While still exceptions to the rules, some California winemakers are challenging common assumptions about how Golden State wines ought to taste. Some of the movement’s chroniclers think about these wines and winemakers as “New Wave”. Prominent critics will ascribe California wines’ emerging stylistic diversity as part and parcel of a “widening and maturing of consumer tastes“. […]
Stalked and Mauled in Sonoma Tasting Rooms
Since California’s winery tasting rooms are regular touch points for consumers and producers, these spaces also serve as arenas for the collision of buyer and seller agendas. I am not witness to tasting room protocols much since my meetings with farmers and winemakers usually happen in vineyards, cellars, homes, and restaurants. I got a fresh […]
Top Three Wines: Northern Burgundy and California
This past month’s cascade of fascinating wines helped bid adieu to the nasty 2013 New England Spring season and usher in the familiar comforts of summertime drinking. From Napa to Chablis, three wines stubbornly replay like broken records in the piece of my brain that clings to memorable drinking vignettes. These wines, all intense values, […]
2010 Donkey and Goat Rosé vs. 1985 La Chapelle?
Just like clocks striking twelve, our cellar coughs up one bottle of 1985 wine every year on April 14. My wife and I were lucky to be married in this vintage year. The Bordeaux have aged gracefully despite the vintage’s early accessibility, northern Rhones are holding onto their fruit even now, 1985 Sassicaia made our evening […]
2009 Pinot Noir Blind Tasting
Blind tasting seventeen different examples of 2009 pinot noir in one sitting was repeated evidence, inside twenty five years of steady reminders, that side-by-side peer group blind tasting is the most legitimate format to learn about wine and your personal palate. In Robert Dwyer’s opening paragraphs of his detailed Wellesley Wine Press tasting note post on […]
Pleiades XX, Thackrey, & Local Three: Authentic Collision
Some wine is described to be authentic. I have been meaning to build a working definition of authenticity for my own clarification and finally managed to squash a prolonged streak of procrastination after discovering ($25 ****) Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades XX on Atlanta’s Local Three Kitchen & Bar wine list. This adjective that has blossomed into standard wine enthusiast fodder, bandied throughout critical wine […]
Ignoring California Wines: Is Anybody Listening?
Last week Steve Heimoff published a post called “California Needs To Be Careful It Doesn’t Price Itself Out Of The Market.” I become confused when I read things like this because the fact of the matter is California violated my personal quality to price ratio (QPR) tolerance more than a decade ago. For me, California […]
Top Three Wines of March: Rhone Valley and Napa Valley
Top wines of the month handsomely represent the southern and northern Rhone Valley with perfect scores and then cross an entire ocean and continent with a winning California Cabernet. WineZag’s “top three wines of the month” section is reserved for a short list of the most compelling wines I have tasted over the previous thirty […]
Does Stony Hill Produce Age Worthy California Chardonnay?
My last bottles of 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1997 Stony Hill Chardonnay comprised a short vertical flight preceding two blind flights of 2007 Cabernets that sixteen members of our Boston tasting group recently slurped, swallowed, and spit their way through. I purchased the wines on release back in the 90’s and one bottle from each […]
Sean Thackrey Pleiades XI-XVIII: Vertical Tasting Without Boundaries
This weekend’s vertical tasting of Sean Thackrey’s Pleiades XI-XVIII offered a thrilling departure from the familiar variables more traditional vertical tasting sessions showcase; particularly the satisfying intellectual discovery stemming from sensory embodiment of vintage variation against a backdrop of consistent terroir. Then again, Marin County based Thackrey is the antithetic picture of California wine producers, coming at it with […]