Dunne's Picks

Spring. Too early to haul from the recesses of the closet the white pants and the white shoes, but not too early to start stocking the refrigerator with bottles of pink wine.

Early on in their annual update of grape acreage in California, the federal and state agricultural officials who track this sort of thing include a long list of synonyms for the names of grape varieties. Mataro, for example, also can be called mourvedre, sangiovese can go by brunello, valdepenas can be substituted for tempranillo, and so on.

During the distractions of the year-end holidays, you may have missed the news: Researchers at Michigan State University concluded that three corporations account for slightly more than half of all wine sales in the United States.

In the 1990s, after living in Germany for several years, where they were involved in the music business, Hank Beckmeyer and Caroline Hoel agreed that it was time to do something different.

"Gamay noir à jus blanc" is the long, formal and traditional name for a variety of grape that yields a popular but largely underappreciated style of wine, Beaujolais.

After an unusually cool growing season left his Santa Barbara County stand of touriga nacional in poor shape in 2011, Ken Volk went looking for a new source of the black Portuguese grape variety.

A little more than a decade ago, Jacques Mercier and Andrea Hamer, returning to their home in the San Francisco Bay Area after a skiing holiday at Lake Tahoe, detoured off Interstate 80 for their first look at Nevada City and Grass Valley. They'd heard from friends that the area was beautiful. They wanted to check it out for themselves.

Wine pilgrims eager to explore Calaveras County have it easy.

Sacramentans eager to get to the heart of Napa Valley for a day of wine tasting customarily speed by the first winery they encounter along Highway 12 connecting Interstate 80 with the valley's main route, Highway 29.

Nearly 100,000 acres of chardonnay are planted in California, by far more than any other wine grape. It accounts for more than half of all white-wine varieties in California.

As other Napa Valley wineries of longevity and prominence have done, Signorello Estate has staked its standing to the appellation's signature grape, cabernet sauvignon.

Gold Rush prospectors may have had an easier time discovering pay dirt in Nevada County than their winemaking descendants are having finding their identity.

It isn't too late to add a resolution to the New Year's list, is it?

This is the week during which wine columnists across the country write their annual tribute to sparkling wine. Consumers have come to expect a little helpful guidance as New Year's Eve draws near. Winemakers also appreciate the recognition, though they wish a bit more of it would appear in May or September or some other month not as closely identified with sparkling wine as December.

The clubhouse at Yocha Dehe Golf Club is stocked with all the requisite gear to ruin the perfectly beautiful day outside – balls, tees, sets of clubs not yet tarnished by clumsy swings and frustrated hopes.

Soon as you unwrap your calendar for the new year, flip to October and jot down a note to remind your- self to buy tickets for Roots to Wine.

Earlier this fall, principals of 26 wineries scattered through the redwoods and oaks of the American Viticultural Area called Mount Veeder, a portion of the much larger appellation called Napa Valley, convened their 13th annual tasting at The Hess Collection, one of the 26 estates.

Michael McCay and his winery, McCay Cellars, are something of an anomaly for Lodi, where the winemaking culture stresses old vines, old farming families and old viticultural and enological traditions.

Varieties of grapes and styles of wine often develop fan clubs. There's Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, the International Riesling Foundation and the Rhone Rangers, to name a few that have been around awhile.

Whether it be science, craft or art, winemaking at its most ambitious and precise is when the winemaker gets to blending.

Sacramento wine enthusiasts drawn to Amador County wineries custom-arily drive east on Highway 16 before swinging north on Highway 49 to Plymouth, the gateway to Shenandoah Valley, the home of most of the county's wineries.

The California State Fair commercial wine competition each year names one of its competitors the Golden State Winery for best overall showing based on a ratio of medals and honors to number of entries.

Just as California grape growers and winemakers were getting used to the consequences of summers that seemed to be growing hotter and longer – earlier harvests, more sugar in the fruit, more alcohol in the wine – along came the vintage of 2010.

When Argentine businessman Alejandro Pedro Bulgheroni bought Amador County's financially distressed Renwood Winery last year, he vowed not only to retain the winery's focus on zinfandel but to raise its quality and profile.

For nearly four years now, the intent of this column has been to highlight a wine that in addition to representing quality and value tells a story. That story could be about the person who made the wine, the region that yielded it, the grape that produced it, the trend it represents, or so forth.

Contrary to the popular if dated image of newspapermen, publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst wasn't much of a drinker.

The "Summer of Riesling" is drawing to a close. Unlike summer itself, it left Sacramento largely untouched. By my count, just two Sacramento restaurants – Enotria and Blackbird – participated in "Summer of Riesling," an accelerating campaign to raise the profile of one of the world's more enduring yet misunderstood wines.

Holly's Hill Vineyards in Pleasant Valley, just outside Placerville, is a family-run vineyard and winery that, despite its small size, produces a wide and diverse range of fine wines.

By experience, reputation and timing, Brian Croser is perfectly poised to address the one issue that he believes has kept riesling from becoming as respected in the United States as it is in Germany, the Alsace in France, and even his native Australia – the lack of domestic wineries to specialize in it.