(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. […]

The IWR has had a long association with Wrath Vineyards that began in 2009 when we prepared a report on the wines of the Santa Lucia Highlands (SLH): The Santa Lucia Highlands: Unique Terroir, Marvelous Wines.   While Wrath is technically located in the Monterey AVA, it is in the foothills just below the SLH and […]

It’s been five years since we’ve seen this wine grace Costco shelves, and it’s really nice to see it back again. We don’t think we’ve spent more on a single bottle of Malbec since the last time we bought this one, which was the 2013 vintage that we rated a solid 93 points. Most Malbec […]

We’ve tasted David Bruce’s wines for many years, but it was only a couple of months ago that we had the opportunity to visit the winery as part of our preparations for our upcoming report on the Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains. That visit motivated us to learn more about David Bruce, especially his […]

Over the last half of 2024, I’ve had the good fortune to be able to attend three tasting events (two of them virtual) for the media, exploring the wines of Victoria, Australia. Longtime friends of 1WD will recall that I spent a good amount of time in that diverse region several years ago, and it’s […]

An interesting find here. First off, one of the largest limited time discounts we’ve ever seen, percentage-wise. We had several readers alert us to this one, so we were excited when we saw it in stores by us. Costco’s regular price is $19.99, and until July 14, it’s reduced by 50{83994d7454f8ce68441ea8152244c292227c3db19076e7622c8f5ff92141c35a} to

CHENIN BLANC: SOUTH AFRICA’S  VINOUS TREASURE   Our report (#100!!!) reviews 160 wines from 72 producers.  Thanks to the Chenin Blanc Association, Wines of South Africa, the Old Vine Project, and the many producers and winemakers that made this report possible. Chenin Blanc wine reflects its terroir [see our article on the Mullineux soil-specific C

Each year, almost without fail, I receive samples of Flora Springs‘ Napa Valley wines, usually including their flagship white (“Soliloquy”) and red (“Trilogy”). And yet, I’ve never really featured their wines here, even after a decade-plus. Which is a shame, because they are arguably better than ever. It’s time to rectify that oversight, friends. F

This is the second year in a row that the Kirkland Barolo is arriving in the June / July timeframe. For the first few years of its existence, it hit stores in the first quarter of the year. So we would get a little nervous when it didn’t show up. Regardless, we’re happy to see […]

Hallberg Vineyard Gary Farrell started his eponymous label in 1982 with Pinot Noir grapes from the Rochioli vineyard and became one of the winemaking pioneers of the Russian River Valley. He and his winery played an important role in establishing this as California’s premier region for growing and making Pinot Noir. Today, the winery that […

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 […]

This is a Costco staple white wine that we know a lot of readers have enjoyed. And we have too; we just haven’t reviewed it on the site in a very long time (2012 vintage). King Estate is a solid Oregon producer; their Acrobat Pinot Gris was a Costco mainstay for a while, and was […]