Apologies, right off the bat, for the headline clickbait: not only are we not talking about Champagne, we’re not even talking about sparkling wines. In fact, we’re really only talking about one grape – Grüner Veltliner – from one spot: Austria’s Traisental. Because, well, sometimes I can just be that kind of dick on…
Category: elegant wines
Nikko Suave (Results of the 2019 San Francisco International Wine Competition)
This year I once again had the honor of judging alongside several of my wine biz cohorts at what has become one of my favorite weekends all year: the San Francisco International Wine Competition, held at the swanky and suave Hotel Nikko in downtown SF. The 2019 SFIWC incarnation took place November 9th through November…
Putting a Thermal Spring in Your Step (the Wines of Thermenregion)
Back in May (I know, I know…), I was a media guest for the 2019 Austrian Wine Summit, during which I was lucky enough to participate in a tour “along the Danube,” visiting and tasting through Austria’s classic wine producing regions. It was pretty much as awesome as that sentence makes it sound. Even so,…
Scandal-Less is More (Flowers Winery Recent Releases)
There’s nothing like a good scandal to encourage a hit of the reset button. Or, in the case of Sonoma’s venerable Flowers Winery, it’s more akin to just hitting the next-phase button. Flowers has always seem to operate a bit under-the-radar by upper-tier California wine brand standards; which makes sense, considering that founders Joan and…