Author: Nancy (CSW)

Smith-Madrone Trio featured photo

Smith-Madrone Vineyards & Winery: Elegant and Affordable, Always

One of the many lessons I learned during weekly wine tastings at a local wine shop is that there are many very expensive bottles of wine that taste really good, especially from Napa Valley. It isn’t particularly difficult to find those wines, but what takes a bit more effort is to find those really good wines for less money. What […]

BARRA of Mendocino and Girasole Vineyards featured photo

BARRA of Mendocino and Girasole Vineyards: Family-Owned and Organically-Certified Wines

There is so much to respect about the Barra family’s commitment to growing grapes and making wine in Mendocino County. In a business climate that is seeing family operations gobbled up by large corporations at an alarming rate, BARRA of Mendocino and Girasole Vineyards remain family owned and operated after nearly seventy years.  In the vineyards, the Barra family have […]

Bella Union Cabernet Sauvignon featured photo

Bella Union: A Pretty Cab from Napa Valley’s Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel

Bella Union is a brand that was established by the partners of Napa Valley’s well-known Far Niente and Nickel & Nickel wineries in 2012. The art of blending Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is the focus of the Bella Union winemaking team, in contrast to the single-variety, single-vineyard wines of Nickel & Nickel and the estate wines of Far Niente with […]

2019 Coeur de Vigne featured photo

2019 Coeur de Vigne Cabernet Sauvignon Might Just Steal Your Heart

Coeur de Vigne Cabernet Sauvignon is a delicious reflection of Napa Valley’s Rutherford sub-AVA and Sullivan Rutherford Estate. The estate was established 50 years ago, with the assistance of esteemed winemaker André Tchelistcheff, a friend of the original owner, James O’Neil Sullivan. This is the second vintage of Coeur de Vigne Cabernet Sauvignon we have tasted. As with the prior […]

Hawk and Horse 2019 Vintage featured photo

Hawk and Horse Vineyards: Organic and Biodynamic in the Vineyard, Delicious in the Glass

Hawk and Horse Vineyards is situated in California’s Red Hills Lake County AVA. Seven Lake County AVAs surround Clear Lake, one of the oldest geological lakes in North America. The Mayacamas Mountains lie to the west of Clear Lake and the Vaca Mountains to the east. Complex soils in the AVA were formed by a combination of volcanic and tectonic […]

Coastal Chilean Sauvignon Blanc featured photo

Coastal Chilean Sauvignon Blanc: Embrace the Variety

I was recently invited to attend an online presentation focused on Sauvignon Blanc grown in Chile’s cool coastal regions. The discussion, accompanied by eight coastal Sauvignon Blancs provided to us as tasting samples, greatly expanded my knowledge of the variety’s position in Chile and gave me a better understanding of its expression in this cool climate. The range of flavors […]

Siduri Pinot Noir featured photo

Siduri Pinot Noir: A Taste of Oregon and California

Siduri is a name synonymous with quality Pinot Noir sourced from vineyards as far north as Oregon’s Willamette Valley and south to California’s Santa Barbara County. Adam Lee and his wife Dianna Novy released their first wines in 1994. Between that time and early 2015 when Siduri and Novy Family Wines (a second winery the couple established focusing on Syrah […]

Lodi! by Randy Caparoso featured photo

Lodi! by Randy Caparoso Earns Its Exclamation Point

Lodi! The definitive guide and history of America’s largest winegrowing region is the complete title of Randy Caparoso’s comprehensive new book about California’s Lodi AVA. It is definitive and detailed and gives you a sense of the history, the land, its soils and climate. It will acquaint you with the astonishing number of grape varieties grown in the region in […]