A RECIPE AGAINST LOGORRHEA IN BACK LABELS
The wine you see in the photo appeared in a recent Friday night tasting. It was rather indistinct in the impression it made, light bodied, toasty, crisp, with tropical fruit flavors and a slightly toasty, citrusy finish. It was an easy drinker. I guessed it as a New World Chardonnay. Instead it turned out to be Chenin Blanc from the Santa Ynez Valley. No harm done. Never underestimate domestic winemakers' abilities to take any white grape varietal and make it taste like Chardonnay.Indistinct as the wine was, the experience was distinct in two different ways. First, the wine epitomized the[...]
VIRGIN VISIT TO SIDEWAYS COUNTRY
Thirty miles north-east of the scenic seaside town of Santa Barbara there lies a vast wine country made famous by the 2004 movie Sideways. Stretching along both sides of Highway 101 its three main appellations form a triangle, the Santa Maria Valley at its apex, and fifty miles south, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Rita Hills at its base. Recently two more appellations have been created in the southern sector along the base, Ballard Canyon and Happy Canyon. The area has become especially well known for its pinot noirs, again thanks to Sideways. In a recent visit to the southern[...]
WALTER SCHUG; A HUMBLE GIANT PASSES ON
I just found out that Walter Schug passed away on October 10th. The news did not make any headlines. My friend Archie Steele, who just visited his winery in Carneros texted me. Schug was one of a multitude of hard working, devoted pioneers of the Napa Valley who shunned the limelight and sought to make good wine, in the process expanding the wine horizons of the region.Schug's winery, at the cross-roads between the Carneros Highway and Highway 12 on the way to Sonoma, was a humble affair with a small, unassuming, friendly tasting room that reflected his own personal style.[...]
A MALBEC COINCIDENCE
In our monthly tasting group at George and Gail Heron's house (owners of Stockton's Fine Wines) we assembled for a sampling of Argentinian Malbecs, a wine we don't know much about. What an assault on the senses!These were all big wines, inky dark, high extraction, with ripe fruit, robust tannins, and spicy, high alcohol endings. Thankfully none were overoaked. I usually spit everything in such tastings but even with mouth exposure alone I thought I could get inebriated.Some time during the tasting Gail pointed out that the Malbec clone brought to Argentina was a softer version of the grape that[...]
TURKISH WINE; A SUCCESSFUL SPLASH IN SAN FRANCISCO
Introducing Turkish Wine Renaissance, the brochure said, referring to the world’s only wine exporting Muslim country as The Newest Oldest Wine Region. I was at Troya, my favorite Turkish restaurant in the swank Fillmore district of San Francisco, with Larry and Mariko Johansen, proprietors of Stockton’s Wine Wizard’s, for the first ever trade event staged in the City by the Turkish wine industry. The fledgling effort, hosted by a group of major Turkish producers, importers and San Francisco distributers, attracted much interest, tasters filling Troya shoulder to shoulder. It featured ten major producers representing all the wine regions of[...]
SAUMUR-CHAMPIGNY, A CLASSIC, YET A NEW DISCOVERY
It cannot be a coincidence. Two San Francisco bistros two weeks apart, two wines from the little known appellation of Samur-Champigny, both outstanding, both bargains. At Monsieur Benjamin, the hip Hayes Valley spot recently opened by chef Corey Lee, of Benu fame, where the wine list is mostly in three digit prices, I hesitated before ordering the cheapest red on the list. I was dining with Larry and Mariko Johansen, owners of Wine Wizard's in Stockton. I did not know much about Saumur, except that it is in the Loire Valley. Neither did Larry. We figured it must be[...]