In the biggest Mendocino County wine deal ever, Fetzer Vineyards of Hopland is being sold to a Chilean company for $238 million. Vina Concha y Toro S.A., Latin America’s leading wine producer, is the buyer of a landmark winery operation that has languished locally in recent years. The Chilean company exports wines to 135 countries [...]
So the New York Times’ cover page profile Monday of Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers’ charmed quarterback, has nary a mention of the young man’s strong ties to Mendocino County. The focus is on his early days in Chico, the Sacramento Valley college town where I once lived. Truthfully I was disappointed with even [...]
Count me among the folks who are seriously unmoved by next week’s looming election. Not even the marijuana legalization measure or the possible return to Sacramento of a former governor who advocates a “less is more” attitude grabs me. In truth the saga of the SF Giants is personally more relevant, which from a guy [...]
I didn’t know Barney Fetzer, a lumber executive turned legendary wine entrepreneur. He had already died when I arrived in Mendocino County 25 years ago. But over the years I have had the privilege of getting to know Barney Fetzer’s wife, Kathleen, and their 11 daughters and sons. On Friday in Ukiah there was a [...]
It was unintentional, but I’m happy to have taken the summer off from writing my blog for theAVA.com. I know some of you feel the same but that’s not the point. It was a period of simple, personal adventures that allowed me to drift from the obsession to keep up with the trivia of local [...]
It’s a warm and gray morning. A blanket of clouds covers the Azores, casting a blue-gray shadow across the Atlantic. Some clouds creep slowly across the flanks of the towering volcano on the nearby island of Pico. A few appear anchored to the mountain’s peak. Clouds partially obscure the coastline of Faial, the other nearby [...]
So Aaron Vargas is going to state prison for killing the Fort Bragg businessman that he and a dozen other Mendocino Coast men said had molested them over the past two decades. Tuesday’s sentencing left no one happy, least of all a circle of Vargas’ family and friends who waged a futile campaign to win [...]
Embattled Mendocino County DA Meredith Lintott was the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s primary, but she faces a tough run-off in the November election with challenger David Eyster and her re-election is far from certain.
Ukiah High School teacher Jeff Burrell can get on with his life after felony marijuana cultivation charges he faced were dropped Tuesday, in yet another confusing chapter in the saga of Mendocino County District Attorney Meredith Lintott.
Is it “consensual” when a man as an adult engages in sex with another who began molesting him as a boy?
