If you’re following our Casual Winers Wine 101 program, you will have learned about this type of wine. Rieslings from Alsace, France are light and dry. They are NOT to be confused with their across the border German Rieslings which are often sweet. The German will add grape juice or sugar to their Rieslings which …
Read up on the Pinot Noir article we released a few weeks back to familiarize yourself with where Pinot are grown. Pinots are a finicky grape variety which cannot be grown just anywhere. Duckhorn Vineyards and their Decoy brand is one you’ll find in a lot of places. Their wines are typically in the $15 …
Pinot Noir is my wife’s favorite red and as I’ve tasted more and more of these I’m really liking them. They are lighter than your bolder reds like Cab, Merlot, Zinfandel or Syrah wines. They don’t leave heavy acidic ending. They are dry and have a smoothness or silkiness to them. They go down easy …
It’s hard to believe that California, now recognized as an elite wine producer, was not much of anything back in the ’70s. Watch the movie Bottle Shock staring Alan Rickman and Chris Pine and you get a Hollywood version of the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976 (known as the Judgement of Paris) “What is that?” …
Is Napa’s Wine Growing Success That Recent a Thing? Read More »
While visiting Napa with our friends, the Kitchura’s, they mentioned that we should take a drive along Silverado Trail. It’s a really pretty drive. It’s a road off the main Napa drag with a lot wineries you’d likely recognize. Then my godson, who had recently been in Napa, messaged me recommending that we drop by …
My wife, Any, and I recently visited with our friends and Casual Winers Cathy and Andrew Kitchura. They live in Sacrament just a short drive from Napa and California’s top wine producing regions. It was a treat visiting a wine growing region with a couple that knows wine and the area really well. They gave us …
You watch people who know wine taste wine and they look kind of funny. They spend a lot of time looking and it and smelling it. If you ask them, “How is it?” they’ll tell you, “Hold on. I’m not there yet.” “Not there yet? What’s the point of drinking wine if you’re not drinking …
We held a tasting featuring Bodega Santa Christina from Chile and one of the wines was a Carménère. I had never heard of it before, but it’s Chile’s premier grape. It does really well there. So is this a native Chilean grape that no one else has thought to grow. Heck no!. Let me tell …
Where Ever Did That Chilean Carménère Come From? Read More »
Watch this “Sideways” movie clip where the main character Miles’, played superbly by Paul Giamatti, describes the Pinot grape. His obsession with Pinot in the movie boosted Pinot Noir wine sales. Let’s use this as springboard for cover Pinot Noir wine growing regions. Pinot Noir grapes produce super wine. So why doesn’t everyone grow …
Why Are You Into Pinots? It’s Like a Thing With You Read More »
Wine makers typically recommend you let your red wine breathe some time before drinking. It gives the wine time to “open up” as they say to get you the best flavor possible. A traditional way to do that is to open the bottle, pour it into a decanter and wait. Decanters, because of their shape, …
