Ridge Vineyards Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2008
Ridge Vineyards is a winery that has fascinated me for much of the time that I’ve been interested in wine. Their wines, methods, and story are all a compelling source of interest for oenophiles.
Ridge’s history dates back to the late 1950s, when the property the winery and some of its vineyards reside on in Santa Cruz was purchased by a group of Stanford researchers. At the time, this didn’t include the Monte Bello vineyard, which was not purchased until a few years later. In the meantime, Dave Bennion and the rest of his partners had begun holding back some of their grapes to make wine themselves (the rest were sold to other wineries) and were becoming increasingly interested in using all of the harvest for their own wines.
In 1969 they hired Paul Draper, and the rest, as they say, is history. Draper became their chief winemaker and has remained at the helm ever since. The 1971 Monte… (read more)
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Master of Malt North British 20-Year
The opportunity to taste a straight, grain scotch whisky – with no malt whisky included – is very rare. You almost never see such a whisky bottled on its own, and if you do it’s going to be an unusual, and limited, bottling from an independent bottler. Since I joined the Society several years ago, I’ve seen a couple of bottlings come and go. But outside of that, during the number of years that I’ve had an avid interest in scotch, I’ve run across only a very small handful.
The reality is that, of the many millions of gallons of scotch grain whisky that are produced each year, nearly all of them go into blended whiskies. And so, in the end, while grain whisky is drunk in phenomenal proportions by whisky drinkers every year, most of us know next-to-nothing about the grain whisky distilleries themselves. While malt whisky distilleries each have their own unique brands and stories,… (read more)
Domaine Rolet L’Etoile Chardonnay 2007
White wines from the Jura are truly something special. In the oceans of wine out there, the emphasis of this strikes home with me more each time that I taste one. Unfortunately, that remains a relatively rare experience, as finding these wines is difficult. In 2006, the Art Of Eating featured Jura wines in a fascinating in-depth article. This was the first time I’d heard of them, and at the time finding them was all but impossible. But slowly, and I believe partly as a result of the interest sparked by this article among a small group of wine drinkers, certain shops in Boston began carrying more of them. Even Vin Jaune could be found if you were especially fortunate.
Of late, I’ve found that these wines are harder to find, which is a real shame because they can be so utterly fascinating. Wines from this region simply aren’t like wines made anywhere else in the world,… (read more)
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Kilchoman Summer 2010 3-Year
In the small (yet growing) group of small Scottish distilleries, Kilchoman is perhaps the tiniest. But what else would you expect from a distillery that is only 6 years old, is located on the small island of Islay off Scotland’s southwest coast, and was built on a farm (Rockside Farm)?
I still remember learning about Kilchoman back in 2004, before the distillery had even begun to produce its own whisky. Kilchoman, founded in 2001 by Anthony Wills, was the first new distillery on Islay in 124 years, and they didn’t begin distilling until 2005, after several years of acquiring and installing equipment and hiring staff.
At the time, I was heavily into Islay whiskies, the smokier the better, and so after having fully explored all 7 of them at the time (Bowmore, Bruichladdich, Bunnahabhain, Laphroaig, Caol Ila, and Lagavulin), the thought of one more Islay distillery was really exciting. Unfortunately, their whisky was many, many years away,… (read more)
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Hobo Wine Co. Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel 2006
I’ve long been a fan of Zinfandel, and of Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel in particular. I’ve tried Zinfandels from all over California, including those areas where I think it grows best (Paso Robles, Alexander Valley, and Rockpile Road for instance). But in the end, I always come back to Zins from Dry Creek Valley.
The Zinfandels made in this appellation exhibit a degree of character that isn’t quite there in other Zins, however good they may be. I often identify this as a brambly, earthy, rustic element that makes the wines just breathe a sense of place.
Now, there may be a certain degree of romanticism to this belief of mine, but then half the joy of wine is it’s romanticism, isn’t it? A given wine conveys to us its own meaning, a meaning undoubtedly imbued with our own thoughts, expectations, and beliefs. Great wine or not, we enjoy it for reasons beyond merely what’s in the glass.
But… (read more)
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