Today… well, today is all about downtown Oakland’s vinous urban success story, Dashe Cellars – because YOU demanded it. Well, technically not YOU exactly, unless you’re Martin Dredmond. Martin was one of two winners of the 1WD ZAP 2012 Zinfandel Festival tickets giveaway, in which the ticket winners also determined which Zinfandels I would be…
Category: kick-ass wines
Holiday Reservations (Putting Mondavi Reserves Under The Christmas Dinner Grindstone)
For all of my talk about not digging big-ass wines, I sure do seem to end up talking about a lot of “good” big-ass wines. Take this past Christmas, for example. We host some extended family every third Christmas or so, as part of a rotation that has us visiting Florida and Washington on the…
Reports Of Australian Wine’s Death Hath Been Greatly Exaggerated, My Lords
Australian wine has become the red-headed stepchild of the fine wine world. But the ginger brat is still alive and kicking, people. I can hear the Aussie wine biz calling out from the cart, like the old man in the “Bring Out Your Dead” skit of Monty Python’s Holy Grail: “I’m not dead!… I think…
Stag Party (A Deeper Dive Into SLD Cab)
For all my travels to the greater Napa area, my experience with Napa’s venerable Stags Leap District hasn’t exactly been trophy-mounting-24-point-buck caliber. In fact, it’s been quite doe-like – I’ve tasted a good number of high-end wines from the area, and visited a few its producers, but aside from a stop at Chimney Rock earlier…