December, 20, 2015 Napa Valley: City gives thumbs-up for luxury hotel at Stanly Ranch

(NVR) - A luxury hotel envisioned for Napa’s rural Stanly Ranch area has won city planners’ support, starting the path toward a resort development that eventually will add 95 homes and a winery. Auberge Resorts, an operator of high-end lodgings elsewhere in the county, gained unanimo...

December, 18, 2015 Accused of running a pyramid scheme, embattled Berkeley wine store shifts to online-only sales

(MercuryNews) - An embattled wine business announced it is closing its University Avenue store this week, days after this newspaper reported Premier Cru was facing at least 10 lawsuits over the past year claiming more than $5 million in wine was never delivered to customers. "Due to the high ...

December, 18, 2015 Craft Brewers Running Out of Cans

(TDB) - The surge in US craft brewers canning rather than bottling their beers is leading to producers struggling to get their hands on the format. Demand has grown so great that the chief producer in America, Crown, has upped its minimum order to a size many smaller breweries can’t meet. A...

December, 18, 2015 Hawaiian harvest: Exotic agriculture, pineapple wine

(USAToday) - Jim Reddekopp and his wife Tracy moved to the Big Island from Oahu 18 years ago because, he says, that island got "too busy." "My wife and I had dreams of raising our children in a rural environment," he says. "The Big Island is raw. It's still untouched." Now, the Reddekopps a...

December, 18, 2015 Learning About New Grape Clones

(GoodFruit) - When choosing a wine grape clone, Washington growers have little Washington-based field research to help guide their decisions. But useful information is available, if you know where to look and how to interpret the data. Jeff Sample, owner of Terroir Nouveaux Nurseries, has aro...

December, 18, 2015 B.C. Winemakers Cool to Ice Wine

(Wines&Vines) - As temperatures plunged late on the night of Nov. 25, the pickers prepared to move in and pluck frozen grapes from their frosty vines on the slopes above Okanagan Lake. But fewer wineries than usual registered intentions to produce ice wine this year, and fewer acres are slate...

December, 18, 2015 Randall Grahm: The Rebel of the American Wine Business

(SpliceToday) - Winemaker Randall Grahm is a wine rebel—self-proclaimed "terroirist." That is, he's obsessed with making what the French call vin de terroir —wine that reflects a sense of place. He calls it "the only wine that matters." The soil, climate and terrain in any particular...

December, 18, 2015 9 Things You Didn't Know You Didn't Know About Wine

(Esquire) - However much some of us think we know about wine, the reality is probably a little more sketchy. Which is why it never hurts to be reminded of those essential nuggets which help us understand the types of wine we like so we can drink more of the good stuff. And that's what we're her...