The Best Winery Lots of people go out wine tasting with Grapeline every year. More than 25,000 in fact. It seems they all want to know the same thing, because the most frequent question to Grapeline hosts is this... What's the best winery? I talked with several Grapeline hosts, and now I know the answer. Do you want to know? Of course you do. You're just like those other 25,000 people. The answer, it turns out, is that there is no best Winery. I know that answer is like a "fly in your Chardonnay." But hear me out. One host explained to me that people go to wineries for so many different ... Continue reading...

Last year, our Sonoma Valley wine region experienced devastating fires. Our hearts broke as many of our partners, friends, and co-workers faced the unthinkable. But now, our hearts swell with pride at how the people of Sonoma have banded together and come back stronger than ever. . Kim and I have a deep love for every wine country region in California. Those valleys are our “happy places," and Grapeline exists because of a desire to share those experiences with others. We want to do everything we can to help Sonoma get back on its feet, and that’s how our “Sonoma Series” was born. Last month, ... Continue reading...

Happy Birthday, Temecula Wine Country! This year, Temecula Wine Country celebrates its 1968 birth. That was the year Vincenzo and Audrey Cilurzo began planting Petit Sirah and Chenin Blanc near Rancho California, a town of 350 inhabitants that would later be re-named Temecula. To get to the vineyard from their L.A. home, they had to travel to Rancho California down sparsely used Highway 395, and then rumble through empty hills and valleys down a narrow dirt track called Long Valley Road. It was an unremarkable beginning to a remarkable story. The Early Years of Temecula Wineries The Cilurzos ... Continue reading...

The Story of Two Buck Chuck Quick - where were you when you first heard about Two Buck Chuck? It had that kind of an impact. A "premium" wine available for chump change. Hard to believe, but that was fifteen years ago. And even harder to believe that in that decade and a half, Trader Joe's has sold almost a billion bottles. Yes, with a "b." The Rise of Charles Shaw Wine Charles Shaw wine was an instant sensation. Almost everyone had an opinion. Many scoffed. But many more rushed to buy it, often by the case. To some in the winemaking biz, it was a sign of the apocalypse. Their world was ... Continue reading...

Northern California Wildfires and the Strength of Wine Country A Somber Moment for Sonoma and Napa I’m drinking wine right now, which is not unusual, but what’s different is that I’m feeling a bit melancholy as I do it. One of Grapeline’s Sonoma hosts, Rufina, just sent me a photo of the Mayacama Mountains behind Kenwood Winery. The blackened slopes are a stark symbol of the enormous disaster that just occurred. The fires that swept through Northern California Wine Country this month go beyond disaster. They were a catastrophe on a level that’s historic. Tragedy and Loss in Napa and Sonoma ... Continue reading...

Discover If Wine or Beer Best Fits Your Taste Our great nation has never been more divided. But we are so much stronger when we recognize that we are all the same species living together on ​one planet, and ​that ​we have​ ​much to gain by working together. So, I beseech all who might read my blog: Put aside your differences and unite, whether you are a wine drinker or a beer drinker. ​ If you know me at all, you know that wine has ​​a special place in my heart, and a permanent place in my glass. Having said that, ​if I'm chomping on a mustard-smeared ballpark frank while watching Clayton ... Continue reading...

Sip Into Summer at Temecula Valley’s Fizz Fest What Is Summer Fizz Fest? Before hearing what it actually was, I had already decided that a Summer Fizz Fest was something that I liked... a lot. Now that I know what it is, it turns out I was right, and if you keep reading you’ll know what it is too, and I’m pretty sure you’ll also like it a lot. Fizz Fest is an excuse to celebrate, concocted by people who love sipping wine out among the vineyards. It happens on Sunday, June 25, 2017, in Temecula Valley Wine Country. A Full-Day Celebration Through Temecula Valley What’s being celebrated? I’ll ... Continue reading...

Babcock Winery: Innovation Meets Vintage Charm in Santa Barbara Here in California, a lot of really cool things have been started in a garage. Heck, this device I’m writing this on was dreamed up in one. So it’s not all that surprising that one of the wineries Grapeline frequents is home to a vintner who started his journey in a bathtub. Bryan Babcock, the only American named to a list of “Top Ten Small Production Winemakers in the World” by the James Beard Foundation, fermented his first cuvée in the bathtub of his UC Davis student apartment—from grapes that he’d stolen in the dark of night. ... Continue reading...

How to Tell If You’re a Wine Snob (and Why You Probably Aren’t) The Four Types of Wine People There are four types of wine people. Wine guzzlers, who’ll happily gulp down anything you hand them. Wine geeks, who care deeply about the science behind a great glass of wine. Wine enthusiasts, who want to know more, learn more, drink more and just revel in anything wine related. And then there are the wine snobs. Ah, the wine snobs. You know who they are. They only drink certain vintages. They know more than everyone else about anything wine-related. And, they look down their upturned noses at the ... Continue reading...

How was Avensole Winery founded? * AVENSOLE WINERY HAS BEEN RENAMED TO TRUFFLE PIG WINERY * - Updated on September 12, 2025 Pop quiz. What do you do after you have served as California’s Assistant Attorney General, written westerns, and run a motion picture production company? The obvious answer: you open a winery. Well, at least that’s what you do if you’re Sheldon Lytton, the proprietor of Avensole Winery in the Temecula Valley. Sheldon, his wife Susan, and his sister Maribeth discovered Avensole, then named Van Roekel, in 2013. They immediately fell in love with the hillside estate winery ... Continue reading...