Review: Monteabellon Ribera del Duero – 2017 Finca Matambres and 2021 Tempranillo
Monteabellon is a Ribera del Duero winery that has been producing wines for multiple generations. Today we look at two wines from the operation — an older, well-aged expression and a younger version, both (of course) tempranillos. 2017 Monteabellon Finca Matambres Ribera del Duero – This hearty offering, 100% tempranillo (aged 14 months in French…
Review: Purity Vodkas, Gins, and Spritz (2023)
Best known for its out-there bottle design, Sweden’s Purity has expanded from making a single vodka to a much wider range of products, including four(!) vodkas, three gins, and a bottled spritz. Everything has been rebranded lately, though the core recipes seem not to have changed much, starting with a distillate made of organic winter wheat…
Review: Aberfeldy 15 Years Old Finished in Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Casks (2023)
Aberfeldy has become well-known for its series of 18 year old expressions, each finished in a different type of red wine cask. This year, Aberfeldy is flipping the script, just a bit, offering another red wine cask expression of its single malt that’s a more youthful 15 years old. The wine cask this time around:…
Review: Loch Lomond Original Single Malt and The Open Special Edition 2023
Loch Lomond is not your average Scotch distillery. Nestled in the far southwest corner of the Highlands, near the famously scenic loch (lake, for you non-Scots) of the same name, the distillery uses a combination of uniquely configured pot and column stills to produce as many as 11 different distillates, including grain whiskies. We got…
Review: Ardbeg Anthology 13 Years Old: The Harpy’s Tale
The whisky machine at Ardbeg continues to churn, with the launch of a brand new collection called Anthology. The Anthology Collection will be an ongoing series of whiskies built around experimental malts and casks (or combinations of casks) it has not previously used. Round One is The Harpy’s Tale, a 13 year old whisky aged…
Review: Distillery Exclusive Single Malts from Dalwhinnie, Glenfiddich, and Auchentoshan
I’m not sure when the distillery-exclusive trend came to Scotland, but I know it was well before we Yanks embraced it stateside. Limited edition festival bottlings have been helping to drive turnout for years at events like the Feis Ile on Islay and Spirit of Speyside Festival, among many others. But long before that, I…
Review: In Good Taste 2023 Wine Advent Calendar
Boozy advent calendars are incredibly fun — but also incredibly difficult. When it comes to wine, the prospect is even more daunting: 24 bottles of hooch would weigh more than 80 pounds and provide far more wine than most will plan to drink in 3 1/2 weeks. In Good Taste gets around this problem by…
Reflections on a Craft: An Interview with St. George Distillery’s Lance Winters
Today, there are over 2300 craft distilleries operating across the country, but back in the 1980s, when St. George got its start in northern California, there were barely a handful. The distillery’s founder, Jörg Rupf, was one of the godfathers of the craft distilling movement, but his passions were initially pretty narrow, focusing on eaux-de-vie…
