Blind Tasting 2009 Bordeaux Value

The wines hidden inside brown paper bags came from Fronsac, Castillon, and the Haut Medoc. There were two token wines, one from St. Julien and the other St. Emilion.  The most expensive bottle of 2009 Bordeaux in the lineup was $33 retail, insuring that the evening’s foundation would be poured and hardened sans pedigree. Besides [...]

Wine Blogging Wednesday #76 Wrap Up: Barossa Boomerang

The wines and writers came out from Down Under for Wine Blogging Wednesday 76, celebrating the Barossa Boomerang; a recovery of Australian wine sales in North America.  Ardent Australian juice fans, real time Barossa wine travelers, Aussie wine drinkers on multi-year hiatuses, curiosity seekers, and value chasers all weighed in.  Great insights into the region were [...]

Rolf Binder’s 1996 Veritas Cabernet Sauvignon

How does Barossa cabernet sauvignon age?  Here’s some insight based on only one example; $29.99 Rolf Binder’s 1996 Cabernet Sauvignon from his Veritas Winery.  While the question deserves more exhaustive tasting with full sets of wines, this was a telling experiment using just one cabernet from a top Barossa winery. WINE BLOGGING WEDNESDAY 76: BAROSSA BOOMERANG [...]

Languedoc Scope Maps Value and Challenge

Like so many older European winemaking regions, the Languedoc has instigated its own transformation during the last decade as more informed and new generations of winemakers introduced state of the art winemaking technique to showcase local terroir.  The development can not be taken casually since the Languedoc, combined with its southwest neighboring sister region Roussillon, represents more [...]

Return of the Barossa Boomerang: Wine Blogging Wednesday 76

Announcing: Wine Blogging Wednesday 76 (#wbw76) Wednesday April 25, 2012 Australian Comeback Kid-The Barossa Boomerang  Sometime around 2008 American wine drinkers flung their boomerangs en masse far outside US borders, feigning good riddance to indistinguishable Australian Shiraz that all seemed to blend together in minds and cellars. US Australian wine imports sagged in volume and value from [...]

Strategy & Debate for 2009 Bordeaux

Let’s not debate the greatness of the 2009 Bordeaux vintage as the top wines make their way to US markets.  For now, squelch all lamentations over price inflation for first and second growths on the heels of their runaway futures market.  Turn a blind eye to Parker’s very recent The Empire Strikes Back article where he wrote ”this is unquestionably [...]

Steve Heimoff on Wine Blogs and Journalism

A guy from Brooklyn meets a guy from the Bronx inside an Oakland Whole Foods to talk about wine blogging and journalism.  This is not a set up line to a cheap joke.  It’s a real vignette that was the basis of yesterday’s post about the real Steve Heimoff.  We did gab about the New York [...]

Grower Champagne Makes Sense

The last few years taught me that Champagne is wine, not just bottled fireworks poised to explode on special occasions.  Champagne’s food and aperitif friendliness are more interesting to me now than at any other time during my twenty seven year wine zag. I used to zag around Champagne while others zigged straight at it.  I [...]

2011 Wine Highlights Part 2- Wine Community

When I launched WineZag in 2009, I did it under a founding motto of “wine is a lubricant for human connection that holds no bias.”  The essence of my wine appreciation has always transcended the juice, gravitating to the center of human bonding and relationships that are accelerated by shared wine experiences; either during dinner [...]

Wine Writing Styles Reflect Culture

There is no surprise that Do Bianchi author Jeremy Parzen, whose wine and food credentials drip with immersion and cultural understanding, recently managed to illustrate old world vs. new world wine writing styles in utterly poignant fashion.  In his post about the differences in European and American wine writing genres he brings new light to the [...]

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