Last Saturday, Dad (John) and I attended a tasting for Cadence Winery at the McCarthy & Schiering wine shop in Seattle’s Ravenna neighborhood. Winemaker Ben Smith was on hand pouring his wines, talking about them, and sharing pictures of his Cara Mia Vineyard on Red Mountain. Ben and his wife Gaye McNutt founded Cadence Winery […]

During the recent Wine Bloggers Conference in Sonoma County, California, Dad (John) and I had the pleasure of taking a vineyard walk at Michel-Schlumberger (pronounced “mi-shell’ shloom’-bear-zhay”). We hopped into vans and headed up to the Dry Creek Valley in the northern part of Sonoma County. After driving along winding, wine country roads, we arrived […]

For those of you who are not familiar with a vertical tasting, it is not a tasting at which you are standing up (although I suppose that you could). A vertical tasting is one in which you taste different vintages of the same wine from the same winery. You may remember that we fell in […]

A couple of months ago I promised you a series of posts on what we call Super Bargain wines. In early September, I posted on Super Bargain Wines for Tough Times which featured a list of excellent wines selling for less than or equal to $10 a bottle. A few weeks ago I did a […]

3:30pm Dad (John) and I are here at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Sonoma County, California. We are just about to begin the Live Wine Blogging segment which will feature 14 wines from 14 wineries. We will update this post as we go. 3:36pm 2004 Bonterra The McNab (Mendocino, California): 60% Merlot, 26% Cabernet Sauvignon, […]

Adams Bench Winery is a small, family-owned winery located in Woodinville, Washington. The owners and co-winemakers are the husband/wife team of Tim and Erica Blue. Their winemaking consultant is Chris Camarda of Andrew Will Winery. In order to pay the bills and fund their winery operation, Tim has maintained his day job as an attorney […]

Last Friday, we hosted one of our monthly wine tasting dinners. We blind tasted six Zinfandels, four from California and two from Washington State. It was another fun evening of good wines, excellent food, and wonderful friends. Among the six wines, two set themselves apart from the rest. The 2006 Seghesio Sonoma County Zinfandel and […]

Walla Walla Valley is one of the oldest of Washington State’s nine AVA’s. Established in 1984, it encompasses over 1,200 vineyard acres. Located within the greater Columbia Valley AVA, Walla Walla Valley covers the area around the town of Walla Walla, Washington, and also dips across the state-line into Oregon near Milton-Freewater. To the locals, […]

Last month, I posted on Super Bargain Wines for Tough Times, which by our definition are wines with a price less than or equal to $10, of excellent quality (4-star quality or higher), and its price is less than or equal to one-half of wines of the same varietal and the same quality level (5 […]

Our host for the October edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the blogosphere’s monthly virtual wine tasting event, is Russ Beebe of Winehiker Witiculture. Since Russ is an experienced wine tasting host and hiking guide, it’s no surprise that his theme asked us to get out and enjoy some time in the Great Outdoors and then […]