If the calendar isn’t enough to remind me that summer has officially arrived, a quick check of the outdoor temperature sure is. As I write this the mercury has reached 102º F in Central California. Alright, it’s true there is no mercury involved, just a quick check of my weather app, but it’s really hot! The time of year and […]
After missing several Wine Pairing Weekend get-togethers we are back with our monthly food and wine pairing group of bloggers. We missed everyone! Camilla, who blogs at Culinary Adventures with Camilla, challenged us to fire up the grill and devise a food and wine paring. No problem, we love to grill and do so quite often when the weather is […]
We recently made the acquaintance of Alice and Eliot Sutro, the couple behind Sutro Wine Co. We had the opportunity to taste their wines and tour the Warnecke Ranch which is the source of the grapes for their wines. We began in the vineyards below Chalk Hill, with Alice, and finished in Healdsburg, where Eliot joined us, for a wine […]
LoCA, the Lodi Winegrape Commission, recently held a wine tasting titled “How Do Lodi Wines Compare to the Best In the World? (A Blind Tasting with a Panel of Professional Wine Educators)” as a prelude to their annual Zinfest celebration. I was pleased to be a guest at the tasting and put my blind tasting skills to the test. It […]
If you have tasted Chardonnay made in California, chances are Wente family ancestors had a hand in developing the Chardonnay clone that produced that glass of wine. As much as 80% of Chardonnay grown in California is made with or derived from the Wente clone. That’s a pretty amazing statistic and a very good reason for Wente Vineyards to be […]
Albariño. Are you familiar with it? The white winegrape is grown extensively in the Rías Baixas region in northwest Spain; in fact the variety represents nearly all of the plantings in this cool, coastal region. Albariño produces a crisp, dry white wine with a range of flavors that include citrus, melon and stone fruit to delicately floral with an interesting […]
As much as I enjoy oven-roasted beef, pork or chicken, there is no substitute for outdoor grilling in terms of flavor. With the weather improving quickly it’s time to fire up the grill and begin to think about the wines to pair with your outdoor meals. This trio of Malbec (received as tasting samples) produced by Trivento in Argentina cry […]
As our small aircraft approached the airstrip near Damaraland Camp I was struck by the similarity of the landscape to the American desert Southwest. The wide, flat table-top mountains have those familiar, exposed, horizontal layers of colored rock. But, unlike the American southwest, the rusty red earth is dotted with green euphorbia, white ash bushes and the occasional, lone shepherd’s […]
Springtime brings a welcome renewal in our garden after the dormancy of a cold, wet winter. The lawn and shrubbery are an intense green this time of year with azaleas adding pink, red and coral accents. At about this same time of year our supply of rosé dwindles to one or two bottles. We begin searching the shelves of local […]
As much as I enjoy reaching for a familiar wine, and all of the memories associated with it, I can’t resist the excitement of trying a new wine. Hand me a glass of wine from a region that is new to me and you’ve likely just made my day. It is an irresistible opportunity to not only experience new flavors, […]
We enjoy wine, food and travel. Pull That Cork is a chronicle of our wine adventures, the food and wine pairings we create and our travels which are increasingly organized around wine.
