Various trips to Northern Italy have found the Editor being offered Gavi to taste, with comments that it is the best dry white wine in the country. Yet none of the wines have proved exciting, until the recent arrival of samples sent by the enthusiastic Dr Giorgio Soldati, who operates the La Scolca estate.
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The tiny hamlet of Ripley, Ohio, some 55 miles east of Cincinnati, is the scene of a fascinating experiment to produce international class wine on the north bank of the Ohio River valley. At the time of writing, which is March 2001, Ron Barrett and Nancy Bentley have, at Kinkead Vineyards, a vineyard – but no winery. They are convinced that the latter will be completed by August 15th, just 5 months away. Nancy, a marketeer, PR and superb cook, is so convinced that literally every brick will click into place on that date, she has promised to up-date Wine on the Web readers monthly. When mid-August arrives some of the varietals amongst their 3-year-old vines will be ready to offer their first wines.
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Nobilo is the second largest wine company in New Zealand. It was founded in 1943 by Nikola Nobilo, a Croatian of Italian descent from the island of Korcula. In fact several members of the Nobilo family still survive on the island and have been tending vineyards there for some 300 years. Nikola planted his first small New Zealand vineyard at Huapai, just to the northwest of Auckland on the North Island, and went on to inspire a family-driven operation that developed into the leading exporter of New Zealand wines.
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Careful note should be made of owner Peter Rymill’s middle name ‘Riddoch’. It comes from his great grandfather, John Riddoch, who is best-known as the Father of the Coonawarra region in South Australia.

Riddoch, initially a humble brickmaker, was born in Scotland in 1827 and sailed to Australia in 1850 on an assisted passage. In 1852 he struck gold at Ovens Valley, discovering a nugget that he sold for US$1450. This would have been enough to buy around 10 small houses, but instead he immediately invested the money in a bullock wagon and the construction of a supply store at Ballarat. From these premises he could provide any materials the goldminers wanted, from simple shovels to oil lamps or even woollen clothing. Next, he opened a second store at Geelong and continued to increase his profits by selling essential provisions within walking distance of the miners’ claims. He worked in partnership with his brother, Alexander, and they proved their considerable business acumen by following the gold strikes; as one goldfield became exhausted so they closed their local store and re-opened at the location of the next one.
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Wyndham Estate, founded in 1828, can justifiably claim the title of Australia’s oldest surviving winery. Yet many may be surprised to learn that it was cultivated initially by British convicts, who had been exiled to the colony of New South Wales.

To tell the whole story it is necessary to go back to 1801 and the birth of George Wyndham, son of local squire William Wyndham and his wife Laetitia, who owned the prosperous estate of Dinton, near Salisbury, in the English county of Wiltshire. George was born into a wealthy land-owning family, who possessed farmland stretching from the south coast of England across to the Bristol Channel. He received a privileged education, first at Harrow school and then at Cambridge University.
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In 1797 the English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was taken ill in an isolated farmhouse on the bleak expanse of Exmoor in England’s West Country. There he fell into a drug-induced sleep and dreamed of Xanadu, the summer palace of Kubla Kahn. Upon waking he committed his vision to paper. Later, he explained that he published it ‘rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the grounds of any supposed poetic merits.’

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Well folks, we have just discovered some wine art that would actually look good. These paintings are not the usual ho-hum, boring paintings of a cluster of grapes in a basket, or a surreal vineyard with a majestic Chateau in the distance. Nope, these pieces have some personality and gusto. They jump out at you and say, “Drink me”. I like that.

Charles Kaufman is the artist, and wine bottles are his focus. This is just one series of paintings that he creates with oil and acrylic paints on stretched canvas. The paintings can be customized to the buyers’ desire, and Mr. Kaufman can and will feature a special wine, date, or graphic on the label. Canvas size can also be customized.
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In the town that has something for everybody, there is one place you need to check out if you want to truly see an unbelievable collection of incredible wines. So what if you can’t afford 90 percent of them, it gives you another reason to keep working and trying to hit it big at the tables.

Just take a hop off of the main strip in Las Vegas and head over to the Rio Hotel and Casino. Your local cabbie will know exactly how to get there and mine told me “it is where the locals go, because they always treat you right”. Once you’re in the Rio make your way towards the Napa Restaurant and the Wine Cellar Tasting Room & Retail Shoppe that is directly downstairs from the Restaurant, and presto, you have found yourself in the middle of one of the largest wine collections in the world.

I was lucky enough to get my tour around the cellar from the Sommelier of the Napa Restaurant, Mr. John Bolduc. I never actually called him Mister but rather fell in line with everyone else calling him J.B. He never told me to stop calling him that, so I guess it was all right.
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This wine is from the completely whacked folks at Bonny Doon Vineyards. They blend together traditional French varietals Syrah, Grenache, Carignane and Mourvedre with Italian varietals Dolcetto and Barbera. This blending produces a rather nice wine that comes in under $10. The price point is key here. There is so much crappy red wine out there now for under $10 that whenever I can find something that is good or very good in that price range, I will let you folks know. I know it is the year 2001 and I should stop using the $10 price range for bargain reds. I need to up it to $15. Many of the under $10 reds I have bought lately with at least modest expectations, I have had to pour out. They were nasty.

O.k., enough about other wines that I didn’t like, lets talk Bonny Doon. They have been producing this wine for a while now and it has been a success for them most every vintage. This release was over come by the successful Syrah vintage they had in “99” and it kind of took over the blend. They have tried to make this an Italian style “vino tavola”, and then dropped that idea for this release because the Syrah was so good. So the best grapes took over the blend. Ah, the joys of blending for wine makers that don’t have to follow any rules.
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Why doesn’t anyone talk about what wine to have with breakfast anymore? Excuse me, but isn’t this the most important meal of the day? Well I’m not going to have my most important meal of the day without my wine, thank you very much. The other more noteworthy meals always get the attention when it comes to wine pairing and because of that they have been done, and over done a million times.

Every conceivable food and wine pairing has been done over the last hundred years. There is nothing that is new or original with any combo nowadays. It has all been done before. Thousands of restaurants are just doing it again and again every night, with different patrons. So we need to focus on something new; breakfast.

If you feel like waiting for the weekend for your breakfast wine, that’s fine. If you want to do it only on the days you plan on yard work followed by a nap in the hammock, cool. The other damn good wine guys and me usually like our wine breakfasts on Monday, and sometimes we enjoy it enough to include Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings.
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