Stories | Crush
No Joke
Published Feb. 17, 2010
On Saturday, February 6, Mike and Linda McWilliams celebrated their one-year anniversary as owners of San Pasqual Winery. The brand itself dates back to the early ’70s, when a lawyer, Mickey Fredman, and a judge, Charlie ...
Burgundies on the Block
Published Jan. 20, 2010
I have no idea if it’s any kind of leading economic indicator, but according to Amanda Keston, director of client services for the newly formed Spectrum Wine Auctions, “The wine-auction market has turned the corner. I ...
Close to the Source
Published Feb. 25, 2009
Born to Americans living in England, Marc Hashagen grew up in Great Gidding, a farming village in Cambridgeshire. “A hundred houses, one pub, one butcher,” he recalls. “The public bus would come through on Wednesdays; when ...
A Charmed Life
Published Jan. 28, 2009
Anthony Terlato — importer, distributor, marketer, and now winery owner — never intended to write a book about his life in the wine business. He ... More Post a comment
Hedonistic
Published Dec. 24, 2008
The line, maybe 400 people long, ran back along Seventh Avenue from the entrance to the Hillcrest Whole Foods. An unusual sight for a winemaker ... More Post a comment
Rebel to Vintner
Published Nov. 26, 2008
I can't tell you how it came to pass that the Italian winemakers Mario Schiopetto, Giacomo Bologna, and Maurizio Zanella joined Italian gastronomic giant Luigi ... More Post a comment
Look How Cool It Is!
Published Oct. 29, 2008
The San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival turns five this year and continues to draw light from ever-brighter stars in the foodie firmament. This ... More Post a comment
Raise the Bar
Published Sept. 24, 2008
"I figured there would be a lot of riesling. That’s why I brought a chardonnay – but it’s a different sort of Australian chardonnay, the ... More Post a comment
Reviving Merlot
Published Aug. 27, 2008
“I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!” — Miles, a Pinot Noir fan, in the film Sideways. Miles was that reviled thing: a tremendous, unabashed wine ... More Post a comment
Enter VinVillage
Published July 30, 2008
For Rob Barnett, the long and winding road to VinVillage is finally coming to an end. The technical snags for his wine-based social-networking site — ... More Post a comment
For Love
Published June 25, 2008
The San Diego winemaker tour continues. This month, Costa Brava in Pacific Beach played host to Spanish winemaking icon Alejandro Fernández and his representatives from ... More Post a comment
A Little Bit Anti-California
Published May 28, 2008
Eric Van Drunen was curious. Once, back in New Mexico, he had owned his own small business. Now, here in San Diego, he thought it ... More Post a comment
Seven Sensualities
Published April 30, 2008
San Diego’s social status is ascendant. Of course, you knew that already — you live here. You’ve eaten in the new restaurants, drunk in the ... More Post a comment
Wine Machine
Published April 23, 2008
There is perhaps no finer marketing machine in all the wine world than the one that operates out of Champagne. (You don’t get to be ... More Post a comment
Back in Time
Published April 9, 2008
The La Mesa library recently placed California Wine a Sunset Pictorial, published in 1973 and edited by the estimable Bob Thompson, in a cardboard box ... More Post a comment
Finely Aged, Well Engineered
Published April 2, 2008
Erica Martenson is not a scientist. Rather, she is a gardener. In her big backyard in Napa, she says, she has “several fruit trees and ... More Comments (5)
Frankenyeast
Published March 26, 2008
File Under: Fiction Is Good for You. I was reading Peter May’s crime novel The Critic, which took as a dramatic starting point the murder ... More Comment (1)
Ordinary Mortals
Published March 19, 2008
‘When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” That line, from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, serves as part of the ... More Post a comment
Exotic Fraternity
Published March 12, 2008
Oh, now this is a fun idea for a story: an American wine critic — one of those make-it-or-break-it critics in the mold of Robert ... More Comment (1)
Up with Riesling
Published March 5, 2008
‘Why don’t you write a book about wine?” You write about a subject long enough — nine years here at “Crush” — and you’re bound ... More Post a comment
Team Blend
Published Feb. 27, 2008
Don’t misunderstand — Robert Baizer is glad he went to Sundance. He had a lovely time — made even lovelier by the happy reception accorded ... More Post a comment
Riskiest Money
Published Feb. 20, 2008
J. Todd Harris is a movie producer. That means that he gets films made. “I’m just like any other guy that goes and tries to ... More Post a comment
Thin Skinned
Published Feb. 13, 2008
By now, most people with even a passing interest in wine have heard of the Sideways effect: a movie takes Pinot Noir as a central ... More Post a comment
Jarhead Red
Published Feb. 6, 2008
"First to Fight for Right and Freedom," reads the title of the big military print on the tasting room wall at Carlsbad Wine Merchants. The ... More Post a comment
Underserviced
Published Jan. 30, 2008
Portland didn’t agree with marketing VP Kathy Bankerd. Her employers at the tech company InFocus had moved her up north and bought her a house, ... More Post a comment
Boutique Bubblings
Published Jan. 23, 2008
The hills across the road from Steve Chapin’s Temecula vineyards — situated out past the tourist-friendly wineries and a short hop from Lake Skinner — ... More Post a comment
Improve on Nature
Published Jan. 16, 2008
‘Cork is random,” observes Michael Friedman, CEO for Oneo Closures North America. “It’s a plant. When you punch a cork out of a piece of ... More Post a comment
No Perfect Closure
Published Jan. 9, 2008
"Most of the cork industry is essentially in denial,” says Michael Friedman, CEO for Oneo Closures North America. “It’s done a few things to try ... More Post a comment
At the Cusp
Published Jan. 2, 2008
By the time Dan Berger joined the San Diego Union in 1979, he was already doing double-duty as a sportswriter and wine columnist. (Today, after ... More Post a comment
Genius Oddballs
Published Dec. 27, 2007
Remember Cabernet? King Cab? Remember how Tony Soter used to have a hand in crafting outstanding Cabernets (and Cabernet blends) at places like Chappellet, Spottswoode, ... More Post a comment
Power + Elegance = Balance
Published Dec. 20, 2007
In 1977, Robert Benson published Great Winemakers of California, a series of interviews with the men (and one woman) who were shaping the industry at ... More Post a comment
Double-Edged Sword
Published Dec. 13, 2007
Like so many of his illustrious predecessors in the wine-writing business, Paul Lukacs has a day job. But unlike, say, Gerald Asher or Kermit Lynch, ... More Post a comment
Crush
Published Dec. 6, 2007
'I was in bed this morning, thinking about chocolate," said Foppiano Vineyards representative Susan Valera. "Back in the '60s, when it came to wine, you ... More Post a comment
Foodie Appeal
Published Nov. 29, 2007
The San Diego Bay Wine and Food Festival debuted in 2004, the brainchild of veteran local event planners Ken Loyst and Michelle Metter. The two ... More Post a comment
Born to Host
Published Nov. 21, 2007
'Iwas born to host," says Wine Cabana owner Keith Frantz. It's a calling with a simple enough first premise: "When somebody comes to your house, ... More Post a comment
Blue Streak
Published Nov. 15, 2007
For the past couple of weeks, I've been marveling over Courtney Cochran's blitz on the wine business -- sommelier, list consultant, author, hostess, teacher, blogger...building ... More Post a comment
The Naked Sommelier
Published Nov. 8, 2007
Courtney Cochran wants to be Sommelier to the Millennials, the voice of wine to her recently legal generation -- children of the Boomers for whom ... More Post a comment
Tool Kit
Published Nov. 1, 2007
"I was an English major as an undergrad," says Courtney Cochran, a young woman on a quest to brand herself as wine's ambassador to the ... More Post a comment
American Dream Come True
Published Oct. 25, 2007
It is perhaps a touch counterintuitive to picture a wine legend in his pajamas, especially when he is sitting across from you, dressed neatly in ... More Post a comment
Great Palates
Published Oct. 18, 2007
Pity the waitstaff. After decades of automatically offering the wine list to the gentleman at the table, of showing him the bottle, of pouring him ... More Post a comment
The Joy of Aging
Published Oct. 11, 2007
You can still get an ice-cream cookiewich out of the freezer case at Bob's Fine Wine & Liquors in San Clemente. You can still get ... More Post a comment
The Moon Makes the Earth Breathe
Published Oct. 4, 2007
Philippe Coderey was having liver trouble. His doctor thought it might be an effect of alcoholism, but Coderey wasn't an alcoholic. "Finally, we started to ... More Post a comment
Garden Project
Published Sept. 27, 2007
'Consider the egg. When I was a boy on Staten Island, hens ate grit and grasshoppers and scraps from the table and whatever they could ... More Post a comment
Saucy Upstart
Published Sept. 20, 2007
Elizabeth David made her name writing about food, not wine. Nevertheless, hers is the first entry in 1962's Compleat Imbiber, Volume Five, the discovery of ... More Post a comment
Imbiber's Bible
Published Sept. 13, 2007
One of the great pleasures of going on vacation is browsing another city's used bookstores. I recently spent a blissful hour at the Bookery in ... More Post a comment
Magic in a Bottle
Published Sept. 6, 2007
La Jolla-based wine educator Barbara Baxter counts among the highlights of her life the time Robert Mondavi kissed her on the cheek. "I didn't wash ... More Post a comment
France Meets California
Published Aug. 16, 2007
There's a wonderful moment in the early pages of Lawrence Osborne's wine memoir The Accidental Connoisseur that has stayed with me. Osborne has paid a ... More Post a comment
Backyard Bounty
Published Aug. 9, 2007
I'm standing in William Holzhauer's hilltop backyard in Ramona, looking out over his soon-to-be-finished winery and surveying the surrounding scene. He points to a nearby ... More Post a comment
Passion vs. Permits
Published Aug. 2, 2007
It's one of the oldest saws in the business, but it still cuts: if you want to make a small fortune in wine, start with ... More Post a comment
Spanish Horses, Spanish Wine
Published July 26, 2007
'I found that there was money in growing grapes," says William Holzhauer, recalling his first investigations into the production end of the wine business. "But ... More Post a comment
Dream Come True
Published July 19, 2007
William Holzhauer spent 20 months in a POW camp in Cambodia during the Vietnam War. "While I was there," he recalls, "I dreamed of places. ... More Post a comment
Local Only
Published July 12, 2007
Therese Gotfredson has been around the Ramona wine scene since before Bill Jenkin and Frank Karlsson got together and hatched the notion of Ramona Vintner's ... More Post a comment
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