The Top 10 Things That Can Ruin Your Wine Experience. Part One.
July 29, 2011
#10 Poor Lighting
What could be viewed as a seemingly minor point, but I personally like to be able to appreciate the color of a wine before tasting it! The color of a wine can give away a lot of clues to its age, possible grape, and other keys elements such as fining or filtration. If the room is too dark, you are left, well, left in the dark as to all these elements! Check out this article which illustrates how red or blue lighting will lead tasters to rate a wine higher than green or white.
#9 Incorrect serving temperature
Another point that may seem kind of pedantic (I’ve been wanting to use that word for a while now), but the serving temperature of wines is critical to their perception.
Scientific studies have shown that at different temperatures, sweetness and bitterness are perceived differently. So a Chardonnay might taste flabby and sweet when served at room temperature, and when it’s ice-cold it might taste of next-to-nothing at all. On a side-note, that’s a good little trick if you’re serving guests an inexpensive white wine, but don’t necessarily want them to know how little you spent. Chill the arse out of it! 9 times out of 10 they’ll be none the wiser.
Working in a hotel many moons ago, I had a regular weekly guest who would demand his Champagne glass to be put in the freezer 15 minutes before he was served his bottle of Piper-Heidsieck. At the time I didn’t think much of it. Now, I realize that he had no idea what he was doing. The customer is always right though, I guess…
Posted in Funny, News | Tagged Corked, Glassware, Restaurants, Serving Temperatures, Sommelier, White Zinfandel | Leave a comment //
Alcohol: the Triple Threat!
July 29, 2011
Alcohol is the only item in wine that can be tasted (sweet or bitter), felt (heat), and smelled (strong pungent odor).
13th Annual Toast to the Animals Wine Tasting and Auction
July 28, 2011
The Jacksonville Humane Society is pleased to announce the 13th Annual Toast to the Animals wine tasting and auction on Friday, August 19, 2011 from 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM.
Toast to the Animals is one of Jacksonville’s most popular wine tastings, attracting nearly 800 of the River City’s most influential young professionals, community leaders and distinguished executives. Guests can sample hundreds of varieties of wine and beer, taste culinary concoctions from some of Jacksonvillle’s great eateries and bid on great items in the live and silent auctions. Toast 2010 raised more than $70,000 for the animals awaiting their forever homes at JHS, and they hope to raise even more at this year’s event!
To visit the Toast to the Animals ticketing page directly, please click here
Posted in Events | Tagged Jacksonville | Leave a comment //Cesari Mara Valpolicella Superiore Ripasso 2008
July 28, 2011
Grapes
A blend of Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara (don’t worry if you haven’t heard of them before, these grapes are generally only used in Italy in the wines of Valpolicella).
Facts
Read that title again! What a mouthful…….and that’s why your “average” wine buyer normally misses out on these awesome wines! The labels are no doubt very confusing, and the wines even more so; however if you’re feeling adventurous, the red wines from the Veneto are some of the best (and my personal favorites) coming out of Italy!
Ripasso is a winemaking process, which gives a wine a greater level of richness. Ripasso involves pouring the juice over the skins of grapes used to make Amarone (the top wine in the Veneto). It’s made by drying Corvina, Rondinella and Molinara grapes on straw mats over the course of several months until they become raisinated; after that is completed, the wine-making process starts. Amarone is concentrated in flavor, with black fruit, a raisiny or prune-like quality and dark chocolate with potential for extensive aging. My all time favorite wine!
This Week in Wine 7/24/11
July 24, 2011
Oops! Forklift smashes $1M worth of Australia wine
A malfunctioning forklift dropped 462 cases of wine in Australia on Thursday, a spill with a price tag of more than $1 million.
The 5,544 bottles of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove shiraz, with a price tag of $185 a bottle, fell almost 20 feet to ground of a wharf in Port Adelaide as the forklift was loading it for shipment abroad, according to media reports.
The lost wine represents a third of his company’s output for a year. Marquis said he was working with insurers to get compensated for his loss.
Click here for the full article.
My Thoughts
Ooops indeed! I dropped a $30 bottle of wine once, and I think I had tears in my eyes!
Farm Thieves Target Grapes, and Even Bees
It seems that “agri-crimes” are on the rise.
Sergeant Walt Reed — who eventually arrested a suspect after staking out a Kern County vineyard — is just one of dozens of deputies on the front lines of agricultural crime in California, home to the nation’s most productive farms and the people who prey on them.
While other states have their own agricultural intrigue — cattle rustlers in Texas, tomato takers in Florida — few areas can claim a wider variety of farm felons than California, where ambushes on everything from almonds to beehives have been reported in recent years. In Madera County, about 130 miles east of San Francisco, officials saw a rash of bee burglaries this year, as a shortage of able-bodied pollinators drove up the price. Brian Long, a beekeeper based in Colorado, was one of those hit, losing more than 400 hives — valued at about $100,000 — in California in January.
Click here to read the full article.
My Thoughts
Grapes are one thing, but good luck to the guy that’s trying to steal bees!
Posted in Funny, News | Tagged Australia, Mollydooker, New Zealand, Organic, Parducci, Sustainable | Leave a comment //The Value of a Wine Tasting Note.
July 24, 2011
As you more or may not know, for the last few days I’ve been at the Wine Bloggers Conference in Charlottesville. An awesome experience overall; sampled lots of great wines (some crappy ones as well), met tons of great people (most of whom I’ve been talking to over the last couple of years on Twitter/Facebook), and enjoyed the company of a number of wine bloggers / marketers I happened upon for the first time.
Saturday night (7/23/11) happened to be a speech by Eric Asimov, an extremely influential wine writer and critic for the New York Times.
One of Eric’s concluding comments to his keynote, which really stood-out for me (bearing in mind he was talking to a room filled with wine bloggers) was “…my advice for the future of all your blogs, is to see if you can go a full year without writing tasting notes on your wine reviews.”
His justification being that wine tasting notes cloud the judgment of consumers, and everyone’s palate is different. Also, he questioned whether descriptors such as “petrol” really have a place in the critical evaluation of a wine.
I think I was one of the few people in the room whom didn’t whole-heartedly agree with what he was advocating.
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