The latest in the steady stream of sipping during SIP virtual tastings brings up back to longtime friend of 1WD Stu Smith, one of the masterminds behind Napa Valley’s well-regarded Smith-Madrone. If you’ve spent any appreciable time perusing this little website, then you know that Smith is smart, verbose, and opinionated – all of which…
Category: kick-ass wines
Alentejo Postcard, Part 2 (Herdade de Coelheiros Recent Releases)
Among the 800 hectares of property upon which Alentejo’s Herdade de Coelheiros grows walnuts and cork trees sits about 50 hectares of vines. Though their history date back to the mid-1400s (as a hunting estate), those vines that source Coelheiros’ modern wines were replanted over 500 years later, in 1981. That’s because under Portugal’s dictatorship,…
Alentejo Postcard, Part 1 (Cartuxa Recent Releases)
Portugal’s Cartuxa is fairly well-known for being one of two wineries run by a wide-ranging non-profit foundation (focusing on developing the Évora region culturally). It’s equally well-known for being named after a monastery and having roots going back to 15th Century Jesuit monks, and still employing amphora from the 1800s. But Cartuxa is most famous…
Wine in the Time of Coronavirus, Part Three (Through the Wayback Machine with Hesperian Wines)
In this edition of our sipping during the time of SIP (Samples In Progress, during Shelter In Place), we’re setting the Wayback machine for 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2016, as we go back in time and into the samples pool with Napa Valley’s perennially misunderstood Hesperian Wines. I was provided this in-home vertical tasting opportunity…