• WINEHAVEN, THE WORLD’S LARGEST WINERY

    par | Oct 18, 2014

    By JOSHUA MALIN / VINE PAIR — October 16, 2014

    Winehaven: How The Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 Gave Birth To The World’s Largest Winery

    The Story Of Winehaven

    In the years leading up to Prohibition, the largest winery in the world sprawled across a 47-acre campus, perched upon the San Francisco Bay.  Its name was Winehaven.  At its peak capacity the winery and its warehouses could hold 12 million gallons of wine, which were distributed by sea from an 1,800 foot wharf, and by rail via privately owned, electrified train tracks.

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  • THE WHITE HOUSE REVEALS WINES ON THE MENU

    par | Fév 13, 2014

    By W. BLAKE GRAY | Posted Thursday, 13-Feb-2014 |

    The White House revives tradition of revealing wines on the menu. More than three years after attempting to make the wines served at the White House a state secret, President Barack Obama has resumed the longstanding practice of publishing state dinner wine lists. At Tuesday’s Feb. 11 dinner with French president François Hollande, the White House served three U.S. wines made by French winemakers.
    Obama and Hollande toast with a white Bordeaux-style blend from Sonoma

    © AFP | Obama and Hollande toast with a white Bordeaux-style blend from Sonoma (suite…)

  • NEW YORKERS AND BORDEAUX: FROM DISDAIN TO DELIGHT

    par | Mar 3, 2013

    By ERIC ASIMOV – The New York Times, Feb 28, 2013

    Not so long ago, quite a few young New York sommeliers might have been seen high-fiving one another as they disparaged the big bully Bordeaux.  In their view, and in the minds of many other young American wine drinkers, Bordeaux was a smug, wealthy, self-satisfied emblem of a bygone era, once the hallowed standard-bearer for great wine but now unfashionable and, worse, irrelevant.

    How quickly things change. No, the Brooklyn vinoscenti have not adopted Bordeaux as an ironic symbol.  But the widespread dismissal of Bordeaux seems to have achieved the result of casting it (still the world’s leading wine region) as an unlikely underdog.  Many who so recently wore their disdain of Bordeaux as a badge of honor are now embracing the region and its wines.

    “I think it’s almost become this Jura-type thing,” said Daniel Johnnes, wine director for Daniel Boulud’s Dinex restaurant group and an importer, referring to a long-ignored region in eastern France that became the darling of the wine vanguard in the last decade. “It was so uncool to drink it, that you’re now cool if you do.” (suite…)

  • BUBBLING CRISIS AT INAUGURAL LUNCH ON CAPITOL HILL

    par | Jan 11, 2013

    From The INDIAN WINE ACADEMY Newsletter, January 11, 2013

    The Champagne producers will be restless once again when the Korbel ‘Special Inaugural Cuvée’ sparkling wine will be served with the dessert at the inaugural lunch on January 21, at Capitol Hill. The Champagne Bureau in Washington has urged the White House not to print just « Champagne » on the menu.

    The menu published in advance mentioned a « Special Inaugural Cuvee Champagne », to be served with the dessert — Hudson apple pie, sour-cream ice cream, aged cheese and honey.

    The way it was supposed to appear on the menu of the inaugural lunch, Korbel Russian River Valley Natural ‘Champagne’, « is not correct » protested the US Champagne Bureau chief in Washington Sam Heitner, explaining that « the geographical place of production has to appear next to the word Champagne. » (suite…)