We’ve been spending most of our wine country trips lately in northern Sonoma County, specifically the Dry Creek and Alexander Valleys. There is an abundance of wonderful wineries in these areas, with a great focus on some of our favorite varietals, such as Zinfandel and California Rhones, among others. First on our list this trip…
Today we have another one-bottle post. When I started doing one-bottle posts it was because my husband Eddie prompted me to. We both felt it was an injustice to hard working winemakers, winery workers and winery owners to give the typical three words – a fruit, and then a spice and a mineral – alone…
With the refrain of 1970s Peter Allen song “Everything Old Is New Again” seemingly ringing in our ears, we were looking forward to visiting some of our old favorites in Santa Barbara County from the 1980s and 1990s while also exploring some new-to-us wineries. It turned out that our first stop was a little bit…
LODI, Calif. /PRNewswire/ — This year, family owned and operated, Peltier Winery & Vineyards in Acampo, California, sent their 2021 Vermentino ($18) to the motherland for judgment against producers of this lesser known varietal from around the world. They brought home a Grand Gold Medal, 95 points and a top 5 ranking from the competition that would make their Nonna…
We were very much interested in visiting “new to us” wineries on our trip to the Santa Rosa / Healdsburg area, and Emmitt-Scorsone definitely fit that requirement. Heading west from the town of Healdsburg into the Dry Creek Valley, we immediately encountered the change in scenery that is so common to wine regions. The road…
Did you know that many of Arizona’s wineries are female owned and/or operated? The state’s governor recently recognized the flourishing wine region as an important sector in agribusiness, employment, and tourism by designating this past March 2022 as Arizona’s first official Wine Month. Here is a list of some of the women helping create Arizona’s award…
I’ve written about Stillman Brown and the wines he makes somewhere in Paso Robles often enough over the last several years that people might think I owe him something. All I really owe him is a thank you for his delicious wines as well as for his witty emails. Karen and I have really enjoyed…
I shared a press release recently on canned wines. Suffice it to say, most of the comments, mine included, were biased against canned wines. Most of us didn’t care for the presentation – just like the people that resist screw capped wines for their lack of romance – and some questioned if there was a…
“Grandma was a bootlegger.” Not something you hear every day, but this is what Jane Portalupi told Karen and me when we visited. The tag hanging on the one-liter milk bottles of their Vaso di Marina red and white wines tells the story like this: “This wine is inspired by my grandmother, Marina Portalupi, who…
This past month I got to sample some of the wines from Tablas Creek in a preview tasting held at Salt Creek Grille Valencia and organized by Carl and Terry Kanowsky. Why? On February 22 (2017) I ran the news on my website, social media and my weekly newsletter, but here it is in a…
