When John Shafer uprooted his family in 1973 in Chicago and relocated to the Napa Valley, nobody – including Shafer – figured he would develop one of California’s greatest wineries. That is the story behind “A Vineyard...

By most accounts, 2012 was a year of moving forward in the Pacific Northwest wine industry. After two difficult vintages, the weather cooperated in 2012 with what is expected to be a record-sized crop. New leaders entered...

A fair bit of wine writing can be rather uninspiring, whether it’s a review of wine one might never taste or a story about visiting a winery. So it is a true pleasure to read beautifully written...

Inevitably, this is the time of year most people think about sparkling wine, thanks to holiday parties and New Year’s Eve celebrations. It’s also about time we say to ourselves, “This is delicious. I should drink sparkling...

Between all the bubbles, the special methods for opening the bottle and the unusual glasses, sparkling wine can appear much more complicated than it really needs to be. And why should we call it sparkling wine instead...

If history is any indication, there will unlikely be a winter freeze anytime soon in Washington wine country. Washington’s Columbia Valley offers superb growing conditions for European wine grapes: warm days that are filled with sunshine, almost...

From the heart of Washington wine country, a merry Christmas.

Washington State University‘s $23 million Wine Science Center continues to march forward, with the organization that will run its construction now seeking design-build proposals. The Wine Science Center will be built at the WSU Tri-Cities campus, in...

Christmas Eve is the last chance for wineries to enter the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition, the largest wine judging in North America. The competition is held in Cloverdale, Calif., in northern Sonoma County during the second...

As the Washington wine industry continues to grow, so too does the occupation of grape growing. The annual convention of the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers (WAWGG, pronounced “wag”) is Feb. 5-8. It’s at the Three Rivers...