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Barrel to Bottle Bash at the Dutton’s, How California Came to Define American Wine, Wine & Food Matches Miss at St. Francis & More!
The “Barrel to Bottle Bash!” offered visitors the unique opportunity to sample four wines from the 2021 vintage “thieved” from their barrels but my first taste came from a concrete egg…
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What We Drank for Thanksgiving, No Wine Bargains for Christmas, I’ll Have Wine with My Pie, Where’s the Tractor? Wine for Christmas and NYE
I did my standard Thanksgiving presentation: a brined turkey stuffed with only vegetables, basically poached in chicken stock on a Weber filled with hickory smoke.
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“It Messes with the Chemistry of the Grapes”
The overall measure of the harvest is positive and frankly a bit giddy as every other aspect of the growing season was rather perfect.
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We Forge Our Own Wine Trail, One Chicken Two Fries; Build a Better Burger and Winning Wines
We were quite looking forward to a very nice Alexander Valley Winegrowers Association tasting event as part of my birthday celebration; damn Covid surge forced another cancelation.
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Woody’s New Business Cards
Woody’s new business cards have come in!
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Top Sonoma Caterer Makes it Through Covid
It was some 14 years ago when I met Chef Bruce Riezenman at a Sonoma Vintners Association luncheon in Chicago. I featured him in that months Woody’s Whine – he still has a photo from that interview on his computer…
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A Magna Cum Laude Learns About Wine – Sort of, Subway Swings and Taps Foul, Costco Sales Strong, Plenty of Fire But No Water and Gallo Lands Strong
The Wall Street Journal’s wine writer recently tutored a 22 year old magna cum laude college graduate through wine tasting 101. I thought you might like to audit the class through my lens.
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Three Wine Lists, Two Chicken Sandwiches, Some Wine Notes and Fun Facts
Wine lists come in all formats and sizes from the little fake leatherette “distributor “ booklets in small mom-and-pop Italian restaurants and little Chinese or Thai places or truly overwhelming at Bern’s Steakhouse in Tampa where the list draws from a cellar of a half million bottles and is chained to the table.
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8 Days in May, Tasting Fees Double, Really High End Cab, Double Chicken Sandwich News and Some Wine You Can Afford
“The 8 days in May Tasting” offered the opportunity to schedule tastings for one ticket price which included a “club members discount”.
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Two Big Wins, Wine $$ Set to Take Off, Not So Fast for Gallo in S.C. & Lots More Fun Stuff & of Course Chicken Sandwich News
All in-person wine tasting events and still canceled for this year, but there’s lots of news in the wine and beer world to past along and oh chicken sandwich news too, enjoy.
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Tasting Libraries Along the Wine Road, Winner, Winner Chicken Yes! and Fish Really Not So Good, Dinner, Gallo Heads East and Yes There’s More
We took advantage of a weekend opportunity to visit wineries and sample from their vintage libraries, a sort of behind the curtain opportunity that doesn’t come along too often. Oh, and we found some good chicken.
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Winner, Winner Fish and Chicken Dinner – HMMM, Not So Much
It amazes me that two fast food companies with all of the same equipment and product in front of them can’t just out right copy a process and make the product their own
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Gallo Gets Really Big, New Spicy Chicken, a Moment in Time for Wine at the Governor’s Mansion and Matching Wine with Chocolate
Gallo Winery has completed an acquisition of low-price wine brands from Constellation Brands Inc. in okay an $810 million deal that still is one of the biggest in the U.S. wine industry.
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Woody's Whines // Woody's thoughts and opinions on a variety of subjects
Barrel to Bottle Bash at the Dutton’s, How California Came to Define American Wine, Wine & Food Matches Miss at St. Francis & More!
Writing from the edge of the Russian River in Sonoma County Let me welcome you to the December edition of Woody’s Whine by wishing you a Happy New Year since it’s January. It was truly my pleasure to attend and taste at the…
What We Drank for Thanksgiving, No Wine Bargains for Christmas, I’ll Have Wine with My Pie, Where’s the Tractor? Wine for Christmas and NYE
Writing from the edge of the Russian River in Sonoma County Only three of us shared Thanksgiving dinner, Peggy, myself and Peggy’s cousin Sarah who brought a great dessert that you’ll read about later but as always I still did my standard Thanksgiving presentation: a…
Wine Reviews // Tasty and reasonably priced reviews
How I’m Buying Wine These Days at a Great Discount
Writing from the edge of the Russian River in Sonoma County I’ll get to discounted wine in a minute but thought I’d let you know I’ll also be sharing info on food friendly wines; Popeyes a year later; how Trumps bad tariffs are killing wine…
Bordeaux You Could Actually Buy
Research tells me that the second label bottles of many Bordeaux wines – that’s what doesn’t fit in the first blend of major Chateaus, will be outstanding and probably at very good prices, a reflection of the old saw, “a rising tide lifts all boats”…..
Woody's Recipes // Great meals to go with great wines
Wusthoff 5” Trident classic serrated knife
Our two serrated utility knives had seen better days so when we took them in to get sharpened one last time by our knife man Dylan at his Sonoma Cutlery store in Santa Rosa he offered an alternative which is what a good sales man…
Crab Dip Baked with Old Bay and Ritz Crackers
We made this the first time with canned fresh crab and it was good but we made this for NY with fresh Dungeness crab that Peggy clean by hand, not an easy feat but you could taste it and the sparkling wine loved it but…
Latest Podcasts // Audio from interviews with the industry greats
podcast post
Our most recent wine adventure was a week long visit to the Willamette Valley wine country of western Oregon, what a remarkable area and what spectacular wines. It was the first week of October and the weather was terrific, sunny, warm and windy – they…
Chef and Retailer Michael Chiarello
As I travel and taste I always have my recorder and camera with me and I share those interviews with you at What Goes With What. We met at a wine tasting event in Chicago and on a trip to Napa and Sonoma I had an opportunity…