Wine Reviews Archives - Page 7 of 9

Sipping Port in Portugal (it’s way more fun than ceramic shops)

Do you know anything about Port? Neither did I. Then a few years ago I wandered into a wine shop in Sintra, Portugal.

Sintra is a beautiful ancient city on a hill, with winding streets that beg to be wandered. After visiting a few historical sights, D’Aun wanted to explore the cities famous ceramic shops. One ceramic store looks like all the others to me, so when I passed a well stocked wine shop it was time for me to create my own excursion.

Staring blankly at a wall of Portuguese wine is a sure way to attract a salesperson. …

I want to hear about your favorite wine!

Over the last year I’ve shared tasting notes from our trip to Italy, my finds at the BevMo nickel sale, the bargains at Trader Joe’s, my love for Mi Sueno, my admiration for Tofanelli Vineyard, my lame attempts at making our own wine, and even a tasting in Thailand! There were other tales as well, and throughout it all it has been fun to hear how others have reacted to my wine recommendations.

But now I want to hear from you!

Tell me about your favorite wines. Which wine made you go …

Bargains, Surprises and Snake Oil at Trader Joe’s

My daughter Rachel is home from Thailand and one of the first messages I get is, “Where’s the nickel sale wine you saved for us?”

I had to laugh at that one!

So it was no surprise when a few days later Rachel had an idea for this blog. She and D’Aun were shopping at Trader Joe’s when she said, “Dad has blogged about the nickel sale at BevMo, but he should do a blog about the bargain wines at Trader Joe’s.”

Hmmm … good idea!

But our local Trader Joe’s has crazy parking and I tend to avoid the …

Ranch Hands!

Ranch Hands is here! D’Aun and I, along with our friend Carrie, drove to Calistoga yesterday to pick up our 25 cases (a barrel of wine). Thought I’d share a few pictures!

We pulled into Envy Wines because that’s where Vince Tofanelli of Tofanelli Vineyards was bottling his renowned Zinfandel (I’ve previously written about Tofanelli here). Vince farms a family vineyard just outside of Calistoga that his grandparents planted in the 1920’s. Most of his fruit is sold to winemakers who demand the very best, so he actually bottles very little of his own wine. He won’t be …

Ranch Hands

Remember the Name That Barrel contest? Well, yesterday I approved a label for our private bottling of Ranch Hands! D’Aun and I are very excited about this and we are looking forward to the bottling process next week.

Thanks to Steven Label for the help in making this happen. They have been great to work with and we recommend them to anybody looking to create labels for all types of products (not just wine).

Also thanks to Jolene Flores for the fun suggestion of “Drink. Enjoy. Repeat.” We incorporated that into the back label, which we’ll share next week.…

A Noisy Bottle of Isosceles

One of the best bottles of wine I’ve had was given to me by a hotel because they said it was noisy. The hotel, not the bottle.

I was reminded of this story last Friday when D’Aun and I drove home from Santa Barbara. We stopped at Justin Vineyards and tasted their newest release of the 2008 Justin Isosceles. Wonderful wine … but Friday’s visit is not the story here.

A few years ago D’Aun and I went to Santa Barbara for three or four days. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a romantic getaway. We were in town for meetings that would …

The New Wine Country: Thailand?

Well, don’t rush to Thailand to find a Tuscan style home amongst the vineyards. Southeast Asia is not going to be a threat to Bordeaux anytime soon. Or Napa, Chile, Australia, Italy, South Africa … probably not even Texas. It’s just too hot and too humid. Plus, they don’t grow grapes! Kinda hard to make wine without grapes.

Or is it?

On my recent trip to Thailand, my daughter suggested we stop at Chiang Rai Winery in Northern Thailand. Just past the elephants, on the other side of the road from the water buffalo, across a creaky bridge that would …

English Classes in Thailand

The last few days have been my favorite here in Thailand. We left Chiang Mai yesterday, picked up Berkeley (my grand dog) from the kennel, and headed to Chiang Rai.

Along the way we stopped at the Chiang Rai Winery, a fascinating place off the main highway. I’ll write more about it some other time, but it was really fun to sip wines made from various fruits (no grapes in this wine). I had such low expectations, and I guess they were met, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, I bought a …