Blending: Tasting and THINKING
2021-07-04
Here is a throw-back video I made discussing how thinking (and feeling) about which wine an individual barrel should go into may be more important than tasting where it should go.
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Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine
by Steven Kent Mirassou
Hardcover – June 2021
Steven Kent Mirassou received his BA in American Literature from the George Washington University and his MA in Literature from NYU. He was born in the Salinas Valley and grew up in San Jose and Los Gatos before going east to college. Lineage: Life and Love and Six Generations in California Wine is his first book.
Mirassou started his wine career in sales but found his true passion after moving into the production side of the business in 1996. Steven has made the highest rated wines from the Livermore Valley, is a founder of the Mount Diablo Highlands Wine Quality Alliance, and the President of the Livermore Valley Wine Growers Association.
Steven has four adult children, April Coffey, Aidan Mirassou, Katherine Mirassou, and Sara Mirassou. He lives in Livermore, CA with his wife, Beth Murray Mirassou, and their two dogs
Tag: Red Wine
A Condom for Cabernet
2020-07-22
The senses are the winemaker’s greatest tools. The ability to smell and taste and remember what you’ve experienced from barrel to barrel are crucial in putting together consistent wines. Outside influences, like Brettanomyces, a spoilage yeast that lives everywhere in the winery, can get in the way of the true expression of
Cellar Ladders
2020-07-21
As the 2020 harvest fast approaches, we are busy in the cellar making our first official evaluations of the 2019 wines. We devote about an hour a day making detailed notes on each barrel in a specific lot, thinking about where that particular barrel may ultimately end up. The cellar
What You Leave Behind – Blending Lineage
2020-07-16
Lineage is our most complicated blend; it can comprise five different grapes (the classic Bordeaux varieties) and Cabernet Sauvignon from more than 10 blocks on six vineyards. Aidan, Beth, and I start each year with nearly 150 barrels of wine, and from these, we carve aspirants away until we are
F-Seq™ Your Way to Greatness!
2020-07-12
Because it’s hard not to compare things, especially (for me) barrels of wine that will ultimately fit into one of a few different categories, I developed a full-proof, easily understood rating system composed of Negative ( – ), Neutral ( O ), and Positive ( + ). Now, of course,
Back Home
2020-07-09
I had the opportunity today to get my glass and my thief and my spit cup and go into the cellar to taste through barrels. We call it barrel surfing and believe that it should be an Olympic sport (it’s that much fun!). Taste a barrel, make notes, sanitize the
100-point Wines!
2020-07-09
If no one knows a wine exists, it doesn’t matter how great it may be. When the people who know about that wine are prominent wine critics (and they’re saying nice things about the wines), the megaphone gets larger. Steve Heimoff, former critic for the Wine Enthusiast and one of
Law is Law
2020-07-08
Wine is food. Food is necessary to live. Wine is necessary to live. Simple transitive law.
Deep Like the Upright Bass
2020-07-07
I was working on my book late at night on my patio – Miles Davis on the speaker – and had a glass of Mia Nipote’s Il Rinnovo to accompany me. Unplanned, they all worked together so well. Miles, light but deep, Il Rinnovo (a blend of Petite Sirah and
Premier Perfection!
2020-07-02
Steve Heimoff, esteemed wine critic, just gave The Premier Cabernet Sauvignon a perfect 100-point score, writing: The result is, in a word, stunning. I would stand it next to any Cabernet Sauvignon in the world; it’s that good. I could give this wine 98, 99 points and hedge my bets,