Author Archives{jamesknight}

As well as contributing the wine-of-the-week pick to inside-sonoma, James Knight writes the "Swirl 'n' Spit" column for the North Bay Bohemian, Sonoma, Napa, and Marin County's alternative newsweekly. As well as developing an appreciation for aromatic nuances in the genteel atmosphere of the tasting room, he's dragged hoses and traversed vineyards for wineries in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lodi, and Rheinhessen, Germany.

A 5th generation Sonoma County resident, Mr. Knight grew up among visits to wineries, which he thought would make excellent redoubts in the aftermath of seemingly immanent thermonuclear war. Although he first studied wine-like beverages under the tutelage of Bartles and Jaymes, he did not get serious about wine and spirits until, in Portland, Oregon, a freak flu left him with the temporary inability to enjoy beer. Armed with a dog-eared copy of Idwal Jones' Vines in the Sun, he left the rain-sodden city in a '63 Chevy, determined to get back to the land, and grow... potatoes. Several misadventures later, he started a vineyard, in a contrarian gesture to the customary pattern of professional success followed by an easygoing wine country lifestyle.

Mr. Knight has permanently reserved spaces in his heart - or on his palate - for amazing Zinfandel, good Riesling, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, and persists in believing that Syrah and Grenache and blends thereof may provide some of the more exciting wines of the near future, or the one after that.

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Hawley 2005 Dry Creek Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

3 months ago in Wine of the Week.0 Comments

Sonoma County wineries are not special in at least this one detail: Every other tasting room has a “Winery Dogs” book for sale or on display, featuring a big portrait of their faithful pooch in coffee-table style. There’s Wine Dogs (including Robert Parker winery dog rating system), Winery Dogs of Sonoma, and Winery Dogs Gone Wild. Just kidding on that {…}

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Jack London Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon

4 months ago in Wine of the Week.0 Comments

The Jack London Vineyard is a beautiful property perched on the foot of Sonoma Mountain. It’s easy to imagine the author surveying the rolling green waves of grapevines as he wrote the following salute in 1913, as reproduced on the back label of Jack London Vineyard wines: “I ride over my beautiful ranch. Between my legs is a beautiful horse. {…}

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Stonestreet Cabernet Offers a Taste of Place

4 months ago in Tasting Rooms.0 Comments

The Alexander Valley is known for Cabernet Sauvignon, and justly so. The grapes ripen easily here, among the hottest of Sonoma County appellations, and the vines sink their roots into ancient gravel beds deposited by the Russian River as it indecisively meandered across the valley throughout the eons. But it’s the mountains that loom above the valley that have lured {…}

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Ring in the New Year with Sparkling Korbel Champagne

4 months ago in Wine of the Week.0 Comments

Many times I’ve been an advocate for the go-for-broke approach to New Year’s Eve festivities, but after the holiday shopping has been done, many of us find ourselves, well, broke. Fortunately, few people sweat the bubbly, as long as it goes “pop,” and a cheap bottle grabbed on the way to the party usually does the trick. But is there {…}

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Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvée 2004

4 months ago in Wine of the Week.1 Comment

Pop the Sparkling Wine Before New Year’s Eve You’ll notice that wine scribes everywhere are keen to advocate the wider use of sparkling wine, and perennially decry the narrow notion that it’s only a once-a-year kind of treat. You’ll also notice that at year’s end, they suck it up and churn out the obligatory “sparkling wine for New Year’s Eve!” {…}

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Dungeness Crab Pot Pie from the Sonoma Coast

5 months ago in Recipes.1 Comment

Helena’s Crab Pot Pie Makes four portions Filling: 1/4 Cup Chopped Yellow Onion 3 Tbsp. Fine Sliced Fennel 1/4 Cup Corn Kernels 3 Tbsp. Butter 4 Tbsp. All Purpose Flour 2 Cups Milk 1 Lbs. Cooked Crab Meat 1 Tbsp. Finely Grated Lemon Peel 2 Tbsp. Chopped Fresh Dill Salt and Black Pepper to Taste Sauté onion, fennel and corn {…}

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Truett Hurst Winery shows off Biodynamic roots

5 months ago in Tasting Rooms, Wine of the Week.0 Comments

While organic and Biodynamic farming is still perceived by some as a risky endeavor, who would have thought that the challenges would include belligerent sheep? When one of Truett Hurst Winery’s sheep – normally a docile sort – went errant in the parking lot, and decided that a visitor’s Lexus was its blood enemy, it went on the attack. Presumably {…}

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Open a Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Riesling for Thanksgiving

5 months ago in Wine of the Week.0 Comments

You know the holidays have arrived when San Francisco’s public radio station KQED announces that “This hour of news has been sponsored by Martinelli’s sparkling cider (no relation to Sonoma County’s makers of fine wine, Martinelli Winery).” The plug promises all the bubbles of champagne, but without the alcohol. That’s a fine, sweet and refreshing non-alcoholic compliment to the traditional {…}

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Freestone Vineyards 2009 Fogdog Sonoma Coast Chardonnay

6 months ago in Wine of the Week.1 Comment

It’s tempting sometimes to describe a wine more by what it isn’t than what it is, a pitfall that I often stumble into. It might be dismayingly unhelpful to the makers of wine, for one, and it’s a kind of backhanded smear on the other, nameless wines, entirely undeserved. I could say, for instance, that this isn’t a big, butterball {…}

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De Loach 2009 Russian River Valley Pinot

6 months ago in Wine of the Week.2 Comments

If you enjoy Pinot Noir without a thought or care for swirling controversy about alcohol percentages and tiffs over terroir, then bully for you. You must not be of that persnickety ilk, the wine writer—or heaven forbid, blogger. Concurrent with the rise of big, ripe Pinot that is fashioned from long hang-times and cellar practices both real and imagined, has {…}