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!
A bunch of us went to the workshop of the new Sondheim musical drama at the Public Theatre. ("The Roadshow".) Most of our group liked it though they didn't love it. I was rolling my eyes after the first three minutes -- typical Sondheim, blah blah. Some of the actors were terrific but the material struck me as -- what? Archetypal? Is that a nice word for cliche? I'm accused of not loving the theatre...
The clever people over at Google have identified an apparently growing problem of emailing while intoxicated (EWI) and have taken steps to prevent it. The new “Mail Goggles” feature of their free email service challenges the user to 5 math problems before sending an email after hours. The user is in full control of which hours they want to designate and you don’t have to opt-in to this unique service. This should cut down on those drunk emails that seem like a good idea at the time but usually aren’t.
Although it will likely not catch drunk mathematicians, others who have a problem in this area will be well served. You know who you are
Quite an unusual combination for the Balkans, since Syrah is fairly rare in the region. Skovin is probably trying to follow the world commercial trends with this Syrah Cabernet Sauvignon combination, and it’s not doing a bad job. Syrah brings in the spiciness and the earthy taste, which brings memories of those strong South African tastes of Syrah wines. Cabernet softeness it a bit, so overall it’s a nice wine, but distinctively dryer than the famous Australian Syraz-Cabernet’s.
Rating: 6/10 Price: 400 RSD (5 euro) Retailer: Super Vero
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)
Amazon.com, the online purveyor of books, apparel, and just about everything else, has announced its plans to enter the wine sales business. Beginning as early as mid-October, the online retailer will offer a selection of more than 300 wines from all over the United States to customers in 26 states. The company indicates that the selection will represent a wide cross-section of US producers, not just wineries in California, Oregon, and Washington State.
Shipping and taxes, as ever with online wine sales, will likely be an issue. Amazon says that customers of the Amazon Prime service (which carries a $79 annual fee) will get free shipping. Still, it's an intriguing development.
Contents of this feed are a property of Creative Weblogging Limited and are protected by copyright laws. Violations will be prosecuted. Please email us if you'd like to use this feed for non-commercial activities at feeds - at - creative-weblogging.com.
This cool combo of fine wines and classic jazz is one of Toronto?s premier events. Energy Savings Group Wine, Whisky & All That Jazz is set for Wed., June 20 at the Liberty Grand. Recapture the golden age of jazz...
A box of rose pink turkish delight had me thinking about posting a few things pink in support of Breast Cancer Awareness month. All our desserts this month have had a pink tinge.
TURKISH DELIGHT ICE CREAM WITH RASPBERRIES
Vanilla Ice Cream and a few drops of rose pink food colouring
Turkish Delight chopped into small squares
Raspberries and raspberry jam
Sweet shortcrust pastry, cut into desired shape and cook in oven. Cool.
To Make
Soften vanilla icecream a little, blend in food colouring and add half chopped turkish delight. Work quickly so ice cream doesn't melt completely. Place into moulds lined with plastic wrap or muslin. Return to freezer to harden.
Heat raspberries and jam in a small saucepan. Push through a sieve to remove seeds. Cool.
To Serve
Remove ice cream from freezer and upend onto plate. Decorate with raspberry sauce, remaining turkish delight and pastry shapes.
Variations - You could use any flavoured icecream in place of the coloured vanilla. I did it this way as I wanted the rose pink colour but with a vanilla taste.
Amounts will depend on how many you are serving.
TURKISH DELIGHT TRUFFLES(makes 10 truffles)
100 grams dark chocolate, chopped into bite size pieces 130 ml pure cream 75 grams turkish delight, chopped into small squares cocoa powder and icing sugar for rolling truffles in.
Place cream into a small saucepan and heat.
Pour cream over chocolate and stir until it melts.
Cool and then stir in turkish delight.
Place in fridge and allow mixture to thicken.
Using a teaspoon scoop out small balls of mixture and drop into cocoa/icing sugar mix.
Using hands roll into a smooth ball and place in serving cases.
If not serving immediately, store in fridge. Roll in cocoa/icing sugar mix again before serving.
Adapted from Saha by Greg and Lucy Malouf
FLORENTINES WITH TURKISH DELIGHT
David Lebovitz is responsible for several major purchases I've made recently. He mentioned Thermomix and I now have one, he mentioned the Ottolenghi cookbook and I now have one. It is a beautiful book and this is the first recipe I've made from it. Because I'm reduced to typing with one hand this week I'll refer you to David's blog for the original recipe.
The addition of the turkish delight is an idea I found in another Greg and Lucy Malouf book. I added the turkish delight to the Florentines in the last minute of baking.
If you're not a subscriber to The Wine Front you don't get to see the reviews that are added to the site on most days. In the past seven days the following wines have been reviewed in the Subscriber Only section of this website.
I’ve been involved with Twitter Taste Live since the second tasting and will be participating again next time when the theme is “Bloggers Take Over.” In past tastings wineries have presented a selection of wines and wine lovers from around the world then posted their thoughts on Twitter while tasting the same wines simultaneously. But the next time out each wine blogger will be able to pick their wine(s) and give you the chance to pick them up and taste along with us on November 15th.
I have selected Lot 92 2004 Margaret River Chardonnay and Lot 36 2005 Rutherford Cabernet for the tasting.
The Chardonnay is available for just $14 at the Cameron Hughes online store but Lot 36 is only available in Costco or Sam’s Club stores (I paid $12.88 today for Lot 36 at Sam’s).
So pick up one or both of these wines, friend me up on Twitter and taste along with me on November 15th. I’ll be posting a follow-up with the approximate time of the tasting next week and, of course, tweet about this too. I hope you will join me or at least follow along on Twitter Search using the hash tag #ttl.
Ringing in at 13.5% alcohol by volume, this cheap wine was an equal match to the FishEye Merlot. From Ripon, California, this wine lets the fruit speak for itself. Along with the dark plum taste, I also experienced a little pepper in the nose.
At only 8 dollars a bottle, I found this to be a great wine. I had mine with Spicy Montreal seasoning. Try it! Rating: 7/10 Price: 7.99 Place of purchase: L&L Grocery Vineyard Info: FishEye Winery Ripon, CA www.fisheyewines.com
I've consumed a handful of cheaper wines this weekend, and whilst the 2005 Wyndam Bin 555 Shiraz was quite good, this puts them all to shame.
Charles Sturt University (home to Australia's leading wine school) sounds like a progressive and interesting place to study. This incredibly cheap but delightful chardonnay is compellingly direct and brisk. Pale with a flash of green, this is pert and laden with stonefruit and crisp acidity.
I?m quite excited; this is the first time I?m posting for Wine Blogging Wednesday. This was originally started by Lenn Thompson and is now in its 51st edition, hosted by Joe Roberts at 1WineDude. The theme is “Baked Goods and Madeirized wines?.
Allow me to digress a bit. In the early seventies, the end-of-empire centrifuge was up to full speed and about to fling my parents out. In the nick of time, I was conceived. It all happened on an idyllic, but not quite palm-fringed island off the Portuguese coast - as in the Portuguese Overseas Province of Moçambique coast.
Anyway, Rhodesia, spittoon distance from the Moçambique border was where we lived. Some of the first words I ever heard, in uterus no doubt, were Portuguese. Some of my mother?s relations even took it one step further and lived in Moçambique - for three generations. So it?s no surprise that I feel a warm affection for all things Portuguese and Mozambican (note the post-colonial spelling change). My favourite meal has always been ?Churrasco do Frango? with Piri Piri. I must admit this affection did not extend to Portuguese wine at first, but that little fault was corrected in due course. There can be no better place to start appreciation of Portuguese wines than with a glass or two of Madeira wine, which I love to drink when I can get my hands on it.
Fast forward to September 2004, my first visit to Madeira, when we descended on the island for my cousin?s wedding. Of all places, he and his bride had met in Mozambique. If you haven?t been to Madeira, then I can?t recommend it enough. It?s beautiful, fascinating and sometimes hair-raising, especially on the way in and out. The airport is built into the side of a mountain and the runway juts out either end like some kind of oversized sea-side pier.
Madeira, like Porto, Jerez and Marsala has long been famous for its fortified wines and similarly the British have never been far from the action. There were many Anglo sounding names in the Madeira trade but these have mostly folded into ?The Madeira Wine Company?, now controlled by the Symingtons of Porto fame, along with the Blandy family (old Madeira hands).
Madeira wines are pretty much bullet-proof, which once made them popular in the southern United States, where they survived the summer temperatures intact. The bullet-proofing is due to the heat treatment Madeira wines receive, before ageing quietly in the normal way. The best wines are left in pipes (Madeira barrels are called pipes) outside in the sun, but most Madeira is treated in an ?estufa?, a hot-house, where the pipes are heated up to for the required length of time, which can be months. The cheapest wines are warmed up in something like a heated swimming pool. The process is called ?estufagem? and is designed to mimic what happened when pipes were loaded onto tall ships and sailed around the world via the tropics. Estufagem makes Madeira wines very stable, they can last over a century in bottle, and once opened are good for a month or even longer; it also means Madeira wines are ?Baked Goods?!
The wines I am drinking today are by Henriques & Henriques. The Rainwater and the Sercial 10 year old. Despite the proximity, sourcing Madeira in southern Spain is surprisingly difficult so I had to go shopping in Gibraltar at the wine merchant “Anglo-Hispano“, who have a great selection of international wines. Both these wines are at the dry end of the Madeira styles and would make great aperitifs, or perhaps go well with a mild and slightly salty cheese. I was hoping to also get a bottle of rich, sweet Malmsey but beggars can?t be choosers. There was none on sale and there is the annoying duty-free allowance of only two bottles when coming back into Spain.
By the way, this Madeira Wine Guide by Dr Wolf Peter Reutter is a great resource for anyone interested in knowing more.
?Red? You sure that?s what you mean?? said the salesclerk looking at me dubiously.
?Yes, I do?, I responded.
?Sim, Vinho Verde TINTO?, I repeated to each and every retailer in various wine shops while hunting for this infamous red counterpart of the popular Portuguese white wine, Vinho Verde.
What surprised me during my quest, for this apparently unpopular style of wine, is that almost a third of the wine produced in the region of Vinho Verde is red. So why is a Vinho Verde Tinto such a bizarre and foreign idea? After trying a few bottles in the past, and literally spitting them out and dumping the rest down the drain, it is not difficult to understand people’s apprehension!
But surprisingly, I?ve come to learn that many Vinho Verde Tintos tend to have the exact same flavor profile! And although they are produced with the same high acidity ?greenness? as the white wines, typically followed by a second malolactic fermentation to allow for a smoother and more full-bodied character, many producers seem to overlook this second essential step - choosing instead, to keep the high acidity which produces a very unbalanced wine. Taken from the D.O. Vinho Verde website:
However, the occurrence of the malolactic fermentation has its costs: a reduction of freshness and primary aromas proceeding from the grapes. For this reason, many oenologists prevent its occurrence in the white Vinhos Verdes, which must have freshness and young aroma. The malolactic fermentation mainly is encouraged [but not obligatory] in the red Vinhos Verdes, whose quality depends more on its flavour complexity than the aromas intensity.
Consequently, many Vinho Verde Tintos taste downright sour.
The wine is then released, almost exclusively, within the regional market, and unless you are one of the locals who have acquired a taste for it, consuming it out of the traditional clay bowl, most people end up tossing it.
But I refused to believe that all Verde Tintos tasted bad. Why would a winery produce this much Vinho Verde Tinto without producing some higher end labels? I decided to give the style a second chance before writing this article and set out in hopes of finding at least one that I could speak highly of. In all 8 stores I checked out, only one carried a decent looking bottle that I bought for a relatively low price of ?2.35. The 2007 Solar de Serrade Verde Tinto from Quinta de Serrade, a reputable producer from what I was told, located in the sub-region of Monçao, in the northern part of the Minho. After bringing the bottle home, I chilled it down and sliced up some creamy local sheep?s milk cheese as a recommended pairing. I then poured a glass and hoped for the best.
The wine was an eye-opener, smooth and full-bodied, with bright red berries and currants on the nose which were mimicked on the palate. I still detected the signature ?greenness?, but this time, the acidity was more tame and pleasing on the palate, without overpowering the subtle light berry flavors; whereby, making the 2007 Solar de Serrade Verde Tinto the first balanced Verde Tinto I had ever tasted.
I think what helped make this particular Verde Tinto considerably better is that Monçao has a warmer and drier climate than the rest of Vinho Verde; whereby, allowing for drier, fuller-bodied wines. In addition Quinta de Serrade chose to ferment this wine to 11% alcohol, a higher percentage than most Verde Tintos, normally clocking in around 8-9%. The cheese also turned out to be a great pairing with the wine, complimenting the body, while perfectly contrasting the acidity.
Shaw Vineyard and Tierce came up big with Mr. Molesworth in the October 31, 2008 issue of Wine Spectator, as did Lucas and Hunt Country. Congratulations to all...including Mr. Molesworth!
Shaw Vineyard Riesling Finger Lakes 2006 Score: 88 | $17 Tangy and fresh, with slate, green apple and fig notes that stay nervy through the nicely concentrated finish. Drink now. 250 cases made. ?J.M.
Shaw Vineyard Riesling Finger Lakes Dry 2006 Score: 88 | $19 Good focus and drive, with a bracing edge to the lime, watermelon and green apple notes. Nice slatelike tang on the finish. Drink now. 200 cases made. ?J.M.
Tierce Riesling Finger Lakes Dry 2006 88 $30 Shows some mature hints--fennel and anise--along with good underlying snap and additional apple and floral notes. Good length. Opens nicely in the glass. A joint effort from the winemakers at Anthony Road, Fox Run and Red Newt. Drink now through 2009. 200 cases made. ?JM Country: New York Region: Finger Lakes Issue Date: Oct 31, 2008
Lucas Riesling Finger Lakes Semi-Dry 2007 85 $13 Medium-weight and off-dry in feel, but with good cut to the McIntosh and anise notes. Round, plump finish. Drink now. 730 cases made. ?JM Country: New York Region: Finger Lakes Issue Date: Oct 31, 2008
Hunt Country Pinot Gris Finger Lakes 2007 84 $16 Fresh, with lemon zest and white peach notes on a bright, easy frame. Drink now. 862 cases made. ?JM Country: New York Region: Finger Lakes Issue Date: Oct 31, 2008
Lucas Riesling Finger Lakes Dry 2007 84 $13 Crisp, with good lime and green apple notes. Lean, but fresh and focused. Drink now. 410 cases made. ?JM New York Region: Finger Lakes Issue Date: Oct 31, 2008
Note to self: Never, under any circumstances, fly cross country in the winter time using Chicago's O'Hare aerostop as your connecting hub. As good as the flight times look on paper, keep in mind, they are pure fantasy. That sweet...
Note to self: Never, under any circumstances, fly cross country in the winter time using Chicago's O'Hare aerostop as your connecting hub. As good as the flight times look on paper, keep in mind, they are pure fantasy. That sweet 45 minute layover from SLC? How's about 4.5 12 hours!? And that snappy 1 hour layover from Ottawa back to SLC? Try 3 hours. Oy veh. I need a drink. And speaking of drinks, can I interest you in a Chiroubles?
G. DuBoeuf Chiroubles 2005 ($10) - Had this wine originated from a more 'serious' French wine region, chances are it would be selling at 3-4 times the asking price. However, seeing as it comes from the immensely under-appreciated region of Beaujolais, you can grab it for ten damn dollars. Chiroubles is one of 10 Beaujolais Crus (i.e. premier growing sites). I might not describe this wine as, "exploding from the glass like a massive bouquet of violets," as Parker-proxy Pierre Rovani does. I would however describe it as an ultrasexy rendition of the Gamay grape - with scents of fresh blueberry and violet-blossom. In the mouth, DuB.'s Chiroubles does it nice and smooth with silky tannins and simple cherry-blueberry flavors. Snatch this wine up forthwith and sip it with a plate of bistro frites.
A few wines earlier this week at Atelier in Newtown.
Vilmart C?ur de Cuvée 1997. Light straw colour with a fine bead. Lemon, pear, brine and earth on the nose. There is subtle fruit sweetness balanced with excellent acidity on the palate. Long and intense, this is an excellent wine and one of the better 97s I’ve tasted. 92/100
Domaine Servin Les Blanchots 2000 Corked. NR/100
Louis Michel et Fils Grenouilles 2000. Behind the huge
Tecnorati
The clever people over at Google have identified an apparently growing problem of emailing while intoxicated (EWI) and have taken steps to prevent it. The new “Mail Goggles” feature of their free email service 
Quite an unusual combination for the Balkans, since Syrah is fairly rare in the region. Skovin is probably trying to follow the world commercial trends with this Syrah Cabernet Sauvignon combination, and it’s not doing a bad job. Syrah brings in the spiciness and the earthy taste, which brings memories of those strong South African tastes of Syrah wines. Cabernet softeness it a bit, so overall it’s a nice wine, but distinctively dryer than the famous Australian Syraz-Cabernet’s.
I’ve been involved with 
