The Wine Makers – Keith Beavers: The Great American Wine Tour (and a Raid on Phil’s Cellar)

Keith Beavers is a busy man. He’s a podcaster, wine educator, and tasting director for VinePair, one of the most widely read drinks publications in the world. He also hosts VinePair’s Wine 101 podcast, making the unnecessarily intimidating world of wine a little more approachable. Since Keith was last on the show, he’s been crisscrossing the country, exploring the ever-evolving American wine scene and releasing the first six episodes of The Great American Wine Tour, visiting a half-dozen iconic and emerging wineries along the way.
This week, Keith sits down with Bart and Sam to talk about all of that, but let’s be clear, this visit was really about one thing: raiding Phil Coturri’s cellar. And Sam’s cellar, too. Because somehow, despite Keith’s vast experience tasting wines from around the world, he’d never really had the opportunity to dig into properly aged California wine. We decided it was time to fix that.

We pull the corks on a few old bottles from Sonoma Valley and the Moon Mountain District, dive into what makes these wines so special, and generally expound on the virtues of California wine with a little age on it. The episode also features a cameo from Phil himself, because there was no way we were going to pilfer bottles from his stash without him showing up to drink them and tell us a thing or two.
Along the way, we get into Keith’s adventures exploring American wine, the changing landscape of wine media, and emerging trends in East Coast winemaking, a subject near and dear to Keith’s heart.

So sit back, pop a bottle of something American, preferably with a few years on it, and give this one a listen. It’s a fun one! [Ep 432]