Two of California’s most singular winemakers have formed an allegiance to open an urban winery and ‘society’ in Los Angeles. It’s not that surprising that former philosopher and rogue winemaker Abe Schoener, who has amassed both praise and criticism for his esoteric wine label The Scholium Project, would announce that he is moving his winemaking operation from Northern California to Los Angeles.

The adding of tartaric acid to wine in California has been a common practice for years. But is it necessary in napa valley, asks Courtney Humiston, if the region is actually higher in natural acidity than many people realize? Why has acidification become so routine? and how much better balanced and longer-lived might some of the wines be if the solution were sought in the vineyard rather than in the winery?

For nearly 30 years, Tom Farella referred to the area where he grows grapes and makes wine as "the region just southeast of the town of Napa," which doesn't exactly make for the sexiest copy on a wine label. That changed in late 2011 when the horseshoe-shaped valley, formed by a volcanic caldera, got its name - quite literally - on the map. Now Farella's wine proudly bears the designation Coombsville. Still not sexy, perhaps, but at least distinct. Or is it?

If the very thought of Wine Country evokes images of stretch limos teeming with feather boa-draped bachelorette parties, hordes of Midwesterners bellied up at tasting room bars, and grapevine-swathed, cork and barrel everything, you wouldn’t be totally wrong. But off the beaten path, curious city folk may find tiny civilized hubs where the art and design are contemporary, the cuisine is cutting-edge, and the shopping is more Manolo Blahnik than The North Face.

As the sun rises over the vineyards of Charles Krug, at the northern end of Napa Valley, the light dramatically illuminates the stone surface of the three- story castle-like Greystone building. Home now to the West Coast outpost of the Culinary Institute of America, it rises like a fortress from the eastern slopes of the Mayacamas mountain range—a remnant of Napa Valley’s first boom time when Catholic missionaries, European entrepreneurs and ambi- tious frontiersman flocked to the fertile valley to farm and build and, of course, make wine. Up the same stairs that winemakers at the turn of the century once climbed to check on fermentations and perform punchdowns, students in freshly pressed and spotlessly white chef coats now trudge through an early morning fog, lugging their “chef roll” of knives and meat thermometers and pastry-making paraphernal

On a cold morning in January, one of the coldest mornings in a season of very cold mornings, it might not look like much is happening in the vineyards of Sonoma, but this is when the growing season truly begins. We’re standing in a chardonnay vineyard on Carriger Road just a few miles from the Sonoma Plaza, waiting for Steve Matthiasson—who planted the vineyard in 2006—to teach us about balance. About how what he does now, when the vines are dormant and tourism has migrated from Wine Country to Puerto Vallarta, will affect the balance in next year’s wine.

Small producers in Sonoma County are angered by new legislation requiring them to label their wines Sonoma County even if they are part of specific sub-appellations. Under the new law, which comes into force on 1 January 2014, a Russian River Valley producer will to also have indicate the broader and geographically diverse ‘Sonoma County’, which spans 400,000ha and includes 15 sub-AVAs on the front label.

San Francisco sommeliers are nurturing a new california style that celebrates wines with a sense of individuality—conventional point system be damned.

What if we could assemble every winery that put Napa Valley on the map? And what if we could taste the most important wine they ever made? The answer, of course, is that would one would be one epic tasting. And it was.

Sonoma Valley has announced the launch of a new campaign to differentiate the region from the larger Sonoma Coast and even larger Sonoma County AVA.

Makers and drinkers of pinot noir gather to discuss the meaning and merits of stem inclusion When you're a tasting a glass of pinot noir, how do you know - can you even tell and does it matter - whether or not the wine was made with the whole clusters and not just the grapes?

The 2012 harvest in California is a record both in terms of grapes crushed and the prices paid for grapes, resulting in what one consultant called 'a fantastic market for consumers'. 'A lot of quality wine pouring in...' California 2012 The 2012 Grape Crush Report (Preliminary) was released by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) last week.

Tocai Friulano is one of the best and most popular white wines in the northern Italian region of Friuli. They've been growing the grape and making the wine for a long time.