My Work

• How Roundup, the weed killer linked to cancer, became one of California wine’s biggest controversies

  September 14 2022

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• Napa Valley has perfected one type of wine. But is it starting to all taste the same?

  July 27 2022

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• Why it really does matter when family-owned Napa wineries sell to corporations

  June 30 2022

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• Inside Bond, the Napa winery that takes a decade to craft its $825 wines

  April 01 2022

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• A wealthy family’s plans for a Napa vineyard have exploded into controversy. The outcome could define the valley’s future

  February 27 2022

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• What’s the ‘biodynamic’ wine scene in ‘Succession’ mean? It’s a clever metaphor in more than one way

  November 24 2021

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• The Prisoner is one of Napa’s most popular wines. It also glamorizes something ugly: incarceration

  October 27 2021

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• S.F.'s most thrilling new wine destination for industry insiders: this quiet Turkish restaurant

  October 04 2021

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• How Napa's Cakebread winery absolved itself of starting one of California's most destructive fires

  August 19 2021

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• There's wine. Then there's natural wine. Then there's 'zero-zero' wine

  August 11 2021

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• Meet Maya Dalla Valle, the Millennial woman modernizing one of Napa's most exclusive wineries

  June 11 2021

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• How a tiny urban vineyard in San Francisco is trying to transform California wine

  April 19 2021

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• Top 25 Wineries to Visit in the Bay Area

  March 25 2021

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• Pandemic drinking shows America's all-or-nothing attitude toward alcohol: binge or be sober

  March 17 2021

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• Move over, Aperol spritz: Sunny, breezy California aperitifs are the chic Millennial's new drink of choice

  February 05 2021

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• One artist drew Anchor's beer labels for 45 years. Here's what the 93-year-old thinks of the controversial redesign

  January 28 2021

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• With the big Williams Selyem deal, a California wine icon aims to avoid a common fate: a soulless private equity future

  January 14 2021

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• The 12 California wines that define 2020

  December 15 2020

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• Disastrous wildfires haven't made Napa, Sonoma wine weddings any less popular

  December 11 2020

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• One of Sonoma's oldest Pinot Noir vineyards has an under-the-radar historic tie to S.F. Victorians

  November 10 2020

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• Wine Country, fire country

  October 29 2020

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• Wildfires have ravaged Napa Valley. Will California’s wine industry survive? [National Geographic]

  October 09 2020

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• Wineries burn, but places endure: After Cain is destroyed, new reasons for hope

  October 01 2020

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• Napa locals go ‘cowboy,’ bulldozing firebreaks to save wineries

  August 28 2020

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• What I miss about bars, dingy smells and all

  August 06 2020

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• I’m breaking up with sourdough bread baking

  July 23 2020

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• Cameron Diaz’s new ‘clean’ wine Avaline meets none of the natural wine standards

  July 17 2020

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• The ‘master’ controversy is bigger than the Court of Master Sommeliers

  June 25 2020

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• Will the coronavirus destroy California’s smallest wineries?

  May 11 2020

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• Should JaM Cellars be allowed to monopolize buttery Chardonnay?

  April 24 2020

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• The coronavirus is driving us to drink. Maybe that’s OK

  March 19 2020

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• Martha Stoumen’s one-woman natural wine revolution

  February 26 2020

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• The hot new thing in craft beer? Good old-fashioned lager

  January 31 2020

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• Vineyards versus vernal pools: On Napa’s Atlas Peak, neighbors’ dispute turns ugly

  January 22 2020

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• The age of cannabis rosé is here. Do the weed wines taste like bong water?

  January 02 2020

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• Is Napa running family winegrowers out of business?

  December 24 2019

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• What does Hall winery’s wine cave tell us about Pete Buttigieg?

  December 20 2019

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• 2019 Winemaker of the Year: Francoise Peschon

  December 08 2019

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• How to get through Thanksgiving’s great intergenerational wine conflict

  November 21 2019

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• Vineyards can help stop fires. They did in the Alexander Valley

  October 29 2019

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• There's a mouse in your wine

  September 24 2019

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• The Wine Train is Napa Valley

  September 05 2019

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• The end of Cabernet in Napa?

  August 16 2019

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• Meet Brenae Royal, the young, black female farmer behind one of Sonoma’s most important vineyards

  August 09 2019

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• The year that broke California wine

  August 01 2019

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• The fight to keep alive Charbono, Napa’s nearly extinct heritage grape

  June 26 2019

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• Bryant Estate legal fight offers glimpse into ‘cult’ wineries’ secretive world

  June 18 2019

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• Is San Francisco's Anchor Brewing having an identity crisis?

  June 14 2019

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• This winemaking couple was priced out of Napa. So they bought a French chateau instead

  May 14 2019

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• The newest trend in athletic recovery? Drinking beer

  April 22 2019

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• Dirty & Rowdy’s Unfamiliar Mourvedre is a wine that reflects a family’s tragedy — and attempts to heal it

  March 25 2019

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• California wine's new paradigm: Bright, juicy, translucent reds

  March 21 2019

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• The world’s oldest planting of Cinsault is in ... Lodi

  March 15 2019

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• The mysterious case of the cork-tainted carrots

  February 07 2019

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• Mandy Aftel’s perfume museum seduces with whale vomit and other curious scents

  February 06 2019

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• The quest to save SF’s Arab-owned corner stores, one bottle of arak at a time

  January 10 2019

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• 2018 Winemaker of the Year: Ian Brand

  December 23 2018

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• The long wait for Obispo is over: Finally, Thad Vogler unveils his revolutionary rum bar

  December 21 2018

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• Is fine wine the NBA’s new status symbol?

  December 02 2018

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• The hidden figures behind the Judgment of Paris

  October 24 2018

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• Somm scandal: Revelations of cheating at master sommelier examination lead to the invalidation of 23 new certifications

  October 10 2018

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• The pop star who found a new stage: Alecia Moore, a.k.a. Pink, reveals her secret life of winemaking

  September 28 2018

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• Napa Valley’s Stony Hill Vineyard sells to Long Meadow Ranch

  August 28 2018

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• How a California cult created one of the country’s great wineries — and then lost it

  August 23 2018

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• Let's stop pretending the white wine emoji movement is something it's not

  August 03 2018

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• Eden Rift in Hollister, the vineyard that unearthed a hidden California history

  August 03 2018

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• At Heirloom Cafe, Matt Straus keeps alive the dying art of cellaring wine

  May 30 2018

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• Why is star winemaker Tegan Passalacqua building a winery in Lodi?

  May 20 2018

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• Got several years and several million dollars? You probably still can’t plant a Napa Valley vineyard

  May 18 2018

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• On the far Sonoma coast, distinctive Cabernet comes from an unlikely vineyard

  April 20 2018

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• Why pricey Bar Crenn is the enfant terrible of wine bars

  April 18 2018

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• Battle for Napa Valley’s future: Proposed curb on vineyards divides county

  April 09 2018

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• Is natural wine ready to mature in the Bay Area?

  March 15 2018

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• Steve Edmunds is the unsung hero of California wine

  March 11 2018

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• How Maria Echavarria, against all odds, forged a 30-year career in the vineyards

  February 23 2018

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• Increasingly, California vineyards find a workforce of women

  February 23 2018

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• Is Napa running out of land for vineyards?

  February 22 2018

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• Can canned wine avoid the down-market trap?

  January 24 2018

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• Winemaker of the Year: Dan Petroski

  December 29 2017

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• Rhys Vineyards' Kevin Harvey turns to Italian-style wines in Sonoma

  December 08 2017

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• Kosta Browne reverses course on its lush, ripe Pinot Noir style

  November 07 2017

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• At Petit Marlowe, drinkers find small appeal and big prices

  November 01 2017

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• El Refugio de Silvia

  October 16 2017

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• Hope in Wine Country as vineyards assess the long-term economic impact of the wildfires

  October 14 2017

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• Sonoma and Napa wineries hit hard by Wine Country fires

  October 09 2017

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• RN74 was a revolution for the wine world. Here’s why it’s closing.

  September 26 2017

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• Constellation's new To Kalon brand revives legendary Napa wine dispute

  August 17 2017

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• Vintners rally to preserve Russian River Valley’s historic Zinfandel vineyards

  August 09 2017

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• Guest worker visas a complex cure for vineyard labor shortage

  July 28 2017

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• Worker housing funded by Napa vineyards can’t meet demand

  July 09 2017

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• Bill Harlan's Promontory: Will it have something new to say?

  June 02 2017

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• An open letter to Bud Light’s Lime-A-Rita

  April 21 2017

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• The unlikely comeback of California's Mission grape

  March 23 2017

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• The hunt for Sonoma's most elusive bubbly

  December 21 2016

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• Should you buy this wine gadget? No.

  December 14 2016

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• Considering the legacy of In Pursuit of Balance

  November 15 2016

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• What is California nouveau?

  November 11 2016

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• Scribe: the winery as urban millennial lifestyle phenomenon

  August 11 2016

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• In Contra Costa County, a vineyard that defies all odds

  June 23 2016

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• What Dunkin' Donuts means to me

  June 21 2016

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• Why the Judgment of Paris really matters (and why it doesn’t)

  May 19 2016

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• The wines that replaced California's cults

  April 29 2016

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• The cult of Cabernet: the paradox of Napa's most expensive wines

  April 21 2016

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• The Santa Cruz Mountains is California's most exciting Pinot Noir region

  April 14 2016

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• Oakland's shrine to natural wine

  March 09 2016

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• Rosé goes viral. Is that a bad thing?

  September 05 2015

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