Saturday was swirling, noisy, upbeat and busy, but with about a third fewer people than last year. Sunday was a thing of beauty. There were no lines anywhere, winemakers and salespeople were relaxed and unhurried and really able to spend time talking wine lovers through what they were tasting. Another thing that makes the Wine Expo great is that it has something for everyone. Consumers get to taste a range of wines they could never hope to taste just going from wine shop to wine shop, even if they spent an entire year doing that.
Fife Always explosive, the fiery red label promises intensity that all the wines deliver.
Loved the awesome tannin of '98 Redhead Carignane, a big black wine from a strong country French blending grape that's almost never made on its own. Except in California, of course, and a small winery on the island of Maui called Tedeschi. Carignane is a great hot weather grape that can stand the heat. The product is a wine with very little fruit but with tremendous structure. Ripe fruit flavors and juice were absolutely there, but overwhelming everything was the skeletal structure of tannic backbone.