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In the long and storied history of Wine Blogging Wednesday, several bloggers have hosted the monthly virtual tasting twice. But only one, founder Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS, has hosted three times. As of today, you can add my name to the WBW three-peat list as I again take up the reins and choose the theme.
The previous two times I’ve hosted, red wines were featured: first lite in alcohol, then full-tilt in the other direction. So this time out, I’ll pick my favorite white variety, Riesling. But not Riesling grown just anywhere, but where the grape first achieved noble status in the Old World: Germany, Austria and France’s Alsace region. In this terroir, the variety produces some of the most interesting and long-lived white wines from bone-dry to lusciously sweet.
Pick any style you like, at any price point, and join me as we explore Old World Riesling on Wednesday, May 7.
To participate, just pick up a wine made from Riesling grown in Germany, Austria or Alsace (OK, Northern Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovenia are also fine) and blog about it. If you don’t have a blog, sign-up and post at the WBW Community Blog. Once you have posted, send me an email at winecast (at) gmail (dot) com with “WBW 45″ in your subject line. Sometime after May 7th, I’ll post an event round-up here.
I hope you enjoy this theme as much as me and pick up a bottle from somewhere you have not tried yet. I think you will be very pleased with the resulting value.
For some people, the storage and acquisition of wine is more than just a hobby, it is an art.
Wine connoisseurs all know that the proper storage of wine is important to its final flavor. Once it is already bottled, wine will still mature and gain body and flavor. Proper care should be taken when handling wine, or else its potential for greatness will go to waste. To keep their wine well preserved, the discriminating connoisseur will choose a proper wine rack.
How to Buy a Wine Rack
The Build Wine racks can be made of so many different materials and styles. You should consider which material and style fits your need and preference. You could have wood, glass, alloy, or metal racks. Some people try to choose materials that match their living rooms. There are a variety of styles of wine racks, find one that if convenient for you. The popular styles include counter top racks, diamond bins, cabinets and others.
The Essential Elements A good wine rack will ensure that the following elements are strictly controlled. Light, humidity, temperature, stability. If you want to keep your wine well preserved and ready for ambush party, you need to make sure they are not exposed to light, moisture, extreme temperatures and shaking or vibration.
Cabinet wine racks are good at keeping wine bottles safe. They can emulate the conditions at a wine cellar best. These condition include moderate humidity, cool temperatures, and little light
We try to control the humidity so we can avoid getting the wine cork from accumulating moisture. This will lessen the chances that the wine will get contaminated or oxidized. Keeping the correct humidity or appropriately moist environment will keep the wine cork damp, reducing the chances of contamination and/or oxidization. Warm conditions will accelerate wine aging. You have to keep this in mind when you consider which wine rack to choose.
Things to Remember Don’t place wine cellars above or near refrigerators. Refrigerators generate heat and this heat could ruin you wine collection. Buying and installing a good wine rack would be useless if that happened.
Your rack has to be smooth enough that when the wine bottles are put and taken, they will not get scratched and damaged. Bottles and labels are also important parts of the overall value of wine.
A wine cellar is great but not necessary to store your wine in the correct environment. But since not everyone can afford a wine cellar or has space enough for one, you could opt for a wine rack instead. Wine racks function a lot like wine cellars, but they are smaller and are more accessible. They are also a lot cheaper and easier to install.
Believe it or not, ultraviolet light can affect and ruin wine. That’s the reason wine cellars are so dark and that’s why you have to keep your wine in a dark safe place. When you store your wine bottles, make sure they are stored sideways; this ensures that the wine is always in contact with the cork to keep it moist.
Once again we cannot express how important it is to maintain the right conditions for your wine to mature nicely. Your wine rack system has to maintain the right amount of humidity and temperature to keep your collection going. Bear in mind that wine is something you keep for a long time. Keep your wine racks pumping a temperature range of 55-60° F. Also make sure the humidity is in the 50% to 75% range. Adjust these settings according to the needs of your wine.
Start Planning for Your Wine Rack Now! Well, now you have pretty much gotten everything in order. When a party comes crashing through, you can whip out the grade A wine and celebrate to your hearts content. Pour out the good times to the tune of the compliments and admiration your friends will throw your way all because of your fine wine rack.
About the author: For more great wine rack info and advice check out: http://www.rack-hq.com
Recently, at a dinner with friends, one man's date turned to me and complained, "He's so boring. All he ever talks about is wine. All day long he talks about wine." I probably looked hurt, because I was just as engrossed in our discussion of Syrah as he was. Lorraine leaned toward me and whispered, "She's right, you know. We're all hopeless wine geeks. Look at us from an outsider's point of view."
Whew! What a busy week it's been! I was down in LA to host a tasting of Israeli wines as part of the festivities celebrating the 60th anniversary of Israel, then gave a chat at the UCLA Anderson School of Business, where I spent two very happy (if busy) years not long ago, and even managed to fit in a couple of meals at two Angeleno eateries I've been dying to check out - Osteria Mozza (props go out to my friend the GM and wine guru-about-town, David Rosoff) and Comme Ca, a super cute new bistro on Melrose across the street from the always fab Lucques...
FishEye Merlot caught my eye at the supermarket yesterday when trying to find a good cheap wine to pair with my pasta and chicken dinner.
Nice and fruity, I think the strongest aroma was plum. This wine was a good match to my dinner, and a good value for $5.89. I’d like to try their Cab one of these days.
It is the time of year for lists. It seems everyone has posted their choices of top or bottom notable events for 2007. In my never ending struggle to be different, and characteristically putting myself on the line, I offer no look back. Instead, I proffer these prognostications.
I have shared my thoughts on future advancements. There is the near certain likelihood that we will see ever more control over everything having to do with growing and making wine. The future is about dialing in character. As well I have glimpsed a future where VineBots revolutionize the vineyard. These are things to come in the long run, but what about in the near future? Here then is my list of what 2008 may offer us.
1) The Internet
This is pretty obvious to someone reading these words on the Internet, but there is more to it than you may think. There has been an ongoing battle behind the scenes regarding who can buy wine from where and have it shipped. Some, backed in large part by the Wine Distributors, want to limit these options. They point to underaged drinking and other red herrings to support their platform of fear. They are losing ground.
More and more wine will be sold over the Internet, and 2008 will be a year of critical mass. I don't mean to imply that more wine will be bought on-line than not, rather I am foretelling a huge rush towards selling on-line. Those already well entrenched will see record sales, those late to the game will be rushing to catch up, and new players will take the center stage (I am even thinking of entering the arena).
Look for big changes at the local level. 2008 may well be the year it becomes common to order your wine on-line from your local store, who will then deliver it for free. As with all Internet businesses it is hard to compete on cost, so it is always better to compete on service.
2) Bye Bye Big Fruit Bombs
Watch for the 2008 harvest to be one where people start talking about terroir and character, and get away from the highly alcoholic wines that have dominated the market for the last few years. There has been a huge amount of press decrying the amount of alcohol in wines, and at least some winemakers are likely to react to the changing sentiment.
Europe is even more likely to market their wines to the US as being food friendly, highly individual wines that emphasize where they were produced.
For the record, I love huge alcoholic, intensely fruity... Zinfandels. I don't look for the same traits in my Cabernet Sauvignon.
3) Baby Steps
The wine vine's genome has been unlocked. While the lay press in particular has been writing about the amazing, and somewhat improbable potential of this, I think most of that potential is still a long way off. The human genome was mapped in 2003, and the world has not dramatically changed, yet.
What we will see this year are the first practical applications being announced. Even these will almost certainly still be at the research stage by the end of the year, but news will be made. Look for disease resistance to be a top priority.
4) The Year of the Container.. or at least the closure.
There is a quiet revolution about to hit our shores. Heavy, expensive, and fragile glass bottles will no longer be the only option for wine lovers. Already we have seen alternative packaging popping up for lesser quality wines, but just as with the screw top, a top producer will take the plunge and change the way we look at packaging.
Speaking of screw tops, they are no longer the only game in town. Nifty new players are starting to make inroads. My favorites of these are the glass enclosure. Sterile, easy to remove and even easier to recycle, there is a lot to be said for them.
And speaking of recycling...
5) Green, Greener, and Greenest
I am hardly going out on a limb to point out that environmental concerns are dramatically changing the market. Organic and Biodynamic are going to be big buzzwords this year.
Let me stick my neck out here and just say to watch out for these terms. Taking care of the land and paying attention to sustainability are important. Ignoring the technical advances of the last 100 years and burying cows heads at the full moon are not as important.
If you like the wine, then by all means support their efforts, but don't fall for hype, and certainly don't settle for less out of green guilt.
Carbon footprint is a term you will hear more in 2008, and one of my favorite ways for a winery to do this (besides geothermal cooling/heating , which only I seem to know about) is to start selling their wines in plastic bottles. Plastic is lighter, cost less to ship, uses less fossil fuels to ship, and it doesn't break as easily.
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And there you have it. My list may be half as many items as most lists these days, but there is more than enough there for you to ruminate over for the year to come. As always I welcome comments, criticism, and above all, investors that want to back my harebrained schemes.
Wine is all about the senses. About sensory evaluation, sensuality and consensual enjoyment. And wouldn't it be awful to lose your sense of taste, of smell, of touch, of sight?
It happens. Years ago, a wine-loving colleague went through a devastating course of chemotherapy to treat cancer and was cured. Afterwards he told me he had permanently lost his taste for wine. He sold his not inconsiderable cellar soon afterwards. Another friend had an operation on his nose that left him without a sense of smell. He'll drink a glass of wine with dinner but admits to being indifferent to its finer points.
I was reminded of this aspect of wine and the senses recently while listening to a wine expert banging on about the unimportance of colour in wine. If I heard him correctly, his thesis was that if the wine smelt and tasted good you shouldn't worry too much about its colour.
I couldn't disagree more. I love the colour of wine in the morning, or the evening. The crystal clear, green-hued glisten of a young riesling; the black cherry colour of a young shiraz; the vibrant inky purple of a Coonawarra cabern? [enough already! - Ed.] The visual appeal of wine in the glass is to me an unmissable part of wine drinking.
The banging on wine person finally admitted to being colour blind! They used to call this attitude making a virtue of a necessity.
And talking of sensory evaluation Long due for reassessment is the ancient scoring system used at most Australian wine shows. The one where wines are scored out of 20 - with a possible three points (15%) awarded for appearance, seven (35%) for bouquet and ten (50%) for palate. Anyone who's ever had a cold will tell you that smell is probably the most important sensory sensation where wine is concerned. When people have colds they typically complain, ?I can't taste a thing.' What they really mean is, ?I can't smell a thing.' It's their noses that are blocked up - not their mouths.
I realise that many judges just award an intuitive score out of 20 rather than individually scoring each component and then adding up the total. Nevertheless, I'd re-jig the weighting thus: three points (15%) for appearance, nine (45%) for bouquet, five (25%) for palate and three (15%) for overall finesse and balance. Whether the scoring system is out of 20 or 100, or whatever, the percentage weighting would remain the same.
El Celler de Can Roca is one of my most memorable dining experiences, up there with Troisgros. At 279? for 2 people with 19 courses and 9 wines by the glass, one could also call it a bargain (the top menu is 100? per person). To read more about this experience, please visit Vinix, the wine social network site run by my friend Filippo Ronco. My complete article is there with some pictures taken on the cell phone.
The much-promised, overly hyped Riesling Review has now arrived (brought to you by Mylanta)
Jill, Yulia, P-Cat, and myself (Jay) converged at Boozer Headquarters (my place) last Wednesday for the Riesling blind tasting. P-Cat's writing a column for a local newspaper and needed to taste through a bunch so we decided to make it A Thing. We each got a bottle from a different geographic locale, figuring the areas that needed representation were Germany, Alsace, Austria, New York, and Australia (don't blame me for the last one, ok?)
AND, since we live the malt liquor lifestyle, we tasted them blind, each bottle wrapped lovingly in two layers of plastic bags. Ghetto super star, that is what we are.
Here are my rather lame notes:
Wine #1: Apricot, honeysuckle, rose petals on the nose; palate is lime, tangerine - stones, touch of cream, but thin.
Wine #2: SULPHER! Yikes, burned my nose hairs. V pale in glass. Diesel, swampy nose. Palate of bitter green orange, lemon zest, pink grapefruit. Long finish due to acidity.
Wine #3: Light, aromatic greens - fresh, sweet grass, white flowers, honeydew. Melon-apricot palate with stone minerality and balanced acidity. Yum.
Wine #5: Swamp water. Grape-lemon pucker candy. Sour Patch kids. Yuck. We no like.
Results:
1: Paul Blanck 05 from Alsace (score 1 for me!)
2: Grosset 05 from Australia (upset of the CENTURY, folks!)
3: Domaine Wachau 06 from Austria (amazing value - our favorite, hands down, at only $12.99)
4: Fritz Haag 05 Kabinett from Germany (which we all guessed because of the residual - oops, sorry, forgot it was supposed to be a dry Riesling tasting..)
5: Red Newt Cellars 06 Reserve from NY State (surprising only in that is sucked so badly for the money - tasting like bad NYState wine, so I guessed this one immedately...)
It was interesting too in that every wine except the Red Newt was screw cap. Go figure.
Still not a huge fan of Riesling, especially since I tasted all these the night before some serious food poisoning that had me leaving pieces of myself roadside throughout the state for the next two days and I can't help but link the two incedents.
Te Whare Ra ( "Tee Faree Ra" is supposed to mean house in the Sun in Maori)is based in Marlborough New Zealand. This is on the south Island in the town of Renwick which is host to quite a few wineries including Cloudy Bay, Montana etc...
Established in 1979, this small boutique winery probably has some of the oldest vines in the area. In 2003, the husband and wife team of Jason & Anna Flowerday took the helm and have significantly upgraded various aspects of the winery. Although offering a Pinot Noir, IMHO they are a white wine producer with offerings mainly from Sauvignon Blanc, Reisling, Gerwurztraminer and Chardonnay. It's their aromatic wines which to me show their stuff here. Current size of the vineyards ~9 hectares with many coming from the older vines planted in 1979 ( almost 30 years ago) - I was told the Gerwurztraminer. Fruit is basically hand sorted and picked - now we are talking.
Cutting to the chase, my favorite wines from their lineup would be the "Toru" bottling and their Gerwurztraminer.
The "Toru" is a blend of several aromatic grape varietals consiting of Riesling, Gerwurztraminer and Pinot Gris. While tasting this wine, images of a picnic & grilled seafood keep popping up - probably my mind telling me that's where I should be with this. 89 points The 2007 Gerwurztraminer to me is a standout here. The concentration and flavor in here just screams of old vines and low yields. The typical Lychee notes were present although not overpowering, minerals, hints of sweetness from the fruit with 22g/l of residual sugar - nice finish ( the wine was still going strong after being opened more than 24 hours). The best thing to compare this to would be an Alsatian Gewurtz VT. 92+ points
…except their QVC is called Christie?s. Maybe we don?t all shop QVC, but we?ve all been taken by a deal that seemed to good to be true. But instead of a crappy $30 cubic zirconium ring that turns your finger green, this is a story about a rich guy who paid $156,000 too much for a [...]
The guy next to me kept screaming “White Rabbit!” at the top of his lungs for the better part of two hours. It was a Jefferson Airplane concert in 1971 and the band, despite a change of personnel could not escape their hits. No matter how well they played that guy would only be happy if they played White Rabbit.
Last week, while attending a performance of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, a true jazz legend and creator of West Coast Jazz, the guy in front of me screamed “Take Five!”. It seems no matter how many decades pass that fans are more interested in hearing your hits instead of your music. In Brubeck’s case he has progressed far beyond his Take Five days and created am amazingly diverse body of work. Yet, even with all he’s done since Take Five was recorded in 1959 I’m willing to bet that the majority of concert goers were there to hear Take Five, which is probably the only jazz composition most could name from memory. Of course, I’m sure few of them knew that the piece they were screaming to hear was not written by Brubeck, but by the late, great Paul Desmond, who played saxophone for The Dave Brubeck Quartet when they recorded Take Five.
Winemakers face the a similar dilemma. Once you get a big score, your big hit, you can feel locked into that style. It takes great courage to evolve your style in a way you believe in instead of just playing the same old hit over and over again. What most consumers don’t understand is that a winemaker can be relatively unhappy with a wine even though it gets a high score. As difficult as it is to believe, behind closed doors winemakers are often amazed at a high score they’ve received. What happens if you get a 93 from Robert Parker on a wine you’re not particularly pleased with? Do you keep making that wine or follow your own vision?
Brubeck seems to have resolved this dilemma perfectly as when he did finally play Take Five for the crowd, it was not the Take Five of 1959, but a piece that reflected the talents of the current Dave Brubeck Quartet. While it started with the famous chords and catchy quintuple time, it soon evolved, in the great tradition of jazz, into a distinctive exciting performance with a personality all its own.
Great winemaking should take its cue from the improvisational spirit of jazz as each vintage is a singular performance that deserves its own riffs.
Tuscan Wine Tours offers day tours of Italy's region of Tuscany. In this video, the group visits two small wineries and enjoys a relaxing lunch al fresco, a typical tour. Take a look:
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Domaine Richaud ? Cotes du Rhone ?Terres d? Aigues? (2005)
If you?re in the mood for wonderful floral aromas followed by mind altering weirdness on the palate ? try this.
Dried herbs, strong garrigue notes and liquorice on the nose, full bodied initially, becoming seriously fat in the glass with some tobacco and grilled meat flavours which seem to fade but kick in again accompanied by a seriously weird sweaty iodine and dare I say it ? Sauerkraut fizzpop explosion which stopped me dead in my tracks between the kitchen and the lounge.
Top marks for creating something really interesting here, I just wonder if the flavours work for me. After two glasses it left me in a dizzy sweat.
Domaine Richaud produce top quality wines and I look forward to returning to the Cairanne or perhaps the Les Garrigues?decisions, decisions.
Mr Riggs is a brand that made a splash when it first appeared a few years ago but – as much sub-consciously as anything – I always thought it would hit and run pretty fast, and disappear after a few vintages. I say this even though the wines have generally been very good. And well packaged. And reasonably priced. Maybe it’s just me, but the brand name itself just seemed to have gimmick written all over it.
Or it did. Now it doesn't. It’s good to see that the brand is still alive and going strong. In terms of quality, the following wines are the strongest bunch I have seen under this label.
A sell-out crowd of Hip Tasters gathered last Friday eve @ Sugar Cafe downtown to partake of The Salty & Sweet Tasting, this year's first official HIP TASTES event! Enjoy these snaps of the crowd, including this first of me (right) with my sis Claire,the original Hip Taster. Cheers ;)
September 14th, 2007 is the Great Canadian Head Shave organized by the Terry Fox Foundation. In order to help raise awareness and much-needed funds for cancer research, Tidings editor-in-chief, Aldo Parise has decided to do his part. He will be...
Recently Tom Wark posted a piece on Fermentation titled On Dogs, Wine & God that compares wine characteristics to the traits that are bred into dogs. Quoting one of his commenters, wine blogger Arthur Z Przebinda of Redwinebuzz, Tom says: "What makes a Doberman a classic example of the breed? The way it best displays the traits and characteristics that define the breed," then goes on to point out that over time dog breeders have bred out or in certain characteristics based on evolving breed standards, that the same thing has happened with wine, and that's perfectly OK.
The Doberman is a perfect example, since the Dobes of today are bred to be companions more than the protector that German tax collector Louis Dobermann created in the late 1800s. Today's Dobes are bred to retain all the qualities Herr Dobermann was after ? intelligence, power, speed, and ease of mainenance ? but with a more tractable temperament suitable for a family dog. Similarly, some wines that were previously unapproachable or challenging have been changed so that they can be enjoyed by a larger segment of the population. In each case, there are curmudgeonly traditionalists and those who embrace the new style, and their viewpoints are equally valid.
This seems like a good way to segue into an introduction to our newest staff member here at WineCanine, a 10-month-old Doberman named Hobbes. Hobbes came to us through Southwestern Ohio Doberman Rescue, which had him in a foster home in Louisville, Kentucky. Hobbes was named Sirius by SWODR and apparently had been called Buster at one time, judging by the name on the leash that he came with. We had originally gone down to meet a red Dobe named Calvin, who, with his long tail and natural ears, looked quite a bit like our Red, who passed on in late March. Calvin was nice, but this young, fawn-colored fella turned out to be a Weim lover. So, we went down to look at Calvin, but ended up with Hobbes.
Hobbes has been very interested in learning about everything in the kitchen, so after a brief training period he will assume the position of WineCanine's official ChowHound.
Anyone who?s read Blanc de Noir for long knows we?re both huge fans of Italian wines. There?s just something about the diversity, quality, and sheer fun factor of Italian wines ? whether it?s a casual summer patio sipper or a robust vintage to accompany a big, festive dinner or one of the meditative Amarones that are still way up there on our list of favourites.
So when BC Wine Appreciation Society decided to add a couple of Italian wines to an educational tasting scheduled just prior to the 2008 Playhouse International Wine Festival ? the theme country for this year?s festival was, after all, Italy ? Frank and our illustrious BCWAS leader, Tim Ellison, decided to add a twist to the event. How about putting up a couple of Italian wines with the usual BC vintages? Frank, however, took the concept one step farther.
Here?s the deal. From BC: three sparklers, four Pinot Grigios, two Pinot Noirs, a Cabernet Sauvignon, and a Merlot. From Italy: three Chiantis ? just three and all from Frescobaldi, one of Italy?s most respected winemakers (multi-generations shown above).
Here?s the catch. The Chiantis were bottled in 2004, 1982, and 1975. No, it?s not a typo. The last two came from the collection of Italian wines Frank recently acquired ? one of those fantastic opportunities that come about from being in the right place and the right time and having way more patience than most when it comes to negotiating.
Alas, on the night of the event, Frank was sick with flu, but you can bet eyes went wide as people realized what he?d sent.
The 2004 was, pretty much as expected, dark purple with lots of fruit and tannins that were more ?in your face? than makes for a good sipping wine unless you?re eating. But truth is, few people spent much time with that particular wine since they were all eager to try the two older offerings.
Immediately apparent was the change in colour ? now tawny with a much larger rim than the 2004. Controversy was plentiful and several people found neither one was ?quite my thing? as one member put it in an attempt to be diplomatic. The level of oxidization, especially in the 1975, caused raised eyebrows among half the folks there. It was virtually unanimous that the ?82 needs to be drunk now and the ?75 is clearly a bit past its prime ? although not a soul suggested it should be tossed.
However wide ranging the evening?s opinions were, one thing we all did agree on. These are wines made with love and benefit from patience.
Frank?s Tasting Notes: Castello di Nipozzano Riserva 1982 This wine has aged well, probably because it is a Riserva. After more than a quarter of a century there?s still lots of fruit left ? black cherry and dark fruits with a note of white truffles in the background. The tannins have smoothed right out so they are now a little silky, and the finish is fairly long. This wine shows just how well age can improve a Chianti. Alcohol 12.5%. All the bottles for both these wines are numbered ? I have 10 left, all around 84,960 series out of 293,600 bottles produced in 1982.
Castello di Nipozzano Chianti Rufina 1975 Sadly just a little past its prime but still drinkable as the acidity has helped this one hold up. Wide orange rim, brick red colour. Truffles leave sherry undertones. This vintage has shown a lot of bottle variation ? the fruit showed up a little more in this one than the first one we tried. Alcohol 12.7%. The last bottle I have left is number 74324 of 80,000 bottles produced.
Zionsville's newest restaurant, Noah Grant's, is now open for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
Noah Grant's is a block west of Main Street at 65 South First. The space previously housed Brix. (And for you history buffs, before it was Brix it was an ice cream parlor.)
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.