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Tina Caputo
Dec 18, 2012
At first, the story of Fort Ross Vineyard & Winery may sound familiar: City-dwellers buy vineyard land and embark on second careers in the California wine industry. But this story has a twist. The couple behind this Sonoma Coast winery, Linda and Lester Schwartz, didn't exactly take the easy route. In 1976 the South African natives moved to Northern California, where Linda put her music background to use as an arts administrator and Lester worked as a lawyer. In 1988, the couple bought a virgin property in the high coastal ridges overlooking the Pacific Ocean, above the old Russian Settlement of Fort Ross. This is normally the part of the story where the couple hires famous consultants to plan and plant their vineyard. Instead, Linda enrolled in the viticulture program at Santa Rosa Junior College and Lester discovered his affinity for heavy machinery.
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Tina Caputo
Nov 20, 2012
Like many wine lovers, I'm always interested in hearing about new producers, especially if they're veering away from the mainstream in terms of grape varieties, blends or styles. But sometimes the classics are just what I'm looking for. Wineries with a sense of place and history, specializing in traditional varieties, can be as welcome and satisfying as a plate of mom's pot roast. Louis M. Martini Winery in the Napa Valley is one of those classic California wineries. Whenever I pop a cork on one of Martini's Cabernets, I know that the wine in the bottle will be well made and a pleasure to drink -- rich, yet expertly balanced.
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Tina Caputo
Oct 23, 2012
When the weather turns cool and Thanksgiving approaches, my thoughts turn to festive sparklers and elegant Pinot Noirs -- wines that will pair beautifully with everything from cranberry relish to roasted turkey to sausage stuffing. If I had to choose a single source for elegant holiday wines, I'd turn to J Vineyards & Winery, in the Russian River Valley. Not only does J make terrific sparklers, it makes a range of lovely Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris wines.
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Tina Caputo
Sep 25, 2012
If you think you left Gallo wines behind when you moved on from Hearty Burgundy, you may be in for a surprise. Gallo is behind a slew of premium brands these days, including Frei Brothers, Louis M. Martini, MacMurray Ranch, Rancho Zabaco, William Hill Estate and many others. The 79-year-old company also makes some impressive wines under the Gallo Family Vineyards label, including the Estate, Single Vineyard, Sonoma Reserve, and now, the Signature Series offerings.
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Tina Caputo
Aug 28, 2012
As a Michigan native, I've kept an eye on the state's wine scene for many years. During that time, I've gone from being a skeptic, to being pleasantly surprised at the quality of certain wines, to becoming a True Believer in the ability of Northern Michigan vintners to produce fantastic wines. One producer that's been doing this all along is Chateau Grand Traverse. Located near Traverse City on the beautiful Old Mission Peninsula, Chateau Grand Traverse is the oldest and largest winery and vineyard operation in Northern Michigan.
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Tina Caputo
Jul 31, 2012
I've tasted and enjoyed many wines from Lake County over the years, but until recently, I'd never really toured the region's vineyards. There's really no excuse for that, since Lake County is less than a two-hour drive from my house. It's just that it always seemed so… far. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took the promise of aerial transportation to entice me to spend some quality time in Lake County. But boy, am I glad I made the trip.
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Tina Caputo
Jul 3, 2012
People who live in other parts of the country often tell me how lucky I am to live in Northern California wine country, with its gorgeous vineyards, fantastic wines and sunny skies. As much as I love it here, I tell them, it has nothing to do luck. I was born and raised in suburban Michigan, but I decided soon after college graduation head West and make my own luck. Such was also the case with the McWilliams family of Texarkana, Texas, owners of Arista Winery in the Russian River Valley. In the mid-1990s, after years of vacationing in Sonoma with his wife Janis and dreaming of a life among the vines, orthodontist Al McWilliams pitched in with his brother-in-law to buy a family vineyard estate in Cloverdale, in northern Sonoma County.
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Tina Caputo
Jun 5, 2012
Daryl Groom is a man with many achievements under his belt. During his 30-plus years as a winemaker in his native Australia and in California, he's racked up multiple 'Winemaker of the Year' awards for his work at Geyser Peak Winery in Sonoma County (1990-2007), and holds the distinction of spending six years making one of Australia's most famous and sought-after red wines, Penfolds Grange. But his most meaningful success to date, he says, is a $13 red blend called Colby Red.
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Tina Caputo
May 8, 2012
When talking about the history of Oregon wines, certain names inevitably come up: Myron Redford of Amity Vineyards, David Adelsheim of Adelsheim Vineyard, David Lett of Eyrie Vineyards and Dick Erath of Erath Winery. These pioneering vintners -- among others -- laid the foundation in the late 1960s and `70s for the winemakers who followed. One such winemaker to benefit from the founders' wisdom -- and mistakes -- was Harry Peterson-Nedry, founder of Chehalem winery (pronounced chuh-HAY-lum) in the Willamette Valley. With degrees in chemistry and English, Harry's first career was in high-tech manufacturing. But as many before him have discovered, a wine hobby can have life-altering effects.
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Tina Caputo
Apr 10, 2012
Ross Cobb practically grew up in his family's vineyard, but becoming a winemaker and starting a winery weren't part of his original plan. In 1989, Ross' father David planted the 15-acre Coastlands Vineyard in California's chilly Sonoma Coast region with the idea of selling cool-climate Pinot Noir grapes to a handful of vintners. On weekends and summer breaks from studying biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ross helped his dad in the vineyard. He grew to love the winegrowing process so much that he changed his major to agroecology and sustainable agriculture.
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Tina Caputo
Mar 13, 2012
For those of us who live in California, getting our hands on East Coast wines isn't easy. One East Coast producer that's worth the extra effort is Fox Run Vineyards in New York's Finger Lakes region. With 55 acres of vineyards, Fox Run makes a variety of wines -- including Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer and Cabernet Franc-Lemberger -- but it's the winery's Rieslings that really stand out. Fox Run is one of three Finger Lakes wineries that combines its efforts to produce Tierce, one of the country's best Rieslings.
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Tina Caputo
Feb 14, 2012
John Balletto has been farming for most of his life -- but he didn't always focus on wine grapes. In 1977, after the untimely death of his father, 17-year-old John started a vegetable farming business with his mother. If it hadn't been for three El Niño storms in 1998 that wiped out three successive Balletto vegetable plantings, and a lack of water for growing vegetables on one of John's properties in western Sonoma County, John might be more famous today for his zucchini than for his Russian River Valley Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
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Tina Caputo
Jan 17, 2012
I first ran across Twisted Oak Winery several years ago, at one of those giant public wine tastings that draw dozens of vintners and thousands of attendees. In a sea of wine offerings, my attention was drawn to a man brandishing a large rubber chicken. That's right: a rubber chicken. I'd seen people walking around the event earlier that day wearing badges that read "Are You Twisted?," and wondered where they came from. Here, at the Twisted Oak table, was my answer.
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Tina Caputo
Dec 20, 2011
Of all the gorgeous wine regions to visit in California, the Anderson Valley is probably my favorite. You won't find any trendy, high-end restaurants or chic boutiques in towns like Philo -- set in a remote location three hours north of San Francisco -- but you will find acres of majestic redwood trees, beautiful vineyards and some really nice people. Oh, and plenty of delicious Pinot Noir, too. Whenever I find myself winding my way up curvy Highway 128 through Anderson Valley, I always make a stop at Navarro Vineyards to pick up a few bottles.
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Tina Caputo
Nov 22, 2011
Although he was born in France, Bernard Portet is what you might call a Napa Valley legend. He arrived in the Napa Valley as a young man in his late 20s, charged with creating a Bordeaux-style winery from the ground up. That winery was Clos du Val. A ninth-generation winemaker, Bernard was born in the Cognac region of France and grew up in the Bordeaux area, where his father was the technical director at Château Lafite.
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Tina Caputo
Oct 25, 2011
After two days of jokes and small talk around the judging table, I learned that not only is Erik a really nice, down-to-earth guy, he also makes some fantastic wines. When the final competition results were tallied, Erik's wines had won a slew of top awards: 'Red Wine of the Year' for the 2008 Pedroni Vineyard Cabernet Franc, 'Best of Class' for the 2007 Mountainview Ranch Sangiovese, and double-gold and gold medals for Kokomo's Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Chardonnay wines.
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Tina Caputo
Sep 27, 2011
The English are known for many great contributions to the world: Delicious ales, hilarious comedy, the Beatles. Even the local cuisine, the butt of bad-food jokes for decades, has recently become a point of pride for the Brits. But wine? Surely the English should leave that sort of thing to their neighbors across the Channel in France, right? While that may have been true 20 years ago, it appears that the tide is turning.
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Tina Caputo
Aug 30, 2011
I first met Michael Beaulac, the personable and funny winemaker for Pine Ridge Vineyards in the Napa Valley, several years ago, when he was the winemaker at St. Supery. I admired his wines then, and I'm even more impressed by what he's doing at Pine Ridge. I followed up with Michael last week to find out more about his journey to Pine Ridge, and to see how the 2011 vintage is coming along.
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Tina Caputo
Aug 2, 2011
For followers of California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Patz & Hall is one of the greats. While some vintners say that the key to winemaking success is owning and farming one's own vineyards, Patz & Hall winemaker and co-owner James Hall has been proving otherwise for 20 years. The winery owns no vineyards, opting instead to showcase the distinctive fruit of growers from the Sonoma Coast to the Santa Lucia Highlands through a portfolio of excellent single-vineyard wines.
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Tina Caputo
Jul 5, 2011
Bill Knuttel is the executive winemaker at Dry Creek Vineyard (DCV) in California's gorgeous Dry Creek Valley. You may know DCV for its terrific Dry Chenin Blanc or Fumé Blanc wines, but the winery is primarily a Zinfandel specialist. Dry Creek Valley is one of the best places on earth for growing Zin, and DCV makes multiple versions -- all sharing a family resemblance of ripe fruit, good acidity and fine balance.
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Tina Caputo
Jun 7, 2011
There are a lot of impressive people involved in the California wine industry, but few are as respected and admired as Paul Dolan of Mendocino Wine Company. Paul is revered not only for his winemaking, but for his decades-long dedication to sustainable winegrowing and business practices. A fourth-generation winemaker, Paul's grandfather Edmund Rossi ran the Italian Swiss Colony winery in Asti, California, and each summer while he was growing up Paul spent the summer with him. But despite the family wine connection, Paul didn't initially set out to become a winemaker.
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Tina Caputo
May 10, 2011
For my inaugural piece I'm featuring Cathy Corison, who for decades has been quietly making some of the best Cabernets in the Napa Valley under the Corison Winery label. The star of her lineup, which consists only of two Napa Valley Cabernets and the occasional Gewürztraminer, is the Kronos Cabernet, made from her 40-year-old estate vineyard right off Highway 29, between Rutherford and St. Helena.
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Tina Caputo
Apr 12, 2011
I first met Marimar Torres, the proprietor of Marimar Estate winery, at a media seminar several years ago. We'd gathered at the winery to learn about Russian River's Green Valley AVA -- located in the foggiest part of the region, 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean -- which was becoming recognized as a prime spot for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. When it was time to break for lunch, Torres didn't whistle for the caterer; instead she whipped up a fabulous paella for 50 in a 3-foot diameter pan, chatting with guests all the while. As I watched her in action I thought: Now here's a woman who can do just about anything.
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Tina Caputo
Mar 15, 2011
I had my first encounter with sake back in college, when I worked at a Japanese restaurant. In those days -- the late `80s -- sushi bars served only one type of sake: the warm, disgusting kind served in little ceramic bottles. I stood by, mystified, as otherwise-sophisticated diners washed down their high-rent sushi platters with tiny cups of steaming swill. What did they see in it? It wasn't until years later that I learned of the existence of premium sakes, meant to be served chilled instead of heated. Could these sakes actually be worth drinking? Oh, yes.
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Tina Caputo
Feb 15, 2011
What if you live in a cold-climate region and your wine is forced to spend the afternoon in a shipping box on your front porch -- it's not legal for the shipper to leave it there, but it happens -- or in the trunk of your car during a winter storm? And who among us has never popped a bottle into the freezer for a quick chill-down, only to forget about it for a few hours, or even overnight? (Guilty as charged, Your Honor.) I know all too well that wine can turn into a Slushee if left in the freezer too long, but what are the scientific effects on the wine?
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Tina Caputo
Jan 18, 2011
We wine writers hear tons of stories about people who give up successful white-collar careers as doctors, tech gurus and the like to follow their winemaking dreams. "I just felt the need to get back to land," says the retired cardiologist whose closest contact with "the land" before buying a vineyard was telling the gardener where to plant the tomatoes. Ho-hum. While the cardiologist's origins make him no less passionate about winemaking than the lifelong farmer, the story does get old after a while. That's why I love to hear about guys like Ulises Valdez. I interviewed him a few months back for a business story in Vineyard & Winery Management magazine, and was both impressed and fascinated by the path he took to become one of Sonoma County's most successful vineyard managers, growers, and now, winery owners.
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Tina Caputo
Dec 21, 2010
f there's ever a night during the year to splurge on a great bottle of Champagne, it's New Year's Eve. But this is no ordinary year. I, for one, won't be forking over $150 for a bottle of tete du cuvée Champagne this New Year's Eve -- but I still have every intention of getting my sparkle on.
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Q & A: Linda Schwartz, Fort Ross Vineyard & Winery
