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!
Winslow welcomes winery By BILL DUHART ? Courier-Post Staff ? April 29, 2008
Larry Sharrott III, left, and Larry Sharrott Jr. pose for a portrait in the tasting room of Sharrott Winery, Tuesday, April 15, 2008 in Winslow. (Douglas M. Bovitt/Courier-Post)
WINSLOW ? For Pam Merkey, another wine-maker in the neighborhood was nothing to raise an eyebrow about.
"We all make wine around here," said Merkey, who lives on South Egg Harbor Road here in the Blue Anchor section of the township. "This is a very strong Italian community. We all visit each other's houses on Sundays to taste each other's wine."
But when the chance came for a relative to sell 34 acres of land that had been in her husband's family for generations to an upstart commercial wine operation, the family jumped at it.
"They could have sold that . . . and split it up but they didn't," said Merkey, 47, a residential development banker. "It got to stay what it is and that's a lot better than five houses out there."
That's the way Larry Sharrott III and his father Larry Sharrott Jr. feel about it. The Sharrott farm bucks a recent trend in a township shedding its farming identity for rapid residential growth. Residential land makes up 76 percent of the taxable property here, compared to only 5 percent for farms.
The Sharrotts, computer technicians by trade who have an affinity for distilling spirits, bought the land in 2003 for $175,000.
The winery offers 10 varieties of wine showcased in a 450-square-foot tasting bar atop a plateau with a patio overlooking the vineyard. The tasting bar is part of a 2,500-square-foot building that also houses the winemaking operation with grapes grown in the vineyard.
"We see ourselves as a bulkhead against development," said Sharrott Jr., 60, a retired computer executive. "They call this the Garden State but most of the gardens are turning into somebody's backyard."
"We're preserving open space and our farm is a new business for the township," added Sharrott III, 33, whose day job is at defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
The property, once an apple orchard, is zoned rural and restricted to one house per 10 acres of land, which officials said is not likely to change. But it had been vacant for several years.
"No question, it's something everyone welcomes," said Ed McGlinchey, township zoning officer and director of public works. "It's pretty obvious we had a big influx of single-family homes stretching back to the 1960s. Times were great for the residential building community."
But a sewer connection ban in the rapidly growing township has put a cap on new growth. Eighty-one percent of Winslow is in the environmentally protected Pinelands preserve. The Sharrott farm is in the Pinelands but farms are exempt from many of the restrictions.
"It takes a lot longer to get other types of businesses approved and its a lot more expensive," McGlinchey said. "We're not going to get a huge amount of taxes from the winery, but it keeps with the traditional character of the township."
Read the rest at: http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080429/NEWS01/804290373/1006/news01
Reach Bill Duhart at (856) 486-2576 or bduhart@courierpostonline.com
[04/18/2006, 07:22]
Russia it prevents wine entrance of Chile and Argentina.
To date 24 containers of Argentina and Chile wait for Russia authorization for enter that country.
The new measures implemented by Russia that originated the wine rejection of Moldavia and Georgia, also makes difficult now the import from Chile and Argentina.
The new Russian exigencies imply analyses related to the chemical elements they have not been using for many years.
In Argentina these measures were described as more tariff. This country evaluates its losses in the sum of u$s 150 per day for each container. The cost of the stopped wine would be of u$s 60 thousands.
I've just finished going through a clutch of Hollick reds. I always think of them as one of Coonawarra's better producers, though clearly in recent years they've invested more and more in the nearby Wrattonbully region. I tasted through the following wines:
... and I was expecting that the Hollick Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 would come out clearly on top. It didn't. Indeed it wasn't even a Coonawarra wine that I preferred the most.
Reviews are in the Latest Reviews section of this website. The Latest reviews section is available to paid Subscribers only.
I’m tired of all the whining about alcohol and extraction, manipulation and critic focused wine making. Wine is meant to be drunk, enjoyed and savored. And if you are not enjoying what is in front of you, pour the bottle down the drain and move on.
My tastes range from ultra-modern to the most classic of the classical, as flavor is what counts above all. I say this because last Sunday afternoon, I had the opportunity to taste a wine that made me stop, assess, and realize that not all the old styles are gone as of yet. This wine is a classic, and I was forewarned that it is a “wine that requires some patience”. Seeing that the style was a remnant of winemaking practices no longer seen as fashionable, I wondered if we all “need a bit more patience” as we get older.
DOC Colares is a little more than a blink of an eye if you were to steer your boat north up the coast of Portugal towards Oporto. Having driven through there once back in 2003 aboard a bus whose speed indicated a desire to break the sound barrier, I can tell you only this, the blurred scenery was amazing. Today, there are still few producers in the area, and although the wines are not award winners, I find them to be intriguing. Part of my curiosity for the wine, may stem from the history of this varietal. The Ramisco’s roots are notoriously deep reaching, and when Phylloxera tore through Portugal in the 1890’s, destroying the wine landscape, the vine’s roots were left unaffected.
As for this 8 year old wine, it immediately reminded me of Tondonia, or another well aged Rioja wine. Light in body with a zesty acidity, the nose is musty with notes of earth and leather. Having had discussions recently about brett more than once in the past week, my mind immediately jumped to this aroma. However, upon further thought, I second-guessed my initial judgment as it was clean, and may have only been showing its unique character of herbs with cherry/cranberry notes mixed with pencil lead. This was a very elegant wine, and one that I would seek out again, possibly pairing it with the region’s famous grilled fish fare. In the end, I’d give this a 4 out of 5, keeping in mind that this is a wine for contemplation, a little patience and a good book.
I do suggest this wine, and I praise the desire to keep wines like this a part of the wine landscape. I’m sure that most modern wine lovers would not immediately fall in love with this, but the desire to explore new and interesting flavors makes me hope that we do not let them fade away. Fortunately Portugal still has many hidden nooks and crannies for wine lovers like me to explore.
Once again, I’m pleased to say that this little blog has been chosen as a finalist in the Winery Blog category of the 2008 American Wine Blog Awards. Steady, here’s the sales pitch: if you like what you’ve read here; if you have learned or laughed or even just shaken your head in utter disbelief because of this blog; if you can admit to your friends and colleagues that you do read this blog, then would you vote for it? And while you’re at it, would you ask those same friends and colleagues to vote, too??:) Take a look at the other deserving finalists in this category (many of which are my own faves), and in the other categories as well. There’s great stuff happening in the wine blog world—this is your chance to check it out!! Voting starts March 21 & ends March 28. Click here to vote.
95 points Parker: "Backward, powerful, and extremely tannic, the dense purple-colored 2003 Mouton-Rothschild, a blend of 76% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Merlot, 8% Cabernet Franc, and 2% Petit Verdot, fashioned from yields of 28 hectoliters per hectare, with
Compassion and California wine-making skills have combined to create a home for 90 mentally disabled "students" of all ages and to craft some surprisingly good wine. Coco Farm, founded in the 1950s, has been making wine since the 1980s, using mentally-challenged students to tend the vines, harvest the grapes, and perform a range of responsibilities from labeling to scraring crows away from the vines. In 1989, the winery brought in Sonoma wine-maker, Bruce Gutlove and the quality of the wine has been improving. So much, in fact, that Coco Winery's sparkling wine, "Novo," was served at the recent G-7 Summit of world leaders.
Coco Farm and Winery is located about one hour north of Tokyo. Because of its small production-just 150,000 to 180,000 bottles annually-Coco wines are not available in the United States. However, the winery welcomes visitors and has a tasting room and cafe.
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.
Frankly, we were disappointed with our first visit to the Restaurant at Auberge du Soleil. There are many good choices for an expensive dinner in Wine County; this one doesn't make our list.
Pouilly Fuisse should not really be mixed up with Pouilly Fume although it happens. While both are white wines Pouilly Fuisse is rightfully Chardonnay and Burgundian. The other Pouilly is from the Loire Valley and is made from Sauvignon Blanc ( to be covered someday!). While Pouilly-Fuisse is an appelation on to itself it would be a shame not to give the individual terroirs recognition also. There are 4 villages in the appelation: Vergisson, Solutre-Pouilly, Fuisse and Chaintre and arguably 5 terroirs as Solutre and Pouilly are distinctive.
From a distance the twin rocks of Vergisson and Solutre are a clear giveaway that you have arrived. The certain soil zones around these rocks are limestone and give the wines that mineral taste which is lacking or more subdued in the other communes outside of Vergisson, Solutre and Pouilly.
The 5 terroirs within Pouilly-Fuisse are :
Vergisson - mineral driven, punchy with acidic backbone. Solutre - mineral driven but softer with pronounced acidity. Pouilly - Good harmony of mineral and fruit - most balanced. Fuisse - More fruity, does not have the minerality of previous 3. Chaintre - Fruit dominant.
The next time you try a Pouilly-Fuisse take a closer look at the label and see where it comes from - there should be a difference. Personally my favorite is Pouilly proper. It seems to have the right balance of fruit, minerality and lively acidity. The other all have their unique characteristics but not in the harmonious balance I get in a benchmark Pouilly.
Not a comprehensive list by any measure but the wines I liked were made by:
Yes, that was basically the point of this quick weekend post.Over the past week I made the best attempt I could at finding all six single-variety wines that the South African producers released, and have only achieved partial success (3/6).Though not so entirely happy with one of the whites (sadly the only one I could track down), I return to the reds to find a very interesting Shiraz.
A small clarification about how I view value wines though.Obviously, the MAN Shiraz is no Crozes-Hermitages, but that simply isn?t the objective with a value selection recommendation.It doesn?t make it better than say, a Northern Rhône Syrah that usually sells for more.Value selections like this one are unusually interesting for the price point.That shortsighted all-or-nothing approach people have the tendency to apply to so many things in life seems absurdly inappropriate even with wine.I thought about that today when I read the latest post over at The Pour, which somewhat deals with a new book on wine reminiscent of that 20/20 segment from 2005 which relegates the value of art and art criticism (good parallel with wine) to that of upper-brow contempt for the masses.How many certifiable idiots have you overheard in a hotel lobby asking trite questions that more or less resemble ?which one?s the best, Flemish art or Florentine art?The inanity of an exchange like this swiftly reveals the poverty of knowledge, or perhaps more crucial to the matter, lack of genuine appreciation which the participants must have for art.
As someone who seriously studies literature and has a couple of degrees to back that up, I have always cringed at those book club type questions where two writers from completely different perspectives and time periods are given the old CNN Crossfire treatment, ?George Sand or Danielle Steele??On a whole, more people would likely prefer Steele, who no doubt is an accomplished writer; her work could thus be considered better, right?No, no and no.As with artists or writers, let?s please leave wine out of that sort of thing.
At any rate, this Coastal Region Shiraz is all about straightforward flavors and food-accompanying functionality.I thought it a bit complex for the price point, with nice plum, berry, spice and smoke.Balance wasn?t too far off, with medium acidity, high body, medium-high tannin and solid fruit which stood up to the vegetal and spice flavors for three days after opening.An added bonus, considering most sub-$10 reds, was that the oak presence was never overwhelming.I?ll certainly consider the MAN Syrah and Pinotage again when looking for value-priced accompaniments to grilled meats and those ostrich burgers I have come to enjoy recently.
…Big Boy style Rob had been planning this event seemingly all his life, and twelve very fortunate guests were invited to the private room at Cru one innocent Spring evening for this once-in-a-lifetime event, making me the resident Chesire Cat. For those of you that might not know or forget, double-blind means you do not know [...]
From the days when North Americans had to face that difficult decision in choosing between two beers -- each marketed under a vast array of labels, natch -- came the odd habit of drinking one type of beer year round. Didn't matter whether it was 90 degrees in the shade or 10 degrees below sans wind chill -- ice-cold, light-flavored lager became our choice.
Well, guess what folks? We don't have to do that anymore!
The last 15 or so years of what most beer geeks have christened "the craft beer renaissance" have left us with a multitude of brews suited for every season and every occasion. With spring on top of us and summer just around the corner, it's worth looking at brews that make the best sense for the approaching hot months. They should be light but flavourful, refreshing but satisfying, cold and quenching but with more character than colored water.
Think two words: Wheat Beer.
In all of its American, Belgian and German incarnations, wheat beer is developing a fast-growing reputation in North America as a summer beer. And deservedly so. On a hot summer day, after having mowed the lawn or played a sweaty 18 holes, there aren't many pleasures that compare to a nice cold pint of well-made wheat.
But before you start thinking that wheat beer's just normal stuff brewed with wheat instead of barley, you should know that the grain is only part of what makes a wheat beer. In fact, typically only about a third to a half of the grain used in a wheat beer is wheat. The rest is usually good old malted barley. What's more, not all wheat beers are created equal. Not by a long shot.
There are three major styles of wheat beer: German hefeweizen, Belgian white beer and American wheat ale -- and two minor styles -- Belgian lambic and German Berliner weisse -- each different from one other and distinctive in character.
Hefeweizen/Weissbier -- Known by confusingly similar names ("weizen" means wheat, "weisse" means white), this style of wheat beer was once brewed only in southern Germany. Today, however, good weizens are brewed everywhere, from the United States to Japan to Holland to New Zealand.
Weizens are usually light to medium gold in color, seriously effervescent and often quite cloudy. The beer's haze is normal, a result of being bottle-conditioned or redosed with yeast before bottling. If you don't want the cloudiness -- and the B vitamins that go with it -- look for a filtered weizen designated "kristal." Otherwise, watch for the prefix "hefe" (as in hefeweizen), which means yeast.
The key to a good weizen is using a special family of yeasts that'll produce a variety of spicy and fruity aromas and flavors in the beer. Depending on the particular strain of this yeast, these brews can be clovey, peppery, banana-like or even bubblegummy. And while those may not sound like qualities you'd appreciate, in the right quantities and proportions they can make a bottle of wheat a truly beautiful thing.
White Beer -- Belgians are the innovators of the beer world. You've heard of the German Reinheitsgebot -- the Bavarian law that limits beer's ingredients to water, hops, malt and yeast? Well, the Belgians take a somewhat contrary position, incorporating almost everything but the proverbial kitchen sink in their brews.
White beer, also known as wit or biere blanche, is no exception. These beers are often spiced with coriander, orange peel and "secret ingredients" known only to the brewer. It's also made with a very healthy proportion of unmalted wheat -- as much as 50 percent of the total grain used -- which gives white beer a light and consummately refreshing flavor.
With spice and bitter orange in the brew, it should come as no surprise that these elements dominate both the aroma and taste of a white beer. The raw wheat also adds a level of tanginess, making the overall character crisp and invigorating, arguably positioning it as the ultimate brew for breakfast. Well, okay, maybe brunch.
White beers to look for: Hoegaarden White, Celis White, Blanche de Chambly, Blanche de Bruges.
American Wheat Ale -- Many North American breweries, particularly those that brew ales exclusively, use this style as their "starter" beer, designed to lure lager drinkers into the craft beer camp. In this role, the lightness and lack of bold character serves the American wheat style well.
American wheat ales will usually be lager-like in color and have a particularly grainy aroma. Since they're supposed to appeal to Bud and Miller drinkers, these wheat ales generally won't have a huge amount of character (think of a beer version of white zin) but may show notes of citrus or a small amount of spiciness. This is what many call the "thinking man's lawnmower beer."
American wheat ales to look for: Abita Wheat, Sierra Nevada Wheat, Grasshopper Wheat.
Lambic -- Back to those wacky Belgians. This time, instead of seasoning the wheat beer, they allow it to be fermented by wild, airborne yeasts. It's a completely unpredictable process that results in a tart, sometimes puckeringly sour brew. To provide some consistency, lambic brewers age the beer in wood for one to three years before blending it into a bottle-conditioned beer called gueuze. Or they'll add fruit to make kriek (cherry) or framboise (raspberry) beers.
Unless sweetened during bottling (which many are), lambics are definitely challenging beers. If your first reaction is to spit it out, you're not alone. But once you get used to the tartness, you'll soon find that they're filled with incredible complexity, wonderful flavors and astounding character.
Berliner Weisse -- Napoleon referred to this beer as "the Champagne of the north," and his wine analogy had its validity. Berliner weisse is fermented with yeast and select lactic cultures -- a process not entirely dissimilar to the malolactic fermentation employed in making some chardonnays. The result is a low-alcohol beer with significant, but soft, acidity.
Perhaps the most refreshing of all wheat beers, the Berliner can still have a slight bite (although the acidity is more likely to be tasted as a quenching dryness in most modern examples). And with a typical alcohol content of only 2.5 to 3 percent by volume, you've got little chance of it creeping up on you as you slake your thirst.
Berliner weisse beers to look for: Berliner Kindl Weisse, Schultheiss Berliner Weisse.
A Dozen Reasons to Drink Wheat Beer
Food:
Fruit salad -- weizen Scrambled eggs with freshly ground pepper -- white beer Grilled bratwurst and dunkelweizen -- dark weizen Creamy pasta salad with sweet red pepper -- weizen Steamed mussels -- white beer or gueuze Grilled whitefish -- Berliner weisse
Occasions:
Moderate heat, moderate activity -- cold weizen A sunny day, a picnic brunch -- white beer Hot, hot, hot weather -- cold, cold, cold Berliner weisse A Sunday softball game -- cold American wheat ale Waiting for the coals to heat up on the barbecue -- gueuze A romantic spot on a warm, rainy afternoon -- two champagne flutes of Belgian framboise
Where wine coolers captivated the 80s and microbrews burgeoned in the 90s, vodka is bringing verve and variety to drinking in the new millennium. Strawberry vodka, chocolate vodka, orange, cinnamon and key lime vodkas? Sidle up to any bar in any city and you'll see a sick display of distinct new tastes nestled on the shelf among the Ketel and Grey Goose, ready to splash into an updated Cosmo, Betelgeuse or Tootsie Roll Martini.
Trendy as these specialty vodkas may seem, spice- and herb-infused vodkas have been sating drinkers since the spirit first cracked the ice on frozen Russian and Polish faces several hundred years ago. Back then, flavoring wasn't intended for variety. It was necessary to take the edge off the primitive mash, the intense, harsh taste of which could make even the swarthiest drinker breathe fire.
Later, the ability to craft flavored concoctions became the mark of a skillful distiller. Among those who elevated the practice to an art were the Russians and Poles, who've long marketed dozens of flavored vodkas. Among the most unusual brands in Russia are Okhotnichya or "Hunter's" vodka (flavored with a mix of ginger, cloves, lemon peel, coffee, anise and other herbs and spices, then blended with sugar and a touch of a wine similar to white port) and Zubrovka (vodka flavored with bison grass, an aromatic grass which is the cud of choice for herds of the rare European bison).
Flavored vodkas were slow to reach the mass U.S. market, however. Americans first became hooked on "the white spirit" after World War II, lured by the convenient fact that it had "no taste and no smell" (and could therefore be consumed on the sly). And for decades the classic vodka martini or vodka-tonic suited drinkers just fine. It wasn't until the cocktail craze of the late 90s that the current frenzy for vodka variety took off. Luckily, there are plenty of quality distillers out there to satisfy demand.
Among the first to tempt our palates with readily available flavored vodkas were Absolut and Stolichnaya. Absolut entered this niche market in 1986 with its Peppar, an aromatic, complex and spicy vodka that gets its kick from the spicy components in the capsicum pepper family and from fresh green jalapeño pepper. They later added Absolut Citron, Kurant and Mandarin. The newest twist to the Absolut line? Absolut Vanilia, which has a rich, robust and complex taste of vanilla, with notes of butterscotch and hints of dark chocolate. Its scheduled release is this spring.
Stoli was also an early marketer of laced libations, luring many drinkers to the pleasures of flavored vodkas with its Vodka Razberi (made with ripe raspberries), Vodka Vanilla (with the pure essence of Madagascan and Indonesian vanilla beans) and Vodka Zinamon (infused with the zip of cinnamon).
The success of the Absolut and Stoli creations gave rise to a new generation of cocktail concoctions and inspired other distillers to create fresh and unexpected varieties. Among those most likely to turn up at your local watering hole are the infusions of Charbay, which uses fresh fruit to create blood orange, ruby red grapefruit and key lime vodkas; Burnett's, which offers sour apple (great in an Appletini), coconut, raspberry, orange, citrus and vanilla; the artistically designed Vincent Van Gogh Vodkas, whose varieties include Chocolate, Oranje, Vanilla, Raspberry, Wild Appel and Citroen; and OP, a 70- proof Swedish vodka flavored with ginger, orange and peach, and spiced with anise, fennel and caraway.
A newcomer to the flavored vodka scene is Hangar One, a small, quality distiller that uses real fruit and "rare and expensive" ingredients to produce its Buddha's Hand Citron, Kaffir Lime and Mandarin Blossom vodkas. Luscious straight up, these fruit-laced spirits can also be the inspiration for cocktails to die for.
Should a Cosmo with Burnett's Blood Orange Vodka or a Sunflower Martini with Vincent Van Gogh's Raspberry seem too traditional, frighten your drinking companions by ordering up a shot of Blavod, a smooth-tasting vodka colored black by the catcchu herb. While it looks like The Dark Prince's drink of choice, Blavod is surprisingly refreshing in a Black Bull (ice, Red Bull and Blavod) or a Sundance (ice, blue curacoa, soda water and Blavod).
Another far-out blend is Feigling, a fig-infused vodka that comes in a little bottle from Germany. Served straight or with a little tonic and a twist, Feigling is a unique taste and sure to throw a little variety into your drinking repertoire.
If you?re lucky enough to find them, don't pass up a chance to try the Polish Wisent, flavored with a species of bison grass that grows only in the Bialowieska Forest (acknowledged to be the last primeval forest left in Europe), or the Ukrainian Soomska Horobynova (flavored with ashberry) and Soomska Horilka Pryhodko (flavored with St. John's Wort, Buffalo Grass, coriander and lemon).
So your local bar thinks Absolut Kurant is the cutting-edge of flavors? You can still experiment with new ventures in vodka. Roll up your sleeves and concoct your own unique libations. Begin with a quality vodka. While "quality" is in the taste buds of the drinker, general wisdom holds that you?ll get better results and suffer fewer day-after side effects if you stick to a bottle in the $20-and-up range. Purchase anything under seven bucks to use in your infusion and you'll waste culinary effort as well as brain cells.
Recipe for Infusion
The process by which vodkas are flavored is called infusion. This is a fancy word for mixing stuff with vodka and letting it soak. Unless otherwise directed by a recipe, infuse your vodkas at room temperature. Freezing the flavored vodkas after infusion, however, will ensure the best taste.
The easiest way to flavor vodka is with fresh fruit, which both soaks up and flavors the spirit. Just mix vodka in equal portions with ripe, washed and coarsely chopped fruit (peaches, pineapples or strawberries are common favorites). Place the mixture in a glass canning jar, and let the concoction sit for several days. Strain before serving, or leave in a few fruit chunks for munching. This method will work with any fruit, including fresh and sun-dried tomatoes as well as chili peppers. In short, if you can dream it and drink it, you can infuse it.
If you want to venture beyond fruit, give these traditional and not-so-traditional infusion recipes a try. Vodka lovers will find these concoctions delectable on their own (plain or with a garnish), but they can also be used to breathe new life into a favorite old cocktail.
Recipes
(Note: For all recipes use 1 pint of plain vodka and infuse at room temperature for 24 hours. Then strain.)
Anise Vodka: Licorice-laced vodka was a favorite of Peter the Great, so it's got to be good enough for us. Soak 2 t whole anise seed. Serve chilled.
Coriander Vodka: Use 2 t coriander seed, slightly crushed.
Garlic-and-Dill Vodka: Infuse 1 clove garlic, slightly crushed, 1 sprig fresh dill and 3 white peppercorns. Leave a little dill in the vodka, if you're so inclined.
Herb Vodka: Infuse a few sprigs of a favorite herb, such as tarragon or basil. Leave a small bit of herb in the vodka, if you choose.
Saffron Vodka: Use 1/4 t saffron threads.
Tea Vodka: Infuse 4 t black tea leaves (fruit-scented is a nice touch).
Buffalo Grass Vodka/Zubrovka: Use 8 blades of buffalo grass. One blade of grass may be left in the vodka after straining for a little woodland feel.
So next time you order a cocktail, check out the new flavors lining up behind the bar. Flavored vodkas may just be a trend, but they're bound to snare some converts. Bison grass and anise seed aside, 145 million vodka-loving Russians can't be wrong.
Rob Rosania, a 38 year-old collector aka “Big Boy,” sold off around $5 million of his champagne and still wines at auction a couple of weeks ago. And yet he still remains one of the biggest collectors of champagne around.
This factoid from a recent Bloomberg article piqued my interest: Rosania owns 400 cases of the excellent champagne Salon 1996 (minus the five he sold at auction) out of a total of 5,000 produced. Poking around on the web revealed other sources saying that there were 8,000 cases produced. And these are six-bottle cases that we’re talking about. The champagne retails for $250 - $300 (search for the Salon 1996).
It’s a fascinating strategy for investing in wine. Rosania has somewhere between five and eight percent of this blue chip wine outstanding–and that percentage rises every time a cork of it is popped elsewhere. That’s probably a good percentage of the production to have to really benefit from a future price move yet not control the market entirely. It would be hard to take an equivalent percentage of a first growth Bordeaux wine since the production volumes are higher. All it takes is a big cellar and a cool $700k or so.
Even if the economy stagnates, wine such as this will probably always have buyers. Could it double in value in ten years? Even if it doesn’t Rosania can always have fun popping open the bottles of this fine wine with his saber.
I’ve tried a tasting-sized-pour of the 96 Salon and it is a brilliant champagne. In a wine investing video game, I might be tempted to adopt a similar strategy. If, in some fantasy world, you were going to take ten percent of a wine, which would it be?
Today is my anniversary and Kipp and I have a babysitter so we are going out tonight. I'll make up for no blog today by posting one for Thursday!! Cheers!
This wine is wild and untamed! It has an exotic taste of berries and herbs, and is still quite tannic. After decanting, the wine softened a bit but continued to be chewy and dense. It also has a striking dark purple color, that looked beautiful in the decanter.
From a tiny region in Southern France, Bandol is made primarily from Mourvedre. The grapes are extremely ripe, but there's an underlying herbal tone that makes some of these wine taste almost wild and this is no exception.
I paid $32 for the bottle, and have seen it for as much as $40. If you're ready to do some exploring in France's lesser-known regions, look for a Bandol. And raise a glass!
Having smuggled, er, legally transported wine in my checked luggage across country borders many times, BottleWise is a ?D?OH, why didn?t I think of this first!? kinda thing.
My usual modus operandi for carrying wine in my suitcase is to double-bag the wine bottles in the finest grocery store plastic, twist-tie them twice for maximum liquid retention, then roll ?em up in a pair of jeans or sweatpants or heavy sweatshirt for optimum shock absorption. Except for one unfortunate casualty (I saw my suitcase drop off the belt from the plane?s baggage door onto the tarmac, after which the gorilla, er, baggage handler heaved it 10 feet into the cart transport), this method has worked flawlessly over the years.
With BottleWise, they?ve taken my proven method and spruced it up a bit. When opened, the bag houses two separate compartments, each compartment holds one 750ml bottle in an airtight plastic sleeve. When folded and secured, the bag measures approx 16? x 11? x 5?, which is about the equivalent of two bottles rolled up in a pair of XL sweatpants. (BTW ? I?m not an XL. I like my clothes baggy, okay!) According to the manufacturer, ?In case of breakage, the airtight sleeve(s) keeps wine from spilling into your suitcase and ruining your underthings.? (Hmm, pinot-scented panties? never mind.)
We wanted to test BottleWise appropriately, but with our limited travel budget (did I mention that we accept free press trips), we had to improvise. We filled each plastic sleeve with 750ml of water, then threw the bag abound a bit. Then, ?cause we were bored, we ?Myth Busted? its ass and threw it out of a second story window just to see what would happen. Nothing! It held perfectly.*
BottleWise also comes with a shoulder strap should you desire to wear it as a fashion accessory. There are two models: The Duo and the Duo Plus. Colors for the Duo range from black to, er, black. (Hey, it worked for Henry Ford.) If you order the Duo Plus, you get more color choices ? Burgundy and Cork. Cork?s a color? Who knew. Personally, I?m waiting for the screwcap color.
Costs: BottleWise Duo - $49 BottleWise Duo Plus - $59
This wine is hot pink. Don't believe me? I took a picture of it against the white backdrop of my GE dryer just to prove it.
You might ask yourself, "what is the point of hot pink fizz?" It's a good question. This is not a delicate rose, or a shell-pink sparkler, or anything subtle, profound, or even particularly memorable.
This is a "Whazzat?" wine. "What the hell is that stuff?" is most likely to be the question your guests and loved ones ask when you pour it. You can tell them that it is a gently fizzy frizzante wine from around Venice made from a grape that few have heard of called Raboso. I know, I know. Your cousin Marge doesn't care about that stuff, but it is the right answer. Raboso is a tannic monster with deeply-colored skins which helps to explain why it is so violently pink. It also explains why this wine has some serious grip to it, for all its foofy fizziness.
The NV Incanto Frizzante Rose is one of those wines that you have to have a lot of wine confidence to drink in front of other people. It's hot pink color, aromas of cherry, and tiny bubbles will be enough to make friends think you've lost your mind. But trust me, you haven't--especially if you are drinking a well-chilled bottle while eating a spicy pepperoni pizza on the deck on a warm, early summer Friday evening.
It has all the tannins of a dry red, the refreshing quality of a sparkler, and the crispness that you want on a warm day. There is a dry aftertaste, which just confirms this is no candy wine. But the combination of dryness, bubbles, and tannins makes it the ideal partner for pizza with spicy toppings, appetizer plates loaded with salumi, olives, and cheese, or just plain sipping on a warm afternoon.
You can get this unusual wine at Trader Joe's for around $5.99. At that price this is very good QPR, and it will set you back far less than the pizza or the gas required to pick the pizza up. These days, who can ask for anything more?
Argentine wines are not as well-known in North America as those of Chile, but the areas just below the Andes Mountains, such as Mendoza and San Juan, produce excellent, red wines, including Syrah, Pinot Noir, and Malbec, a red wine grape that is at its best when grown in Argentine soil. Learn more about the wines of Argentina in this video from Geobeats.
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.
Tecnorati
