Category Archives: wine review

Earth Day Every Day: which wine to choose? Five Tips for “green” wine purchases

I’ve been eco-minded since I was small. My first memories are of the sand between my toes, the smell of damp earth under the house, and the joy of being one with a tree or a rock when climbing it. I’m a Girl Scout First Class, I backpacked from Mexico to Canada, and I have a BA from UC Santa Cruz in Environmental Studies plus graduate classes in conservation biology. I’ve hooted for spotted owls, surveyed for goshawks, hacked peregrine falcons, and preserved burrowing owl habitat.

These days, I spend as much time as possible in the outdoors, camping, traveling, and enjoying fine food and wine! Here we are in Zion recently on top of Angel’s Landing–then enjoying a meal with a bottle of Barolo at the campground.

I’m still an environmental activist,  speaking out about environmental issues at City Council and leading monthly bicycle rides around town. You can read more about bicycle issues over at my Bikergo Gal blog.

So, yes I have some serious “green” cred: I’ve been celebrating Earth Day since before it was invented. Caring about how wine is made and how “green” wine is came “naturally” to me–I also grew up running around my grandfather’s cellar!

Like many, I assumed that wine is “natural.” As I’ve learned more about wine over the past few years, I’ve been appalled at how manipulated wine is  and disgusted by some of the green washing that goes on in the wine industry.

So I do my best to navigate my way to purchase wines that are more green on the sustainability spectrum and produced as naturally as possible. And here on this blog, I try my best to call attention to “green” wines and “green” wine practices to support them.

This afternoon, my friend David Rodriguez is visiting from Puerto Rico–we met in Santa Rosa CA at the first Wine Bloggers Conference in 2008. He’s a world traveling wine blogger with a particular interest in wines that are made in traditional, “natural” ways that are sustainable and gentle to the earth. I look forward to learning from him about some of his recent finds –and tasting some of these wines also since many of them he is storing in my grandfather’s cellar!

Here are five choices you can make to green your wine–whether you prefer red or white! Happy Earth Day! Continue reading →

A Quest For Sherry (and love!)

A Quest For Sherry (and love!) my guest post for the Secret Sherry Society is up on their website–check it out! Thank you to the Secret Sherry Society for invited me to play!

Thank you also to photographer/blogger John Nichols who shared with me his sherry stories, one of which I included in this blog post!

PS Did you know sherry pairs well with chocolate and Valentine’s Day? Go read the post! And come back for more Valentine’s wines and tips!

Part Two: What Happened to Wine Blogging Wednesday & Ideas on How to Revive It

Yesterday, in Part 1, I was musing about whatever happened to Wine Blogging Wednesday so I took my wondering self to the world wide web to see if anyone else was missing it.

And I found this blog post from August where, voila, I discovered I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see Wine Blogging Wednesday revived.

Seems Tim Elliot was wondering the same thing and eight or so wine bloggers commented.  Inqvine even suggested a theme: “Fungus Among-us” on botrytis wines.

“I would love to see WBW start up again,” Alleigh of A Glass after Work said in the comments. “It was a wonderful way to really become part of the wine blogging community. It was particularly interesting to see how other wine bloggers approached the same topic or the same wines. Inevitably, I learned something new. Now, as a more comfortable wine blogger, I think WBW would still a great way to meet new bloggers and taste new wines, but it always would be a chance to have further discussions about wine with other bloggers and not just my regular readers.”
So, I propose we get Wine Blogging Wednesday rolling again! I think we need to Continue reading →

Which wines to serve for a Happy Thanksgiving?

For weeks now, the wine bloggosphere has been dizzy with recommendations for wines to pair with Thanksgiving meals, especially how to find wines that will work with everything from appetizers to turkey to pecan pie!

The answer is: bring a bunch of different wines!

As you can imagine, I am the wine person in our gatherings. I usually bring Continue reading →

Part 2: Global #Zinfandel Day–AUS Glaymond & Paso Robles Bianchi

To celebrate Global #Zinfandel Day, I decided to open something special, something unusual–something from Australia to toast the 47th birthday of my Australian friend and fellow blogger Paul Squires who had a heart attack and died July 28, two days before my mother died of heart failure.

Paul was one of my strongest supporters as a blogger, as a writer, and as a poet. He was my online buddy with whom I could plot and scheme and strategize. We shared links and ideas and gave each other feedback on many elements of social media and writing.

So when I realized that Global #Zinfandel was his birthday, I knew I’d be drinking one of the two Australian zinfandels in the cellar my grandfather built, wines that Grateful Palate founder Dan Phillips selected for me at one of his warehouse sales.

It was a toss-up between Continue reading →

Part 1: Global #Zinfandel Day = Zin-tastic!

So how did I spend the 24 hours of Global #Zinfandel Day?

Reveling in Zin of course! I tasted 4 zins: The Big Green Box Old Vine Zin, Four Vines Old Vine Cuvee 2007, Glaymond Barossa Valley 2003, and Bianchi Zen Ranch 2007. This post discusses the first two wines, and in a second post I’ll write about Bianchi and Glaymond.

To celebrate Global #Zinfandel Day Friday Nov. 19,  I started in on zin on Thursday with a Four Vines 2007 Old Vine Cuvee which I picked up at The Ventura Wine Company for $11.

I admit, the Old Vine Zin Cuvee wasn’t the wine I wanted from Four Vines. Last year, I’d gone in to buy  another bottle of the Biker ($20 at VWC, $28 from the Winery) which Wine Spectator placed in the Top 100 of last year’s releases. The Biker was a fantastic example of zinfandel, Continue reading →

A Zin-full Blast from the Past

In recognition of Global #Zinfandel Day, here’s a very zin-full post from Wine Blogging Wednesday #60 August 2009. In it I discuss the grand daddy of all zin wineries, Ridge, as well many zins from what I think may be the prime zin growing region anywhere: Dry Creek Valley Sonoma California.

Up next: A post about the wines I enjoyed for Global #Zinfandel Day: a 2003 Glaymond zin from the Barossa Valley AUS, a 2007 Bianchi, Four Vines 2007 Old Vine Cuvee, and even some Old Vine Zin that came from The Big Green Box!

And don’t forget there’s a contest to go with me to visit Bianchi and meet the winemaker Tom Lane! Just leave a comment on why I should take you with me!

Wine Blogging Weds #60: Ridge is Zin-Full! And a dozen more zins too! For this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday #60, host Sonadora prompts us to Zin with BBQ and reminds us that Lenn of Lenndevours started this off five years ago this month. Happy 5th Birthday, WBW! At my house, we love both zin and BBQ, and enjoy both often, so the only question around here was which zinfandel and what shall we BBQ? Both questions were answered simply. For grilling,  I found a beautiful, thick porterhouse steak on sale at Vons whic … Read More

via Wine Predator