One of my favorite sayings among winemakers is “It takes a lot of beer to make great wine.”  Yup, wine folks love good beer too.  And here’s one of my favorites.  Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware brings funky, robust beers meant for sipping.  And these guys know what their doing. Their “60 Minute IPA” bottling is like an IPA on steroids.  IPA stands for “India Pale Ale,” and falls into the...

In my search for great wines, I find that many second labels and “negociant” style bottlings often contain top notch juice from very prestigious vineyards.  But since the vineyard owners usually like to keep the source under wraps, this is usually difficult to determine unless you have some inside information. I did a little digging, and have come up with some possible vineyard sites that may go into Twitter’s...

That’s right, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has started a new project– Twitter Wine.  The project, dubbed “The Fledgling Initiative,” will benefit the non-profit group Room To Read.  The Room To Read organization focuses on helping stamp out illiteracy by providing education opportunities to children worldwide. 2009 will be the first vintage released, scheduled for bottling in August 2010.  There will be a...

I just had my first introduction to the Vinaceous wines, with their 2006 bottling of Red Right Hand.  I must say that I usually take no heed to labels when purchasing or tasting wine.  One must not judge a book by it’s cover, or a wine by it’s label.  But the packaging is great.  It hearkens to days past, when stage performances were the main source of entertainment for the masses.  It conjured up images of times when many...

The wines produced by Bodegas Alto Moncayo represent the modern era of Spanish wine making. Hailing from the Campo de Borja region of Spain, these wines are lush, full bodied and usually superb. The 2006 Bodegas Alto Moncayo “Veraton” is no exception. 100% Garnacha; this wine has a nose full of white pepper, cinnamon, liquorice, stewy blueberry and blackberry. As it opens in the glass it develops a beautiful floral note. ...

Here’s a bottle I purchased many years ago, for a steal (about $20.00). I had been saving it, and saving it for a special occasion.  And truthfully, I purchased it already past it’s prime.  So I finally took the plunge tonight and popped the cork. I am usually not sentimental about keeping wine past it’s time…  if you over-age your wine, you have defeated it’s purpose.  It looses all of the beautiful...

The “Gloria Fire” is one of the most recent, and started just east of Soledad, in Salinas Valley.  Seems like fingers are pointing at Estancia Winery (owned by Constellation) as the cause.  Wineries often use “bird bombs” to scare off hungry birds that eat the ripening grapes.  Unlike the safer “bird cannons,” these bombs are fired by a hand held gun, and explode in the air.  While the cannons give...