Wine Producers, Growers, & Labels

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a Cleveland Indians themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Indians fan? The Cleveland Indians were one of the first eight teams to join the American League when it formed in 1901. Baseball had long been popular in Cleveland; several minor...

Respected Australian wine critic James Halliday has a career that spans over 40 years. Best known for his informative writing about wine, he is one of the founders of Brokenwood Winery in the Lower Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, and founder of Coldstream Hills in the Yarra Valley. Halliday is an authority on every aspect of the wine industry, from planting and pruning, to the creation and marketing of the finished product. He has served extensively as a wine judge and has contributed to more than 56 books on wine, and he is the author of James Halliday’s Wine Atlas of Australia, and The Australian Wine Encyclopedia. What prompted you to pursue winemaking as a career? You were in the legal profession prior to wine, do you think this would have been the path would you have chosen? Between 1962 and 1988 I had two lives, one in wine and one in law. Thus the question becomes academic.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at an Oakland Athletics themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Athletics fan? The Oakland Athletics are one of the eight original American League baseball teams. Founded in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics, the team played for 54 years in the City of Brotherly Love. For 50 of those years, the legendary Connie Mack managed the team, setting records for most wins as a manager and most games managed along the way. The Athletics, popularly known as the A's, won five World Championships during the Connie Mack years, harnessing the talents of players such as Eddie Collins, Frank Baker, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Cochrane and Lefty Grove.

Spain is like the wild, wild west when it comes to wine. Unlike France, where individual plots of land have been set aside for centuries as the best spots for winemaking, producers in Spain are still out searching for new terroirs, new regions and new (old) indigenous grape varieties that have been pushed aside in favor of commercial winemaking. In the 1970s, Spain’s winemaking reputation was for poor-quality bulk wine. Today, regions like Priorat, Montsant and Mallorca are eclipsing the better-known regions of Rioja and Ribera del Duero.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a Kansas City Royals themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Royals fan? The Kansas City Royals' fortunes, if graphed and smoothed, would look something like a classic bell curve – a slow start, a triumphant swell and a continuing negative trend. Kansas City is a small baseball market, as markets are measured, but Royals fans know full well that their team has achieved great things in the past and should be able to do so again. The team's fortunes peaked in 1985, in the glory days of George Brett and Bret Saberhagen, when the Royals won the World Series. Things haven't been quite the same since.

What's an appropriate wine to serve at a Cincinnati Reds themed party? What wine would be a good gift for a hard core Reds fan? The Cincinnati Reds joined the National League in 1890, but the ball club itself dates back to 1881, when it formed to play in the American Association. The Reds, originally named the Cincinnati Red Stockings, were named for an earlier National League baseball team that folded after it was punished for selling beer at baseball games and playing on Sundays. The Red Stockings kept their name until 1890, when they became the Cincinnati Reds. 1950s McCarthyism caused the team to change its name to the Cincinnati Redlegs in 1954, but the team reverted to its old, more popular name, Reds, in 1960.

Throughout a winemaking career spanning two decades, three continents and with experience gleaned from working at wineries like Woodward Canyon, Chateau Ste. Michelle, Rapaura Vintners, and Bookwalter, Caleb Foster has established himself as one of Washington State’s best winemakers. As the winemaker for Buty, which he founded with his wife, Nina Buty Foster in 2000, he has created an acclaimed portfolio of Washington State wines that includes several pioneering blends, and are some of the defining wines of Washington winemaking.

The region of Burgundy—is there any other winegrowing area as complicated and difficult to understand? Besides the fact that the overwhelming majority of the white wine here is Chardonnay and the red is almost entirely Pinot Noir, trying to get a grasp on villages, producers and labels can be exasperating. At the same time, wine from Burgundy is some of the most pleasurable and rewarding wine out there. When I think of white Burgundy, two distinct styles come to mind: Chablis and Meursault. Although these wines are each made from Chardonnay, the neutral quality of the grape allows it to express terroir and the soil on which its vines were grown, unlike many other varietals.

Ann C. Noble is a sensory chemist and retired professor from the University of California, Davis. During her time at the UC Davis Department of Viticulture and Enology, she invented the Wine Aroma Wheel which is credited with enhancing the public’s understanding of wine tasting and wine terminology. She earned her Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Massachusetts, and was hired by UC Davis in 1974 to work in their sensory research program. In 1984, her research lead her to develop the Wine Aroma Wheel when she realized there were no quantitative studies conducted about aromas in wine. Other research included how a wines aroma and flavor can influence consumer choices as well as how wine tasters perceive astringency.