What do you get when you gather five young, “next-generation” Napa vintners around a table and talk shop? Besides “buzzed on some really good juice,” I mean? Essentially, that’s the question I was hoping to answer when I worked with the Napa Valley Vintner’s Association to set-up a round-table discussion with some of Napa’s best…
Category: California wine
1WineDude TV Episode 15: Underground Wine Road at Benziger
Although the term terroir gets tossed around like confetti at an Italian wedding these days, there are several (mostly family-owned and –operated) wine properties in Napa and Sonoma that are taking the idea seriously. One such property is Benziger, who biodynamically farm grapes and make wine in a beautiful section of Sonoma County. So much…
Antithesis: A study in Extreme Serendipitous Winemaking
“I almost named the wine Serendipity because I discovered the technique which produces this wine by pure accident.” This is a story that I’ve been chomping at the bit to tell for months. It’s the kind of story that makes you excited about the influx of talented, young winemakers in the Napa Valley, who are…
A Tale of Three Oh-Fives
As in, three 2005s, or 3 different wines all from the 2005 vintage. Other than their harvest year, they’ve got little in common apart from the fact that I tasted all three as samples over the last week or so, and in a rare case of vinous serendipity found all three to be excellent (a…