Texas has long been known for many things - BBQ, the Alamo, Dynasty, a fantastic music festival called South By Southwest (to name just a few) - but until recently something the Lone Star State most certainly was not known for was its wine. On the heels of this year's well-attended Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival, however, that's all changing.

Continue reading "Under the Texan Sun" »

Posted by Courtney at 04:13 PM • Comments (0)

If the flurry of construction that's been underway along the waterfront in downtown Napa is any indicator, the once-sleepy city is on the brink of becoming a major tourist destination. And the Oxbow Public Market - at just three months' old one of the newest additions to the downtown area - may be one of the city's most promising new arrivals. Read on for the scoop on our favorite purveyors in this venue that looks poised to become the next big thing in a whole new Napa.

Continue reading "Oxbow Odyssey: A Taste of the Options at Napa's Newest Market" »

Posted by Courtney at 10:51 AM • Comments (0)

The dating life is tough. Take, for example, an unfortunate coincidence that came up between two good friends of mine not long ago. Both ladies were living in Manhattan, working hard by day and - unbeknownst to each other - enjoying romantic dates with same dashing bachelor by night.

Both believed her relationship was "getting more serious," when in reality the guy was more interested in dating most of Manhattan than moving closer to any sort of commitment. It wasn't until said gentleman went on vacation to Brazil and sent both women flirtatious text messages signed, "Kisses from Rio" that they made the connection...

Continue reading my latest article at WineCountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 07:59 AM • Comments (1)

Every time I get back from wine country I feel incredibly relaxed, rejuvenated, inspired and, well, happy. Not surprising given my affinity for the good stuff and the people and places behind it, but I DID find it a little odd to see it spelled out in broad daylight on this last trip.

Check out this hilarious message from an empty storefront just off the plaza in Sonoma's ridiculously cute hamlet, Healdsburg. That the spelling of "happieness" recalls hippies is all-too-perfect for this laid-back spot. (For the record, I've chosen to ignore the darker implications behind "buying" happiness; life's too short to dwell on the dark stuff :))

Can't wait to get back.

Posted by Courtney at 09:55 PM • Comments (0)

I'm absolutely certain someone is going to give me grief for this post, but I just can't resist. I went to a fantastic and - I must say - eye-opening tasting of Brazilian wine here in SF last week, where I couldn't help but note that not only were some of the wines quite delicious, a couple of the pourers were extremely easy on the eyes. Exhibit A. I'll spare this guy the grief of mentioning is his name, but he actually poured some terrific sparkling wines and was super pleasant. Check out my full report on my fav Brazilian wines in my article at WineCountry.com.

Posted by Courtney at 12:26 AM • Comments (1)

Time was, a routine visit to a winery involved a few tastes, a brief chat with a bored-looking tasting room employee and an uneventful "tour" of the spot's garish gift shop. Deluxe tours might've involved slightly more animated interactions with employees, the occasional glimpse into a barrel room or winemaking facility and, for a suitably hefty additional price, tastes of "reserve" or "limited release" wines.

But please, people: these cookie cutter visits are SO last year.

Nowadays, not only is it possible to score WAY more personalized perks such as face time with elusive winemakers, you can also go behind the scenes to explore the vineyards and grounds of some wineries courtesy of custom programs they've designed to show off their operations. There's just one caveat: you've got to work for some of these perks... Continue reading my latest article at WineCountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 12:14 AM • Comments (0)

Whoever said hospitality is dead in the wine industry clearly hasn't been to Mendocino. Well, I haven't either (I know, clearly a little embarrassing for someone who gets up to Napa & Sonoma on a regular basis!), but I DID get a great sense for the friendly people and delicious wines of this exciting region at last Saturday's Mendocino By the Bay tasting here in the city. I'll post more on my discoveries - both vinous and lifestyle/travel-oriented - from my regular column at WineCountry.com in the upcoming weeks, but for now I'll leave you with this pic of Mendo man-about-the-vines Casey Hartlip of Eaglepoint Ranch, who shows off his commitment to his award-winning Coro Mendocino wine (very cool story behind this forthcoming) by way of this tattoo. Now that's dedication, ya'll.

Posted by Courtney at 05:48 PM • Comments (0)

Musing over an impeccably prepared Thai Boxer cocktail in the lounge at Healdsburg's Cyrus Restaurant, I couldn't help but notice a skinny jean-clad hipster type sitting alone at the end of the bar. Were I back in San Francisco, the presence of a mega-stylish patron would be mundane, but the fact that we were deep in wine country made his presence there remarkable, even improbable-seeming. To make matters even more interesting, he was clutching a sleek, futuristic-looking device that made my Blackberry look like a clumsy, oversized calculator circa 1950...

Continue reading my latest article at Winecountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 12:05 AM • Comments (2)

My first trip to the Hamptons was incredibly memorable, but not because of the wine. A college student out from California for a summertime visit, I'd barely landed in scorching Manhattan before I was whisked away to the cushy comfort of the Hamptons, where a stylish bash at a sprawling Southampton estate seemed to fit the mold of many social events I'd attended. That was, until uber-socialite Nikki Hilton struck up a conversation with me and - much to everyone's delight - Puff Daddy began passing around bottles of bubbly at the after-party...

Continue reading my latest article at WineCountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 12:59 AM • Comments (0)

Wow, I was surprised to read in The Wall Street Journal that Cordier Mestrezat Grands Crus, a prestigious French producer of high-end Bordeaux, is making wine in a box...with a straw. Well, with four straws per box, to be exact. But what's even more interesting is the fact that the company is apparently launching the box in an effort to reach out to French "youths" (read: people in their twenties), who are drinking less wine over there than ever before. Hello, IRONY: all this, when at the same time American "youths" are drinking MORE wine than any generation before them. What's next, I wonder - a weird inversion of Franco-American youth culture, with American young 'uns sporting berets and carrying around baguettes in search of charcuterie and Nutella crepes, while - frightening thought - youthful Parisians hang out in Cubs caps fiending for "french" fries and hot dogs?

Decide for yourself here.

Posted by Courtney at 12:01 AM • Comments (3)

The transition from urban oasis to wine country outpost can be a bit bumpy for those accustomed to ready access to their favorite, hard-to-find beauty products. Whether your must-have item is a T. LeClerc lipstick or a Kiehl's lip balm (with SPF 4, thank you very much), until recently your chances of tracking it down in wine country were slim at best.

Continue reading my latest article at Winecountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 07:31 AM • Comments (1)

It's a dilemma perfectly fit for the new millennium: Two adventurous young ladies find themselves living in wine country with a hankering for high-end duds made in an environmentally responsible fashion. Problem is, finding so-called "green" high fashion in rural Northern California is like trying to track down a Michelin three-star in Bakersfield...

Continue reading my latest article at WineCountry.com

Posted by Courtney at 09:50 AM • Comments (0)

Seems tasting in the North Fork region of Long Island, NY has taken a - how shall I put this delicately? - raucous turn lately. A frightening but hilarious article in yesterday's NY Times talked of antics like naked drunken romps through vineyards and no-holds-barred drinking (er, pounding) in tasting rooms at some of the area's 30 wineries. Call it growing pains, if you will (New York wine country's only just now really taking off as a tourist destination) - I just call it sad.

pictured: my dear friend Kristin, a dignified bachelorette in Napa

Continue reading "Slobs & Snobs R Us" »

Posted by Courtney at 12:41 PM • Comments (0)

A recent trip to the St. Helena Farmer's Market (located right smack in the heart of Napa Valley!) left a resounding "wow" on my lips for at least several days after. Everywhere I looked at the market - which runs every Friday morning from May through October - there was something to "wow" over - the impossibly bright freshly cut flowers, the unbelievably delicious artisanal cheeses from Raymond & Co. Cheesemongers, gorgeous veggies like this rainbow-stemmed organic swiss chard, and posh, leisurely-looking people strolling along, taking it all in.

Continue reading "WOW: St. Helena Farmer's Market" »

Posted by Courtney at 12:03 PM • Comments (1)

It's been a bit of a whirlwind since I got back from Sonoma last month, but I've finally found time to put together some more tidbits from my visit. Those of you who follow the blog will recall that I took off for a much-needed "vacation" to wine country after wrapping the first round of edits to my book. And me being me, and my passion for wine being what it is, I naturally found myself at - where else?! - several wineries and even poking around some vineyards during my stay.

Continue reading "In the Vineyard in Cool Carneros" »

Posted by Courtney at 05:27 PM • Comments (0)

Some of you will recall my pic-filled account of last year's fabulous Auction Napa Valley. This year I've been asked by the Napa Valley Vintners to tell you more about how you can attend this year's event (June 7-10), something I'm happy to do. This year the NVV has introduced a new four-day package called "The All-American Package" that includes attendance at all sorts of fun events throughout the weekend.

Continue reading "Auction Napa Valley: The American Classic" »

Posted by Courtney at 05:57 PM • Comments (1)

Earlier this month I escaped to Sonoma for some much needed relaxation. I'd just turned in the final chunk of my book and was anticipating another round of edits when I just thought "why not?!" Or, perhaps more appropriately, "if not now, when??" Besides winery visits and other adventures, I decided to travel home by way of the Russian River Valley and then down the coast on Highway 1. Here are some of my favorite snaps from that journey.

Continue reading "Hip Pics: Russian River & Sonoma Coast" »

Posted by Courtney at 05:30 PM • Comments (0)

Avignon may sound like a sleepy town, but there's actually a very cool sub culture there that I was happy to discover with my tasting companion, ole JC, this past summer in Provence. In my reviews of that trip here on the blog I spent a ton of time talking about the vineyards of Bordeaux and the Rhone, but I didn't cover as much of the other side of things - everyday life - that we thoroughly enjoyed in those areas. Here's an initial taste of that, courtesy of a gnarled old grape vine left out on someone's porch on a side street in Avignon, presumably to be taken away with the next morning's trash. The graffiti was a nice touch, I thought.

Posted by Courtney at 09:52 AM • Comments (0)

"I think I smell a soupcon of cat's pee in this wine."
"Come again?"
"You know, pipi du chat."

Um, ok. Whatever you call it - cat's pee or the more sophisticated-sounding French version, pipi du chat - there's no getting around the fact that this is one ugly way to describe a wine. I've heard it used to describe the good stuff time and again and have hated it every time. I mean, can you think of a more unsettling way to describe something you're about to drink? But, I must say that when I attended a recent media lunch for Pouilly Fume's Claude MICHOT, pictured here with me, I really felt like the pipi du chat descriptor suited his wine. And that's not to say it wasn't good wine - on the contrary, it was outstanding!

Continue reading "Bring On the Cat's Pee!" »

Posted by Courtney at 12:53 PM • Comments (6)

If I had a dollar for every time I tried a new Gewurztraminer - the varietal popularly held to be "the spicy white" - and didn't find it even remotely spicy I'd be quite a bit better off than I am now. The fact of the matter is that Gewurz, which literally means "spice" in German, isn't usually all that spicy. It's super aromatic, to be sure: I almost always detect pronounced aromas of lychees, flowers and canned fruit syrup, amongst other things, but rarely the token spice I'm looking for. So imagine my excitement when I came upon what I've affectionately dubbed a Gewurz's Gewurz - one that tastes and smells exactly like the varietal's supposed to! Even better yet: this beauty hails, of all places, from little-known Tasmania.

Continue reading "Excuse me, did you say spice?" »

Posted by Courtney at 11:37 PM • Comments (0)

A couple of Saturdays ago my sister and I took an impromptu trip to Santa Cruz. It was one of those Saturdays where you find yourself, surprisingly, with some free time on your hands, and so we thought "why not?!" I'd been itching to check out the area, and harvest time seemed the perfect time to do it. All I can say is that we had a simply fabulous time, particularly at very laid-back Burrell School Vineyards in the middle of this mountainous area, where we were lucky enough to sit down with owners Dave & Anne Moulton and hear their personal account of the winery's 30+ year history while looking out over an amazing view and enjoying some delicious food.

* Here we are posing on the Burrell School Vineyards tractor!

Continue reading "Harvest Tales: Chilling in Santa Cruz" »

Posted by Courtney at 07:12 PM • Comments (2)

For those of you who find traditional wine events a big yawn, consider coming out this Wednesay to Nightlife Napa Valley here in San Fran, where, besides a bouncer, a DJ and sundry other accoutrements usually reserved for the club scene, you'll find fantastic wines from more than 60 Napa Valley vintners to sample. Word on the street is that Kirsten Dunst made a cameo at the sister event held recently in LA at the Roosevelt, so if this one's at all similar it should be a stylish affair.

Continue reading "Napa Wines for the Clubbing Set" »

Posted by Courtney at 05:48 PM • Comments (0)

In this last installment from my Postcards from Provence series I'd like to touch on some of the highlights of my trip that didn't make it into other entries, for various reasons. Some are small things, like my opinion on why French ATMs are more sophisticated than ours; some are extravagant and colorful, like my account of hitting the entire St. Tropez social circuit in 24 hours (whew!); and some are so seemingly insignificant you may be wondering why I bother to write about them at all (cue my philosophy on French tans).

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 8:
Je suis bloggeuse!" »

Posted by Courtney at 01:16 PM • Comments (4)

Alright, alright, so it's not what you think! For those in the know out there, Chateau de Beaucastel, one of the most famous estates in France's southern Rhone Valley, is known for having enormous stones in its vineyards.

So large, in fact, that standing amongst them feels sort of like what I imagine being in quicksand would be like. "Like quick sand, but quick stones," is the way the operation's sommelier, Fabrice Langlois, explained it.

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 7:
Stoned at Beaucastel" »

Posted by Courtney at 11:14 PM • Comments (9)

Ever since I arrived at the house here in St. Paul de Vence I've had an intense sense of deja vu. It's probably because I came here and stayed with a French family on the Riviera for a summer exactly 10 years ago, in a little village called Mougins right next door to Cannes. Everything - from the Boules players in the village squares to the yacht-clogged harbors of the port cities to the ubiquitous glasses of rose wine - reminds me of a time past. Fortunately, one slight deviation from the past is that I'm now able to drink much more of the fabulous pink wine than I was permitted to as a teenager the last time around.

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 5:
Extremely Pale Rose All the Time" »

Posted by Courtney at 09:39 AM • Comments (0)

Ok, so I know that Bordeaux isn't technically in Provence, but I'm really liking the Postcards from Provence motif I've got going on here so I'll appreciate everyone's suspending their disbelief for one more entry. I'm in Provence NOW, while writing this recap of our fantastic stay in Bordeaux, so hopefully that's geographic rationale enough for all of you.

Speaking of Bordeaux, I was beyond pleasantly surprised at the city and our winery visits. A staunch Burgundy fan who's visited that amazing region several times, I've got to say my expectations of Bordeaux were rather low given its reputation for being a region full of large, corporate-run impersonal estates. I'm happy to say we found the estates - even the big ones, yes - welcoming, the people warm, and the city a surprisingly fun place to hang out. Seriously!

Pictured: us amidst vines at Chateau Lascombes

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 4:
Lynch-Bages, Lascombes & Tepid Tunny In Bordeaux" »

Posted by Courtney at 07:39 AM • Comments (3)

Everyone, meet Rodolphe de Pins, current winemaker-owner at Chateau de Montfaucon, a southern Rhone estate that's been around for just about a Millenium. Davis-educated, world-traveled, and totally down-to-earth, de Pins is in the process of rejuvenating his family's ancient estate and turning out some really excellent wines. In the process, he's beautifully marrying new methods with old locations and philosophies, as evidenced in his outfitting the estate's 500-year-old winery with new equipment and barrels. The result is a totally functional and appealingly harmonious coming-together of old and new, all situated just beneath his family's 1000-year-old chateau on the hill.

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 3
Family Ties:
A Thousand Years Isn't Old in the Rhone" »

Posted by Courtney at 09:32 AM • Comments (3)

"It is a very good day. We got a new tractor and the cicadas didn't start singing until 9AM."

So began our wonderful day at Moulin de la Gardette, a small family-run estate in the Gigondas district of France's southern Rhone Valley about 45 minutes from Avignon. We spent a total of about five and a half hours with Jean Baptiste Meunier, the jovial owner and winemaker, during which time he showed us the grounds, the vines, the winery and the surrounding village before hosting us at a lovely luncheon in the town square. JC and I left with a feeling of total contentment and a conviction that if we are ever reincarnated as grapes, we'd like to be some of Moulin de la Gardette's.

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE Part Deux:
Good Vibes & Van Halen in Gigondas" »

Posted by Courtney at 09:51 AM • Comments (1)

Things got off to a very good start today after I disembarked from my red eye from NYC. Amazingly enough, my good pal and travel partner in crime JC was right on time meeting me at the Bordeaux airport, our chosen spot of contact for this leg of the trip. After high fives and mutual congratulations on our improbable promptness, we set out in our rented Peugeot for none other than Chateau Margaux, one of the five illustrious first growths of this great region, and an absolutely gorgeous spot.

Continue reading "POSTCARDS FROM PROVENCE 1:
Blondes Have More Fun At Chateau Margaux" »

Posted by Courtney at 12:35 AM • Comments (4)

I've always thought of wine as the ultimate interpreter. As interpreter par excellence of place, of people, of culture. I think there are other things that also capture time and momentum and the spirit of of an era. Film and music come to mind as the clearest examples of this ability of one thing to encapsulate so many different things cultural and temporal.

But wine, in its abstractness, like art becomes a sort of kaleidoscopic lense to view the world it comes from. What you get from wine, then, is not a pure reflection of things but instead a refracted, reinterpreted and ultimately more adventurous view of reality, one where ordinary things take on extraordinary qualities, and the sum of a thousand tiny influences takes on a new identity at once familiar and totally unique. And you can experience all this in a single glass of wine.

* pictured: Medlock Ames marketing guru Kenneth Rochford, as seen through my glass with the winery in the distance

Continue reading "Through the Looking Glass
The Wine Glass, That Is" »

Posted by Courtney at 09:09 AM • Comments (1)

I visited cult Cab producer PRIDE recently in my ongoing quest to learn more about the somewhat mysterious Spring Mountain appellation. Situated literally on the crest of the Mayacamas Mountains, the range that splits Napa County from its neighbor Sonoma (the break in vines in this pic is the actual county line!), Pride is a bit of a study in dualities. With 52% of its land in Napa, technically speaking, and the remainder in Sonoma, the folks at Pride understandably seem a bit torn between two opposites - the high point-scoring realm of Cult Napa Cabs and all the hoopla that comes with it, and the down-home "aw shucks, we're just farmers" MO of Sonoma-ns.

Continue reading "PRIDE: Split Personality on Spring Mountain" »

Posted by Courtney at 10:41 PM • Comments (0)

As an English major in college I was prone to long windedness. Fortunately, they looked fondly on that so long as you got your message across at the same time. Detailed descriptions, colorful but precise verbs and well chosen metaphors were preferred to, say, just saying something. Although a simple phrase like "The woman wept" may have been completely true, penning it as such would never get you Latin Honors at graduation. Instead, you might say something like "having cast off her youthful naivete and accepted that her love would never be requited, the lonely woman wept; in doing so she demonstrated both her vulnerability and her transition to the hard but all-comprehending world of adulthood."

Ok, so maybe that's a little overkill, but you get the point. Along these lines, one of my favorite things about wine is that it, too, can provoke long windedness. And I don't mean the kind that'll annoy your lit professor and provoke widespread eye rolling amongst your companions.

Continue reading "A Long Winded Wine" »

Posted by Courtney at 04:57 PM • Comments (2)

I recently checked in on the mysterious Cain Vineyard & Winery on the same trip that took me to Smith Madrone on Spring Mountain above Napa Valley. I say "mysterious" because, although I've heard a lot about the winery's famous Cain Five Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend, until I was at the winery I'd never actually SEEN a real live bottle of the stuff. It was the much-lauded-but-never-seen wine. And it's bloody expensive. So, you know, I find it mysterious.

And intriguing. So I thought I'd go see what all the fuss is about. Boy am I glad I did.

Continue reading "Rapping & Racking on Spring Mountain" »

Posted by Courtney at 07:33 PM • Comments (0)

The flowers! The sun! The food! The fashion! The wine! Welcome to Auction Napa Valley , a little slice of the Hamptons right here in our own backyard. Everything at last Friday's Auction Napa Valley Festival was posh and gorgeous , a no-excuses display of wealth and bounty and good living. Even the food was ridiculously good-looking. If I ever have the opportunity to push pause on reality and continue living in a bubble for the rest of my life, this would be my bubble of choice. Let the good times roll!

Continue reading "The Hamptons in California!" »

Posted by Courtney at 08:27 PM • Comments (13)

I recently had the great pleasure of visiting one of the best estates on Napa's Spring Mountain, Smith Madrone. I'd connected with the two brothers who own and run the operation, Charlie and Stu Smith, through Stu's wife, Julie Ann, with whom I recently became acquainted. Julie Ann said that if I was ever in Napa looking for a good spot to visit and taste, I ought to consider her husband's place. When I planned a trip earlier this month, I reconnected and made an appointment. Boy am I glad I did! In going to Smith Madrone I felt like I took a step back in time.

Continue reading "Smith Madrone On My Mind" »

Posted by Courtney at 01:16 PM • Comments (0)

There's nothing quite like a wine tasting on a Monday to get a week started right. Which is the way last week started for me, with a lovely tasting called TASTE Sonoma at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts downtown.

The tasting featured a trade portion open to the press and trade only in the afternoon followed by an "open to the public" session later in the evening. I did double duty and went to both. Call it wine penance. This girl paid up at TASTE Sonoma.

Continue reading "Sonoma In San Francisco" »

Posted by Courtney at 08:16 PM • Comments (1)

For as long as I can remember lovely rural Sonoma county has been eclipsed by its more glitzy neighbor Napa Valley. Which is why I was thrilled to find that Taste of Sonoma SF - a tasting and showcasing of the area's finest wines - will be held in the city next Monday.

Made up of six fertile valleys including the well known Alexander, Russian River and Dry Creek valleys, Sonoma is arguably the most prolific winemaking region in California. And the area is well on its way to achieving a well deserved reputation for high quality as well as high quantity output.

Continue reading "It's About Time" »

Posted by Courtney at 03:34 PM • Comments (0)