Oct 15, 2013
I absolutely love this time of year in Napa Valley and Sonoma. The weather is turning here. Leaves are turning colors. The vines take on that spindly character where the leafless canes hang down, heaving, and you can see their form. The chill right now is verifiable, but not too bracing that you are terribly cold if you take a walk in the morning, work in an early round of golf or just stand on a hillside and look down…
Sep 18, 2013
It’s not unknown for tasting rooms to pop up in places where no vineyard or winery resides. But it can be risky business, and rare. Pure tasting rooms unconnected to a winery location or vineyard location have shown up in San Francisco, New York and other cities that are not winemaking towns. But they don’t always make it. Yesterday, I read that the little town of Tiburon in Marin County has a new tasting room: Couloir Wines. Is it a…
Sep 10, 2013
I don’t thank anyone who wants to develop an education in wine can do so simply by tasting. It’s critical. Yes. But without including significant “book learn’in” in your wine education, you will be bereft of a real education. This should be easy to understand. If you simply taste wine, you really have only a tiny window into the world of wine. The student needs history. The student of wine wants an understanding of the background of grapes. We want…
Sep 4, 2013
This month I will embark on my 24th year working in the wine industry and I’ve begun to start to think, finally, about the industry from the top down. I was speaking with a friend about this perspective and they asked a pretty simple question: “What have been the major themes in the wine industry over the past two decades?” That it’s simple also makes it somewhat difficult to answer. But, by breaking down the industry into its constituent parts,…
Aug 8, 2013
Does the Napa Valley need more promotion? More publicity? More visitors? Of course it does. The economy here is bolstered in huge ways by tourism and visitors, not just the sale of wine. So, given the recent announcement that the PGA Tour will be bringing professional golf to Napa Valley in 2014 in the form of the Frys.com Open to take place at the Silverado Resort, it made me think: what will be the impact on the local economy of…