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 –…
Category: wine review
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…
Summer In The Bag: Putting Alternative Wine Packaging To The Cooler Test
In what has become an annual tradition within a tradition (which I suppose makes it some sort of Postmodern meta-tradition?), I’ve once again used my band’s appearance at the annual Summer Solstice music festival as an excuse to sneak in some “work.” The work, such as it is, involves grabbing samples of wine in alternative…