Winemakers

To call a vintage good, like 2020 Bordeaux, I am saying that wine lovers can buy find great wines to buy at all price levels, from top to bottom. It is not just the First Growths, or the top Right Bank wines and appellations that produced good wine, consumers should be able to purchase wines

In many ways, 2020 Lalande de Pomerol resembles 2020 Pomerol. The vintage is perfect for the appellation. The wines show a good depth of color. They are heavily perfumed, often displaying flowers, chocolate, dark red fruits, and truffle fragrances. In most cases, the fruits are dark, deep, sweet, and fresh with soft, lush, and silky

2020 Bordeaux is the third in a trio of fabulous vintages, 2018, 2019, and 2020. The wines are ripe, round, soft, and filled with layers of fruit with freshness. And best of all, because 2020 Bordeaux is one of the rare vintages that ripened in every appellation, it is easy to find great wine at

If you are seeking opulently textured, luscious, ripe, fleshy wines that are going to be simply great to enjoy in their youth, that you can age for up to a decade for the best wines. And making these wines even more attractive, they are also priced extremely fair. If all this sounds like these wines

2020 is a sublime vintage for the St. Emilion satellite appellations. 2020 Lussac-Saint Emilion, 2020 Montagne-Saint Emilion, 2020 Puisseguin-Saint Emilion, and 2020 St. Georges-Saint Emilion all produced some of the best wines in the history of their estates as you can see from my tasting notes and scores below. With terroirs that are as good

2020 Cotes de Bordeaux are just great! They offer some of the best value wines in all of Bordeaux, not just the Right Bank. These stunning wines blend not only value but style. 2020 Cotes de Bordeaux at their best are ripe, silky, concentrated, pure, opulent wines. With character and style, they can compete with

2020 Saint Emilion part 3 covers all the wines from N to Z. The annual St. Emilion report was split into 3 separate articles because we were able to taste so many wines. If you want to read an in-depth report on the weather, growing season, and harvest for the Right Bank, focused on 2020

For a detailed look at the 2020 St. Emilion vintage with growing season and harvest information, as well as producer quotes, please see 2020 Saint Emilion Pt 1 A-G The following 2020 Saint Emilion wines were all tasted in my home office in non-blind conditions. 2020 Haut Brisson – Espresso, smoke, earth, incense and red

2020 St. Emilion can be seen like its neighboring appellation, Pomerol, as a more current, updated version of what took place in 1998. Of course, that is not to imply the wines are stylistically the same, though in some cases they are, it is to say you find can find a parallel between the vintages.

2020 Beauregard – Deep garnet in color, the wine quickly shows off its floral aromatics along with spice, licorice, and black plums. Soft and silky, polished, fresh and elegant, the chocolate-centric finish with all its ripe, dark red pit fruits tastes as good as it feels. Beauregard has really been upping their game the last

Napa Valley is one of the west’s jewels in wine making. Revered vintages and famous names dot the breath-taking landscape, and decades of delicious wines are waiting to be tasted. Learn By Drinking: Napa Valley awaits you and the journey across Northern California begins now. Your palate is the teacher Why learn from a book

This month’s wine club shipment theme is “Aging Vessels: Oak, Stainless, Concrete.” We’ll be tasting four wines that each use a different aging method to understand how aging affects wine taste. It’s a great opportunity to taste the difference in aging vessels while you taste new, intriguing wines from around the world. Available Now! Join

For most of us, opening old vintage wine is a once in a lifetime experience. Here are some things we learned while opening 40 year old wine. Get ready for a few surprises! [embedded content][embedded content]The wine of the night was a 1979 Diamond Creek Cabernet, but can we open it? Opening a 40 Year

Marlborough may be known for searing Sauvignon Blanc, but the region is emerging as a world class Pinot Noir producer. Learn more about New Zealand’s rising star. Pinot territory. Southern Valleys, Marlborough. Photo Courtesy of: Kevin Judd – Greywacke Marlborough Pinot Noir Marlborough turns out vibrantly textured, intensely aromatic wines. With its explosive tropical fruit,

Argentina is brimming with delicious wines, rich history, and insight on a beautiful land. So what’s the perfect strategy to take in Argentina and expand your palate? Learn By Drinking: Argentina of course! Let your tastebuds teach you Our sense of taste is one of the most evocative and powerful tools for gaining a sense

Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon has become a real force to be reckoned with in the world of South American wine and beyond. Chile is considered an ideal place to grow many of the most popular Bordeaux-style grapes. So what are the details behind this South American refuge of Old World styles? In this final installment of

2020 Saint Estephe wines are among the best in the Medoc. The wines are deeply colored, concentrated, opulent, lushly-textured and aromatic. The cool clay soils played a big part in the vine’s ability to deal with the intense summer heat and drought conditions. 2020 Saint Estephe wines as you will see are the result of

2020 Margaux is the best vintage for the appellation since the stunning 2015. And for several chateaux, 2020 Margaux is the better vintage! 2020 Margaux wines at their best are simply gorgeous. They display a beautiful depth of color, along with soaring aromatics and strong floral characteristics. The top wines are universally silky, elegant, concentrated,

2020 Saint Julien wines are consistently good. They might not make you forget 2016, or 2018, but 2020 is not that far behind in quality. Stylistically, the wines balance opulence with freshness. They are dark in color, extremely aromatic and due to lower levels of alcohol than you find in other recent, high-quality vintages, the

2020 Pauillac is a very good vintage. Though it will not be seen as the best year from the 2018, 2019, and 2020 trio. That does not mean the 2020 Pauillac wines are not outstanding. They are very good. But for various reasons, as you will see below, 2018 and 2019 were more successful, complete

2020 Pessac Leognan began the growing season with on again-off again weather pattern. Guillaume Pouthier of Chateau Les Carmes Haut Brion recalls some of the challenges he faced in the vineyards. “2020 Pessac Leognan was a kind of two-in-one vintage in terms of climatic conditions. It started out very humid before becoming extremely dry. This

If you are seeking character-driven, early-drinking, soft, earthy red wines with a touch of smoke or fresh, crisp, bright, fruit-filled white Bordeaux wines with character that sell for a song, you should take a serious look at 2020 Graves. Savvy consumers should take notice here as there are a lot of good wines to choose

2020 Haut Medoc, 2020 Listrac and 2020 Moulis offer some of the best values in the Left Bank today. Following the extremely wet spring, the hot, sunny, drought-plagued summer made 2020 Haut Medoc a difficult year for growers. For a detailed report on the 2020 Bordeaux growing season and harvest However, those vineyards with the

When it comes to rosé, France is often the first place people think of. The ever-present, bubble-gum pink wines of Provence have seen to that. But some of the best rosé wines aren’t coming out of France. They’re coming out of Spain. Spanish Rosado is a rosé that wine lovers adore, and might just want

You can taste a red wine and suddenly discover your mouth is sizzling – that spicy red wine has a whole world of delicious, zesty compounds that light up your palate and senses. Our quick guide will help you learn about what’s making you wave a hand over your tongue, and where you can look

This month’s wine club shipment theme is “Pinot Noir Four Ways.” We’ll be tasting four Pinot Noir wines, each made in different style including rosé, red, and sparkling blanc de noirs. For a taster, this is an incredible way to learn how much winemaking affects a grape variety. Can you taste the Pinot Noir essence

What if the French wine you’re tasting has a distinctly German vibe? You’re likely drinking Gewürztraminer. This week we’re going to find out how a German grape becomes most famous in a French region. What is the Tasting Challenge? The challenge is a way to improve your wine palate each week with 34 wines from

It’s a beautiful thing to taste a wine that transports your senses to its place of origin. That unique sensation on your palate tells you a story of where a wine is made and all the challenges it faced. This week we’ll be tasting Greek Assyrtiko, a wine that truly tastes of the world in

As far as fortified wines are concerned, Port is probably the most famous. And all this from a climate region that shouldn’t be able to grow anything at all, let alone the grapes that create some of the richest, most memorable wines in the world! This week, we’ll be tasting Tawny Port, and discussing the

When it comes to red wine, many people think of the lush, dark wine that comes out of warmer climates like California and Bordeaux. But what happens when red grapes are grown in higher altitudes and cooler climates? To find out, you need to taste Austrian Zweigelt. This week we’re talking about Zweigelt: Austria’s flagship