Learn How To Easily Find Wines Of $50 Quality For $10 Or Less. Impress Friends With Your Expanded Wine Knowledge. Eliminate Your Dependence On Wine Salespeople. And Take The Hassle Out Of Buying Wine.
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Errol at Washington Winemaker in Bellevue, Washington relates the story of three women winemakers being threatened by the U.S. Olympic Committee for daring to use the name 'Olympic Cellars' for their winery, which is located on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State'. Gee fellas, I think the Olympic Mountain range has been around longer than your trademark. The mountain range name was made official in 1864 and was in common and published use before that.
The whole world failed Rwanda - Words attributed to UN staff members under Secretary-General Kofi Annan, reported by Philip Gourevitch in Annals of Diplomacy: The Genocide Fax, New Yorker, 11 May 1998.
One of Oregon's better-known Pinot Gris producers, Ponzi Vineyards, will be hosting a wine event this Sunday, July 13 2008. Between 5:00 and 9:00 PM, Ponzi is offering wine, music and bocci ball --- that oh-so neglected game from our Italiano ancestral roots. The event takes place at Ponzi Vineyards' main estate lawn. There is no need to RSVP, but they ask that you leave any dogs at home, so there aren't any landmines left for the bocci players!
The best kinds of cheap wines are the kinds that have a rich story behind them. Well, The Tillerman White wine brought to you by the Hook & Ladder Winery certainly fits the bill. At first glance this wine label made no sense to me… Hook & Ladder? The Tillerman? After doing some research, I feel enlightened knowing the origins of this fine cheap wine, so I’ll share:
The owner of the family-run Hook & Ladder, Cecil De Loach used to be a firefighter! “Hook and Ladder” is just another name for a firetruck. And The Tillerman is guy who drives the back end of a firetruck. A firefighter and a wine-maker! What a life!
I sampled several bottles of The Tillerman White, and I am glad I did. Not being a fan of white blends with a lot of oak, I enjoyed everything about this wine. The peach/apricot aroma was the most prominent feature of this wine as it approached my nose. The wine was very dry, tasty, had an awesome finish. Just a perfect all-around table wine. For about 16 bucks or less, this Sonoma County wine is a steal. If you see it in your supermarket, snatch it up! I look forward to trying some of their many other varietals. This same vineyard, the Russian River Valley produces Chardonay, Gewurztraminer, White Zin, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the “Third Alarm” Reserve Chardonnay. Oh, how I would love to visit the vineyard one day. Rating: 9/10 - Excellent! The only reason I’m not giving it 10 is because I promised my readers “cheap wines less than 15 dollars” and this wine retails for 16. Look around though, I’m sure you can find a good deal! Even if you can’t, it is worth the extra dollar.
Extra Info:Hook & Ladder - Founded in 2004 2027 Olivet Road Santa Rosa, CA 95401 phone: 707-546-5712
This concludes the baker's dozen of reruns. I had to republish this one. It was hard to write -- I'll say it took me years, effectively. I said things I'd needed to say for a long time. If ever I had a touchstone in writing, it would be this. I don't what know what else to say. January 27, 2008 Húgues the Memorious: Wine, Depression, Introspection, Awareness In vino veritas. For centuries there have been...
When you're gazing at endless rows of wine and you have no clue what to buy, here some generalized tips that can help weed out the crap and allow you to make an educated guess:
1) Don't buy any wine that has dust on it. Chances are there is a reason it hasn't moved. It is either a horrible wine or its a terrible value.
2) If you only see a couple bottles of a particular wine left on the shelf, it may be worth trying. This could be an indication that people are buying it up like crazy and you just happened to walk in at the right time.
3) Read the back label for helpful flavor guides. Smart wineries include descriptions and food pairings. Those that don't have any indicators are anyone's guess as to how it will taste.
Hopefully these easy-to-remember tips will help those in need. Be smart. Use common sense. Don't blindly buy another bottle of vino without making at LEAST an educated guess. Cheers!
I did a search on Google Scholar for wine. A lot of articles were returned in the search result. At first glance, I could not figure out why these results had been returned. At closer inspection, the author of the first few articles had the last name of Wine.
RH Wine has written many articles in the field of biology. JJ Wine has authored many papers on Cystic fibrosis. RN Wine writes on topics in the field of toxicology. These are just three of the authors with results dominating my search for wine on Google Scholar.
I changed my search in Google Scholar from wine to red wine. The first scholarly article returned in my search for red wine was ?Inhibition of oxidation of human low-density lipoprotein by phenolic substances in red wine?. This article was published in 1993 in the British edition of Lancet.
An article entitled ?The red wine phenolics trans-resveratrol and quercetin block human platelet aggregation and eicosanoid synthesis: implications for protection against coronary heart disease? was published in Clinica Chimica Acta in 1995. There were five authors cited on this paper.
The American journal of clinical nutrition published ?Consumption of red wine with meals reduces the susceptibility of human plasma and low-density lipoprotein to lipid peroxidation? in 1995. This paper has been cited over two hundred times. The author credited with writing it is B Fuhrman.
There were over sixteen thousand results returned when I did my Google Scholar search for red wine. The article entitled ?Antiplatelet activity of synthetic and natural resveratrol in red wine? is another article that has been cited many times. The International journal of tissue reactions published this article in 1995 and now it has been cited 116 times.
The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published an article in 1980 entitled ?Wine aroma composition: identification of additional volatile constituents of red wine?. The article has been cited five times. The author, P Schreier, has also written an article entitled ?Flavor composition of wines: a review?.
Whilst in Bordeaux I took the time to speak to Thierry Manoncourt at Chateau Figeac to ask him about his life and how things have changed during his stewardship of the estate since the 1940s - he will be ninety in September this year. The interview will be podcast in the near future (in [...]
Not to sound like a lush or anything?, but I love the booze. All aspects of it. Grape, honey, barley, corn, whatever. I like sitting down to a well-set table and a nice dinner with a fantastically-matched glass of wine to sip and savor, but I also enjoy gulping down a can of cheap beer after mowing the lawn. I?ve been doing single malt scotch tastings and keeping a whisky journal since 2002, but I also like sitting around a campfire and drinking rot-gut until I?m staggering and bleary-eyed.
There are times I drink simply because it tastes good, and times I drink because I want to get stupid. Sometimes both. Well, a little while ago, I was watching Star Trek: The Next Generation re-runs. There?s a great episode where Picard goes home to France for the first time in years. His brother, Robear, is still running the family vineyard. They sit down to the evening meal, and Robear uncorks a bottle of the family wine.
Jean-Luc: Is this the forty-six? Robear: *tsk* The forty-seven. You?ve been drinking too much of that? what?s it called? Synthahol? Spoiled your palette. Jean-Luc: On the contrary, I think it heightens one?s appreciation for the genuine article.
(For the non-Trekkies in the room, synthahol is a substitute for alcohol that does not impair judgment like alcohol does.)
Heightens one?s appreciation for the genuine article. I love that line, and it got me thinking? Would I drink wine, beer and whisky if it was non-alcoholic? All things considered, is it the taste, the buzz, or both?? What about you? If beer, wine and spirits contained no alcohol, would you still have that glass of fantastic wine with dinner, that ice-cold beer after moving the lawn, or that treasured dram of 15-year-old whisky?
Me? I?d probably stop drinking whisky, because even though I dearly love exploring the subtle nuances of different single malts, spending that kind of money on a non-alcoholic drink would be silly. I?d still drink wine and meads, since finding a good match can really enhance a meal, irregardless of alcohol content. Complimenting a strip steak or a plate of fine cheeses with a can of Diet Coke or a glass of cranberry juice just wouldn?t cut it. I?m not sure about beer. I?m not much of a beer drinker anyway, so I?d probably stop altogether if it was all non-alcoholic. I went through a phase when I was drinking non-alcoholic beer because it was thirst-quenching, but it got a bit expensive. An ice cold Fresca would do the trick after mowing the lawn, I guess.
2003 Embriux Priorat de Vall Llach $35 Wine label said: Wrong language! The bottle is no help! Vineyard66 says: This another of my series of Spanish wines, as we will be there next year and I’m doing my homework. The web tells me that Embruix means “betwiching” in Spanish, but also that it is primarily Cabernet and Grenache blend [...]
Port wines can seem like a challenging subject. There are all sorts of bottlings: vintage date, late-bottled vintage date, Colheitas, single Quintas, and still others know as ruby reserve, crusted, or white — and let?s not forget the various tawny Ports of 10, 20, 30 and 40 years of age. Why are there so many different bottlings, and where does one begin to explore all of these fortified wines? Thankfully, we had the opportunity to talk with Louisa Fry from the Port and Douro Wines Institute, an inter-professional council of growers and producers from this famous Portugese region.
Join us as we hear about the origins of Port, what it takes to get a vintage declared, and whether it’s called Port or Porto. We?ll also discuss the amazingly steep terraces of Portugal’s Douro region, and the varieties of grapes that are able to be blended into the final product. Of course, it wouldn’t be complete without hearing about the optimum time to drink Port.
For more info on the Wines of Portugal: www.ivdp.pt
More than fifty award-winning wineries, accompanied by prestigious chefs from around the country, will gather to celebrate the world-class wines of Monterey County during the 2008 Great Wine Escape, November 7th-9th, 2008. Now in its second decade, the 2008 celebration is beckoning oenophiles and foodies from around the country.
Domaine Weinbach Schlossberg Grand Cru Cuvee St.Catherine Riesling 2004 (375mL) Peaches, pears, orange peel and marmalade on the nose. A rich, viscous and weighty palate with excellent texture and length. Bold, but balanced. 92/100
Domaine Fourrier Les Goulots 1er Gevery-Chambertin 2003 A nose of red berries, candy, violets, chocolate and cinnamon. Touch of stalk to the medium bodied palate. Decent length and structure. Nice. 88/100
P&C Bonnefond Cote Rotie 2001 Licorice, dark chocolate, raspberry and coffee aromas. A juicy, ripe palate with the elements of the wine well integrated. Very good. 90/100
Taylors Vintage Port 1977 (375mL) Vanilla, jasmine tea, licorice and cedar. Palate is smooth and of medium length, but doesn’t have the complexity or depth I expected. A bit of a let down as it is meant to be amazing. 88/100
I'm on the road for work, which means that I'm reading The Wall Street Journal. This paper is everywhere business travelers are: in lounges, planes, and hotels. I don't subscribe at home, but as it's Friday and the paper was outside my door, I turned to the "Tastings" column written by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher to read what two of my favorite wine critics had to say. (photo by filtran)
Essentially, they said that expensive wine was so five minutes ago. And then they made a surprising recommendation for this year's "holiday gift pick."
It's not expensive. It's not hard to get. But it will leave you wondering if America's expensive wine habits are on the brink of changing--for the better. What do I think? For my thoughts on their story, click over to Serious Grape, my weekly column on the excellent food site Serious Eats, and get all the details.
While visiting my friend Mario I noticed a National Geographic from 1916, the same as his birth year. Italy in 1916, the year my Aunt Mary and Aunt Josephine were born. They are all still alive and well. Here was a magazine with many great images of the Italy that both of their parents had left. Fascinating stuff, looking back at Italy some 93 years, to see how it has changed. The photographs on this post are from that issue.
Oddly, I think many of us want to find those back roads (and wines) of Italy in 1916. A return to a day when things seemed so much simpler and easier. But then one needs to factor in that time. 1916, World War I, with 37 million casualties (16 million deaths, 21 million wounded), an incoming influenza pandemic that killed 40-100 million people world wide, many younger than 45 years old. So, it wasn?t all rustic charm and simpler times, for those who lived through it.
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
The oldest Italian wine in my possession is a 1936 Est!Est!!Est!!! Amabile. It will never be opened. It sits there, twenty years after the National Geographic issue, in the time of Mussolini, at the edge of another World War.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we?re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it ?quantum change? as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn?t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my Andre Simon, C.E.Hawker and T.A.Layton and read them now. These were writers telling the story of wine from a time long forgotten by followers of Galloni,Meadows and Vaynerchuck. It worked for Merlin, to travel through time from the future to the past; maybe with wine it would be equally magical. From what I read it sure seems folks want to find something that has gone missing.
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
Or, if you want something simpler, something a little less ?nano?, you could read the old books, find the random National Geographic from a million years ago, or you could sit back, pour a glass of ancient Marsala and crank up the Rossini and let your imagination take you away.
I?ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
But if you want to go for the experience of Italy, and you have had your share of visiting museums and restaurants and churches and Autogrills, next time, choose the slow train from Rome to Catanzaro and take a trip back to an Italy that linear time has not accelerated with the rapidity of modernity. You can find vestiges of Pythagoras, Federico II, and Mascagni. You might even find a piece of your Italian soul which you have been looking for.
by Martin Field Just back from a cruise on the good ship Superstar Gemini. We sailed from Singapore to Thailand, Vietnam and Hong Kong. All meals were included in the cruise price, drinks were not. Cuisine was European with the occasional Asian dish. Vegetarian options were limited. In the Ocean Palace restaurant you dined semi-formally, with waiter service, table linen and all. The restaurant has a ludicrous rule that men may not wear shorts or sandals to dinner(we are in the tropics during monsoon you should know). Women wear what they like. The ship's other restaurant, the Mariners? Buffet, is more casual and the food is self-served, er, from a buffet.
Is wine food or alcohol? Most Americans would immediately choose "alcohol," perhaps laughing at the question.
In Europe, though, that wasn't the case for centuries. Before water purification became widespread, wine was safer to drink than water. The idea that wine is primarily an intoxicant is relatively recent, and like so many influential memes in the world today, it comes from the United States.
Paul Lukacs' book American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine was inspired by the author's realization at an Italian wine event that U.S. wine has become not only the best in the world (as measured by critics' ratings), but that U.S. wine -- fruit-forward, big-bodied and high in alcohol -- is changing the style of wine throughout the world. Even those who vehemently oppose the former idea must concede the latter.
If all Lukacs, chair of the English department at Loyola College in Maryland, was interested in was those two points, he could have started his timeline as late as the 1960s, perhaps with the opening of the idea lab that was Robert Mondavi Winery. In fact, he expends a lot of verbiage assuring us that American wine, until the end of the 1960s, almost invariably reached its highest peak at "serviceable."
Instead, digging into the history of American wine, Lukacs found himself fascinated by its relationship to alcohol. This continuing theme of the book ends up far more interesting than another retelling of how Mike Grgich and Warren Winiarski proved, in Jim Barrett's words, that "kids from the sticks" could make wines better than the best of France, and a helluva lot more useful than one more polemic about high-alcohol wines.
Prohibition was a defining time in America's relationship with wine and liquor, as well as crime and honesty. Lukacs points out that if the wine industry had been smarter, Prohibition could have been an era when Americans became wine drinkers.
Here's why: When Thomas Jefferson opined about the benefits of wine, one of his strongest points was that it led to temperance. What Jefferson meant by temperance was not teetotalling, but drinking wine in moderation with dinner, the way it had been consumed in Europe for centuries. Like many citizens of this always-culturally-conservative country, Jefferson didn't want to see his neighbors getting blasted at the saloon on bourbon and rye.
Prohibition could easily have gone in a different direction. Home winemakers were allowed to make a fairly large amount of wine for their own consumption, and some California grapegrowers actually did better shipping their grapes to the East Coast than they had selling to the California Wine Association monopoly that had dominated the industry for more than 20 years before Prohibition. A few politicians argued that wine should be entirely exempt from Prohibition. Imagine how that would have changed the roaring '20s: no speakeasies, no culture of lawlessness, less corruption, less capital transferred to criminal enterprises.
Instead, the country got a dozen years of bathtub gin that promoted the sanctimonious-in-public, sin-in-private behavior we still exhibit regarding sex and media. For the most part, unlike French, Spaniards and Italians, Americans don't drink to appreciate the beverage; they drink to drink.
Lukacs blames the wine industry for not promoting its product as one of temperance and culture, instead selling it in saloons as just another flavor of booze. He points out a number of occasions in the late 19th century when the wine industry had a chance to differentiate itself from liquor purveyors, but chose not to.
The disturbing thing about this observation is that little has really changed regarding wine's place in American culture. Those of us who write about wine or work in the industry are a step removed from the way middle America sees it.
I'm writing this from San Francisco, where wine does belong on the dinner table for the most part. But I read this book while on vacation in Honduras. The island of Roatan is dominated by American tourists, many from middle America. People who drank wine there didn't stop at one bottle; they stopped at near-unconsciousness. When I told people I work in the wine industry, the inevitable reaction was not "Do you get to taste a lot of good stuff?" but "How great it must be to get wasted every day!"
I'll get off my high horse now (horse riding makes my butt hurt). Lukacs' other main point of interest, which is far less convincing, is his respect for and concentration on non-West Coast wines, and even worse, wines not made from vinifera grapes. It's interesting to read a book on American wine history that's not focused on California, but if you're writing a book about American wine's "rise" by world standards, you're wasting your time talking about wine from Ohio and Indiana and Missouri. And please, hold the Catawba and pass the Cab and Pinot.
Lukacs is a very polite writer; he reads like a courtly and well-read man who would be pleasant company at the dinner table. The downside of this is the constant feeling that he's keeping a soft focus on the foibles of wine celebrities.
For example, he cites Ellen Hawkes' excellent "Blood and Wine" as a source on the Gallo brothers, but doesn't use her many hard-hitting and fascinating anecdotes. Thus I found the book most interesting in sections when it discussed people about whom I know little, like Nicholas Longworth, whose Ohio-grown pink Catawba made him the first commercially successful winemaker in America. I also was interested to learn that former preacher Thomas Welch invented non-alcoholic grape juice because he was, in words I would use but Lukacs never would, a teetotalling zealot and insufferable prig. Seriously: Jesus could work miracles, yet He didn't see the need to turn water into non-alcoholic grape juice. (Oops, high horse again. Sorry.)
But for sections about Mondavi or the Gallos or Grgich, among others, what's not written here is more interesting than what is.
I can't finish this review without pointing out something that threw me off at the beginning: Page 3, to be exact. About the famous Judgment of Paris tasting, Lukacs writes, "Since Spurrier and Gallagher had promoted the event extensively, a crowd of spectators, including a number of journalists, came as well."
That's not true, and it's not a minor mistake. To be fair, Lukacs wrote this five years before the one (1) journalist at the event, George Taber, published his own book. But the fact that Taber was the only journalist present, and that he could speak French fluently, was crucial to the event's historic importance, because Taber got complete access to the judges' comments, while a flock of journalists would probably have been held back.
Sadly, I spent the next 359 pages doubting the veracity of everything. Did Thomas Welch really invent a system for simplifying spelling? Was Warren Winiarski really inspired to make wine by a winemaker in Maryland? If there's ever another edition of this book, that early error needs to be corrected.
Paul Lukacs, American Vintage: The Rise of American Wine, W.W. Norton 2005, $13.56, (Paperback).
W. Blake Gray is a San Francisco writer and Chairman of the Vintners Hall of Fame Electoral College. His high horse is named Trigger Happy.
2006 Muga Roija Blanco $12.99 Wine label said: Nothing much… it’s barrel fermented and imported by Jorge Ordonez. Whoopdeedoo. Vineyard66 says: As I am still researching Spanish wines, I’ve noticed that my good friend Bill from California has been spouting off about Muga Roija. Of course, he was speaking about the red wines the area is famous for. I [...]
Morris Zwick began his winemaking career small, learning the trade as a home winemaker, building his craft slowly through a mix of reading and interaction with other winemakers. With a background in chemical engineering, he improved his craft over twelve years before deciding to open his own winery, Terrapin Station, which is named after Maryland?s state reptile.
Before deciding to open a commercial winery, however, he began as a grape grower, planting his seven acres of vines in 2003. Today he grows several varieties, such as Traminette, Cayuga, Cabernet Franc and Vidal. He enjoys experimenting with new types of grapes such as St. Vincent, of which he is currently the only Maryland grape grower.
The most noticeable thing that sets his winery apart from other state wineries is the containers in which he sells his wine. He decided to try something new to the state of Maryland and began selling the state?s first quality boxed wine.
?They started out as a preventative measure against corked wine, but as I experimented with the design I realized all the advantages of boxed wines,? says Zwick. ?They are much lighter than traditional wine bottles, are easy to pour for a single serving and are much easier to recycle.? In addition to all of these benefits, Terrapin Station Winery donates $1 from each purchase to help the diamondback terrapin, an endangered animal native to the Chesapeake Bay.
His greatest challenge has been overcoming the stereotype that boxed wines are poor quality, but says companies like Black Box Wines and Banrock Station have begun to push the idea of quality boxed wine.
?I think what Morris is doing is innovative and fun and he is really helping to pioneer the way for new winemaking techniques in Maryland?s growing wine industry.? says Mark Emon from St. Michaels Winery.
Go to their website and see it all for yourself: http://www.terrapinstationwinery.com
It may sound obvious to put a girl in blue jeans in an ad for wine (like, helLO, this is an advertisement for youths, duh), and therefore not that interesting, but for some reason it works. Sacre Bleu's frankly young-looking model, along with product placement at the hip Miami music venue The Fillmore, support of charitable organization Rock the Cause and funny winemaking videos from French Gustave (it's always nice to have a Frenchie in the mix), put the brand at the top of the wine-marketing-to-Millennials heap. Haven't tasted the wine yet, but seeing as it's coming from France's promising Languedoc, my bet is it's not half bad.
[08/23/2006, 02:01]
Report of the Argentina
Is this an overview report on the export situation of the Argentine vitiviniculture within the First Semester of 2006. This report tracks and reflects the performance of the main variables of Argentine vitiviniculture in foreign markets.
This works is elaborated per Caucacia Wine Thinking a company focused and devoted exclusively to provide information services to the wine industry, mainly in what respects to foreign markets.
At present, the leading wineries in Argentina, as well as the main industry-related organizations (Bodegas de Argentina AC, Wines of Argentina) make use this services.
This merry band of merchants, flying the flag for small, artisanal wineries with distinctive, regional wines came to Fulham last week to give both press and public a chance to see what they have to offer.
The lower and upper ends of the wine market are well served by supermarkets and the "establishment" but there is increasing demand for wine between these extremes. The best value for quality of wines with integrity and interest. These merchants are really passionate about their lists and usually have personal relationships built up with the producers so they have fairly extensive knowledge of the vineyards, wineries and vintages.
Some of the listings are inevitably idiosyncratic and not all the wines will be to everyone's taste but these are dedicated people who will help you find treasures you will come back for again and again.
Jim Monks from Decanter Wines is a private collector who started by bringing in pallets for his own cellar, his approach is unashamedly personal (all the wines are aged in his cellar until he feels they are ready to drink and only then offered to the public) and any commercial success is second to his goal of providing himself with the kind of wine he wants to drink. Luckily, his taste seems to be shared and his wines show very well.
Also showing was Nick Dobson a self-proclaimed "niche player" with some outstanding and unusual wines from Switzerland, Austria and Germany. With these countries slowly garnering a following for their wines it is worth knowing where to track down some great examples.
Also well-represented were Amordivino, Italian importers; The Big Red Wine Company showing mainly the Southern Rhone on this occasion; Abbe Arrous whose "Cyrcée, Collioure 2002" was the outstanding wine of the day for me; and Leon Stolarski with a wonderfully diverse selection of regional French wine.
The full list of tasting notes will be put up on this site but have a look at their website and sign up to their free monthly newsletter asdw.org.uk it is always going to be worth finding something a little bit different and a little bit special.
The 2004 vintage of this wine received a bronze medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year (2006). I’ve only been able to find the 2005 vintage in Belgrade wine shops. It has an intensive and complex aroma with hints of flowers. Dominant tastes are those of melon and slightly of apricots. However, I wasn’t impressed, perhaps I expected more due to all the hype. Or perhaps there’s a significant difference in the two vintages. We should note that this winery has a good reputation. The Simcic Sivi Pinot 1990 was awarded the Cordon d’Excellence; their Chardonnay has won two gold medals at the Ljubljana Wine Fair and the 1994 vintage was declared Champion by the Knights of the Burgerland-Pannonian Order.
GREAT GOLD MEDAL FOR CHILEAN WINES. In order to reaffirm its prestige, Chile gained 9 Great Gold Medal by its wines. These distinctions were gained in the "Concours Mondial de Bruxelles" finalized in Lisbon the 23 of April.
These great prizes corresponded all to wines of the Carmenere variety. The Carmenere has its sanctuary in Chile indeed. An historical event: in the middle of century XIX the phylloxera attacked the Old World and she destroyed the vineyards. An agriculturist came to Chile from France and helped to develop the Carmenere. That man of Bachelet last name also turned out to be the first ancestor in Chile of Michelle Bachelet, president of the country today .
Now, by the excellence of his carmenere, received Great Gold Medal: Aresti Chile Wine (Valley of Curico), two for Casa Silva Ltda. (Valley of Colchagua), Siegel S.A. (Valley of Colchagua), Misiones de Rengo (Valley of Rapel), Santa Helena S.A. (Valley of Colchagua), Casa Tamaya S.A. (Valley of Limari), Ventisquero (Valley of Maipo) and Viu Manent (Valley of Colchagua).
We present here the detail of some of these good wines.
Tecnorati
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we?re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it ?quantum change? as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn?t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my 
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
I?ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
It may sound obvious to put a girl in blue jeans in an ad for wine (like, helLO, this is an advertisement for youths, duh), and therefore not that interesting, but for some reason it works. 
The 2004 vintage of this wine received a bronze medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year (2006). I’ve only been able to find the 2005 vintage in Belgrade wine shops. It has an intensive and complex aroma with hints of flowers. Dominant tastes are those of melon and slightly of apricots. However, I wasn’t impressed, perhaps I expected more due to all the hype. Or perhaps there’s a significant difference in the two vintages.
Bruxelles" finalized in Lisbon the 23 of April.
