Tuesday night may well have seen more Michigan wine being consumed in the state of Texas than there ever has been before. Okay, so I have no idea if that is true or not, but what I can tell you that this was the most Michigan wine that has ever been enjoyed at my place. I invited a couple of my Texan friends to partake in the tasting, after all, I am a generous guy. Not only do I freely share my wine with my vino amigos, I also have a slightly less endearing tendency to share my opinion. Here...
Last night I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in Tweet and Taste Michigan, hosted by Shannon Casey from Michigan by the Bottle. I had a couple of friends over to get their first taste of Michigan wine with me, and had a great time talking with all the other wine lovers who were involved in the event. This event had great participation, with 54 different people tweeting over 1000 times about the wines from Shady Lane Cellars. I will be posting a full review on these wines tomorrow, but I wanted to give a quick overview today....
Last week I came upon a tweet on Twitter from LangeTwins Family Winery and Vineyards that announced that their 2008 Generations Viognier had won a Platinum metal at the Monterey Wine Competition. I had been looking for an excuse, and admittedly I didn't really need much of an excuse, to open the bottle of this wine that Joe Lange had sent me as a sample from the winery. Thanks to the good folks judging the Monterey Wine Competition, I have my excuse. Viognier (pronounced Vee-on-yay) is a wine that I have really been enjoying recently. The aromatic character of Viognier...
The Good No doubt about it, the funniest thing that I saw this week comes to us directly from Ed Thralls of Wine Tonite fame. Most of you have probably seen me talking about the Wine Bloggers Conference that is taking place in Walla Walla Washington this summer. Ed has issued a call to hip-hop artist and wine video blogger Sadat X to make an appearance at the conference. For those of you not familiar with Sadat's body of work, I give you this sample (warning: contains a wee bit of profanity) - I actually reviewed the Cusumano Nero D'Avola...
My recent experience with getting to know the Virginia and Michigan wine worlds got me to thinking about this question: What US wine regions that you have limited exposure to are of most interest to you? Virginia, Michigan, and Arizona were all near the top of my list, so I'm very excited to have had the opportunity to learn more about each of them. Others that are high up on the list right now are New York and Georgia (due largely to the writings of my friend Joe from Suburban Wino). So, what are your national wine curiosities? Also, if...
I am honored to have been asked to participate in the upcoming Twitter Taste Michigan event that is being organized by my good friend Shannon Casey from Michigan by the Bottle. This tasting will feature the wines of Shady Lane Cellars. The event takes place next Tuesday, April 13th. Join in on the fun by grabbing some Shady Lane wine, and then tweeting your experiences and questions with the hashtag "#ttmi". In preparation for the tasting, I thought I would take some time to learn a little bit more about the wine scene on the Leelanau Peninsula of Michigan, and...
On my visit to the Llano Estacado Winery last month, I was introduced to a new wine that they have just started making. Executive Winemaker Greg Bruni and I tasted the Llano Estacado Moscato wine in their tasting room, and I purchased a bottle to try here at home as well. This is definitely not the kind of wine that I normally buy, but it is hard to argue that it isn't delicious. There is no doubt that this is a sweet wine, with the residual sugar coming in at about 10%. This wine is made from Moscato Bianco, or...
This summer the city of Walla Walla, Washington will be overrun by bloggers from around the country for the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference. We will descend on the city like so many thirsty locusts. Personally, I am in secret plans with my friend Sean Sullivan from Washington Wine Report to perform an armed annexation of the Walla Walla Valley portion of Oregon, so please don't tell anyone. Sean had a really interesting post up on his blog last week about "Washington's Dirty Little Secret". The Walla Walla Valley American Viticultural Area (AVA) obviously shares a name with the location of...
Dude, how had I not thought of this earlier? What would make the upcoming Wine Bloggers Conference in Walla Walla better than having the one and only True Wine Connoisseur Sadat X in attendance? Ed Thralls of Wine Tonite fame brings us this awesome video that will doubtless be starting a massive campaign to see that Mr. X makes it to the Dubba Dubba in 2K10.
The GoodJoe Roberts from 1WineDude knows how to handle a no good, lousy, Wine-Monopoly legislative tool. Time to bring out the pimp hand and lay the smack down. It just requires a little help from a document called the US Constitution, and one almost as important, Tom Wark's Manifesto For Change In the Wine Industry. The Bad Kevin from Wine Dude Online (lots of wine dudes in this edition) recounts an experience that most certainly falls under the category of "bad". I really hate to see stories about truly awful customer service experiences. The unfortunate thing for business owners is...
Those of you who have been reading the blog over the last few weeks have seen my series of posts with Josh from Wine(Explored) contrasting the Texas and Virginia wine industries. I've really enjoyed getting to know the Virginia wine world a little, and my man Dezel from My Vine Spot helped make the introduction complete by sending on a couple of additional bottles of VA wine for me to try out. One of those bottles was the 2005 Kluge Estate Red Blend. The Kluge Estate blend is a Bordeaux blend made up of 40% Merlot, 30% Cab Franc, 25%...
I have had so much fun doing this series with Josh from Wine(Explored), that finishing it up is a little bittersweet. I loved getting to try some Virginia wines, and to learn more about the wine industry in Virginia. Thanks for the memories Josh! Today our last post is running on Wine(Explored). I can say that for my part, I look forward to collaborating with Josh again in the future. If you aren't already following his blog regularly, you are really missing out. He's a great writer and an awesome person to interact with on these here interwebz. Here are...
Thought you all (or y'all, as they say here in Texas) might like to get a picture for what it's like to live out here on the plains of West Texas. Last week I took a trip out to visit my friends at Bingham Family Vineyards and get a tour of their place. It was so windy that I wasn't really able to record anything that would give any useful audio, but I did get to experience a nice West Texas dust storm. The Binghams are producing a lot of grapes at their place, with over 130 acres of grapes...
I'm proud to announce a new post that I have written for Palate Press. I really had a great time working with Meg Maker and Ryan Reichert from Palate Press. There are some great people over there, and it is a really great online publication that I am proud to have the privilege of being published on. My post has to do with the wine scoring as a technology. Those of you who are familiar with the work of Neil Postman will probably be especially interested, as I drew heavily on his writing for the piece. Please join in the...
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