Newly Launched Wine Brand Showcases Vineyards on Napa's Spring Mountain
— An Interview with the General Manager and Winemaker of Vineyard 7 & 8 —

Vineyard 7 & 8 is a Napa Valley winery with a mission as straightforward as its name: to produce wines of exquisite quality that accurately reflect the small vineyards from which they hail at the top of Spring Mountain.  But the simplicity ends there.  For as any quality-driven producer knows, turning a vision into reality is only the beginning.  More important is doing so in a way that balances technique and creativity with a sense of respect for the natural tendencies and rhythms of nature, ultimately allowing the vines to speak for themselves.  As I learned during my lengthy conversation with general manager Wesley Steffens and his French-born winemaker Luc Morlet, the team at Vineyard 7 & 8 manages to strike that balance quite gracefully in the production of their fine wines.

Budding Wine Brand Articulates Burgundian Varietals in the Russian River Valley
— An Interview with the Winemaker of Benovia Winery —

The business of wine production is frought with considerable challenges.  Beyond these, launching a premium brand is a monumental undertaking requiring a tremendous amount of resources, talent, experience, planning, and above all, a clear vision for how that brand will position itself among the seemingly countless others vying for consumer attention these days.  Benovia Winery is one newcomer that seems to have all those qualities in spades.  Although a great number of other producers in Sonoma County also provide handcrafted wines made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, this particular winery, located in the heart of the Russian River Valley, does so with the intention of showcasing the notably different styles that these varietals can manifest.  Curious to learn more, I met and spoke with Benovia's winemaker Mike Sullivan and, in doing so, discovered the unique advantages the new brand is enjoying at the outset of its journey into quality-driven wine production.

Sonoma Winery Delivers Quality with Value
— An Interview with the Proprietors of Charles Creek Vineyard —

I'm normally very cautious about making sweeping generalizations when it comes to wine.  As an artisan-driven product with a dizzying array of styles, production techniques, regions of origin, distribution channels, and variations stemming from climate and soil, wine is entirely too complex to sum up with a single turn of phrase or flourish of hand.  But when it comes to the wines of Northern California, namely from the likes of Napa and Sonoma, there's one generalization that I have no hesitation with asserting: they are expensive.  That is, of course, if you're looking for wines of quality.  Granted, it might be stating the obvious that a price tag must be high for something well made.  But if we take a good look at the continuum of wines produced in this region, many will agree that below $30 per bottle retail, their quality sharply plummets into a category overwhelmingly dominated by the uninspired and insipid.  Much of it frankly verges on plonk.  There are, however, a few regional producers who manage to make wines of exceptional value in the $20 to $25 range, one of which is Sonoma's Charles Creek Vineyard.  In an effort to learn the story behind the portfolio of wines I admire so much for its remarkable quality in the context of great value, I spoke with the winery's proprietors, Bill and Gerry Brinton, over a casual lunch on Sonoma's main square.