It all began on February 3rd of this year with 22 hours of flying time from Seattle and a 10 hour time change until we landed in Cape Town, South Africa the following afternoon. Since then, I have posted thirteen times from the trip as we visited 33 wine farms (what they call wineries in […]

Carpenter Creek Winery, located in Mount Vernon, Washington, was founded in 2001 by owner/winemaker Jeff Hammer and his wife Tara. They opened their tasting room in 2003 and did an extensive remodel in 2006. Their remodeled tasting room is very nice and quaintly situated off the road among fir and cedar trees. Currently, Carpenter Creek […]

On our recent trip to South Africa, we had the opportunity to have a private tasting, tour, and very nice visit with Chris Williams, winemaker at Meerlust and owner/winemaker of The Foundry. I previously reported on the tasting in my February 27th post, South Africa: Day 2 in Stellenbosch. During our visit, Chris was kind […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is ullage. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Ullage, which derives from the French ouillage, has had a variety of meanings and uses in the English-speaking wine trade. It can mean the process of evaporation of wine held in wooden containers such as a […]

Since we are in the midst of Washington Wine Month, we thought it was fitting to feature Syrah, our favorite Washington varietal, in this month’s wine tasting dinner. And taking it one step further, we focused on the 2005 vintage. To this point, many consider the 2005 vintage to be one of the best, if […]

Thank you for joining us for the March “virtual meeting” of the Wine Book Club. Many thanks to Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20 who originally proposed the idea for the WBC where bloggers and wine lovers all over the world come together for book reviews and discussions after reading a selected text. When […]

Whether or not those of us in the New World like it, French wines still set the bar against which the world’s wines are measured. And when it comes to red wine and the grape varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, Bordeaux remains the world’s standard. With a reputation like that, it is no wonder […]

On our recent visit to South Africa, we had the opportunity to have an extended visit with Charles Back, proprietor of Fairview Winery, one of South Africa’s larger winemaking operations and producer of the “fun” Goats do Roam label widely distributed in the United States. Charles also owns Spice Route Winery and is a partner […]

This week’s Wine Word of the Week is decanting. Official definition from Jancis Robinson’s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Decanting is the optional and controversial step in serving wine, involving pouring wine out of its bottle into another container called a decanter. The most obvious reason for decanting a wine is to separate it from […]

Our host for the March edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the blogosphere’s monthly virtual wine tasting event, is Remy Charest of The Wine Case. Remy selected North vs. South as this month’s theme in which he asked us to taste and compare similar wines from different regions, one North and one South. He left the […]