| Wine lovers fear LCB shakeup means quality with wither | | Posted Friday, January 05, 2007 3:00:48 PM by Blog57 Team | | What's the state of wine in the state of Pennsylvania, following the abrupt departure of Jonathan H. Newman as chairman of the Liquor Control Board? Newman, a wine aficionado, created the Chairman's Selection and other promotions that helped change Pennsylvania's reputation as a purveyor of high-volume, low-quality, overpriced wines. Some wine enthusiasts worry that without Newman, the selection and availability of fine wine will suffer in Pennsylvania's monopoly of 643 state-owned and -operated liquor stores. Newman resigned Wednesday, citing differences with Gov. Rendell. Rendell last month appointed former State Sen. Joe Conti (R., Bucks) to a newly created job of chief executive officer to run the LCB's day-to-day operations. The LCB's new chairman, P.J.... | |
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| | | Family Takes Plunge Into Wine Making | | Posted Friday, January 05, 2007 1:23:13 PM by Blog57 Team | | Morgan Hill - Mike Sampognaro knew nothing about making wine eight months ago, but he was passionate about keeping his family closely knit. Sampognaro, a 64-year-old semi-retired San Jose businessman, purchased Morgan Hill's Pedrizzetti Winery in April. He wanted to provide a bigger home for his daughter's growing family and a home for himself and his wife. While looking at properties in Morgan Hill, he and his daughter found the 94-year-old winery for sale on San Pedro Avenue. After mulling it over, the family decided to pool resources and take the plunge into the wine business, hoping to earn enough to cover the mortgage payments on the 10-acre piece of land. "Originally we were looking for some property that had two homes," said Regina Simmons, Sampognaro's 41-year-old daughter who lives with her husband and four children at the winery.... | |
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| | | Reserve Wine of Show At Prestigious Air NZ Awards | | Posted Monday, November 13, 2006 11:20:23 PM by Blog57 Team | | Saint Clair Estate Wines has scooped a major award at the prestigious 2006 Air New Zealand Wine Awards (11 November), winning the trophy for Reserve Wine of the Show ahead of more than 1700 wines entered. The company’s flagship wine, Saint Clair Wairau Reserve Sauvignon Blanc, also won the prestigious Champion Sauvignon Blanc for the best Sauvignon Blanc at the Show. This wine has now won 24 trophies and 33 gold medals over the last five vintages. This is the second time the Marlborough winery has claimed the Sauvignon Blanc trophy at the Air New Zealand Wine Awards since it was founded by Neal and Judy Ibbotson in 1994. Saint Clair collected a total of two trophies and seven gold medals, the highest number awarded to a single winery label at the Show, making them the most successful Sauvignon Blanc exhibitor and setting a new benchmark as New Zealand’s leading Sauvignon Blanc producer.... | |
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| | | Critics not crowing | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 1:58:27 PM by Blog57 Team | | American film critics have savaged Russell Crowe's new romantic comedy A Good Year, with one describing it "as stale as a week-old baguette". Another critic compared Crowe's attempt at slapstick comedy as "like watching a Brahma bull trying to tap dance". If Crowe was hoping for A Good Year to earn him his fourth Oscar nomination, he had better hope the 6000 or so members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences do not read today's newspapers. "Audiences will be checking their watches during this joyless attempt at comedy," USA Today critic Claudia Puig wrote. "Crowe tries to be adorable and wacky, but is mostly charmless and irksome as a high-powered investment banker." A Good Year is set in the beautiful French wine-making region of Provence and re-teams Crowe with Gladiator director, Ridley Scott.... | |
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| | | Officials pleased grocery store wine sales rejected | | Posted Saturday, November 11, 2006 11:44:46 AM by Blog57 Team | | ROCKPORT - Town officials said yesterday they were pleased voters rejected a ballot question that would have allowed grocery stores to sell wine. Massachusetts voters said no to Question 1 by a vote of 1,180,708 to 915,076. Rockport followed the statewide trend, rejecting the question, 2,047 to 1,583. Town Administrator Michael Racicot said the vote was good for the town, as it meant there would be no conflict with town bylaws. Rockport only allows alcohol sales in restaurants, with the purchase of a sit-down meal. The town, which had been dry for most of the last 150 years, approved liquor sales in restaurants at the 2005 Spring Town Meeting. Now that the state denied the ballot question, "we don't have to fend off possible legal challenges to applicants who might have been denied a license," Racicot said.... | |
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| | | Rex Hill winery swallowed up by wine blenders, A to Z Wineworks, in a takeover deal that creates the biggest wine | | Posted Wednesday, November 08, 2006 7:21:43 PM by Blog57 Team | | Oregon's fastest-growing "virtual" winery, founded four years ago on a wave of bulk wine flooding the market, inked a deal Monday making it the largest winery in the state. Dundee-based A to Z Wineworks, which went from producing 2,600 cases of wine in 2002 to more than 100,000 this year, announced plans to buy Rex Hill Vineyards for an undisclosed amount. The deal not only will bring A to Z a bricks-and-mortar winery and tasting room 22 miles from Portland, but it also will push it past Willamette Valley Vineyards and Bridgeview Vineyard and Winery for bragging rights in the state. "Figures I have show that A to Z is now the biggest in Oregon," said Kevin Chambers, chairman of the Oregon Wine Board. Rex Hill is the second high-profile Oregon winery to change hands in less than six months, a sign that the state's $1 billion industry -- and those who founded it -- are maturing.... | |
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| | | Going the Extra Mile to Make a Wine Tour Special | | Posted Monday, November 06, 2006 3:41:12 PM by Blog57 Team | | A short time ago, a local elementary school asked me if I would be interested in donating something to their annual fundraising event. An idea was born to have me guide a group of individuals through one of the local wine trails. I thought it would be fun and readily agreed. Knowing that the trip would include stops at three wineries, I wanted the group to have peace of mind as we traveled. We needed a designated driver with a lot of seating, someone who could take over the burden of driving and allow the group to focus on the wine and the company at hand. I called on Theresa Martin, owner of Night Out Limousine, and asked if I could reserve a Sunday afternoon. "Wine tasting tours are one of our specialties," Theresa said. I was a bit nervous when the date that was set finally rolled around.... | |
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| | | Wine & Spirits: A burger and wine at the fest | | Posted Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:47:19 PM by Blog57 Team | | The San Antonio New World Wine & Food Festival begins this week with the largest roster of events in its six-year history. More than 60 events, from wine dinners to cooking classes, are spread out over a number of days in a schedule too broad and extensive to be listed here. A complete list can be found at www.nwwff.org, but here are four wine-related highlights: Burgers and Bordeaux, 5 p.m. Sunday, Central Market Cooking School, $65. Who wouldn't want to drink a first-growth Bordeaux with a big, juicy burger? But how many of us actually do that? Well, Guy Stout is out to make that happen. The master sommelier and wine educator for Glazer's is hosting a dinner party where you can expect several Bordeaux, including one first-growth — "probably a Lafite or Latour," he says — with burgers, fries and onion rings.... | |
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| | | LIZ SAGUES: Knowing your pinot from your pineau | | Posted Saturday, October 28, 2006 1:50:24 PM by Blog57 Team | | Surely, it was a joke. The advertisement (full-page, in a respected wine trade magazine) for a wine manager in one of the West End's top department stores read "... you'll know your Chablis from your Margot". If it wasn't meant to draw a laugh, the purists must have been weeping into their first-growth claret.It does serve as a reminder, though, that there are other homonyms in the wine world where confusion is perhaps a little more excusable.The one I always think of is pinot and pineau. The first should be familiar to every wine lover - the great red grape of burgundy and of superb wines from New Zealand, Oregon and Washington state in the US, even some cooler corners of Chile.The second is that very appealing but much lesser known aperitif or dessert-partner from France's cognac region, where the local spirit is blended with grape juice.... | |
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| | | Rare wine variety to be grown in Orange schools project | | Posted Friday, October 27, 2006 7:19:29 AM by Blog57 Team | | A project in which school students will grow wine grapes has officially opened in Orange. A total of 1,600 vines are in the ground at the Anson Vineyard. It will be operated by the Anson Street school for children with disabilities, as well as some from Orange and Canobolas high schools. Project organiser Murray Patterson says the students are very excited about growing and making the product. "I'd say about four years we'd be looking at before we're producing temperanillo wine under the supervision of Murray Smith of Canobolas Smith Wines and we'll be marketing that as Anson Street Vineyard," he said. "Temperanillo, it's a classic Spanish variety of wine which Murray Smith believes there's only one other maker in the Orange area, but we believe there's probably a niche market for temperanillo in this area." .... | |
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