Review: 2012 Landmark Vineyards Overlook Chardonnay
This new Chardonnay from Landmark isn’t a Sonoma appelation wine like last year’s: It’s made from 83% Sonoma, 11% Monterey, and 6% Santa Barbara grapes. The overall impact is pleasant, but uninspiring. Aggressively meaty on the nose, it lets some fig, peach, mango, and banana character through after a bit, but only after putting up…
Review: 2012 Bluxome Street Winery Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
Webster Marquez has been a winemaker for such estates as C. Donatiello and Williams Selyem. For his next act, what does he do? He opens a winery in the heart of San Francisco. Focused on vintages made from Sonoma County fruit — specifically the Russian River Valley — Marquez is off to a fun start.…
Review: 2012 Rioja Wines of deAlto Amo
Here are two budget bottlings from deAlto (aka deAlto Amo), a Rioja-based producer. 2012 deAlto Amo Riojo Blanco DOCa – 75% viura, 25% chardonnay. Lifeless, almost watery, with just a smattering of apple and vanilla to give it some level of substance. There are hints of pineapple on the nose, but otherwise it’s a forgettable…
Review: Selvarey White Rum and Selvarey Cacao (2014)
Yes, that’s a gorilla silhouette on the bottle. Yes, these spirits are made in Panama. Yes, the closest wild gorillas live about 6,300 miles away from Panama, across the Atlantic Ocean in Africa. Yes, Bruno Mars is a co-founder of the company. Yes, that’s as random as that gorilla on the bottle. Selvarey’s recent launch brought…
Review: Buffalo Trace Distillery Single Oak Project Bourbon Round Fourteen
We’re near the end of Buffalo Trace’s exhaustive (and exhausting) Single Oak Project, a series of 192 bourbons all made in a slightly different style — an attempt to find the whole grail of whiskeydom. With this round, we’ve got 168 down, 24 to go. Home stretch! Need a primer on the Project? Here’s our…
Review: Wines of Baglio di Pianetto, 2014 Releases
Sicily’s Baglio di Pianetto takes the classic grapes of this fiery island and funnels it through the mystique of a French chateau style of production. That’s what they say anyway. The production at this winery (which also has a resort on the premises) is extensive. Today we look at a selection of six wines —…
Review: AVIV 613 Vodka
Sorry, Easter egg hunters, AVIV 613 Vodka is not named after the area code for Ottawa, Canada. It is rather named for the city in which it is made — Tel Aviv, Israel — and a purported 6/1/3 proportion of ingredients used in its production. I wouldn’t dare try to explain this unique process, so…
Review: Domaine Carneros 2012 The Famous Gate Pinot Noir, 2010 Brut Cuvee, and 2007 Le Reve
Today it’s a smorgasbord of wines from our friends at Carneros-based Domaine Carneros. Let’s jump right in. 2012 Domaine Carneros The Famous Gate Pinot Noir Carneros – A gorgeous Pinot, with notes of currants, blueberry, brewed tea, cocoa nibs, and touches of violets. Everything’s firing almost perfectly here — it’s so easy-drinking that it’s hard…
