As the Coronavirus has most of us sipping while we SIP, the wine media world has been (in lieu of our normal mode of being able to travel to experience wines directly and visit the people and places that make them) undergoing a plethora of “virtual” tastings. Personally, I’m now into double-digits on the ZOOM…
Category: kick-ass wines
Wine in the Time of Coronavirus, Part 5 (“Courage of Convictions” with Smith-Madrone)
The latest in the steady stream of sipping during SIP virtual tastings brings up back to longtime friend of 1WD Stu Smith, one of the masterminds behind Napa Valley’s well-regarded Smith-Madrone. If you’ve spent any appreciable time perusing this little website, then you know that Smith is smart, verbose, and opinionated – all of which…
Alentejo Postcard, Part 2 (Herdade de Coelheiros Recent Releases)
Among the 800 hectares of property upon which Alentejo’s Herdade de Coelheiros grows walnuts and cork trees sits about 50 hectares of vines. Though their history date back to the mid-1400s (as a hunting estate), those vines that source Coelheiros’ modern wines were replanted over 500 years later, in 1981. That’s because under Portugal’s dictatorship,…
Alentejo Postcard, Part 1 (Cartuxa Recent Releases)
Portugal’s Cartuxa is fairly well-known for being one of two wineries run by a wide-ranging non-profit foundation (focusing on developing the Évora region culturally). It’s equally well-known for being named after a monastery and having roots going back to 15th Century Jesuit monks, and still employing amphora from the 1800s. But Cartuxa is most famous…
