I’ve long waged a sort of mini-war (no height jokes!) on brettanomyces. Equating it to barnyard, horse sweat, and Band-Aid stinkiness in vino, as someone who’d personally rather go for the naked, unabashed, nowhere-to-hide purity of wines like Mosel Riesling over the bombast of overdone modern red wines, I hated how Brett buried wines in…
Category: kick-ass wines
(Surprising) Results Of The 2013 Critics Challenge
Late last month, I wrapped up a stint at the fourth and final wine competition in which I’d be judging in 2013, the 10th Annual Critics Challenge in (Stay Classy) San Diego. The results of that comp. have been announced. Following are some thoughts on the Critics Challenge itself, and notes on some of the…
Wine Competition Myths Busted (California State Fair 2013 Commercial Wine Competition Results)
As of last week, the results of the 2013 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition have been fully revealed, and July 4th seemed an auspicious time to recap the (all American) Best of Show winners from the comp. (itself a bit of an American institution, having been established in the 1800s), and share my thoughts…
Because It Takes A Philly Boy To Show You Californians How To Make Syrah (Kieran Robinson Recent Releases)
A few weeks ago I got an intriguing email from a California vintner; intriguing in that he was, he told me, originally from my neck of the woods (near Philly in Southeastern PA), and would soon be in town for a wedding. Could we get together over lunch to taste some of the wines he’d…