Yesterday, on August 27, we found ourselves harvesting the first grapes of the season. It’s just somerset, a seedless table grape––the wine grapes won’t be ready till around the 9th––but harvest is officially upon us at Mitchell Vineyard, and that means it’ll soon be time for my annual wine-movie-viewing-and-homemade-wine-drinking tradition. Read the full article.
About three weeks ago, I arrived at the vineyard to find a transformation in our grapes. Foch clusters that were green just a few days ago were suddenly black and plump. The somerset, too, had turned a lovely pinkish-brownish-grey and was delicious to taste. It felt early, but veraison had begun, and with it, the countdown to the 2014 harvest. Read the full article.
I recently tried my first Bartinney wine and was interested to learn that Bartinney’s winemaker, Ronell Wiid, came to viniculture from a career in geology. I love her winemaking style and asked her to tell her story. Read the full article.
My sister and I recently had the good fortune of going to New York to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch off Broadway, having received tickets from our awesome parents for our birthdays. I hadn’t been to the City in years, and I fell in love with it all over again. Read the full article.
Peter F. May is a South African wine writer and author of several wine books including Pinotage: Behind the Legends of South Africa’s Own Wine. He’s also the founder of the Pinotage Club, a site dedicated to fans of pinotage around the world. Obviously, his specialty intrigued me as a fellow weird-grape lover and unapologetic pinotage fan, and he kindly agreed to an interview in which he shares his fascinating perspective and breadth of knowledge on pinotage’s best producers, its reception abroad and at home, and its various expressions around the world. Read the full article.