best winery tasting rooms

The Best Winery Tasting Rooms That Every Collector Needs to See in Their Lifetime

Wall Street Journal wine columnist Lettie Teague says that Joan Fennell runs Washington’s Chateau Ste. Michelle with an iron fist. Fennell requires every staff member in her tasting room to be knowledgeable about the wines and provide every guest with the best winery tasting room experience possible. At one point, Teague was watched Fennell critique…

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managing your wine allocations mailing list

Stay on Your Favorite Winery’s Mailing List: Keeping and Managing Your Wine Allocations

So you finally get on allocations lists for two of your favorite California wineries, but when your wine options arrive, you discover that you don’t love every wine on the list. What do you do? This exact situation happened to a Chowhound forum writer, who says that he signed up for Rhys’ and Dirty &…

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cote-rotie syrah

Hidden Gem of the Month: 2012 Jamet Côte-Rôtie Syrah Brings Densely Complex Flavors to the Table

This past summer, I was fortunate enough to attend a wine event offering samples of some incredible Rhône wines, including a number of Syrah vintages. As one might expect, most of the wines that I tried were heavy in new oak flavors, brimming with intense earthiness. While these wines were delicious, by the end of…

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wine certifications useful for collectors

Are Wine Certifications Useful for Collectors? When and Why You Should Take a Wine Education Class

In an opinion piece for Wine Spectator, wine writer Matt Kramer said, regarding wine certification, “Nothing about wine or — dare I say it! — accomplished wine service requires this pseudo-professionalization.” Kramer explains that wine certifications are as useless as they are elitist, and that too many professionals put emphasis on formal education over real…

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decluttering your wine cellar

This Month in Your Cellar: Decluttering Your Wine Cellar by Going Minimal This Spring

In her hugely-popular self-help book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo gives readers tips on organizing every room in their homes. Yet this book goes beyond messy closets and stuffed kitchen cabinets. Did you know that you can apply many of Kondo’s principles when you organize…

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traveling with wine

Traveling With Wine by Plane, Train, or Automobile: Get Your Wine Safely from Point A to Point B

A couple of years ago, I attended a huge summer tasting event at a Washington winery with two friends. One of my friends brought along a wheeled wine carrier, tucking each new bottle he bought into its own little cubby inside. My other friend lightheartedly teased him about his paranoia, joking that his wine carrier…

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full service wine storage

Are You a Self-Storage or Full-Service Wine Collector? Your Answer Is More Important Than You Think

In GQ, Alan Richman tells a fascinating story about his friend, who he simply calls “The Collector.” The Collector has an expansive wine cellar filled with more than 2,000 of the finest wines on the market, enough to make any wine collector’s mouth water. One day, The Collector suddenly sold off 90 percent of his…

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