behind the cork
2015 Helwig Frenchmen’s Creek Barbera ($35) Dave Helwig had a dream to move to the wine country upon retirement. After searching with his wife, Nancy, for the perfect wine region to relocate to from their home in Southern California, Dave couldn’t...
Read more →It is commonly known that red wines age best. But why, you may ask, is that? Why can red wine be aged longer than whites? After all, they are both made from the juice of grapes! The answer has a lot to do with tannins and acidity, but residual sug...
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behind the cork
Wines of TILIA from Argentina  Tilia’s rural origins in Mendoza Argentina connect them deeply to the land and to their community. As the first Argentine wine to carry the Bodegas de Argentina C...
Read more →It’s a common belief with wines - an older bottle is better than a younger bottle. But, is that always so? If you’ve read some of my past blogs, you’d know that one of my favorite lines is “One of the first things to understand about aging wines is ...
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behind the cork
Wines of TILIA from Argentina Tilia’s rural origins in Mendoza Argentina connect them deeply to the land and to their community. As the first Argentine wine to carry the Bodegas de Argentina Certified Sustainable Seal, the TILIA label illustrates ...
Read more →Several years ago, we took an initial look at Orange wine. Having recently been asked about Orange wine, I thought it would be worth another look. First, let’s get the most important point out of the way - Orange wine is not made from oranges. Lik...
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behind the cork
Silvia Cellars is a small family-owned winery whose mission is to produce a small number of high-quality California wines from some of California’s best vineyards. And, matching vineyard to varietal is the key to their process for producing outstan...
Read more →Winemakers sometimes co-ferment Syrah with Viognier. But, why would they combine a red-wine grape and a white-wine grape during fermentation? Well, this began in the Côte-Rôtie, a wine-growing region in France’s Northern Rhône Valley where Viognier...
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behind the cork
The La Scolca estate was purchased in 1919 by the great-grandfather of Giorgio Soldati who, today, leads the company with his daughter Chiara. The surname Soldati meaning “soldiers” is particularly symbolic for the approach taken by the company’s o...
Read more →Finally, Fall is just around the corner and harvest time is beginning. This is the point where grape growers and wine makers become very focused on the grapes as they ripen. Then, once the grapes reach just the right level of ripeness, they are quick...
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