by Winepisser | Apr 28, 2018 | Full Article
Totally out of the blue I received an invite for an invent at a local micro-winery in San Juan de Lurigancho, a district outside of Lima Peru. I wasn’t even aware of Bodega y Viñedos Candela, and certainly had never tried any of their wines, but suddenly I was...
by Winepisser | Apr 28, 2018 | Full Article
Faced with a business trip to Texas — shudder — I opted to make the week a bit brighter by stocking up on some German rieslings to test against each other. I intentionally chose three budget reezies, each at $15 or less. These are readily available in the...
by Winepisser | Jan 14, 2018 | Full Article
Recently I reviewed two vastly different wines that suffered from a similarly horrible problem: they tasted like utter garbage, as if someone had bottled the water used to put out a dumpster fire. The first was a Trapiche Varietales Sauvignon Blanc 2011 from...
by Winepisser | Jan 1, 2018 | Full Article
It was slow going last year, with a struggle to find some 5-star winners until mid-year, but 2018 hit the road running. The very first wine tasted nailed a coveted cinco! Meet the Errazuriz Estate Series Carmenère 2013 from Chile, a budget carmy that will absolutely...
by Winepisser | Dec 27, 2017 | Full Article
The third annual Winepisser Best Wine Award goes to Alvear’s Pedro Ximénez de Añada 2014, a fantastic dessert wine that my original review boldly claimed didn’t need dessert because it was the dessert. Let’s get this out of the way first, as I am sure some...
by Winepisser | Dec 22, 2017 | Full Article
For the past two years, Winepisser has reveled in its negative reviews of wines — hell, snark is in our site’s name — but we hadn’t given the really terrible wines their due at the end of the year, during award season. This year we launch a new...
by Winepisser | Dec 13, 2017 | Full Article
We’re heading into the final weeks of 2017, which means an announcement is quickly forthcoming for this years Winepisser Best Wine award. The contenders so far are a wild, rambling mix of whites and reds, dry and sweet, including — for the first time...
by Winepisser | Oct 15, 2017 | Full Article
Meet Hugel Gentil 2015, a Gewurztraminer blend from France’s Alsace region. My very first Winepisser post praised Hugel, a winery I have been familiar with for nearly 15 years, and which will likely be my favorite winery of all time when I shuffle this mortal...
by Winepisser | Oct 8, 2017 | Full Article
I get it. Cork rots. It leaks air. It’s unreliable. It makes no sense from a simple manufacturing standpoint. I mean, I really get it. In my day job, I’m an aerospace quality consultant, having worked with companies such as Lufthansa, Northrup Grumman,...
by Winepisser | Oct 3, 2017 | Full Article
Generally, 2017 started off pretty terribly, with not a single wine winning 5 stars until March, when Joh. Jos. Prüm’s 2012 Graacher Hehimmelreich Spätlese earned a cinco, and even that was easy, since I’m a fan of the German reezies. And then it wasn’t...
by Winepisser | Oct 3, 2017 | Full Article
Red blends are really amazing these days, as winemaking becomes more technologically savvy and producers have better predictive abilities of what may result from a little mixing and matching. This fantastic blend of 54% Malbec, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon and 6% Petite...
by Winepisser | Sep 21, 2017 | Full Article
Normally we hold the word “syrupy” as a pejorative, hinting at cough medicine or sickeningly sugary prison wine. I’m a fan of dessert wine, and at the same time have encountered my fair share of syrupy garbage that is sold as such, so I’m tuned...
by Winepisser | Sep 20, 2017 | Full Article
We placed this into a mano a mano battle versus Argentina’s Zuccardi Q 2012 offering, and it was a close match. Eventually, however, this Protos Ribera del Duero Roble 2015 won out, largely on the basis of is perfect tannin balance and playfully misleading nose....
by Winepisser | Sep 19, 2017 | Full Article
Dr. Loosen won a five-star review for its 2014 Kabinett Riesling last year, and got praise for other selections, including it’s reliably great Blue Slate offering, which I’m drinking as I write this. But this Beerenauslese dessert reez earns the good...
by Winepisser | Sep 1, 2017 | Full Article
My aerospace travels took me, of all places, to Redmond WA, literally pissing distance from the godawful Chateau Ste. Michelle winery where, if there weren’t so many damned cameras around these days, I probably would have literally pissed on the building. And...
by Winepisser | Aug 31, 2017 | Full Article
OK, so how many Winepisser readers enjoy a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which has been rubbed in celery salt and truffle oil? Not many I expect. What about a fine filet mignon that has been cooked to perfection and then soaked in the leftover milk from a bowl of...
by Winepisser | Jun 22, 2017 | Full Article
I’m an unabashed fanboy of anything coming out of the producers Hugel et Fils, from the Alsace region of France. My first tasting was at an exclusive Hugel-only event in Orlando many years ago, pairing some of their fantastic Gewurztraminer with remarkable...
by Winepisser | Jun 21, 2017 | Full Article
This wine should get extra points just for the outlandish winemaker’s notes on Vivino. I’m not sure if they translated the original text using a ventriloquist dummy with its mouth filled with socks, or if they just drank too much of the stuff beforehand,...
by Winepisser | Mar 18, 2017 | Full Article
It’s been a drab year so far, and we are already in March without much great wine to talk about. Your Winepisser has tasted a slew of whites lately (middling sauvignon blancs, a few lackluster pinot grigios, and a ton of crappy chardonnay) as well as a moderate...
by Winepisser | Jan 2, 2017 | Full Article
The rising star in New World wines is Uruguay, and this year’s prestigious Winepisser Best Wine award goes to a fantastic Tannat out of Carmelo, produced by winery Narbona. As our original February 2016 review pointed out, this is a meaty wine, in all the senses...
by Winepisser | Nov 29, 2016 | Full Article
As I’ll be writing shortly, for whatever reason 2016 has been the year of the New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc at Winepisser. Despite this, no NZ SB has made our five-star list, and you’d think one was due. This trend remains true as we announce our latest...
by Winepisser | Nov 10, 2016 | Full Article
Here’s a first: a wine tasted previously that gets revisited and upgraded to a full five stars. If that’s not particularly odd, consider this: it’s from Ica Peru, where wine is best served for use in Molotov cocktails or burning someone in effigy....
by Winepisser | Sep 18, 2016 | Full Article
Through some grace of Fortune, I found myself traveling to Orlando and stuck in a hotel over the weekend, right during Walt Disney World’s 2016 Food and Wine Festival at Epcot. Oh, yeah. I hit the thing mad early, even before it opened, and was immediately...
by Winepisser | Aug 31, 2016 | Full Article
Never having been much on red blends, if years ago you had told me last year’s Winepisser Best Wine award would have gone to a blend (Apothic Red won), I would have scoffed. Now we see another Cally blend hitting the 5-star mark here at Winepisser, with DOAU...
by Winepisser | Aug 31, 2016 | Full Article
Heaven only serves Ch. Megyer Tokaji Aszú to its best clientele, and this 5 puttonyo masterpiece is reserved for the archangels. In a recent interview with God, I asked Him why his firmament elected to serve Megyer, and he immediately slapped me in the face. God,...
