Argentine businessman Alejandro Pedro Bulgheroni purchased the 11th century Dievole estate in 2013 and engaged enologist Alberto Antonini to lead the charge to make Dievole one of Chianti Classico’s most modern wineries. One of the first things he did was to replace oak fermenters with cement vats that look similar to those we saw at […]

It’s always fun to run into one of these Langhe Nebbiolos. It’s not an everyday occurance at Costco, maybe a handful a year. The last one we tasted and reviewed was very nice. As we mentioned in that review, outside of the amazing Kirkland Barolo, finding good Barolo under $30 is hard to come by. […]

Given all of the dystopian news about the demise of the global wine market, it’s nice to be able to share something positive for a change—in fact, it’s actually something that can help wine brands stand out and get noticed in an increasingly (actually, make that exceptionally) challenging sales landscape. I’ve partnered with The Tasting […]

We always enjoy tasting new vintages of wines we love and the Four Graces Pinot is one of those bottles we go back to again and again. This is just superb Pinot Noir from Willamette Valley every time we taste it, and the new 2022 vintage hitting Costco shelves did not disappoint. We have previously […]

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 […]

It looks like this is going to be more of an August wine arrival now compared to end of year as it had been for a while. But now two years in a row we’re getting it early. The price is staying the same as the prior vintage at $13.99 which is good since it […]

Agricola Querciabella was established in 1974 by Giuseppe Castiglioni in Ruffoli east of Greve (see map below). His son Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni, a well-known vegan and  animal rights activist, converted the vineyard to organic in 1988 and to biodynamic agriculture in the year 2000.  Special attention is paid to managing cover crops. High qual

Cantina Tramin’s Wolfgang Klotz and Willi Stürz It’s a bit strange to think of Cantina Tramin making an existential gamble. After all, this is third oldest cooperative winery in Italy’s South Tyrol. Founded in 1898, it took Tramin almost three quarters of a century to make a major business move (merging with Cantina Sociale di […]

One of our favorite Kirkland wines, and many readers’ favorite too, is back in stores with the new 2022 vintage. Right on time too as we reviewed the 2021 vintage August 12 of last year. The price stayed the same at $22.99, which is good since it had climbed up to $23.99, and fell back […]

Andrés Sánchez made wine in Italy before moving back to Chile and working with his winemaker wife Daniella Gillmore at her family’s winery in Maule’s Loncomilla Valley.  We visited them on our last visit to Chile, and Andrés showed us his experimental plots of 18 Italian varieties.  The results of those experiments are now found […]

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 […]

We always love finding and tasting new Italian white wines at Costco, especially this time of the year. There’s not a lot of information on the bottle so we poked around a bit online. This wine heralds from the Veneto region of Italy and is comprised of 70{83994d7454f8ce68441ea8152244c292227c3db19076e7622c8f5ff92141c35a} Garganega, 30{83994d7454f8c

Winemaker José Real Boordy Vineyards was established in 1945 by Philip M. Wagner, editor of the Baltimore Sun and author of the book American Wines and How to Make Them published in 1933. He sourced grapes from Maryland vineyards owned by the Deford family and sold the winery to Rob Deford in 1980. Rob made […]

(image: Quinta do Vesuvio) “We are very much at an extreme viticultural zone, [with a geography that is] exceptionally difficult to farm. Our yields are some of the lowest in the world. We are already working very much on what are the limits of viticultural production.” You can take the Symington out of Britain, butt […]

We’ve had a few readers bring this bottle to our attention, and it’s a Costco Pinot that we have yet to review for the site. We had the chance to visit Etude winery several years ago and taste many of the different Pinots they produce; enjoyed them very much so it’s nice to see this […]

We return to GEORGIA this month to visit wineries in Imereti, Racha and Guria. Meanwhile, we’re putting the final touches on our 101st report on CHIANTI CLASSICO AND ITS UGAs and continuing to taste new releases from CALIFORNIA.  This newsletter highlights articles we’ve published on producers in these three places plus a quick look at […]