Farm Versus Fish: Water Use in the Russian River Valley

It takes guts to grow premium wine grapes—plus a sizable amount of cash, a love of farming, and the fortitude to deal with the ongoing challenges, both environmental and political, of producing a great glass of wine. Frost may not be the biggest of a grower’s concerns, but it has become a vexing problem here in California’s Russian River Valley, where the rights of farmers sometimes go head to head with the rights of fish.

Wine Writing in the Time of Technology

Ultimately, those of us who write about wine are looking for the best way to describe an experience that is inherently personal and subjective. Is there anything wrong with using scores to accomplish this? I think this is something each writer has to answer for themselves.

Wine, Women, and Weight

By now you’re heard the news, Alcohol May Help Fight Weight Gain In Women! Any news that promises weight loss is gulped down here in America even faster than we bolt our super-sized Big Mac, fries, and shake combos. But is there anything to it? Let’s look behind the curtain, shall we?

Sense and Sensibility: A Tale of Wine Blogging from Both Sides of the Pond

The inaugural year of the Wine Bloggers Conference (WBC), as it was then called, was by turns a blustery and timid affair. Held in Santa Rosa, California, in the fall of 2008, it was the first time wine bloggers from all walks of life, talent and knowledge had the opportunity to come together and share common interests in a collective forum.

Thank you from Palate Press

On behalf of everybody at Palate Press: The online wine magazine and Brother Can You Spare a Bottle, it is my pleasure, my honor, to thank the wine community for its amazing generosity supporting the Wine for Haiti project. The response has been absolutely amazing.

Thoughts in the New Year from “Wine Influencers”

With reliability akin to the sun coming up tomorrow, we can count on a couple of things from lifestyle writers at the New Year – sparkling wine recommendations, year-end recaps and predictions for the coming year.

Looking at Three-Tier from the Other Side

So you think the three-tier alcohol (wine, beer and sprits) wholesale distribution model is broken and you want to flush it? Read this first.

On Corkscrews, Blondes and Vending Machines…

trust your own palette, always a corkscrew or two about and NEVER take a key card from a blonde with bodywork unless you are really sure of what you are getting yourself into…

Where to plant a vineyard… in 2099?

For now I think I’ll start looking into land in Antarctica. I’m sure at this point it will be fairly cheap, and my kids can start to cultivate it in 2099, when I’m long gone.

Trust is the New Black: Your Local Retailer as Wine Confidante

It seems as if the age of consumer excess that occurred over the last decade has given way to, dare I say it, a more quaint way of doing business.

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