I, along with a small cadre of other wine media peeps, recently got invited to one of those on-line Q&A / sample tasting thangs highlighting recent releases from high-end Napa Valley producer Hourglass (so named due to the shape of their vineyard holdings, which form part of the narrowest spots in the North-South winegrowing continuum…
Category: kick-ass wines
Churchill’s Vintage Port Recent (And Not So Recent) Releases
“You can beat the sh*t out of something, and all you get is powdered sh*t!” – Johnny Graham As part of some prep work for recently-published Playboy Port Primer (For Your Holiday Port-ing Pleasure), in November I was a guest of importer Frederick Wildman for a lunch/tasting and dinner/tasting with Johnny Graham, the force behind…
Winemaking, Sashimi Style (Melville Estate Recent Releases)
“We don’t make wine. We grow wine. We’re more like ‘sashimi style’ winemaking.” On a cool morning that will later turn into a blustering day in the midst of a small August heat wave, Chad Melville seemed to be feeding me what ought to be a standard marketing line about winemaking. The kind that end…
Out From Napa’s Shadow (High End Wines Shine At Taste Of Sonoma 2012)
Message to Sonoma: you’re no longer in your neighbor Napa Valley’s shadow. You’re not the uncool kid at the dance, the next-to-last picked for the two-hand-touch football game during recess, or the slightly-less-talented and almost-as-comely sister when compared to Napa, at least not on the high-end of the vinous spectrum. That bit of news flash…