Recent content by Beachdragon007

Napa / Sonoma - Average once or twice per year. Great value and unwinding time. Flights are relatively cheap to SFO, and you can find nice house rentals if you share with other couples. Hotels are $$$, but the Sonoma Marriott is awe inspiring.

Pics from NAPA / SONOMA trip last week. Learned alot, drank some great wines, drank a few not so good ones too. Incredible variation in wine making techniques, equipment, etc. Very interesting to see that more and more wine makers are moving away from traditional barrels to "alternate oak...

Super wine. Easy to drink, lots of character. My current batch is almost ready to bottle.

Edited by: Beachdragon007

Two or three locations for the taste research. I think one was winepress.

Here's what I found on the "KT" issue. KT is a sweet, candylike taste/smell which is thought to originate from nonfermentable sugars formed during the process of pasteurization and concentration of grape juice for kits. It has been described as "like grape Jolly Ranchers". There is a wide range...

I live in Ponte Vedra Beach. It's between Jacksonville and St. Augustine. Here's a picture of me and Hank Wetzel, of Alexander Valley Vineyards. He's extremely cool, and a hell of a wine maker. If you get a chance, pick up Sin Zin for $20, or their incredible Cyrus blend usually at $80...

Congratulations! The only thing I ever got for my wine is purple teeth.

There once was a grape called muscadine whose juice was the sweetest you've seen it had sugar like cake and made your head ache but it kept your kidneys quite clean.

I just checked my wine storage. 158 bottles of california, italian, spanish, and new zealand's $10-50 offernings. (And a few gems hiddedn here and there). I'm going to add oak to the carboy and age for 1 year prior to release.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I've been seriously drinking wine for about 4 years now. My fiance and I were introduced to greatat the Stratosphere restaurant in Vegas... We keep a log (notice the little book I hold) of each wine I drink, the qualities, value, and details like that. I'm...