by Winepisser | Jun 26, 2022 | Full Article
My next entry in the Peruvian Wine Journey is a pink Malbec rosé, the Paz-Soldán Conde de la Conquista Selecta “Ana Maria” 2021. This one comes from Arequipa, Peru’s second-largest city. The Region Arequipa is a region to watch. Whereas other...
by Winepisser | Jun 18, 2022 | Full Article
How Finca Maravilla is making wine in one of the driest places on the planet, Tacna Peru, is curious to be sure. Thanks to water running off the Andes via the Río Uchusuma, Tacna has some patches of green along the river’s edges, but not much else. It’s a...
by Winepisser | Jun 17, 2022 | Full Article
As a US immigrant living in Peru, it took a long time to get used to living in a very different society, under a very different culture. Related to wine, I’ve been complaining nonstop for about ten years over the state of the wine industry here. Peruvians’...
by Winepisser | Jun 16, 2022 | Full Article
I hit a local wine shop that I thought would have a good selection — they call themselves a “gourmet” food and wine joint — only to find it was awash in the usual selection of Chileno and Argentino reds, mostly malbecs. This is the life in...
by Winepisser | Apr 23, 2022 | Full Article
As some of you may know, I typically publish my initial review reactions to a wine on the Vivino app. Then I hone them a bit before porting them over here to Winepisser. Well, Vivino just upgraded their rating system to allow for more incremental ratings. Whereas you...
by Winepisser | Jan 29, 2022 | Full Article
I like to remind people that I’m a wine slob, not a wine snob. A street-level wine thug, as the saying goes. I mean, hell, the site’s called Winepisser, for heaven’s sake. So don’t hold this next one against me, but I will take credit for...
by Winepisser | Jan 12, 2022 | Full Article
As you may have noticed, in 2021 I began reviewing wines by adding one-liner blurbs, or quips. Let’s call them “burps.” I did this because Winepisser wasn’t nearly as clever as I had imagined it, and was getting to be yet another stale wine...
by Winepisser | Jan 8, 2022 | Full Article
After awarding no Best Wine in 2021 (due to pandemic), 2022 came back online with a limited number of reviews; only 31, in fact. Compare that to prior years where I reviewed 150+ each year, and it was obvious that the choices were limited. Sure enough, only a single...
by Winepisser | Dec 27, 2021 | Full Article
As readers will know, I live in Lima Peru, where it’s flooded with Malbecs from Argentina and all sorts of New World wines from Chile. Having been previously spoiled in the US where I traveled frequently, never far from an upscale wine boutique or, at least, a...
by Winepisser | Dec 26, 2021 | Full Article
I came across the wine art of Monica Marquez Gatica on LinkedIn, of all places, where she posted that she is available for commission work. I then checked out her wine art page — here — and think it would be a great option for restaurant wall art, menus,...
by Winepisser | Oct 30, 2021 | Full Article
The only good thing I can say about the COVID-19 pandemic is that it didn’t kill me (yet, at least.) Other than that, it’s been a shitshow. But without getting off-topic, what does that mean for a street-level wine thug? It means more suck, that’s...
by Winepisser | Oct 29, 2021 | Full Article
Back in July, I announced that Winepisser was back (sort of), but it’s been a hard slog to get things running again. Thanks to Mr. Covid, getting reliable sources of wine without physically visiting places has been tough. I’ve since hooked up to a...
by Winepisser | Jul 4, 2021 | Full Article
I’m not sure if I should get a medallion or something, but it’s been over a year since I had my last glass of wine. Today I finally broke that streak, with a glass of my favorite Peruvian offering, the Viña Vieja Chenin Blanc. It’s literally the...
by Winepisser | Dec 29, 2020 | Full Article
Obviously — obviously — there won’t be any Winepisser awards for 2020. Sigh. In January, I reviewed one wine, a 2.5 star bottle of junk, and then prepped to review a lot more. By April, I was under national lockdown, and alcohol sales were...
by Winepisser | May 11, 2020 | Full Article
It doesn’t take an aerospace expert to notice the last Winepisser blog post was from February. That post announced, without the usual fanfare, the Winepisser 2019 Best Wine award. Since then, this site has been nearly dead. You can, of course, blame Ol’...
by Winepisser | Feb 25, 2020 | Full Article
The fifth annual Winepisser Best Wine award goes to California’s Klinker Brick Old Vine Zinfandel 2015, a fantastic bottle of crafted from (according to the maker) “16 different vineyard blocks of old vine zinfandel vineyards with an average age of 87...
by Winepisser | Apr 12, 2019 | Full Article
January and February of 2019 were making the year look poorly, with not a single wine earning the five-star Winepisser rating. Thankfully, the first week in March spiced things up a bit as two single-grape reds won back-to-back cincos. First up is the absolutely...
by Winepisser | Dec 28, 2018 | Full Article
The fourth annual Winepisser Best Wine Award goes to the French bottle Pierre Amadieu Gigondas Romane Machotte 2014, a fantastic and nearly oddball red blend from France’s Rhone Valley, in the Gigondas style of majority grenache blending. I’m a huge fan of...
by Winepisser | Dec 28, 2018 | Full Article
I live in Peru and beat up this country’s horrid selection and taste in wine incessantly, and frankly the country has it coming. So when we launched the Winepisser Worst Wine last year, it was no surprise a Peruvian bottle o’ dreck won the award. This...
by Winepisser | Oct 2, 2018 | Full Article
2018 has been a slow year for “cincos,” the five-star rating given to the best wines tasted here at Winepisser. To date, we only have five contenders for 2018 Winepisser Best Wine, and we are already into October. To be honest, this year has proven the...
by Winepisser | Jul 2, 2018 | Full Article
I recently had the opportunity, and free time, to write a new “Battle of the Budget” article (the last one was on German Rieslings) with another matchup, this time Italian Pinot Grigios. Stepping into the ring were four pee-gees, each just about under $12...
by Winepisser | Jul 2, 2018 | Full Article
Finally, another five-star award after a string of near misses. This one goes to the delicious 2014 San Pedro 1865 Single Vineyard Carmenère, from the Maule Valley of Chile. This happens to the birthplace of Darth Maule, the Sith Lord who gave up fighting rebel scum...
by Winepisser | May 9, 2018 | Full Article
We’re into May, and this year is proving to be unusual. So far, only two wines — both reds — have scored a cinco (five star rating), but a startling number have come close with 4 and 4.5 star awards. It seems many are just having a tough time...
by Winepisser | Apr 28, 2018 | Full Article
You have to be really, really oversensitive about alcohol to let it ruin fucking Disney World for you, but that’s exactly what Insider’s “culture reporter” Kim Renfro allowed happen. Renfro, apparently from California, is used to going to that...
by Winepisser | Apr 28, 2018 | Full Article
Totally out of the blue I received an invite for an invent at a local micro-winery in San Juan de Lurigancho, a district outside of Lima Peru. I wasn’t even aware of Bodega y Viñedos Candela, and certainly had never tried any of their wines, but suddenly I was...
