Answering Your Wine Questions :)

Because wine is serious!

The Difference Between a Cheap and an Expensive Bottle of Wine

So there's this perfectly good bottle of wine you get from the local market for ten bucks. Then there are these hundred or two hundred dollar wines you'll probably never try, but are curious about. Are they really that much better? I can't really answer that for you as that's really a personal thing. What makes them so much more expensive? That I can shed some light on.

Visiting Healdsburg? Get out of Downtown!

The little town of Healdsburg in Sonoma County can be quite full of visitors on any weekend and during the summer vacation season. It's pretty busy almost any time these days because numerous travel web sites and magazines have named it a place to visit if you love wine.

Besides many hotels and restaurants in the downtown area (what's considered downtown is about three blocks long) there are probably 18 tasting rooms. These can get quite busy especially on weekend afternoons. If you don't like crowds try a slightly longer walk or a very short drive to a few others outside of the immediate downtown area.

Weekend Wine Memes

Cuz it's almost the weekend. Cheers!

What Wine with Your Burger

It's now officially spring so lets think about grilling up some hamburgers. Burgers, the all-American food, with a thousand ways to prepare them. You can start with beef, bison, turkey, chicken, or lamb. Veggie burgers come as mushroom, black bean, tofu. That's even before you get into all the condiments--onions, dill or sweet pickles, yellow or spicy mustard, etc. You can see the problem, or opportunity, with pairing the correct wine.

Eww, Gallo

I mean, yuck. Gallo owns many wine labels from Louis Martini to Barefoot. Their experimental brand is Apothic that does things like age a red wine in whiskey barrels. But the latest? Cold brewed coffee and wine together as they were never meant to be.

Vineyard Damage from Wildfires

A survey of vineyard owners in the five county area affected by the October wildfires (Napa, Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Solano) shows that maybe 200 acres were damaged (there are over 135,000 acres of vineyards in these counties). Most growers are waiting for spring rejuvenation to see exactly what comes back and what vines will have to be replanted.

Saving Napa Valley

The valley floor is covered in grapevines. There are over 400 wineries in Napa Valley with more on the way. Where to go next? The hillsides on both sides of the valley.

Wine and the resulting tourism is Napa's lifeblood so some are fine with planting as many grapevines as needed. Others are for maintaining the natural beauty of the hillsides. Some would like to put a curb on growth. Some cite watershed issues.

Yeast and Civilization

The great change in the history of mankind was going from nomadic to settling in villages. Why did that happen? Climate change? Domesticating animals? Here's an interesting read on how yeast actually shaped civilization. Ancient people raised fruits and grains that were fermented into things like wine and bread that could be consumed all year long.

Yeast and Civilization

Women Winemakers of Sonoma

Today, March 8th, is International Women's Day. It seems the struggle women often have in "a man's world" is in the news more than ever. I thought this was an opportunity to highlight a few of my favorite winemakers, not because they're women, but because of the wines.

Per Capita Spending on Wine

The U.S. buys a lot of wine. But per capita? Not so much. The latest figures in money spent annually per capita, in U.S. dollars:

Australia      $409
France         $209
Switzerland  $185
Portugal       $175
Argentina     $170
Then way down in 17th place:
U.S.              $93

It's time to pick up the pace!

The top 20 are all European countries except for Australia, Canada, and the U.S.

Source: American Association of Wine Economists 

Sonoma County Lodging

With the influx of visitors the area has lots of hotel rooms plus camping, VRBO-type lodging, hostels, etc. In case you may have heard the October Wine Country fires knocked out three hotels and about 400 rooms in the county.

The good news is there are lots of new rooms coming online.

Sparkling Wine / Food Pairing

We should have more sparkling wine with our meals. In the U.S. sparkling wine is about celebrations where you have a glass or three at weddings and a couple holidays. That's a real shame because it belongs on the dinner table, too.