Our day in Napa Valley during the recent Wine Bloggers Conference was worth the price of the conference admission alone. It was the perfect mix of education, tastings, and fun. We started the day at The Culinary Institute of America where we enjoyed two keynote addresses focusing on the future of blogging, social media, and […]

When you hear the grape varietals Barbera, Sangiovese, and Dolcetto mentioned, you probably think of Italy. These three varietals are all native to Italy but are now being grown in other parts of the world as well. While many traditional wineries make the occasional Barbera or Sangiovese varietal wine, one winery in California is focusing […]

Last week in Texas Wine Country 2009, Part One, I shared with you my initial impressions of Texas wines in 2009 and how much better they are today than in 2002. Now after visiting a total of 23 wineries and tasting a total of 169 wines from 28 wineries, let me give you a summary […]

The Wine Century Club turned 4 last Thursday. The Club was founded by Steve and Deborah De Long in 2005 to promote “the many unsung grape varieties used to make wine.” Dad (John) and I became members of the Wine Century Club last year after tasting at least 100 different grape varieties. While we have […]

Regular readers may remember that I visited several wineries in the Texas Panhandle about a year ago. Prior to last year, I had not been impressed at all with the Texas wineries I had visited. However, based on my limited sampling last year, I wanted to make a more comprehensive survey of Texas wines and […]

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 […]

The inaugural Sip of Snoqualmie, benefitting Encompass, was held last Saturday at the Snoqualmie Casino in Snoqualmie, Washington (about 26 miles east of Seattle). Encompass is a non-profit organization whose mission is to nurture children, enrich families, and inspire community in the Snoqualmie Valley. Thirty-two Washington wineries were on hand pouring their wines during this […]

Our last day in South African wine country was a last minute add-on trip to the Durbanville district, an area very close to Cape Town. The area was beautiful, but the overall quality of the wines was not great. And, unfortunately, the few excellent wines that we did find are not available in the United […]

Stellenbosch is by far the most prominent wine region in South Africa, so I wanted to go back and visit several of the wineries on my list that I had to skip when I was ill on our first visit to Stellenbosch several weeks ago. Our first stop was at de Trafford Winery. It was […]

On our next South African wine adventure, we headed out to Franschhoek to visit wineries that we were unable to visit earlier in our trip when I was ill. Franschhoek, a village settled more than 300 years ago by the French Huguenots, is a picturesque town full of art and antique shops and galleries, coffee […]