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To all Wine Exchangers, Louis Martini is an important part of California wine and has been since the end of Prohibition.  Here’s the whole history thing succinctly written in a Wine Advocate piece, “It is hard to believe that the iconic Louis M. Martini Winery first made Napa Cabernet Sauvignon in 1933. Louis Martini is […]

To all Wine Exchangers, For Portugal’s Douro Valley, 2011 was their vintage-of-a-lifetime. I mean, really, even for their Vintage Ports we’d have to go back to 1994 to find a year as strong, and even then…I’m not sure it was better than 2011. This also meant that it was the most acclaimed vintage in the […]

To all Wine Exchangers, The House of Artevino, the group that brought you Pruno and Vetus, is back with another bomb Tempranillo! There seems to be a couple camps forming in Rioja right now. You have one group that includes wineries like Artadi and Telmo Rodriguez, vying for the concept of single-vineyard Rioja wines with […]

To all Wine Exchangers, I don’t know if most folks here in the states know what the ‘serious’ producers in Europe do when it comes to making decisions in the vineyard that affect quality. Whether it’s a fanatical ‘green harvest’ or dropping of excess fruit so that the other clusters on the vine ripen fully, […]

Storage is a constant question in the wine world, and every ‘source’ of information is going to tell you pretty much the same thing.  Once you make the conscious choice to age your wine (as opposed to just doing it because that is what you think you are supposed to do), you need to create […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Let’s cut to the chase, Nikolaihof is arguably the most iconic wine producer in Austria. It is the oldest wine estate in Austria; its history stretches back almost 2000 years to Roman times. The Romans set up shop here because they knew it was considered a Celtic holy site prior to […]

To all Wine Exchangers, A lot of people used to buy Opus One just to buy Opus, but now, Opus is as good as it was during its halcyon run in the early 90’s. Or even better? Remember, half of Opus One comes from their two choice parcels in the To Kalon Vineyard. The other […]

To all Wine Exchangers, Yes, the 2015 Cotes du Rhones are going to be, as Jeb Dunnuck put it, ‘very, very good’. But, you need something to drink while you’re waiting for them, right? So, why not a Cotes du Rhone from one of the Rhone’s greatest vintages ever, from the Rhone’s oldest ‘house’, that’s […]

To all Wine Exchangers, “These remain some of the most compelling, traditionally made wines in Montalcino and beyond.” -Antonio Galloni, Vinous Media I tell ya’, they’re going to have to change the name of this wine from Rosso di Montalcino to something else, because that moniker does not do this wine justice. Most folks perceive […]

To all Wine Exchangers, The Languedoc-Roussillon rides again! It’s good times for this area of southwestern France. The wines have never been better, prices remain trés nice for the quality, and there’s a new energy running through this neck of the woods nowadays that is pushing the envelope for quality to absurd heights. The sky’s […]