I find it exhilarating digging through overpriced, top-heavy wine lists filled with $100-a-glass labels in search of affordability or value. I first remember getting that sensation 35 years ago, opening the Racing Form back in Brooklyn at Aqueduct Race Track looking for the day’s long shot. Garage sale hunters seem to chase a similar rush. […]
Leonetti Cellars Merlot Vertical Tasting: Proves Ageability and Quality
In the late 1980’s before the Walla Walla Valley appellation blossomed into more than 100 wineries farming over 1,800 acres of vineyards in a particularly dry region blessed with extended growing seasons, pioneers Gary Figgins and Rick Small slipped onto my developing list of world class winemakers. I made sure their releases beat regular paths […]
Authentic Discovery: Rather Drink Wine With Tom Johnson than Stephen Tanzer
It was an amusing week dipping into the online wine-world, witnessing Stephen Tanzer barreling clumsily into the blogosphere with his Winophilia and Tom Johnson striking a chord at Palate Press, accusing wine blogs of failing its readers. Tanzer, an established traditional media wine critic, is Editor and Publisher of the International Wine Cellar while Johnson, a recently converted […]
Special Wine Alert: 2008 Brewer-Clifton Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir
Tonight, a couple of colleagues and I hosted dinner at Sushi Den in Denver for Chris Mygatt, President of Coldwell Banker Residential in Colorado. Chris was a great dinner companion, and shared some of the really progressive activities he has been orchestrating in concert with the 1100 Colorado Coldwell agents. It is possible to get […]
Bottle Age Challenge: 1985 Lynch Bages vs. 1985 Chateau Montelena
I opened two $20 wines, one from Napa Valley and one from Bordeaux’s Paulliac appellation, for a few remaining tasters hanging around after our challenging 2007 Southern Rhone tasting. Don’t let the retail values throw you; price tags are acquisition costs for the 1985 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon and the 1985 Lynch Bages that I […]
Advantage: Female Wine Drinkers
There is an inexorable connection between wine and good health which has been written about here. I have been working under the assumption that the benefits, primarily associated with the resveratrol compound , lacked gender discrimination and manifested in lower rates of cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, and other killer diseases for men and women alike. As a […]
2004 Dumol Syrah: A Country Club Wine?
American country clubs and their wine lists are simpatico; boring, nondescript bottles of wine punctuated by a few “has been”, overpriced, tired Cabernet and Chardonnay brands served up to a homogeneous pool of status-subscribing members willing to pay for social standing. Apologies for these harshly extreme generalizations, but my memory banks were recently refreshed at a […]
WineChap.com: When Wine Lists Matter Most
I am guilty of choosing and patronizing restaurants with quality wine lists first, great food second. Preferring a reasonable level of symbiosis, my restaurant choices are disproportionately weighted by wine programs. If this resonates and you are more jazzed by contents of a subterranean cellar than walk-in refrigeration, or you just need a dose of […]
Sadie Family Vineyards: Tops South Africa Wine Charts
I visited South Africa a couple of weeks ago ready to embrace whatever the local wine scene served up. Curious and relatively uniformed, I tasted both good and marginal wines. Out of conversations with local producers and trade, I noted definite instances of commitment to farming and wine making styles geared to produce honest, quality […]
Platter’s: Showcase and Reliable Guide for South African Wine
Sheltered from cooling afternoon rains by a thatched roof structure on the Zimbabwe side of its border with Zambia, I started applying context to a few days of exclusively South African wines. I, like lots of American wine drinkers, don’t pay a lot of attention to the category. The US does not even rank in […]