In the land of La Rioja settle several ancient cellars that produce high quality wines.
The tradition of wine in La Rioja goes back centuries, while there in the last 250 years several milestones in the region accounted for a transformation of culture, wine production and marketing. One of them is the construction from 1790 of a road by the Royal Society of Friends of the Rioja Castellana to export surplus production to the north Spanish.
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Varietal:Sauvignon Blanc
Appellation:California, Mendocino, Yorkville Highlands
Style:Dry White
Price:$14
WOW Rating:88

A crisp complex mix of bright citrus and delicate herbal, this white wine is well suited for most any food pairing. “We are one of the twelve original vineyards to be certified organic, since 1986,” says founder Edward Wallo. For more information, or to arrange to visit this winery (located about 100 miles north of San Francisco), go to www.yorkville-cellars.com. The vineyard is located in southern Mendocino County between Anderson Valley to the west and Alexander Valley to the east.
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Calling the Brutocao wine center, at Schoolhouse Plaza in Hopland, a tasting room is like calling a peacock a bird. There is, certainly, a magnificent room in which to taste the Brutocao wines, but it is just part of the dream-come-true complex that Leonard and Marty Brutocao have created within the walls of the old Hopland High School, established in 1921.
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There has been a lot of publicity about overproduction of grapes over the last few harvests. This can mean lower prices paid to growers for their grapes and more bulk wine on the market. On the plus side, for the consumer, a heavy harvest and more vines coming into full bearing can possibly mean lower bottle prices, better quality wines in low end packaging and, for some emerging wineries, it can mean an opportunity to expand production with grapes from vineyards with a long history of providing quality fruit to the industry.
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Wine guru Joshua Wesson redesigned the retailing of wine . when he opened his first Best Cellars store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, making things idiot proof, fun and affordable. The excitement has spread with stores in two Boston suburbs, the University Village section of Seattle, Washington D.C., and most recently in The Park Cities area of Dallas.

“The public needn’t be saddled with numerical scores, vineyard names, grape yields and barrel toast levels. The wine jargon can poison the simple pleasure,” contends Wesson. “After all, when you walk into a patisserie in Paris, you don’t have to know the history of France.”
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Among the French wine regions, the Languedoc-Roussillon offers the highest density of cooperative cellars. For hundreds, they are born, mostly in the inter-war years, the need to overcome the domination of trading and equip itself to winemaking performance. Published on the initiative of the Regional Council, the book paints a picture of that heritage is part of the soul of this region.
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If you didn’t know Stryker Winery was up there, sitting on a softly rounded knoll off Highway 128 in Alexander Valley, you’d drive right past it. This is pretty surprising, since the winery, owned by Karen and Craig MacDonald and (Ms) Pat Stryker, is large enough to produce 20,000 cases of wine, when operating at full capacity. Thanks to some very innovative and thoughtful planning by architects Richard Schuh and Amy Nielsen it is not just unobtrusive, but nearly invisible. Even after you have walked past the fermentation and aging cellars, you are not quite ready for the tasting room with a vaulted ceiling soaring nearly two-stories above the glass-enclosed interior. Three of the room’s four sides are glass presenting breath-taking views around Alexander Valley.
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The second edition of Catavino On Tour took place last Wednesday at the tasting room and Wine Art Aranda an ideal space for the event in which 13 wineries showed their wines to Bloggers and engaged in interesting conversations about wine social networks.
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