Posts Tagged ‘california’

May 30, 2006

A Witness to the Tasting

I suspect we’ll be seeing more of this in the wine writing world in the weeks to come. Scott Tracy is the sommelier at La Toque in Napa Valley and very well known for his expertise. He also maintains a blog and has written about his experience at the recent re-enactment of the Paris Tasting. It turns out that Scott poured and worked the tasting. Scott’s a pretty astute guy and mentions something that I never thought of when writing…

Mar 28, 2006

Reading (wine blogs) Is Fundamental

Some Editorial Updates For Your Reading Pleasure: 1. Wine Sediments, the new wine blog on the WellFed Network is humming along. My most recent post, "What Next? Republican Wine"? is currently at the top of the list. 2. Taj at Cork & Demon continues her Western Wine Tour, a tour de force wine road trip that currently puts her in the Central Coast area of California. Her tour and chronicle of her adventures is well worth a read. 3. FERMENTATION…

Mar 23, 2006

Appellation Vs. Terroir

On occasion Roger Dial of Appellation America shoots off an e-mail to their mailing list. They are very often very interesting missives. Todays was particularly enlightening and held one particular statement of great importance and foresight. In general, Roger is arguing that understanding what makes America’s appellations, and the wines that come from them, unique is of critical importance to the American wine culture. But the very last paragraph of his communique reads like this: The fact that so much…

Mar 20, 2006

Divorce and Wine

I know some men. and one woman, for whom losing their cellar in the course of a divorce would be worse than losing the car, house and kids. Pathetic, but true. Jeffrey Lalloway, in his blog on divorce and family law in California, explores the trend of battling over the wine cellar in the course of a divorce. In some cases the division of the liquid assets is not a minor event, with hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake….

Mar 16, 2006

Are you SURE that’s Pinot you are drinking?

How often is your Pinot Noir NOT Pinot Noir?  How often is it blended with Syrah or some other body and color enhancer? Consider this tidbit from Jordan MacKay’s "Noir Taboo" article in the latest issue of Wine & Spirits Magazine: "…2005 Pinot Noir sales are up 73 percent from the previous year. Yet the growth of Pinot bearing acreage is for the most part flat." Clearly there is lot of "Pinot Noir" being made that just isn’t 100% Pinot…