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Monthly Archives: March 2025

Straight Talk Episode 28: Growing Up Kistler … And Coming Home to Occidental

The season 3 premiere episode of Wine Spectator’s Straight Talk podcast debuts with Occidental winemaker Catherine Kistler, who grew up with an in-house wine legend: California Chardonnay icon and also her dad, Steve. But Catherine came home to make Pinot Noir in 2017, and the father-daughter team landed at No. 2 on Wine Spectator’s 2023 Top 10 Wines of the …

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Piedmont’s white wines: An accelerating trend

Arneis grapes on a vine in Piedmont. In Decanter magazine’s April 2025 issue, David Way writes about ‘Piedmont’s shifting focus’, which delves into the increase in plantings of white grape varieties in the Italian region and the reasons behind this change. He notes: ‘The quality of Piedmont’s white wines made with the likes of Cortese, Arneis, Timorasso, Erbaluce and Nascetta …

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Wine Reviews: Mini Round-Up for March 31, 2025

The post Wine Reviews: Mini Round-Up for March 31, 2025 appeared first on 1 Wine Dude. 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) …

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Poliziano: Impressive Single Vineyard Vino Nobile di Montepulciano

Poliziano is one of the largest and most successful family wineries in Montepulciano, it has 130 hectares (ha) of vines including two single vineyard Vino Nobiles in the Caggiole and Le Grazie Pieves located west of the town of Montepulciano. The winery is releasing its first Pieve wine this year, the Poliziano 2021 Le Caggiole Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Pieve …

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Tuscany’s top tier: New vintage releases

Inside the Mazzei winery, where Siepi is made. New releases from some of Tuscany’s top wineries reflect both challenges and innovations in winemaking. Discover wines shaped by a unique growing season and evolving production techniques.  Notes and scores for the latest releases from Tuscany… Source : https://www.decanter.com/premium/tuscanys-top-tier-new-vintage-releases-553500/

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What’s on Premium: April 2025

April is the cruellest month. No sooner have we mixed memory and your desire for good claret with our comprehensive retrospective of the 2022s then we make you wait a full month before the great Bordeaux highlight of the year – the review of the new vintage and en primeur! But that’s coming in May don’t fret, and we’ll have …

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The ethical drinker: Piwis’ big adventure

Roman Tournier showing his wines made from Piwi grapes at Millésime Bio wine fair 2025. After studying viticulture and oenology, he worked in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in the Rhône valley, at Domaine de Beaurenard, followed by stints in New Zealand, Languedoc and Luberon. The Piwi adventure started in 2021 when he returned home and realised that fungal vine diseases were a big …

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Best Press Releases for 03.31.25

Welcome to the world of wine’s press releases coming to me. The only way to evaluate all this info is to look trends straight in the face, and study the facts. As I put bits and pieces together, we can all comprise the global perspective and form our own opinions. Enjoy the ride. The global […] The post Best Press …

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The Definitive Guide To Costco’s Kirkland Signature Wines

Costco’s Kirkland branded products are synonymous with high quality at super low prices, and the wine aisle is no exception. In some cases, Kirkland wines can be the shining example of the ridiculous quality to price ratio you can find under these private branded products. We’ve been tasting and reviewing Kirkland wines since before we […] Source : http://costcowineblog.com/the-definitive-guide-to-costcos-kirkland-signature-wines/

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Value South American reds: Panel tasting results

Peter Richards MW, Ben Gubbins and Andrew Johnson tasted 137 wines, with 4 Outstanding and 26 Highly Recommended Value South American reds: Panel tasting scores 137 wines tasted Exceptional 0 Outstanding 4 Highly recommended 26 Recommended 92 Commended 15 Entry criteria: producers and UK agents were invited to submit their still, dry red wines from any region and classification in …

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Wine spills onto the docket at the Supreme Court

On Wednesday, the eyes of wine geeks and those in the wine industry will turn to the the Supreme Court. Wine will be on the docket, and, as you might expect, reds and whites do not map on to a political right and left. A love of wine is non-partisan even though no justice has ever proclaimed “I love wine” …

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Three questions with…Evelyne de Pontbriand of Domaine du Closel

On the sidelines of her NY distributor’s recent tasting, I grabbed a quick three minutes with the supremely lovely Evelyne de Pontbriand. She is the third consecutive woman in her family to run the estate Domaine du Closel located at the Chateau des Vaults in the Loire region of Savennières. Aging Savennières: underrated or overrated? I think it is quite …

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Exciting times for Spanish wine – a story over on SevenFifty

Spain makes a lot of wine. Overall, it’s the third biggest producer in the world. One problem the country has is that many of the country’s wines sell at low prices–don’t get me wrong, there are certainly some pricey ones too. Another problem is that as wine enthusiasts and producers around the world rejoice in delving into fiendish detail about …

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Pierre Peters champagne with Rodolphe Peters

One winery I wanted to be sure to visit when I was in Champagne last month was Pierre Péters. I have always tremendously enjoyed the racy wines in the US and Rodolphe Péters not only commands a lot of respect in the wine world for his Champagnes but I had heard he had a new (sparkling) wine project in California …

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Trump to slap tariff on French wine

The trade war gets real! As if tariffs on hundreds of billions of consumer goods made in China weren’t real enough, the latest escalation from the Trump administration has found a new target: French wine. Late yesterday, word came down that the Trump administration will impose $7.5 billion in tariffs on goods from our European allies. The impetus is subsidies …

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Questions on French wine tariffs!

Our post about the 25% tariff that will be imposed on the $.2.5 billion of wines imported from France, Spain and Germany as of October 18 raised some questions. We respond: Rick: How do you suppose this will affect futures orders that are in place? Dr. Vino: They will be hit by the 25% levy if they arrive in the …

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How did champagne dodge the tariff bullet?

For those looking to explain the oddities of the recent tariffs on French wine, a clue may have come last week in Texas. But first, those oddities. It is not really going out on a limb to say that this administration has a haphazard, govern-by-tweet style of policymaking. So it should not be a surprise that there were some head-scratchers …

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The Kincade fire is awful

The Kincade fire has already burned 54,000 acres in Sonoma County, roughly the size of the area also under vine. There have been mandated evacuations of 180,000 residents and the 3,400 first responders have it only 5% contained. Strong winds have blowing sparks and embers huge distances but the winds are moderating. The governor has declared a state of emergency. …

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Wine maps are all the rage

“Wine is geography in a glass,” Hugh Johnson said recently. He and Jancis Robinson were in town to promote the new edition of the World Atlas of Wine. He said that back in 1970, the publisher was unsure if a book of wine maps would really fly. So he had to impress upon the publisher how wine and maps were …

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