Wineries Close to Home

It is a lot of fun to visit wineries and taste their wines. If you live in upstate South Carolina, it is an easy weekend trip to the wineries of the Yadkin Valley North Carolina. My wife Cindy and I have done this twice, recently with our friends Denny and Martha. Wineries that we enjoyed were Raffaldini Vineyards, Westbend Vineyards, Flint Hill Vineyards and Shelton Vineyards. The lunch at Childress Vineyards was great but skip the wine tasting- it was expensive and not very good!

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Ken Wright Cellars Pinot Noir Willamette Valley 2018

I was aware of the reputation of Ken Wright Cellars for Willamette Valley Pinot Noir but had never tried one of their wines. The winery is most known for single vineyard Pinot Noirs but their entry level wine is a blend from several vineyards. When I have looked for wine from Ken Wright, I have either found the single vineyard wines costing more than $60 or I have found the entry level Willamette Valley blend priced significantly higher than the $22 price on the winery website. One well known wine shop in downtown Greenville actually sells it for $34. I guess that the wine must be really good to command higher than retail prices. Two things have recently happened. Costco has a Ken Wright premium Pinot Noir for around $40 and Whole Foods Market has the entry level Willamette Valley Pinot Noir on sale for $22 rather than their usual price of $27. I chose the entry level Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and I am sure glad that I did. Ken Wright Willame...

Dragon Vine, a novel by Steven Laine

It has been a year since I have posted to the South Carolina Wine Blog. However, I was provided with an advance copy of the latest novel by Steven Laine entitled Dragon Vine for my review. Mr. Laine writes novels with a wine focused theme and I reviewed Mr. Laine's previous novel Root Cause in 2019, which I greatly enjoyed. The synopsis of Dragon Vine is as follows: When his father dies in a wildfire, Carmine Cooper takes over the family winery in the middle of harvest, putting his dreams of becoming an architect on hold. He soon finds himself fighting with a vengeful neighbor, blackmailed by a local gang, harassed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities, and the target of an ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives) investigation. Carmine’s only hope to solve his problems and finish his first solo vintage successfully rests in identifying an unknown grape variety his father grew and made into wine for a quarter century wit...

d' Autrefois Prestige Pinot Noir France 2017

We are continuing our search for world wine regions with quality wines at value prices. One such region is Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France. This is a large wine producing region stretching along the Mediterranean Sea north of the border with Spain. One third of all wine from France originates from this area but it is not as well known in the US as other regions. Languedoc has a past history of producing low cost bulk wines, but that is changing. Because of this history, the region is less prestigious than other regions and wines can be good quality for less money. Rhone varieties as well as international varieties of grapes are grown in Languedoc. I love Pinot Noir, especially from the Willamette Valley, Oregon. The problem is that good quality Pinot Noir is expensive and I do not judge it to be a good use of my resources to spend $30 or more on an ordinary weeknight for a bottle of wine. So, I am constantly searching for qua...

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