This post(mortem) is a bit of meditation on the 2009 Contra, a wine I have utterly adored (we’ve just recently sold out) but has been, in spite of very favorable press, very favorable price, and a strenuous, if not Herculean marketing effort—we really pulled out all the stops on this one—a bit of a commercial […]
Sources I had the distinct pleasure of speaking to a group of wine bloggers in Portland, OR recently – some of you may have been there – in which I reflected somewhat pensively on the state of the wine business in the U.S., mostly lamenting a certain palpable loss of innocence and idealism. The gist […]
Napa Valley girl She’s a Napa Valley girl Napa Valley Girl She’s a Napa Valley girl Okay, fine For chard, for chard She’s a Napa Valley girl In a tasting room Okay, fine For chard, for chard She’s a… LIKE, OH, MY GOTT (Napa Valley girl) LIKE – TOTALLY (Napa Valley girl) St. Helena is […]
If one is looking for true originality in a New World wine, grape hybridization may well be the most rational way to proceed. But I have some nagging doubts about the potential brilliance of vinifera hybrids, and what might really be meant by “wine quality.”
Terroir’s self-evident truth carries with it a deep, almost elemental, psychic force and resonance, and in a very real sense, terroir cannot exist without human beings to discover it, express it, and in the end, to appreciate it.
