It's become my practice to taste and blend our wines in June of the year following harvest. Some wineries blend earlier, but I find that I enjoy the blending process just as the wines turn away from their sixth month in barrel. Before that, the nascent wines are too young to be focused enough for me to make the best of them. MORE >>

am spotlighting certain producers and interesting lots that every wine lover (and supporter of the Napa Valley's charities) should know about. premium winery in the Napa Valley that makes limited quantities of premium varietals that blend classic French wine making characterstics with California fruit. Dinner for 6. MORE >>

On Wednesday evening I attended a tasting of fifteen wines from Bordeaux 2005. Aside from that outrageous apparent quality of the wines, the tasting had two other attractions: the ability to taste some of the top wines blind and to do so in the company of Robert Parker. He said he hadn’t tasted these wines since 2007. MORE >>

Peter Liem is an expert on Champagne and Sherry, and probably several other wine regions too, although he would never say that himself. Peter is writing a book on Sherry with Jesus Barquin of Equipo Navazos , and there is no question in my mind that this will be one of the most enjoyable and important wine books in recent history. MORE >>

When I left off, Jean-Marie Fourrier was about to describe what he changed about the Domaine Fourrier wines, since the days when his father made the wine. JMF: It was 1998 and I'm tasting my 1997 wines and I thought the wines were fragile, with such purity and beauty. didn't want to rack the wines. JMF: Yes, a bit. MORE >>