Blog

Most of us will never don black ties and move into the James Bond-like world of wine auctions.  Christie’s, Sotheby’s, high-brow clientele tossing around thousands to buy the rarest and finest…

But now that all the major wine auction houses have gone online, regular ol’ wine lovers like you and me just have to left-click to get an idea of how these folks operate and what you have to pay to play.  To make it easy for you we have assembled a list of Wine Auction Houses with links to their websites.

One of our favorite bloggers, Jeff Lefevere, who also writes a wine column for Forbes.com, gives us a list of the “top ecommerce sites for unique and interesting wines”.  If you haven’t already you should check out Jeff’s blog at www.goodgrape.com.

Finally for the bad:  You’ve probably heard about the legislation that alcohol wholesalers have been pushing back in DC; legislation that would solidify the 3-tier distribution system that has been in place since the end of Prohibition.  It’s another wolf in sheep’s clothing and, in truly nauseating political fashion, the acronym for the act is CARE.  Read about it here and then write your congressman.  And if you want to learn more about this charade you should log on to Tom Wark’s www.fermentation.typepad.com. Tom is the ace-of-the-base when it comes to deciphering this mess and its potential ramifications for wine lovers.

From our collection of recent wine clips:

Wine columnist W. Blake Gray tells us what wine writers think consumers care about versus what the reality is in Ten Things I learned in the Wine Business.  Example:  Most wine lovers don’t give a s**t about wine and food pairings.

And as long as we are on lists, GQ recently published their list of 13 New Rules of Wine which they formulated after talking with “…the best sommeliers, vintners, and career winos around to rewrite the book on this fermented-grape-juice thing.”

OK, just one more:  This one is from uber wine reviewer Robert Parker who gives us his list of “12 bold predictions about seismic changes that will influence how we’ll shop, what we’ll buy and how much we’ll pay” in Parker Predicts the Future.

So what about the local San Diego wine and food scene? We have some great writers and online publications that every local wine lover should know about.

Robert Whitley is director of three major international wine competitions and publisher of the online wine publication WineReviewOnline.com. Whitley has been writing about wine since 1990, when he undertook the wine column for the San Diego Union-Tribune and, now, the Creators Syndicate “Wine Talk” column. He also hosts two weekly radio shows — Whitley On Wine and the Gourmet Club. Here is an interesting column he wrote about decanting old Madeira and the effect of increased temperature on wine.

Winescene.com is the creation of Del Mar wine enthusiast Andy Abramson. Andy writes about wines he and his wine loving friends have savored at some of the better wine and food haunts around San Diego County. He’s also a good source for discovering the best wine bars and hangouts for local vinovores. He’s not all local, and will occasionally write about a great eating experience he had in Madrid or some other far-flung venue.

Wine & Dine San Diego is an online guide and magazine that focuses on the quality, value and deals offered by San Diego’s hospitality industry — restaurants, bars, accommodations & travel. You’ll find local restaurant reviews as well as wine reports from a number of established wine columnists, including Robert Whitley.

Have we missed anyone? Which local wine and food writers do you like?

According to Eric Asimov in a recent NYT article some aging Napa cabs dating back to the sixties are drinking just fine.  Read about a wish-I-coulda-been-there vertical tasting he did from a winery that may surprise you.

Climate change…what climate change?  USA Today reports on a controversial study that predicts global warming could shrink California winegrowing regions and expand others…like England and Puget Sound in Seattle(!)

Wine lovers irked by the stratospheric price hikes for the top ’09 and ’10 Bordeaux may feel the chateaus may finally get their comeuppance.  For the first time in a very long time several lots of super pedigree Bordeaux failed to sell at a recent Sotheby’s auction in Hong Kong.  Is it a “healthy stabilization” as the auction house claims or a preview of things to come?

Reaching back into the archives:  Mike Steinberger is one of our favorite wine bloggers (Wine Diarist.com) and in this June article he wrote for Slate.com Mike reports on “…fraud accusations that have upended the fine wine world.”

Did you know there are more than 1,000 wine bloggers posting on the Internet?  And that’s just the ones in English!  You probably have your favorites and so do we.

For our premier post on our new San Diego Wine Storage blog we decided to share some of the ones we like. There are plenty of other good ones out there, but these are ones we click on regularly.   Here is our list of favorites with links to each site.

Occasionally we will feature posts from different blogs or wine articles that we think will interest our readers.  Click here to read Will Lyons’ article in the Wall Street Journal about the ULTIMATE wine storage facility—100 feet underground, as big as 20 football fields and storing $1.5 BILLION in wine.  And we thought our Solana Beach facility was big…

Please check back shortly for our first post!

San Diego Wine Storage Testimonials

“I store more than 2000 bottles of wine at San Diego Wine Storage. I trust the owners implicitly to protect my wine, not only with their temperature control, but with their watchful eye over all their clients’ wines. I am protecting a quarter million dollars worth of wine with a $5 lock.”

–Roger Storer
San Diego, CA