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The Trip That Took Away A Secret

A Special Report by Jan Beks, the Wining Dutchman

sandemanI grew up with ads about Sandeman. The silhouette of the guy with the cape and sombrero filled my teenage years: “The secret one shares with Sandeman” was the slogan I remember from the early 70s. But in my family there simply was no wine, let alone sherry culture, at all. At that time for me Saturdays meant to buy beer for my dad and my mother’s brothers so they could enjoy drinking beer while discussing matters like politics and sports. I didn’t even drink beer at that time.

Last winter during my first-ever trip to Porto, Portugal, the silhouette of Sandeman entered my life again and I wondered why it showed up here. Luckily the answer was not far away and I soon got to taste the port of the same company. And if it were not for the tour at the Sandeman cellars and the other ports I tasted during this trip, I never would have gotten rid of the Sandeman myth. Continue reading “The Trip That Took Away A Secret”

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The Story of the Wine Guide

In the early 1980s, as the popularity of vintage wines soared in the USA, I tracked the best wines, and the best values. Focusing on red wines, but also enjoying great white wines, I began carrying a list of interesting, sought-after wines when I traveled for work. I found incredible values all over the USA, and in many other countries I visited.

I subscribed to popular publications, including trade journals and food mags that promoted wines. Soon, I had too many wines on my list, so I needed a more efficient solution.

We entered my list  into a database. The personal computer movement was just starting to grow in the mid-1980s, but as an experienced database manager, I found a PC relational database tool called R:Base.

We used R:Base for our wine database; by 1985 I was carrying my printed database booklet into stores, for quick reference for the wines I encountered. The booklet was so handy, we gave copies of it to customers and friends. It was a hit, and everyone wanted a copy!  Continue reading “The Story of the Wine Guide”

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Maryhill Winery Follows up in 2015

It is difficult, as  to top out, as Maryhill Winery did, in the San Francisco International Wine Competition ‘2014 Winery Of The Year’ award. Not to worry: Maryhill Winery followed up in 2015 in fine fashion. First, the Wine Press Northwest Magazine named Maryhill as 2015’s Pacific Northwest Winery of the Year. See the press release, and a good background on Maryhill Winery at the Wine Press Northwest magazine’s website (sorry, that link is no longer available).

And now, you have a way to taste some of those award winning wines, that we wrote about last year, and tasted this year. Maryhill Winery opened their Reserve Room, a 1200 square foot room that offers tastings of a rotating selection of their best wines. Of course, there is an additional charge, but visitors can apply the $20 fee towards purchase of the wines.  Continue reading “Maryhill Winery Follows up in 2015”

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Cameron Hughes: An American Négoçiant

We discovered the wines of Cameron Hughes in 2007; our first purchases included Lots 29,  34, and 35: Lake County Meritage, and Rutherford and Yountville Cabernets, respectively. We soon followed up with 75- and 100-year-old-vine Shiraz, and more California Cabs (including more of the Lot 35. What a great discovery, that our friend Julie Bettis had turned us on to!

Soon, although we had an ownership interest in a wine shop, we were buying over half our wines from this discovery. So what is the story behind this interesting American Négoçiant?


Cameron Hughes grew up in Modesto, California, and learned about wine from his father, Steve, who was involved in the wine industry as a salesperson, and winemaker. After getting a degree in marketing, Cameron decided wine was more interesting, so he used his–and his father’s–wine trade contacts to find wines. During the wine glut in the mid-2000s, he found excess wines from premium wineries, placed his Lot Number label on them, and sold them to major chains (e.g., Costco), and online subscribers, like us.  Continue reading “Cameron Hughes: An American Négoçiant”

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Maryhill is 2014 Winery of the Year

A winery that we frequently visit, Maryhill Winery, in Goldendale, Washington, was recently honored as the Winery of the Year for 2014.  A press release for the San Francisco International Wine Competition, in making the announcement, reported …

After judging more than 4,500 wines from 1,400 wineries, 26 states and 31 countries, the Tasting Panel Magazine at the 2014 San Francisco International Wine Competition awarded Washington state’s Maryhill Winery as “Winery of the Year.”

Maryhill WinnersIn addition, Maryhill won 30 awards for its wines, including four gold, 11 bronze, and 10 silver, two “Best of Show” honors and three double golds:

• Best Mourvedre (97 pts): 2011 Mourvedre, Rattlesnake Hills
• Best Grenache (95 pts): 2011 Grenache, Proprietor’s Reserve, Columbia Valley
• Double Gold (95 pts): 2011 Syrah, Classic, Columbia Valley  Continue reading “Maryhill is 2014 Winery of the Year”

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500 Years Of Great Wine, Born In Croatia

This is one of the most intriguing wine stories of the last 500 years! The Dalmatian Coast (formerly part of Yugoslavia) of today’s Croatia has long-been a favorite vacation spot, and a great wine-growing location.

Today, the wine world is re-discovering the wonders of Croatia.

Among those discoveries: Five wines are the same, or are direct descendants of one grape, as proven by DNA testing (you can still call the USA wine Zinfandel):

  • Primitivo is Tribidrag, transplanted from Croatia to Puglia (Italy’s boot heel) in the late 1700s;
  • Zinfardal (the original spelling of Zinfandel) is Tribidrag, brought to the USA from a Viennese Empire greenhouse in 1823;
  • Crljenak Kaštelanski is Tribidrag, and was lost for years; it has now been found and DNA-matched in a vineyard near Split, Croatia;
  • Tribidrag is now the accepted name for this grape and wine, because it is the oldest name; traced to Croatia in the 1500 (thus the 500 years in the title of this article);
  • Plavac Mali is the Croatian son of Tribidrag and Dobričić, a red grape from a nearby island.

Visiting the Source
After helping to organize a 2013 conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia, we spent a day of wine tasting on the Dingac peninsula (thank you again, Mladen Radujković!), visiting a half dozen wineries.  Continue reading “500 Years Of Great Wine, Born In Croatia”

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Valentine Salentein was Fine Wine

This is a follow-up on our post that discussed our discovery of the Salentein restaurant in The Netherlands. The bottle of Salentein Malbec did indeed survive the trip home to Colorado, and Rose and I enjoyed it for Valentine’s day.

Interestingly, as we noted in the earlier posting about the difference between the magnums and the regular 750ml bottles, this single-vineyard bottling was more like the flavor of the magnums of the 2010 Malbec-–a little more tannin, more flavor in “the middle,” and a longer-lasting finish. We wondered if the magnums contain a different blend than the general Malbec, with perhaps a bit more from this single vineyard.  Continue reading “Valentine Salentein was Fine Wine”

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Salentein for Your Valentine?

This wine adventure begins in the early 2000s, when Rose and I decided to travel to Argentina to explore their great wines. We had been enthusiasts of Argentine wines since the early 1990s, when we had annointed Malbecs as the next great value in wines. So, although we did not make it to Mendoza on this trip (we instead hung out at Iguazu Falls, and then at Punte del Este), we tasted a large variety of Argentine Malbecs in Buenos Aires (BA).

We tasted the price range, from lower priced wines to several of the high-priced ones; as usual, the best values were in a notch above the lowest prices. Of course, we tasted the wines with food, and the pampas beef and the puffy fries were our favorites. And on our last night, we had an excellent dinner at a restaurant near the dock area–a bit out of the way.

Finding Salentein
While we had tasted some very good wines, even by our last evening in BA we had not found our expected noteworthy and outstanding bargain. And then on the wine list, we spotted a wine we had missed in all our adventures. A 2002 Bodegas Salentein Malbec, at a very reasonable price. We very much enjoyed it with our last dinner in BA.  Continue reading “Salentein for Your Valentine?”

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More Into Wine In Walla Walla

Another Featured Posting by Jan Beks, The Wining Dutchman!

At the end of July 2009 we headed for Walla Walla. From The Dalles, OR, it is about a half day drive to this centre of more than 100 wineries in the South East of Washington State. For the first time in 2 years we are able to travel together again. My travel partner Teresa surprised me with scheduling a five day trip into this booming wine area. Situated at the same latitude as the major French wine areas it substantially has grown over the years since it was established in 1984.

We discovered that once we arrived in the region it became even harder to select the wineries and their tasting rooms we wanted to visit. An article by the Wine Spectator given to us by Stacy was some help but as adventurous as a Middle East Correspondent and as stubborn as a Wining Dutchman can be it sounded nice to try some other places too or instead of the pre-selected ones.  Continue reading “More Into Wine In Walla Walla”

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Umpqua Valley’s Henry the V

Posted by Jan Beks, from the Netherlands: The Wining Dutchman!

In great contrast to the sweet Tokaji wine experience posted recently was my experience in 2007 in the south of Oregon. We were finally able to visit the winery Stacy recommended in the area around Roseburg. That was on one of our annual trips with Poppy, visiting his 60th and somewhat year school reunion. I am glad we followed your hint and visited Henry’s Estate Winery . We did the wine tasting and as a last we decided to try the Henry the V 2004.

This red wine is a blend of 5 different wines in for it seems the perfect mixture of grapes grown by the owner at this particular place in that particular year: 53% Cabernet Sauvignon, 26% Cabernet Franc, 13% Merlot, 7% Syrah and 1% Malbec. For just over $30 a bottle I was tempted to buy more than the one bottle we did buy to take with us back to the Netherlands. But we simply had no other choice since the airlines wouldn’t allow us even one bottle more. Continue reading “Umpqua Valley’s Henry the V”