By Caroline Conner
Although I am originally from California, my wine education has taken place in the UK, and as such I’ve always felt like I haven’t been familiar enough with the wines from my home state. During my holiday I had the pleasure of tasting some truly great Californian wines, Cabs from the 70s and 80s, and a flight of …
By David Lloyd
Our day started with a gentle cruise up Route 128, otherwise known as the Silverado Trail. Before meeting up with Gale Sysock, First Press Vineyard Manager who led us off to a Vineyard in Rutherford, where one of his team was picking Chardonnay for the First Press bottling.
About a week before we arrived there had been some intense heat in Napa, and …
by Jason Baillie
A team of thirsty Bibendumites recently visited California. This is the first of a few reports detailing exactly what they got up to across the pond.
Harvest time in San Luis Obispo, what a great time to visit the beautiful vineyards at Marmesa. After a well programmed tour of Napa and Lodi, I head down for …
By Gal Zohar
Wines of California
One of the biggest problems in the wine world is preconceptions. Once a large group of people assume a wine taste a certain way it is almost a fact. Strolling through Wine of California I discovered how wrong some of these assumptions can be. I always thought Californian could only …
By Larry Brooks
There’s a period that begins sometime around November and continues till New Years that is a sort of hibernation time both for the wines and the winemaker. It’s not as if there’s absolutely nothing to do, but in contrast to the harvest period just completed there’s not much to do.
Checking the malolactic progress and tasting and prepping for the winter bottling of …
By Omar Raafat
Calera vineyards
Part 3 of Omar’s harvest experience at Calera. If you missed the previous posts click part 1 & part 2 to get the whole story.
In addition to lab tests and punching down, I also got to receive grapes coming from the vineyards and run them through the destemmer, crush Viognier in a vaslin press …
By Omar Raafat
Punching down workout
It’s easy to miss the turning into the region’s most prestigious winery and I very nearly did, coming as it does just after a slight bend in the road and with not much by way of signage to warn you but after a swift (and probably illegal) reversing manoeuvre I was in! …
by Omar Raafat
Calera vineyards
It all started at last year’s Bibendum annual tasting. I’d always wanted to work a harvest but had never had the chance and with none of my European languages being good enough, doing so in France or Italy had never felt like an option. I wanted to be able to ask lots of questions, really find out how …
Hmm…which grape goes with which day of the week? This is my countdown:
Monday: Riesling – bit of zing to start the week
Tuesday: Tempranillo – love a little bit o’litteration
Wednesday: Syrah/Shiraz – bit of oomph to get you through hump day
Thursday: Chardonnay – Thursday was the new black once…so was Chardy
Friday: PINOT NOIR – angels sing for the weekend
Saturday: Grenache – perfect with long stints of home …
Last week Bibendum played host to the hottest American wine tasting of the season. Our man on the red carpet, Gareth, was there to assess the best hemlines, haircuts and Cabernets…
Tyra Banks may have been replaced by a bearded winemaker called Ray, and as far as we could tell there were no backstage tantrums, but apart from that our ‘America’s Next Top Bottle’ tasting last week was pretty …
