The Continuing Legacy of Sokol Blosser Winery
Relative to the rest of the world, the wine industry in the United States is still very young. This is especially true of the wineries of the Northwest. Several of the pioneers of the industry in Washington and Oregon are still active in those industries, or are a mere generation removed from involvement. The origin stories of most wineries and [...]
The Women of the New Wine Media
Wine writing in the traditional media has long been somewhat of a boys club. Although there are a handful of women who have managed to penetrate the Riedel Ceiling, such as Jancis Robinson and Alice Feiring, the overwhelming majority of wine writers in print have been male. Thanks to the new DIY options that have sprung up with the advent [...]
The Continuing Odyssey of Randall Grahm
I still remember the first time that I heard Johnny Cash’s original American Recordings album. There is something haunting about the vulnerability of an aged Cash’s gravelly voice singing over a simple acoustic guitar. There is an intense honesty that comes across in the music once you have stripped away all of the excess instrumentation and production that had gone [...]
Portland, Here We Come!
Although my activity as a blogger has slowed to a trickle here on Vinotology, I still count myself as a part of the blogging community. I keep telling myself, and all of you, that I am going to start blogging regularly again. I suppose that I have, if you consider once or twice a month to be “regular”. Most social [...]
Put a QR Code On It
I know that this is probably shocking to you, but the wine industry is not the most agile market for adoption of new technologies. That said, there is a tendency within the industry to latch onto marketing fads with the wild abandon of a rabid honey badger. Although the initial reaction to some of these efforts is to applaud wineries [...]
I hope that everyone had a very happy holidays, and that you all got what you wanted from Santa this year. Now comes the short gear up to New Years, and locating the perfect bottle of bubbly for your NYE party. I love this time of year. I have had a few people ask me what was up with my [...]
I somehow totally forgot about this post for last weeks TGTBTU, so I decided to give it some props this week. I have gushed on this blog before about how Katie Pizzuto’s Gonzo Gastronomy blog is one of the most consistently interesting and unique blogs out there, featuring some fantastic writing and loads of attitude, but I will reiterate that [...]
Added Dec 15, 2010, Under:
Books
I’ve been intending to do some reviews of books that I’ve been reading for a while now, but haven’t gotten around to it. I finally have decided to dive in, and I’ll be starting off with a book that I recently received as a sample from the publisher, The Wine Trials 2011 by Robin Goldstein with Alexis Herschkowitsch, and Tyce [...]
The Good this week comes to us via the Dirty South Wine blog. Hardy Wallace has a firm grasp on the needs of winos when it comes Christmas time. Screw all this noise about wine aerators, refrigerators and the newest must read book. What the wine drinking public really needs is this Indian War Club. Perfect for every occasion. One [...]
One of the best parts of running this humble little wine blog has been all of the great people that I have had the opportunity to meet through it. Most of these people have been connections that I have made through Twitter, and I recently had the opportunity to meet another person that I have gotten to know through my [...]
What can I say, I’m a sucker for wines made from Rhône varieties, and I’m also, unfortunately for you readers, a sucker for Rhône-based puns. When I was originally out in Washington last June for the Wine Bloggers’ Conference, one of the wineries that really stood out for me was Rôtie Cellars, a winery located in Walla Walla that specializes in wines based [...]
If you have been following this blog for a while, you know that there have been some major changes in my world recently. Several months back I announced that I had decided to pursue my dream to move into the wine industry, which was followed by a job search trip out to California, and then eventually my wife and I [...]
I have been slacking off again in my Friday duties. Last week I took a much needed holiday break, but I also missed the week before that due to my travels around the state of Washington. Well, I am back this week, so here we go… The Good There have been a couple of great articles written in response to [...]
As most of you already know, I spent the month of November growing a mustache for the Movember fundraising effort. Since I write a blog about wine, and not facial hair, I decided that I would add a little twist to the effort and make it my goal to taste several Mourvedre based wines from Washington state during the month [...]
One of the things that I knew that I would need to get a handle on when I moved to Washington, was the layout of the various American Viticultural Areas (AVAs). This can sometimes prove to be more difficult than you might think, as the AVAs here have this tendency to overlap, or possibly to be contained within the boundaries [...]
