A few months back I decided to fill out an application for the Wine Century Club, a group that you can become a member of after you’ve tasted 100 different grape varieties.  I sat down with the application and picked my brain for which varieties I’ve tasted.  It was easy to come up with about [...]

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As the story goes, in 2006 a veteran winemaker worked alongside his protégé Boyd Morrison to explore old world winemaking traditions and in so doing realized a wine with a new world style.  Morrison used that inspiration to create Apothic Red.  The wine is a blend of zinfandel, Syrah and Merlot. This is a dark [...]

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Earlier this week I was invited to take part in a Twitter tasting with several other wine writers to taste two types of Beaujolais wine.  We were sent the wines in advance and were given a date and time to collectively taste them.  But I messed up.  Yikes!!  I put it down on my calendar [...]

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Ricardo Santos is the former owner of the Norton Winery and thirty-some years ago he was the first wine producer in Argentina to export Malbec.  Unless you’re new to wine or have been living under a rock you know that now Argentine wine is almost synonymous with Malbec. Given Santos’ history with Malbec, I was [...]

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I was actually a little surprised when I saw that Redwood Creek had a Malbec.  I typically think of them as producers of Californian wine.  After all, the brand name “Redwood” makes you think of northern California.  But Redwood Creek is ultimately part of E&J Gallo, who distribute wines from all over the world.  You’ll [...]

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This past week I took part in a Taste Live event featuring Stepping Stone wines from Cornerstone Cellars.  Taste Live events are wine tastings where numerous wine bloggers and media from around the country all taste the same wines and share their thoughts via Twitter. Cornerstone Cellars is a Napa Valley, California producer and is [...]

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Before jumping into the next big series, I thought we’d review some odds and ends.  Wines that we’ve received as samples, but are unique enough that we don’t get the quantity needed to do a full series.  Today, we’re checking out a Sangiovese from Dievole. Wine production at Dievole dates back to the 12th century [...]

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