Expert articles and wine tasting videos profiling wines from California, California wine regions, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, & more.

Q&A with Lucia & Pisoni Wine's Jeff Pisoni

IntoWine recently caught up with Pisoni Vineyard's winemaker Jeff Pisoni to discuss wine making and his thoughts on current trends in the wine industry. What prompted you to pursue winemaking as a career? Both my brother and I were fortunate to grow up around it. We were both very young when our father was already making wine and started planting vineyards. When only a few years old, Mark and I would “make wine” in mason jars and stomp grapes in old redwood fermentors that belonged to our great-grandparents. Seeing all this at a young age gave us an appreciation for winemaking and a desire to work with the family. I had always been very driven to the winemaking side, whereas my brother felt closer to the farming side. Now Dad watches over things but leaves the winemaking up to me and the viticulture to Mark.
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417 Wines' Chris Ball Discusses His Winemaking Tangent

IntoWine recently caught up with Chris Ball of 417 Wines, the producers of Tangent Cabernet Sauvignon, to discuss his foray into winemaking: How did your foray into winemaking come about? I was first really exposed to wine while studying Architecture in Sienna, Italy. After I came back I began developing a taste for what I appreciated, which in turn led to collecting wines, and eventually the desire to make wine…specifically wine in the image of what I enjoy. My good friend David Dain of Dain Wines has served as a mentor as well as consultant on our inaugural release of the two 2007’s
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Cult Vines' Michael Cochran Winemaking & the Evolution of His California Cult Wine Brand

California has been home to many cult wines over the past few decades. Typically a small production label makes a series of great wines, a few -usually connected- wine enthusiasts discover them, word then spreads through the wine community as the financially well endowed lay claim to the membership lists and clamor for the next release, driving up prices in the process. Meanwhile, the producer breathes a sigh of relief knowing that, not only will their next release sell out, but that it will sell for a premium. Napa Valley's Cult Vines , as its name not-at-all-subtly implies, has focused its efforts directly on this sub-sector of the wine market; and there is nothing modest about their strategy. They are choosing the best grapes from the most respected vineyards and endeavoring to make the finest Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and Roussane/Marsanne possible to sell to cult wine fans with deep pockets. And to their credit, their strategy appears to be working as planned. IntoWine caught up with Cult Vines co-founder Michael Cochran to learn more about his foray into cult winemaking.
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IntoWine Interviews Bohemian Vineyard's Sue Cleary

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.
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Loren Sonkin Discusses His New Wine Venture, SonkinCellars

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.
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