Wine Producers, Growers, & Labels

IntoWine recently caught up with Bohemian Vineyard owner Sue Cleary to discuss their venture into winemaking: What inspired the name Bohemian Vineyard? Bohemian Vineyard is located on Bohemian Hwy in Freestone Valley. Bohemian means a free spirit and artist which we thought would be the perfect name for our unique wine.

The irony of Portugal is that, though wine has been made here for centuries, most wine drinkers cannot name a single grape from the region, with the exception of port. When one hears Portugal, one tends to think of port wines and the city of Porto. But Portugal has varied wine regions within its coastal influences. Among white wines, it is broadly known as the Vinho Verde region.

IntoWine recently had the good fortune of catching up with John Tarabini, Owner of Damian Rae Winery, to discuss the evolution of his wine brand as well as his thoughts on winemaking. Thanks to John for participating. What inspired the name Damian Rae Winery? Damian and Rae are the middle names, respectively, of winery owners John and Sharol Tarabini.

In a recent article, I discussed some of the best-known Super Tuscan wines . Tuscany is just one of Italy's world-renowned wine regions; in fact, every region of Italy is capable of producing world-class wines. The passion winemakers bring to the art and science of creating a top-quality wine of distinction is alive and well throughout Italy.

Bordeaux, the world's most famous wine region and France's largest by AOC volume sold [i] , produces many of the best-known wines on Earth. With 60 appellations and over 8,600 growers, Bordeaux exports wines to over 150 countries [ii] . Winemakers around the world strive to emulate the Bordeaux style, carefully blending red wine grapes to produce a wine that reflects the best influences of its terroir.

Super Tuscans are the stuff of legend. Rogue winemaker bucks tradition, breaks rules, creates something new and wonderful and vaults his wine region back onto the world wine stage – it's a fantastic tale. And that's pretty much how things happened.

Loren Sonkin has been a long-time contributor to IntoWine.com. In addition to his frequent appearances as a panelist on IntoWineTV , Loren writes columns on both French and Italian wines, contributes wine recommendations, vintage guides , and provides the wine/food pairing knowledge behind the IntoWine Wine & Food pairing tool . In other words, he does it all. So when Loren told us he was venturing into winemaking himself with his own label, SonkinCellars , we jumped at the chance to be the first to taste his barrel samples on IntoWineTV. Though the wine, Persona, is not due for release until 2011, we are excited to catch up with Loren about this new venture. What inspired the name SonkinCellars? Obviously, the winery is named after me. The name was decided on when a group of investors approached me to create a wine. They were familiar with my tastes from Intowine as well as Internet Bulletin Boards. They asked me what kind of wine I would like to create and said that the wineries name should reflect that vision. I was a bit uneasy about it at first, but I do agree that it allows those people who know me, to have some level of confidence in the wine.