Blog Archives
Love That Mountain Fruit
Look, the region is called Napa VALLEY. You’d expect there’s plenty of good stuff at low elevations. But I’ve always been excited by the uppermost regions, which I first explored at Cain and Smith-Madrone on Spring Mountain. So I was excited to be invited to a tasting of wines from Antica Napa Valley, located on Atlas Peak. [More]
Chateau Montelena Dream Tasting
Few wineries have played as large a part in American wine history as Chateau Montelena. When I was invited to attend a tasting including five decades of the Napa Valley winery’s Cabernet Sauvignon, I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. So earlier this summer I buckled up for a wine event of a lifetime. Our Master [More]
Freemark Abbey Cabernet Bosché is a Napa Valley Classic
I’ll admit that I spend my wine days and nights in New York chasing the obscure. Bring me all your wonderfully weird wines! Sometimes, though, this is at the expense of the classics. Case in point would be the Freemark Abbey Cabernet Bosché. I had the pleasure of tasting this wine with Ted Edwards, director [More]
What Should Cabernet Sauvignon Taste Like?
Seems like a pretty basic question, huh? An iconic and omnipresent red wine grape like Cabernet Sauvignon should be pretty easy to identify taste-wise. Yet both winemaker and wine drinker have a wide variety of ideas on what Cabernet Sauvignon should give you in the glass and in your drinking hole. Taste is subjective, after [More]
Charbono is Cool
I like the underdog grapes and Charbono definitely fits the bill. If you’re looking for it in Napa Valley you’ll have to seriously crane your neck as their are only around 50 acres. Out of 43,000+ of vineyard acres in the region. What is the Charbono in Napa Valley? Some say it’s Bonarda, which today you’ll find [More]
Smith-Madrone: Stu Smith on Wine and the Ephemeral Sense of Art
Post-Symposium for Professional Wine Writers, all I wanted to do was eat tacos and drink cocktails. And guzzle beer. But I am very glad I took a trip up to the top of Napa Valley’s Spring Mountain to visit Smith-Madrone. A few months prior, I’d had the wines–a Chardonnay, Cabernet, and Riesling–sent to me and [More]
Grassi Ribolla Gialla at Cook in St. Helena
Sometimes after all that Napa Cabernet, you crave refreshment. And not just beer. Enter the 2012 Grassi Ribolla Gialla. To call this Italian white wine grape obscure (and especially in Napa) would be an understatement. But a few producers are waving the flag for RG either in blends or all on its own. The Grassi [More]
Napa Valley: Outdoor Eating and Drinking in St. Helena
I’ve been in Napa for the past week attending the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers which was held at the lovely Meadowood Resort. Now I’m on my own, staying at the much less posh but very convenient El Bonita in St. Helena. It’s easy to walk to the heart of the town for eating and [More]
