Category Archives: Great Winemakers

Alvaro Castro: Outstanding Selections from the Dão

Posted on July 31, 2020 by don

Alvaro Castro is one of the most accomplished winemakers in Portugal.  Since 1980 he has served as winemaker for his family’s properties at Quinta da Pellada and Quinta de Saes. Alvaro crafts elegant wines sourced from traditional varieties with minimal intervention … Continue reading →

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Hors Catégorie: A Bit of Northern Rhone in Northern Oregon

Posted on April 9, 2019 by don

Christophe Baron, most famous for his vineyards in The Rocks, has a new discovery, a very steeply sloped basalt hillside vineyard called Hors Catégorie located on the north fork of the Walla Walla River near the Oregon border with Washington … Continue reading →

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Graham Beck: Exclusive Focus on Premium Sparkling

Posted on February 18, 2019 by don

Industrialist Graham Beck founded his eponymous vineyard and winery in Robertson in 1983.  A few years later Pieter Ferreira joined Graham Beck, making his first sparkling wine  (called MCC or Methode Cap Classique in South Africa) in 1991. We visited … Continue reading →

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Richard Kershaw Lifts Elgin to New Heights

Posted on February 11, 2019 by don

Richard Kershaw, South Africa’s first MW (Master of Wine), worked at wineries around the world (including Simi in California) before becoming winemaker at Mulderbosch  and then, in 2012, starting his own eponymous winery in Elgin, South Africa’s coolest growing area. … Continue reading →

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Hermann J. Wiemer of the Finger Lakes: A Great American Winery

Posted on February 4, 2019 by don

Hermann J. Wiemer is one of the pioneers of viticulture and winemaking in the Finger Lakes. A native of Bernkastel, Germany, he studied at the world famous Neustadt Viticultural Research Institute, took a winemaking job in the Finger Lakes, and … Continue reading →

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Austria’s Talented New Winemakers

Posted on January 11, 2019 by don

While traveling around Austria meeting winemakers and tasting wine for our recently published report Austrian Wine: Diverse Terroir, Exceptional Quality, we met the new generation that has entered Austria’s wine industry in recent years. They work in various capacities, although most … Continue reading →

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French-Trained Chilean Winemakers: New Releases from Antiyal, Apaltagua, Domus Aurea, Maquis

Posted on April 8, 2016 by don

No country in the Americas has been so strongly influenced by French winemaking as Chile. Aspiring Chilean winemakers go to France to study enology or work the harvests. And French winemakers and winemaking consultants go to Chile to make wine. … Continue reading →

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Domaine Alice et Olivier de Moor of Chablis

Posted on April 21, 2015 by don

In preparing a new report on Chablis, we recently met up with Alice and Oliver de Moor in Courgis, located about 7 km southwest of Chablis.  They started their vineyards 20 years ago with just three parcels [Bel-Air, Clardy, Rosette] … Continue reading →

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Michel Rolland’s New Spanish Wines

Posted on October 14, 2014 by don

Michel Rolland has made wine all over the world, and we’ve tasted his wines in many of the places where we’ve traveled—Argentina, South Africa, and, of course, France.  Now, he extends his global reach to a neighboring country, Spain, where … Continue reading →

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Women Winemakers of Rioja

Posted on June 18, 2014 by don

Women have always played an important role in tending the vines, picking the fruit, and pressing the grapes in Rioja, but in recent years they have also assumed an important role in winemaking. Indeed, no other wine region of the … Continue reading →

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