Posts Tagged "David Hance"

Old Vine Carignane from Niemi Vineyard and Trinafour Cellars

My friend Bernadette has a wine bar / wine shop called SIP! Mendocino. It’s in the tiny town of Hopland, a few miles short of 100 north of the Golden Gate Bridge on US 101. Belonging to the SIP! wine club … with its all-Mendocino selections … keeps me in touch (taste?) with the Mendocino [...]

150 years old and just released! Tasting Scion: A Piece of History

Absolutely amazing. And so totally Steampunky. A wine lost in time. Made before the U.S.Civil War. Made before phylloxera devastated the world’s vineyards. Held in cask until there remained no heirs of the owning family to hold it any longer. And only a few thousand dollars a bottle! See the link, below. Tasting Scion: A [...]

Old Vine Macabeo … from where?

I read a weekly “review of reviews” … an emailed summary of what wines are being recommended by key wine writers. This review, from The Baltimore Sun’s Michael Dresser, caught my attention: “2009 Yasa Old Vines Macabeo: I picked up this dry white wine from the little-known macabeo grape at a local store on the [...]

Trader Joe’s 2009 Garnacha: An Old Vine Value Discovery!

I really enjoy making discoveries at Trader Joe’s. There’s a lot of uninteresting wine that’s always there … I suppose because it sells. But there are also wines that show up, sell for a week or two, then disappear forever. These are fun to watch for. I’ve been asked, “How do you decide what wines [...]

Old Zin in Calaveras: Not the chocolate Ghirardellis, these still own their name

“Our family vineyard has survived and the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was sold long ago.” Welcome to the oldest Zinfandel vineyard in Calaveras County, California. Calaveras County lies south of Amador County within the larger Sierra Foothills AVA (American Viticultural Area). Summer days are warm here, but evenings in the Sierra Foothills cool off, particularly at [...]

Sylvaner: A blank slate grape to showcase old vines and a great vineyard site?

Sylvaner is a white wine grape variety that is grown primarily in Alsace and Germany. In Germany it is a blend component in Liebfraumilch, although the expansion of Liebfraumilch (Blue Nun) production in the 1970s contributed to increasingly reduced quality. Generally, the Franconia region of Germany is best respected for Sylvaner. In Alsace, Sylvaner is [...]

Bogle’s Phantom Red from the heart of California

In the realm of the “Old Ghost” from Klinker Brick I posted about a couple of weeks ago, this “Phantom” from Bogle flirts with the same sort of “out of the past” branding for an old vine wine. Bogle is a family winery located in the Sacramento River delta, near Clarksburg, California. Initially famous for [...]

Fish Rock Road vines, long forgotten islands in time

California State Route 128 winds from Cloverdale through the Anderson Valley to the Mendocino Coast. You can turn west off 128, between Yorkville and Boonville, onto Fish Rock Road, and follow it to the Pacific at Anchor Bay. But not many people do. It’s almost 28 miles of windy, only marginally improved roadway, that meanders [...]

Do old vines yield better grapes and wine? Matt Kramer says, “Yes.”

Do old vines yield better grapes and wine? Matt Kramer, writing in WINE SPECTATOR addressed this issue in a June 15, 2010 column. Read that column HERE. Mr. Kramer answers that opening question with “Yes,” and makes several interesting points: 1. The age of “old vines” (how old is old?) varies by region. What’s “old” [...]

Old Vines, Somatic Mutation, Chimerism … a little (too much?) terroir science

I’m not a plant scientist, and I don’t want to frighten anyone away with either the science involved here, or my incomplete grasp of the concepts involved. So this short post is intended just to plant a seed for thought. Planting a seed is a good introduction to this thought, since wine grapes don’t grow [...]