Big and balanced It’s sure to be vineyard location but damn this wine is better than their more expensive Russian River Chardonnay; which is not too bad, but hot as hell. Here we have classic, full-bodied Cali Chard vibes with lemon curd, apple and pear aromas upfront with some baking spice and honeysuckle for good measure on the nose. The palate is soft and rich with added sensations of vanilla and baked guava tart. There may even be a little snap of peach in there. All this is easy to enjoy because unlike its big brother the alcohol is a nice 13.5%. It is under $20 and a great wine to have on hand for a get together or gifting. Rating B+.

Top 14 Wines For February 14th! A delicious wine from the Russian River Valley that will surely impress. It has vibrant flavors and bright acidity due to the cooling ocean fog in the area. This wine is fun and fruit forward with citrus zest and white flower notes that follow through and leave you with a toasty elegant finish.

The Best 5 Wine Pairing That Go Perfectly With These Romance Novels 5. For an Evening of Daydreaming or an Afternoon of Day Drinking Even if there's snow on the ground, you'll be envisioning a beachside summer oasis thanks to this pairing. Callie finally did it, she and her best friend, Olivia, put their life savings into a beach house on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. And she's enjoying her hard work now that her sexy neighbor Luke Sullivan has caught her attention. Will their secrets keep them apart, or should they drink some Kendall Jackson rosé and forget about the past? You can do the same or keep this on ice till the snow thaws and you're ready for beach season. Whatever you pick, you'll have a crisp Pinot Noir grape waiting for you.

Salut! Best of the Vancouver International Wine Festival CALL ME A CAB Cabernet Sauvignon remains irresistible to most consumers and lucky for them the grape does invariably well around the world, although Bordeaux and Napa Valley set the trend. Global warming is making things interesting, especially in northern regions like the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia where traditionally Cabernet Sauvignon struggled to physiologically ripen in time. There’s a lot to taste inside the room this year.

Salut! Best of the Vancouver International Wine Festival BEST CHARDONNAY Chardonnay is undergoing a style tweak globally: the wine is fresher with brighter acidity and there is more lees contact for texture and complexity. The result is a much better wine with food which must be the goal of any wine in our estimation. Don’t worry about the end of that unabashed California Chardonnay style, it still exists and in its best format it is hard not to like. Don’t miss this list of standouts.

The Best 5 Wine Pairing That Go Perfectly With These Romance Novels 3. For Finding Hygge in a Bottle of Wine and a Book The Magnolia Inn, the home Jolene Broussard has now inherited is a lot like this Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. Warm with an aroma of vanilla and honey, you can almost smell the toasted oak and butter rounds from here. And like The Magnolia Inn it'll resonate with you thanks to that delicious lingering finish. So open a cold bottle and snuggle up in your favorite chair, Jolene is about to fall in love with rugged carpenter Tucker Malone and you're about to have a favorite new wine.

8 Wines To Pair With Chocolate For Valentine’s Day Pair with: Chocolate-drizzled popcorn balls Buttery chardonnay is style that’s quintessentially Napa Valley; the wine’s rich toastiness and long-lasting finish come from putting the grapes through a secondary (malolactic) fermentation to soften the acidity and round out the flavors. This popular bottle of chardonnay is vibrant, complex, and, of course, buttery, making it exceptionally food-friendly. Bust out the chocolate-drizzled popcorn balls (ideally sprinkled with red and pink M&Ms) and it’s truly a match made in heaven.

Asian Syrah & Malbec Masters 2018: Master

What to Drink When You’re Drinking Alone: Bubbles for the Disgruntled This wine is generally only available on a contact-the-winery basis, but you might just want to do that. A limber little ballerina of a wine, with all the balance and finesse you’re going to lack tonight. Prominent notes include tangerine, nectarine, Asian pear, roses, strawberries and honey. Fabulously tense and highly relaxing.

The wine is a true expression of the vintage, the Yamhill-Carlton AVA, and the culture of Oregon’s northern Willamette Valley. 2016 was a generous vintage, with aromas of black cherries, plum and spice. Notes of black cherries and spice exude from the glass. Nice notes of black cherry and black pepper. Exceptionally balanced with nice soft tannins, bright acidity and long memorable finish.

This wine is an ‘iron fist in a velvet glove’ with an elegant body that is packed with lots of aromatics and flavors of dried cherries, pressed flowers and crumbled earth that is all at once silky smooth and riveting in its delivery. The lot size is 5 cases. Grand Moraine’s vineyard is located in the Coast Range foothills at the wild western edge of Willamette Valley. Some of their beliefs include LIVE certification, reducing yields as much as possible, picking fruit at the cusp of ripeness and using native ferments.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four The final Gran Moraine we tasted was the 2016 Upland, which Shane called his most masculine wine from the label that can be “put up against serious protein” on the dinner table. It was certainly the heaviest and darkest of what we tried, but the baking spices and minty finish offered a nice balance against the dark and heavy fruit.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four In 2016, Shane made a bottling called Cascade from two south-facing blocks in the Gran Moraine vineyard of 115 and 667 clones. The fruit was fermented in topless wooden barriques in order to moderate the tannins. Requiring hand punch downs, the lots took 30 hours for fermentation to take. All-in-all, it was the most labor intensive and stressful wine of the vintage. The result is an impressively complete wine that really envelops the mouth. It’s more savory than the Estate Reserve/Dropstone, and the fruit is quite layered as well.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four For the 2015 vintage, the name was changed from Estate Reserve to Dropstone, and it is just gorgeous on all fronts. The florals were bright and perfumed, setting up an elegant tannin structure that pulls the wine forward in the mouth. Violets and roses really show through at this stage, while the fruit will take some time to develop. This one offers tremendous promise.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four We began the Gran Moraine tasting with the 2015 Yamhill-Carlton pinot noir, which is always one of the best pinots at its price. It’s an AVA blend and, as one would expect based on previous vintages and Shane’s style, it had bright acid, delicate florals, spice box, mounds of red fruit and a depth that slowly sneaks up to you;. It’s a wine that, by the time you’ve had a class, you realize you’re deeper into the wine they you expected or knew. For $45 it’s a hard to beat pinot noir.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four We then moved on to the 2014 Estate Reserve. Though not as warm as the 2012 growing season, it was warmer than 2013, and the wine bore that out. A bit sweeter, rounder and plusher on the palate than its most immediate younger sibling, the structure was more robust with seriously dense tannin, which is hiding the flavors a bit at this stage. I imagine that within two to three years it will begin to show itself well, and improve over the following five to ten.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four The next wine Shane poured was a real treat, the 2013 Estate Reserve. It was funky in all the right ways and slightly delicate. Mushroom, dirt, cranberry, huckleberry, Acai and bitter flower petals made for a very intriguing and interesting wine. We talked briefly about the 2013 vintage, which followed the highly touted 2012. Shane and I agreed that we preferred the 2013s, which show more finesse and elegance compared to the bigger 2012s. The 2013 Estate Reserve is a good example of this dichotomy between vintages. Shane said that the 2012s were already as good as they would get, whereas the 2013 has many years left to improve. I don’t normally reveal whether I buy any wines from a visit to take home, but I’ll mention that we stuffed one of these into our carry-on and are anxiously awaiting 2023 to open it.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four The second chardonnay was the 2015 Dropstone, of which only 50 cases was produced. It’s a single block effort, and has wonderful notes of salty caramel, green apple and lemon curd. The acid forms the foundation of a gorgeous and engaging texture that is smooth in the middle ringed by slightly twitchy edges. I didn’t have much time to spend with this one, but I wish I had because I got the feeling it had a lot to offer after a nice decant.

The Best Wines to Serve on Easter Chardonnay is always a crowdpleaser, and this bottling from Oregon—aged for 16 months in French oak from Burgundy—offers a versatile palette of melon and peach with a hint of salinity on the finish that makes it a fine pairing for all of your Easter table favorites.

Obsession in the Willamette Valley, Part Four The 2015 Yamhill-Carlton chardonnay remains a close friend of mine. At $45 it is by no means inexpensive, but it over-delivers and is my standard for domestic chardonnay at and around the price. I reviewed this wine in 2018 for an Oregon extravaganza piece, and gave it 93 points with an “A” value rating. I didn’t pick up on it at the time, but at the winery the nose was like a freshly opened box of Cheerios. There is also sweet oak, dried mango, honeysuckle, vanilla custard and a smidge of Earl Grey tea. It’s a plush medium weight on the palate with a bit of a glycerin sensation that I just love. The barrel’s influence is restrained but present in the structure and flavors as well as the nose; it’s managed just right for this profile. There’s oak vanillin, Meyer lemon, sweet cream, Thai basil, persimmon and dried apricot.

The Best 5 Wine Pairing That Go Perfectly With These Romance Novels 4. For Having a Sexy Moment With a Friend... or Alone Picture this: You just opened a new bottle of Freemark Abbey's Cabernet Sauvignon. The pop from the cork makes your heart flutter like Millie's when she's around her best friend, Reid. And maybe like Millie, you'll sip some red wine like the one we've paired with My Favorite Half-Night Stand. With nuances of dark chocolate, cinnamon, and a hint of tobacco, maybe you'll follow in Mille's footsteps and sign up for an online dating service. If you don't drink responsibly, you'll end up having a half-night stand with your BFF.

Salut! Best of the Vancouver International Wine Festival CALL ME A CAB Cabernet Sauvignon remains irresistible to most consumers and lucky for them the grape does invariably well around the world, although Bordeaux and Napa Valley set the trend. Global warming is making things interesting, especially in northern regions like the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia where traditionally Cabernet Sauvignon struggled to physiologically ripen in time. There’s a lot to taste inside the room this year.

Top 14 Wines For February 14th! Boasting with dark fruit aromas and notes of oak, blackberries, and currants. There are notes of dark chocolate, cinnamon, and cedar followed by a full-bodied and a seductive mouthfeel. Overall this is a delicious wine that would pair perfectly with steak, veal, and hearty tomato dishes!

A strong and classic example of why most of us still love – and should never full count out – Napa. A-.

Some cabernet sauvignons to pair with your Valentine’s Day meal Drinking this delicious and well-balanced wine reminded us of why Rutherford is not only one of the most historic districts for cabernet sauvignon but also the best. With a legacy dating back to 1886, Freemark Abbey has been producing top cabernets year after year. The 2013 has bottle age (and with some sediment), layered fruit flavors, firm tannins and a bit of that famous “Rutherford dust.” Blackberry notes with a hint of cloves, cedar and olive.