Subject: Vineyards and Winemakers

• Two-Buck Chuck Means Competitors

  August 7, 2008

• Cellar Rat wants you to taste for a cure

  October 23, 2008

• Jefferson Cup Invitational happening under your nose

  By OWEN MORRIS I stopped by the Jefferson Cup Invitational yesterday. It's one of the premier wine judging competitions in the country, and it just happens to take place right here in Kansas City (at Starlight Theater this year). As luck would have it, I arrived just as the event's volunteers had finished serving judges and were now serving themselves. "We've poured over 2,100 glasses of wine today and hardly broke anything," said Matt Nevinger, head of the volunteers and founder Doug Frost'

  November 21, 2008

• ODV: much more than wine

  When I blogged about ODV yesterday, it was my first I'd heard of the wine group. I was intrigued enough by its Web site to stop by The Drop and find out what this self-proclaimed "unpretentious" wine group was about. A hundred or so people turned out last night, but that's where the similarities to a normal wine event ended. Not one sommelier or wannabe sommelier was present and nobody seemed particularly zealous about discussing wine. It turns out ODV has little to do with wine and lots to do w

  December 18, 2008

• Coming soon: vintage wine over night

  This next invention will change our culinary lives. Not in a two-bit way like the Magic Chopper has, but in the way microwaves or refrigerators did.Scientists have stumbled across a way to make the cheapest of cheap wine taste like a vintage pinot grown in the heart of Burgundy.It's an outlandish claim and people have been hawking various gizmos that promise to do the same thing for years, but this time it's respected scientists who have figured out a method that works -- and to prove it, they f

  December 29, 2008

• Best Day Trip

  October 9, 2003

• Taste for the Cure

  October 23, 2008

• Bottle Shock

  August 14, 2008

• Made in Missouri

  August 10, 2006

• Creative Bliss 2006 Sponsors

  March 30, 2006

• More to do tonight: wine dinner at 1924 Main

  There's already a beer movie and a bourbon tasting tonight so why not a wine dinner to complete the booze trifecta? Readers of our Pitch Forks newsletter already know that starting at 6:30 tonight, 1924 Main hosts a wine dinner with Oscar Renteria of Renteria Winery.Renteria is a second-generation wine maker. His father, Salvador Renteria, was a Mexican immigrant who worked as a barber and pool-hall hustler before moving to California and becoming a vineyard farm hand. After years in the busines

  April 16, 2009

• The Grapes of Mirth

  Jonathan Nossiter's wine documentary is subversive, funny and humane.

  June 30, 2005

• Wine Makes Us Wet

  For a state that still clings to its dry past, Kansas makes surprisingly good wine. But don’t try to ship it.

  September 30, 2004

• Missouri wines bring home the gold

  Look who's racking up the wins in national and even international competitions. None other than several regional wineries.St. James Winery, about an hour south of Columbia, Missouri, returned from the 16th annual Monterey Wine Competition with three double-gold medals and one gold, for chardonel, concord dessert wine, strawberry wine and country red wine respectively. Flickr: Capn Madd MattThree Missouri wineries and a Kansas winery also took home hardware from California's 2009 Jerry Mead

  April 20, 2009

• Kansas says bring on the booze

  Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has been busy lately. She signed 12 new bills into law yesterday. Hidden in the middle of the press release her office sent out was Senate Bill 212, "an act concerning alcoholic beverages" and more specifically, "concerning shipment of wines."Let's take a closer look at the eight-page bill (PDF), which significantly changes the wine-law landscape in Kansas.

  April 21, 2009

• The fascinating fate of Two-Buck Chuck

  This week's edition of the New Yorker looks at the man who brought America "super-value" wine. Fred Franzia, the C.E.O of Bronco Winery, is a convicted felon (got caught mislabeling grapes) and a politically incorrect cowboy. Unfortunately the entire article is not online, only an abstract. But if you have any interest whatsoever in cheap wine, you should pick up a copy. Among the highlights:-- Franzia keeps his predecessor's ashes in a wine bottle in his trailer office. Yes, he may own more tha

  May 15, 2009

• Natural wine and a hangover, or genetically modified wine and feeling great?

  Love it or hate it, genetically-modified crops are here to stay. You probably eat them all the time but since companies aren't required to state which foods are made with GM seeds instead of natural seeds, it's impossible to know .Now comes ML01, a GM yeast that its creator, a professor at the University of British Columbia named Hennie van Vuuren, claims can cure the headache aspect of the red wine hangover -- and for many white wines too.The science behind the GM yeast is well-known. As Th

  June 11, 2009

• The Sonoma Valleys of the Midwest

  The muddy water of the mighty Mississippi River doesn't immediately conjure up images of wine. But vineyards in four Midwestern states are trying to get their land designated as an official appellation area called the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Appellation law works so that wineries from a certain geographic region can distinguish themselves from wines of another region. Napa, for example, has more than 300 wineries. Those wineries are technically the only ones allowed to use the words "Nap

  June 15, 2009

• Second Saturday in Weston

  February 7, 2008

• The chance to play winemaker

  ​The sun sets over the vineyard where your grapes are growing. They're harvested and pressed before being carefully aged in oak casks. These are the dreams of those who have begun to consider retirement. Well, them, and Korean pop music producers. A recent Bloomberg article visits the Bordeaux vineyard of California-based Crushpad, a custom-wine company that has been helping clients create their own vintages since 2004. The French arm of their do-it-yourself wine operation opened in May of thi

  August 4, 2009

• Should American wines have lot numbers on the bottle?

  ​Buying wine you've never tasted always requires a small leap of faith. You can take the words of a trusted reviewer, consider the points awarded or ask the advice of the wine shop staff. Dr. Vino suggests that the United States might be able to improve consistency and help give wine drinkers more confidence in their purchases if the U.S. followed the lead of the European Union and mandated a lot number be placed on wine labels in an effort to track recalls and consumer complaints. Currently,

  August 5, 2009

• The future of wine? One word: Plastics

  ​Plastics have always been the future, just never the future for wine. But restaurant owners and wineries are apparently reconsidering that position. The Chicago Tribune recently reported on how restaurants are looking to save costs and avoid broken glass by purchasing wine in plastic bottles. Although wine in plastic containers has an expiration date, the lower price is making consumers wonder whether the taste is really different. But according to W.R. Tish, a wine educator who writes a blog

  August 12, 2009

• You're not a man if you don't drink wine

  ​In the face of declining sales, winemakers are starting to market their product to a new group of consumers: men. Theories as to why men don't drink wine are numerous, including the idea that they don't want to be told what to drink. It's also generally accepted that most men know nothing about wine. Wineries have crafted labels and names like Kung Fu Girl, Red Truck and Maximus. Targeted marketing has also led to some unusual sponsorships, like the decision by Bennett Lane Winery (the produ

  August 17, 2009

• Pairing wine and cereal

  ​The finest meals can be happy accidents -- items that were next to each other on a grocery list or the last cans on the pantry shelf. The next time you run out of milk you might find an unlikely substitute in your wine rack! This isn't quite beer in your Cheerios, and you'll definitely want to keep your Merlot separate, but the art of pairing cereal and wine is the last topic on the Wine Library's podcast by Gary Vaynerchuck.He pairs a chardonnay with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a riesling with C

  September 14, 2009

• Doug Frost's new TV gig

    ​It's no surprise to anyone in Fat City that our town's best-known wine expert Doug Frost -- Master Sommelier and America's eighth Master of Wine -- has become a television star. In addition to lecturing and writing about wine, Frost is the host of KCPT-TV's locally produced Check Please! and a featured judge on the newest PBS reality program, The Winemakers (which kicks off a six-episode run tomorrow at 2:30 p.m.). And why shouldn't Frost be a familiar TV face -- long before

  October 9, 2009

• Amazon scraps plans for wine delivery

  ​You won't be getting happy-faced cardboard boxes filled with cases of wine any time soon, because apparently Amazon.com has decided to end its dalliance with wine delivery. After launching a trial program in March 2008, the online retailer has shelved AmazonWine.  The news sent wine blogs into a tizzy about how the promise of widespread access to small-scale wineries never materialized. Vinography contends that financial difficulties at Amazon's potential fulfillment partner, New Vine

  October 26, 2009

• 7-Eleven makes its own wine

  ​America gets blamed for a lot of things, and now we can add to the list 7-Eleven's decision to produce wine. 7-Eleven and 7-Eleven Japan will stock stores with Yosemite Road Chardonnay and Carbernet Sauvignon. The two vintages, produced by The Wine Group, retail for $3.99 in the United States ($4.99 in Florida). From the release: The winning vintners created a Chardonnay, described as fresh and zesty with notes of apricot, peach and honey, and a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon with juicy plum

  November 6, 2009