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 [...]

The Real Steve Heimoff

While California wines were losing my attention, Steve Heimoff grabbed it.  That may sound like an oddity since Steve is known for his sustained and successful career as California Editor at the Wine Enthusiast and, before that, the Wine Spectator.  Actually, it wasn’t strange in my world; I study journalists with a knack for integrating [...]

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

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 wine [...]

What’s Going on With the Price of Wine

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., west [...]

A Tribute To Grace Tops Wine Blogger Conference Wines

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 Hardy [...]

Top Three Wines of November

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 auction [...]

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

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 inventory [...]

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

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 republican [...]

Questioning the Sensibility of Bordeaux’s New Found Irrelevance

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 visit [...]

Blind Tasting Series Report Part 1: Viognier

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 provisioning, [...]

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