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

Oregon Chardonnay: Rare, Weird and Exciting

W. Blake Gray
Features
5 min read
Oregon's relative lack of Chardonnay is downright weird. And in Portland, rare and weird is good. So you know where this is going. Some of the most exciting wines being made in Oregon today are Chardonnays. These are not your grandma's butter bombs; they're taut, lean wines with terrific mouthfeel.

2010 Chateau Tanunda Grand Barossa Shiraz

David Honig
Wine Reviews
1 min read
The nose is rich, with coffee, dark chocolate, smoked meat, tobacco leaf, and blueberries. Upon opening it is lush and sweet, with big blueberry and chocolate flavors. With a couple of hours, though, it seems to move from Barossa to the northern Rhone, showing blackberries, smoked meat, coffee, and olives.

2008 Twomey Merlot

Becky Sue Epstein
Wine Reviews
1 min read
Not a super-young wine, probably at its peak now, it has the distinction of being a Napa Valley red with only 13.7% alcohol: nicely restrained level.  And nicely touched up with oak that is barely there – refreshing in a wine from this area (which unfortunately does affect the pricing).

Embracing the Obscure

David White
Features
2 min read
This past weekend in Sonoma County, California, 17 vintners gathered for a wine tasting they dubbed “The 7 Percent Solution.” As the organizers explained, “roughly 93 percent of Northern California vineyard acreage is planted to eight major grape varietals. The remaining 7 percent is home to numerous lesser-known varietals, [which]

2009 Quinta Dos Murcas Reserva

Becky Sue Epstein
Wine Reviews
1 min read
At first, the aromas of this deep purple wine are of just-picked grapes and new wine, but it soon evolves in the glass to a dark fruitiness.  And on the palate, the wine is light at first, but becomes bigger and then gives up dark fruit with accents of wild,