Taking the world one wine at a time.
This list always depresses me slightly. For the most part it reads like a who’s-who of generic tasting juice (obviously), but on the other-hand if you look at a similar list of the top 30 restaurants in the country, you’re going to be greeted with the same level of mediocrity. Right? To expect individualism on a list of this sort is not to be expected, since all of these wines are over 100,000 cases in…
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News article taken from WineBusiness.com When Kathy Klopp of Klopp Ranch Vineyards in the Russian River Valley region of Sonoma found herself over-run with gophers in her vineyard and rats in her chicken coop, she introduced “vineyard cats” to patrol her property. “We have 25 acres of vineyards,” reports Kathy, “and even though we have an owl box program, it was still an issue. We also had a problem with rats eating our chicken food….
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News article taken from Press Democrat. So it appears that the annual Wine Road Barrel Tasting in Sonoma may be uncorking a little too much rowdiness for the town in the center of it all! Healdsburg merchants are complaining that younger imbibers are getting carried away, transforming the event into a “frat party,” and even a “beer blaster.” “There’s incredible drunkenness,” Anne Marie Montecuollo, owner of a fine jewelry store, told the City Council Monday….
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Wildlife volunteers have stated that 23 kangaroos used by award-winning Jacob’s Creek winery to bring in tourists, were found in what they believed to be a malnourished state. Some were so apparently neglected that they were in “shocking” pain from untreated injuries. Jacob’s Creek, owned by French company Orlando Wines, is one of Australia’s best-known international brands, and just recently won the Australian Tourism Award for best tourism winery. Volunteer group Fauna Rescue said that…
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A new study has shown that sex-deprived fruit flies are more likely to drink excessive amounts of alcohol than their sexually satisfied counterparts. It’s one of those studies that raise the question: Who does this kind of research? “This was just a wild experiment to do,” lead researcher Galit Shohat-Ophir acknowledged in a report in the journal Science. But she said the study yielded dramatic results that could shed light on the brain mechanisms involved…
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French wineries, like over-tired children, are kicking and screaming but slowly making their way onto social media, a survey has revealed. The survey of 528 wineries in the United States and France conducted by ABLE Social Media Marketing found that while 94% of U.S. vintners were on Facebook, only 53% of their French counterparts were. But the French are slowly coming online. A similar 2010 study by ABLE’s corporate predecessor mysocialwinery.com reported less than 20%…
Read MoreFirst of all, no I didn’t go! Once again my invite must have been lost in the mail…however, Eric Levine (the creator of Cellartracker) was in attendance. Since the wines served with the State Dinner are not printed on the menu, Eric was so very kind to post the list of wines served on his website, and I crudely added the courses they were paired with (in red font on page 6) to the PDF…
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Rudy Kurniawan was known as much for his palate as for his keen eye, fixed often on the highest of high-end wine bottles. His presence at wine auctions was constant, at events in Beverly Hills, and offerings at Sotheby’s in New York. His interest by itself was enough to drive prices at the top of the market. But on Thursday, in the culmination of persistent rumblings about the veracity of his products, Mr. Kurniawan, 35,…
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Grape growers in California finally have something to cheer about—grape prices are going up. But what do those higher prices mean for consumers? Winery owners are trying to cut costs so they can keep prices low at a time when drinkers still want value. After nearly three years of sluggish sales and an oversupply of wine, vintners have cleared their cellars of older vintages and are looking to increase their grape purchases. But two small…
Read MoreThey essentially started as bootleggers that were barely old enough to drink. Brandon Allen, now 27, was working in construction and attending an occasional college class in San Luis Obispo. Bo Silliman, now 25, was studying premed at the University of Louisville in Kentucky in between throwing keggers. And 27-year-old Chip Forsythe, who didn’t have a whole lot to recommend him other than he was a decent wrestler, had somehow managed to get into Cal…
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A wine expert’s “acute sense of taste” may mean that expert ratings and recommendations are irrelevant to wine consumers who were not born with the ability to discern small differences in a broad range of tastes, according to a team of international researchers. "What we found is that the fundamental taste ability of an expert is different," said John Hayes, assistant professor, food science, and director of Penn State’s sensory evaluation center. "And, if an…
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It’s been a busy few weeks for Lady Gaga! First the announcement that she’s the first person to ever reach 20 million followers on Twitter, and now this! The pop icon was spotted in Sonoma County last week, and is allegedly interested in buying a property in the area with a view to making her own wine. “My favorite way to catch up with friends is to have wine and food nights. We cook together…
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