Happy New Year, #Vinopanion‘s! I, ahem, recognize that we are already in our 2nd month of this new decade but hey, I’ve been busy! 😛 The holidays were fantastic, starting with an early Christmas with my fam, then we headed out with Piper Roja and drove 13 hrs to my in-laws, outside of Surprise. It was...
Category: Introspection
SabbRADical Planning
Hello loyal Vinopanions! A brief update is probably in store: the Lady, Piper Roja and I are doing quite well here in Yountville. I just finished my first IRONMAN 70.3 (Santa Rosa) and I’m coming up on my second sabbatical at work. There…update done. 😛 In all seriousness, a lot of things have happened this year...
#Vinopanion's new wardkadel.com is live!
Well…the long wait is over! Â If not for my fellow #Vinopanions, at least for my own incessant #wine cravings and the need to blast out my ramblings de vinos. WardKadel.com is finally live, as we are in the process of shutting down the long-running WineLog.net. With this relaunch, you will find more content combining my two...
#MFITV: 2011 Harvest Thoughts & the Quiet Winery
The 2011 Harvest is done. It has actually been done for the Northern California wine industry for a few weeks, but I needed those weeks to digest all that I have experienced (and re-acclimate to my previous life), before I was ready to write this final post for Man Falls in the Vines – #MFITV. Harvest is such a compressed, intense experience. It has proven to be hard for me to sum up in a somewhat, year-end post. Despite such difficulties, I was able to complete my harvest insider feature article for the January edition of Mutineer Magazine, as well as their brand new Mutineer Magazine Beverage Trade Edition, also debuting in January. All of this experience, hard work, and camaraderie demand applause and to be forever thanked for, however. And after the jump, you will see all of the new (and one old) vinopanions that I made during those six weeks in Stags Leap, Napa at Chimney Rock Winery (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog). The Broke Wino Looks at Value Bordeaux
A new vinopanion of mine, Sam Klingberg, has been making waves in the vino writing webernets over the last year or so with his wine blog, The Broke Wino. Sam contacted me recently to gather my thoughts on affordable Bordeaux wine. As one of Le Wine Buff for Enjoy Bordeaux for the CIVB, I have been involved in a lot of great Bordeaux-centric wine activities over the last 1+ years, including a truly spectacular trip to Bordeaux this past summer.
The dichotomy between the high prices of First and Second Growth chateaux and the remaining thousands of much more affordable, yet still high quality wine producers and chateaux is a hot topic. With the declaration of "vintages of the century" at least 3 times this decade alone combined with the increasing Asian markets, the prices of the high end Bordeaux have skyrocketed. Happily however, quality has also taken a great leap forward, all across the board.