Four glasses of white wine were before me. I only was told that they were Chardonnay, one from each of four brands of Bogle Family Wine Collection, including their latest, Element[al]. I was asked to pick the Element[al], the first brand of wines in the country...

      Ron Mansfield, who nearly 50 years ago saw on Apple Hill the potential for crops other than apples, died Sunday after a long siege with Parkinson’s Disease. He was 76. In 1980, he and his wife Carolyn founded Goldbud Farms in what is known as both...

  Again, and again, the phrase popped up at the recent Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento: “Wine in moderation.” Never within my earshot, however, did anyone say what that means, or if “wine in moderation” were to materialize what it would mean for...

  In recent years, my role at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition in Cloverdale has been to write tasting notes on best-of-class wines. This year’s competition attracted 5500 entries organized into 177 classes. That’s too many classes to taste and to...

Since 1981, Gail Skoff has been strolling through the vineyards and ducking into the wine cellars of France and Italy. She has had the opportunity to taste the most esteemed wines from many of the continent’s more exciting estates. But she hasn’t done it, or if she...

  Livestock exhibits, bull riding, barbecue and concerts are longtime staples of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Over the past two decades, wine also has carved out a significant role for itself at the exposition, with about 80,000 bottles opened in the...