Honestly, sometimes a wine comes along at the exact right time. Such is the case with the recently released 2021 Smith-Madrone Chardonnay. It tastes just like what I’m ready for — springtime. After tasting several vintages of this wine, I have a certain expectation: Chardonnay that expresses the vintage with only a gentle guiding hand from the winemakers. Every vintage […]
We’re in that brief period of time between holidays when many of us can relax for a few days after the rush of Christmas before gearing up for New Year’s Eve. Those celebrating Hanukkah get to continue celebrating right into the new year. By early January we will all be happy to slow down and finalize our New Year’s Resolutions. […]
Soliloquy is one of Flora Springs’ two flagship wines; the other, Trilogy, is a red blend. You would expect a Napa Valley winery to have a flagship red wine, but maybe not a flagship white wine. The folks at Flora Springs, however, are particularly proud of Soliloquy, also the name of the Sauvignon Blanc clone that is the basis for […]
I have a thing for mountainside vineyards. Growing vines on the side of a mountain is definitely not the easiest place to grow them, but some of the most interesting and complex wines I’ve tasted are grown there. Smith-Madrone wines are both. They are also elegant, unexpected and affordable. Affordable and Napa Valley are sometimes mutually exclusive with regard to […]
The 2021 vintage of Trilogy marks the 38th bottling of what Flora Springs has always considered its flagship red wine. It continues to be sourced from Komes and Garvey family vineyards. Trilogy is a Cabernet Sauvignon based blend sourced primarily from the family’s Komes Ranch Vineyard. We received this wine as a tasting sample. Flora Springs’ history begins with the […]
Cabernet Sauvignon is so well known in the wine world it is on a first-name basis with most wine enthusiasts. Napa Valley, a wine region also on a first-name basis with many wine enthusiasts, undeniably specializes in Cabernet. And true Napa Cabernet lovers know the vineyards and sub-appellations by heart, but what about Cabernet Sauvignon clones? That’s a less common […]
Most of us are very satisfied to visit Napa Valley to taste wine and enjoy good food, but for a subset of wine enthusiasts a visit to Napa Valley leads them to make wine in Napa Valley. Husband and wife, Brian and Miki Cunat, found themselves at just such a crossroads after visiting Napa Valley and wine regions around the […]
When planning a meal do you start with the food or the wine? I may have just given away my approach by listing food before wine, but honestly sometimes we begin with the food and sometimes the wine. And, some food is more challenging to pair with wine, and some wine is more challenging to pair with food. But one […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.