A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to taste a short flight of wines from Spanish producer, Camp Viejo. This Rioja-based winery has been producing wine for a good 50 years and produces three different wines, each a specific style as regulated by the Rioja DOC. Rioja, for those who don’t know, is the […]
When I first launched this site, nearly four years ago, Spanish wines were what I was excited about, especially garnacha. But since the first few months of the site, I find myself tasting less and less Spanish wines. I have nothing against them, in fact I still have some trusted favorites in the Spanish section. […]
As a guy who is into value wines, I’ve found that there are a few regions you can count on for consistent values. Chile and Spain are two regions that are on that list, but one that I don’t see enough of is Portugal. There are some incredible bargains to be found in Portuguese wines, […]
The wine world is paying close attention to Colchagua Valley. Topographically and geographically, it’s quite similar to Napa in many respects. Many fine producers have, and continue to emerge from this growing region. Recently we had an opportunity to taste an example from Colchagua – Calcu’s 2008 red blend. Calcu (Magician in the native Mapuche […]
Alright, I’m going back to a theme we had going last week… checking out new vintages of wines we’ve previously reviewed. Last year we checked out the 2008 Apothic Red and it was a very interesting wine, so we were glad to be able to revisit it with the 2009 vintage, which we like even […]
This is the second time we’ve reviewed Clif’s The Climber Red Blend. The 2006 version we reviewed was comprised of the same 5 varietals (zinfandel, cabernet sauvignon, syrah, merlot and petite syrah); however, in similar fashion to how Clif’s winemakers have managed The Climber white, they’ve made some significant changes to the percentages. In the […]
The Russian River Valley isn’t in Russia, it’s an AVA in Sonoma County, west of Healdsburg. This is a cool climate region, due to the influence of the Pacific Ocean, and as such is an outstanding area to produce both pinot noir and chardonnay. This is where the grapes for this Picket Fence pinot noir […]
This past week I took part in an online wine tasting organized by Wines of Chile, an organization that works to promote Chilean wine around the world. This particular tasting was put together specifically for wine bloggers, like me. It’s an opportunity for bloggers to taste some wines they might not have otherwise tasted, and […]
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 […]
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 […]