Wine

Raisin Wine and Validation

Feb 16th, 2010 | By Hank | Category: Wine

Making homemade wines from raisins or other fruits instead of winegrapes can be just as satisfying as making a fine table red or a crisp white. Aged well, they can be a validation of sorts.



Making Wine and Riding the Dragon

Sep 24th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Wine

Have you ever walked in the kind of fog where you cannot see your own outstretched hand one moment, only for the breeze to shift in the next, leaving you standing in the blinding sun? This is winemaking — a shifting series of revelations clouded by conundra. As I enter my third Crush, a vineyard double entendre for [...]



Blending Wine and Bottling Day

Aug 10th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Wine

This is the year I graduate to becoming a middling winemaker. Making your own wine isn’t terribly difficult; inmates do it with grape juice and a piece of stale bread. Making wine you’d want to put into a bottle and store in your house for several years is another level — a level I reached [...]



Menu for Hope Winner Announced

Jan 16th, 2009 | By Hank | Category: Uncategorized, Wine

Chez Pim has announced this year’s raffle winners for Menu for Hope, a benefit run by the food blogging multiverse to benefit a worthy cause, in this case children in the South African kingdom of Lesotho. I was both a raffle-r and an raffl-ee this time, and I must say I am pleased with the result [...]



El Dorado Mourvedre — A Very Special Wine

Oct 3rd, 2008 | By Hank | Category: Wine

Last weekend Holly and I ventured up to El Dorado County to collect a batch of Mourvedre from Sumu Kaw Vineyards; it was nearly a year to the day we’d gone to the same town to gather Sangiovese grapes. Sumu Kaw. Odd name, this, but it apparently means something like “Place of the Sugar Pine” [...]