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 Ben Turner
Now I’m sure I’m not the only one who holds his passion for fine and interesting wines as high up as his love for heavy rock music but I do find I am a rare breed. Consider then my almost as equal love for cinema, and you have to say that getting the chance to go and see the UK’s premiere screening of Maynard …
By Jane Anson, http://newbordeaux.blog.co.uk/
Made in Manhattan
I’ve been visiting sunny New York in the last few days. Had three fascinating meetings and I will write up some market advice for winemakers looking to get distributed in New York later in the week. But I thought I would put a write up about a less business-focused meeting, with City Winery in SoHo, where …
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 …
