A Free Wine Encyclopedia!What do you get when you cross an entrepreneur and a negociant? Vanino Wine Cellars. Steve Vagnino (drop the g for pronunciation) decided while in a hospital bed in 1985 that he was going into the wine business. What is interesting is that Steve is a native of St. Louis, Missouri and when he found… read more »
If you want history, try to read the label on this bottle. Some correlation! But here is the current story of this winery. Proprietor Dr. Douglas Cartwright has actually been growing grapes for many years on his spacious ranch in Northern Sonoma County, having planted 34 acres there in 1964. Prior to the 1984 harvest… read more »
Caché means “hidden” in French… and I guess it is as good a name as any for this winery. It is located on a remote dirt road west of Davis, California. A great place to be! University of California-Davis has the best enology department in the country. The cellars were established in 1978, by Charles… read more »
Terms like Koonunga Hill, Coonawarra and Pokolbin most-likely don’t roll off the tongues of wine aficionados like Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino, but someday they will. Our import selection, if you haven’t already guessed, comes from “down under”. . . Australia. With all the hoopla over the Australian tourist ads here it was time to find… read more »
“Paul, I joined the club recently. I joined because my knowledge of import wines is zero, and I would like to learn more. How do I identify a Burgundy from a Bordeaux? The label does not always say so. Friends will hand me a glass and tell me what it is. I look at their… read more »
CABERNET SAUVIGNON. 1977 –HILL-SMITH ESTATE, CHAIRMAN’S SELECTION by Paul Kalemkiarian Sr | January 1985 In 1847, master brewer Samuel Smith, the founder of Hill-Smith Estate, left England for Adelaide, Australia. Samuel worked and saved hard. In 1849 he bought 30 acres, and with his son Sidney, planted his first vines. His knowledge of fermentation techniques was… read more »
CABERNET SAUVIGNON. 1979 –JEKEL VINEYARD by Paul Kalemkiarian Sr | September 1984 Monterey County is one of the important California wine growing regions. It is still developing and has not made its mark in the premium wine arena as other regions have. The area does have a few champions however, and Jekel is one of them…. read more »
CABERNET SAUVIGNON. 1980 – DAVIS BYNUM by Paul Kalemkiarian Sr | March 1984 Davis Bynum was a newspaperman. He was a four-pack a day, cigarette smoking newspaperman. Can you imagine that! He quit smoking, cold turkey, and went into the wine business. The San Francisco Chronicle lost their “This World” section writer in 1963. He went… read more »
CABERNET SAUVIGNON. 1978 –CASA DE ROJAS by Paul Kalemkiarian Sr | September 1983 Among the wines of the world, those from Chile are often singled out as remarkable values. Chile is the second largest producer of wine in South America. It trails Argentina. The history of Chilean wine dates back to the 1550’s when Father… read more »
Now I’m off camera, now I’m on camera. Okay folks, this is something else, okay? You know I taste a lot of wines, they come through here, I taste it, taste it, taste it. There’s a lot of junk and then something really strikes me as really good, and then there’s not enough for the… read more »