So You Want To Build a Wine Cellar…
August 17, 2012
I continue to receive numerous questions from people looking for advice on building a wine cellar, and whilst I can usually help to answer most peoples’ queries, I prefer to occasionally defer to the superior knowledge of my good friend Curtis Dahl, co-owner of Joseph & Curtis. Curtis is an expert in all matters wine cellar related, since his company builds some of the finest wine cellars known to humankind!
I accumulated a few wine cellar questions, as well as a few of my own and sent off an email to Curtis. This is what he said:
I’m looking to install a wine cellar in my house. Is there any reason why I can’t just do it myself?
“The explosion of wine enjoyment has many people installing wine rooms, cabinets, and even tasting rooms and creating everything from simple wine storage to full blown adult entertainment destinations. I cannot tell you how vital it is to have a design team which can capture the full potential of each space.”
Are there ever times when people contact you after having tried to build their own wine cellar, and you had to “step in” and fix it?
“All the time! Several times people have called us to help build a wine cellar after they started by purchasing a flat-packed ‘wine cellar in a box’ one of the leading on-line wine rack retailers. They then tried to assemble it themselves, only to find it extremely difficult and time consuming, and even when they got the thing built, they realized the quality to be poor.
Other times its been cooling systems that were purchased, but burnt-out, with the reason being the system that was purchased was not the right size and the vapor barrier/insulation was in-adequate.”
The Age of a Grapevine.
August 17, 2012
Champagne De Venoge Grand Vin des Princes, 1993.
August 16, 2012
Grapes
100% Chardonnay
Facts
- The opening of this bottle of De Venoge 1993 Grand Vin des Princes was a last minute decision i.e. 30 minutes before I popped the cork. Usually, you would reserve opening a wine of this magnitude for the birth of your first-born child; instead, I/we decided that my wife’s “half-birthday” (August 7th) was a good enough reason! She’s an only child, and so she celebrates things like that…
- De Venoge is one of the few remaining houses producing all the styles of Champagne: Brut, Brut Millesime, Extra Brut Millesime, Demi-Sec, Blanc de Blancs, Blanc de Noirs, Rose and a Tete de Cuvée
- The De Venoge Grand Vin des Princes comes in a fairly unusual conical-shaped bottle, with the bottom of the bottle bearing several small indentations, allowing it to be balanced at a 45° angle (see photo). I have no idea why. I can’t imagine there is much of a purpose to it, other than it “looking cool,” which to me is a perfectly good reason!
- De Venoge has been making bubbly since 1837. That’s 175 years to perfect the art of making Champagne! The house was founded in Mareuil-sur-Aÿ by the Swiss Marc-Henri de Venoge, who soon moved operations to the Epernay region.
- Apparently R&B artist Usher is/was in talks with De Venoge to create a “cuvee partnership” of-sorts. No comment from me on that one…
Beware of the Dreaded Wine Meme!!!
August 14, 2012
For those of you who aren’t “down with the kids,” a meme (according to Wikipedia) is:
“an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.”
In a nutshell, a meme [pronounced “meem”] is most commonly seen on social networks in the form of a photo with a funny tagline attached (as shown to the left).
Paul Mabray (of Vintank fame) posted an article a few days ago which really struck a chord with me, mainly because I’ve been thinking about the role of memes in marketing a lot recently.
The article reads:
“For the wine industry we believe that Facebook is the place to engage with your TRUE FANS. These are the people that truly want to have a relationship with your winery. This also means giving them meaningful content that relates to your winery/brand. Unfortunately one of the biggest trends in Facebook marketing is using wine meme’s to raise up the engagement with your fans.
You are not really getting true engagement or brand building with your fan base [with memes]. You are just telling a funny joke that people like to laugh at (the digital equivalent is a “Like”). Just like a joke, it is great to share but has nothing to do with the brand (aka joke teller) but with the joke itself. You are slowly shifting from your brand essence to “the funny kid in the class.”
Consumers belonging to many wine Fan Pages see these repeat themes and view your brand as lazy or copycat.
Wine: What am I Paying for and What’s the Difference? – I Know Jax
August 14, 2012Posted in Facts | Tagged I Know Jax, Wine on Television, Wine on TV | Leave a comment //
Rendez-vous Grenache Rose Paired with Salmon with Curried Fennel-Wine Sauce.
August 13, 2012
If you caught my recent post on pairing foods with rose wine, you’ll know that I consider roses to be one of the most food friendly, albeit one of the most overlooked, wines to match with food. I’d even go so far as to put them right up there with Riesling and bubblies, as far as their all-round pairing ability!
I’ve said it countless times before, but I still feel the need to reiterate, that roses still have quite the identity crisis on their hands. Pink colored wines can’t help but remind people of white Zinfandel. To be brutally honest, I know for a fact that most of it is just in peoples’ heads! When people see a rose, the wine fairy IMMEDIATELY appears on their shoulder, and screams into their ear:
“Errrrrm, what are you doing?!?!? We don’t drink that cr*p, remember!?!? What are we, 16?!?!? For a start, it’s so sweet you’ll go into a diabetic coma within 5 seconds of taking a sip. Secondly, what if someone sees you drinking a pink wine?!?!”
From that point onwards, they’ve got the thought stuck in their head that the wine is going to be too sweet, and it really doesn’t matter too much what it actually tastes like, their opinion will already be skewed.
I find the same phenomenon to be true with Riesling. If you taste someone on a Riesling (after they’ve stated they always find Riesling to be too sweet), I guarantee you that it doesn’t matter how dry the wine is, they will still declare it to be sweet for their taste. Lie to them and tell them it’s a Pinot Grigio (or another one of their favorite white wines), and I promise you they will love it! Funny how that works…
It’s therefore in the hands of wineries such as Rendez-vous to do everything in their power to change peoples’ opinion, one “pink wine” at a time!
Moving on!
I wonder how many people would correctly identify the left-hand photo to be fennel….not many I imagine…
I don’t know about you, but I rarely cook with fennel, either in bulb-form or as a seed. I know it’s mainly used in Indian cooking (which I love!), but I can’t say that I’m all that good at making Indian food. I’d rather leave it to the pros!
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