California wineries make good red blends from Cabernet Sauvignon. I am not going to dispute that statement. But it bothers me when I hear wine drinkers discount the rest of the world’s producers. I swear if I took the label off the bottle of the Casillero del Diablo Reserva Winemaker’s Red Blend from Chile you’d […]
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Wine Bargain No. 4: La Carraia Sangiovese
Where are you going to find a wine costing $9.99 a bottle and is rated 90 points by Robert Parker? The Wine Novice presents the 2011 La Carraia Sangiovese Umbria, an Italian red that is Bargain No. 4 in my quest to build a 12-bottle case of quality wine for under $100. La Carraia is […]
Wine Bargain No. 3: Mark West Pinot Noir
Mike Pigeon, the Wine Butler, put grilled lamb cutlets on the menu for a Saturday night cookout and we huddled briefly on the wine. A rich-tasting Pinot Noir was the first and only choice for the tender lamb, which would be complemented with macaroni salad, caprese salad (plump red tomatoes, buffalo mozzarella, fresh garden-grown basil), […]
Bargain No. 2: Alamos Chardonnay from Argentina
On a recent Friday night, when the Wine Goddess was taking a break from playing Kitchen Goddess, we ordered fish and chips with cole slaw from a favorite take-out place that knows how to “cook.” Because of the batter on the fish, I searched for a white wine that would cut through the fried taste […]
Wine Bargain No. 1: Castano Monastrell
There’s nothing better than a good bargain, especially if it’s a red liquid in a bottle. Recently, I took off with the Wine Butler, Mike Pigeon, on a search-and-taste mission to find middle-of-the-summer wines that would go well with barbeque or as a patio sipper. He dared me to find 12 quality bottles of wine […]
There's nothing tragic about soave
When I taste Italy’s Soave wine, the tragic love story of Romeo and Juliet comes to mind. Not because there is anything tragic about drinking Soave; in fact, it’s just the opposite. Soave is a white wine, made from the Garganega grape. It is a clean, light- to medium-bodied white wine that comes from one […]
Drinking wine with the Founding Fathers
A few historians have wondered whether the Founding Fathers (and Mothers) were alcoholics. I beg to differ. Life was hard back in the early 18th century and while early Americans loved to drink fortified wines from Portugal and hard cider from stills hidden in the hills, they also had a religious streak which prevented […]
Spanish varietals, Mass. Riesling show vibrancy
I can’t say enough about Spanish wines. They represent a quality bargain and many producers who previously sold in-country as a main source of revenue are now getting U.S. importers to bring their goods to market. The Spanish have some great Old World secrets to share with the world. They’ve been making top quality wines […]
Michael Trujillo: Sequoia Grove wines hitting a natural peak
Sequoia Grove Winery’s Michael Trujillo traces his Spanish roots in America back to the 1560s when ancestors first settled in what is now New Mexico. He is proud to be the son of a Colorado farmer who taught Trujillo to work hard and appreciate the land. “I spent 90 percent of my childhood on a […]
Give a vintage gift for Father's Day – wine
Guess what goes well with a Father’s Day card? A nice bottle of wine. (I hope my kids are reading this.) One of my favorite quotes about wine comes from a passage in Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. He writes: “As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint […]
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