On one of my last days in Burgundy I was tasting at Domaine de la Vougeraie and the winemaker, Pascal, noted that he was going to be in Chicago the Monday after Thanksgiving and invited us to join him for a wine dinner. It was held upstairs at Bistro Margaux in Old Town (so aptly [More]

I am tasting a couple of Cru Beaujolais from Morgon that we picked up yesterday. This Caveau Morgon had over 75 different vintages and producers. It was mind-blowing. Picked up an ’01 and a ’95 for less than 10 euros each and am tasting them now. Beaujolais is beautiful….Huge rolling hills with vines on every [More]

Today I would have been back in Chicago, but the adventure continues. Last night we had a bit of a big dance party here in the tasting room/communal dining room. Nico had some of his friends over and we started the evening with port aperitifs. We had about five vintages of port, many in magnum. [More]

More punching down today. Today I did take off my pants and hop in a few tanks. It was really cool…I can cross that off my list. So if you walked in the winery about 7pm you would see about seven men in their underwear in huge steel tanks breaking the caps. We all joke [More]

The pneumatic press that they use to punch down the cap that forms on the top of the grapes broke, so we are doing piegage by hand. The most difficult work ever. Because they ferment in open tanks, a cap of grapes gets pushed to the top by the CO2 produced by fermentation. So we [More]

*Burgundy Diaries will continue, but this is too good not to mention!* I guess you could call this the poor man’s Savenieres (well, no, because it was far from cheap), but wow! Another great example of how much the Loire and Chenin Blanc kicks ass! Bought this at Pike and Western in Seattle (thanks Jen!). [More]

Wow, it’s been a long time since I have written anything. Finished with the grapes yesterday and I have the weekend off after working 12 straight days from 7am to anywhere from 9:30pm to 11:30pm. My whole body hurts from lugging 25 kilo crates of grapes, rolling and lifting barrels. We spent one day picking [More]

Our retinue has grown; people are arriving to work the harvest. Now with Joseph, Justin, and I are joined by a winemaker from Austrailia (Josh from Moss Wood) and one from South Africa (Richard). Both are cool; we are becoming a very cosmopolitan group. Today we all tasted some exquisite white wines in Mersault, M. [More]