This is my fiftieth year to write of wine, mostly California wine, and mostly wines from enclaves about the state capital, Sacramento, where my wife Martha and I have lived most of those 50 years. To mark that half century – and to give myself something to do during enforced isolation between 2020 and 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic – I wrote a book. With any luck, it will be in the market by the year-end holidays.
The book’s title is “The Signature Wines of Superior California: 50 Wines That Define the Sierra Foothills, The Delta, Yolo and Lodi.” My original goal was to tell the story of how the Sacramento area’s wine culture has developed over the past half century through wines that represent the character, quality and value that the region has to offer. After selecting and writing about the 50 wines, I realized that they didn’t tell the story as thoroughly as I had hoped at the outset. They needed more context. As a consequence, about a year ago I dug further into the region’s wine history to develop introductory sections based on the many American Viticultural Areas around Sacramento. That chore completed, I now am more pleased with the package and look forward to the first edition rolling off the press.
I conceived this website in large part to help market “The Signature Wines of Superior California.” But I also want to use this platform to continue to write of wine more broadly. Wine continues to intrigue me, not just for the wine itself but for issues surrounding it and for the people responsible for bringing it to our tables. I have enjoyed telling the tales of grape growers and winemakers, and will continue to do that here through a range of approaches. I continue to join wine competitions as a judge and will use this platform to report on lessons learned from that circuit. I continue to travel to wine regions, mostly in the American West but elsewhere in the country and beyond, and, again, will report here on discoveries there.
My 50 years in writing of wine began when I was a reporter and editor with The Amador Dispatch in Jackson, after which I spent 30 years with The Sacramento Bee, retiring as food editor, restaurant critic and wine columnist. For more than a decade in retirement I continued to contribute a wine column to The Bee. I still write occasional freelance pieces for various publications and platforms, but most of my writing going forward will land here.
So, what is a “signature wine?” In addition to the above-mentioned character, quality and value, a “signature wine” represents strongly, boldly and lyrically aspiration, tradition, personality or place, or all of that. It captures the essence of what I look for in wine, whether tasted blind during a competition or with a bottle right before me during dinner. The wine should be forthright, layered, and evolving, inviting me back and revealing ever more sides of the story it has to tell, stories that I will tell here in ways I hope are entertaining, provocative and helpful.