First Tasting of Cuvees before Public Release to be Held on April 19, 2014 in The Funk Zone Master Sommelier Brian McClintic and Sommelier Eric Railsback, partners of Les Marchands Wine Bar & Merchant, the award-winning wine bar and retail shop in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, announce the 2nd Annual 2014 Santa Barbara County Wine Futures Tasting. On Saturday, April 19,…
Living in Europe, I am often inundated with questions concerning the California wine scene. After all, we do have the reputation of abounding with new and innovative ideas for wines. In fact, when my stateside friends come for a visit, they are expected to pay tribute to this self-proclaimed Caesar. My friends are quick to…
This is a continuation from last week’s post, part 2, and shares what we tasted at Lisa Madison’s party. The Tasting For Lisa’s launch party she had enlisted the assistance of executive director, Diane Nozik, to “conduct the guided tasting of 6 handcrafted wines from some of California’s best vineyards”. “We call our parties edu-tainment,…
Riesling Wines are very interesting and allure many different types of wine drinkers. It has been my finding that people that are not really serious wine drinkers tend to go for the sweeter versions of this style of wine but it goes much deeper than satisfying non wine drinkers. There are many different styles of…
Last week, I started exploring the issue of alcohol levels in Zinfandel, and received comments from Claire Silver, co-owner of Tobin James Cellars and Janell Dusi, winemaker and owner of J Dusi Wines. In this week’s article, we hear from Karl Wicka, winemaker at Turley Wine Cellars’ Templeton location: “Zinfandel as a variety has uneven…
While it’s fresh in my mind, I wanted to jot down some notes for wine 101ers on the Carmel-by-the-Sea Wine Walk adventure I’m on right now! So I’m sitting in a small outdoor shopping mall courtyard, as I just finished my last tasting of the day, at Wrath. Time to enjoy the cool weather, the…
Inhale for a minute. Now do it again, but this time imagine that you have traveled to Chile and an expert chef has made you a 5-course meal with no less than shrimp empanadas, corn and coconut soup, basil-scented mashed corn tamale, sea bass, pheasant breast stuffed with Porcini mushrooms, chorizo laced risotto in a…
Tickets now on sale for two days of events and seminars featuring hard-to-find, high-quality, small-production winemakers from Santa Barbara County and Santa Ynez Valley; 50% are new festival discoveries; one in four pouring first vintage, 80% have no tasting room. Garagiste Event tickets are now on sale at http://californiagaragistes.com/buy-tickets/ for its expanded Santa Ynez Valley-based Garagiste…
A wise man once said that before one can understand anything properly, one has to learn how to love it. For me, this holds true with both wine and women. It seems that the bulk of my time is spent with the pleasurable task of trying to understand the qualities and complexities of wine and…
The difference between a large wine tasting event and a small one should be fairly obvious to a wine 101er. However, at the latest incarnation of Pinot Days, an event where only wines made from the Pinot Noir grape are offered, we enjoyed a mid-sized tasting that incorporated the best of both worlds, satisfying every…