Posts Tagged ‘American sparkling wine’
A Wine American Remembered, Rebecca Wasserman-Hone
August 20, 2021, Rebecca Wasserman-Hone passed away, leaving her British life partner Russell Hone, (her third husband). I was acquainted with Wasserman’s Le Serbet imports from the early eighties when she aligned with Christopher Cannon combining the experience of two legendary wine experts. One of my earliest professional tastings was with her American agent in…
Read MoreCline Nancy’s Cuvée – With Tuna Soufflé
As you enter Sonoma county from the south on California 121, one of the first wineries you encounter is Cline Cellars, and there could hardly be a better introduction to the Carneros AVA. Even as a young teenager, Fred Cline learned to make wine from his grandfather, Valeriano Jacuzzi (yes, he of the hydrotherapy tub, as…
Read MoreBarefoot Winery of Napa Valley
I was getting into a doldrums finding American sparkling wines that peak my interest seeking the criteria of offering well made wines and delivering pleasure, with novel packaging. A tall order to request from any winery, much less discovered at a huge production facility in a region known for boutique wineries and prestigious wines. I…
Read MoreTraverse City and Petowsky Bay, Michigan Wineries
It was a lovely early fall wedding. I was the best man for a SF roommate and his bride to be in Traverse City on the banks of Petowsky’s scenic Lake Michigan waterfront. A more idyllic location or weather could not have been ordered! The wedding was to occur on 2001, September the 9th. More…
Read MoreNew York Finger Lakes District Sparkling Wines
New York Hudson Valley and Finger Lakes District Flying into John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) airport was a moment that bred expectation and potential. I loved the heightened frisson anticipation, and my lack of really understanding how far apart NY state distances really are. When I arrived taking the transit bus from JFK, I was dropped…
Read MoreOregon 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…
Read MoreOregon 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…
Read MoreThe 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…
Read MoreKalin 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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