Friday Wine Sips: Super Bowl Bad Boys
Sunday is the Big Day, and millions of Americans will gather in their caves around open fires, er, I mean, in their dens, media rooms and home theaters around the hypnotic glow of large-screen televisions to watch Super Bowl XLVI and devour billions of chicken wings, pigs-in-blankets and cheesy barbecue nachos. Many will drink beer,...
Damn, This Was Good! (12)
This series doesn’t always focus on rare and expensive wines. At least the wine featured in today’s post is inexpensive, though not widely available. Still, here we go…. LL brought home a piece of wild sockeye salmon from Whole Foods, and we smoked it over loose lapsang souchong tea, which turned the salmon deeply smoky...
Two Styles of Zinfandel from Joel Peterson
There was a time when consumers who loved the zinfandel grape could follow the “R” rule, that is, they could buy zinfandel wines produced by Ravenswood, Renwood, Ridge or Rosenblum and have no qualms about quality or integrity. The truth, of course, is that many wineries in California make fine examples of zinfandel, and the...
Friday Wine Sips: Napa Valley Cabernet
Many kinds of grapes are grown in the Napa Valley, and many sorts of wines are produced there, but cabernet sauvignon is what the region is best known for. Today I offer 12 examples of cabernet-based wines from the Napa Valley, the vintages ranging from 2006 to 2009, the prices spanning $25 to $120. As...
Will the Real Fake Pinot Noir Please Stand Up?
The “pinotgate” scandal is old news, but the settlement in the class-action suit occurred a few days ago. Wine industry giants E&J Gallo and Constellation Brands agreed to a $2.1 million payout to consumers who purchased bottles of their inexpensive California wines filled with merlot and syrah passed off as pinot noir by a wily...
Train Wreck!
Continuing on the theme of big winter reds, we dug deep into the cellar for this gem. In 2009 I, along with a bunch of other bloggers, invaded Calaveras County, specifically the town of Murphys, CA. One of our stops on that trip was Newsome Harlow, a favorite of mine from my first visit to...
Quick Sip: TR Elliot 2007 Queste Pinot Noir
Hello Friends,
Over the past several months, I have had the pleasure of watching a few episodes of Cellars of Sonoma TV Tuesday (live streaming broadcast) that featured special guest Theodore R. Elliot. Theodore, better known as Ted, is the man behi...
Three Big-Hearted Pinot Noirs from La Follette
La Follette Wines grew out of Greg La Follette’s Tandem label that he founded in 2001. He met Pete and Terri Kight in 2008, and the couple bought Tandem, folding it into a new winery and label that generously carried the winemaker’s name. I tried three of the winery’s five pinot noirs; La Follette also...
Riesling from Napa
*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from the winery. I know what you are thinking. Napa? Riesling? Really? Yes really, and it’s good. I can’t say that I’ve had a lot of Riesling from Napa. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever previously had any. The 2010 Cornerstone Stepping Stone Riesling registers at...
Quick Sip: Bonneau 2007 Hyde Cabernet Sauvignon
Hello Friends,
Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of tuning in for another fun-filled episode of Cellars of Sonoma TV Tuesday Live. This week’s live streaming broadcast featured John Bambury of Bonneau Wines. Bonneau Winery is a small family-owned gr...
Rock This Way
*Disclaimer: I received this wine as a sample from Rodney Strong. Although our weather is still oddly behaving as if it’s spring rather than winter, I’m getting in the big red wines while I still am in the winter mindset! We have had a few random colds days here and there, and that’s when we...
