Category: Featured

  • Somewhere Over the Rhine: Riesling

    When you mention Riesling, many will say “Oh, I don’t really like sweet wines, ” assuming all wines labeled Rieslings are sweet. However, Riesling can fall anywhere on the spectrum from bone dry to an intensely-concentrated sweetness, with variances in between. Riesling is one of the varietals most determined by its terroir, and wines can differ in their level of alcohol by volume. Many of the classic German semisweet version are 8% alcohol by volume or less, while newer, dryer Alsace and Austrian Rieslings are around 12%.

  • Kismet and the Most AMAZING Texas Wine

    This wine is liquid nectar! Peaches, apricots, honey. You know the famous Meg Ryan scene in “When Harry Met Sally?” You just thought she was acting. My guess is they gave her a glass of something like this right before they shot that scene.

  • When the Judge calls do you tell him you’re drinking?

    A Florida attorney with a sharp tongue and a dry wit, asked me to recommend some places in Wine Country and blogged about his adventures there. We included some of his comments with links to his blog where he reviewed a number of the wineries he visited.

  • Another Wine Blog Does Dallas!

    Dinner began with lobster-scallion “shooters” in a red chile-coconut sake. Just as the name implies, the scrumptious little morsel comes in a sake cup and you consume it as you would a shot of whiskey with a tender lobster bite at the end. Paired with it was a Banyan Gewürztraminer from Monterey County.

  • Tragedy as Marketing

  • Labor Day and the Work of the Vineyard

    To depart from the multiple posts you’ll find on which wines to pair with your Labor Day celebration (Burgers and Syrah, chicken and Chardonnay, grilled seafood and Torrontés, and if you haven’t been hit by the recession: steak and Cabernet Sauvignon or grilled lamb and Bordeaux) I thought we’d talk about “the true meaning of Labor Day.”

  • Wine Competitions: It Won a Medal – It Must be Good!

    A research study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Wine Economics found an interesting aspect of wine competitions that might be disturbing to our the aforementioned winemaker as well as to consumers who choose their purchases based on medals and ribbons: A gold medal in one competition does not mean a gold medal in another. In fact is may not even mean it’s good!

  • Another Wine Byte 15: France’s Red-headed Stepchild

    Back in the day before people knew about genetics and recessive traits, it was assumed that a redheaded child born to a couple of brunettes was obviously the product of an affair. And while the father would claim the child as his own, to save face, he tended to treat the child poorly, thinking certainly it was not his own. This grape was treated with similar scorn.

  • New Study Adds Gravitas to Wine Bloggers

    I very much enjoyed the advice to wineries on how they can benefit from working with wine bloggers. Professor Thach provides a number of suggestions, which have also appeared in our posts, as well as in the blogs of PR consultants like Rob Bralow and Michael Wangbickler.

  • One for You, Two for Me: Blending Can be FUN!