Last summer, I had the good fortune to get to spend a day with Ray Isle of Food & Wine Magazine, showing him around Split Rail Vineyard and then having dinner at my favorite local restaurant, HOME. Ray is quite possibly the nicest guy in the food & wine industry, and we immediately hit it…
Recently I had the honor of being selected by Ray Isle of Food & Wine Magazine to be one of the California representatives in a White Burgundy seminar at World of Pinot Noir. My co-panelists included representatives from Louis Latour, Albert Bichot, Louis Jadot, Evening Lands, Ramey, Talley and Alma Rosa. The wines were stellar….
As bottling of the 2024 Rosé of Pinot Noir and the 2023 Chrysanthemum and Syrah approaches, I thought this would be a good time to revisit the subject of wine closures. A year or so ago I posted here to explain my reasoning to try out screw caps on the 2022 Chardonnay, as a means…
Excerpted from “Santa Cruz Mountains – The Chameleon” by Billy Norris: “The strongest asset here is a core of capable, scrappy, adaptable, quality-minded producers who utilize the region’s diversity to succeed in spite of adversity. They change colors as necessary to blend in with their environment—like chameleons—churning out wines of precision, transparency and value year…
Matthew Luczy, the new Central Coast reviewer for Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate, recently published his first review of the Santa Cruz Mountains, which featured a select few local producers. We were very fortunate to be asked to contribute wines and meet Matthew for this article, and the reviews were exciting… “A small group of historic…
It is always unnerving to send wine off to critics for review. Sometimes our very best efforts fall short of a critic’s expectations. We producers just send wine off into the ether and hope for the best, and we often wait a long time in suspense. We’re happy to report that Robert Parker’s Wine…
From day 1 of Sante Arcangeli Family Wines I have set out to make only top-shelf, high quality wines without exception. Early on, one of the key principles that I adopted was the use of high quality natural cork to seal my bottles. My thinking on this was that the top-tier natural cork had more…
I’m happy to announce that our 2020 Ananda Pinot Noir has been chosen among the top 50 wines of 2023 by wine critic R.H. Drexel at JebDunnuck.com. The list, which features wines by some of our friends and collegues as well, includes several wines that have inspired me over the years. I’m incredibly happy and…
When I first began making wine in 2008, my goal was to make high-quality wines that were still approachable– from a drinkability standpoint and a price standpoint. To over-deliver at my price point. That goal has never changed. The times, however, have changed since then. A lot. I started this business in 2008, and until…
I can’t tell you how many times over the years I’ve heard other winemakers or commercial wine buyers say “scores don’t matter”. I find it a bit disingenuous– I’ve never met a winemaker who didn’t get happy about a good score, or pissed off about a bad one. That said, a single good or bad…