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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 26, 2006 By James Suckling
Just tasted a tiny selection of some 2005 Mosels and...WOW. I am in Zurich for a couple of days, and my friend Beat Caduff, of Caduff's Wine Loft, served us some killer Rieslings. He says that 2005 is the best vintage he has ever tasted in the 15 years he has been traveling to Germany to taste young wines from vat and cask.
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Posted: April 26, 2006 By James Molesworth
White varieties, along with early ripening reds such as Merlot, are all mostly picked. But Chilean vintners are in a holding pattern right now with their harvest running late for Cabernet Sauvignon (the country's lead varietal), most of which is still hanging on the vine.
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Posted: April 25, 2006 By James Laube
Mayacamas Vineyards released its 1970 Napa Valley Zinfandel this month for $100 a bottle, and no, that’s not a typo on the vintage date. “Even more amazing,” says owner Bob Travers, “this is not a re-release, for we have never sold this wine before.
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Posted: April 25, 2006 By James Molesworth
My friends went to dinner the other night and ordered the ’99 Domaine du Pégaü Châteauneuf-du-Pape from the sommelier. The sommelier then presented a bottle of ’00 without noting the difference in vintage.
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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 25, 2006 By James Suckling
From all of your comments , half bottles are a good thing. AND I COULDN’T AGREE MORE. What you should consider is buying en primeur, or futures, of Bordeaux, Port and anything else on offer. This usually enables you to order what bottle size you want, from mega sizes such as imperials to half bottles.
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Posted: April 24, 2006 By James Laube
Two items have risen to the top of today’s to-do list. No. 1 is work-related -- wrapping up our annual Chardonnay report. It is by far the easier of the two assignments. Each year, I taste roughly 400 new Chardonnays.
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Posted: April 24, 2006 By Harvey Steiman
Christophe Hille has left his position as chef of A16, one of the hottest Italian restaurants in San Francisco. I featured him in my recent Wine Spectator survey on Italian cuisine in the United States.
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Posted: April 24, 2006 By Harvey Steiman
I get a chuckle out of restaurants that play games with the design of their menus and wine lists. They surround certain items with frames, or print them in bigger type, the typographical equivalent to waving their arms and hollering, "Pick me!" I always wonder if they're doing it to guide us to the best stuff or the most profitable.
Blogs
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Posted: April 24, 2006 By James Molesworth
A few items from my beats… • At Matetic , which has been impressive in its first few years, another young winemaker is taking over. Paula Cardenas, 33, will be replacing Rodrigo Soto when the harvest finishes up.
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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 23, 2006 By James Suckling
Just me and my children last night for dinner. I decide to throw a “bisteccca” on the grill and toss a simple green salad. And I wasn’t about to drink water with it! So I went down to my cellar and tried to find a half bottle.
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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 22, 2006 By James Suckling
Went to the barber this morning in our nearby village of San Giustino Valdarno with my son Jack. (He didn’t like his haircut. Too short!). It was about 10 am in the morning, sunny and warm already. I think that the wet weather is finally ending and spring is definitely here.
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Posted: April 21, 2006 By James Laube
President Bush is arriving in Napa Valley today, and this appears to be the first visit to the area by a sitting president. (Our research didn’t turn up any other solid leads.) The president is scheduled for a sleepover at Meadowood, the resort near St.
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Posted: April 21, 2006 By James Molesworth
Patrick Valette has recently been hired to consult with Chile’s Viña Santa Rita. Valette, whose family once owned Château Pavie in St.-Emilion, now lives in Chile and is consulting for a number of wineries, including Viña Quebrada de Macul, TerraMater, Viñedos J.
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Posted: April 21, 2006 By Harvey Steiman
Northstar , which started out as a Merlot-only winery, is expanding into other varietals, and those new wines just might overshadow the Merlot. I stopped by the winery on a recent visit to Washington to taste and chat with Jed Steele, the California-based winemaker who has consulted on Northstar since its inception in 1994.
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Stirring the Lees with James Molesworth
Posted: April 21, 2006 By James Molesworth
There are many winemakers who run their domaines and work their vineyards personally, handcrafting their wines. They are driven by one tenet – to produce the highest quality wine they can. Typically these winemakers do not have the spare time needed to work the marketplace.
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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 20, 2006 By James Suckling
Spoke to Christian Moueix on the telephone this afternoon. His family is the powerhouse in Right Bank Bordeaux wines, controlling such great names as Pétrus, Lafleur Petrus, Trotanoy and Magdelaine--among others.
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James Laube's Wine Flights
Posted: April 20, 2006 By James Laube
“It’s gonna be a great year for cutworms and botrytis,” my friend C.J., a Rutherford-based vineyard manager said, tongue in cheek. And that was last week, before it rained again over the weekend.
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Posted: April 20, 2006 By Harvey Steiman
The beat-up red SUV bounces and sways as winegrower Christophe Baron pilots it over a creaky bridge and into the mud left by recent rains. I take inventory of the dashboard: an old pair of sunglasses, a ballpoint pen, a round can of Altoids, a strip of flannel cloth.
Blogs
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Harvey Steiman At Large
Posted: April 20, 2006 By Harvey Steiman
As a journalist all my life, I live to spread the word about something I know that you might not. I spent the first 20 years of my career in daily journalism, where the word gets out fast. That's why I am excited about blogging.
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James Suckling Uncorked
Posted: April 19, 2006 By James Suckling
I just finished lunch at the restaurant below my house in Il Borro. It was the birthday of my colleague Jo Cooke, and I decided to try to find something special in my cellar to drink with him. I knew that Jo was a big fan of Léoville Las Cases.
