Author Michelle Locke

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Michelle Locke
Michelle Locke is a San Francisco Bay Area-based freelance writer who writes about food, drink and travel for national newspapers and magazines. She blogs at www.michellelocke.com and tweets at @Locke_Michelle.

New Zealand’s Grape Expectations

Michelle Locke
Feature Stories
3 min read
Kiwi winemakers widen horizons with Riesling, sparklers and more It’s a warm spring night in Queenstown and the mood at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards dinner is convivial as winemakers, uncharacteristically gussied up in black tie, giggle at the PG humor of the emcee and polish off steaks of

Napa Valley 2013 Harvest

Michelle Locke
Features
3 min read
The exciting news about the 2013 Napa Valley wine grape vintage is … that it was pretty darned dull. No killer frosts struck in the spring to menace tender new shoots. No monster heat waves mauled the ripening grapes in the summer. And even the labor shortage that growers had

Cognac chills out

Michelle Locke
Features
4 min read
Producers of the French digestif are blending in with the cocktail crowd Flanked by barrels of gently slumbering brandy, Jerome Royer is talking about cognac — his passion and his business — with all the gallant gestures and mustachioed enthusiasm of a Frenchman straight out of Central Casting. But what he has

Bidding for Success at the Napa Wine Auction

Michelle Locke
Features
3 min read
It's a brilliant California day and it’s about 1000 degrees in the tasting tent at the annual Napa Valley barrel auction. I'm wilting in a plain summer frock and sandals. But my escort, vintner Jean-Charles Boisset, isn't even breaking a sweat despite being fully rigged out in dark slacks and

Finding Treasure in the Napa Valley

Michelle Locke
Features
3 min read
Robert was a visitor to the Napa Valley who was so interested in the region’s wine that he wrote about it in detail. And no, his last name wasn’t Parker. Long before the rise of modern wine writing, Robert Louis Stevenson brought a connoisseur’s eye to California’s nascent wine industry