Can you spare 10 characters in your reviews of wine? That’s really all it would take, a measly 10 spaces in a wine review to add the alcohol level of the wine under consideration. And by adding this bit of information the consumer would be served mightily. I started thinking about this need for stating alcohol content in reviews upon reading Robert Parker’s reviews of Paul Hobbs wines on MSNBC.com. For example:"2003 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, 93 points. A dark…
I wish W.R. Tish would write more. First, his wine experience is deep. For a decade he was the managing editor at Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Second, he’s got a probing mind that combines with a great sense of humor. However, there is very little humor, but lots of probing, in his most recent article for Wines & Vines Magazine that takes a fairly close look at the wine Buying Guides of three major American wine magazines. Let’s get to the…
I’m pretty sure that sometime at the beginning of the year I predicted that the number of winery blogs would increase by a large amount this year. And it looks like that prediction is going to be born our. I came across another winery that is really doing an outstanding job communicating their irreverent perspective on life and wine via their relatively new blog. Twisted Oak Winery in the Sierra Foothills calls their blog EL BLOGGO TORCIDO (essentially translated as…
I got my invitation in the mail today for August’s Family Winemakers of California Tasting. Based on the preliminary list of wineries that have committed to pouring at the event, it appears there will be upwards of 400 California wineries at Fort Mason in San Francisco on August 20 and 21. Most of them will be relatively small wineries too. The question for anyone going to this event is how to attack it. After all, we are talking about a…
If you have an interest in "Terroir American Style" then you probably, or should, have an interest in Diamond Creek wines. The vineyard designated wines of Diamond Creek made off of a relatively small parcel of land on Diamond Mountain in Napa Valley were among the first to give concrete recognition to the notion in America that different pieces of land create different tasting wines. The man who committed to this idea, Al Brounstein, died Monday after a long battle…
