Being a prog music geek (actually, make that a music geek in general), we’ve had our fair share of literal rock star wine producer interviews here on 1WD, probably none as effortlessly entertaining as those with Primus’ Les Claypool. Claypool, along with his wife Chaney, are the proprietors of Sonoma-based Claypool Cellars, whose development I’ve…
Category: crowd pleaser wines
DallA(l)s(ace)? (Hugel Recent Releases)
When I visited venerable Alsatian wine icon Hugel on a media jaunt earlier this year (2017), they were nary a year removed from the family tragedy of Etienne Hugel’s untimely death, and their CEO had left the company the week prior to my visit. When I mentioned to 13th-generation family member Marc-André Hugel that many…
Cheap Tricks (Domaines Schlumberger Recent Releases)
“We are very cheap for a Grand Cru!” It could be said that Domaines Schlumberger‘s Thomas Schlumberger doesn’t fully understand the negative connotations of the word “cheap” in the English language. I write that because, as he told me the above quote during a media visit to the Guebwiller property that has been in his…
Spit Shine (Domaine Marcel Deiss Recent Releases)
Jean-Michel Deiss likes to talk spit. That his family, winegrowers since 1744, are established as the Alsatian version of winemaking royalty probably helps him to get away with it. “Wine today is an industrial project,” he told me (through interpretation) during a media tour visit to Domaine Marcel Deiss‘ Bergheim winery. “But great wine is…