July 31, 2012 Issue
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Tasting Reports
The 2010 vintage follows in the footsteps of 2009, delivering lively, ageworthy Chardonnays
Posted: July 31, 2012 By James Laube
July 31, 2012 Issue
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Features
Posted: July 31, 2012 By James Laube
July 31, 2012 Issue
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Features
30 producers who set the gold standard for quality
Posted: July 31, 2012 By James Laube
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
The 2009s are tight and structured, good candidates for aging
Posted: July 26, 2012 By James Laube
The overall strength of the 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet vintage adds another layer of intrigue for fans of this wine region. The 2009s (many of which have been reviewed and published in our Insider newsletter, with many more to come) are the latest in a series of excellent vintages dating to 2004.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
In this election year, the economy is a hot topic. And on that subject, the California wine industry gives us all something to take pride in
Posted: July 23, 2012 By James Laube
With all the recent political crossfiring, finger pointing and rhetoric about jobs created, lost and outsourced, etc., the health of the California wine industry is an increasingly bright spot in the U.S. economy.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Screaming Eagle Founder Jean Phillips remains mum on her Stags Leap District vineyard
Posted: July 17, 2012 By James Laube
After a brief hiatus, Jean Phillips is weighing a return to winemaking. The former owner of Screaming Eagle bought a new vineyard a year ago, six years after selling her tiny winery and vineyard.
Phillips' purchase of the former Pillar Rock vineyard in the Stags Leap District immediately fueled speculation that she would start a new label. True to form, she remains as private as ever, yet she allowed in an exchange of text messages that she has wine on her mind, even if it's in the distant future.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
One wine helped launch the winery, and the career of the winemaker
Posted: July 10, 2012 By James Laube
It had been decades since I tried the 1969 Chappellet Napa Valley Cabernet. The last bottle I tasted had expired. Not this time around.
The other day, over lunch at their winery, Donn and Molly Chappellet uncorked their 1969, their first commercial wine, for a taste of history. It captured the wine in all its glory.
Paired alongside the 1999 and 2009 versions from the family's Pritchard Hill vineyard, the '69 looked nearly identical in color to the two younger vintages, still very dark red ruby-garnet, with little if any browning. It had retained its rich core of dark berry, tobacco and cedar and could have easily passed as a timeless Latour.
June 30, 2012 Issue
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Columns
Posted: June 30, 2012 By James Laube
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Aloft, Peter Mondavi's new Cabernet, is made by Thomas Brown
Posted: June 28, 2012 By James Laube
It's been a long time in the works. So it is with the Peter Mondavi family. It has always been the tortoise to Robert Mondavi's hare. The hare no longer exists as it once did, but the Peter Mondavi family, owners of Charles Krug Winery, is stretching its neck out with a new signature wine called Aloft, made by Thomas Brown. It comes from a family-owned site on Howell Mountain, above the Napa Valley floor, territory that is relatively new to the Krug Mondavis, as they're often known, who make most of their Napa wines from valley floor grapes.
Blogs
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James Laube's Wine Flights
The 2007 Heitz Martha's Vineyard ranks among the great Cabernets in Heitz' 50 years of tradition
Posted: June 15, 2012 By James Laube
Along with Ridge Monte Bello, Heitz Martha's Vineyard is one of California's longest running single-vineyard Cabernets. Since 1962 for Ridge and 1967 for Martha's, these two Cabernets have been made continuously by the same respective wineries. They are grands crus in the purest spirit of the word.
Last year, Heitz celebrated its 50th year in business, and the Martha's Vineyard Cabernet remains a consistently complex, well-defined, distinctive expression of terroir. When the 2007 Martha's (94 points, 1,330 cases made) passed through my office the other day in a blind tasting, I wondered if the wine in the brown paper bag could possibly be Heitz. It had all the telltale signs: the minty chocolate-covered cherry aromas, the firm, dense and concentrated body, and long, persistent finish. It's the best new Martha's I can remember in years. Make that decades.
