Wine Regions – Page 5 – Ward Kadel

TasteLive! – Rodney Strong's 23rd Annual Wine & Chocolate Fantasy Pre-Tasting

January 24, 2012January 24, 2012Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNoLeave a comment

TasteLive! (WineLog, Twitter) is back at it again, with yet another great online Twitter tasting for us wine and chocolate grubbing fools. On the night of 01/26/12 at 6pm PST, we're taking in another seasonally appropriate wine and food pairing by pre-tasting some of the wines and chocolates that will be at Rodney Strong's 23rd Annual Wine & Chocolate Fantasy event, just in time for Valentine's Day.

#Navarra5 Day 2: Lost in Iruña, Malón de Echaide, & Bodegas Finca Albret

January 11, 2012January 11, 2012Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNoLeave a comment

Our second full day in Kingdom of Navarra (Twitter, Facebook) (day 3 if you're counting our travel day) started off a bit scary, due to the usual amount of stupidity that I tend to afford myself. As you've probably noticed from my previous post about Day 1 in Navarra, I love to go on a run in the cities that I visit around the world. I feel that it is one of the best ways to get to know a new foreign land and its people. Like ~~an idiot~~ always, I only carried my hotel keycard and a bit of cash in case I got into trouble and needed a taxi. I then headed out way before dawn at about 5:50am to streets unknown. Oh, and did I neglect to mention that I have absolutely no sense of direction?...I'm a total Marcus Brody. An hour later, my 20 minute jog has clearly turned into the definition of a lost tourist, replete with Spanglish as my only tool to communicate...no phone to call for a taxi, nor to even let my #Navarra5-mates know why I wouldn't be in the lobby at 7:45am!

#MFITV: 2011 Harvest Thoughts & the Quiet Winery

December 31, 2011December 31, 2011Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNoLeave a comment

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).

#MFITV: Draining, Digging, & Barreling Down

December 5, 2011December 5, 2011Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNoLeave a comment

The heart of the Harvest season can be a surreal and crazy time. Yes, of course I guess, it's crazy when you have a ton of things going on at once, including actual tons of ripe fruit to process and 15+ hour days dragging down your health. Indeed, I was sick twice during weeks 4 through 6 at the Rock for Man Falls in the Vines - #MFITV, with the entire Chimney Rock Winery (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog) crew coming down with something, at some point. Crush isn't easy, that is known the industry over, but I was happy to see that I persevered along with everyone else (who are all harvest veterans) and learned quite a bit about what it was to work some of the most taxing parts of the harvest: digging out the fermentation tanks after barreling off our new free-run wine.

#MFITV – The Fruit Gets Done

November 9, 2011November 9, 2011Vinopanion: Ward Kadel - @drXeNo3 Comments

Weeks 2 and 3 of Man Falls in the Vines began super busy at the winery, but finished with the quietness of fermenting tanks. I have already talked of the craziness of Week 1 for #MFITV, when we brought in a good 150 tons of super premium Stags Leap District Bordeaux varieties. The last two weeks saw all of the rest of that fruit come in, all of it Cabernet Sauvignon, the heart blood of the Chimney Rock Winery (Twitter, Facebook, WineLog) wines. Our days were definitely long, particularly the last two, where we had two more days of bringing in at least 70 tons of fruit. The last of the lots of Cabernet were completed on 10/27/11 with a healthy roar of relief by the vineyard and cellar crews, and capped off by a raucous bin dive by Jeff in the last ton of fruit. I was in the north barrel room doing my morning ferm monitoring, so I'm still bitter that I missed his swan dive. My bitterness was sweetened however, when Jeff discovered that grapes can really go everywhere and anywhere, when hit at high speed!