A wine lesson from nectarines
Craig Lee/The Chronicle (2008) When are these like wine grapes? It started when I asked a farmer at my local Fillmore farmers’ market if he had yellow-fleshed nectarines. The white, I explained, were...
View ArticleHow big a deal is urban Wine Country?
Robert Pellegrini The Pellegrini winery bottled wine in southern San Francisco until 1957. It’s worth briefly circling back to the topic of San Francisco as the new Wine Country. The urban winery story...
View ArticleOne Barrel: An introduction
Jon Bonne/The Chronicle Harvesting Syrah grapes from a Mendocino vineyard. What does it mean to make wine? And, somewhat more pertinent these days, what does it mean to make natural wine? This is a...
View ArticleOne Barrel: Down to the stems
Jon Bonne/The Chronicle In the afternoon, we finally clear ourselves to begin work on the SunHawk blend. But before we do, there’s the lingering question of bunch stems: Do we use them, and if so, how...
View ArticleOne Barrel: First crush
David Philo Kevin and I talk about technique. So this is how I find myself trading out my reporter’s notebook and landing inside a two-ton open top fermenter, stomping my way across the top of some...
View ArticleOne Barrel: Show time
We’re still in the waiting game. While there are plenty of debates about what natural wine is — and whether it’s more than just a catchy slogan — the one nonnegotiable is a fermentation using whatever...
View ArticleA bumper crop for California wine — or is it?
Lianne Milton/Special to The Chronicle A Petite Sirah cluster in Napa Valley. The first look at California’s 2009 vintage came Wednesday with the release of the USDA’s preliminary crush report. And...
View ArticleA lesson from Napanook vineyard
It’s unlikely Christian Moueix is out pruning his vines all the time. But for my visit in early March to his Napanook vineyard, he was willing to take time out for a quick demonstration. He carefully...
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