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The Best Champagnes on the Market
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 2, August/September 2014 Look for non-vintage (nv) releases including the precise, muscular, yet graceful nv Philipponnat Grand Blanc de Blancs $60, yeasty and deeply toasty with notes of almond butter and lemon crème brulee, the nv Delamotte Brut $50, aka Baby Salon, elegant, ethereal almost, as it is primarily Grand […]
Krug Champagne Brunch with Olivier Krug
Glass of Bubbly, Champagne & Sparkling Wine Magazine Issue 1, June/July 2014 Recently a handful of sommeliers and wine writers joined Olivier Krug, 6th Generation and Maison Director of Krug Champagne, for a five-course pairing menu at San Francisco’s St. Regis Hotel. As we sipped a gingery, floral and creamy Krug Grande Cuvee, paired exquisitely […]
Bat Shlomo Vineyards Israel
Baron Edmond de Rothschild established the village known as Bat Shlomo, or “Salomon’s Daughter” in honor of his mother Betty Salomon von Rothschild, just above Israel’s Dalia Valley on the southern slopes of Mount Carmel. It was settled by Jewish pioneers in 1889. The Baron brought in France’s top wine experts to school them in […]
Enjoying Sparkling Wines and Champagnes
With effervescence and finesse, delicacy and richness, Champagnes and sparkling wines are easy to love. One of the reasons is that they are rarely more than 11.5-12% alcohol. Still whites and reds hover around 14%, and where there is oak-aging involved, headaches often follow. Also, acid levels in sparkling wines are quite high, helping to […]
PLANET GRAPE’S GUIDE – WHICH WINE GLASS?
If you think the perfect stemware is a must-have for your wine of choice, think again. Every day wines taste great in the park, or at the beach, places where ideal glassware is not usually at hand. Genuine wine lovers care less than you might imagine about glassware. The wine itself is key. Everything else […]
Sommelier Panel at ZAP
On February 2, 2013, hundreds of press, trade, and then consumers filled San Francisco’s Concourse Pavilion for the 22nd Annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers (ZAP) Festival. ZAP has other events, including one in Calgary in June, but this 4-day event in San Francisco is always their main event. ZAP’s mission is to unite winegrowers, winemakers and wine enthusiasts in […]
Wine for Wheelchairs on Moon Mountain
I had the pleasure recently of joining the sommeliers of Redd, La Folie, and Boulevard, writers including Deborah Parker Wong of The Tasting Panel and Randy Caparoso of Sommelier Journal, and founders of a wine start-up, Block 122, at Lookout Ridge Winery, nestled atop the Mayacamas Mountains, for a sunset wine tasting. After twisting and […]
Secrets of Wine & Cheese Matching
Part of the bounty of Northern California is its plethora of artisanal cheeses, which are featured proudly alongside the traditional European choices in shops and farmer’s markets. You might see the parallel with our local wines. Are the local cheeses better? We have the happy cows after all, and maybe the happy goats. As with […]
Pesticides in French Wine
Photo Courtesy David Glancy MS, SF Wine School I can hear a soulful Edith Piaf lamenting, “Mon Dieu”. With the French Paradox we learned that drinking wine in moderation, with even a rich meal, may be beneficial to our health and lower chances of coronary heart disease. With Mireille Giuliano’s book, French Women Don’t Get […]
Manton Valley Approved as Tehama County’s 1st AVA
Leland Stanford planted vineyards at Vina in Tehama County in the mid 1800’s, but it wasn’t until August 1, 2014 that the area was recognized as an official American viticultural area. The new AVA, Manton Valley, east of Redding and Mt. Lassen and overlapping Tehama and Shasta counties in northern California’s eastern foothills, is 11,178 […]
The History & Future of Wine in Livermore Valley
The Livermore Valley AVA located in the East San Francisco Bay Area. Map courtesy of the Livermore Valley Winegrowers Association. Livermore Valley was once one of California’s prime sources of grapes. In 1882, Charles Wetmore planted cuttings of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon from Chateau d’Yquem in his Cresta Blanca Vineyard. The 1884 Cresta Blanca made […]
ZinFest Lodi Wine Festival 2014
ZinFest 2014 Celebrating ten years, this weekend’s Zinfest kicked off with a casual outdoor dinner on the breezy shores of Lodi Lake. Wine lovers from as far as Vancouver and as near as Palo Alto and Sacramento and presenters including Fred Swan, Ellen Landis, and of course local Ambassador Randy Caparoso, joined local winemakers to […]
Sassicaia’s Flying Wine Maker Dottore Sebastiano Rosa
Sassicaia is a wine known and loved the world over. From a beautiful coastal hamlet in Tuscany, this Super Tuscan blend is hands down Italy’s most famous wine. It is also the world’s second most counterfeited wine after Chateau Petrus. So what is behind this success story? In 1948, the Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta began […]
Mineral Waters to Improve Mineral Perception in Wine
One of the more confounding elements in wine is minerality. Even in the more comprehensive, advanced-level wine tasting classes I often see blank stares when it comes to this topic. Minerality is not something as easy to import into one’s wine lexicon as lemon, cherry, crushed basil or cinnamon. For most folks, fruits, herbs and spices are fairly familiar […]
Albarino
I like to say that Albariño is Miguel Migs. If you know music, you know this is the cool dude who mixes it up for the dance clubs in SoMa, San Francisco. With notes of apple, pear, lemon, lemon rind and toasted almond, tropical fruit, and occasionally, a vein of chalky minerality, this delicious, dry, […]
Xinomavro
Greece is home to some of the world’s most interesting grape varieties. For over 4,000 years, the rich, spicy red wines of the relatively frigid Macedonia region, especially those of Naoussa, have been highly regarded. Legend has it that Semele, mother of Dionysus—the Greek god of wine and fertility—called the area home. Established in 1972, […]
APPELLATION Naoussa, Macedonia, Greece
The Sommelier Journal August 31 2013 Catherine Fallis, MS Greece is home to some of the world’s most interesting grape varieties, yet the wines they produce have never received much fanfare. Even visitors to the country may not venture beyond a simple local white with a dish of freshly caught fish on a warm afternoon—or […]
APPELLATION Montepulciano, Italy
The Sommelier Journal May 31 2013 Catherine Fallis, MS The Denominazione d’Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) known as Montepulciano lies east of Montalcino across the Val d’Orcia in the Tuscan province of Siena, specifically the Chianti subzone Colli Senesi. From the eponymous hilltop town, one looks down over the vineyards, most on eastern- or southeastern-facing […]
INTERVIEW Kevin Zraly, Windows on the World Wine School, New York City & New Paltz, NY
The Sommelier Journal April 15 2013 Catherine Fallis MS In the two years I spent at Windows on the World as wine-school coordinator and cellar master, Kevin Zraly taught me so much about wine—the business, the people, the culture, the beauty of it all. He taught me that persistence pays off, that when people are […]
INTERVIEW Michel Rolland, Libourne, France
The Sommelier Journal June 15 2011 Catherine Fallis, MS The globetrotting consultant explains his philosophy of viticulture and winemaking. Michel Rolland is one of the most sought-after and yet one of the most divisive figures in the global wine industry today. His knowledge is immense, his client list studded with some of the […]
SOMMELIER CHALLENGE Fifth Floor, San Francisco
The Sommelier Journal February 28 2013 Catherine Fallis, MS The Challenge: Pair sakes with five courses at San Francisco’s Fifth Floor. On the blustery last day of January, the Bay Area’s wine elite gathered at the Fifth Floor restaurant and lounge in San Francisco’s Hotel Palomar to taste and judge a flight of sake-and-food pairings selected […]
INTERVIEW Mel Knox, Mel Knox Barrel Broker, San Francisco
The Sommelier Journal October 15 2012 Catherine Fallis, MS A wine-industry veteran brings French barriques to California. On one of San Francisco’s infamously cold, foggy, and damp summer days, Mel Knox regaled me with stories of his long, illustrious career as a barrel broker and winemaker. I first met Knox when I moved here more […]
WINERY SPOTLIGHT MacPhail Family Wines, Healdsburg, California
The Sommelier Journal August 31 2012 Catherine Fallis, MS James MacPhail combines a sense of place with family values. With a background in hotel management yet a love of the great outdoors, James MacPhail decided in 1995 to trade the city lights for quiet nights. Now, it’s not VIP guests but single-lot Pinots that he […]
WINERY SPOTLIGHT Bellavista, Erbusco, Italy
The Sommelier Journal July 15 2012 Catherine Fallis, MS Champagne lovers have an Italian alternative. Lights flashing on the catwalk, designers hobnobbing with the jet set, flutes overflowing with bubbly: it’s Fashion Week in Milan, and industry insiders are set to celebrate in style. But if Champagne is a given in Paris, Italians have their […]
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