If you want to assemble hot wine you need a volcano, so Jerry Brassfield, owner of Brassfield Estate, bought one right smack in the middle, well not possibly not precisely in the middle, of his 2500 acre estate in the newest California AVA - High Valley. High Valley is north of and above Clear Lake …

This was the tenth Taste Washington but was it the best Taste Washington? Only the shadow knows. Here are some “bests” from Taste Washington in no specific order;Best Winery Name - NefariousBest Beast - Caleb of “Buty and the Beast”Best Name Change - “Glacial” Lake MissoulaBest New Puget Sound Winer…

As I said, I tried to get to as many new wineries as possible. Still, I missed Stemilt Creek and Stinas Cellars and for some nefarious reason, I never got to Nefarious Winery. From the Puget Sound area, I got to Blooms Winery which has been around for a while and tasted their 2005 Blooms Semillon wh…

Almost equal to the joy of tasting great wine is the joy of talking with great winemakers. These humans are artists! They may take a very scientific approach or a very intuitive approach, but what they create is amazing. In many ways winemaking is similar to photography. Winemakers like say that tha…

Frustrated - that’s what I am! Lost all my posts written yesterday and today the !@#$% World Wide Web connection pooped out for half a day. So here I am rewriting yesterday’s posts about Taste Washington. whether I seem disgruntled, I am. First complaint, turned back from attempts to enter the Qwest…

All these wines were purchased from supermarkets or the equivalent. They should be available all by the U.S. While many of these wines lack the rare and sometimes complex character of wines from small wineries, some of them are quite good values, and they are widely available. plus, many of these wi…