Peter Birmingham
Oregon Sparkling Wines Part II
I flew into Portland attending my brother’s funeral, he’d been in declining health for years stricken with failing organs, and cancer. We were brothers in the family but distant, as he was being married as an adult when I was invited to his wedding as an infant, accompanying my mother. Perhaps it was prescient having…
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Oregon Sparkling Wines
Argyle Winery of Dundee-Willamette Valley, Oregon was the vision of winemaker Rollin Soles who earned his vinous chops via hard work, and sojourns from France to Australia. In South Australia, Soles worked with the highly regarded Brian Croser, Petaluma Wines owner. Croser demonstrated the single vineyard expressions of what Clare Valley and the Adelaide Hills…
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The Back Half Revolution Of California Sparkling Wine
Domaine Chandon of Yountville-Napa Valley The Moët & Chandon Grandes Marque post 1960’s saw immense growth through diversification, and acquisitions of new distribution sales: Marie Brizard liqueurs, Glenmorangie Single Malt Scotch, and of course venturing into the New World territories. The splashiest New World winery opening happened in Yountville-Napa Valley at the Domaine Chandon Napa…
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Northern California Sparkling Wine History
The Northern California Russian River Valley-Sonoma’s fallow land in the nineteenth century was a gorgeous and colossal wild refuge of Redwood & Pine trees. Clearing a natural resource bounty to natural supplies for building homes, and furniture, and drove an economy that was expanding to the west coast. The cleared land was destined for growing…
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Gruet Winery & Tasting Room
I was eight years old traveling west on Route 66 with my parents on a summer road trip to the New Mexican Cimarron desert, exploring geologic formations that made this part of the United States. I’d sit in the rear seat thinking of observational games to keep my mind occupied, watching swift Roadrunner birds (made…
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Uncovering The Greeks – Domaine Karanika
Retsina (Greek: Ρετσίνα) is a Greek white (or rosé) resinated wine, which has been made for at least 2,000 years. Its unique flavor is said to have originated from the practice of sealing wine vessels, particularly amphorae, with Aleppo pine resin in ancient times. In 1977, I was traveling on the Sicily to Greece Mediterranean…
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A Journey Of Discovery – Renardat-Fache
The day began with a visit to my new neighborhood Farmers Market down the street. As a recluse, I rarely go out to interact socially, but this is an unseasonably bright invigorating late winter weekend morning, I was hungry and motivated. After living for 9 years in a residential neighborhood (elementary schools around the corner),…
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Stéphane et Bénédicte Tissot – Biodynamic Vigneron’s of Jura, France
I should apologize to the youth reading these Glass of Bubbly blogs, for my long winded and free form articles appearing as self aggrandizing my memory. We need to go to the discotheque era to celebrate a brilliant British wine connoisseur André Simon and the way he helped chart the wine trade of the 19th…
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Kalin Cellars – The Story Of Excellence
“Produce No Wine With Less Character than Yourself” – The Kalin Credo Kalin Cellars is a winery in California’s bedroom community of Novato, Marin County just north of San Francisco. In 1986, when I first learned of Terrance Leighton’s Kalin Cellars winery recommended by the Winewrights newsletter (an analogue newsletter from postal days when deliveries…
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