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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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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Vale do Bomfim 2015 Red Wine Blend Douro, Portugal 13.9% ABV I’m about to leave for the 2017 Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, and I thought, before I take off, I’d post one of my regular features since I started this blog in 2007: the simple wine review. Wine blogging has changed a lot
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In May, the Association for the Promotion of Wines and Spirits in North America (the APVSA, based in Montreal) came to San Francisco on their spring tasting tour–the Wine Not! Tour. As a member of the new media, I was invited along to taste the wines they sampled for potential distributors, importers, and retail clients.
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Hakushika Hana Kohaku Plum Sake Class: Junmai Ginjo Nishinomiya, Japan This sake has added nanko plum extract, which is what makes it such a strongly amber color – in the bottle, it looked more rose pink! It smells like a blend of sake and plum wine with plum and warm rice being the primary notes.
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Occasionally, as a blogger who does reviews, I can get a little behind. Especially as I’m also just a month and a half out from the release of my first book, and a wee bit harried making sure everything’s in place for that. So with a backlog of wines to sample and review—to the point
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Obligatory disclaimer: This tasting of Roger Constant Lemaire Champagne was entirely free to me. It’s not every day you get to try some of the world’s best bubbly, and I’m a little in denial that this experience ever happened. But through Luscious Lushes’s wine connections and Brix Chick Liza’s hospitality, I was invited to try
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White wines from the Portuguese Vinho Verde region are some of my favorites, so I jumped at the chance to try a quartet of them last month in San Francisco. Obligatory disclaimer: The food and Vinho Verde wines I’m about to write about were provided for free to me from Benson Marketing, which represents the
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