UPDATE: VINTAGE TWO-TRIPLENAUGHT:First Stirrings of Harvest Late July: While vacationing in Western Massachusetts, I retrieved a phone message from Paso Robles that had an urgent quality. The Viognier grapes planted at a new vineyard source for us were rapidly gaining in sugar. (JULY!) It was impossible not to be skeptical: new growers. First harvest. Probably […]

UPDATE: VINTAGE TWO-TRIPLENAUGHT:Maybe it was the Full Moon In my walk through the Viognier Saturday, there were highly practical considerations to be addressed. Viognier wine tastes the way it does because that flavor is in the grapes, when they’re ripe, on the vine. Some grapes just taste like grapes. Viognier, if it’s grown properly, tastes, […]

UPDATE: VINTAGE TWO-TRIPLENAUGHT:We Can’t Go On Meeting this Way Here we go again. I no sooner get the Viognier tucked away in its barrels, ready to ferment, and heave a big sigh of relief, looking forward to a weekend at Pt. Reyes with Cornelia to do some bicycling, some napping, some eating and drinking wine, […]

UPDATE: VINTAGE TWO-TRIPLENAUGHT:Back to the Future I sat in my kitchen Friday morning the 18th, working on the Organolepticians (#5), and happily anticipating a peaceful weekend celebrating my birthday; the celebration would start with a 10:45 am massage appointment — only another 20 minutes or so to wait. I was nearly finished writing, and rose […]

UPDATE: VINTAGE TWO-TRIPLENAUGHT:Is It September Yet? A big part of harvest is about waiting, and the hope is, usually, that there is time to wait, because there is so much to do. The first two loads of fruit we brought in sneaked up on us, and we were fortunate that they didn’t come mid-harvest, when […]

Tales of Wining and Dining The venerable wine writer Hugh Johnson, whose World Atlas of Wine has taught me the most about wine of any book I’ve encountered, once remarked that wines’ initial importance to humans, ultimately, came down to its capacity to intoxicate, to “banish care.” He may well be correct, yet it’s the […]

Fall 1999 Newsletter Out Standing in His Field October 6, 1999: Steve Hill, who farms Syrah vines at two properties in Sonoma Valley that produce a couple of our best wines, left me a message a few days ago, alerting me to the approach of ripeness in his Parmelee-Hill vineyard. Steve, who is an outstanding […]

What’s New? This is the time of the year that the cycle of bloom and set begins in Northern California’s vineyards. The last couple of years the weather during that period has been pretty up and down, creating a lot of worry for growers and winemakers. What’s needed for the best results — each flower […]

Gil Handelman and Keven Clancy pour

Steve Edmunds and Ed Durell