Please The Palate |

Mt. Beautiful – beautiful wines from New Zealand

This story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

I was sitting in an outdoor patio in Healdsburg on a classically beautiful early afternoon. The sun was shining, a nice breeze was blowing and I ordered oysters. With the briny, delicate oysters, a natural pairing is a crisp, acidic sauvignon blanc.

Although I was in Sonoma, I found myself sipping a sauvignon blanc from Mt. Beautiful from North Canterbury in New Zealand. While it is not uncommon to find New Zealand wines throughout the U.S., there is a connection between Mt. Beautiful in New Zealand and California.

David Teece, founder of Mt. Beautiful, is a New Zealand native who lives in Berkeley, California. Raised in Lower Moutere along the Tasman Bay on the South Island of New Zealand, Teece’s father started a trucking company that transported items from outlying farms to the cities. His father also purchased a fallow quarter-acre lot next to their home, which Teece and his brother cultivated crops.

24 October, 2017

Red Wine 101 Guide

This story originally appeared in Drizly. Jammy, fruity, earthy, bold…these are some common words associated with red wine. There are hundreds and hundreds of different varieties of red wines, each one different from the next. Not all red wines are alike and there is a style for every palate. You may say that you do not like red wine, but perhaps you have not had the right one yet. So, let's go over some basics of red wine and perhaps help you find one you will like.

How Is Red Wine Made? Red wines get their color from the grape skins. White wine can be made from either red or white grapes but red wine cannot be made from white-skinned grapes. The juice of all grapes is clear. The color comes from the skins. Once the grapes are picked, they are fermented with their skins. This means that the yeast is added to the grapes and the sugar in the grapes is converted to alcohol. As the process takes place, the juice leaches color from the skins. The longer the juice spends with the skins, the darker the color of the wine. Red wines are typically fermented at a warmer temperature than white wines.

18 October, 2017

Vineyard Visionaries: Hirsch Vineyards

The story originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register.

During my recent visit to the east coast, I learned about how many winemakers first started planting vines in Virginia, New York, Maryland and elsewhere. Each one talked about how little information they had when they started, and that they turned, at first, to California’s wine industry for guidance.

For many, California was seen as the established wine producing region in the United States. I was reminded at a recent seminar featuring Hirsch Vineyards at World of Pinot Noir that California winemakers had only begun making wine a few decades before the east coast. With little insight or experience, there were some California winemakers who took risks, like David Hirsch, who purchased land in an untouched area with the goal of growing wine grapes.

Hirsch Vineyards, founded in 1978, is located in a remote area of West Sonoma Coast in Sonoma County. The land was originally a remote sheep farm—there was no one else out there. Hirsch had no farming experience but he fell in love with the land, his daughter Jasmine told us. He purchased 1,000 acres in an extremely remote area and people thought he was crazy. Then, in 1980, he planted pinot noir, a less than popular grape at the time. And, not knowing any better, the vines were planted on their own rootstock.

It was only a matter of time for Hirsch Vineyards to transition from an idea people thought was crazy to being one of the most sought after vineyards for pinot noir. By 1994, wineries such as Littorai, Flowers and Williams Selyem, as well as others, came to Hirsch to buy his fruit. And, in 2002, Hirsch began producing wine under their own name.

13 April, 2017