The night before the three-day Kentucky Bourbon Fest was set to begin we were invited to a small tasting with two distillers from Michter’s Whiskey. The Speakeasy we were set to meet at, an amazing space that even the employees that worked adjacent to had no clue was there, was a great backdrop for the…
The last time I wrote about Sonoma’s Rodney Strong Vineyards was when a winery representative came to Los Angeles and met with our #LAWineWriters group over lunch in Marina Del Rey. At that time we sampled their Rose of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc that can easily be found in local stores, but then moved onto wines…
Before tasting the latest Riesling from Smith-Madrone I was reminded of a time years ago when I attended a Riesling class and food pairing. The wines were from one winery in the Mosel region of Germany (grown on steep hillsides similar to Smith-Madrone) and I remember that only the last couple of wines we sampled…
My first thought when I picked up Bianca Bosker’s Cork Dork tale was oh boy, I was going to learn some new tricks here. Three hundred pages later I not only learned a cellar full of tricks but also felt a whole lot better about being a wine geek myself. Bosker’s cork dorkiness went way…
I first met Mark Blatty of Byron Blatty Wines (same person but I understand he prefers to go by Mark) at Assistance League’s wildly successful Sunset in the Vineyard 10th Anniversary event last November. His tasting table was adjacent to the Pulchella Winery table and I quickly learned that Mark had joined other local winemakers…
A Continuation of Abe Schoener’s [The Scholium Project]… A NEW LESSON IN THE MORAL NATURE OF WINEMAKING: LES JARDINS DES ESMÉRALDINS The Wines: Transcendental and somehow Historical at once When we taste, he is very eager for our impressions, our reactions. He watches our faces, especially our eyes, carefully. He is clearly proud of how…
Wowza – Suzanne Phifer Pavitt continues to blow us away! Greeting us – on crutches from a recent surgery – we climbed up to see the brand new second story tasting room. (Last year when we visited it was under construction.) It was the perfect backdrop for us to visit, and taste the latest vintages…
In reviewing two bottles of Napa Valley wine, from the same winemaker but two different varietals, I expected to find no similarities. But, in looking over my tasting notes for today’s column, I found one: Both wines developed, ripened, blossomed and smoothed out after ten minutes in my glass. I found myself returning to my…
There was more than one Goddess braving the SCV cold in nothing but a toga and a ceremonial grapevine headdress on one recent Friday night. Me, as the temporary Goddess for Circle of Hope’s Vine 2 Wine event in June, and the Goddess of Wine, a fellow-wine blogger, wine educator, WSET Level Two Certified, lucky-for-me-she-lives-in-Burbank-and-can’t-take-my-peeps-home-with-her,…