labor day

Food & Wine Pairings Made Simple - 04 October 2007

For Valentine's Day: Wine and Chocolate - 12 February 2008

eWine Match Makes Pairing Wine and Food Easy - 07 March 2008

Basic Wine and Cheese Pairings - 17 May 2008

Usually when people give a bottle of wine as a gift, it’s in one of those pricier velvet-style gift bags that get lost before it can get reused, or those metallic ones.  The folks at Random House are offering a new, unique alternative and, best of all, if won’t break the bank.

These Wine Lovers Gift Tags run $13 for a pack of 50, and come in various shapes and sizes and even include the ribbon for tying it to the wine bottle.  They might just add a little bit of humorous conversation to the next party to boot.

Photo from Random House.

If you?re interested in designing your own custom wine cellar there are a number of options available to you. The best news is that there are wine cellar designs for everyone from the avid do-it-yourselfer to the complete woodworking novice.

There are modular wine racks that are available in different grains and finishes, with the least expensive generally being a wood such as pine. Most modular wine rack dealers will offer other materials such as red cedar or finished wood as well. Of course you can always save some money and finish the wood yourself if you desire a particular type of finish or color for your wine cellar racks.

There are many wine racking companies that offer crown molding and skirting pieces so that you can easily combine different styles of wine cellar racking materials and types. This approach can yield some very unique custom wine cellar designs.

There are built in glass racks that are made to fit snugly within a rack system. A good place for one of these individual units would be above the table top piece mentioned above. This would add to the ambience as well as functionality of your custom modular wine racking system.

If you want something a little different than the traditional wood wine cellar racks, there are attractive metal trellis rack pieces that are very economical, yet stylish. These tend to look classier than the wood modular wine racking pieces, especially for placement in bar areas that will be viewed by visitors.

If you would like to add a table area to your wine cellar while increasing the storage capacity of your cellar at the same time, a wine bin table may be the best addition to your modular racking system. There are taller, wine tasting tables that hold just over 100 bottles or about 180 bottles of wine, and there are shorter wine rack tables that hold more than 200 wine bottles in case bins.

There are many online dealers and manufacturers of wine cellar racking pieces that also offer custom computer design services to help you achieve the exact wine cellar layout that you have in mine. With many of these professional services you can then have the plans sent to you and decide if you will build them yourself or have someone else build them for you.

With all of the wine cellar design options available to you, there are many ways to accomplish the perfect wine cellar design for you and your situation. There are many wine enthusiasts online communities and the like where you can find others interested in the same things that you are and maybe gain some other ideas about wine cellars and the design aspect of creating your own wine cellar.

This is the kind of cross diversification I can relate to! Kerin O'Keefe (decanter.com) writes:

Italian coffee giant Illy has just acquired the 90ha Mastrojanni estate^? in the Montalcino hamlet of Castelnuovo dell'Abate.
 
Founded in 1975 by Gabriele and Antonio Mastrojanni, the estate has 24 ha under vine and an overall production of 80,000 bottles a year.
 
Until now Mastrojanni has been a family-owned firm^?, and is known for its classic Brunellos, particularly its single vineyard^? Brunello, Schiena d'Asino.
 
Managing Director and winemaker^? Andrea Machetti, who is to remain in charge of day-to-day operations under Illy, has been with Mastrojanni since 1992.
 
'The Illy family members obviously love wine and are known for their good taste^?. Though they will make some investments in the business, the house style^? won't change and we will continue to focus on making outstanding Brunello from Sangiovese,' Machetti told decanter.com.
 
The Illy family, based in Trieste, which bought controlling shares in chocolate^? company Domori in 2006 as well as in French tea firm Dammann Frères in 2007, is not new to the wine business.
 
Francesco Illy, one of the four grandchildren of the firm's founder, already owns a young estate in Montalcino, Podere Le Ripi. Riccardo Illy, president of the holding group said, 'Everyone in my family has a passion for wine, and with this acquisition, we have realised one of our dreams.'

» Full Story

Tags: melgab, wine, brunello, montalcino, illy, italian, south-africa, South Africa

When people find out that I enjoy cheap wine enough to devote a website to it, they usually ask me if I have been to Trader Joe’s. My response, until last week, has always been “No, not yet”.

Well, I finally caved and took a trip to Detroit, the nearest Trader Joe’s location for me here in Lansing. Ann Arbor might actually be closer, but as an MSU Spartan, I try to stay out of there.

I’d like to preface this review of Charles Shaw Cabernet with a synopsis of Trader Joe’s. If you have one near you, go there. If not for the wine, then for the thousands of food items that pack the small market. I spent 80 dollars, which sounds like a bit much especially for me. I ended up leaving with 2 cases of wine and enough food for a week. Fresh mozzarella, fresh gnocchi, fresh salsa (notice a pattern?), Guacamole chips, Trader Joe’s Marinara, soups, veggies…. I was in heaven. They have got all kinds of cheeses, breads, meats, micro-brewed beers, and their wine selection was out of this world. What a great store!

Trader Joe’s is the exclusive retailer of Charles Shaw Wines, better known to most as “Two-buck Chuck”. In California these wines sell for $1.99, which is just amazing. Here in Michigan, though, the price was $2.99.

Did we like it? Was it worth the trip?

Hell yes it was! For 3 dollars, I don’t think it could have been any better. The Cabernet was great. At first, I found it to be a little sweet, but looking back, I was actually enjoying the salsa with the wine, which probably wasn’t a great combination. Along with the Cab, I also purchased some of the Shiraz, Merlot, and Chardonnay (reviews coming soon).

Congrats to Two-Buck-Chuck and Trader Joe’s for achieving the highest rating available here on Cheap Wine Reviews. Hats off to you!

Rating: 10/10
Price: $2.99
Place of Purchase Trader Joe’s

This is a premium Montenegrin red wine made from the indigenous Vranac grape. The Reserve is produced from particulary good years, in small quantities, aged in barrels for several years. It is also aged in bottles for one year before being released to the market.

This is a dry wine, with a pleasant fruity nose. However, the impressions are far lower than it’s price. If you want to experience the Vranac variety the Montenegrin way, go for a regular Planta?e Vranac or their Vranac Pro Corde. They are much cheaper and the experience is almost the same.

Wines of the Vranac variety are produced throughout the region, apart from Montenegro, you can find them in Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Herzegovina.

Score: 7/10
Price: 15 euro (in Montenegro)

Technorati Tags: Vranac, Montenegro, Montenegrin Wines, Wine

There are a lot of things that I would like to change about wine in America. I'd love to lower the prices, reduce the influence of scores on buying patterns, increase consumption, broaden the varietal mix, and on and on. I've got a long list the next time any omnipotent being comes along and asks my opinion on the situation.

But if I had to choose one thing, above all else, that really needs changing when it comes to America and wine, I would choose to destroy the association between wine and the upper class. The fact that wine continues to be thought of as the beverage of the elite does more damage to the future of the industry in this country than any other phenomenon, in my opinion.

America, it must be said, did not get off on the right foot when it comes to wine. The religious zealots that founded this country were notorious teetotalers, of course. But those who followed the Puritans were Europeans of all stripes and colors, and most had a common familiarity with and appreciation for wine. Indeed, on the face of things, America could very easily have inherited their cultural predisposition for wine on the dinner table.

But it didn't for one primary reason. No one could get the damn grapes to grow right. Attempts were made for years with both imported vines as well as the many various native vines that got the early colonists so excited when they arrived. For a while, America was thought to have the potential to build a wine industry that would flourish by exporting wine back to continental Europe.

But even with the help of the many Huguenots and other wine savvy folks who arrived on American shores with no shortage of expertise in viticulture, very little progress was made. The climate was just all wrong.

Which meant that any real quantity of wine had to be imported, and that meant money, and therefore ensured that for the most part, the upper classes had the means to drink wine, and the masses made do with the products of the bountiful grains and apples that flourished here. In short, most everyone drank a lot of beer, cider, bourbon, and whisky, while the Thomas Jeffersons, Ben Franklins, and other early statesmen of America nursed their imported collections and did their best to encourage local efforts to make wine, but to no avail.

And so, if you'll forgive me squeezing and reducing a lot of complex history into a few sound bites, after about 200 years of this sort of social division, it's no wonder that, for the most part things just stayed that way. The industrial revolution widened the gap between rich and poor, engineering an even greater difference between the consumption habits of the upper classes and the lower classes. There were upswings of interest in wine, especially when people actually started to figure out how and where to grow grapes properly, but by then it was too late. Prohibition (and the rapid recovery of beer and whisky production upon repeal) put the nail in the coffin, and set the stage for people like Robert Mondavi to come along and make the valiant effort to remind everyday Americans that wine belongs on the dinner table every day. And they're still trying.

Meanwhile, wine to many people represents the intimidating, elitist, and snobbish rich. Sarah Palin's quips during the recent campaign about the wine and cocktail drinking elite perfectly illustrate the way that many people think about wine. So too do the many comments on a recent New York Times blog about the words that are used to describe wine. I can't tell you how sad it makes me to see how many people think that attempting to describe the flavors and aromas of wine is an exercise in pretension and snobbery.

But it gets even worse. It's bad enough that the average beer loving American (whoever that is) at best thinks that wine is really just for special occasions, and at worst believes that the people who drink it are rich, stuck-up, pedants. But unfortunately, a lot of wine lovers actually act that way.

In many ways the culture of wine appreciation in America encourages this sense that wine is a luxury for the knowledgeable few. We have the specialized stores. The pomp, ceremony, and mystery that surround wine in conjunction with fine dining. The astronomical prices of top wines in the market. And of course, we have the Big Boys. You know the ones I'm talking about, right? The wine assholes.

Men who feel like they own the province of wine are just the start of our problems. Worse are the ones who also like to reel off the great wines of the world they have drunk with the same gusto as they might bedroom conquests. These are the ones that recoil in horror at the thought of sharing a bottle of 1989 Lafite with their "know-nothing cousins from Des Moines" and instead prefer to save their best bottles for wine dinners that attempt to be the oenological equivalents of an evening with Annabel Chong.

But as much as I sometimes want to punch some of these people in the mouth, I don't see the wine snob as a clear perpetrator of the problem. They're just as much another symptom of the basic travesty -- that somehow we've gotten to the point where wine is far too special. And just as with anything that has cachet, wine in America has become something that many Americans think is only for certain kinds of people. Those wine people.

Of course, this rant of mine paints a rather stark, divided world, which belies the true reality of the marketplace. America is not just a collection of beer drinkers vs. wine drinkers any more than it is a collection of red states vs. blue states. And the country is slowly coming around to wine, thanks to many different factors, not the least of which are the backlash against carbohydrates and the media hype about resveratrol.

But we've got a long way to go to get to an American wine scene that I'll be satisfied with. There are a lot of myths to shatter, a lot of attitudes to adjust, and a lot of evil distribution monopolies to crush before Americans get used to having good wine on their tables every day. But perhaps most importantly, there's a lot of wine that needs to be shared among friends -- a lot of wine that needs to be enjoyed without the trappings of ceremony or status, but instead with the simple appreciation for the fact that we are all so very lucky for what we have.

Go forth and drink without fear, and spread the wine love.

If you see a friend without a  smile, give him one of yours. (Proverb). 

Go here for the origin of weekend words Weekend Words

You cannot have a better match with a plate of salumi than with this wine. Chill it up a little bit, and start your engines. From the Grasparossa grape, I took a bottle over to a chef from Emilia-Romagna the other day. He has known me for years, but has rarely if ever acknowledged my presence in his world. When I handed the bottle to his son to give to him, you?d think I was his long lost cousin. His eyes lit up, he smiled, he liked me. He really, really, liked me. I owe it all to this friendly little Lambrusco.

Served slightly chilled, it is frizzante, and enters with a burst of slightly under-ripe dark cherry notes. Then the fruit kicks in and there, all of a sudden, you have a party on your palate.

Note: this wine is bone-dry.

Get yourself hooked up with a Lambrusco like this. It takes the snob off the table. It?s subtle and bold, delicate and a romp. It?s a serious wine that laughs at itself. Go get yourself some.

In the U.S. it retails for under $20.

Lambrusco Grasparossa di Castelvetro from Tenuta Pederzana.

In 1980, Barbara and Jim Richards were living in Midland, Texas, and began thinking about a second home. They had an interest in wine and started looking for some property in the Napa Valley to build a home and plant a small vineyard. They realized their dream in 1983 when they found a property located five miles west of St. Helena and over 2,000 feet above the Valley floor near the top of Spring Mountain. Vineyard exposure is generally east with many variations, and the soils are derived from the Sonoma volcanics and from Franciscan sandstone. Total acreage is 20 acres with 15 acres planted.

In 1985, after clearing, ripping, and terracing about ten acres, they planted 3,555 bench graft Merlot vines, and 945 Cabernet Sauvignon vines. By 1987, the Richards? recognized their previous absentee landlord role was insufficient to monitor the vines. So, Barbara came to manage things from January through harvest, while Jim would come to help when he could get away from his business as a petroleum geologist. Their first small harvest was sold to Conn Creek Winery. In 1988, they planted another 2,300 Merlot vines in their last five acres of vineyard.

The early ?90s were momentous for the Richards?. By 1993, Barb and Jim had moved into their new home in the vineyard, and Pride Mountain Winery released a 1991 Merlot, made from their grapes blended with Pride?s Cabernet Sauvignon fruit. The Richards? agreed to sell their grapes to the Prides beginning in 1994 and their wine maker, Bob Foley, agreed to make wine from part of the grapes into Paloma Merlot for the Richards? new label, debuting their Merlot-based blend in 1996. Also, Barb and Jim decided to plant a block of Syrah to see how it would do, and by 1996, they started making the wine commercially as well. Unfortunately, they?ve since pulled up the small Syrah vineyard, and replanted with Cabernet Sauvignon.

In 2000, the Richard?s finally decided to construct their own winery on the property. A few years later, their son Sheldon joined them in the business, and to this date the Richards? Paloma Merlot still stands as one of the enduring benchmarks of the variety in California, and indeed the world.

Join us as we talk with Barbara Richards about Paloma ? their early years, and what it was like to basically become pioneers on Spring Mountain, and well as Merlot?s place in Napa Valley.

For more info on Paloma Vineyard: www.palomavineyard.com

Sponsor- Gold Medal Wine Club: www.goldmedalwineclub.com

Click Below to Play the Show:

Download audio file (GR-ENG-USA-2008-11-03.mp3)

Best of the wine blogosphere for November 3rd through November 14th:

• “stormhoek. made In south africa. drunk in west texas.”
• Wine Blogging Wednesday #51: Baked Goods
• Wine Blogging Wednesday #51: Baked Goods
• Wine with a Cause III
• Wine vote carries Obama to victory!
• Wine Blogging Wednesday #51:
• WBW #51 Baked Goods and Madeirized Wine
• It?s Not What You Make, It?s What You Stand For
• Wineries in Social Media
• Kohl?s or Couture?
• Drink Charitably: Twitter Taste Live w/ Humanitas Wines (November 21)
• Domestic Riesling
• November Wine Events (Reminder: WBW #51 is Nigh!)
• A Letter To Steve Heimoff
• Bargain Wine of the Week
• Thanksgiving Wine Under $20: 2008 Picks
• My Problem with Terroirists
• Chateau Montelena Sale Canceled
• Wine Blogging ~ Are Wine Bloggers All Just Writing for Themselves as a Community?
• Thinking Out Loud

• Chambertin and Musigny are definitely a cut above Grand Echezeaux. Just more complex. This statement is probably heresy to some and completely obvious to others. Can't win.
  

• Comte de Vogue Musigny is variable and I'm not sure it's quite all there. Something to mull over given the high prices.

• On the other hand the 1990 Musigny is a butterfly finally coming out of it's 18 year cocoon. This will need another 7-10 years? - but it's a knockout.
  

• Armand Rosseau Chambertin. Amazing wine, year after year.
  

• Best white of the night '99 CM. Some people liked the '90 but to me that shouldn't be what a CM is about - a little too much flabbiness not enough acidity and minerality. The '96 was a close second - perhaps an off bottle but tonight at least the '99 won on the nose.
  

• Best red of the night was '90 Rosseau Chambertin. On the other hand I think in due time the '90 Musigny will be incredible and possibly better.
  

The latest edition of Decanter (March) came out this week, and several articles caught my eye.  The first was entitled Start Your Own Wine Cellar. As I’m often torn between buying bottles to drink and those I think I may like to keep for a special occasion, I was drawn to the profiles of the 3 different types of people for whom Decanter made recommendations. There was the couple who did not know much about wine, but wanted to learn and had £500 to get them going. At the other extreme was the couple who already drank a lot of good Bordeaux and had £5000 to spend. I found myself drawn to the example in the middle, someone who knows her grape varieties, but would not describe herself as a connoisseur. Decanter put together an interesting cellar at a cost of £1000 for her.

The one question I was left pondering with the suggestions was the distinction between wines for drinking 2008-2010+ and for 2010-2018. Why do a couple of decent Italian reds from 2004 fit in the first category, but a Portuguese 2005 and a Spanish 2003 fit in the second? I know it’s down to how it is made and matured, but how are you expected to know that for the slightly more unusual wines? Labels don’t always given enough information and certainly very few give how long to keep the wine for.

I always peruse the Wines of the Month to see what recommendations I can pick up. These wines are available from stockists in the UK so I feel sorry for foreign readers who may be unable to source them. However I’m always a bit frustrated to read other reviews elsewhere in the magazine and see the dreaded ?N/A? next to them. Although I figure what’s the point in reviewing them if they aren’t available in the UK I have to keep reminding myself how international Decanter is. In this month’s issue 4 of the 9 letters are from non UK readers. I am sure this helps the editorial team keep an international focus which is good for all us readers.

The panel tastings this month are both French, 2005 St Emilions and 2005 cru bourgeois. I was stunned to see a great value 2005 cru bourgeois at £7.35. I must seek it out.

Next month’s edition features Italy and is out, according to the ad in the magazine, on February 6. Oops ? I think they forgot to change the date from last month’s edition as I’m sure they mean March 6th!