VINOGRAPHY: a wine blog

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Vinography Images: Highlights

Highlights Vineyards become the most dramatic at the end of the day, when, like mountain ridges, they can be caught by the last light of the sun. I love this image, both for the way the light rakes across the rows of vines, but also for the subtle depth of the landscape in the haze beyond the foreground. The willingness to wait for moments like this separates the average photographer from pros like Andy. -- Alder Yarrow INSTRUCTIONS: Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on July 3, 2009 9:32 PM

Filed under: Vinography Images

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2007 J. Rochioli "River Block" Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley

It took me a long time in my evolution as a wine lover to truly understand the amount of money and sweat and energy that goes into building a world class winery over decades, even centuries. Many wine lovers early in their education (and in their earning power) are often flummoxed by prices for wines that start to head north of $80 or $90 per bottle. Should they pursue their love of wine long enough to really learn (and see for themselves) what kind of work goes into some of the world's best vineyards, and to taste the wine that... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on July 2, 2009 9:46 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews

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The Joy of Spätlese: Tasting the 2008 German and Austrian Vintage from Terry Theise

The wine world needs more people like Terry Theise, the man I call the Shakespeare of Terroir. It's so easy to get caught up in the stuffy, over-intellectualized world of wine geekery, where people endlessly debate the smallest aspects of winemaking or vintage ratings. All of us who spend enough time talking, thinking, and reading about wine get sucked into that world occasionally. But I find myself attracted to those who fall into that trap with the least regularity. As luck would have it, there are several simple cures for me readily at hand whenever I forget that wine is... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on July 1, 2009 11:09 PM

Filed under: White Wine , Wine Reviews

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The Best Pinot Noir in California?: Tasting Pinot Days 2009

The Pinot Days grand tasting event, which took place yesterday at Fort Mason in San Francisco, brings together one of the largest collections of Pinot Noir producers in North America for the tasting pleasure of the public. I was interested to see whether attendance at this year's event would be noticeably lower, but if it was, I couldn't tell. The place seemed just as packed as ever, which is a good thing -- the California wine industry needs all the help it can get in this recession. So needless to say, I was in good company tasting yesterday with 3500... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 29, 2009 10:32 PM

Filed under: Wine Activities , Wine Reviews

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Do We Have eBay to Thank for All That Counterfeit Wine?

If you aren't yet aware of the fact that fake wine is a big deal, you will be soon. It's coming to a theater near you. Billionaires getting swindled by fake bottles of wine purportedly belonging to Thomas Jefferson aside, as the world's greatest wines continue to climb in price, wine fraud continues to increase in frequency and in value. At this point, the fakery of wines has become a big business. No one knows just how large, but some wine experts say the real figure is probably shudderingly large: millions of dollars worth, to be sure, and perhaps even... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 28, 2009 9:43 PM

Filed under: Ramblings and Rants

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Giacomo Conterno Barolo and Barbera: Italy's Greatest Wines?

Because of our deep history with wine, the standards by which we judge today's efforts must be placed within the context of tradition. While we can judge California Pinot Noir on its own merits, we cannot understand or evaluate it completely without reference to Burgundy, its ancestral home. Burgundy will always be the benchmark for Pinot Noir, as it has been for centuries. Just as there exist regional benchmarks for grape varieties or wine styles, there also exist some individual wine producers, and even individual wines, that manage to define the uppermost limits of quality or the epitome of a... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 27, 2009 10:07 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews

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Vinography Images: Lone Trees

Lone Trees Every week, photographer Andy Katz sends me a new image to post here for your viewing pleasure. I never know what I'm going to get, but I do know that it's going to be good. This week, when I opened his e-mail, something different happened. Everything got quiet, and I smelled freshly cut grass, bee pollen, and felt a warm breeze.... Amazingly, we are not lost, but I wouldn't care if we were. Just as I give up and decide we have no idea where we are, another road sign appears that tells us indeed, we are... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 26, 2009 11:02 PM

Filed under: Vinography Images

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International Pinot Noir Conference: July 24-26, McMinnville, OR

There are wine tastings, and then there are wine tastings. And then, there are experiences that completely transcend a bunch of tables with vintners standing behind them pouring their wines. I've been to a few "destination" wine experiences, some of which have been great, but none of which have been better than the International Pinot Noir Conference that takes place every year in McMinnville, Oregon. Scheduled over a long July weekend every year, IPNC is one of the most relaxed and intimate wine tasting experiences I've had the pleasure of attending, not to mention the fact that it also involves... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 25, 2009 5:17 PM

Filed under: Wine Activities

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Denshu Hyakuyonju "140" Junmai Daiginjo, Aomori Prefecture

By W. Blake Gray One of the main characteristics of Japanese is its vagueness. Language is culture, and Japanese helps people get along in crowded, resource-poor cities by preventing hard feelings in conversation. Here's a good example of how this works: In a business meeting, everyone sits around the table vaguely feeling out each others' position until eventually everyone realizes what they're expected to say. Thus the first and only vote is almost always unanimous. Here's a more frustrating example: I think this sake is named "140" (hyakuyonju) because it's the 140th attempt at crossing Aomori's native Hanafubuki rice with... continue reading

Posted by: Blake on June 24, 2009 9:42 PM

Filed under: Sake , Wine Reviews

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Highlights from the 2009 Aspen Food & Wine Classic

I just returned from a weekend as a speaker at the 27th annual Aspen Food & Wine Classic, the grandaddy of all food and wine festivals. This was my second opportunity to attend the festival as a speaker, and, like the first year, a doubly special honor, as Aspen also happens to be my home town. DAY 0 I got the opportunity to kick off the weekend's festivities as the guest speaker at a luncheon for the Aspen Chamber Resort Association. My job was to entertain, to guide the attendees through the wines selected for the lunch, and to thank... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 22, 2009 9:05 PM

Filed under: Ramblings and Rants , Wine Activities

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Vinography Images: A New Leaf

A New Leaf So much attention is paid to the fruit of the vine. Everything in wine, at least from the standpoint of the drinker, is about the grapes. Grape vines are particularly beautiful, though, especially as they are just unfurling their downy little leaves as Andy has so nicely captured here. And more than beautiful, leaves play a crucial role in displaying the health of the vine, shading the fruit, and converting sunlight into the sugars from which we derive so much pleasure. -- Alder Yarrow INSTRUCTIONS: Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 19, 2009 10:11 PM

Filed under: Vinography Images

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2006 Hourglass "Blueline Estate" Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa

There is no single recipe for greatness when it comes to Napa wine, but starting with a great plot of land can take you a long way. The only problem is, a lot of people don't necessarily know a great plot of land when they see one. Sometimes these plots of land can be hidden in plain sight until the right person comes along to notice. When Jeff Smith's father moved the family to St. Helena in 1964, he wasn't thinking about wine, he was thinking about real estate development. He was also thinking about the tiny trickle of tourists... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 17, 2009 9:55 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews

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Pinot Days Festival and Tasting: June 24-28, San Francisco

It's hard to believe there was once a time that San Francisco had no major public wine tasting focused on Pinot Noir. I've only been blogging about wine for the last five and a half years, but when I started, no such festival existed. We had a Zinfandel Festival, a tasting for small family winemakers, a tasting for Rhone varietals, a Cabernet tasting, and more, but not until 2005 did San Francisco get a festival dedicated to what has been called the "heartbreak grape." Now in it's fifth year, Pinot Days has firmly established itself as one of the largest... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 16, 2009 9:10 PM

Filed under: Wine Activities

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2005 Lieff "Auberge Road Vineyard" Cabernet Sauvignon, Rutherford, Napa

There are people who start wineries and work for a long time to get to the point that their names become synonymous with good wine, regardless of whether their names are on the bottle or not. And then there are those who you wonder at how they managed to avoid having their name on a wine bottle for as long as they did. Robert Lieff has a long history with wine, and with Napa Valley in particular. How he has managed to only just now end up with his name on a bottle, is in part a testament to his... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 15, 2009 9:45 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine

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Book Review: Grape Man of Texas by Sherrie McLeRoy and Roy Renfro

Review by Alfonso Cevola. Twenty-five years ago, I got a call from a client of mine, originally from Bordeaux, who had a wine bar in Dallas, Texas. "My father is visiting from France and would like to go to Denison, Texas, and see where Mr. Munson lived and worked. Would you like to go with us?" My friend's father was Raymond Chandou, who studied and worked under Emile Peynaud, and who ran one of the largest and most successful wine cooperatives in France. "You bet," I said. I was definitely in on this trip. A few years before, while making... continue reading

Posted by: Alfonso on June 14, 2009 8:22 PM

Filed under: Book Reviews

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2006 Hall "Exzellenz" Sacrashe Vineyard Proprietary Red Wine, Rutherford, Napa

The pleasures of childhood call to us as adults. The tug of nostalgia is so great that we so often find ourselves indulging in little things that remind us of our early years, and in some cases we throw ourselves passionately into the pursuit of the things we have lost. Kathryn Hall lost the vineyard that was her childhood playground. Despite having managed the vineyard for nearly a decade, letting it go after her father's death was the right thing to do. But her memories of growing up among the grape vines in Redwood Valley, coupled with her enduring love... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 13, 2009 11:57 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Red Wine , Wine Reviews

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Vinography Images: Below the Fog

Below the Fog While I often find myself praying for sun in San Francisco, I don't ever tire of the fog in wine country. The bright gray blanket and its tendrils have the remarkable quality of making the colors of the earth and vines so much brighter and more vivid. This shot from a Sonoma vineyard is the perfect illustration of this effect. -- Alder Yarrow INSTRUCTIONS: Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 12, 2009 10:20 PM

Filed under: Vinography Images

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Fontanella Family Wines, Napa: Inaugural Releases

When it comes to family-run wineries, I always enjoy seeing how the many different roles and responsibilities involved in a full-fledged winery are divvied up among the family. Often, the winery benefits from the luck of a child that has gone into marketing as a career, or a sibling that has gone back to school to learn about enology. The combined skills, passion, and familial bond that makes such wineries tick can sometimes make for quite a powerful operation. I don't think I've ever seen quite the combination represented by Jeff and Karen Fontanella. They're just a young couple in... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 10, 2009 10:53 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews

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Golden Glass Tasting: June 21, San Francisco

There aren't many "secret" public wine tastings in San Francisco, but for several years, the Golden Glass tasting was about as close as you could get to a "wine insiders" tasting. Historically under-promoted, and generally not well attended, this tasting is often described as the single best public wine tasting in San Francisco. I'm not sure that's true, but it certainly is one of the better ones. This event, which is a fundraiser for Slow Food USA, has focused almost exclusively on small Italian wine producers -- apropos of the fact that Slow Food was founded in Italy. In recent... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 8, 2009 11:46 PM

Filed under: Wine Activities

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2004 Erba Mountainside Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa

In Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of science fiction books, the main character has invented a science called Psychohistory for predicting the behavior of large groups of people. And by large groups, I mean the entire galaxy. Based partly in sociology, partly in history, and heavily in math, the psychohistorians have developed algorithms that can be used to figure out what big groups of people will do in any situation. I'm not so sure there isn't some sort of algorithm that we might be able to construct to figure out the kind of person (apart from trained winemakers or wine business... continue reading

Posted by: Alder on June 6, 2009 9:51 PM

Filed under: Boutique Wines , Undiscovered Wines , Wine Reviews

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