“The best wines are those that take you through themselves and out into another world that you could not have gotten to on your own. Great wine has a strange subterranean current of beauty. It… Continue reading

“Pinotage is what happens when you leave the lovely Pinot Noir in a room with Bill Cosby—an offspring to avoid.”

“No! We’ve only been growing cab franc here for 900 years. There is still so much to learn.”

“It takes me twelve minutes to eat a good plate of food and two hours to drink a good bottle of wine, so who cares about the food?”

“Saying you had a bad vintage of Napa Valley wine is like saying you had a bad truffle.”

“Wine needs to have life–both aliveness in the glass, and a long life ahead of it.”

“To ride the chaos of harvest is to feel the adrenaline, risk and rush of Nature in ways that few people ever get to experience. There are days you get home, and you know for… Continue reading

“When a cabernet sauvignon is unbalanced, it’s cassis poured into vodka.”

“Oak should fit into a wine like a shoulder pad in a coat–barely there. But if the guy is too scrawny or the shoulder pad is too big, the whole thing looks stupid.”

“The beauty of great wine is revealed not by adding adornment, but by removing it.”

“One of the interesting things about viticulture is that everybody needs each other. There’s great respect among vintners and winemakers. At this point in history, the wine industry is a unique culture.”

“I liken making pinot noir to waking up a woman at three in the morning. You never quite know what you’re going to get.”