William Price's Wines Are Right

It's that kind of California story. Man does well in business, co-founding his own private equity firm in the 1990s. Eventually his company gets interested in wineries: first Beringer, then Chateau St. Jean. Turns out the man even has a great origin story. (His dad, who was born in France, treated him to wine cut with water when he was a kid.) He decides to move into the wine business full-time, buying ownership interest in acclaimed Kistler, and nearly sacred Sonoma vineyards like Durrell and Gap's Crown.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Celebrating "Sideways" at 10

Some movies, at best, get a DVD re-release on their tenth anniversaries. Sideways, 2004's surprise Oscar-lauded tale of a sodden Santa Ynez bachelor party romp focusing on a mismatched pair of friends, sad-sack Miles and fading-actor Jack, well, it recently scored a bunch of fine fêtes instead. For as much as the film starred Paul Giamatti, Virginia Madsen, Thomas Haden Church, and Sandra Oh, it also starred Santa Barbara wine country. And Santa Barbara wine country likes to throw parties.

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Wine Keeps On Sipping into the Futures

Wine events don't often come with 57-page spiral bound programs, but perhaps more should. Or that would be the easy assumption after sampling at the 2014 Santa Barbara County Wine Futures Tasting this past weekend at Les Marchands Wine Bar & Merchant. This was the second year the instant hot spot in Santa Barbara's Funk Zone has hosted futures and they've quickly made it their own, especially when one of the stars of the tasting is a wine they helped create with Justin Willet: the Vallin 2013 Rosé (a 100% Syrah grape expression, beautiful pink going to gold with a lilting flavor to match).

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

The Intuitive Wines of Gavin Chanin

It's no surprise that the delicious Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays that Gavin Chanin makes for the Chanin Wine Company get called art. It turns out art is what Chanin studied at UCLA. "I do big abstract paintings, and for me painting is very physical and intuitive," Chanin says. "Wine is very similar. It's obviously very different tools, but it's not like you're sitting down and writing a question and answering it. You're taking a very basic material -- grapes or paint or some medium -- and turning it into something greater than it was before. You're transforming something without altering it or taking something away. It's a great and amazing process in some degree."

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's blog.