Archive for the ‘Rating Wine’ Category
Leo McCloskey is a very smart man. He probably knows more about the chemical composition of great wine than anyone else alive and he puts this information to use through his consulting firm, Enologix. He is also a keen observer of market condition in the wine industry. He’s also a very creative man with a variety of fascinating notions. Recently McCloskey issued a press release that did not get the attention it deserved. In the November press release, McCloskey outlined…
I wonder if there are other wine geeks like me who at times merely need their wine to possess alcohol and be in liquid form? And that's really all that is required. Anything more would demand making the effort of concentrating on the beverage's traits, evaluating it, comparing it and, well, sometimes that just takes too much effort. The funny things is, for folks like us, the comparing, evaluating and identifying is second nature and comes generally in an automatic…
Allow me to quote Charles Olken from the preface of his newest book "The New Connoissuers' Guidebook to California Wine & Wineries": "It is now three decades since my first book, The Connoissuers' Handbook of California Wine, appeared in print." Olken, through numerous editions of that original Handbook, and through his newsletter, The Connosseurs' Guide To California Wine (born in 1974), has been regulatory and habitually chronicling the California wine landscape longer than anyone I know. He understands its evolution,…
First things first: No, "Napa Valley" and "Sonoma County" and the "North Coast" can not together nor separately appropriately be described as singular weather zones. Put another way, grapes grown on the valley floor in the Yountville region of Napa and grapes grown near the top of Spring Mountain in Napa Valley are likely to have experienced differing weather conditions throughout the year. The same can be said for Alexander Valley and the Sonoma/Carneros region. That said, the harvest in…
Charlie Olken has a blog. Big deal. New wine blog on the block. But wait. Consider the context: If I'm not mistaken, Charlie Olken's foray into freely accessed, on-line publishing in a diary-like format marks him as perhaps the most wine-experienced blogger in America. Charlie has for more than 35 years been publishing the Connoisseurs' Guide to California Wine, a newsletter that is and has been highly respected by winemakers, the wine trade and the wine obsessed. Thirty-Five years! There…
