Is is possible to get a quality XO brandy for $20? If this Dunill XO is any indication, the answer is no. (For just one comparison, Courvoisier XO costs $170. Most XOs cost at least $100, and go up from there.)
First off, this is Dunill brandy, no doubt named to confuse buyers with the Alfred Dunhill luxury goods company of London. The bottle, with its extravagant design to mimic crystal (it isn’t, of course), and its gold braid around the neck is further intended to convey quality. But, the faux “aged bronze” seal in the center of the bottle even popped off two days after I got it home.
Sadly, the quality just isn’t there. This is what the producer claims, “Produced in the South of France, out of the best grapes, and handcrafted in small batches. Distilled in the pure tradition of the region. The cellar master has extracted the most subtle aromas of the brandy through a very slow distillation and aging for 10 years in French oak barrels, to give the taste of an exceptional brandy. Deep amber color.”
The Sta. Rita Hills 
True Ports hail from the 
As a reviewer and source of reliable information, I am supposed to be as objective and unbiased as possible. But not today. Keenan wines have long been some of my favorites. If you need impartiality, please come back soon. If not, read on.
In the 1970s, Portugese rosés such as Lancers and Mateus were the height of sophistication to many young wine drinkers: “It’s imported, and comes in a fun bottle!” With age comes wisdom, and these wines were eventually abandoned for the justifiably famous fortified wines of Portugal, Port and Madeira, produced by many ancient and famous houses.
True Ports hail from the 
Cockburn’s was one of the first companies to plant vineyards in the remote Douro Superior, a region once considered out of bounds for respectable producers, but which became known as Cockburn’s Country. It was also instrumental in resurrecting the now iconic Touriga Nacional grape variety from obscurity, largely due to the efforts of John Henry Smithes, Cockburn’s winemaker and the “Cowboy of the Douro.”
The brand has a tradition of humorous marketing, with many people still remembering the iconic print and 
Over time, the Cockburn’s portfolio passed through a number of owners. At some point, Showerings became part of Allied Domecq until that operation was taken over by Pernod Ricard in 2005, who promptly sold Cockburn’s and some other brands to the Fortune Brands holding company, the parent company of Beam Global, the company best known for its bourbon. Predictably, Beam’s knowledge of and interest in fortified wines was minimal at best, so Beam quickly (and wisely) contracted the winemaking itself to the Symington family, already responsible for Dow, Graham, and Warre Ports, in 2006. In 2010, the Symingtons purchased Cockburn’s outright, acquiring the brand, the lodge (aka winery), the inventory, the vineyards, and Martinez, a port shipper that Showering had acquired before Cockburn. The Symingtons conducted an intensive overhaul of all of Cockburn’s viticulture and winemaking practices, with the goal of restoring Cockburn’s reputation and quality.
Duckhorn Vineyards was co-founded by Dan and Margaret Duckhorn in 1976. On their first vintage, 1978, they released 800 cases of Cabernet Sauvignon and 800 cases of Merlot. Partly due to a wonderful growing season that year, 1978 turned out to be an excellent first vintage, one that buttressed Duckhorn’s belief that great wines begin in the vineyard, “It was a great year,” he reminisced. “We could have made wine out of walnuts.” Sauvignon Blanc was added to the list in 1982. In 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle proclaimed Dan Duckhorn its “Winemaker of the Year” and named four of his wines to its list of “Top 100 Wines of 2005.”
Dan Duckhorn
Margaret Duckhorn
Duckhorn’s current winemaker, Renee Ary, has numerous vineyard blocks to choose from, each offering markedly different flavor profiles. She strives to understand the needs and opportunities presented by each specific 
Pio Cesare [pee-oh chez-are-eh] was founded in 1881 in 
Walter Schug was born in 1935, and grew up in Assmannshausen, Germany, on the only Pinot Noir estate in the Rheingau region, which was originally planted in the 12th century. Although Schug’s father was its manager, Walter never formally worked there. He did work for six years in viticulture and winemaking in Germany and England, and earned a diploma from the Geisenheim institute, Germany’s premier college for the wine industry, in 1954. He was then invited to serve an internship in Delano, Calif., south of Fresno. After five years of that, He returned to Germany in 1961 to marry his sweetheart, Gertrud, who also came from a winemaking family, and a month later they and their Volkswagen Beetle, with skis attached, were on a boat to New York. From there, they drove to California, where Walter had been offered full-time work by winemakers who had visited him and his father in Germany. After toiling for five years for a bulk wine processor in the Central Valley, he was hired by E. & J. Gallo, Based in St. Helena with his wife and three children, Schug was responsible for managing Gallo’s numerous North Coast grapegrowers. Although the late Julio Gallo is widely credited with discovering great North Coast grapes for Gallo’s wines, Schug was the grower-relations representative, wheeling and dealing, and always looking for new fruit sources.
Today. the winemaker is Johannes Scheid. Raised on a small family winery in the Mosel Valley of Germany, Scheid developed a passion for the European style of winemaking from working in the family business as well as summer trips with his parents and sister through the continent’s wine regions. Like Walter Schug, he studied Viticulture and Winemaking at Geisenheim University. In fact, Johannes first met Walter after an annual presentation at Geisenheim, and, after inquiring about the possibility of a harvest internship, was hired for a 2009 position at Schug, and again two years later.
Rod Bergland, with the assistance of some other partners, founded La Crema Viñera in 1979 in a Petaluma business park. The name, which translates as the Best of the Vine, was an intentional boast: Bergland believed his vineyards produced the best grapes in Sonoma.
Head winemaker Craig McAllister has made wine in his native New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and Cyprus. He joined La Crema in 2007 as the Harvest Enologist after studying at Lincoln University in New Zealand, where he received his Bachelor of Science degree in viticulture and enology. He has been a steward of La Crema’s Monterey program and worked extensively on the Sonoma Coast Chardonnay. He also helped to further develop La Crema’s collection of single vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines. He was promoted to head winemaker in 2017. “There’s an authenticity to our wines; we allow the grapes to fully express themselves without manipulation in the winery and they’re made in traditional ways,” McAllister shared. “We barrel-ferment Chardonnay and punch it down by hand, as it was done in La Crema’s early years.”
McAllister is assisted by winemaker Eric Johannsen, who received undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Philosophy. He pursued a Master of Science in Enology at the University of California, Davis. Before joining La Crema in 2004, Johannsen spent his early career at such wineries as