An Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

David White

Napa Valley accounts for less than 4 percent of America’s total wine production. Yet it’s the country’s best-known wine region.

Napa rocketed to the forefront of American winemaking in 1976, when British wine merchant Steven Spurrier organized a wine competition in Paris to pit California‘s best Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon against the [...]

Mondavi Wine Dinner at Octagon

It’s an easy snobbery to dismiss the larger Californian wineries, but true wine aficionados know that some of them were groundbreakers (metaphorically as well as literally), that their high-end wines are apt to be spectacular and that even their mass-produced wines can conceal some pleasant surprises. A case in point was the Robert Mondavi dinner that I attended on August 19th at Octagon in the Mystic Marriott. [...]