Top Three Wines – Roagna, Huet, and A Donkey & Goat

Tweet The fact these three wines rose to the top of an epically long list of compelling wines place them in a class of their own.  One is from Sierra Foothills vineyards and a small young Berkeley, California winery while the other two are firmly ensconced in their old Barbaresco and Vouvray regions.  A bonus to last month’s [...]

What’s Going on With the Price of Wine

Tweet I finally caught up with a replay of Rob McMillan’s Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) webinar presentation of their own 2011-2012 State of the Wine Industry report. Rob is founder of SVB’s Wine division.  His presentation was not really a state of the wine industry report since the bank and its research are only concerned with the U.S., [...]

A Tribute To Grace Tops Wine Blogger Conference Wines

Tweet On a weekend in Charlottesville, VA with scores of  domestic and international wine pouring sponsors, ballroom wine fests, fleets of buses covering area wineries, half a dozen restaurant wine lists, and countless treasured bottles transported by wine bloggers from their personal cellars, I had the prettiest and most compelling wine poured for me by [...]

Top Three Wines of November

Tweet The “Top Three Wines” of November includes one remarkable New World Mourvedre from California’s Central Coast sandwiched in between two Old World Bordeaux and Rioja showcase wines.  I was unfamiliar with the claret from Saint-Estephe and the Rhone Ranger from Paso Robles until tasting them last month; both excellent new discoveries.  Unfortunately, the oddball [...]

Acme Fine Wines: Notable Wine Sherpas For Hunters of California’s Next Great Bottle

Tweet Acme Fine Wines, in St. Helena, is a California wine-jungle supply tunnel for hunters of the next undiscovered trophy wine.  Not every wine they sell is still under the radar screen or high in value-to-quality measures, as evidenced by the Harlan sitting on their showcase shelve of hand procured bottles.  Also, not all their [...]

“Big Hat, No Cattle” Sticks to Texas Wine Industry

Tweet Finally catching up this morning on a week’s worth of wine news while dusting off a month’s worth of tasting notes deserving highlight mentions here at WineZag, Jessica Meyer’s  Dallas Morning News report on the Texas wine industry plucked my funny bone.  Somehow in the land of big hats, cattle ranches, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, and [...]

Questioning the Sensibility of Bordeaux’s New Found Irrelevance

Tweet Eric Asimov helped me feel old, out of the loop,  and crusty today simply because I prefer Bordeaux.  Please do not crucify me en masse, and allow me to cling to a hard earned 51-year-old point of view that many of the world’s finest wines are products of Bordeaux as you join me on a [...]

Blind Tasting Series Report Part 1: Viognier

Tweet After a several year hiatus, a successful season of reincarnation has passed for the blind tasting series and wine enthusiast group that I am pleased to regale monthly at my home.  Each tasting requires hours of preparation including wine acquisition, printed line ups, tasting agendas, room set, food and bread supply, wine prep, glassware [...]

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 [...]

On Boeuf Bourguignon, Docs, Pinot Noir, and Nirvana

Tweet For folks that allocate non trivial sums of their waking hours tasting fine wine and devouring information in appreciative support of things vinous, the ultimate reward occurs when the collage of food, wine, and human connection intersect with seamless harmony in one pinnacle vignette.  My experience with this form of cerebral tickling generally takes [...]