VINEgeek

Mourvèdre Monday finally makes it to Texas. Becker is a big name in the Texas wine scene. I’ve tried quite a few of their wines over the years with mixed results. I had high hopes for their “Prairie Rotie” — a Southern Rhône blend of Mourvèdre, Grenache, Syrah and Carignan (though the name is a [...]

I’ve been meaning to devote more attention to Bandol in the Mourvèdre Monday series. Bandol, after all, is the only appellation in France where Mourvèdre is the top dog grape (it must be a minimum of 50% of the blend).
So I was very excited when I was recently followed on Twitter by @BandolWines and subsequently [...]

I always look forward to opening another bottle of wine from Cline Cellars. Cashmere is their GSM blend (Grenache, Syrah and Mourvèdre) and in their latest release – the 2008 –  they’ve upped the share of Mourvèdre in the blend. Your favorite blogger’s favorite grape is now the lead dog at 44%. (Let’s all pretend [...]

I first took notice of Wine Guerrilla, a producer of several distinct Russian River Valley and Dry Creek Valley Zins, after reading this post at Benito’s Wine Reviews. Reading the post and checking out their website reminded me of my early days as a wino, er , wine lover. After having my eyes opened to [...]

Through six weeks of the Mourvèdre Monday series, one would be pardoned for wondering why I didn’t name it Monastrell Monday, as four of the first six wines were from Spain, where Monastrell is the name for this grape. Finally, in week 7, we make it to Bandol. This is the most important region for [...]

My apologies in advance for the sketchy details on this bottle. There’s not much info on it to be found online. I’ve had a draft of this post sitting around for a while and I didn’t think I’d bother posting it, but I’ve been sick for a while and haven’t been drinking any wine so [...]

It’s back to California for today’s Mourvèdre Monday post, specifically Paso Robles. Though I first fell in love with Mourvèdre via the old vines examples from Contra Costa County, Paso Robles is a hotbed of Rhône grape-growing in California. Edward Sellers is a Rhône-style specialist in Paso, with a focus on blends vs. varietal bottlings (though [...]

This one is exciting! It was a quick grab from the Costco shelf. I’d never heard of it, but was in the mood for some Rhone action. Little did I know that lurking behind this boring label would be one of the tastiest little wines I’ve had in months.
Galévan ‘Paroles de femme’ 2007 Côtes du [...]

National Breast Cancer Awareness Month is winding down and pink has been everywhere. Even the NFL got in on it in a big way. So maybe that’s why I noticed this wine on an end-cap display at my local supermarket. It’s from Cline Cellars (a winery that regular readers will know I am a fan [...]

The theme of this month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday #62 (hosted by Dale Cruse at Drinks Are On Me) is “A Grape By Any Other Name”. The idea is to taste a wine labeled with a lesser known name of an otherwise common grape. Now this is the sort of thing that I’d normally stew over [...]