(Download complete pdf here) Walking by the Santa Barbara Mission with my wife on an unseasonably cool day in the second week of July, she said, “The weather is strange this year.” Each year is unique, with 2024 being no exception, and people have said that every year as far back as I can remember. So far it’s been cooler...[ read more ]
Prádio vineyard in Ribeira Sacra It seems that just about everyone I know who didn’t get Covid prior to the recent holiday season has done so since, but somehow my wife and I have successfully evaded it despite an extensive pre-holiday tour around California to say hello to as many of our friends and customers (many of whom were also...[ read more ]
Everyone in the wine business got their start with a few memorable bottles, and believe it or not, mine were from California, back when I was nineteen and had just moved to Arizona from Nowhereville (Kalispell), Montana. It doesn’t matter where you start, you’ll always have a soft spot for the wines you got to know in those early years....[ read more ]
Off-roading through a bumpy, hilly and winding dirt road for what seemed an eternity, we headed into the Itata Valley wilderness, our destination an ancient granite vineyard surrounded by pine and eucalyptus. Along the way we were joined by one of Pedro’s grape growers, Juan Palma. Juan comes from a family with a 300-year-old lineage, centuries of passed down vineyard...[ read more ]
In early January of 2017, Andrea and I left Chile’s capital, Santiago, to meet the renowned terroirist Pedro Parra for the first time. Five hours into our drive, we exited Ruta 5 at Chillán to leave Chile’s long Central Valley and drive west, away from the breathtaking Andes, which form the border with Argentina. We continued toward the Pacific...[ read more ]
The two prevailing names for zucchini suggest a split personality. The Italian name, which we obviously employ in the U.S. too, Zucchini, is a sort of silly word that sounds a bit like a clown who performs at kids’ birthday parties. (Oh, yes, there it is: http://www.zucchinibrothers.com/ ) On the other hand, the name favored by the French and English,...[ read more ]
Little in the world of wine was more exciting than the recent news that cable giant USA Network is producing a show that may be inspired by wine forger Rudy Kurniawan. According to Variety, “Connoisseurs” will center “around Clay Park … a brilliant con artist who dupes the wealthiest, most powerful people in the country into paying millions for fake...[ read more ]
I had been looking forward to my day with Nicolas Rossignol and the opportunity to do another deep dive into Volnay and Pommard, the famous neighboring red-wine villages of the Côte de Beaune that are so close to one another but are so famously different. Rossignol is one of the best visits a Burgundy lover can make, as rare is...[ read more ]
The first time I stood on the hill, I didn’t think much of it. It’s a quiet place just outside of the famous French wine town, Saumur. To tell you the truth, there wasn’t much to admire besides a quaint, but lifeless, chateau sitting on top of it. This insipid wonder attracts droves of tourists every year to snap photos...[ read more ]
For many years, I knew of this great geologist working her way through Burgundy. I saw her work for the first time when I received a disc, via Wasserman and Co., that Bruno Clair sent to help me with a Côte de Nuits educational seminar I was putting on. The disc, a dossier commissioned by the town of Marsannay, contains...[ read more ]
I met Peter for the first time in a small and unassuming house, deep in the Austrian wine country. He lives in a quiet town, Spitz, tucked into the far western end of the country’s most famous wine region, the Wachau. The first time I heard about Peter was from my friend Sariya, who supplies me with great Austrian wines. ...[ read more ]
