Archive for the ‘Terroir’ Category
If putting the words "Sonoma County" on a wine label would help their wine sell faster or for higher prices, don't you think wineries would have already done so? I do. In fact, I know they would. But clearly many wineries that produce wines from grapes grown in the Russian River Valley, Dry Creek Valley, Sonoma Valley, Alexander Valley, Sonoma Coast and elsewhere inside Sonoma County don't feel a need to place these fairly meaningless words on their labels. Yet…
As I write this, President Obama is holding court at Blair House and discussing with members of congress the issue of healthcare. It's a contentious issue that will define the President's first term and that has highlighted many of the philosophical divides inside congress and among the American people. While I'm not convinced the Healthcare Summit will do anything more than provide a televised forum for staring into the gulf that is political partisanship, it an interesting discussion and helps…
My great Washington Wine Epiphany came a few years ago when I attended Wine & Spirits Magazine's Top 100 tasting in San Francisco. The tasting of top wineries W&S had encountered over the past year was set up by region—Germans over here, Italians over there, Australians in that corner, etc. The Washington wineries were on the top floor of the venue and I got to them last. Last is not where you want to be at a tasting. And yet,…
Isn't it true that how we view the act of winemaking will in part, perhaps large part, determine how we appreciate wine? I think it is true. So, consider the following… "In their hands disparate element—styles, materials, color—came together creating rooms that delighted the senses and engaged the mind." "Confidence defined these designers. Their willingness to take aesthetic risks set them apart from their peers." "Styles com and go. What is popular in one decade may be unpopular in the…
With the report out of Oregon late last month that the Geological Society of America poo pooed the notion that the "Minerally" taste in a wine has anything to do with the minerals in the soils that the wine's grapes were grown, we are once again reminded that the notion of "Terroir" may just be the a fraudulent, if not romantic, idea that marketers and PR types like me like to flog in front of the buying public. But isn't…
