Winemaker’s Corner

Have you ever run across the term “noble grapes” and wondered what it means? I have, many times. And to be truthful I wasn’t so sure what it really meant until I investigated. I did not expect to find out that “noble grapes” is a term used to describe the grape...

I analyzed this subject very carefully and arrived at the conclusion that there are three kinds of wine snobs: The Regular Wine Snob, the Fake Wine Snob and the Wannabe Wine Snob.  In this article I will describe each one of them at length.The Regular Wine Snob...

I am very excited to introduce a new wine called “2+2=1.”  This is serious, I am not joking.  It’s the kind of math that only Einstein can understand.  I created this wine in collaboration with JOLO, a very fine winery from North Carolina, recently nominated as one...

While I already covered the subject of Terroir in my January 2018 Winemaker’s Corner, I decided to revisit this topic since I feel that I left this article somewhat unfinished.  If you are interested in reading my first article, please visit my blog, which you...

It’s quite common among wine drinkers to believe that “Old Vines Make Better Wines,” since this statement has been traditionally supported by many influential wine magazines and reviewers.  In my opinion, this is not a question that can be answered with a “yes”...

If you have been to any of my “Tasting with the Winemaker” sessions in our tasting room, chances are you heard me saying, “A wine has a sense of place.” What this really means is that a wine acquires some unique characteristics from the geographical place that the...

Cork has been the traditional closure for wine bottles. While cloth, leather and clay closures preceded cork, it became the closure of choice in the 1700 after glass blowers were able to manufacture wine bottles of uniform size, shape and design. Some winemakers and...

I am into my 18th year of winemaking. I went through 17 harvests and made about 200 different wines. Since I had been a wine collector for many years before I became a winemaker, it was very normal for me to want to set aside every year a few cases of the wine from my...

With the release of a wine that I named SandFire Red we are celebrating the third anniversary of the Sand fire, which came very close to devastating our winery and our home in 2014. On July 25, 2017, a day before my birthday, the pungent smell of smoke woke me up at...