If you’re a regular reader of Wine Predator, you know that as often as possible I partake in an online educational program called #WineStudio where each month we have a different focus. Often participants receive wine samples which we taste and discuss together along with the winemaker and others involved with the wine. You can often find the wines and join in on Twitter from 6-7pm PST. Continue reading
Speaking of local wines and wineries that will be attending and pouring at today’s “A Taste of VC”, on last week’s Grenache Day Friday Sept 16, the wine samples of Garnacha from Spain that I was expecting didn’t arrive leaving me free to taste whatever I wanted! I was planning on opening one from The Ojai Vineyard or Twisted Oak from my cellar, but as I was at an afternoon meeting in Camarillo, on my way home I stopped by both Cantara Cellars in Camarillo and Plan B Wine Cellars in Ventura for a spur of the moment locally made Grenache!
Because I couldn’t let Grenache Day go by without drinking one of my favorite wines! Read why here. Continue reading
How can people connect their food from field to fork?
More and more events around the country and indeed the world seek to do so Continue reading
Have a Bodacious and Naked Cabernet Day?
Is that a bit odd to say? No not at all if you are celebrating Cabernet Day with a bottle of Napa Valley Bodacious Cabernet Sauvignon
or a bottle of Oregon’s Naked Cabernet Sauvignon! Or like me, BOTH plus…
Naked Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 . Columbia Valley This Naked promises long legs and a smooth complexion.
we’re going to be enjoying a bottle of Andis Cabernet Franc from Amador County and a red blend “Midnight” with a lot of cab from Lange Twins! It’s Cabernet Day, right? Not Cabernet Sauvignon Day! Continue reading
McClure Lake in Yosemite National Park’s backcountry: 10,000′ elevation and 2 miles off the Pacific Crest Trail
The National Park Service turns 100 on August 25, 2016 and Sequoia National Park, a national park in the southern Sierra Nevada that includes Mount Whitney, was established on September 25, 1890.
And Cabernet Day is Thurs. Sept. 1, 2016!
So to celebrate these momentous occasions, Que Syrah Sue and I opened a Sequoia Grove Cabernet Sauvignon.
Next year’s 1oth anniversary Wine Blogger’s Conference will return to Santa Rosa, CA Nov. 9-12, 2017 at the Hyatt in Santa Rosa.
If you enroll by the end of September it’s only $95!
What do you know about South African wine? What about South African cuisine? Have you ever tasted either?
If you are typical Americans like Que Syrah Sue and I, you may never have had wine or food from the region! While I had tasted wine in Egypt when I went there January 2011 just before the revolution, I don’t think I’ve had wine from that continent.
But this is changing rapidly as more wine is produced for export. You can even find tasty, inexpensive South African wine at Trader Joes like the one below.
When I heard that Wine Pairing Weekend was focusing on South African wine and food to pair with it, Sue and I got very excited: we had recently tasted and wrote about South African Sauvignon blanc wines for Sauvignon Blanc day, and we were eager to try more!
Sue in particular was engaged by the jalapeño jelly notes in the wines and we were curious how that herbal spiciness might play itself out in other wines from the region.
Right away I contacted the media agency who had sent me the first wines asking if they could send me any others –and they said yes!
Sue got right on to researching the foods and what she found Continue reading
