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Yes, You Can Make a Really Good Wine
Since I have become a semi-accomplished professional winemaker, I have often made the comment that the key to making great wine is to get the absolute best grapes you can get your hands on and don’t f*** it up. That is largely true, if somewhat oversimplified. ...
Northern Italian Red Wines
Many oenophiles believe that the Italian wines are the most important in the world. We agree. Italy is the perennial #1 producer of wine in the world, surpassed by France in 2014 due to a poor growing season, but Italy regained this distinction in 2015 and has held it...
Wine Pairing for the Feast of Seven Fishes
Christmas Eve is a holiday in itself for Italian Americans; as a matter of fact, because of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, Christmas Eve overshadowed Christmas by a mile in our family, not unlike most Italian American Families. Interestingly, I was just reading an...
Choosing the Right Wine for a Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner
As you might imagine, there are as many recommendations for a wine to go with Thanksgiving dinner as there are wine snobs. Being a connoisseur of garage wines, I am fairly confident that my recommendations will satisfy at least 30 or 40% of those who don’t have...
Teroldego: A relatively Obscure Wine in the US; For Now
One of our greatest pleasures as winemakers is discovering great but obscure wines, finding the grapes, producing the wines, and having phenomenal results. Until this year, Tannat has been our greatest discovery. For Christmas in 2016, our Tannat supplier, Heringer...
Vino Calabrese: The Wines of Calabria
Calabria, a region of Southern Italy, is not as well known internationally for its wines as many other regions, but has a rich tradition of producing incredible table wines, mainly reds. Being in the far south, at the toe of Italy’s boot, the warm, dry climate and...
Tannat: the Biggest of the Big Reds
Tannat is a red wine grape that originated in Madiran, a village in Southwest France, and spread into the Basque region of Spain. French and Spanish immigrants brought Tannat to South America, where it was grown in Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, and most...
Sauvignon Blanc: The Most Reliably Good White Wine
Sauvignon Blanc originated from the Bordeaux Region of France. The varietal is indigenous to Southwest France; the name can be loosely translated as "wild white." In addition to France, Sauvignon blanc is grown widely in the southern hemisphere in Chile, Australia,...
Ice Wine: We Call it Ghiacciato: We are Probably the only Winery that Does.
What do you call a German sweet wine that is harvested after a frost to concentrate the sugar and acid when you pride yourself in making primarily great Italian and Southern European dry wines? If you are Papa Joe's Wine Cellar, you call it Ghiacciato. Everyone else...
Added Sulfites in Wine – Controversial, but not Among Wine Makers
The most common question we are asked about our wines is if we add sulfites. Like virtually every commercial winery, yes, we do add sulfites. It is not at all uncommon for people to attribute the occasional wine intolerance to added sulfites, but in reality, sulfite...