Plan your own California Wine Tour with this guide to the California wineries, restaurants, and accommodations. Print free wine tasting coupons and winery maps for California wine regions.

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Mission Codename: Pinot Num Num

Operative: Agent Red

Objective: Investigate the claim that Peter Cellars, the winery with the name that makes us laugh, makes a stellar Pinot Noir. If true, secure a cache for our Operatives  read more »

Well, I decided to buy the most recent issue of the Wine Spectator because, like others I know, I love looking at reference books and this month features a list of 100 cheeses, their origins, what they are made from, and which wines they pair well with. In flipping through the opening pages, I passed over Matt Kramers column and, being someone who, from time to time, takes a strange pleasure in painful exercise, I decided to actually read it. Surprisingly enough, my blood pressure did not shoot through the roof, nor did I grab Jeff Garneau and make him listen to a ranting, raving diatribe about how wrong Matt Kramer is.  read more »

As someone who reviews a lot of California Cabernets—nearly 800 in the past year alone—I know how hard it is to sum up the character and quality of a given vintage. There's a lot of diversity out there in wine styles. Some is due to variations in the growing season.

Vintners and growers from the Paso Robles Wine Country were recently featured in the August/September 2008 edition of Outside Go Magazine as the America's Hottest Wine District.

2006 Christophe Pacalet, Chiroubles
Medium-plus cherry-red. Beaujolais aromatics, but in the best sense - fruity but with a serious and quite dense core. Soft velvet across the tongue. Raised red fruits - a little plum - perfect acidity and a slightly savoury edge to the fruit-driven finish. Very tasty wine - [...]

Tempranillo is a Spanish red wine variety making an impact in Australia

Unbeknownst to me, Bearboat Pinot Noir has been around a while. An unknown commodity to me when it arrived a couple of months ago in Nashville, I was destined to gravitate towards it. After all, it has all the pieces of the puzzle I'm looking for.First, I like the label. It's smack dab in the middle of classic and tongue-in-cheek, with its engraved quality, somewhat sepia tones, and the humorous bears-in-the-boat illustration. Second, it's Russian River Pinot Noir, rarely a mistake to buy under $20. Next, there's the weighty burgundy bottle that you wouldn't want to drop on your foot, but you would want to open. And then there's all the hidden meanings. By that I mean the bear, primarily. The bear as the symbol of Russia. The bear as the symbol of California.  read more »

I found this large, 1.5 Liter bottle of the Australian blend of Shiraz and Cabernet at the 50% off table at the Ann Arbor Kroger’s store (I loaded my cart with all the good reds and this was one of them). This is your typical Australian fruit bomb — a round feel in the mouth [...]

Original Review May, 2007: Here's a type of wine that's wholly new to me. From Andalusia in Spain (a location I know only for the infamous quasi-cult movie, Andalusian Dog), this is a white wine that I expect to be in the sherry tradition.  read more »