Wine Blog

Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery Founder to Speak at National Wine – PR-USA.net
oy Neighbors, Marketing Director for Purgatory Cellars/White Owl Winery (whiteowlwinery.com) will speak on “The Sensual Pleasures of Fruit Dessert Wines” next weekend. She will discuss the benefits of fruit wines and delve into the winemaking

Wine Cellars: An Exploration of Stylish Storage
This thorough and inspiring book provides a vicarious tour of the best in wine bottle storage. Visit more than 100 absolutely stunning, private wine cellars in over 200 beautiful color photographs. Peruse racking systems, tasting tables, and artful touches, created by leading wine cellar designers, including Paul Wyatt, Kathleen Valentini, Gary LaRose, and Doug Smith. Additionally, this is a guidebook to wine cellars in some of the world’s most renowned hotels and restaurants, where private parties can reserve a table and dine amidst coveted vintages. The book also visits handsome displays in restaurants that showcase wine programs to customers. The result is thousands of wonderful ideas for wine storage and display. This is the first work of its kind, making it an invaluable guide for architects, designers, and discerning homeowners and restaurateurs.

Customer Review: Acceptable, but overall disappointing
This book does not live up to expectations. Found that many of the photos are poor quality/amateur in nature. Some cellars displayed are spectacular but many are ho-hum. Nor does the book have any substantive material. Simple text descriptions accompany photos but only so much can be learned by looking at pictures. I agree with other reviews that this is a good coffee table or “idea” book. However, I expected more interesting photos with meaningful descriptions of the space, conditions, materials, lighting, etc… If you have to have it buy it used.

A much better book is: The Home Wine Cellar: A Complete Guide To Design And Construction by Perry Sims. While it doesn’t have as many photos, those it does have are more inspiring and accompanied by good information on cellar design and construction.

Customer Review: Cellar space
Its a good coffee table book, Some great photos with good ideas, and some general information for those looking to build a cellar. I’m glad to have it.

Hazmat was Wine, Not Meth Lab – WHTM-TV

Hazmat was Wine, Not Meth Lab WHTM-TV It turns out the pails in the basement were actually homemade wine. Police believe a man who lived at the home made the wine, but he died several years ago. … Police Suspect Meth Lab, Find Wine CellarFOX43.com all 20 news articles »

Kevin Zraly’s American Wine Guide: 2008 (Kevin Zraly’s American Wine Guide)

Customer Review: Brief Guide – but assumes too much
As an Australian with little knowledge of the American Wine Industry this guide is a terse introduction to some basic facts and figures. However, it tells me little about the respective qualities of the different states or areas. Also the lists of suggested wines and makers is short and restricted to a couple of states. Yes, this is a small format book, but it could have done a much better job. The views of the author suggest he is well-known and respected. If this is the case – maybe he is resting on his laurels, maybe he needs to rethink and restructure this guide, so that it is more useful to a wider audience.

Customer Review: Interesting but Not what I expected
This is a much smaller book which incorporates some of the material from Zraly’s Windows on the World Complete Wine Course: 2008 Edition (Windows on the World Complete Wine Course) but is limited to American Wines only. The information on the most important American wine growing states (California, Washington. Oregon and New York) and grape varieties is often word-for word identical between the two books.

The unique feature of this book is the state-by-state description of wineries, growing regions, wine trails, and the grapes grown in all 50 states. For example Delaware has only 2 wineries (the least of any state) while California has more than 1600 wineries. Even Alaska has six wineries and Hawaii has four. Wyoming, which Zraly describes as having the lowest wine production of any state has three wineries. There are expanded though still short descriptions of the 5th through 10th place wine producing states (Pennsylvania, Virginia, Colorado, North Carolina, Texas, and Michigan) that don’t appear elsewhere. Zraly writes in an entertaining and easy to read style here as elsewhere and the illustrations are crisp and pleasant.

Individual wines are not reviewed or rated and only wines from California, Washington and Oregon are recommended in this book due to the limited availability of wines from other states. The list is the same here as in “Wine Course”. In short this book was not what I expected since the only unique material is the state-by-state review of wineries and grapes. His hardcover “Wine Course” covers more much more information making it a better value and better suited for most readers interested in learning about wine. The limited scope and simple format make this an accessible “teaser” book for the complete wine novice however. It is also useful as a guide for hard core wine tourists of lesser known growing states and those interested in the wine industry in these states.

Grape
Grape, the future of your Desktop. Tayasui.com, Human Interface Design, Simple and fun by yann le coroller

Grape Grain and Bean home brewing and wine making
Specialty store for beer and wine making equipment, supplies, and ingredients. Purchase separately or as a complete kit. Recipe books also available

The Grapes of Wrath (New Longman Literature: Steinbeck)