TheWino.net

B Cellars - Wine Tasting Notes

B Cellars, located on Silverado Trail in Calistoga, has been making wine since '03 but just opened up this tasting room 10 weeks ago. They are a relatively small producer (3.5k cases a year) that has ambitions to be bigger (based on the money spent on the tasting room).

August Briggs - Wine Tasting Notes

August Briggs winery, located in Calistoga on the Silverado Trail, is a small producer (4kish cases a year) of mostly single vineyard Pinot's, Syrah's & Cabs. They also produce wine for Jeff Gordon on a separate label.

Barnett Vineyards - Tasting Notes

Barnett Vineyards, up on Spring Mountain Road (on the edge of Napa & Sonoma counties) is a small producer (4k annual cases) that specializes on mountain Cabernet Sauvignon.

Chateau Montelena Tasting

Visited the famous, thanks to Bottleshock and the Judgment in Paris, Chateau Montelena today for a tasting.

Gundlach Bundschu Wine Tasting & Tour

We visited the winery, Gundlach Bundschu, just outside Sonoma, CA today for a tasting and tour.  GunPun.com, as they're trying to use as a funny short for their name, was founded in 1858 and has remained a family owned & operated business for the past 152 years.  

Williamson Wines Tasting

Williamson Wines is located just off the Healdsburg square in Sonoma County. Started by Australian transplants, Bill Williamson uses a French winemaking style to develop subtle, food friendly wines.

The winetasting experience is truly unique. The complimentary tasting includes a plethora of wines, each prepared with a tiny food pairing to bring out specific elements of the wine.

Overall the Williamson Wines tasting experience is incredible and highly recommended.

Silver Oak for Christmas Dinner

This Christmas my uncle brought a bottle of '03 Silver Oak Anderson Valley to dinner. It was a very nice bottle, I added an '03 Runquist Petite Sirah to the mix. The Runquist is a fruit forward, heavy but balanced red wine. Coupled with a stuffed pork roast, it was a perfect ending to a wonderful holiday.

Drinking on the Stanislaus River

I spent the last two nights sleeping on the ground, ten yards from the Stanislaus River, drinking some good (and some not so) wine enjoying time “off the grid” with people I love.  Not to be sappy because I promise you it was far from that, rather it’s the intimacy with nature and friends that make these weekend’s memorable.  I brought six bottles of wine, there was a bottle of Belvedere & two Jamison's, as well as ninety bud light’s for a group of eight people; none of us went thirsty. 

Revelation Meal

Tonight, hosting a small, small as in two couple dinner, I realized my wino voice has been stifled by this faux desire to be PC and poetic. The reality is I'm not such a good writer anyway, especially when I'm forcing it. No, if I want to be true to myself I need to be me.

Judgment of Paris thoughts

Finally read George Taber’s Judgment of Paris, the book that chronicles the fateful afternoon of May 24, 1976 when nine French judges, in a blind tasting, proclaimed a California Chardonnay & Cabernet Sauvignon superior to first growth French wines. I flew to London for a week of work yesterday and am visiting Paris over the weekend, so I wanted to read it before I get to France.