The Stags Leap District in Napa is truly one of the most consistent and alluring Cabernet Sauvignon regions in all of California, and Shafer Vineyards has long helped to keep Cabernet at its rightful prominent in this AVA. Silky and velvety with mild tannic structure, the 2015 iteration of Shafer’s …
As a beverage category you might be surprised to know that 2017 saw 420 billion liters of bottled water by volume sold globally, worth a staggering $194 billion. As a judge at the Global Bottled Water Congress and Awards, organized by Zenith Global, based out of Bath, England, I know …
Washington State is finally getting the recognition it well deserves. Though the wines from here have been terrific for years, they are comfortably hitting their stride and the winds of change are noticeable with excellent and well-structured wines throughout the state. From Walla Walla Valley comes Cadaretta’s 2015 Malbec, which …
Though Santa Barbara County is known for Pinot Noir, it is typically from the coastal Santa Rita Hills AVA. This 100% Pinot Noir however comes from its brethren, the inland Los Alamos and Santa Maria valleys, so it presents a different fruit style. Spending nine months in neutral French Oak. …
Oregon’s Willamette Valley has a vast array of Pinot Noir producers who have been at the game for years. So when Cedar+Salmon named this wine as its first offering, well, the end result was not expected. This is a lovely Pinot with elegant strawberry blackberry, black cherry, huckleberry and bing …
Photo: Dogs are welcomed at most Lubbock tasting rooms Texas is the fourth largest wine-producing state in the US, but most of their wines are consumed within Texas, so they are hard to come by. Enter Lubbock and the High Plains AVA. Lubbock, named for a confederate soldier, is a …
Chardonnay is the enviable grape that can be so many different things—lean and clean to butter bombs to late harvest and sparkling. The 2016 Prescription is an assertive wine with a docile price tag. This single-appellation chardonnay from Clarksburg is stainless steel fermented but with added oak. Fermenting it this …
If the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County is known for one thing, it is Pinot Noir. To be sure, excellent Chardonnay hails from this region as well, but it is Pinot that claims the largest plantings. Therefore you can find Pinot Noir with a variety of price points. The …
It’s not that Pinot Noir makes some of the best rose’ because of its nuanced flavor profile, it’s that winemaker Kathleen Inman knows how to treat her fruit. Her 2017 Endless Crush Rose’ of Pinot Noir is stainless steel aged with no residual sugar and only 12.9% alcohol. Is it …
In many cases a wine is greater than the sum of its parts and this holds true for the 2016 iteration of MacRostie Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, utilizing fruit from five different sites. To keep that fruit in prime expression this wine was whole cluster pressed, after which 15% of the …
There is a legend that the Abbey at Brittany was some of the first planted Cabernet Franc in the soils of the Loire Valley, cuttings coming from the Basque region in the 11th Century. Why anyone would have traveled over 1,000 miles with a satchel of vines is unclear, …
Dr. Greg V. Jones started his professional life as a chef and the idea of climatology was inconceivable to him. Then his father started a vineyard and Jones found himself immersed in weather and grapes. Listed as one of Decanter Magazine’s “50 Most Influential People in the World of …