Sip This: Habit Red Blend

2012 Habit Wine Company Red: Jeff Fischer started out as a garagiste and still makes a small amount of wine to which he pays very keen attention.

Want to read the rest, then do so at the Independent's site.

Outside the Box Drinking for Thanksgiving

Perhaps no holiday can seem as traditional as Thanksgiving. It's easy to feel as if the proscribed menu leaves its deep rings on us just like the ones on the canned cranberry sauce Aunt Emmaline plops out into an heirloom dish each year. So while it's not my place to suggest you shake up your meal, I can certainly offer you a bunch of out-of-the-box options for potent potables. You don't have to fall back on chardonnay as the only white wine to go with a bird (although many certainly do), or pinot noir as the only red (ibid), or worse yet, fall for the marketing scam that is Beaujolais Nouveau.

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

A Look at the 2014 California Wine Harvest

Well, we may run out of water, but we won't run out of wine -- at least not the 2014 vintage. For while the drought ravages California, checking in with several winemakers in Santa Barbara suggests the 2014 vintage will have relatively high yields. Michael Larner of Larner Vineyard & Winery thinks the yields might be "because grape growers compensated for the lack of rain via irrigation, which may have given the vines more water directly at their disposal, or the warmth of the vintage convinced the vines to be more prolific. Either way, most vineyards are experiencing higher to slightly higher yields, and the grapes themselves seem to be overall a little more juicy than other years."

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

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.

Triple Threat Jeff Fischer and Habit Wines

Jeff Fischer is a winemaker. Jeff Fischer is an actor. Jeff Fischer is a character on American Dad! All three of these Fischers are the same man. Fischer, pretty much all the manpower of Habit Wines, recently agreed to an email interview--as he could work that in while he was on set. About his two day jobs he admitted, "It's pretty insane. I honestly don't sleep much, my brain is either thinking about auditions, worried about getting a job, or the winery, grapes, bottling etc. all the time. I try to never miss an acting job due to wine as that pays the bills and allows me to continue to make wine, but as I've grown in size from 50 cases in 2008 making just two wines, to over 2000 cases in 2013 making seven different wines, the wine business has gotten pretty serious. So basically my day is divided between the two. Luckily with technology, I can be on the road and audition, as well as ship wine and keep up with the business from L.A. or the winery."

Want ot read the rest then do so at the KCET Food Blog.