Posts belonging to Category Russian River Valley

Should you ever meet Robert Haggstrom Church - owner of Church Estate Vineyards Рyou will be struck by how plain folk he seems to be. After a couple hours sipping wine and lunching on his terrace, checking out his spectacular wine cellar, and listening to his views about making wine, quotes by Hunter S. Thompson start coming to mind.

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn PRO”

“Buy the ticket, take the ride”. (more…)

[ed. everything RIGHT with the Super Bowl in one image]

For the third year in a row the Super Bowl presented a pretty good football game that managed to outshine the wine selections. We usually expect the wine selections for a Super Bowl to be slightly more entertaining than the game. The whole mishpokhe surrounding the game is far too familiar to expect anything other than an ordinary game, ordinary food and and ordinary wine menu. Mrs. IGTY made sure the cioppino was exceptional and Mr. IGTY did his best to make sure we opened some big hitters. Dotor√© ensured swift justice prevailed. [ed. everything WRONG with the Super Bowl in one image] (more…)

Fall in LA is the best time of year. Fall in LA means it is safe to go outside without fearing a microwave burn. The tarantulas and rattlesnakes have left the patio to the hounds. [ed. real-Yankee Derek Jeter likes to have a little Halloween fun this time of year] I can watch TV outside into the early evening.
Fall means baseball playoffs and a chance to see the current future ex-Yankees: among the star players an ex-Red Sox, ex-Angel and ex-Twin. The once September, then October, Classic now ends in November. Yo. The Yanks and Phils are worth watching long as the “tri-state area” don’t get an early snowfall no-what-i-mean? October is also the middle of the Pac 9 season. UCLA football is the nucelar winter of local sports teams and USC, having already lost its annual sucker game, can win the conference and go clobber Cincinnatti or Iowa in the Rose Bowl. (more…)

LA the city as brasserie. Flames fan the hills. Corks get pulled. Once for Dotor√©’s 60th. Again for RB’s departure. Friends mix, barely familiar. Zins and Cabs here. Pinot Noirs there. Fruity whites cross all snob lines. Wine greases the wheels. Everyone loosens up. Even the tighties. Almost everyone. Birthday boy pulls the cork on two Melville bad boys. tBoW pops a double mag and a 26 year old port. Different fet√©s. Same classic soul mix with 60′s thrash. Dotor√© and tBoW the only fans.
So what got poured…it’s all right here. (more…)

When it comes to Pinot Noir we are entering unchartered territory, if you will, irregardless of goodness of fit. Pinot Noir, like “common” language, is becoming absurdly stylized and impossible to understand. In the attempt to create individually expressive Pinot Noir wines that can win big Parker Points, a phalanx of PN wines has emerged that does not taste like Pinot Noir while at the same time tastes remarkably alike. Either my palate is becoming more finicky or there are more and more of these big fruit big alcohol Parkerized fiascos.
The whole movement to re-make Pinot Noir as a new world vision began when the alcohol levels crossed 14.5%. The tBoW has tasted a Pinot Noir above 16%. tBoW liked it! as the excessive alcohol was balanced by the excessive fruit. Kind of like hippoes in toe shoes. The flavors one associates with Pinot Noir are barely present in high alcohol Pinot Noir. (more…)