Personally, I didn’t need any more evidence that Sonoma generally has its mojo working and is making some of the best wines ever to come out of the region. But I got a thoroughly inundating reminder of that when I visited the second (2016) incarnation of the Sonoma County Barrel Auction as a media guest…
Category: wine review
Clang, Clang, Clang Went The Trolley! (Results From The 2016 San Francisco International Wine Competition)
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…
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…