The term “cult cab” gained great currency in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was really a California phenomenon, though certainly other regions have their iconic wines. The California cult wines were predominately Cabernet Sauvignon and mostly came from Napa. The cult wines were so-named because of a nearly fanatical group of wealthy collectors who would pay huge prices to obtain bottles in a cult-like devotion to a group of small, quality-focused wineries.
For almost 60 years the Zuccardi family has been making wine in Argentina’s Mendoza region. We visited one of their 3 wineries to hear their story first-hand, have a delicious traditional asado lunch and to taste their wines.
Our latest Video AdVINEture features our very own ‘backyard’, British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley. We met with some old favourites like Meyer Family Vineyards, Painted Rock Estate Winery, and Okanagan Crush Pad, as well as two discoveries which have quickly become new favourites: Little Engine Wines and Kismet Winery. This is just a sneak peek of our recent trip, click on the individual links for the full story on each. Cheers!
Domaine Lafage Cuvée Centenaire on a sunny evening
Roussillon (pronounced “roo-see-yon”) is a wine growing region in the south of France that is often thought of as just part of the larger Languedoc-Roussillon, a region that stretches along the Mediterranean from the Rhone estuary to the Spanish border. But that perception is changing and today Roussillon is increasingly recognized as a region on its own, known for making a vast diversity of wine styles and for producing some great values.
The natural wine movement has been around in various forms for over a century. At its core, natural wine proponents advocate making a wine with the least amount of human intervention possible. Wine will not just make itself; it requires at least some human intervention to plant the vineyard, pick the grapes and have them ferment. How much intervention beyond that is acceptable to the natural wine movement? Perhaps the biggest criticism of the movement has been that there has never been a single accepted definition or set of criteria that distinguishes a natural wine from one that is not. Until now.
Regular readers of this blog will know that our focus is on interviewing winemakers to tell you the back story of how their particular wine got into the glass. With Kismet we broke with tradition and interviewed the growers instead of the winemaker.
This series of articles will focus on the top wines from a number of Champagne Houses. In Champagne these top wines are referred to as that house’s “Tête de Cuvée”. The Tête de Cuvée will be made from a strict selection of the best barrels from the best vineyard parcels. The Tête de Cuvée is very limited in production, but it is very important to the Champagne house as it represents the best of the best, the crowning achievement that defines what the house is capable of.
JAK Meyer, Janice Stevens-Meyer (and Chris Hemsworth)
There’s a saying in the wine industry among winemakers that ‘it takes a lot of beer to make good wine’. In JAK Meyer’s case, it took a few beers with a good friend to convince him to establish his own winery. A decade and a half later, Meyer Family Vineyards continues to produce among the very best wine coming out of BC’s Okanagan Valley.
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