As I write this wine review I can hear the strangest sound coming from outside the wine shop. It sounds familiar and yet decidedly odd. I look out the window and see our property manager raking. That’s right, it’s mid-February and the landscaping tools of choice are a rake and broom. At my own home, [...read more]

I, like many people, used to have a very specific notion about Beaujolais. At 21 years old, I sampled Beaujolais Nouveau for the first time. It was enticingly packaged with a brightly colored, glimmering, illustrated label. This should have been my first warning. My second warning should have been that it was displayed proudly at the [...read more]

There is more Gruner Veltliner grown in Austria than any other single grape. Why then, are so many of us not drinking it? It has so much to offer! Gruner is one of the best food matches out there, stepping in stride with vegetables of every variety and partnering well with everything from seafood to [...read more]

Wine is stuck with its fair share of stereotypes. Thanks to the almost comedic persistence of their origins, it’s not often that one of these stereotypes gets dismantled. Sometimes the perfect storm hits and, poof, a stereotype disappears. According to the supplier of the Pinot Project, whose mission is to find “fabulous quality Pinot Noir [...read more]

Gamay with the holiday meal – it’s become a bit of a cliché at this point. Everybody writes about it, because it’s fashionable to point out one’s connections to the inside of the wine industry. Well, the cliché exists for a reason – good wines made from Gamay love holiday foods – especially roasted bird [...read more]

You all remember that movie that put Pinot Noir on the public radar, right? Giamatti destroys Merlot sales for a few years, and the world scrambles to snap up Central Coast Pinot, there’s an affair, a car crash, an thinly veiled existential undertone… Well, it’s Pinot Noir like the Encantada that made Central Coast wines [...read more]

My “Pinot Palate” was challenged the other day. Some person, who shall remain anonymous, told me that I had “no palate for Pinot Noir”, more specifically that I don’t distinguish between a Pinot that tastes like Pinot and a Pinot that tastes like something else. I feel misjudged. I do, in fact know when a [...read more]