Can the Sinatra name sell wine? The Sinatra Family Estates has announced its first wine offering, Come Fly With Me, a limited-production 2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.The winery partnered with the Frank Sinatra Estate and his three children (Tina, Nancy and Frank Jr.) to produce the wine. The wine is being produced from a five-acre vineyard site in Napa Valley, and only 500 cases will be bottled and are selling at a steep price of $570 for six bottles. The website says the wine has notes of cherry with hints of leather and spice and says it has a 92 rating but no indication of where that rating came from. Each vintage will be named after a Sinatra classic and the wine label features a logo of a record.

[via Limewire]

Pend d'Oreille Winery in northern Idaho has come up with a unique way to go green, they are selling their Bistro Rouge wines in refillable 1.5L bottles. Local customers can bring their bottle back and receive reduce cost refills as often as they like. Winemaker Steve Meyer told Wines & Vines that the program, which started off with 300 bottles has sold 250 of them and many people have brought back their bottles multiple times. The 1.5 liter bottles contain at least 50 percent recycled glass and have a permanent silk-screened label that you can put your name on with a marker. The first bottle is $25 and is closed with a synthetic stopper from Supreme Corq and a tamper-proof seal. Subsequent refills are $16 and the owner gets a cork stopper for future refills. It's an intriguing concept although it loses its carbon-saving punch if you have to drive far to the winery but for locals it seems like a good idea.

After reading the ins and outs of the Mondavi clan in The House of Mondavi book, I'm even more intrigued to see what former Mondavi CEO and chairman Michael Mondavi has cooked up with his first wine. The 2005 M by Michael Mondavi is made from 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from his Animo vineyard in Atlas Peak, Napa. The wine was aged for 22 months in French oak and bottle aged for a year.

You can pick up M by Michael Mondavi this fall for a steep $199. In a recent interview with Steve Heimoff, Mondavi explained how he reached this price. He explained that his team bought a bunch of top cult wines and did a blind tasting asking themselves how much they would pay for each wine. Because their wine came out strong they prices it below some of the super-pricey cult wines and above some of the ones it showed better than. Of course the costs of managing the 15-acre vineyard were also a factor.

Heimoff's interview also reveals that Mondavi has learned his lesson about rapid expansion. He says that at his Folio Wine import and production company they have just two rules, only work with those they respect and want to spend time with, and only sell wines they would like to serve to family and friends.

The turning of the millennium was a great year for wine and Christie's hopes to cash in on the taste for Bordeaux when a major collection of 2000 Bordeaux is auctioned at Christie's London on September 15 and 18. Decanter reports that more than 3000 cases from some 70 chateaux will be auctioned up for auction. The wine belongs to a European collector and has been kept in bond since it was shipped from the chateaux. The range estimates for the auction as a whole are from £1.27 million to £1.6 million with high prices expected for the cases of Lafite, Latour, Mouton and Haut-Brion.

Pininfarina, the Italian design house, that has designed for Ferrari, Maserati and Rolls-Royce now has a wine label. Pininfarina wine debuted at the Concorso Italiano earlier this month in Monterey, CA. The inaugural release of 2005 Vino Rosso was tasted by throngs of spectators and a three liter bottle was auctioned off for $3,000 to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

The 2005 Pininfarina Napa Valley Vino Rosso is a Napa Valley red that is 60% Cabernet Sauvignon,29% Cabernet Franc, 6% Sangiovese and 5% Petit Verdot. The wine has black currant and raspberry aromas with a balance of fruit and ripe, fat tannins. It can be drunk now but the winemaker's notes say that it will start to show its prime between 2010 and 2012, with the ultimate peak for this wine being probably between 2017 and 2021. While the label doesn't use the classic Pininfarina red color there is sleek carbon fiber like detail surrounding the label. There were 1,125 cases produced and bottles sell online for $95 each.

Three men, a winemaker, a viticulturalist, and a market have collaborated on a new tiny-production artisanal Napa Cabernet. The 2005 Trivium, named for the Latin term for a three-way crossroad, is made up of 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Les Ivrettes, a vineyard in which their daughters played while growing up in St. Helena. Les Ivrettes means 'the little tipsy ones' in French, a reference to the parties which the young women hosted in the vineyard adjoining their homes. The vineyard is located within the The Lewelling Vineyard, which was established in 1864 by viticulturalist Doug Wight's great-great-grandfather, pioneer horticulturist John Lewelling. Doug Wight is the fifth generation of his family to farm grapes in the Napa Valley. Together with esteemed winemaker Jack Stuart and marketer Stuart Harrison, he has created a wine with notes of cherry, cassis and spice and rich blackberry flavors. There were just 318 cases made and it sells for $60 a bottle.

Another fine winery has opened up a tasting room in Oregon. Winderlea Vineyard & Winery, a luxury boutique winery specializing in limited production Oregon Pinot noir has opened their new tasting room on Worden Hill Road in Dundee. Owners Donna Morris and Bill Sweat retired from the business world and moved from Boston to Oregon in 2006, purchased the Goldschmidt Vineyard in the heart of the Dundee Hills and devoted themselves to creating fine Pinot noir. The inaugural 2006 vintage consists of three bottlings: 2006 Winderlea Goldschmidt Pinot noir -- a single vineyard designate from their estate vineyard, the 2006 Winderlea ANA Pinot noir -- a single vineyard designate from the highly regarded ANA vineyard adjacent to Winderlea, and the 2006 Winderlea Inaugural Reserve Pinot noir made up of fruit sourced from the neighboring ANA and Weber vineyards. Winemaker Robert Brittan formerly of Stags Leap Winery makes Winderlea wines.

Winderlea's new sustainably built 4000-square-foot tasting room includes a commercial kitchen and has solar hot water heaters and Day4 Energy photovoltaic modules to meet its energy needs. . The east and south sides of the building are made up entirely of glass and aluminum providing dramatic views over the Oregon countryside. The tasting room will be open Memorial Day through Thanksgiving on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11AM to 4PM. All proceeds from the winery's $10 tasting fee will be donated to !Salud!, an alliance between Oregon winemakers, Tuality Healthcare and medical professionals to provide education and access to healthcare services for Oregon's seasonal vineyard workers and their families.

I'm far too lazy to have my own winery but I love stories of small family-owned wineries. Foursight Wines is a new Anderson Valley family owned and operated winery producing just a few hundred cases of cool-climate Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc each year. Foursight Wines is a collaboration between two generations of the Charles family: Bill and Nancy - local winegrowers - their daughter, Kristy (the executive director of the Anderson Valley Winegrowers Association), and her fiancé, Joe Webb (a Sonoma State Wine Business graduate, currently working with Londer Vineyards). That's Kristy and Joe hard at work in the picture on the right. The name refers to the four people behind the wine as well as to four generations that have lived and worked on the same land which has in the past been a timber mill, farmland, grazing land for livestock, and now a winery.

The 2006 Charles Vineyard Pinot Noir was hand-harvested from the family vineyard and sells for $46 (425 cases produced). The 2007 Anderson Valley Sauvignon Blanc came from the Ferrington Vineyard and was made in 100% stainless steel and sells for $20, (189 cases produced). All vineyard work is done by the family, with help only during pruning and harvest. A tasting room is in the works and should be open in fall 2008, for now the wines can be ordered at the winery website.

On February 8th at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco one can partake in the loverly Dark & Delicious event. Organized by PS, I Love You (an association of Petite Syrah producers) the name alone qualifies it for a Valentine's-esque evening out with your honey. Boasting thirty-six wine companies and twenty food vendors for only $50 a ticket it makes me want to jump to the opposite coast just for the weekend! And if you aren't already familiar with Petite Syrah you need to be introduced...it's fantastic.

I recently had a chance to sample the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon from Pillar Rock Vineyard. Pillar Rock is a small (22 acres) estate in the heart of the Stags Leap District. The 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon is a blend of 91.2% Cabernet Sauvignon and 8.8% Merlot. The wine is exactly what you expect when you think of a Stags Leap Cab, a dark and fleshy wine with that is a velvet hammer, rich and powerful but kissed with a gentle finish. It's not for those who like a big fruit-forward push; it's more subtle, spicy and dark. They producers say it can be aged for two decades and I suspect that it will be even more amazing after some cellar time. There has been some discussion online as to whether or not Pillar Rock is worthy of the rather steep price and it faced a little TCA controversy with the last vintage , but it seems to be right on track with this one. The vineyard sells cases of six bottles of the 2004 for $848 ($125 each) or a 1.5 liter magnum in a wooden box for $333.

If you are particularly attached to some of wine's most sacred cows you might want to steer clear of The Upgrader's list of the ten most overrated wines. The article is an equal opportunity offender for those who pride themselves on their taste and selections. It's also a ripping fun read. I was delighted to see them name Australian Shiraz. It's not generally that overpriced but it is certainly overestimated. Ah, but then my ego took a blow as the next slide on Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which I drank so much of this summer for its minerality, was illustrated by a picture of a cat box. Ouch. The rest of the list includes the Super Tuscans (which I agree are overpriced), Albariño, Chilean Cabernet and the auction favorite Screaming Eagle. It's a list bound to generate a certain amount of controversy and grumbling but it all boils down perhaps to one thing, if you are drinking what everyone is talking about, you are probably paying too much for it and there is a cheaper, lesser known and better tasting wine with a similar taste profile out there somewhere.

Wine goddess and author Natalie MacLean has made her picks for wines for this year's Thanksgiving feast. MacLean, the author of the book Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass also has some simple rules for Thanksgiving wine pairing:

Starting off with a Champagne, Prosecco or other sparkling wine sets a festive note and makes a great aperitif.

Red wine or white wine with the turkey? You can do either. A crisp white like a Riesling or Pinot Grigio works but a juicy red like a Zinfandel also works well (it sort of mimics the berry note of the cranberry sauce). You can also go for the practically fruit juice appeal of this year's Beaujolais Nouveau.

You can also match your wine to the sides, offering other wines such as a buttery Chardonnay to complement the stuffing and veggies or a Sauvignon Blanc to add a little pep to a palate numbed by too many cream sauces. .

She suggests a late harvest wine or ice wine to pair with dessert to add the perfect finishing touch. In my experience, I have found that a Port or a late harvest Zinfandel works well with pecan pie while a late harvest Chardonnay can work with pumpkin pie.

After the jump, her top picks for reds and whites for the table.

Wine Spectator has announced their wine of the year. Top honors this year go to France for the Clos des Papes Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2005. The wine is rated at 98 points and Wine Spectator says that under the care of Vincent Avril, Clos des Papes is making the best wine in the Châteauneuf-du-Pape domaine. Their red is a blend of 65 percent Grenache, 20 percent Mourvedre and 10 percent Syrah and other grapes. The wine is aged in wooden foudres for up to 12 months before the final blend and there were 7,500 cases made. Wine Spectator gives the price as $80 but now that the wine has been anointed as WOTY I'm guessing the price is set to cruise into the $100 to $150 range (an auction on Wine Commune was sitting at $100 per bottle last time I checked).

For certain winemakers, what is on the label rather than what is inside is the main selling feature. We've seen it recently with the wines that put Jesus and infamous dictators on the bottles and we are seeing it again in the new 2005 Mamietage wine which features images of aging bombshell Mamie Van Doren. Like the Marilyn Monroe wines we have seen before, this wine features nude pictures that are covered by peel-away stickers. The are three 1.5 liter bottles, two images of Mamie today (heavily Photoshopped, we hope, although for someone born in 1931 according to IMDB she looks fabulous) and one of Mamie at age 21. Should you choose to partake of the wine you will find a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Verdot, Syrah and Malbec from the Alexander Valley bottled by the Armida winery which is located in Healdsburg, CA. A set of all three bottles sells for $300.

[via Wine Spectator]

CNN has an interesting piece on the Bald Hills winery in New Zealand which is making some of the world's best Pinot Noir. There's a fun backstory on this one, Blair and Estelle Hunt got into the wine business just as they were approaching 60, the age most people are looking toward retirement. Fast forward to ten years late and their 2005 Bald Hills pinot noir has beaten 4,760 other entries to take the Champion Red award in the International Wine Challenge, the world's biggest blind tasting. They also won the Champion Sustainable trophy at the International Wine Challenge.

The pair had sold their house in Sydney and moved to rural New Zealand in search of a more peaceful, rural life. They landed in Bannockburn and found that their land was ideal for growing grapes. They wound up working with renowned New Zealand winemaker Grant Taylor to create the wines which are created with great care. As was memorably explained in the movie, Sideways, Pinot Noir grapes are rather fussy, they are thin-skinned and prone to rot and grow best in Burgundy in France, Oregon in the U.S., and New Zealand's Central Otago region.

Getting your hands on the wine is not easy but it is not wildly expensive; it costs just 38 New Zealand dollars, less than U.S.$30. It is distributed in the U.S. by Pangaea Wine Group.