George Yatchisin
George Yatchisin writes about food, wine and cocktails from Santa Barbara, where he lives with his amazing wife, dogs and one very old chicken.
Maybe it's just with Halloween creeping around the calendar's corner and Walking Dead stumbling back on to AMC, but I've been wondering what winery might be the best to make zombie-fighting central if it ever comes to that.
At that price point -- at least at Trader Joe's -- you'll want to go with the house label, believe it or not.
Hilliard Bruce's wines are anything but exotic; they aim for classic expressions of Burgundian grapes.
What you taste when you taste wine blindfolded.
Wine and tomatoes? Do they work together?
"It's the Run DMC of pinots."
The winery that looks as pretty as its product tastes.
"Twenty years ago if we did this tasting it would be about oak. Since then people backed off the oak...maybe because the barrels are $900 each now."
Some winemakers will let you taste their unfinished wine ... it all feels very illicit!
"We're not manipulating the wines much, but there's a great level of care. What's necessary is to preserve the quality of the fruit."
I like to think of petite sirah as the bastard love child of cabernet sauvignon and zinfandel after a night they both imbibed too much of each other.