California

• Amador County
  • Shenandoah Valley
• Carmel Valley
• Carneros
• Central Coast
  • Edna Valley
  • Mt. Harlan
  • Paso Robles
• Contra Costa County
• El Dorado County
• Lake County
• Lodi
• Mendocino
  • Anderson Valley
  • Yorkville Highlands
• Monterey
• Napa Valley
  • Atlas Peak
  • Best of Napa
  • Calistoga
  • Conn Valley
  • Diamond Mountain
  • Howell Mountain
  • Mt. Veeder
  • Oak Knoll
  • Oakville
  • Pope Valley
  • Rutherford
  • Spring Mountain
  • St. Helena
  • Stags Leap
  • Yountville
• North Coast
• Santa Barbara
  • Santa Lucia Highlands
  • Santa Rita Hills
  • Santa Ynez Valley
• Santa Cruz
• Santa Maria Valley
• Sierra Foothills
• Sonoma County
  • Alexander Valley
  • Bennett Valley
  • Best of Sonoma
  • Dry Creek Valley
  • Fort Ross/Seaview
  • Moon Mountain
  • Pine Mountain - Cloverdale Peak
  • Russian River Valley
  • Sonoma Coast
  • Sonoma Mountain
  • Sonoma Valley
  • Knights Valley

Syrah is a grape that most wine merchants will tell you is a difficult sell. It seems it’s always going to be the next big thing, but never is. For consumers, that’s a good thing. A great Syrah usually will cost far less than a comparable quality Cabernet or Pinot Noir. For my money, I tend to buy more Syrah than any other grape. A disclaimer here – I liked it so much, I started to make it. In any event, as the temperatures start to drop, fall is great time for a hearty red with dinner or next to a warming fire. Syrah is a grape that really changes its personality depending on where it is grown. Cooler climate Syrahs can be quite different from warmer climate ones. California has plenty of each. While I love many of the cooler climate Syrahs, most of the ones listed below are warmer climate Syrahs. In my opinion, that is where the very best of Syrahs from California can be found.

We all know the standard wine varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc, but there are an astounding 10,000 grape varieties here on Planet Earth. The majority of California vineyard acreage is planted to just eight grape varietals and less than 10 percent is home to grapes few people care about, and even fewer understand, let alone can pronounce. But an accomplished assemblage of odd-ball varietals and their winemaker shepherds champion these grapes. These winemakers are the first and only line of defense against the abyss of sameness. Here in alphabetical order are just 25 (there are more) of the most odd-ball grapes turned into wine in the Golden State, followed by their producer, and location.

Wine tasting is not merely the act of drinking wine, it is the total experience and that includes the physical space you are standing in when sampling Sauvignon Blanc or pondering Petit Verdot. Most wine tasting rooms seem like afterthought - a utilitarian, banal footnote to the wine itself. So...

California Cabernets are some of the best wines in the world. Unfortunately, the pricing on many of them has gotten quite exorbitant. There are a plethora of great wines for $100 or more. Even at the $75 mark, there is no shortage of outstanding wines. So, for purposes of this list, these are my favorite five California Cabernets priced at under $25 per bottle. In addition, I only chose wines that are very consistent from vintage to vintage. Finally, I have avoided rare and hard to find wines for this list.

I recently had the great privilege of spending an afternoon with legendary Napa Valley winemaker Mike Grgich. Over a long lunch and more than a few bottles of his finest wines, we discussed his career and its influence on Napa winemaking as well as his myriad accomplishments, winning both the 1976 Judgment of Paris and the Great Chicago Showdown to name but a few. I had never met Mike in person before and did not know what to expect. What I found was a man with deep pride in his accomplishments but one who is equally grateful to all those who helped and influenced him along the way. I also discovered a man who is the living embodiment of the American dream, having fled communism to find success in Paradise, California. It's safe to say that my long lunch with Mike was the most enjoyable and interesting day of the six years I have spent running IntoWine. I interviewed Mike via email in 2007 . The interview below is round two, where I get to ask my wish list of questions. Thankfully, Mike obliged.

I recently had the opportunity to try a terrific small-production, Sonoma chardonnay that I highly recommend. Lilu by Clos Didi is liquid gold, the kind of chardonnay that appeals to even those people who don't typically choose chardonnay.

In 1999, Amelia Ceja co-founded Ceja Vineyards located in the Carneros region of Napa Valley. Amelia was named president which made her the first Latina Woman Vintner in California. The Ceja family paved the way not only for Latinos but also for many minority families in the wine industry. Today they produce about 10,000 cases of wine which is distributed throughout the U.S. and hey farm over 100 acres of prime vineyard land. Additionally they have successfully used social media and Amelia has created over 100 video blogs about pairing wine and Mexican food.

As an earlier pioneer of the Temecula Valley, outside of San Diego, Joe Hart, only the fourth person to start a winery in the area, has spent the better part of 30 years as a champion for the Temecula wine region. Sequestered in one of Southern California’s last “unknown” wine regions Hart Winery capitalizes on the soils and climate at 1,500 feet above sea level to produce the premium varietals like Merlot, Fume´ Blanc, Viognier, Grenache Rose´, Syrah, Sangiovese, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The renaissance of the California wine industry in the 1970s found Joe Hart and Nancy Hart and their three sons planting their first vineyards in 1973. Your first experience with wine was in Germany, which got you started. Describe that experience with those wines and how those eventually lead you to forming your own winery. There were two wine experiences in fairly quick succession, the first in Germany, followed soon after by one in Italy. Shortly after graduating from San Diego State I had been a reluctant draftee into the US Army, and after completing basic and advanced infantry training at Fort Ord I was sent to Germany, where I ended up in Augsburg, Germany, at a relatively cushy desk job in the Quartermaster Corps.