Posts tagged: Russian River Valley

Crowd pleasing Pinot Noir (93 Robert Parker)

Walter Hansel winery has been synonymous with good quality and well-priced wines for years.  Real crowd-pleasing wines for those who don’t want to break the bank and still want to get a good quality glass of wine.  The 2010 North Slope might be one of Steve Hansel’s best efforts to date.  Even with a 93 [...]

Wednesday March 6th, 2013 in , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Best VALUE Chardonnay in years

This is a new addition to the Walter Hansel portfolio. Previously this section of the Estate Vineyard was planted to Pinot Noir. Steve Hansel didn’t like the development of the Pinot from this flat area of the vineyard near Guerneville Road. He budded it over to the “Hanzell” clone (Musque) of Chardonnay. This is the [...]

Friday March 1st, 2013 in , , , , , , | No Comments »

Impressive White at an even more IMPRESSIVE Value!

The renaissance of Colombard! Colombard is a variety originally from the South-West of France where it has been grown for hundreds of years. Yannick Rousseau  made his first Colombard in 1996 in the heart of Gascony. The grapes for Y Rousseau Old Vines Colombard come from the last Colombard vines planted in the Russian River [...]

Friday January 25th, 2013 in , , , , , , | No Comments »

DuMOL wins the last battle of the whites for 2012

In our last head-to-head line-up of the year we picked some of our top favorites of the year and the big winner was DuMOL CHLOE 2010 Chardonnay.  We had some of the most amazing wines in this 10 winery head banger – It included Evening Land 2010 Summum (96 WS $90.00) Tor “Durrell” (95 WS) [...]

Friday December 14th, 2012 in , , , , , , , | No Comments »

The next Kistler at 1/3 the price!

Two brothers longing to make a great wine.  When your family is in the industry (Joe Briggs) the bug did not take long to catch on and 2006 was their first release.  So with 6 vintages under their belt you can speak of some experience.  I would  go a step farther, I found gold, the [...]

Friday September 28th, 2012 in , , , , , | No Comments »

A Rochioli Pinot Noir at half the Price!

Portalupi is a small family owned winery that was created by a husband and wife team in 2002.  Their goal was to create wines worthy of their Italian ancestry.  Having traversed the gamut of premium wine industry companies I would say they succeeded in their quest and the result are some very high-quality wines, at [...]

Monday September 17th, 2012 in , , , , , , | No Comments »

Paul Hobbs’ 96 Point Chardonnay stunner!

Paul Hobbs does not need an intro, he is the Maestro.  He belongs in the “Hall of Fame” we all know this. The Ritchie Vineyard is a “Grand-Cru” worthy property, planted to older vine Chardonnay, that is every winemakers dream. David and Karen Dunphy, the owners of Black Cordon also own a stunning Cabernet vineyard [...]

Wednesday August 29th, 2012 in , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Stunning Old Vine Zinfandel

Limerick Lane is a thirty acre estate located in the north east corner of the Russian River Appellation just south of the town of Healdsburg.  The estate was first planted to grapes in 1910 by the Del Fava family and the original homestead where Mario Del Fava was born is where the current owner lives [...]

Monday August 13th, 2012 in , , , , , | No Comments »

DuMol’s stunning new releases are here!

2010 might have been a little cooler, but it was a great vintage for Andy Smith and his team at DuMol. I would say it rivals many of the great scoring wines, and might even surpass them. Production is down a little, but I still have good supply! I was DuMol’s FIRST retail account going [...]

Wednesday June 6th, 2012 in , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Stunning Pinot a must have wine!

This is a real sleeper hit! Sourced from their estate properties in the Russian River Valley, Pillow Road Vineyards consists of two plots located in Sebastopol on the southern edge of the Russian River Valley. In total, both vineyards are planted to 20 acres of Pinot Noir clones 4, 115, 777, Swan and Calera. Situated [...]

Thursday March 8th, 2012 in , , , , , | No Comments »