Choose Your Desert Island Wine!
November 28, 2012You and a friend are being sent to a deserted island for 6 months…for reasons known only to you! Luckily you are allowed 3 wines to take with you. Which 3 wines do you choose?
(Let’s also say that you have a way of keeping white wines chilled.)
Wine is Life Giveaway!
November 27, 2012
I did promise I would try my best to get some more giveaways on the website, and so this is my first from website sponsor Wine Is Life.
If you’ve seen any of my videos over the past year, the majority of them feature me sporting a Wine Is Life t-shirt…but you don’t need to be a wine-nerd to appreciate their shirts!
Whether you prefer white or red, sweet or dry, the vinous-inspired graphics and sayings from Wine is Life are sure to put a smile on your face. All t-shirts are made from soft brushed cotton for maximum comfort and style. Enzyme washed, environmentally friendly; and I promise you, they feel as though you’ve been wearing them for years!
As usual, I’ve made the competition as simple as it gets to win! The bonus with these Wine is Life competitions is that YOU GET TO PICK THE PRIZE!
Here’s all you have to do to win:
– Visit the Wine Is Life web-store, browse the various products and choose your favorite Wine Is Life item*. It can be anything! They have t-shirts, coffee mugs, hoodies, iPhone cases and more. Make sure it truly is your favorite though, because the product you choose will be the one you win!
– Next, go to the Wine is Life Facebook Page and tell them on their Facebook Wall which item is your favorite; so for example, I would write: “I love the Liquid Happiness shirt!” or words to that effect. Feel free to get as creative as you want with what you say, but the drawing is completely random, so everyone is in with an equal chance of winning, no matter what you write.
This competition ends on Monday December 3rd 2012, and the winner will be announced via private Facebook message where I’ll obtain your size and shipping address. *If the prize you choose is over $25, you will receive a $25 credit to apply to that purchase.
Good luck, and just to prove that you’re in with a fair chance of winning, here is the last Wine Is Life giveaway winner…
Spinach and Pepperjack Stuffed Chicken Paired with Robert Mondavi Napa Chardonnay.
November 27, 2012
I increasingly seem to find myself banging-on about the ABC (Anything But Chardonnay) movement. Of course a great number of us have become bored with the same-old over-oaked Cali Chards, but that doesn’t mean to say oak doesn’t have a place in modern Chardonnay.
Winemakers treat oak the same way that chefs treat salt when cooking. Without salt, a dish can barely come alive by itself. Adding even the tiniest amount to an unseasoned dish will demonstrate a marked improvement in flavor. Adding a little too much salt to a recipe; and you could probably still eat it, but the over-salting would detract from all the other flavors in the dish. The same goes for oak in wine.
Winemakers of unoaked Chardonnays have therefore got their hands full! Think about if salt was to be taken away from a chef. Sure you can still make great tasting food without it, but you’d be left looking for other ways to season the dish.
Never Mind the Bollocks: Here’s the Wine Scores!
November 25, 2012
Have you ever been walking the wine aisles, and looked at the points a wine has received i.e. 92 out of a 100 from the Wine Spectator, 7 out of 10 from Decanter etc., and wondered how the publication/”wine experts” arrived at that score? I certainly have. But that’s not the point of this post.
Rather than dwelling too much on the criteria used to award a wine its associated points, I’d like to address the overall relevance of wine scores altogether. What I’m going to propose right here, right now, is that wine ratings/scores are for amateurs and they have limited relevance on how you should choose a wine. Obviously I’ve got some explaining to do:
So what’s your deal with wine ratings? Why do you hate them so much?
First and foremost, I’m a wine writer/blogger (I’m still not sure what to call myself). It’s therefore almost a right of passage to take a stand against the “system” (and by ‘system,” I mean the wine point system). Makes it sound so anarchistic!
I don’t hate wine ratings/scores. I think they have a place in the evolution of your wine drinking, but that “place” is right at the beginning of your “wine journey.” At the stage where you need some authority to tell you what to drink, rather than choosing based on past experiences, what you’re serving for dinner and your own knowledge.
Is that it? I thought you’d have something more controversial!
Don’t worry. I’m just getting started…
It’s no secret that wineries change the way they make their wines in order to please the critics, and therefore hope to gain a higher score. In its most basic form: A wine with more fruit, more alcohol, and little more residual sugar will ALWAYS stand out (in one way or another) above a wine with more restrained levels of those same qualities. The reason is that the guys (and girls) doing the tasting will most likely be sampling 100+ wines at one sitting. Once palate-fatigue sets in, the wine which stands out, makes itself memorable and doesn’t deviate too much from what it should taste like (i.e. a Chianti shouldn’t taste like an Australian Shiraz), will be the wine which gets the higher score. Simple!
Of course all of this is a very sweeping statement! I can’t assume how the majority of “point issuers” arrive at the score they do; and as I said, that isn’t the purpose of this post. What I will say is that there should be no argument on whether a great number of wineries are forcing their wines to lose their identity (i.e. a sense of where the wine comes from), simply to try and please the critics.
That’s not cool.
Is that it? I thought you’d have something MORE controversial!
Ok, well dwell on this for a little….
If you think that the ratings/points given by various critics/magazines are NOT influenced by cold-hard cash, you’re out of your mind! Here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about…
Here in Jacksonville, we have a magazine called Wolio Feekly (I changed the name to protect the identity of magazine). Each year they do a “Best of Jax” issue, awarding everything from Best Smoothie to Best Burger to Best Lawyer to Best Gentleman’s Club, all of which is based on “reader submitted votes.”
Now, what are the chances that maybe the awards for each category might possibly be swayed towards the business who maintains a year-round advertisement in their magazine? I’d say the chances are fairly good, since it’s a free newspaper who depends solely on ads to generate income, and jobs are on the line to maintain the loyalty of its advertisers.
I’m of course not going on record in this post to say that this, or any other publication, would do anything so despicably underhanded…because I can’t afford to be sued right now…but let’s just say that this is a plausible scenario. Do you agree?
Why don’t we relate that same scenario to wine magazines i.e. those who issue points/ratings.
It’s no secret magazine sales have been on a sharp decline over the past few years…something needs to be done to generate revenue…and I’ll leave it at that…
Rendez-vous Chardonnay, Clarksburg, California.
November 24, 2012
Wine: Rendez-vous Chardonnay
Place: Clarksburg, California
Price: $24 (available from www.rendez-vouswinery.com)
Kris Chislett Selected to Speak at the Eastern Winery Exposition 2013 Conference.
November 24, 2012Just a little self promotion…I hope you don’t mind…
[Lancaster, Pennsylvania, November 8, 2012] – Richard Leahy Conference Program Director for the Eastern Winery Exposition today announced that Kris Chislett will speak at the 2013 Eastern Winery Exposition Conference, taking place March 6-7 at the Lancaster County Convention Center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
The Eastern Winery Exposition is an Eastern-focused wine industry trade show and conference designed to provide the Eastern U.S. and Canadian wineries and vineyards with an easily accessible meeting, a strong seminar program and an exhibit hall featuring a large number of winery and vineyard suppliers.
Chislett will help lead the session entitled Social Media for Wine Marketing and will discuss the practical uses of popular social networking resources for wineries of all sizes, and the relevance and integration of mobile websites.
“We are delighted Kris Chislett will be participating in the Eastern Winery Exposition, due to his experience in the area of social media and online marketing strategy for wineries. He will no doubt provide attendees with a much needed insight, as well as a forward-looking perspective,” said Conference Program Director, Richard Leahy.
A Certified Sommelier with the Court of Master Sommeliers and a Certified Specialist of Wine with the Society of Wine Educators, Kris Chislett is the founder of BlogYourWine.com (and its associated website network), as well as MobileWineryWebsites.com. Kris’ work involves online strategy and content creation for wineries/wine brands/small businesses, social media planning and development as well as mobile website design. His client list includes wineries and wine brands producing from under 500 cases to over 1 million cases annually, as well as consulting projects for various other businesses.
For more information on the Eastern Winery Exposition, visit:
www.easternwineryexposition.com.
For more information on Kris Chislett, visit:
www.linkedin.com/in/krischislett
www.blogyourwine.com
www.mobilewinerywebsites.com
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