Bolnisi Barbale is a relatively new producer founded in Bolnisi, a former German colony in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia. German immigrants arrived in Bolnisi (then called Katarinenfeld in honor of the Tsar’s sister) in 1818 and started planting vineyards and making wine. They were successful and thrived until 1941 when Stalin deported familie

(image: Wine Victoria) Welcome to Part 2 (you can check out Part 1 here) of my 3-parter feature on the wines of Victoria, Australia—an area rich in small animals that can quickly kill you (like the box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, and redback spider… hell, even the magpies are dangerous there. But it’s also home to […]

A fun new find at Costco from a favorite producer. This is the Chardonnay from Wines of Substance, a Charles Smith wine brand. You might know Charles Smith from his Kirkland K Vine series, and you might remember Wines of Substance from their very delicious CS Cabernet we tasted a while back. Consistently, high quality […]

Lester and Linda Schwartz met at the University of Cape Town (which my wife also attended) in the 1960s and later emigrated to the US where in 1994 they began planting their Fort Ross vineyard on Sonoma’s high coastal ridge overlooking the Pacific. Given where they come from, it’s only fitting that Chenin Blanc and […]

I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine reviews (mostly from samples) and tasting notes in a “mini-review” format. They are meant to be quirky, fun, and (mostly) easily-digestible reviews of (mostly) currently available wines (click here for the skinny on how to read […]

Here’s a new Sauvignon Blanc hitting Costco stores that’s a fresh change of pace. That’s because it’s from South Africa, a region we don’t see too often in the Costco wine aisles. And that’s a shame because there are some delicious wines coming out of there, white, rose and red, frequently at very good prices. […]