Friuli, in northeast Italy. Once upon a time, there was no Italy, there was only the river Isonzo, winding its way down out of the Alps towards the Adriatic sea. From the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 7, 2008 10:04 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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1996 J. Rochioli "West Block" Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are wineries that are born great, those that achieve greatness, and those that have greatness thrust upon them. To explain: some fantastic wineries are started by people who are superstars already, and it hardly seems to matter what they do -- these properties are destined for success. Some top wineries seem to come from nowhere, and indeed have greatness thrust upon them, when out of the blue, their wine scores highly somewhere and they are vaulted from obscurity to fame. The majority of the best wineries in the world, however, fall into Malvolio's second category through... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on December 6, 2008 11:55 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Jean-Paul Thevenet "Vielles Vignes" Morgon, Beaujolais, France
The wine industry spends a lot of time and energy fighting for the attention of global consumers. In particular, they've tried hard to market seasonally to consumers, but they just can't quite compete with the likes of Oktoberfest for beer drinkers. The best that the wine industry has been able to come up with sends even the most tolerant wine lovers running for cover every November, as the rollout of Beaujolais Nouveau reaches ever more spectacular heights of commercial bling. It would be one thing if the wine was even somewhat drinkable. But these days, what passes for Beaujolais Nouveau... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 26, 2008 10:49 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Williams Selyem "Hirsch Vineyard" Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast
We don't have a Cru classification in California (we just have mailing lists and release prices) but there are a few vineyards in the state that would most certainly be at the top of the list. Their names are well known to those wine lovers who can afford the generally expensive wines they produce, and one of them is unquestionably the Hirsch Vineyard. First planted in 1980 by farmer David Hirsch, the Hirsch Vineyard is located on the mountain ridges above the northern California town of Fort Ross at 1500 feet above the ocean surface and 3.5 miles as the... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 23, 2008 9:40 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2004 E. Guigal "Chateau d'Ampuis" Côte-Rôtie, Northern Rhone, France
One of the greatest experiences that a wine lover can encounter is a wine that stops them in their tracks. I'll admit that I'm excitable in general, but there's nothing that gets me quite so giddy as a schoolboy as when I stumble across a wine that truly bowls me over. Such wines are the closest I get anymore to the emotions of that first passionate kiss in a new relationship -- they electrify me. While the world slows down to a crawl around me, all I want to do is stick my nose in the glass and inhale slowly.... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 18, 2008 10:36 PM
- Filed under: Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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The Best South African Wines, Part II: Cape Wine 2008 Scores
I went to South Africa to learn about South African wine, and the primary way for me to do that is to taste. So taste I did -- probably more than 500 wines by the end of the week -- spending two full days going from booth to booth at the Cape Wine 2008 expo trying to taste a wide cross section of South African wine while at the same time making sure to hit some of the producers I knew were among South Africa's best. The end result? Scores for more than 350 wines, and a very rapid education... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 16, 2008 10:11 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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1999 Perrier Jouet "Cuvee la Belle Epoque" Brut Champagne, Epernay, France
As some of you know, there was a time when I didn't really care for Champagne. But like so many preferences formed early in our lives, it turns out that I just hadn't had the good stuff. Unfortunately for my pocketbook, I eventually did find out what all the fuss was about, and now I enjoy it immensely. That is, as long as it is good. And good Champagne, invariably means expensive. I run the risk of coming off as snobbish, or at the very least elitist by saying this, but more so than most wines, you really get what... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 12, 2008 10:05 PM
- Filed under: Sparkling Wine , Wine Reviews
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2006 Handley Cellars "Hein Vineyard" Pinot Blanc, Anderson Valley
California's Anderson Valley remains one of its least known and most under-appreciated wine regions. In particular I believe it to be under-appreciated for its Pinot Noir, in particular, and in some cases, its Alsatian varieties of wine. I offer a slight caveat to the latter because while Anderson Valley is certainly known for producing wines in the style and varieties of those found in Alsace, France, in my experience they are mixed in quality. But when winemakers manage to get things right, Anderson Valley can produce some stunning examples of wines that might, in the right circumstances be mistaken for... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on November 8, 2008 11:28 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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2007 York Creek Vineyards Touriga Nacional Rose, Sonoma County
One of my favorite punching bags in the world is the sorry state of California rosé. For some reason, winemakers just don't seem to be able to produce the beautifully dry, crisp, tart rosés that I have come to expect from southern France, southern Italy, and northern Spain. These Mediterranean wines are the benchmark for rosé, and most American wines fall quite short. Which is why I'm so enthusiastic when I discover pink wines that are made well in this country. And when they're made of exotic grape varieties, so much the better! If you gave me three guesses as... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 28, 2008 9:59 PM
- Filed under: Pink Wine , Wine Reviews , Wines under $20
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Cadaretta Winery, Walla Walla, WA: Current Releases
I make it my habit to pay attention to new, small wineries. Generally that means seeking them out at public tastings, perking up my ears when I hear the names of wineries I don't know, and approaching each box of unknown wine I get on my doorstep as the potential to be something new and exciting. Generally, whatever you might like to call these efforts of mine, if they can be described as efforts, tend to be focused on California. This probably comes as no surprise to most, but that has nothing to do with my preferences, so much as... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 24, 2008 10:42 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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Notes and Selections from the Wine & Spirits Top 100 Tasting
There are good public wine tastings and there are bad public wine tastings. The difference between the good ones and the bad ones can be quite dramatic. The bad ones are in crappy locations, are poorly organized, offer no food, and only mediocre wines. The good ones are, well, just the opposite -- nicely organized, well catered, and offer great wines. And the best ones? Well, they start with a red carpet and get better from there: all-you-can-eat eat oyster bars, cheeses, constantly refilled platters of hors d'oeuvres, and wines that sometimes retail for hundreds of dollars, if you can... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 20, 2008 11:00 PM
- Filed under: Wine Reviews
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2006 Blackbird Vineyards "Illustration" Proprietary Red Wine, Oak Knoll District, Napa
As you likely know, I make it my business to keep my eye on new California wineries, especially in Napa and Sonoma, as much as I can given the fact that I do a lot of other things besides write about wine. Whenever possible, I like to taste the first releases from these wineries. They are not always fantastic - some are good, some show potential, and some simply need to be written off as first efforts and retried again later. That's the thing about wines, just because they're not good now, that doesn't mean they won't be later, and,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 16, 2008 10:29 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Ehlers Estate, Napa: Current Releases
Who ever heard of a non-profit winery? The first time the folks at Ehlers Estate told me they were, I laughed. But somehow it's true -- amidst the glitz and glamour of Napa, there is a small winery that feeds all its profits back into the cardiovascular research foundation that owns it. There is, of course, a story behind this most unusual of affairs. The Ehlers estate was established in 1886 by Bernard Ehlers, who erected a winery building and carved his name in the stone above the doorway. Ehlers purchased the estate for $7,000 in gold coin from an... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 15, 2008 9:55 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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Sadie Family Wines, Swartland, South Africa: Current Releases
I went to South Africa to learn about its wines. This meant understanding first hand what the country's wine regions and winemakers were capable of, and by implication, how they stacked up against the rest of the world. My main activity in pursuit of this goal consisted of tasting hundreds and hundreds of wines at Cape Wine 2008, the biannual trade show of South African wine. After about 10 hours of doing nothing but tasting wines, I had learned a thing or two about South African wine, the wine regions, and the various styles of wine currently being made throughout... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 3, 2008 10:24 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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The Best South African Wines: Tasting the 2008 Cape Winemakers Guild
During my week in South Africa, I had a lot of educational experiences that involved serious spates of tasting, but perhaps one of the most insightful involved my attendance at the Cape Winemakers Guild pre-auction tasting. South Africa sports (to my knowledge) a rather unique organization known as the Cape Winemakers Guild. Started 25 years ago by eight South African winemakers, this association has been, and continues to be, the "who's who" of the country's winemaking talent. The CWG has as its mission to simply advance South African winemaking to the highest possible levels of quality and international recognition. Membership... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on October 1, 2008 11:01 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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Tasting the Red Wines of Simonsberg Ward, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Greetings from Cape Town, South Africa! I've come down to the Cape Winelands to dive deep into South African wine in a way that isn't possible in the United States. In most wine stores I'm lucky to find a handful of South African wines at most, and forget about restaurants, which often just have a single representative wine on their list, if anything at all. So I'm here under the imposing shadow of Table Mountain to attend Cape Wine 08, the biannual South African wine convention -- their equivalent of VinItaly or VinExpo. I'll be visiting a few wine producers,... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 23, 2008 3:43 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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1996 Walter Hansel Estate Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley
One of the greatest, though imminently forgivable, crimes perpetrated by a large number of even the most knowledgeable wine lovers consists of the tendency to consume great wines before they have had the opportunity to fully develop. Sometimes referred to as "infanticide," this practice varies in its levels of extremity depending on the category of wine. In my opinion, perhaps the most slighted of all categories in this respect is California Pinot Noir. While it may not have the aging potential of Burgundy (though we don't really know for sure -- no one has been making really serious Pinot Noir... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 20, 2008 1:27 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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2005 Gargiulo Vineyards "G Major Seven Study - 575 OVX Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville, Napa
There's something really cool about seeing a young winery start to hit its stride. I've only seen a few newborn calves and foals in their first moments after birth as they learn to use their spindly legs, but it's hard not to feel a sense of pride when after a few minutes, they go galloping around in circles. I was first introduced to Gargiulo Vineyards at a wine bar in San Francisco a couple of years ago. I just happened to stop by for a drink, and April Gargiulo was on hand, pouring what was then her family's second release... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 13, 2008 5:16 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Minogawa Shuzo "Koshino Omachi" Daiginjo, Niigata Prefecture
In the wine world, the grapes matter. Move past the varietal surface of wine consumption, and you'll quickly descend into a world where the qualities of a given wine (say, Russian River Pinot Noir) are discussed in terms of how Dijon clone 667 grapes do on Riparia Gloire rootstock. In the world of sake, a lot of things matter, from the water, to the yeast, to the Koji mold -- and of course, the rice. To say that rice is to sake as grapes are to wine is not entirely accurate. For instance, the primary differences in how two different... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 7, 2008 4:17 PM
- Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews
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Freeman Vineyard and Winery, Sebastopol, CA: Current Releases
Say what you want about the state of America, I know of no other place where it remains so imminently possible to realize your dreams. These days it takes a lot of money to do it, but this country is still one of the easiest places to decide that you want to achieve something, and then set out to do it. This is especially true in the wine business which, despite being a far cry from the pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps success stories that typify the American Dream, continues to support those who decide to take their strongest passions and turn them into... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on September 2, 2008 8:28 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Wine Reviews
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1997 Staglin Family Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford
From the late 1800's to the first half of the twentieth century California represented a land of opportunity for many. In Northern California, this potential seems to have been realized in particular by Italian immigrants who settled North of San Francisco in great numbers, founding small towns up the coast and in the inland valleys. Drive Highway 1, Highway 12, Highway 116, and the Bohemian Highway North of the city and you'll pass old barns and homesteads, country stores, and several Italian restaurants that have been operating continuously since at least the Thirties. That these fiercely determined immigrants met with... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 28, 2008 4:56 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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JC Cellars, Oakland: Current Releases
In the Silicon Valley, business incubation is quite common -- larger companies often provide financial, operations, and moral support to smaller companies that they themselves have started, or outside start-ups that they believe have a good potential for success. This practice has become so normal that some companies have established entire business models based on incubation. Incubation has also become common in the wine industry, where the costs of all the equipment and supplies required to make wine can be an extreme barrier to entry, and a source of extremely high overhead for those who do take the plunge. Just... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 24, 2008 5:00 PM
- Filed under: Pink Wine , Red Wine , Wine Reviews
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Kamoizumi "Summer Snow" Nigori Ginjo, Hiroshima Prefecture
Review By W. Blake Gray Stop the presses -- no, wait, this isn't printed. OK, stop the Internet -- I found an excellent nigori sake! Nigori is the White Zinfandel of sake. It's tremendously popular, particularly with people just discovering sake. It tends to be very sweet. And experts turn up their noses at it, usually with good reason. Nigori sakes are white and cloudy because they contain bits of rice that didn't complete fermentation. They have an interesting, chewy texture. What turns off sake aficionados, more than their sweetness, is their lack of complexity -- you don't get the... continue reading
- Posted by: Blake on August 21, 2008 4:31 PM
- Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews
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Tasting the Wines of San Francisco's East Bay Wineries
Wine country is now 15 minutes from downtown San Francisco, thanks to the surge in wine producers that are popping up all over the East Bay (and in San Francisco proper, too!). Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley are now home to more than a dozen wineries that range in size from a couple of people and a couple of barrels, to some of California's most lauded wineries. A couple of years ago, these wineries got together and formed a marketing association that would help them all gain more visibility. This organization, known as the East Bay Vintners Alliance, has begun to... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 20, 2008 8:38 PM
- Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews
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2003 Meyer Family Cellars "Bonny's Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville
Heritage plays out in many ways in the Napa Valley. There are only a few remaining families that have been farming in the valley since Prohibition, and even those that have tenures lasting more than three decades are increasingly being supplanted by new blood or corporate interests. Some of those families that have left the valley after decades often move on to other enterprises after cashing out on their vineyard investments. However, it's tough to abandon Napa Valley once you've lived and loved there for so long. Winemaker Justin Meyer moved his family to the Anderson Valley in 1999 after... continue reading
- Posted by: Alder on August 14, 2008 11:18 PM
- Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews
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