Never, Never, Never Give In!

I just came across an interesting story about Stags' Leap Winery's oldest estate vines (pdf), a retro mixed block, which they use to make the majority-PS Ne Cede Malis ("Never Give In To Misfortune/Evil") Field Blend (CellarTracker). It makes for an interesting read, and really helped Dr. Carole Meredith to identify the genetic differences between some various clones of PS. I'd really love to read that research some day. I love field blends, especially those with a big fat dose of PS, so hopefully I'll get to try this one soon.

APair-i-tifS

I've posted my tasting/rating methodology, which I demostrated on a 2001 Napa Valley PS from Blockheadia Ringnosii, over at Apairitif.

As for the wine, it was tasty stuff. But click on over read all about it.

Pardon the Dust

The last 6 weeks have been a PShitstorm of epic proportions, between work, getting sick, and the back-end reconfigurations (we're now at PSychospath.com) and front-end design (slick new with matching business cards, both thanks to Octocat herself!) changes.

I have a few posts in the works that I really need to get off my butt and post. Here's a preview:

• URSA Vineyards '04 Wines (Sierra Foothills and Paso RobleS), plus their '05 Paso Robles. This one is a lesson on PS being a bit cranky.
• How I rate wines (both formally and informally), which will be cross-PoSted both here and at Apairitif, Octocat's blog.
• A super-comPrehenSive (though not exhaustive) survey of terroir and PS, from Appellation America, including wine reviews
• More news and tidbits on PS, many from Jo Diaz