Ah, San Francisco… sourdough, trolley cars, wine competitions… If you’re so inclined, you can now browse the medal-winning results from the 2016 San Fransisco International Wine Competition in which I was fortunate enough to have taken part once again (for more details, see the 2014 and 2015 results write-ups). Judging in that event has become…
Category: on the road
Golden Years (Tasting Fifty Harvests Of Mondavi Reserve Cabernet)
Know how to get a cavalcade of seasoned (read: potentially jaded) wine writers, winemakers, wine growers, and wine industry insiders to go as quiet as mice (I’m talking pin-drop-sounds-like-a-jet-engine-on-fire quiet), and as stupefied as deer in the headlights? I do. I saw Robert Mondavi Winery pull it off a few weeks ago in Napa Valley….
Working Hard To Change Nothing (Williams Selyem Recent Releases)
There was so much that I didn’t want to like about Sonoma’s storied Williams Selyem. The too-cool-for-school exclusivity of their mailing list. The imposing fortress-like facade of their “barrel-evoking” tasting room and its “wall of bottles.” The fact that they used terms like “barrel-evoking.” That current owners John and Kathe Dyson were former mailing list…
And You Were Expecting What, Exactly? (Lugana Highlights From L’Anteprima Lazise 2016)
Back in March (yeah, yeah, I know…) I attended, as a media guest, the 2016 edition of the well-executed but unfortunately-named L’Anteprima Lazise (seriously… how many of you knew that was a town near Lake Garda in N. Italy?). The event marked the first time that the nearby winemaking regions of Chiaretto, Lugana, and Bardolino…