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The Dream A few years ago, when my daughter was a [back-talking, know-it-all, stubborn, but I love her anyway] teenager, I had a dream about various members of our family getting together in our yard. The family members were seated around rectangular tables, where there was a large variety of food. Family members were dressed in black, or dark colors. I stood on a little incline, away from everyone, observing. I remember looking beyond them, at the river next to the yard. My only thought, during this
Unification Ceremony in the Sand Maria Island Style Sand Ceremony... An Anna Maria Island Style Wedding Sand Ceremony adds a 'Gulf Coast' twist to the traditional unity candle tradition. An Anna Maria Island Unity Sand Ceremony is ideal for anyone planning on getting married on a beach, boat, back yard or a windy location that unity candles will not stay lit or are unsafe. Just like the unity candle, the sand is used to symbolize the joining of the bride and groom or the joining of their families. A Unique and Trad
When You Work With Horses: Routines to Complete Daily Tasks You Work With Horses: Routines to Complete Daily Tasks 2. February 2008general, horsemanship, horses, work with horsesHorseman0 comments Working With Horses Tip! Teaches Sensitivity - Horses can be very sensitive creatures. They have keen senses, and can sense if someone is afraid, angry, happy, etc. Where there are horses there is always work to be found. The job description for a groom will vary from yard to yard, however there are several duties that always go with the job. These
There are two Montepulcianos in Italy: one is an appellation, the other is a grape. Today, I'm reviewing a wine from Le Marche that's made with that other, grapeyMontepulciano. It is a delicious and affordable wine that would be perfect with any traditional Italian trattoria fare from grilled meats to pizza and pasta.
The 2005 Fattoria Laila Rosso was a very good QPR blend of Montepulciano (80%) and a bit of Sangiovese ($12.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; find it online for between $13 and $17) Montepulciano grapes carry a lot of pigment in their skin and that gives the wine a dark, blackish-purple color that is rich and cooling. Blackberry and black cherry fruit aromas are clearly present when you uncork this wine and give it a sniff. There's more dark berry and cherry in the flavors, too, along with a bit of roasted coffee bean. The overall impression is not of enormous fruitiness, but fruit kept in check with bitter notes and acidity and a bit of spiciness in the aftertaste. It was a food-friendly wine, and we had it with some spicy chicken in red sauce with penne. Bits of chicken breast are tossed with ground fennel, pepper, and coriander and then sauteed in a pan until golden. After a quick deglaze with some leftover white wine, you simmer lots of garlic and tomatoes until the pasta is cooked, and finish it off with some basil. The wine stood up nicely to the sweet acidity of the tomatoes, and the spicy chicken picked up the nice spicy notes in the wine, as well.
Fattoria Laila is located in the hills of Ancona above the Adriatic Sea. The area's chalky soils are great for Montepulciano. The Rosso Piceno DOC covers an ancient viticultural region. Ancient writers tell us that Hannibal, at a pit-stop along the way to Rome, had his horses rubbed down with red wine from Piceno to give them more energy and strength for the last part of the journey. You can find out more about Rosso Piceno, and an earlier vintage of this wine, at The Wine Lover's Page 30-second Wine Advisor.
As with most of the Italian wines I've had so far, these little known regions and lesser known grapes are capable of combining great quality and traditional Italian flavors with a very attractive price. If you like Chianti or Nero d'Avola, give reds from Rosso Piceno a try. They may become your preferred Friday night pizza and pasta wine.
If you ever wanted an object lesson in the "Blinders On" mentality that results when a state controls and restricts consumers' access to wine, all you have to do is read THIS STORY in the Salt Lake City Tribune on ordering wine direct through the state run system that turned into a 5 month odyssey of frustration and surrealism.
The report begins by noting that Utahans often order one of the tens of thousands of wines the Utah state system doesn't list in inventory from on-line sources then have it shipped to Wyoming, where they go pick it up and drive it back home. Yes, this is illegal, but it turns out it's really the Utahans only choice is they want to access wine that the good Utah government regulators don't choose to bring into the state.
But no worries. This illegal activity isn't necessary: "Under Utah law, consumers may special order wine, liquor or heavy beer that isn't one of the 4,000-plus offerings on the state's listing, says John Freeman, DABC operations director."
The reporter did just this. He wanted to get his hands on two bottles of Quivera Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley.
He ordered it through the state in November 2007. He got it in May 2008. You've got to read this story.
The really ugly part is that were rational wine shipping laws in place in Utah, the reporter could have ordered his wine from any of more than 20 different on-line wine merchants and had it shipped to him within 3 or 4 days of ordering it.
I'm not one of those Small Government, Conservative kind a guys. But when you read this sort of thing you really start to understand where those folks are coming from when they claim that if you want something screwed up and as inefficient as possible, just give it over to the government to do.
Greetings from Asia. I have begun my first tour of duty here in the Pacific Rim, and I started my trip off with a weekend in Shanghai. The fourteen plus hour flight did not seem so bad since I was able to sleep for close to nine hours of it; of course, that was only [...]
Wine Tasting Note: Château Laures Blanc, 2006, Entre-Deux-Mers, Bordeaux, France Available from Bordeaux-Undiscovered [more] for £6.75 (normally £9.64) The Semillon really comes though on the nose giving a lovely herby touch to the lemon-citrus that dominates. Palate is nicely rich and full with a slight spritz and good acidity balancing it all out. A honeyed touch to the lemony complexity all melds together wonderfully.
Château Laures is a 70 hectare estate owned and run for many generations by the same family. They've pulled together a typical Bordeaux blend for this bottle - 60% Semillon, 30% Sauvignon Blanc and 10% Muscadelle. Alcohol 12.5%. Scribblings Rating - 92/100 [4 out of 5]
While more than suitable for a wide range of foods - salads and fish particularly recommended - a match with a Marmade Tomato Tart worked superbly well. Based on a recipe in Rick Stein's French Odyssey this combines pesto, garlic, tomatoes and puff pastry into a lovely spring-type dish. I added a slice of ham and a little Mozarella to the topping just to make them a little more substantial.
Over two million Canadians have diabetes. For thirty-two years I?ve been a card-carrying member of the no-sugar-tonight club. The thing that always surprises people when they find out I?m diabetic is the significant part that food and wine play in...
Eric Asimov has a great piece in today’s Times about all the sensory inputs of wine–and he’s not talking about blackberries, leather, and tar but rather what makes us buy and ultimately enjoy a given wine.
The piece summarizes recent research into wine purchasing decisions, particularly two studies that have made consumers appear to be easily influenced by price. Obviously many other factors go into what makes you buy a wine including what you’ve read about it, the place of origin, the grape, the producer, the importer, and perhaps the bottle design and label (if you’re new to this site, have your say in our worst wine label contest while submissions are still open!).
I’m a huge fan of context for wine enjoyment and thanks to Eric for quoting me in the story with this perspective. Sometimes context can even elevate a humble bottle of wine to make it an all-time favorite. I remember Frank Prial, previously wine critic for the Times, saying that the best bottle of wine he ever had was some crappy wine he drank enthusiastically right after returning from a tour in the Korean War. It wasn’t the wine so much as it was the fact that he was home.
It’s amazing how often learned wine folk cite humble bottles as their faves when the experience was really so much about the mood and the moment. How has context influenced a great wine experience of yours?
Maybe there should be 100 point moments rather than 100 point wines. There’s no price tag on that, after all.
Bright citrus flavors--tangerine, Meyer lemon and lime--are effusive and fruity, with a hint of rose water, juicy acidity and a long, lingering finish. Drink now. 20,000 cases made.
Do any of you folks have any advice for finding a specific type of wine that my local wine shop no longer carries? I've googled, I've ordered two bottles from an importer/reseller in Chicago, and I've not really had any luck finding any others (said store in Chicago has sold all of their other bottles of the stuff). Apparently my Google-Fu isn't strong enough to find anything else, much to my chagrin.
What I'm looking for is a rioja that I had last year. Muga produces an occasional Seleccion Especial. The 2001 vintage is what I'm looking for (though I suspect that I may invest in the 2004 as well, which I can actually find online), and like I said, short of the two bottles that I ordered from the folks in Chicago (I ordered it in October, and it's supposed to sail from Spain this weekend, finally), I haven't been able to find it anywhere else.
I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to find it again, to be perfectly honest, but I figured that I'd mention it here in the hopes that someone might have some sort of hints or information about hunting down somewhat rare wines. Thanks in advance!
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.
I understand that many rave about Riesling being the epitome of fine wine making. These people see the poise, quality, long life and expression of terrior while not overshadowing the grapes inherent characteristics, as representing the very best of the classic grapes.
Me? I don't give a monkeys. Dessert wines aside, I just don't like the grape.
I would rather not drink something akin to kerosene (aged Riesling) and when young most taste of little more than lime-splashed sugar water. Some of the mineral and lime Australian dry Rieslings I do enjoy; it might just come down to the European versions (generally) being low in alcohol. This is a bit strange as the weighty wines, often with an inkling of sweetness (thinking Pinot Gris, New World Chard's) are just what I enjoy. Alternatively high acidity as found in New Zealand Sauvignons is another characteristic of Riesling; love the former; ignore the latter. OK, so I WILL drink Rieslings; I just wish I was drinking something else, that's all.
In the spirit of Wine Blogging Wednesday a bottle of German Riesling found its way into the fridge. The Riesling range in Waitrose was rather impressive. Ranging in price from £6.99 up to £15.99 I do wonder how many they actually sell. Good to see a distinct lack of those Germanic scripted labels put down as one of the main reasons for disappointing sales of German wine over the last few years.
Wine Tasting Note: Rüdesheimer Berg Rottland Riesling Spätlese, 2002, Rheingau, Germany. From Waitrose for £9.99. Rather a surprise in the quality here - nicely judged acidity balanced with a under-ripe pear and lime flavoured lightly sweet palate. Honey on the nose. Fresh crisp acidity and no noticeable kerosene from a wine still young from the 2002 vintage. Alcohol 8%.
The Dr Wegeler estate was founded in 1882 and is now run by the 4th generation of the same family.
Scribblings Rating - 86/100 [3.25 out of 5]
The picture is a little dark (taken late in the evening) but highlights the wines (and sweeter Rieslings in general) affinity with spicy food. The dish is Chili Beef Ramen from the Wagamama Cookbook one of favourite 'oriental' cookbooks. A white wine with beef! Almost as radical as me drinking a German Riesling!
2005 Merliance Is New Merlot From Collective By HOWARD G. GOLDBERG Published: May 11, 2008
When the Long Island Merlot Alliance was formed by five producers in 2005, the local wine industry debated its value. Since merlot had become established as the Island?s signature red ? today 38 of 43 producers make it ? an organization to promote it and to define quality standards was unnecessary, dissenting producers said.
Undeterred, the alliance ? Pellegrini, Raphael, Sherwood House, Shinn and Wölffer ? strives to make ?Long Island merlot? an internationally recognized brand. It has just released its second collectively composed merlot, the 2005 Merliance. (Its first venture, vintage-dated 2004, was released in 2006.)
The medium-bodied 2005 red ($35) is soft, richly fruity and reminiscent of macerated black and red berries; six months? further bottle aging will heighten its nuances. It?s a pleasing, but not spectacular, wine.
In producing the blend, each member selected two barrels from its cellars that the winemakers believed best represented its individual style as well as Long Island?s terroir, or grape-growing conditions. Calling 2005 an extraordinary vintage, Richard Olsen-Harbich, Raphael?s winemaker, said it was ?the driest growing season on Long Island in almost 60 years.?
He added, ?We had very mature, intense fruit at harvest, which is evident in the dark fruit flavors and ripe tannins found in the wine.?
Read the rest at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/11vinesli.html
The warm days of summer are almost upon us - time to break out the white wine. Versatile as an aperitif and food-friendly, Sauvignon Blanc is as varied in style and complexity as are completely different ... via Well Fed Network
Remember I said to buy any 05 Bordeaux and give it s shot; there will be some real bargains to be found from this supreme vintage. This blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon is a cranberry jelly colored wine with a bouquet of fruity wood, and chocolate covered cherries. Nice.
In the mouth it is steely, a little tart tightly wound on opening and full of mineral flavors. BREATHE!
Really nice bouquet of ripe plum and a touch of cinnamon and pipe tobacco.
The palate is a bit tannic but this is a solid wine; give it two hours to air out and buy a couple for the under $10 price and put another year of age on it.
I find myself about to debunk a product who?s claim I do not altogether doubt. The Eisch Glaskultur company of Germany has released a line of stemmed crystal that they claim ?aerates beverages within minutes.? Their packaging states ?A wine poured into a Breathable Glass for just 2 to 4 minutes will show signs of aeration equivalent to the same wine that has been decanted and aerated for 1 to 2 hours.?
Since I am on the record for saying that ?breathing? is a wine myth, I can hardly fault a product that claims to do nothing, and succeeds. Of course the implication that they are using to sell glassware is that this stem will improve your wine tasting experience. This is what I set out to test.
Let me start by clarifying my positing on wine breathing. I have conducted various experiments over the years and the results have not done much to make me a believer. I am not saying that there is no difference from a wine that is decanted for an hour or two from a recently opened bottle, I am just not sure the difference is either significant, or difficult to reproduce with a few good swirls in a glass.
The premise is that allowing a wine to breath opens it up. It has a very poetic sound to it, except that wine does not respire so much as exhale. Wine vents volatile compounds into the air. The whole glass swirling thing is about releasing these compounds to make them easier to detect.
To say that a sitting wine improves is to say that these volatile compounds were in present in too great a number to begin with. This is certainly true with some wines that have off odors or excessive volatility, and in those rare cases I highly recommend a forceable decanting (so the wine literally chugs out of the bottle and splashes violently into the decanter).
If the wine was sound to begin with, it by definition was not excessively volatile. Vinegar is wine with way too much volatility, as an extreme example. Few modern wines you open will be vinegar-like. Some other off odors, such as the wet rotten leaf smell of a wine that has undergone malo-lactic fermentation in a bottle, may be reduced by decanting. A wine that went through MLF in a bottle will usually be slightly sparkling as well.
The experiments I have conducted include opening a bottle and tasting it blind against another bottle of the same wine which had been opened and or decanted some time before. The decanted wine may well have a different aroma and taste, but after a few minutes of swirling either wine, the differences balance out.
For the Breathable Glass (BG) I created a simple experiment. So simple that I concede that I do not have definitive proof of my hypothesis. On the other hand, it is simple enough that anyone can try it.
I put the same wine in the BG and another tall, well shaped glass and let them sit for four minutes without touching them. I then poured both wines into identical tasting glasses and tasted them blind. I did the same test again, only this time I swirled each of the wines reasonably evenly for 2 minutes before switching glasses and tasting.
In neither case did the wine from the BG exhibit any significant aromas or flavors that varied from the wine which had been poured into the regular glass. Therefore I can state unequivocally that I did not find anything remarkable or impressive.
My wording here is deliberate since Ronn Weigand who is one of the few combination Master Sommeliers and Masters of Wine is quoted right on the packaging as saying ?I was especially impressed - Remarkable!?
The test I conducted were designed to be easily verified by my peers, and as always I urge them to do so. What I didn?t do is almost as important as what I did.
I did not test a wine that had been in the BG for 4 minutes against the same wine that had been in a decanter for two hours, as per the claim on the package. I did not run a spectroscopic analysis to determine if the crystal makeup of the glasses was richer in oxygen, the mechanism cited for the claim. I didn?t do many things, but I did what I did, and I didn?t find a difference.
The Breathable Glass line is fine crystal with a good feel to it, and at $20 a stem it is not outrageously priced. I got mine at Bed Bath & Beyond, and it is because it is being marketed to the main stream instead of to wine geeks that I felt compelled to try it.
My advice is to save your money and buy one of the $4 stems right next to it on the shelf, unless you like the feel of the glass and it is in your budget. Just don?t expect miracles.
Oh, and the title of the blog is indeed a nod to Robert Lynn Asprin?s entertaining Myth-Adventures series. I know a few of you were dying to ask.
Once a dusty formality that lived on in the form of radish roses in out-of-the-way hotels, the art of fruit and vegetable carving is enjoying a new vogue.
You can feel safer in your bed tonight knowing that the United States government is protecting you from another danger. That new evil is, of course, Brunello di Montalcino that might have a bit of cabernet or merlot adulterating the sangiovese grosso. These are the same consumer protectors that brought you the 75% rule for American varietal wines, which requires that the stated variety make up at least three quarters of the named wine. So while it’s fine for an American producer of pinot noir to blend in 25% syrah or anything else the missteps of a few producers in Brunello will bring down the wrath of the TTB on all producers.
It’s great to know that our government is always on the watch.
After years of struggling to prove itself to the rest of the world, it seems the California wine industry has finally arrived. There's no disputing the quality of California wines, and never before have they enjoyed a finer reputation. But at what price?
Somewhere in the uphill struggle to world-class status, the California wine industry lost a very important tradition. The French still have it. Bovine festivals still have it. Even garlic, cherry and apple growers still have it. But when autumn rolls around in California wine country, the folks are left empty-handed. Without representation. Without hope. Without...a queen!
Things weren't always this dark. In the 1950s and '60s, wine queens reigned over the California vineyards like welcome spring showers. Each October, at the California State fair in Sacramento, vintners chose a local lovely to represent them as their queen during National Wine Week. Some queens were blonde, some brunette. Some even studied dramatic arts. All, of course, were beautiful.
For seven glorious days, the newly crowned Vintage Queen would take her position as wine's goodwill ambassador, making appearances at vintage festivals, attending dinners and proclaiming the excellence of California wines. But perhaps the most important duty of the Vintage Queen was posing for stunning publicity photos, personifying the glamour, grace and charm of California wines. Even some 40 years later, the message comes through loud and clear.
It's time for these photographs to charm the world all over again! Let's raise a toast to these lovely ambassadors of the grape and honor their contribution to the success of the California wine industry as it stands today. In fact, why stop there? Let's be the first to shove all the nineties politically correct crap aside and elect new wine queens to lead us proudly into the 21st century!
Long Live The Queens!
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Everything grows large in California, they say! The beautiful 1950 Vintage Queen has the proof, as she playfully prepares to drink a giant glass filled with California Champagne.
The charming 1950 Vintage Queen pauses from her grape picking duties to flash the lucky cameraman a smile.
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Sultry! 1951 Vintage Queen Jeri Miller pauses during the wine grape harvest to adorn her hair with grape clusters. No wonder the grape was America's third ranking tree fruit that year!
Beautiful Jeri Miller, 1951 Vintage Queen, toasts National Wine Week and wonders where she left her house key.
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Diane Bagshaw, 1953 Vintage Queen, wears the traditional grape picking outfit favored by field workers of the day.
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Dee Hardy, 1957-58 Vintage Queen, has a sunny disposition in spite of the grape vine growing out of her head.
The lovely Dee Hardy, a 23-year-old San Francisco dramatic arts student, is pictured here trying to figure out where she left her glass of Chardonnay.
Dreamy Dee Hardy, 1947-58 Vintage Queen, prepares to sip California Champagne while bubbles dance around her head in admiration.
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Wine Queen June Adler reigned over National Wine Week, October 10-17, 1959. She is truly the picture of glamour!
1959 Wine Queen June Adler raises a toast to California wines after a day of hosing down tanks in the cellar.
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Making wine is hard work, but Marilyn Lockway, 1963 National Wine Queen, makes it look easy!
…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 [...]
Following the theme of my last post about Americans? increasing awareness of the quality wines that many artisan producers of Argentina are exporting, I?m pleased to post the first installment of my interview with Ed Lehrman of Vine Connections. Along with his business partner, Nick Ramkowsky, they formed a company that not only imports the wines of artisan Mendoza producers, but selectively forges meaningful, long term relationships with them. As Ed Lehrman explains in the interview, this type of involvement encompasses much more than shipping and distribution, extending into representation, consulting, label design and many other crucial aspects which in the end, bring American consumers the types of genuine artisan wines that multinationals couldn?t even conceive of delivering.
Based out of Sausalito, CA, Vine Connections has been at the forefront of the changing of the guard, in terms of tastes, that I described in my last post. Their portfolio includes excellent California, New Zealand and Japanese Saké producers, alongside the wines of star Mendoza winemakers Susana Balbo and Pedro Marchevsky, along with others to look out for, such as Mapema, Tikal and La Posta del Viñatero. If you really want to know what Argentines really like to have at the table and moreover, the breadth that Argentine wines are capable of achieving, I encourage you to explore the types of artisan producers that Vine Connections represents and whose work, over the coming years, will ultimately triumph over the characterless, corporate-backed South American wines saturating our shelves.
I would like to thank Ed Lehrman for taking the time to provide his in-depth responses concerning Vine Connections, its vision and inspiration. Our conversation unfolded over e-mail:
*What is the vision behind your company and what were some of the key experiences that led you and your business partner to get started?
- My partner, Nick Ramkowsky, and I have both been in the wine business since 1986 (we started very young), and we could have done any number of things together. Nick was a small California distributor at the time, and I had just sold my direct-to-consumer wine business where he had been one of my suppliers. A fateful trip together in May of 1999 launched us into the importing/national sale & marketing business. We spent about a week in Mendoza on that trip tasting wines from bottle, barrel, tanks?you name it?and we met some incredible winery owners and winemakers. By the end of the week, we were looking at each other and asking, ?How does the 5th largest wine producer in the world hide incredible wines like these from the US?? It seemed like this must be the opportunity of a lifetime for wine guys like us to lead the charge in introducing Argentine wine to the US, and in a way that they would be fully appreciated for their quality and authenticity, and not just their price. As an aside, of the first 12 wines we imported from Argentina, the LEAST EXPENSIVE wine was $22 retail! So in fact, Vine Connections was originally formed in order to be an Argent
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Wine Tasting Note: Château Laures Blanc, 2006, Entre-Deux-Mers, Bordeaux, France
Eric Asimov has a 
Recently Tom Wark posted a piece on Fermentation titled 
one of favourite 'oriental' cookbooks. A white wine with beef! Almost as radical as me drinking a German Riesling!
