by Stefanie Phillips
Anyone who knows about wine will tell you there’s no better way to learn about it than through the senses. This means tasting, smelling and analyzing. There is a lot to learn and wine tastings are the best way to affordably taste a variety of wines. Company representatives can also offer their knowledge and recommendations. Even if you are just beginning to learn about wine, there is no reason to feel intimidated or overwhelmed.The best way to start learning about wine is by identifying characteristics of varietals and regions. This allows for development of wine knowledge and your own personal tastes. You may also discover wines you never have tasted before and find wines you didn’t think you liked. For example, California chardonnay is oaky and buttery from aging in oak barrels, but ...
by Laura Ness
Pinot Noir is like a paramecium: it evolves constantly. In a matter of moments, it can change personality like single-celled creatures under a microscope, becoming a bipolar calamity, even turning into Cerberus, dog of the underworld. Hey, wait!! I liked you better before you grew two heads! That’s Pinot for you. Don’t turn your back on the possibility that the golden retriever you loved at first sniff can turn into the Rottweiler that will bite the back of your tongue off upon ingestion. Few wines can masquerade as something so jailbaity on the nose and turn into such long prison sentences when they cross your lips. Ouch. And that’s on a normal day, when conditions are ideal. Pinot, you are a harlot.logo1At the Pinot Shootout finals (organized by Barbara Drady of Affairs of the Vine...
by Paul W. Jameson
A major trend in wine sales in the last couple of decades has been the increasing reliance on point scores to sell wines. Retail shops make sure to have shelf talkers hanging by wines that have scored well. Ads proclaim “90 point wine by Robert Parker!” or “91 point wine by Wine Spectator!” When a customer goes into a store to choose from a vast selection of wines, he or she often feels that lacking any other means to judge a wine, a point score is the best way to decide.One hundred point scoring systems were introduced into the wine world by Robert Parker in the late ‘70s, when, if point scoring was done at all, it was done on a 20-point scale. The Department of Viticulture and Enology at the University of California at Davis had a 20-point system that subtracted or awarded ...
by Stefanie Phillips
Whether storing wine in a cellar, wine refrigerator or even a converted closet, there are some fundamental rules to follow in terms of light exposure, temperature, humidity, orientation, odors, vibration and movement.Though most of the wine we buy in the United States in meant to be opened within two to three years, you may be storing something older and valuable in your wine cellar that you want to improve with age. Storing wine correctly will ensure it ages properly.Light ExposureWhy are most wine cellars dimly lit? Direct light, particularly sunlight and fluorescent light, is damaging and can cause unpleasant odors. Some bottles protect wine from UV rays better than others, but wine should be kept in a dark place to avoid spoilage. If you can’t avoid all light sources, store the bottl...
by Tom Lewis
Most of Burgundy's wines come from just two grapes - Chardonnay for whites and Pinot Noir for reds - and they could not be more different in their fortunes.For whilst Chardonnay has found a home just about everywhere that wine is made, success with Pinot Noir has proven more elusive and very few places can claim to have any real success with it.When oaked, Chardonnay generally produces reliable wines with easy-drinking tropical fruit and layers of rich, buttery toffee, whilst Pinot's hedonistic mix of red-berry fruit, truffley forest floor and soft texture is much harder to achieve (and to find) consistently.Moreover, whilst a bottle of Chardonnay is often amongst the cheapest on the supermarket shelf, any Pinot at under a tenner is something of a bargain - even better if it's halfway dece...
by Tom Lewis
Aeration is the process of bring wine into contact with air - as wine is a living, breathing product, it changes over time and exposure to air is the main factor in causing those changes.Wine's complex relationship with air starts during fermentation, be it in stainless steel tanks, concrete or oak. Then there is aging - again in tanks or oak, followed by bottle-aging either under cork, synthetic stopper, screw-cap or some other closure.The size of bottle will also be a factor - magnums, for example, have twice the amount of wine with the same amount of air.Finally, there is the serving - pouring either straight from a bottle or into a broad-bottomed decanter, whilst the size and shape of the tasting glass will also be a factor.Given all this, I wondered whether there is any way to predict...
by David Gaier
It’s not only a lot of fun but also a great learning experience when you get to sit down and talk with a winemaker (without his boss around).I had the pleasure of doing just that at a small, private tasting sponsored by Snooth, an online wine database and portal for consumers to find and purchase wine online. The winemaker, Concha Y Toro’s Marcelo Papa, joined the company about 12 years ago with degrees in agriculture and winemaking, and a ton of experience at Viñedos Emiliana, a pioneer in organic winemaking in Chile five years with that behemoth of the US wine industry Kendall-Jackson. He worked two harvests each year, one in California and the other at K-J’s Viña Calina in Chile, and took lessons learned in each place to the other.Concha is part of a real renaissance in Chilean ...
by Richard Mark James
WORDSMuch as I like Port in its differing forms, what gives Banyuls and Maury (also named after the places they come from) the edge, for my palate at least, is the simple fact that they're a touch less alcoholic: 16%-17% (sometimes a bit more such as La Tour Vieille's sublime "Meditation Wine" reviewed below) as opposed to around 20% for Port. And it's difficult to resist the charm that seductive Grenache somehow brings to these Vins Doux Naturels (VDNs) or vins mutés: "natural sweet wines" or fortified wines. Anyway, as for a few educational words about these sumptuous stonking reds (mostly): I wrote the following paragraph previously in a blurb on La Coume du Roy, who produce pretty much all imaginable styles of Maury from "modern" to extremely old, which attempts to summarise the diffe...
by Certified Sommelier Leslee Miller
It's holiday time, and we're sure you've bought all your gifts and are getting ready for an onslaught of family and friends. You've got the turkey ordered, your sides planned, and even that amazing dessert is partially completed and tucked in your freezer. It's all done, right? Oh, rats--you haven't picked up any wine yet. What to get to please all the relatives?For our holiday table, we turned to the expertise of Leslee Miller, a certified sommelier and the proprietor of the wine consulting business Amusée. With her trademark mixture of knowledge and humor, she writes, educates, and plans wine events. She learned her trade in the Pacific Northwest and, lucky for us, brought it home to the Midwest (we love her blog too).Miller offers a few of her holiday favorites and says, "Splurging is ...
by Bernard Kenner
With thanks to Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux, and Balzac Communications who organized the 2007 Tasting at the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan, on January 22, 2010, here is my take on the vintage. Keep in mind I only was able to get a feel for the vintage from what I tried; all communes were not represented, nor did I taste everything that was available, as I only had about two hours, trying about 20 wines to get a sense of 2007, rather than critique individual efforts.Overall, the vintage for reds seemed soft, but very serviceable, drinking well now and certainly for a few years. To me, St. Emilion was the gem, with Pomerol close behind. These right bank merlot based wines seemed more balanced between fruit, body, acidity and structure than the Medoc. From St. Emilion, I particularly li...
