“Lento y fuerte.” This is how Benjamin Romeo – possibly Rioja’s most celebrated modern winemaker since his 2004 Contador red wine received a 100 point score from The Wine Advocate – described how he speaks. Measured and forceful. Which, it turns out, is a perfect descriptor for most of Romeo’s wines, as well as for…
Category: on the road
Bubbly At 150 (Schramsberg Recent Releases, And Why It’s Okay That California Is Not Champagne)
California sparkling wine has come a long way (baby) since German draft-dodger and later NYC barber Jacob Schram decided that the hot and sunny knolls of Calistoga in the 1860s looked like a suitable place to plant vines like those he’d left behind in his beloved Rhineland (after all, he’d seen hills far steeper –…
Nickel & Nickel Provides More Than A Dime’s Worth In Unexpected Napa Valley Cabernet Terroir Masterclass
One of the ancillary benefits of being hosted at Auction Napa Valley are the winery-sponsored dinners that take place during the evenings preceding the big auction event.The food is usually fantastic, the wine is flowing (often a bit too) freely, and it’s hard to beat the locations. For example, when I attended a few weeks…
The Southern Hemisphere’s Best Chardonnay? (Tasting Leeuwin Art Series 2005)
I know what a lot of you geeky-geeks (I use that as a term of endearment, by the way!) are already thinking after reading the title: Dude, WTF?!? What about Yarra Yering? Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Here’s the thing about Yarra Yering for me: that Chardonnay is the Moriarity to my Holmes; while…