Located approximately 50 miles north of San Francisco , Napa Valley is home to numerous world class wineries. Tourists galore keep coming here unceasingly to explore the area, halting at all the wayside wineries and sampling rare and vintage wine in various tasting rooms. But you should opt for the guided tours of the Napa Valley wine country so as not to miss all the picturesque sites and also the less prominent wineries often missed by the general tourists.

Exploring the Napa Valley Wine Country can be educative, entertaining and adventurous – even if you are not a connoisseur of wines. To heighten your excitement, you can go though the Napa wineries using different modes – bike, car, train, bus, limo, balloon, boat, motor cycle, horseback etc.

One of the most comfortable methods of visiting the Napa Valley wineries is by engaging a car and self-driving with the aid of a few wine country brochures and guide books. You can even opt for jeep tours that will take you through the vineyards and not just the tasting rooms. These tours are ideal if you wish to learn more about the vineyards and the process of wine making.

The Napa wine tour by train offers a memorable travel experience to several well known wineries. You can choose from a plethora of excursion options along with specific winery tour packages. There are holiday and themed Wine Train specials available throughout the year and you can check up to find updated information about the forthcoming Wine Train programs.  Read more...

We may not remember it clearly, but the headlines during the summer of 2008 were all about the wildfires raging in California.  They spread from Santa Barbara to Oregon.  They were collectively called the “Northern California Lightning Series” which included over 2,700 individual fires which spanned from May 22nd to July 25th.  During late June (the worst week of the season), much of the area was covered in thick, dark smoke and numerous areas recorded record high levels of air pollution.  Then the fires ended, the summers ended and we (as consumers) moved on.  Many of us haven’t even had a second though about those fires, until now.

In contrast, many Californian wine makers have thought about those summer fires everyday for the last two years.    How would they avoid that dreaded ‘smoke taint’ left over from the fires.

The most affected growing regions were the Sonoma Coast and Anderson Valley.  Anderson Valley was hit the hardest.  As we fast forward two years, we expect to see many of the Anderson Valley Pinot Noirs we love so much release their 2008 vintage.  But not many are emerging.  The San Francisco Chronicle only received 12 bottles for their annual tasting of new releases in October.  In the midst of debating how to handle this particular smoky vintage, many wineries chose simply just not to release a Pinot for the year, rather than get killed in ratings and reviews.  The Wall Street Journal compared the ’08 Anderson Valley Pinots to a ‘wet ashtray’ in their review of the vintage with an equally devastating title to the article, “Sipping These Wines Is Like Smoking and Drinking at the Same Time.”  Read more...

In our discussion, we’ll look at the various types of storage available for your wine collection as well as the proper climate and environment for your wine. First, what is your purpose of your wine collection? Are you a limited wine collector or a large collector of wine? Are you more of a consumer of wine or is decor more beneficial to you? Are you the kind of person who is more interested in the bulk storage of your wine or do you want to show case your collection? With endless possibilities to the wine enthusiast, we’ll explore your options for the displaying and storage of your wine.

If you’re like me and love to display and drink wine, there are several options available to you. There are three basic storage options for the person who enjoys drinking and displaying their wine: wine chillers with glass fronts, wooden wine racks, and the wine cellar. All three options of storage can compliment your kitchen area in different ways. The most basic, the wine chiller, can come in many different sizes and finishes. Most chillers automatically come with glass fronts because most people want to show off their wine varieties. Chillers can hold as few as 24 or as many as 200 bottles. Finishes for chillers can be of wood or stainless steel style. The basic chiller cools at around 58-65 degrees. Temperature control is one of the main advantages of the chiller. If you have more vintage wines and don’t want the cost of building an expensive wine cellar, this is your best option as a medium sized chiller can be purchased for about 00.  Read more...

10 years ago this November, Fred Achom was contemplating his future, as well as the future and viability of the wine investment market. His newly formed wine investment consultancy Boington & Fredericks of London had just been suspended from trading by the Department of Trade and Industry for mis-selling wine as an investment. The idea of advising clients to bed down fine wine for investment and charging a premium for this service seemed to be somewhat farfetched to financial regulatory boards. ‘Back then we were selling Lafite 96 for £3,900 a case while ordinary merchants were selling at approximately £2,000 per case with no value adds. The promise of good returns seemed farfetched, to all and sundry it looked like a none-starter and the general opinion was that most would never see a profit’ says Achom, ‘today the Lafite 96 is worth in the region of £15,000 per case. It was hard then to prove the viability of the market, market data was hazy at best and there was little or no press in favour of wine investment, today there is an article every week’ he continues.  Read more...

Homemade wine making is not as difficult as people usually consider it. Start with the inspection of the fruit to make sure the grapes are ripe and unaccompanied with insects or other toxins. Place the grapes in the straining bag and calculate the sugar level with your hydrometer. You can get a hydrometer from any store that makes wine. Check if the sugar density is 22. This is the right proportion. Also, remove the stems from all grapes to make your sweeter and smoother. Then move the ingredients into the jug. Wine is commonly made from fermented flowers, grape juice, and grains. Countries such as Italy, United States, Portugal, and Argentina are well known for exporting different wines.  

The costliest type of wine is called vintage wines which are made from the best quality grapes. While some wines are extremely pricey, there are some other wines that are relatively cheap. Of all these wines home-based are commonly served to display old English hospitality.

Home winemaking is a great idea for those who like social drinking or who are interested to give them as gifts. Here are some instructions on how to make homemade :

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Bring fresh grapes from fields and orchards where you can pick your own fruits. Otherwise you can get fruit concentrate from local winemaking stores. If you want to produce the best , purchase the best components.

Buy tools needed for home winemaking such as fermentation locks, siphon tubes, plastic funnels, Demijohns, trial jars, wine bottles with corks.  Read more...