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.
Earn $6.17 / Sale! %75 Commission! The Ultimate Resource For Anyone Who Wants To Learn How To Make Outstanding Wines & Spirits From Their Very Own Home!
Ahhh, “Dear Abby“…what ever happened to that in this age of near real-time social media…anyway, here’s one thats worth a chuckle (but not worth the e-mail bandwidth its probably taking up!).
Maybe this is a way to reduce traffic on the Internet, just post funny stuff up on a blog and send friends the links not giant emails.
*******************************
Dear Abby:
I have never written to you before, but I really need your advice. I have suspected for some time now that my wife has been cheating on me. The usual signs; phone rings but if I answer, the caller hangs up. My wife has been going but with ‘the girls’ a lot recently — although when I ask their names, she always says, “just some friends from work, you don’t know them.” I always try to stay awake to look out for her coming home, but I usually fall asleep. Anyway, I have never approached the subject with my wife. I think deep down I just did not want to know the truth, but last night she went out again and I decided to check on her finally. Around midnight, I decided to hide in the garage behind my golf clubs so I could get a good view of the whole street when she arrived home from a night out with ‘the girls.’ When she got out of the car she was buttoning up her blouse, which was open, and she took her panties out of her purse and slipped them on. It was at that moment, crouching behind my golf clubs, that I noticed a hairline crack where the grip meets the graphite shaft on my 3-wood. Is this something I can or should try to fix myself, or should I take it back to the pro-shop where I bought it and try to get a refund?
It’s pretty easy to call a wine sweet: it has a perceptible level of residual sugar in it (five grams of residual sugar is often considered the threshold of perception). Sweet wines generally start at about 45 grams of residual sugar (RS). Some wines, such as Tokay, have require a minimum level 60 grams of RS and rate wines by sweetness with six puttonyos being instant diabetes.
What’s the opposite of sweet? Dry. All the discernible sugar has been converted to alcohol during the fermentation process. Tricky since you might think the opposite of dry is wet and, well, all wine is wet. Dry doesn’t have to do with high tannins, which might make you go “chomp, chomp” and think “OMG, my mouth is drying out! I need water!” It’s just close to zero grams of residual sugar.
And there’s a middle ground of “off-dry,” or slightly sweet. Silly term, I agree (what is it, moist?). Slightly sweeter than that can be called medium dry. If you want to get all wonky geeky, off-dry might be five to fifteen grams of RS and medium dry, from fifteen to forty. Some countries and/or regions are so wonky geeky that they have specific terms and laws for these levels.
Oddly enough, a wine with a lower amount of residual sugar can sometimes taste sweeter than one with a slightly higher amount; it’s often a question of balance with acidity and one category that can be hard to discern in this regard is Champagne, which also as carbon dioxide zooming at your palate as well.
I bring this up because it came up in the comments of this recent posting about “light” as a wine style. And it comes up regularly in my NYU class. If you want to see sweet and dry in action, try tasting these two Leitz wines or a Northern Rhone syrah against a ripe, sweet version of the same grape from somewhere in the New World (but not all are ripe and sweet).
A couple of weekends ago, I attended the grand re-opening of Wine Connection in Pound Ridge, NY. Max Marinucci moved his store to a handsome, custom-built facility and it was an amazing tasting by any measure. There were about six Barolos available from producers that ran the modern-traditional axis, E. Pira, G. Mascarello, G. Conterno, and Sandrone among others. They also poured the 2004 Hudelot Noellat Richebourg (about $259; find this wine), and several current release Bordeaux. Then there was the amazing 1985 Leoville Las Cases (about $379; find this wine), whose aroma was so enticing with tannins were smooth as silk.
And the price for this tasting? Free.
In this tough economy, even seeking solace in a wine glass can still cost a lot. But there is one place where you can still taste fine wine for free: New York wine stores. Granted, you’re standing up and the pours are sometimes barely enough to cover the bottom of the glass, but they are a great opportunity for broadening your tasting experience–as well as talking with some interesting people who are usually doing the pouring.
While there are many silly (separate entrances for separate licenses) and annoying (not being able to to sell cheese in a wine shop nor wine in a food shop) aspects of New York wine retail laws, the free tasting is a definite boon for consumers. Stores can’t charge for tasting since that would be profiting from the sale of liquor on-premises, which requires a different license. Other states have different rules about in-store pourings and they are not always free, but are often a good value. (Sadly, one place where free tastings may someday be illegal is the little-known wine country called France.)
And the downturn in the economy means that some shops are eagerly pouring wines (or, technically, having the distributor reps pour the wines) to attract foot traffic. So check out your local retailers and see what’s on the calendar. Here’s my map of my favorite NYC wine shops.
Tuscany is probably the Italian wine region that is best known among American drinkers. Hundreds of raffia-covered fiascos (you know what I'm talking about--the bottles that you use for candle holders when the wine is all gone) have entered hundreds of homes all over the country. (picture by dottorpeni)
But there's more to Tuscan wine than just Chianti. For the last two months of 2008 I'll be focusing on the wines from this region. Why two months? There's just too much good wine to spend only one month exploring.
Tuscany is a region that is known for more than wine, of course. Home to the great poet Dante, its also the region where Pisa's "leaning tower" is located. Pisa is not the only town in the region with stunning architecture, as any visitor to Florence, San Gimignano, or Siena knows. Rolling hills, groves of olive trees, fields of sunflowers and vines, and old houses dot the landscape as well, making Tuscany a feast for the eyes as well as the tastebuds. (photo by vigour)
And the grapes of Tuscany are just as diverse as the countryside where they're planted. There's Sangiovese, of course, but there's also rarer indigenous varieties like Toroldega, Vernaccia, and Canaiolo. And Tuscan vineyards have their fare share of international grapes in them like Merlot, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Tempranillo, and Cabernet Sauvignon, too. Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon are often blended with Sangiovese in the powerful red wines known as Super Tuscans that earn high scores from the wine magazines and command high prices in the wine shops. (photo by rayced)
Great wine demands great food, and as anyone who has been to Tuscany knows--these people can cook. Whether you're looking for a simple pasta dish with sauce made from butter and sage, a hearty soup thickened with bread and beans, grilled beef cooked to perfection as they do in Florence, or the small cookies made for dunking in your coffee or wine called cantucci, you can find a dish to suit you from among the region's traditional recipes. These dishes are perfect for winter temperatures and feeding large crowds at the holidays. Many of them are also either quick to prepare, or cook at low temperatures in the pot or oven so they are ideal for entertaining.
With so much to love about Tuscan food and wine, it seemed like the right moment to slow down and enjoy the end of the this year's wine journey through Italy. Those of you who have been following the series know that there are still regions I've not yet reached. So we'll pick up where we left off in January 2009 and continue to drink the wines from the remaining regions of Italy all through next year. (photo by davidanthonyporter)
I'll be back periodically over the next several weeks with tasting notes and food pairings for Tuscan wines. Yes, Chianti will be among them. So, too, will be Tuscan whites and a wine made with indigenous varieties. And the Tuscan wine theme will spill over into Serious Grape on Fridays as well, where I'll talk about Super Tuscans and compare the different levels of Chianti from the regular bottles to Chianti Classico and reserve wines. As always, I hope you will join in and share your Tuscan wine recommendations and experiences.
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.
I’m sure there has been plenty said about the impending Obama presidency but I’m going to say my $.02.
Its really hard to describe what this means to me, to many many people for that matter. Its not the end all be all, but its a milestone that seemed impossible two years ago. Barack Obama, a black American, taking the head of the most powerful office in the free world. Its not coincidence that the world looked at this as an instantaneous moral and morale boost - we just, as a collective nation - looked past everything and did what the majority of citizens (majority by popular vote) thought would be best for this country and that happen to mean putting a minority into the oval office.
A country that can do that should be able to speak rationally with other cultures and religious states, shouldn’t it? Should be able to be open to listening to all sides of a debate and making a good decision shouldn’t it? Clearly should be able to give the minority voice of other nations the ear they want when all they want is an ear to listen to them to restore their dignity, shouldn’t it?
Thats called hope. Instantaneous, street credentialed hope. For that I’m incredibly pumped for this country. I don’t feel like cringing when I think about my president going and speaking to other nations. I don’t have that feeling that I have a loud, obnoxious friend with me in a fancy restaurant who I love dearly but I just know he/she’s doesn’t belong in an environment that people want to be civilized and not sloppy drunk. That is all gone today.
For me personally, I guess even expecting him to win I wasn’t expecting alot of feelings I had to bubble to the surface. My father is my hero and he taught me basically if you’re at a disadvantage, well then too bad, you just have to work harder than the others. Energy you waste complaining could be energy that could be putting you ahead. Something I took to heart never complaining about the disadvantages of being black in America because I’m pretty confident in my abilities. But even so, there is a bit of an unspoken limit to what could be accomplished. Or at least there was one. That hit me yesterday. How can there be a limit? Even with people trying to hold you back or not giving you the same chance, Obama is the president, anything can happen. Truly.
Thinking about the people who died just on the faith that this day would come if they marched, took beatings in non-violent protest, and even lost their lives so that I could see this day and my kids would be in a different world. Lost their LIVES on faith in this country’s ability to adjust and the hope that their efforts would make this time possible…that hit me yesterday.
My kids…I hugged my daughter (she’s been sick). And I did cry a little. She doesn’t have to know that limit. She’ll never know that limit. I’ve always thought racism was so ignorant that it was comical; something just ripe for satire. I truly appreciated things like The Chappelle Show and Wayans Brothers productions (like Hollywood Shuffle) because they used comedy to highlight the absurdity of racism. I love that. But the racism takes on a whole new level of rediculousness when the leader of the most powerful nation in the world is a black man. My daughter is 3 years old. I have a sincere hope that could come true now - that she really won’t understand how people could be seriously racist. That hit me yesterday too.
I think thats how I look at it. The people that I struggle with now will be long dead and buried by the time my girls are my age. And while it feels good for me now to see all this worldwide credibility restored and faith in our own democracy’s ability to adjust restored, its really when I think about the things my daughters will never know is when I can find the energy and enthusiasm for life. I often think about how technology will change things, in fact I think about it constantly. Think about how my daughters will never wake up at 6am on a Saturday to watch their favorite Saturday Morning cartoon because they can just pull it up. In fact, my 3 year old has a hard time understanding why if “Dora” can play in her room, why can’t she continue watching it downstairs on the TV (yeah, DirecTV DVR, why the f*** not?).
Today I can think about more significant things that I didn’t really think about because I didn’t see this happening and I didn’t know when it would. Not knowing that limit or perception of limit. Dealing with racism (as its clearly not gone) but having a very different perspective as the racism shouldn’t be a limit on what she can do anymore than any other corporate political situation. No more excuses - yes, “the man” might be holding you back but YOU are the only one limiting yourself because being black isn’t even an excuse for not being the f***ing President of the United States anymore!!
No more excuses for not achieving.
To me personally, it inspires me further to understand the wine industry because the lack of minorities (not women obviously) still puzzles me. I mean, I get the demographic thing and the “snooty” thing but thats changing with social media, folks like Gary V, new generations coming in, etc…yet for some reason this industry is simply monochromatic.
At the time of the grape harvest, Wine Tourism Spain has launched its first Photo Atlas on Spain´s geography and wine culture.
The photo Atlas on winetourismspain.com thoroughly reflects Spain´s variety of vineyards and landscapes, the historical and architectural diversity of its wineries, as well as interesting aspects of wine culture. There are more than 300 photos organised in 6 albums: Landscapes, Cellars, Hard work, Wine Accessories, Close look at the vineyard and In-depth."
This Atlas has been put together thanks to the photos which have participated in the First National Competition of Wine Photography in Spain. The competition has been sponsored by the Institute of Touristic Promotion of Castille la Mancha, Haciendas de España, Bodegas Torremilanos, with the collaboration of Verema.com. It is one of the initiatives launched by winetourismspain.com to enable the public to discover the variety of Spain´s wine culture and geography.
The winners, chosen by a Jury made up of the different sponsors, are the following:
First prize: Nevada Tardía (Antonio Martínez Andía) Second prize: Casi la luna (Raquel Benito Olarte) Third prize: Tinajas en la Mancha (M Jesús Abad de Lucas) Special prize: Castille la Mancha Camino del Hidalgo (Daniel Fernández Méndez)
SPIT: red states With more states turning blue, a reader writes in to say that it will be even harder to do a red state-blue state article again now that Virginia and Colorado are blue. Indeed! Texas, over to you?
SPIT: global wine mergers The purchase of Napa’s Chateau Montelena by the Reybier group (Cos d’Estournel), hailed in July by Robert Parker as “one of the biggest stories in my 30 years in the wine field,” has now been canceled. [PR newswire]
SPIT: global wine John Mariani has a sip of the Andeluna Grand Reserve Pasionado, a $50 red from Mendoza, and calls it “an explosion of high-alcohol, grapey, oaky flavors that seemed to epitomize all that is wrong with what has been called the globalization of wine.” [Bloomberg]
SIPPED: Making drinks instead of ordering them At least one person from the world of finance has stopped thinking about structured equity products and is now thinking about Purple Hooters at the New York Bartending School in Manhattan. [Bloomberg]
One of the events I enjoyed was the vineyard walk on Saturday morning led by Zephyr Adventures. We went to Saralee's Vineyard in the Russian River Valley, where we met up with Rich and Saralee Kunde (who made us a fabulous lunch!), Daniel Moore of Zmor Winery, and Rod and Lynn Swan Berglund of Joseph Swan Vineyards. We hiked through the vineyards, learned a lot about the area and its viticultural heritage, and drank some fantastic wines.
I hope this slide show whets your appetite to learn more about the Russian River Valley appellation, and makes you feel that you've been able to enjoy a little bit of this year's fall season here in the California Wine Country.
If you're interested in seeing more pictures of the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference, head over to my Flickr photostream where I've set up a collection of pictures for you to flip through.
As a fugitive of the cubicle nation I’ve learned a few interesting things. Some about myself and some about actually jumping ship and really trying to get things going. In fact, I don’t have much time today but this blog is an important part of my life and I don’t want it to go dark for too long.
So its about three months since I was officially “jumped” and the main thing I’ve learned is this - have your shit together, ducks in a row, and get ready because having little visibility into where the money is going to come from is a scary thing. Don’t let all these entrepreneurs tell you “oh yeah, just do it; shit or get off the pot; blah blah blah”. All crap. There is NOTHING impulsive about jumping ship and going it alone.
If you’re part of the cubicle nation you’ve most likely gotten extremely good at your job and that gives you confidence to “give it a try”. Recognize this - while you may be a genius in your field, you do NOT know everything you should to go it alone. Go into it with your eyes open and allow yourself to “know what you don’t know”. Business development, marketing, networking, tech services, administrative assistant, bookkeeper, customer support, legal secretary, etc…
Its not that you CAN’T do all this stuff, but just know that you’ll need to plan some time where you don’t have money (or assume you don’t) figure out how you’ll pull that off - assuming no income - and then when you’re OK with that you can go for it. Because what will happen is things will take longer then you think and you need to make sure you’re not rushed into bad decisions for your business just because of the uneasy feeling that “no visibility” gives you. In fact, you want to figure out everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph as a way to give yourself visibility into your business and the more visibility you have the better you’ll feel about the jump.
Next - you can’t get away from politics. Now granted, there are no office politics unless you want to count arguments over why the dogs haven’t been walked in a week and the potential of withholding of certain marital obligations as politics. But the politics that I’m talking about are around meeting new people, making a name for yourself, and building your business. I’m not big on politics and generally as a consultant, even early in building the business, I tell it like it is, turn down business that while I’m perfectly capable of doing the work, it doesn’t add to my “portfolio” if you will. Its a tricky thing breaking into new markets and its clear that there are “circles” everywhere you go. I’ve always known that and I’ve been ready for it. But its more important to understand that going into it then I would’ve thought before making the leap. So I think its important to communicate that out - You are not getting away from politics by escaping from the cubicle nation; you are just dealing with a different type of politics. So “how to gain friends and influence people” is still an important skill!!
OK, I have to run but I think I’ll be doing more and more around communicating my Cubicle Nation Fugitive experiences as they seem to be coming fast and furious and they are actually interesting as I learn from this.
Feel the chill in the air, the earthy aromas of dried leaves and wet soil, the vibrant orange and red colors on the tip of the leaves like small dabs of paint radiating from the deep dark green background? Sigh, this is my favorite time of the year. I love to fill a thermos with hot tea, chocolate, or better yet, mulled wine; layer myself in flannel and fleece; and enjoy a day in the mountains basking in the warm heavy glow of the September sun. The brisk winds rustling the dry, cracking leaves is like music to my ears.
The magic of autumn brings a sense of warmth in my belly, as it calls for heavier and richer foods able to coat my stomach with a sense of fullness. Bright orange pumpkins and vibrant yellow and green squash begin their debut in homes across Spain, and when added with a touch of oil and garlic, how could anyone not be happy?!
Fall is also the time for the time of the harvest, when bodegas across Iberia kick into high gear to begin the grape picking process. Purple hands can be found across the peninsula, harvesting both red and white grapes with the most gentle of care, hoping to preserve every single ounce of flavor from the vineyard to the bottle.
And so far, I am happy to announce that the harvests in both Spain and Portugal are shaping up beautifully. Despite the hail storms that affected several areas throughout Ribera del Duero and La Mancha last year, whereby reducing the production of red grapes by 20% for some bodegas, the quality of the grapes themselves are being reported as outstanding! This decrease in production is also being seen as far east as Utiel Requena and as far west as the Alentejo in Portugal.
On the flipside, Rias Baixes, in northwest corner of Spain, is reporting to have an increase of 10% in their production as opposed to the previous year. According to Wines of Spain, the Regulating Council?s chairman, José Ramón Meiriño, expects “a 10 percent increase in estimated average yields in comparison to the 2007 harvest, which yielded a total of 5,355 kg/ha?. Interestingly, according to their last blog post in early August, Castro Martin didn’t expect the same results “At this moment we are probably about a month away from the start of the 2008 vintage, and (touch wood), it is looking like we might have a similar sized harvest to 2007, albeit that it is much to early to predict how the quality might compare.”
Just south of Rias Baixas, the famous Port producing region, the Douro, is also reporting an increase in production. According the the Oscar Quevedo, “The yield has been higher compared to last years? production and our estimate for the other vineyards is a productivity of almost 3.5 tns/hectare”.
Despite the highs and lows of production throughout Iberia, there appears to be one resounding message, the quality of 2008 should be incredible!
If you are a winemaker in Spain or Portugal, let us know how your vintage is shaping up! Additionally, check out, and add your reports and photos to, our international 2008 Wine Harvest Flickr group to see the progression of this years harvest!
Time to clear a few things up here at Catavino.net. This past week, we have received some emails that need to be addressed, and we think the only place to do it is here on our site. Lately, we’ve been receiving some odd emails. Evidently, there is a rumor circulating that Catavino is a winery/bodega. You see, this week I’ve received at least 5 emails from different countries, including the USA, asking to represent our wines in restaurants, export markets and country wide in the case of Canada. Being a couple of wine writers without a winery, nor with any connection to the wine making process, I’m not sure where this idea has come from. I have to say we’re quite flattered, though a bit befuddled. Is there something on our site that leads people to think we make wine? Do other wine bloggers find themselves being solicited in such a way? Inquiring minds want to know!
Trust us, we would love to make a wine. In fact, we tried to once, but with mixed results. We will try again, and if you are a winery who wants to help us in this project, we’re all ears. We’d love to put out a Catavino Garnacha Blanca, or Catavino Touriga Nacional, but sadly, they don’t exist. However, we’ll be sure to scream it from the rooftops if we and when we do create a Catavino wine.
What we do do is work with wineries to use the internet more effectively. Currently, we have 4 clients, and we are interested in helping a few more, but we are getting picky. If you are, or you know, a winery that understands how the wine world is changing and that old ideas might not apply, give us a ring. My number is: +34 656 433 063, call me, llamame, liga-me, or send us an email: cvm@catavino.net, we’re listening!
So Now For Some Wine…But Let’s Not Talk About Iberia For A Moment
A completely biased and non-professional review is coming up. Why? Amy Lillard, and her blog, have been in my feed reader for almost as long as I’ve known what a feed is. Tom Wark has lauded them as one of the top winery blogs, and I have to agree with his approval. The level of frankness and honesty on this site is mind blowing and if you are a winery who wants to start a blog, you would not be doing poorly if you copied Amy’s model and style. Because of her writing, I felt like a close friend even before I had the chance to meet her at the EWBC 2008. The only element that was missing from our relationship was her wine. I wanted to try the wine but with its lack of distribution in Spain, I just had to wait. The winery and the blog’s name are La Gramiere.
Fortunately, the harvest did not keep Amy from visiting us in Logrono at the EWBC2008, giving me the chance to finally taste the wine behind the blog. Thus, this critique is tainted by the relationship I have with both her and her writing. Having followed the ups and downs for so long on her blog, I feel connected to what she is doing, and I feel like I hold a small stake in her adventure. This is proof as to why wineries should blog!
How is the wine? In one word, great! We miss French wine, seeing that Spain has none for sale, or at least very little. This is a wine after my own heart, a Rhone wine that is not from the Rhone (see full story here). It is full of the spice and terroir that I love, but with a lighter, less obvious way about it. After my first taste, where I was grateful that it didn’t suck (a fear I had considering my high expectations), I was quickly told that the wine was around 15%; something that both turned me off and at the same time surprised me. Similar to my notes on Monday, discussing how 100% new oak shouldn’t always be associated as a bad trait, you cannot say that high alcohol is always bad either. This wine is balanced and pleasant, and has a long life ahead of itself. I have to recommend it: number one, if you trust me and my palate, and number two, if you like to look at wine from new perspectives. This is a winner, not to mention organic. And if you ask Amy her thoughts on organic wine…well, let’s just say that you might want to pour a tall glass and grab a seat, because it will be awhile before she finishes.
Sorry that I can’t be more objective, but I feel that as I become closer to wineries who blog, the less I can allow myself not to be their cheerleaders. On the other hand if I try to separate myself from my love for this wine and look at it completely objectively, I still have to say I think it is a very well made, interesting wine. La Gramiere is making great wine, and they are telling the story as they do it. For me this is what wine should be about, good juice, good people, and lot’s of stories!
Tecnorati
