The Wine Knows - books/reference

Ooh, this could be good

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:05:20 -0400

Teri Citterman, who steams up the pages of Wine Press Northwest magazine with her Urban Sips column, has launched a blog with the same name.

Check it out.

Mind-boggling levels of Shiraz

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:52:53 -0400

I'm reading the new book Wine Politics, and it's a rather fascinating look at the business side of the wine industry and answers a lot of questions about why things are the way they are.

New food blog to bookmark

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:09:50 -0400

Our dear friend and Wine Press Northwest columnist Braiden Rex-Johnson has joined my blogroll with the launch last week of Northwest Notes. She already has posted several items since launching Thursday.

Tasting notes for seventh-graders

Sat, 31 May 2008 01:11:11 -0400

I just completed my article on Northwest Riesling (ah, the thrill of deadline!). For a variety of reasons, I chose to use Google Docs to write it.

A cool little tool in Google Docs is a word counter that also includes reading levels. According to this, I've written to a seventh-grade level. That makes sense since newspaper journalists tend to target about seventh- or eighth-grade reading levels.

On the WineTrails of Washington

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 11:53:51 -0400

Two years ago, Steve Roberts embarked on a journey of Washington wine country. His goal was to create a guidebook that focused on wine tourism. Steve ended up breaking the state into a dozen regions and 32 "wine trails," basically a touring guide.

2nd anniversary of The Wine Knows

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:11:32 -0400

This week marks the second anniversary of this little blog on the wines of the Pacific Northwest.

I launched this blog with the idea that we needed a way to communicate what was happening in the Northwest wine industry more often than we could in our longtime weekly email newsletter.

Filling a niche in Walla Walla

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 14:34:58 -0500

I've written with some frequency about finding your niche in the Northwest wine industry, and I love to highlight those who are.

In 2005, Heather Lewis saw a need that wasn't being filled in her hometown of Walla Walla, Wash. She was frustrated because she couldn't get the information she wanted about local wineries. The Walla Walla Valley Wine Alliance did a good job with maps, brochures, etc., but everything was moving so fast, that kind of info was out of date soon after it was printed.

New wine writer for Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest magazine

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:11:30 -0500

Braiden Rex-Johnson is taking over the wine gig for the Seattle Times' Pacific Northwest magazine.

One of the best wine blogs around

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:55:54 -0500

Looking for some wonderful insight into the Oregon wine scene with a lot of international flavor tossed in? Elevage has joined the "must read" spot in my RSS feed. It's written by Vincent Fritzsche, a Portland resident who loves wine, apparently goes to a lot of wineries, makes his own noncommercial Pinot Noir and is hoping to get into the wine business.

What I'm reading

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 13:59:20 -0500

I'm most of the way through George Taber's To Cork or Not to Cork, a book that looks at the history of using corks as wine bottle closures.

Samples

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:26:46 -0500

Tom Wark over on Fermentation does an occasional post interviewing various wine bloggers. He asks the same questions to each blogger, so it's interesting to see their answers ("Prius or BMW?" "Chablis or California Chardonnay?").

One question whose answer interests me is, "Do you accept samples for review?" Many bloggers do not, it appears, but that's because they might have special interests and do not review wines.

Arid wine lands

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 20:10:12 -0500

The other night, I watched a documentary called Arid Lands, which focuses on the Tri-Cities region of Washington, the Hanford nuclear reservation, the dams on the Columbia River and the interaction between the land and the people who have come to inhabit the area.

It's a magnificent film that captures a fascinating story. And it happens to be in the midst of the Columbia Vally wine-growing region, a subject that is touched on by the filmmakers.

New blog for Treasure Valley wine

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 13:58:11 -0500

I ran across a new blog that focuses on the area known as the Treasure Valley in southwestern Idaho, heart of the Idaho wine industry.

This is the first blog I've run across that focuses specifically on the food and wine of Idaho, so I'll definitely keep an eye on it.

'Bottle Shock' movie trailer

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:27:24 -0500

I logged onto Tom Wark's Fermentation blog (essential reading every morning for me), and he'd run across the trailer for the upcoming movie, Bottle Shock, based on the famous 1976 "Judgment of Paris" tasting.

It looks rather amusing with a Sideways flair. It also stars Alan Rickman, a favorite actor of mine.

Watch the trailer, via YouTube, here:

Merlot up, Chardonnay down in 2007 Washington grape report

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 10:42:42 -0500

The USDA has released its 2007 grape report for Washington state. As expected, it reported that Washington's wine grape crop was 127,000 tons, up 6 percent over 2006 and 15 percent over 2005. California's wine grape crop was 3.16 million tons, up from 3.13 million in 2006. New York was No. 3 at 41,000 tons. Oregon was No. 4 at 38,000 tons, up from 34,400 in 2006 and 25,000 tons in 2005.