Santa Maria Valley’s Clarissa Nagy of Riverbench Vineyard and Winery
How will you celebrate International Women’s Day today and Women’s History Month? Tonight we’re having babe made bubbles with spot prawns and scallops with uni butter, and yesterday I attended the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation fundraiser and tasting at 27 Vines in Santa Ynez with bubbles and bottles made by women in the Central Coast! So many great wines, many of them natural, and most of them certified organic or sustainably sourced or grown. And the food! So much yum and fun in the sun! What a great start to the month! Continue reading →
1979 Stag’s Leap Napa Cab Sauv for “Open That Bottle Night”
I may open hundreds of bottles of wine a year, but faced with a 1979 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon, I was nervous. Very nervous.
How did I come to be in possession of such a wine — a wine with a famous provenance having beat French Bordeaux in 1976? On a late winter midweek day, not long after I turned 21 in the 1980s, my fiancé Ken and I took a drizzly drive through shiny green hills from Palo Alto to Napa for a day of wine tasting with no particular wineries in mind and no appointments. Unlike today in most of Napa where tastings cost $50 and up, and require advance reservations, back then most tastings were more causal, free or only $5 ($15 in 2026 dollars); you could just show up and belly up to the bar. We were college students with little money to spend on wine or really anything else, so going wine tasting was a cheap date especially since we brought our own picnic!
Antonella Manulli owner and winemaker at La Maliosa enjoying beautiful biodiversity in her vineyards May 2025
“Isn’t it beautiful — Procanico?” asked Antonella Manuli, the owner of Fattoria La Maliosa, in the Maremma, Southern Tuscany. We’d been together out in her Vigna Madre vineyard on a sparkling day in May where her 60 year old Procanico grows. She wanted me to see the grapes at harvest so that evening we watched this video of Procanico (scroll down to view) to know what makes this indigenous and rare Italian grape — a biotype of Trebbiano with longer pink bunches—so special to her.
“What struck me was – it was so beautiful– it is such a beautiful grape the way it becomes pink and the bunch is so elegant. It’s got a strength–it’s not a fragile beauty. It’s totally in tune with the environment. It’s resistant and resilient. Nothing is really going to screw with Procanico. Except hail– no defense from hail,” Antonella said in reference to her 70% loss of her harvest in 2023. “But everything else is okay.”
May 2025 was my third springtime visit as her guest, and I finally feel like I’m starting to understand not only the magic of Maremma, but also her regenerative agricultural practices in action— and the secrets of Procanico, which she helped resurrect.
To visit several of her vineyards including Procanico to view the progress of the vines, we traveled in her SUV on ancient narrow country roads that Etruscans built over 3000 years ago by cutting through compacted volcanic ash. Continue reading →
Comparing Cabernet Franc from France, Virginia, and California plus pairings!
Since 2015, December 4 has been recognized as Cabernet Franc Day. Why? The man credited with bringing Cabernet Franc vines from Bordeaux to the Loire Valley and planting them at the Abbey of Bourgueil, Cardinal Richelieu, died on December 4, 1642, and so the powers that be (aka Lori Budd) decided that it was the best day. In the Loire Valley, Cabernet Franc became a stand alone wine instead of just being part of the blend like in Bordeaux. Today Cabernet Franc is among the 20 most planted wine grapes and grown around the world. In character, Cabernet Franc is similar to cabernet sauvignon, but lighter, more peppery, and much more herbal with notes of bell pepper and green bean. No surprise: DNA evidence shows Cabernet Franc crossed with Sauvignon Blanc to become Cabernet Sauvignon.
So pop a cork of Cab Franc — still, rose, or sparkling– and toast Cardinal Richelieu!
To honor the memory and accomplishments of Cardinal Richelieu, each year Sue and I gather different Cabernet Franc wines or cab franc blends from different regions of the world. Continue reading →
Wine Predator Gwendolyn Alley at Cantina Antonelli in Montefalco, Umbria, Italy
A bee finds sustenance from a flower in the final moments of the day in Umbria, Italy at Cantina Antonelli during our final evening with members of Consorzio Tutela Vini Montefalco. Just one of many moments that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving.
I’m grateful this year for the amazing wine travel experiences during press trips in Italy and Austria to meet winemakers and taste their wines in Tuscany, Umbria, Puglia, Emilia-Romagna, and Vienna during seven weeks from mid-May until early July.
Happy Carménère Day! Did you ever notice that autumn, and in particular, November is full of these “wine days”? Some of them have no particular rhyme or reason except it’s the season for red wine, but some have a history with a date, like Carménère which was basically rediscovered on this date after being considered extinct. Turns out, while it may have been missing in its home of France, it was everywhere in Chile masquerading as merlot! You’d think someone would have noticed before, but only 30 years ago they figured out. before that, they just chalked up the differences to “terroir” to explain why Merlot in Chile was so distinct compared to Merlot from anywhere else.
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 