Connecting South African Wine, Culture, and Topography

Tweet Slowly pushing south and west towards the Cape’s Swartland region, South Africa’s wine footprint is again coming into focus trekking from Limpopo Province’s bush down to the Port Elizabeth-to-Plettenberg coastline and mountains.  Along that path, a couple of broad and large tastings combined with a host of resort wine list experiences to reinforce two [...]

Recommending 2007 O’Shaughnessy “Howell Mountain” Cabernet Sauvignon

Tweet September 10, 2010 was a bright sunny day in Napa Valley, warm but still not hot enough for growers dealing with tensions around the slower grape maturation associated with this year’s uncharacteristically cool west coast summer.   While row after row of sun bathed thinned canopies yearned for a few more degrees of heat [...]

Connecting Intellectual and Palate Learning: Tasting Two Sakes and California Cabernet

Tweet An insatiable hunger for discovery and wine education is rewarded every time I taste wines in peer groups.  Without the chance to examine lots of wines every day over an extended period, even frequent tastings of one wine per sitting lays down hurdles to thorough assessment most easily cleared via contextual, side-by-side tastings.   The [...]

Bottle Age Challenge: 1985 Lynch Bages vs. 1985 Chateau Montelena

Tweet I opened two $20 wines, one from Napa Valley and one from Bordeaux’s Paulliac appellation, for a few remaining tasters hanging around after our challenging 2007 Southern Rhone tasting. Don’t let the retail values throw you; price tags are acquisition costs for the 1985 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1985 Lynch Bages that [...]

Wine Sales Stink and The World is Not Flat

Tweet In Silicon Valley Bank’s recently released Preliminary Findings Report (you won’t get a recap of all the details here, save a few,  so click on the link and download the PDF if you are so inclined) which precedes their more exhaustive Spring 2010-2011 Annual State of the Wine Industry Report, the Bank’s opening salvo declared; [...]

Mendoza Monday: Focus on Wines of the Uco Valley

Tweet John and family recently returned to the US following a year-long Life-Zag in and around Mendoza (with a separate story Side-Zag to Barcelona).  Carrying back a souvenir passion for great Argentine wines and epic grilling sessions, I ended up in a subterranean space in his barely decorated new home in Needham, MA this past Monday to taste through a wide range of [...]

15 Wines in Simple Format Unlock Path To Wine Apprecation

Tweet Hosting less experienced wine drinkers to easily replicated and structured tasting formats appeals to my ritual instincts for making wine more accessible to more people.  On the one hand, it’s a refreshing personal break from the usual “club” and a way to strip away the bravado and bias brought to tasting tables by hardened wine aficionados.  On the other hand, it is a chance for [...]