I didn't expect to like this 2004 Chardonnay from Hanzell Vineyards as much as I did. The 2004 is now five years old and tastes like a young Kongsgaard The Judge. Tags: 2004 USA 3 stars Sonoma Pale hay color, but big Wow! This big boy is saved by that salty finish. Plus, the wines age really, really well. MORE >>

Making my way past the French wines I landed in the California section. But the lure of the reds grabbed me and it was the California reds and people I either knew or recognized who convinced me that white time was up. His 2004 Neiman Cellars Napa Valley Red is a blend of 1/3 Cab Sauvignon, 1/3 Merlot, & 1/3 Cab Franc. MORE >>

But as the wine industry has matured (vineyards & wine making techniques have improved) and customers have become more sophisticated, the wines of Gamla have improved by leaps and bounds. Rogov gives the 2004 the best score of the bunch, but any will do the trick at $14 or so. It can be found for both the 2003 & 2004 vintages. MORE >>

Stag's Leap is one of the most prominent wine producers in California. tend to focus on the under twenty-dollar range but if I were to go above such limits in the California category this producer would on the short list. love hearing groups of wine geeks bantering about the industry. I'm just a wine geek. How do I begin? MORE >>

catching on to this dilemma in the next couple of years realizing that the industrialization of the little pinecone can only go so far. Then it caught on and became a kind of demented obsession for the mass market as producers in California began to industrialize one hundred percent merlot to the point of lunacy. It just worked. MORE >>