9th Annual Festival d’Vine in San Marco.
October 26, 2012
What
The 9th Annual Festival d’Vine.
This popular event will once again feature the tasting of an extensive selection of wines from well known vintners and delicious food from top area restaurants. Past restaurants have included: bbs, Bistro Aix, Burrito Gallery, Carrabba’s Italian Grill, Havana-Jax, Indochine, Matthew’s Restaurant and Take Away Gourmet, Mojo BBQ, Orsay, Pizza Palace, The Grotto, Sivada’s Cupcakery, Starbucks, Stonewood Grill & Tavern, SweetByHolly, Sweet Pete’s, Taverna, The Loop, Uptown Market and many more.
Tickets for the event are $75 per person or $50 for Junior Patrons, ages 21 – 35. All proceeds from this event will benefit families in crisis, served through Catholic Charities Emergency Assistance Program.
Where
Treaty Oak Park in San Marco located on Prudential Drive.
When
Saturday, November 3rd.
Posted in Events | Tagged Festival d'Vine, Festival d'Vine Jacksonville, Festival d'Vine San Marco | Leave a comment //The Intricacies of Pairing Pinot Noir with Lamb.
October 23, 2012
Wine Myths…Busted: Do you Need to Lay Down Wines with a Synthetic Cork?
October 23, 2012
Click here for the rest of my Wine Myths Busted series.
Posted in Facts | Tagged Cork, Corks, how to store wine, normacorc, storing wine, synthetic corks, synthetic wine corks, Wine Myths Busted | 1 Comment //First World Wine Problems
October 22, 2012
Sh*t That Wine Lists Say: British Edition.
October 22, 2012
Anyone can critique a wine list. Anyone. It’s easy, mainly for the reason that there are, to a certain extent, very few right and wrong answers.
Ok, maybe that’s not entirely true! There are a few unofficial rules, but they obviously change according to the type of restaurant you’re dealing with. With that said, the next few photos are from my recent trip back to England, when I dined at a reputable Greek/Turkish restaurant in my hometown. I don’t want to pick-on this restaurant. The meal was great. Way better than what I had expected from the tiny town of Brighouse!
What we are really looking at in these photos are the descriptions on each of the wines. Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of wine descriptors, whether in wine reviews or on wine lists. This is a stance I took a long time ago. One man’s blackberry is another man’s plum (so to speak). Would you really choose a particular wine based on a restaurant wine list description of certain flavors? Would you pass-up a wine that has “cranberry” in the descriptor if you’re not a fan of cranberries?
If you answered yes to both those questions, then I’m here to tell you that you’re choosing wines all wrong!
Wine list descriptions are most-often created by the restaurant themselves (sometimes with a little help from a wine distributor). The reason that restaurants use them is a misguided attempt to try and give you a tiny education on what you can expect from the juice in the bottle, with the added bonus that they also don’t have to train their staff on the intricacies of wine appreciation and selling/matching/pairing techniques. That’s not my personal opinion. That’s a fact.
The only reason that I even include descriptors in my actual wine reviews is that I know people still want them…but that doesn’t make it right! I’m ok with people who take this stance, but I think that one of the most essential things you should learn when first getting into wine is how to recognize certain flavor characteristics, rather than being told what you taste.
On to the wine list!!!
As I said in the beginning, ANYONE can pick holes in a wine list, but this one is particularly easy. First and foremost, I’m guessing that they’re assuming the customer doesn’t really NEED to know the actual winery name. Simply the grape and country will apparently suffice. You may have had this South African Shiraz before, but you would never know it, since you don’t get to see the brand name listed!
Again referencing the photo above: Does anyone else think Merlot got an unfair deal in this whole description thing? Shiraz gets a two line descriptor, but poor old Merlot is left at the mercy of hoping that people have tasted it before. FYI: I very rarely find Chilean Merlot to be a “typical” example of the grape.
Posted in News | Tagged wine descriptions, wine list | Leave a comment //WINE FACT: Where do Corks Come From?
October 21, 2012
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