chardonnay

interview with Nicholas Miller from Bien Nacido Vineyards, Santa Barbara County

August 3, 2011

We had the distinct pleasure of meeting Nicholas Miller from Bien Nacido Vineyards while attending PinotDays in San Francisco a few weeks ago. BNV is a family owned and operated fine wine vineyard in the Santa Maria Valley of Santa Barbara County. The Miller family purchased the land in 1969 and began growing grapes by [...]

Read the full article →

Clos Pegase, Napa County

June 15, 2011

I’ve been agonizing for weeks over what to write about Clos Pegase. Finally, I realized my struggle derives from the most obvious of things: there really isn’t much to criticize about this remarkable winery. Located in the northern end of Napa Valley, right across from Sterling, it makes a wine country excursion with sex-appeal. The [...]

Read the full article →

Martinelli Winery, Sonoma County

May 25, 2011

I picked Martinelli as a wine tasting destination after stumbling across their web site. When I saw the beautiful picture of their large red hop kiln, I was sold. You see, we were traveling to Sonoma County with our friend, Chris S, who has entertained us several times with fascinating aged zinfandels from nearby Hop [...]

Read the full article →

Rochioli Vineyards and Winery, Sonoma County

May 18, 2011

I was initially drawn to Rochioli Vineyards and Winery because of my continued enthusiasm for Williams Selyem. The later has a well-known “Rochioli Riverblock Vineyard” bottling and they use some Rochioli grapes in their “Westside Road Neighbors” pinot noir blend. Prince of Pinot writes that Williams and Selyem began buying grapes from Joe Rochioli in [...]

Read the full article →

Williams Selyem pick-up weekend, Spring 2011

May 11, 2011

Some of us at weirdcombos were lucky to have a glorious weekend in the Russian River Valley over Mother’s Day. We spent the night at the funky cabin-in-a-redwood-forest of our great friends, Jocelyn and Devin, and did some wine tasting; we followed the Russian River to its delta on the Pacific near the town of [...]

Read the full article →

JUSTIN Vineyards and Winery, Paso Robles

April 7, 2011

The first thing that ever comes to mind when considering JUSTIN is why one always seems to see it written like that, in all-caps: J-U-S-T-I-N. That’s so loud and unnecessary. This place is JUSTI-fiably famous in Paso and elsewhere. The lettering is too in your face for my taste. The next thing that I always [...]

Read the full article →

Chouinard Vineyards, Castro Valley

March 7, 2011

Hegui and I decided to go to Chouinard as part of our recent Livermore Valley wine tasting meet-up. They got an excellent review on ChowHound and they produce Rhône varieties, which we adore. Even though we’ve been, I still don’t quite know how to situate them on the map. Many of their grapes are grown [...]

Read the full article →

Concannon Vineyard, Livermore Valley

March 2, 2011

Concannon may be familiar to you from supermarket shelves. I know that I was beguiled by them for years whenever I browsed my local Safeway. Strangely, I’d never considered trying to visit until our good friend, Kristen B, suggested a day-trip to Livermore Valley. She was pulling together a group and had a friend, Jennifer, [...]

Read the full article →

Hop Kiln Winery, Sonoma County

February 2, 2011

We went to Hop Kiln on a quest for more late harvest zinfandel after the thrilling half-bottle that our good friend, Chris, brought to our Dungeness crab massacre, oh, I mean dinner party over the holidays. Then, in January, we saw him at another party. That time he brought a bottle of 1995 Hop Kiln [...]

Read the full article →

Michel-Schlumberger Wines, Sonoma County

January 24, 2011

We hadn’t really known anything about Michel-Schlumberger until we were invited for a visit through our blog by Jim Morris, Vice President of Consumer Sales and Marketing for the winery. That’s a first for us. It is flattering to get invited to something, so we arranged to go for a visit and tour. They waived [...]

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →