Stellina 2012 Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel Lodi, CA Stellina 2012 Reserve Old Vine Zinfandel comes from Estate Crush, a custom crush facility producing a great many small lot wines from grapes in the Lodi area of California. They sell wine from the Stellina Estate Vineyard under their own Estate Crush label. Its nose offers a
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Hello readers! I’m sharing a guest post today from Jack Thompson of Bro BBQ, a website devoted to all things grilling, from best smokers to best ways to get charcoal glowing. Here are his recommendations for pairing beer and wine with BBQ, and a photo from me to get you in the mood. ~The Gourmez
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The Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP) association, website here, is one of the most active wine organizations I’ve come across in my decade’s worth of food and drink blogging. If you’re a zinfandel lover like myself, you’ll be interested in all the great events they put on during the year. The next one coming up
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For my last post on the 2017 Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC), I want to highlight the caviar tasting experience Jordan Winery has developed with Tsar Nicoulai Farms. I tried both during a WBC Friday night excursion dinner, which means the food and drink enjoyed was offered at a very steep discount to me <—  Yes,
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Obligatory disclaimer: This tasting of Turiya Wines was free to me. I spent my formative years on the Central Coast, in Santa Maria, California. While I lived there, I had no idea it was a wine-growing region. My family is conservative, religious stock – having a drink is as likely to bring forth admonitions about
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Chateau Montelena Calistoga Zinfandel 2014 Calistoga, CA Obligatory disclaimer: I received this bottle of Chateau Montelena Calistoga Zinfandel 2014 as a free sample for review. The Wine This Napa Valley zinfandel was aged in Irish oak barrels, which is a highly unusual choice for Californian winemaking. It smells like a candy that doesn’t exist but
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On a pre-excursion to the 2017 Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC), I had the pleasure of touring and tasting at two estate wineries in the Napa Valley. As they were part of the WBC, these experiences were steeply discounted, so consider that my obligatory disclaimer prior to diving in to this blog. Or driving in, as
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The Wine Road is a professional association of over 250 wineries and lodgings based in northern Sonoma County. At 40 years and counting, it’s rather long-lived for a California wine country organization! The Wine Road is also a Taste Award-winning, biweekly podcast from hosts Marcy Gordon and Beth Costa. Beth has been the executive director
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One of the biggest pros of attending blogging conferences is getting to meet the people behind the wines and food products that I enjoy writing about. Kimberly Morelli, whom I first met at the 2017 Food Bloggers Conference, is one of those people. Kimberly is co-owner of San Marcos Creek Vineyard and Winery in Paso
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My first experience with Montes and Kaiken wines came from the 2015 Wine Bloggers Conference in the Finger Lakes. That’s quite a long way from the Andes Mountains; the wineries’ extensive vineyards can be found the greater Andean regions of both Chile and Argentina, and both were founded by Aurelio Montes, Sr. At the conference,
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