May 24, 2006
Today is the day of the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the 1976 "Tasting of Paris". A new taste off will occur in France and in Napa Valley. The orginal tasting helped put CA wines on the map when CA took top prize among whites and reds. There has been a great deal of controversy surrounding this new tasting, particularly over whether or not the wines will be tasted blind. That said, we should have the results today. I came across…
May 24, 2006
DON’T FORGET TO TAKE THE FERMENTATION READER SURVEY ============================================================ My weekly post at Wine Sediments, a group wine blog, is up and concerns the Zinfandel Advocates & Producers upcoming ZINPOSIUM. If you have more than a passing interest in the grape and the wine ZINPOSIUM an event taking place July 7-9. All the names and wines will be there. Click on the link above to read the Wine Sediments post and get the background on the event. ================================================================DON’T FORGET TO…
May 23, 2006
It was, I believe, the great Gore Vidal who once wrote, "Every time a friend of mine succeeds a little part of me dies." It’s a pretty astute, and brave, commentary on the effects and power of envy. Some of us bloggers fancy ourselves decent writers. Some of us are mistaken, some close to the mark, other are underestimating their value completely if they think themselves only decent writers. A safe self assessment puts me somewhere between the first two…
May 18, 2006
In its continued quest to deliver identity to North America’s varied appellations and the wines made from them, Appellation America has recently posted the results of two of its "Discovery Tastings": Spring Mountain District in the Napa Region and Yorkville Highlands in Mendocino County. For those unfamiliar with Appellation America’s Discovery Tastings, the organization brings together winemakers focused on the appellation under consideration to be guided through a tasting of the appellation’s wines The Discovery Tastings are undertaken blind (meaning…
May 8, 2006
I think I’ve finally concluded that in the Old World (Europe) "Terroir" is really "tradition". The European wines from different appellations, large and small, that you drink tend to have a consistent and particular characteristic not because the climate and soil from that appellation force upon the wine a particular character, but because there are a set of traditional winemaking and grape growing techniques in an area that lead the wines in a particular direction. Those traditions relate to how…