Morgan is one of the Santa Lucia Highlands’ finest wineries. Year in and year out, it produces high quality wines at fair prices. The winery is owned and operated by veteran winemaker Dan Lee who has been crafting wine at Morgan for more than 25 years. We first became acquainted with Dan and Morgan Winery some 15 years ago when we were preparing our Report #20 The Santa Lucia Highlands: Unique Terroir, Marvelous Wines. At that time and with every passing year that we have been reviewing Morgan wines, we have been impressed by their consistent quality, originally and steady improvement. Dan Lee and wife Donna founded Morgan in 1982, built a state-of-the-art winery in Salinas in 1984, and purchased the 65 acres… [Read More...]

Ingrid Groiss, Winemaker Ingrid Groiss is one of the winemaking stars of Austria’s Weinviertel region. While best known for her Grüner Veltliner grown on the area’s loess soils, she also makes an outstanding Gemischter Satz (field blend) from her grandmother’s old vineyard as well as a stunning, authentic rosé of Pinot Noir and Zweigelt. Our reviews of the wines follow.  Watch for our forthcoming report on Austria, an update of our earlier Report # 25 The Wines of Austria.  Ingrid’s road to winemaking is a convoluted one. Coming from a winemaking family with vineyards and a heuriger (wine tavern) in Breitenwaida near the Czech border, she… [Read More...]

This is our first report on Argentina’s 2017 vintage. The wines reviewed here from Aniello, Ricardo Santos, and Tercos are youthful wines that have seen only a modicum of oak aging. As a result, they are fresh and vibrant and meant for early, easy drinking.  The Aniello wines come from the Rio Negro valley in Patagonia, which we visited on our last trip to Argentina. The Ricardo Santos wines are from Mendoza, Argentina’s winegrowing center.  These wines are imported by Global Vineyard Importers of Berkeley CA. Aniello 2017 006 Chardonnay Riverside Estate Alto Valle del Rio Negro Patagonia ($17) 90 This is a fresh and lively Chardonnay showing orchard fruit … [Read More...]

Nicola Manferrari is one of Italy’s great white winemakers. We recently visited Nicola at his winery in the small village of Brazzano located just outside Cormòns. Brazzano is the location of his special, old vine vineyards that produce the fruit for his stellar Ronco della Chiesa Friulano and Malvasia wines. We review all his current releases that we tasted at the winery with Nicola and his son Mattia. A pharmacist by training, Nicola became a winemaker rather unexpectedly when his father, who sold his wine in bulk, died in 1981. Nicola’s scientific training and intellectual curiosity led him to explore how to make the very best possible wine. This self-taught master winemaker is now in… [Read More...]

Grillenparz Vineyard on the Danube Stadt Krems is one of Europe’s oldest wineries. We first tasted its wines for our Report # 25 The Wines of Austria. We recently met with Franz-Josef “Goose” Gansberger, who manages both Stadt Krems and Weingut Stift Göttweig, and eagerly accepted his offer to again taste his wines. The wines are from the very good 2015 and very challenging 2016 vintages. The history of Stadt Krems begins in 1210 when Duke Leopold IV founded a public hospital in Krems and donated vineyards to it. Then in 1452 the Imperial Burggrave of Krems donated additional vineyards to the city, leading to the establishment of the winery, which was located… [Read More...]

Kristian Keber We recently visited Edi Keber and his son Kristian at their winery and vineyard in the small village of Zegla, located just a stone’s throw away from the Slovenian border. Edi Keber has always been on the cutting edge of winemaking in the Collio area of Friuli, and Kristian now follows in his footsteps. Kristian showed us their Collio Bianco blend from three very different vintages. Located just across the road from Renato Keber, Edi Keber has 10 hectares of organically cultivated vineyards planted on the region’s ponka soil. The Keber family started bottling wines in 1957, and Edi took on the winemaking responsibilities 30 years ago and replaced international varieties with Collio’s indigenous varieties. When his son Kristian assumed the winemaking mantle … [Read More...]

Gianfranco Gallo crafts some of Friuli’s most impressive white wines at his 53 hectare estate in the commune of Mariano del Friuli in the Isonzo Valley, just south of the Collio DOCG. His vineyards are located in the best part of the valley, in the northeast near Cormons. They have well-drained stony, calcium-rich clay soils created by glacial erosion and sit at about 31 meters above sea level. Gianfranco Gallo Gianfranco Gallo took over the management of this family estate (then called Stella Gallo) in 1978 at the age of 19. He went on to introduce the viticultural and winemaking reforms that are responsible for the excellent quality … [Read More...]

We are pleased to have the opportunity to review Stinson Vineyards’ new releases.  We have been tasting their wines over the past four years and have been increasingly impressed with the improvements in quality and their experimentation with new varieties.  These new releases are no exception. Located in Albermarle County within the Monticello AVA, Stinson Vineyards is a small family winery nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  The vineyard was established in 2010 by Scott Stinson and daughter Rachel who replanted the property and expanded it to 32 acres of vines.  Today Scott manages the vineyard, while Rachel makes the wines with the help of Matthieu Finot, winemaker at King Family Vineyards. Currently, most wines are made from purchased fruit, one exception… [Read More...]

Green Valley Vineyard The Spring 2017 new releases from Sonoma County’s Dutton Goldfield winery include a sumptuous Pinot Blanc, vibrant Riesling, and spicy, very appealing Gewürztraminer from the 2016 vintage; a classic Green Valley Chardonnay and Russian River Valley Pinot Noir from the 2015 vintage; and 2014 single vineyard bottlings of Pinot Noir, Syrah, and Zinfandel. The 2016 vintage was excellent with exceptionally clean and flavorful fruit; yields were low overall but fruit quality was very high, and that’s reflected in the white wines we review here. The 2015 vintage was the fourth year of the drought and one of the earliest seasons on record, but fruit quality was outstanding once again. We reviewed several other 2014 Dutton… [Read More...]

Utiel-Requena, located west of the city of Valencia, is one of Spain’s up and coming wine regions. It has 35 thousand hectares (86 thousand acres) under vine, almost double that of California’s Napa Valley and over one hundred producers. Long known for the production of bulk wines, recent years have witnessed a growing number of distinctive, high quality wines (mostly reds plus some rosés and sparkling cavas) produced by a new generation of younger and innovative growers and wine makers. We review the current releases of a number of wines of the Utiel-Requena region below. History Archeological findings indicate that wine has been produced in the region as far back as the 7th century B.C., the early years of the Iberian… [Read More...]