(and the cheap WHITES we’re diggin’ on lately)
The Wollersheim Winery Prairie Fume’ 2013 is 100% Seyval Blanc grape sourced from contract vineyards in New York. The Wollersheim Winery is located west of Madison, Wisconsin near the Wisconsin River. It was founded in the 1840s, but after a particularly brutal winter in 1899 the vineyards froze and the property was converted to a…
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The Sophora Sparkling Cuvée is 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot Noir sourced from vineyards in the Gisbourne and Hawke’s Bay districts of New Zealand’s North Island. Most of the reasonably priced New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc you see on store shelves come from Marlborough on New Zealand’s South Island. Sophora is the Sparkling wine brand from Distinguished…
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The Gia Pinot Grigio 2013 is sourced from vineyards located in more than one California grape growing AVA. The Gia on the label is Gia Coppola, the granddaughter of Francis Ford Coppola and Gia wine is one of the Coppola family of wines. Pinot Grigio and Pinot Gris are the same grape, the difference is Pinot…
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The Ca’ di Rajo Prosecco Millesimato Extra Dry DOCG is a Sparkling wine produced from the Glera grape grown in an estate vineyard in the Valdobbiadene region near the town of Treviso in the Veneto region of Italy. Valdobbiadene Prosecco and DOCG Prosecco are the highest quality area and rating for Prosecco wine. Millesimato indicates that this…
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The Ca’ Di Rajo Prosecco Brut is a Sparkling wine produced from the Glera grape near the town of Treviso (DOC), along the Piave River in the Veneto region of Northern Italy. The winery is located on the site of an ancient convent ( founded 1507) and the property was converted to vineyards in 1960. This Prosecco…
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The Murrieta’s Well The Whip 2013 is a blend of 28% Semillion, 24% Chardonnay, 14% Sauvignon Blanc, 11% Orange Muscat, 11% Viognier, 11% Gewürztraminer and 1% White Riesling all grown on Murrieta’s Well estate vineyards located in the Livermore Valley AVA near the San Francisco Bay. Murrieta’s Well was originally planted in 1884 and was…
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The Ceraudo Imyr Bianco 2012 is 100% Chardonnay grown in family owned estate vineyards near Calabria in Stongoli (the toe of the boot) in southern Italy. The family farm produces wine, olive oil, citrus and includes a Michelin Star restaurant. The Chardonnay grapes were sourced from 20 year old vines and this wine was aged in…
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The Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc 2014 is sourced from vineyards located in the Wairau Valley and the Awatere Valley inside the Marlborough region on the northeast corner of the South Island of New Zealand. The harvest took place in February of 2014 (this post was written October 2014), so this Sauv Blanc went from grapes on the vine to bottles…
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The Birthday Cake Vineyards Cheesecake Wine is a flavored wine from France that tastes, well, like New York cheesecake. Birthday Cake Vineyards, along with Ice Cream Cellars is a joint project from the man behind Hpnotiq and the co-creator of Skinnygirl. The Birthday Cake flavors are Cake Batter and Strawberry Shortcake (along with Cheesecake) for White wine and…
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The Layer Cake Central Coast Chardonnay 2012 is sourced from vineyards in Monterey (south of San Francisco) and Santa Barbara (just north of Los Angeles) in California. Even though northern California is cooler than southern California, both regions have similar climates due to the influence of the Pacific Ocean, cool breezes and morning fog. Layer Cake…
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Antxiola (pronounced ahn-cho-la) comes to us from the Errasti brothers, owners of Bodegas Zudugarai in Spain. It’s a Txakoli, a very dry, slightly-sparkling, hard-to-pronounce white wine (it’s pronounced chock-o-lee) made with the Hondarrabi grape. Antxiola Hondarrabi 2012 is made with both types of Hondarrabi – 90% Zuri (Basque for white) and 10% Beltza (Basque for…
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I had a meeting at one of my favorite Chicago wine bars recently – BIN36 – and I wanted something “outside the box” – not my usual reds or whites or sparklings or rosés. I said “bring me something weird”! Enoch Shully, BIN36’s beverage guru, did not disappoint. He brought me something from his native…
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The Fortant Hills Reserve Viognier 2012 is sourced from hillside vineyards in the Languedoc comprising three different soil conditions. The Languedoc is located in Southwest France and is the leading wine-producing region in the world, in terms of production. The temperature is hot during the day in the summer, but cool at night. The grape lots…
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The Stellenryck Sauvignon Blanc 2013 is sourced from sustainably farmed vineyards in the Stellenbosch region of the Western Cape of South Africa. Stellenryck is one of Die Bergkelder (The Mountain cellar), a winery/co-op founded in 1968, other labels include Two Oceans and Fleur du Cap. At one time, the Stellenryck wines were only produced…
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The Torres Verdeo 2013 is 100% Verdejo sourced from vineyards in the Rueda DO of Castilla-La Mancha on the west side of central Spain. The brand is Verdeo and the grape is Verdejo which is slightly confusing. Verdejo is the indigenous grape of the Rueda region, they have had Verdejo vineyards in Rueda for 1,000 years….
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The Coppola Director’s Sonoma County Chardonnay 2012 is sourced from vineyards located in several of Sonoma’s 16 sub-AVA’s. There are two Director’s Chardonnay, this one, sourced from all over Sonoma County and another sourced from a single AVA, the Sonoma Coast. The Sonoma County Chard lists for $17 (and is often discounted) the single AVA Sonoma…
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The Coppola Diamond Collection Sauvignon Blanc 2013 is 90.6% Sauvignon Blanc, 6% Chardonnay and 3.5% Semillon (Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon are the White wine blend of Bordeaux) sourced from vineyards in the Alexander Valley AVA and Sonoma County AVA, both sub-AVA’s of the Sonoma County AVA and the Lake County AVA (north of Napa)….
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The Restivo Silver Series Torrontes 2013 is sourced from grapes grown in vineyards near the town of Barrancas in the Maipu district of Mendoza in Argentina. Torrontes is THE White grape of Argentina and it is grown only in Argentina. Mendoza is located in the foothills of the Andes Mountains and its vineyards are…
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The Trader Joe’s Coastal Sauvignon Blanc 2012 is a $4.99 TJ’s exclusive, sourced from grapes grown in California’s Central Coast AVA. Vinted and bottled by Castoro Cellars, who have grown grapes and produced wine in Paso Robles since the early 80s. Vinted and bottled by indicates that Castoro aged the wine and bottled the…
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The 2012 Four Vines Naked Chardonnay is sourced from vineyards in the Santa Barbara County AVA on the southern end of California’s Central Coast AVA. Santa Barbara is about 1 1/2 hours north of Los Angeles in Southern California, but it gets cooling fog in the morning and while the days can be hot, the…
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The 2012 Novas Gran Reserva Sauvignon Blanc is sourced from certified organic vineyards in the San Antonio Valley DO of Chile. Novas means “birth of a star” and is one of Emiliana Vineyards line of 100% sustainably farmed, organically grown wines. Many of the wines from Chile in this price range (lists for $16, but…
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The 2012 Left Foot Charley Pinot Gris is sourced from a 2 acre vineyard (Tale Feathers) in the Old Mission Peninsula AVA near Traverse City on Lake Michigan in Upper Michigan. They have been growing grapes on the Peninsula since 1870, but didn’t really get serious about it until the 1970s. The Old Mission Peninsula…
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The 2013 Legaris Verdejo is 100% Verdejo sourced from vineyards in the Province of Valladolid inside the Rueda DO in northwest central Spain near Portugal. Verdejo is THE grape of Rueda and has been grown in the region for over 1,000 years. This Verdejo was fermented in stainless steel vats, then racked (racking is transferring…
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The 2013 Septima Chardonnay is sourced from (50%) two areas in the Uco Vally (one of the elite growing regions in Argentina) and (50%) vineyards near the region of Agrelo in the Lujan de Cuyo district inside the larger Mendoza grape growing area of Argentina. One thing I commonly hear when people talk about Chardonnay is that they do not…
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The 2013 Raimat Albariño is sourced from two sustainably farmed Raimat estate vineyards in the Costers del Segre DO, just west of Barcelona in Spain. This is a young wine, with only a small amount of aging, “on lees,” in stainless steel tanks and is intended to be consumed within 2 years of release. “On lees”…
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