I found these three wines immensely impressive. To start with, they are all delicious, and moreover, each offers such an immense quality-to-value ratio that the pricing is thoroughly hard to believe. I’d buy any of these three with great confidence.
Read MoreFor all the years I have tasted Oregon wines, I was surprised to just stumble across these this year, especially as Cooper Mountain Vineyards is celebrating its 40th Willamette Valley harvest in 2018.
Read MoreEnrico Serafino is a well-established house in Piemonte’s Roero. In fact, it is the oldest continually operating winery there. That’s not for nothing.
Read MoreGotta hand it to Canned Oregon. The company has tailored its cans to its consumers’ mindsets. As a trekker, I love the idea of more easily transported wine.
Read MoreThe Adami family has been making single vineyard wines for 85 years. That’s remarkable considering that the region is known for its blended wines. Moreover only a decade into production, founder Abele Adami realized the superiority of hillside vineyards. It’s been all about the hills, or the “rive” in Italian, ever since.
My number one take away from this tasting is how remarkably finessed the impression of the bubbles are in all of the wines.
Read MoreChateau Montelena 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon The Montelena Estate and Mi Sueño 2014 Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley
Read MoreDonnafugata 2016 Cerasuolo di Vittoria Floramundi: This wine smells of warm, red clay soils or even a hot, terracotta pizza oven. It also smells of old, wooden spice racks and dried tomatoes. The taste is every bit as savory.
Read MoreFEL 2016 Pinot Noir Savoy Vineyard Anderson Valley: This is a Pinot Noir powerhouse. Even on Day Three, it was powering on as though it had just been opened.
Read MoreBodegas San Valero 2016 Garnacha Rosado Origium Cariñena: This is the kind of rosé I adore, and it’s a plus that the wine is much less expensive than many of the less interesting, pale, leesy and vaguely ripe pinks that are so sadly prevalent today.
Read MoreThis perky young thing is surprisingly forward on the nose and palate. It’s downright energizing to drink this!
Read MoreFinding a Napa Sauvignon Blanc under $40 is remarkable, and finding one this good is even more of a feat. This offers very good value for money when shopping for a Napa name tag!
Read MoreI couldn’t help but smile when I read that the team at Troon decided to forgo the industry lingo of “skin fermented” on this label as they think it sounds “kind of yucky”. When it comes to human skin, I get it. The idea of sticky toes treading grapes never sounds appealing to me. However, this is different.
Read MoreThe Northern Golan Heights is considered a cool climate thanks to its high altitude. It’s a volcanic plateau in the northern reaches of Israel.
Read MoreThe best wines of this tasting confirm what I’ve said for just over a half decade: I believe Sicily is a region on the rise to being one of the top quality producers (it has long been a top volume producer of Italy), if it isn’t already.
Read MoreTrentodoc bubbly is on a mission to have its metodo classico wines perceived as the best in Italy. The tip-top of this category of wines is crisp and bitingly dry – in an appealing way. They are also layered with flavor.
Read MoreWhen I visited Burgundy in the summer and fall of 2017, cellars were full of Côteaux Bourguignon. I was surprised at how many vignerons had embraced this category – one that falls into the gluggable, cuddly, one-more-glass-why-not-? sort of category.
Read MoreLast year I tasted through a shipment of very fun Bulgarian wines in New York City that partially substituted for a trip I was to take there for a third time. Time flies, and again, I’ve had the pleasure of doing a similar round of wines in my office. Moreover, I had the chance to taste again the Bratanov Tamianka 2015, which is too delightful to resist yet has several years of staying power left.
Read MoreI adore Kerner, but I’ve never had one from outside of Italy’s Alto Adige until now. That echoed winemaker David Ramey’s experience, too.
Read MoreOne of the most impressive attributes of the FEL wines is their consistency at a high quality level. The Pinot Noir and the Chardonnay are especially notable. I always appreciate the FEL wines’ terrific balance and clearly defined varietal character. Year over year, I am entirely confident of what I will get in a bottle of wine from FEL. So, I was excited to taste the Pinot Gris for the first time.
Read MoreAs I’ve written before in this column, 2016 was a rough year in Chablis. Here are a few numbers on the 2016 vintage recounted to me by Didier Picq, who oversees the winemaking at his family’s domaine….
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