Wine Information Archives - Page 10 of 12

Wine Clubs Should you Join One?

by Joe Becerra

We travel a lot to wine country and one thing for sure we can expect just about each and every time we visit a tasting room, a pitch to join the winery’s wine club. Why, because the winery makes a hefty profit from wine clubs, and the person giving the pitch will usually make a nice commission for getting you to join. I always have to laugh when the host tells us their wine club is free to join. Of course it’s free. The other big laugh is “you can quit at any time.”Of course you can.

There is nothing wrong with joining a wine club, just make sure it is the right one. We have been members of various wine clubs over the years, and we have certainly learned from these experiences what to look for. The first and most important reason for joining a wine club is that it will give you access to wines you enjoy immensely at a discount, and first dibs on any hard-to-get special wines. For example, we joined the Mauritson wine club because we wanted to be able to buy their line of Rockpile wines. These wines are bottled in limited amounts and are very popular. In addition, the winery also offer “Futures”on their Rockpile wines to wine club members. This is where you taste wine from the barrel and buy the wine well before it is bottled. “Future”prices are usually significantly discounted.

Restaurants When The Wine List & Corkage Are Overpriced

by Joe Becerra

We dined at a restaurant that recently opened in our neighborhood in Burlingame. We’d heard good things about the restaurant so a group of us decided to celebrate a birthday and an anniversary there. The food was delicious but the wine list was marked up too high and the corkage fee was over the top at $25. Why gouge customers on wine; don’t you want us to return again and again?

Any good wine list should be well thought out and include good wines priced for all pocket books. At the low end there should be some decent tasting and enjoyable wines priced at $30 or under. At this restaurant there were no red wines to be had under $40 and the lowest priced white wine was $38. Worst of all, the markup was huge. Get this: I can buy a bottle of Robert Hall Cabernet Sauvignon at Trader Joe’s for $13. The price for this same wine was $40 on the wine list, a markup of almost three times retail. If you want wine loving-customers to keep coming back, a reasonable markup of 1.5 is just about right for the consumer.

TAPAS Grand Tasting at Fort Mason

by Joe Becerra

This was the second annual tasting of Spanish and Portuguese varietals made by American wineries. There were about 40 participating wineries in this year’s event and they were pouring mostly AlbariÃ±o and Verdejo in the whites, and Garnacha and Tempranillo in the reds. Most of the wineries were small and obscure wineries from California. There were a few Oregon wineries and one from Arizona. I would say that at least half of the wineries were new names to me.

Thank goodness I was in the pool of Press attendees who were allowed in two hours before the public. Building A at Fort Mason was jammed even in the press event. I concentrated on red wines only and was able to taste at least one wine from all the participating wineries. Here are my favorites of the tasting.

Some Interesting Bargains this week at Trader Joe’s

by Joe Becerra

In my locality, the Trader Joe’s in Millbrae and San Mateo are carrying four terrific wine bargains. Watch for these wines at your local TJ’s, they may carry them and if not ask why not?

2003 Lorca Pinot Noir, Gary’s Vineyard $14.99
Gary’s Vineyard is located in the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County and is owned and managed by two guys named Gary. They sell Pinot Noir and Syrah grapes to several premium wineries and their grapes are in high demand. Their client wineries include Copain Wines, Kosta Browne, Siduri, and Testarossa. The Lorca label is that of winemaker John Bolta. John is the winemaker for Conundrum Wines and Caymus. My feeling is the Lorca Pinot is equal to or better than many $30 Pinot Noir wines. You will be hard pressed to find a Pinot Noir any better at this price.

Vintage Wine Tasters Announce Results of Zinfandel Tasting

by Joe Becerra

On Thursday, a group of seven wine aficionados, who call themselves the Vintage Wine Tasters, gathered together to taste and judge six Zinfandel wines from the 2006 vintage priced under $20. This group of veteran wine drinkers and wine collectors have been meeting informally for years. After much serious discussion, the group determined they needed to impart their expertise and wisdom on the Web 2.0 wine world. This post marks the first official public announcement of their wine tasting and recommendations.

Why go public now? Time is ripe for a new breed of wine critics. People are getting tired of the Robert Parker and the Wine Spectators of the world. It is time for a new voice that rocks the wine world. The Vintage Wine Tasters have years of wine-tasting experience dating back to the days of Hearty Burgundy and Red Mountain wine selling for one dollar a gallon.

Will Smoke Taint be an Issue with the 2008 Vintage?

by Joe Becerra

On June 21, 2008, we attended a Maurtison winery outdoor dinner for wine club members at one of their Rockpile Vineyards deep in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County. This is an amazing area of deep hillsides and rough terrain. We took a tour of the vineyards that sit high above Lake Sonoma. The air was clear and breezy and the views terrific. Two hours later during dinner, it was a completely different story. The entire area was filled with a haze of smoke. A wave of lighting strikes had set forest fires in Mendocino County and the winds brought the smoky air to the south. The smoky air lingered there for days as far away as the San Mateo Peninsula, but in Mendocino Country and parts of Sonoma County the smoky air was there for three weeks.

The 2008 vintage will begin to emerge soon with white wines. These wines should not have a problem with smoke, because in the winemaking process the juice is squeezed from the grapes and the skins discarded. In the case of red wines, the skin is in contact with the juice, and hence the greater chance for smoke taint. The 2008 reds are in barrels now and I imagine the vintners have a good idea of how these wines will taste.

Hopland Bocce Wrap Up

by Joe Becerra

Our 5th Annual WCG Bocce Tournament is over. As usual, it was a tremendous success judged by the amount of fun we had. Yes, there was a winning team. Hmmm, who would that be? Oh yes, the “Crushers.”Second place went to “Two-Buck Chuckers,”and third place to the “Terrible Tannins.” As one of the players on the “Library Reserves” emphatically put it, “there are no losers here.”

5th Annual WCG Bocce Bash Hopland, CA

by Joe Becerra

We are on our way to Hopland, CA, to play Bocce, enjoy good food and wine, and most of all have fun with our friends. Bocce ball is a very easy game to play and requires very little physical skill and effort to play at the beginning level. A great athlete can be easily humbled in Bocce by a non-athlete playing in their first game. That is what makes this game so fun and exciting to play among a group of friends. Bocce courts are in many recreation centers and parks. But the best place to play Bocce is at a winery. More and more wineries are adding Bocce courts to their grounds and encouraging visitors to play at least a round or two in between sips of wine.

Wine Traveler in Santa Cruz Swift Street Courtyard

by Joe Becerra

When I think of Santa Cruz wine country, the first thing that comes to mind are the beautiful backroads of the Santa Cruz Mountains lined with stunning Redwood trees. I think of wineries like Thomas Fogarty, David Bruce, Byington, and Ahlgren. These are small wineries tucked away in the Santa Cruz Mountains with vineyards hidden among the Redwoods. Visiting wineries in these mountains is fun, exciting, and most of all adventurous. Now if you are a little leery of tackling the curvy roads of these mountain roads but still want to get a taste of the Santa Cruz Mountain wines, then head straight to the city of Santa Cruz and Highway 1.

Just a little north of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk is a very cool and trendy warehouse area called the Swift Street Courtyard. Here you can taste wines sourced from Santa Cruz AVA at these tasting rooms: Bonny Doon, Vino Tabi Winery, Sones Cellars, Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyards, and Pelican Ranch Winery. Bonny Doon is the biggest winery at this location and they are open seven days a week. Bonny Doon has been making wine here since the early 1990’s and just recently opened this very beautiful and tastefully designed tasting room and cafÃ©. The other tasting rooms are from much smaller wineries and for the most part they are open only on Saturday and Sunday.

Getting Ready for the Summer by stocking up on Argentina’s Crios Rosé Malbec

by Joe Becerra

When we were in Argentina this past March, the late afternoon and evening temperatures of the late summer beckoned for chilled refreshing wines. One of my favorites was from the Tapiz winery, a Malbec RosÃ©. When I returned home, I could not find anything like this wonderful wine in the San Francisco Bay Area. But last week, I discovered its equal, the Crios de Susana Balbo RosÃ© of Malbec.