Unique and Delicious Field Blended Wines This post is a 5-minute read. Before heading out to California for our wine excursion, I researched wineries that I wanted to visit. Acorn Winery caught my attention because they specialize in field blended wines. I was so excited that they made it onto our itinerary. Yes, I really geeked out on this post. But this is what I love about wine. It can be so much more than fermented juice. Side Note: Field Blend Field blend means that the vineyard from where the grapes are harvested includes multiple grape varieties interplanted together. The…
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Ramey Wine Cellars recently hosted me and my friends Amber & David, @winetraveleats Allison Levine, @plsthepalate, and my new friend Erin Hunt Moore @erinelisa. Over the past couple of days, I have been listening to my recording of the tasting, and it brought me right back into the tasting room. Ramey is family-owned and operated. And will remain so as Alan and Claire take over for their father, who will retire on June 30th. It was such an enormous treat tasting 5 of the current 2018 Single Vineyard Chardonnay releases along with their 2017 RRV Pinot Noir, the 2015 Rodgers…
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I had so much to stay that Instagram would not allow me to post that much, so I moved the post here. Thank you, Alice and Brook, for partnering with @strongcoffeetoredwine. THANK YOU! One of the joys of this wine excursion was to meet with the wineries that have partnered with me. Brook from @bannisterwines and Alice from @sutrowine are two of my original partners. Meeting them and saying THANK YOU was a highlight of my trip. But, of course, we also got the added bonus of tasting their current releases. Since neither wineries have a tasting room, we met at…
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Sorry that I have been incommunicado, but we went to Northern California Wine Country. If you follow us on Instagram, you may have seen some of our social media posts. Just know, we were hard at work exploring, learning, tasting, and more tasting of wine from Lodi, Sonoma, Napa, and Suisun AVAs. We traveled with friends and fellow wine writers Amber & David Burke of Wine Travel Eats and Allison Levine of Please The Palate. This trip would not have been possible without them and the countless others that set us on this journey. In eight days, we visited 36…
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{Chilled Red Wine For Summer is a long-form post. Reading time is approximately 7.3 minutes} Warmer weather is coming as we move from spring to summer. Here in Charleston, we have already had some days in the eighties, but the real heat with humidity is just around the corner. While Gary and I could drink white and rosé wines throughout the summer, sometimes you just have to have a glass of red wine. Nothing too big and heavy, but definitely red. Some red wines are great with a bit of a chill on them. That makes them perfect for summer.…
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(This is a long-form post. The average reader should be able to read and digest this post in less than 8 minutes. Should you choose, it could be read in two installments – the overview in less than 3 minutes and the specific wine profiles in less than 5 minutes. Please enjoy reading about white pinot noir.) Red, rosé, and orange wines get their colors when the pressed grape juice soaks with the grape skins. The color pigments release into the juice. The longer this occurs, the darker the color. But what happens if you press the juice ever so…
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After the year we have all had, Spring is a welcome time of year. Flowers are blooming, trees are greening, vineyards experience bud break, daylight lingers further into the evening, and it’s time for wineries to ship their Spring releases. What more can a sunshine-craving wine guy ask for?! (Other than the end of the pandemic.) So sit back. See what has arrived. And see what is keeping us busy. Wineries will release wines each year in the Spring and Fall. Spring wines are typically whites and rosés, along with previous vintages of red wines. Fall releases are usually wines…
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It’s Spring Break. You have a house full of 19-year-olds. And it is too cold to go to the beach or pool for the day. Fortunately for us, this group wanted to hang out with the “older folks,” and I had my samples of Castello di Amorosa non-vintage, non-alcoholic grape juice. These juices are from grape varieties traditionally used to make wine. When I asked if they wanted to do a “wine” tasting sans alcohol; they were all in. So Gary and I set it all up out on the balcony. Side Note of Grape Juice: I have to be…
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I first met Anne Hubatch, proprietor and winemaker of Helioterra Wines, at a wine tasting during the WWET Willamette Conference in 2019. She was presenting at the “Other Varieties from Willamette” Seminar and Tasting. She presented her Melon de Bourgogne and an Arneis. I loved them both and subsequently ordered wine from her to enjoy and write about. (There are two posts -The first, her wines were included in my Boutique Winery Must Buys, and you can Oregon Wine in My Glass.) I felt an immediate kinship with Anne, and I knew I needed to promote her wines as best…
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