What We Talk About When We Talk About Wine! A rare chance to slip inside the crimson rope and be an oeno-fly on the wall for Paul Draper-led tasting sessions at both Monte Bello and Lytton Springs, in the company… Read More ›
Kyle Theriot
Building The 2012 Monte Bello: Part II
We’ve just completed the second round of the Monte Bello Assemblage Tasting, and the blend is in! It was quite a remarkable tasting; somewhat unique in its architecture, as compared to some past editions, in that it was essentially divided… Read More ›
Assemblage Monte Bello: A Pictorial Remembrance
It was a truly beautiful morning; ripe with promise, alive with anticipation, resplendent with resplendence. For events of this scale, we park our own cars well out of the way, high above the vines. The walk down in the morning,… Read More ›
#VineWatch13: Week 12 = BUDBREAK!!!
There are few moments along a growing season’s viticultural timeline that generate the same kind of excitement as budbreak. Veraison, certainly. Harvest, of course. But budbreak comes first, and with it comes Spring, and accordingly, it occupies a uniquely symbolic place. In the… Read More ›
The Monte Bello Collector Component Tasting In Pictures, Praise, and Prose …
We don’t do a great many events in any given year up here on our mountain, so when we do stage them, we try to thoroughly imbue them with all the passion and gravitas our four-sizes-that-day wine-hearts can muster. Our… Read More ›
Beauty Is A Rare Thing: Building the 2012 Monte Bello
I was early, by intention. I wanted to absorb the air, the space, the mojo. Ghosts of Shamans past — silken-shadowed, proud and twirling — wove the naked canes with threads of dripping gossamer. In my car, the metal murmuring… Read More ›
#VineWatch13: Week 6! (Pruning!)
Ah, big doings up here on the hill, our Monte Bello vine has had a hair cut! It was quite exciting actually, as our vine was pruned as part of an annual ritual of great significance; the morning that our… Read More ›
