Mom Paula Bostock and Todd Bostock of Dos Cabezas WineWorks

As if anyone needed reminding that wine is an agricultural product, subject to the vicissitudes of Mother Nature, wineries in South East Arizona got a potent reminder last month when a major hail storm pounded the stuffin’s out of their vineyards, ruining the entire crop for most of the growers, including the folks at Dos Cabezas WineWorks.

We’d been wanting to profile these guys since we ran into them at Hospice du Rhone last May (see picture).  Not only was the wine they were pouring exceedingly tasty,

Continue reading More Heads are Better at Dos Cabezas

Win a shirt with this cool logo on it

For some reason, we haven’t gotten very many entries in our Wine FAQ contest.   We hope you guys are just waiting until the August 9 deadline to submit your questions.

Anyway, check it out here and join in the fun!

Jon Fisher and Michael Doherty

Things got a little surreal last week.  Technically, we were supposed to be taking a mini-vacation with Anne’s parents, tooling around the Santa Rita Hills and the Santa Ynez Valley.  Okay, if part of your business is writing about wine, and you’re taking notes and pictures for your blog, it’s kind of hard to call what we were doing a vacation.  Except that the better part of the experience was sharing something we love and are passionate about with folks we love and cherish.

If enjoying wine is all about the

Continue reading Tasting Room Fun

BLD Restaurant in Los Angeles not only has a great menu and is fairly reasonably priced for the neighborhood, their wine list is something we’d like to see more often.

It’s not the selections – although they are very nice and interesting, as well.  There aren’t too many, either.  The list is comprehensive, but not overly long, so you’re not drowning in options.  But that’s not what got us excited.

It’s how the wines are grouped – by characteristics.

Check it out here: BLD_Wine (or go to BLDrestaurant.com and click on Wines near the top).

You have Bubblies,

Continue reading A Really Cool Wine List

NOT the Summerland 2005 Syrah

Type: Dry red.Made With: Syrah.Plays Well With: Meat, meat, meat and more meat.

Look at the deep red color of this wine – it even looks rich.  The nose is full of berries.  And you can catch some of that same fruit in the flavor, even though it’s dry.  Bone dry.  As in no sweetness.

Add to that flavor some earthiness and you’ve got a wine that is made for something deep and hearty, like a slow-cooked beef brisket without the sweet sauce.  Or a pile of garlic-stuffed olives, some good

Continue reading Summerland 2005 Syrah Paradise Road

Stock Photo by Allie Lustig

We recently uncovered some tasting notes from a trip up north and found that we had written up a couple of wines from Summerland Winery.

It was one of those, “Oh, what the heck, let’s stop.” kind of things.  The winery’s tasting room can be seen from the 101 freeway and we’d passed it any number of times before we decided to investigate.

The crucial point here was that we weren’t intentionally working at the time.  Yeah, we really do go wine tasting just for the fun of it.  So

Continue reading Fun at Summerland Winery Tasting Room

A few weeks ago, Anne spoke at an alumni event for Northwestern University (she got her journalism degree at the university’s Medill School of Journalism).  Afterward, we went out to dinner with some of the event organizers and fellow speakers.  Since this blog was part of the panel discussion that Anne participated in, it’s pretty obvious we’re wine geeks.

So, naturally, we were asked to select a bottle of wine for the whole table.  Figure ten different people, twelve different conversations going on at any given time and everyone is eating something different.  And the idea is that you’re

Continue reading Ordering For the Whole Table – It’s Actually Pretty Easy

Type: Dry red wineMade With: Pinot Noir grapes out of Santa Barbara County.Plays Well With: Grilled red meats – maybe a burger with some blue cheese.

Michael tasted this at the Pinot Days tasting in Santa Monica, California, earlier this year, and he caught something funny at the time.  It was a slight funk in the glass.

How to describe funk?  It’s one of those you know it when you taste it kinds of things.  Something not fruity or other pops up and it doesn’t smell or taste good.  Michael thinks this one could have been due to cork

Continue reading La Fenetre Le Bon Climat Vineyard Pinot Noir

Win a shirt with this cool logo on it

We’ve been collecting questions for our Wine FAQ page for a while now.  Basically, we’re trying some human engineering here, since we know what questions we have.  But our questions aren’t necessarily the questions other folks have, so we’re asking you, our wonderful readers.

To make it even more fun and exciting, we’ve decided to add a little sporting flutter, as it were.  Send us your questions and for every question you send to info@oddballgrape.com, we’ll enter you into our contest.  Then, at the end of the

Continue reading Wine FAQ Contest – Your Questions Could Win!

Type: Dry redMade with: Pinot NoirPlays well with: A rich cut of meat or just by itself

Lachini Vineyards is a small family winery in Washington state – that’s buying its pinot noir from Oregon.

Now, we know that Oregon and Washington have become really well known for their pinots over the past few years, and it was really fun to catch a few of them at the Pinot Days tasting in Santa Monica, earlier this year, especially this lovely example.

Pinot noir is best known for its temperamental nature, which means that it’s hard to find really good

Continue reading Lachini 2007 Giselle Pinot Noir