Recent content by Aaron

The white wines from Brooks are all worth drinking. I think their dry-styled wines are maybe a touch more successful than their "Sweet Pea" Riesling that has a heaping helping of RS, but across the board I'm always impressed by their output. Their reds don't exactly suck, either.

2006 Dehlinger Pinot Noir Goldridge - USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley (6/29/2011) Still young but this wine shows a lot of promise. Glenn I suspect made sure it got plenty of air so the wine showed well. The two things that stood out for me on this wine were the Russian...

15.5% alcohol, do I read that right? Damn that's one spicy meatball, even for Austria. Since you don't mention it, I take it you didn't encounter any heat on the palate? That's even more noteworthy given the food you were eating.

Michael and Anne are an absolute breath of fresh air and low-key affability; at industry tastings it's always a pleasure to arrive at their table. Consummate professionals, but always fun and never too serious. Much quieter but also a terrific guy is Andrew Nalle of Nalle Winery, and his...

Well, I didn't mean to be arch, but I did mean to point out that adding sugar to juice is no more natural than, say, acidulation, but it seems to me we look askance at the latter practice and for no better reason than we prefer the style of wines that are Chaptalized but not those that are...

If I may take this sugars/alcohol thread drift a step further- while the article Joe links above of course invites derision, there is a similarly-interventionist process done in a region near and dear to (nearly) all of us, and it is of course Chaptalization in Burgundy. Lots of big names there...

I've always enjoyed the wines from Medlock Ames; in a part of the world where balance and relative restraint are long in marketing buzz but short in actual supply, they usually deliver the goods, especially with their reds. I've not had the Chardonnay for several vintages but have heard from a...

I can unequivocally answer 'yes' to your question, because ontologically-speaking it's always the same people who are drinking tequila.

I'd like to thank La Famille Dressner, Kevin McKenna, Josefa Concannon, the good folks at Maverick Wine Company and Branch 27, and of course all the vignerons from France, Italy, and Portugal that brought the Real Wine Tour to Chicago today. Truly a wealth of fantastic wines was offered up, and...

Perhaps for humans moreso than for ducks...

I shouldn't have said "his" - Swan died in the late 1980's. The wines are now made by Rod Berglund, a very nice, soft-spoken guy who started out at La Crema. Like I said, I dig these wines.

Can't speak for any of those early vintages - Joseph Swan first made wines under his name in the early 1970's - but recent vintages of his Saralee and Great Oak Vineyards Pinots have been, to my palate, elegant and finessed, often with a cinnamon/nutmeg component and an appealing earthy...

I thought Solvang was all Danish-proud? Aren't those Danish flags they have throughout the town?

Aww hell! And it begins... or rather, continues...

What vintage was the Dauvissat? I keep on fearing I'm going to start hearing about/tasting premoxed bottles of late-vintage Chablis (and white Burg generally). Fearing, and expecting, because I agree with various other posters here that since we've no definite idea what causes the problem we...