Reviews of wines and spirits for the curious drinker.
Helioterra Wines Door County is the project of Anne Ebenreiter Hubatch, a Wisconsin native who grew up in Sheboygan, studied geology and environmental studies at UW–Madison, and then moved west. She spent roughly a decade learning winemaking with some significant Oregon names, including Eric Hamacher, David Adelsheim, Dave Paige, Joe Dobbes and Alfredo Apolloni, before releasing the first Helioterra vintage in 2009.
Texas isn’t the first place that comes to mind when most people think about wine, especially “serious” high-quality wine. And yet, Texas is fifth in the nation in both wine production and consumption. The history of grape growing in the state goes back at least to the 1660s, when Franciscan monks planted Mission grapes adjacent to their missions.* Today, Texas is home to a number of American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs; the two most prominent are the Texas High Plains AVA around Lubbock in northwestern Texas, and the Texas Hill Country AVA in central Texas west of Austin.
Cline Cellars
As you enter Sonoma county from the south on California 121, one of the first wineries you encounter is Cline Cellars, and there could hardly be a better introduction to the Carneros AVA.