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About Me

Hi, I'm Jim. I'm not a wine professional or critic. But I am a geek who loves wine. For me, half the fun of wine is learning about the grapes, the vineyards, the winemaking, the history behind the bottle. I'm drawn to old vines, indigenous grapes, single vineyard bottlings, field blends and anything else that makes a wine distinctive. On this blog I share my thoughts and tasting notes on the wines I drink and what I learn about them along the way.

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If you want to connect with me beyond leaving comments, email me at jim [at] vinegeek [dot] com

Oddball Wine of the Week: Côte Est 2007 Catalan

This was just a random pickup at Whole Foods one day. The label design caught my eye, then I noticed the blend, then “Catalan” on the label. Wait, doesn’t Catalan refer to Spain… as in Catalonia? But this is French. That was interesting enough for me to plunk down my $11. I wasn’t sure when [...]

Naked is Good: Unoaked Chardonnay – Part 3

This is part 3 of my Unoaked Chardonnay series. Previous entries:
Part 1 – Clos LaChance Unoaked Chardonnay 2007 Monterey County
Part 2 – Toad Hollow Unoaked Chardonnay Francine’s Selection 2007 Mendocino County
Four Vines Naked Chardonnay 2008 Santa Barbara County
I originally intended this to be a 2 bottle series — just pick up two readily available unoaked Chardonnay’s [...]

Unoaked Chardonnay – Part 2

This is Part 2 of my Unoaked Chardonnay face-off: Toad Hollow Unoaked Chardonnay 2007 Francine’s Selection (Part 1 was the Clos LaChance Unoaked Chardonnay 2007 Monterey County.)
I didn’t know this before I starting researching this post, but Toad Hollow is one of the pioneers of unoaked Chardonnay in the US, their first vintage being 1993. [...]

Unoaked Chardonnay – Part 1

This is Part 1 of a series of posts on Unoaked Chardonnay.  (Part 2 — the Toad Hollow 2007 Mendocino County — is here)
Unoaked is the way the cool kids are drinking Chardonnay these days.  I decided I’d pick up two widely available bottles this week and compare and contrast them. The first one [...]

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