An insatiable hunger for discovery and wine education is rewarded every time I taste wines in peer groups. Without the chance to examine lots of wines every day over an extended period, even frequent tastings of one wine per sitting lays down hurdles to thorough assessment most easily cleared via contextual, side-by-side tastings. The most […]
Malvasia Sparkles in Emilia
My ultimate 2009 new wine discovery was a 2006 Malvasia delle Lipari, made by Hauner, on a volcanic island off of Sicily. I became interested in the the grape, which is actually a group of grape varieties, mostly white but also red, that can be used to produce unimaginably delicious late harvest desert wine, dry […]
Three Sparkling Wines Upstaged By Patricia Boyer-Domergue’s Profound Minervois
We rightfully anchored our post graduation ceremony celebration with a potpourri of sparklers including two that previously received favorable reviews here, NV Chidaine Montlouis Methode Traditionelle Brut Loire and NV Aubry Brut Premier Cru, Champagne plus a really interesting and exotic sparkling Malvasia Dell’Emilia value that you will read about at WineZag soon. But on this late afternoon […]
“Big Hat, No Cattle” Sticks to Texas Wine Industry
Finally catching up this morning on a week’s worth of wine news while dusting off a month’s worth of tasting notes deserving highlight mentions here at WineZag, Jessica Meyer’s Dallas Morning News report on the Texas wine industry plucked my funny bone. Somehow in the land of big hats, cattle ranches, Halliburton, ExxonMobil, and republican […]
Languedoc Tasting: Expressive Wines and Multiple Styles
Some things about the Languedoc just don’t seem very French at all. Frontier lands, Spanish culinary influence, Gypsy lore, uncontrolled wine production, and more. In a recent visit to the edge of the region’s northwest Mediterannean shoreline, Camargue, we reveled in almost unlimited sightings of wild white horse and pink flamingo from the comfort of […]
Sherry Tasting: A Fortified Wine Spectrum and Two Shining Stars
There are no Sherry tastings to be found in a twenty-plus-year search of tasting events lingering historically in my personal Outlook calendar. That was until this past weekend when I had the chance to taste a full range of styles at a Dale Cruse hosted Sherry and Tapas onslaught including Fino, Manzanilla, Oloroso, Amontillado, […]
Clos de la Roilette: Age Worthy Gamay from Fleurie
An Easter ham dinner set the legitimate stage for tasting one of several newly acquired bottles of Coudert’s 2008 Clos de la Roilette from Louis/Dressner Selections. Tinged with intrigue and mystery, the vineyard was originally classified Moulin-a-Vent before Fleurie was declared into existence back in the ’20s, causing an angered owner to spite France’s wine market by […]
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 […]
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 […]
A Blind Mencia Tasting
Gathered around a few white cloth-covered tables under brighter than usual Saturday night lights, I hosted a group of 17 New England tasters to evaluate a dozen wines made from the Mencia grape. Finally, the opportunity to examine Mencia in a critical environment presented itself and I looked forward to validating my developed preference that I have unleashed on restaurant wine lists across the […]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- …
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- Next Page »