☆ This Is Now An Archive
It Was Fun While It Lasted There will no longer be new reviews posted here. Notes From The Cellar will remain in this form, as an archive. Thank you to everyone who ever stopped by, and liked what they saw. —Steve Hi! If you're seeing this messag...
☆ Do I Hate Wine Blogging, or Do I Just Hate Myself?
Blechh Yes, I’m using hyperbole here to make a point. I don’t actually hate myself. I’m a pretty fucking cool guy, actually. Ask anyone. Except Carl. That guy has never liked me, and I couldn’t for the life of me tell you why. H...
☆ Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things
A Mea Culpa In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been creating much. I haven’t been writing, I haven’t been tweeting about wine, I haven’t been developing new, exciting anythings. I haven’t been creating. I haven&#...
☆ 2009 Donkey & Goat Four Thirteen
Wineries? In Berkeley?! Let’s not get carried away. Obviously, the wine I’m telling you about today is not from grapes grown in Berkeley, California. While I have not scoured the streets, alleyways, and head shops of the home not only of th...
☆ 2008 Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling
Sweet Oregonian Converts My Bitter Palate I used to hate “sweet” wines. I put “sweet” in quotation marks for a reason. I don’t mean to refer to dessert wines– in fact, Tawny Porto has long been something I have treas...
☆ 2007 Intelligent Design Cuvee
Smart Central Coast Southern Rhône-style Surprise There were reasons I thought I wouldn’t like Intelligent Design. I’ll be perfectly honest, I’m not a fan of the name. Sure, this is my personal bias showing as if my zipper were d...
☆ 2007 Hess Collection Mount Veeder 19 Block Cuvée
Big-Time High-Elevation Cab Blend I’m a huge fan of this wine, for more than a few reasons. It’s a mostly-Bordeaux-style blend (called “meritage” (rhymes with “heritage”) here in California), but there’s this d...
☆ Pairing Wine With 1990s Sitcoms: Frasier
Frasier Hey baby I hear the blues a-callin’, Tossed salads and scrambled eggs… I was never into this show. I’m not sure if I was scared away by its well known intellectualism1 or if I just never gave it a fair shake. Then I met my wif...
☆ 2005 King’s Ransom Russian River Valley Pinot Noir
Earthy RRV Pinot Doesn’t Disappoint In case you weren’t aware, pinot noir has a couple different faces it can show. As I mentioned when I paired its duality with Moonlighting, there are more fruit-forward pinots, and earthier, subtler pinot...
☆ 2009 VIVI Primitivo
Affordable Italian Crowd Pleaser In case you weren’t aware, there is a connection—actually, an absolute genetic sameness—between zinfandel and the Italian wine grape primitivo. They are both descendant clones of a Croatian grape, actu...
☆ 2006 Luigi Pira Barolo
Barolo Never Seems To Let Me Down One of my favorite wines in the world is Barolo. This northern Italian DOCG wine is 100% nebbiolo by dictate. It’s dark, it’s powerful, it goes well with Airwolf. The Barolos I’ve talked about in the ...
☆ Pairing Wine With 1990s Sitcoms: Married… With Children
Married… With Children Love and marriage, Love and marriage, Go together like a horse and carriage… Has Frank Sinatra ever been used in a more ironic way? I loved this show. Al Bundy was a hero of mine, but not in the traditional way we thi...
