champagne discount generic+trademarks heidi+barrett howell+mountain+cabernet lamborn+vineyards napa propaganda tasting tour wine wine+blog
May 29 2006
I have a post on the Wine Sediments portion of the Well Fed network. You can find it here.
If have haven’t been reading this blog site, you should be. It has unique content, interesting perspectives and everybody that writes for the site, except for me, is a wine professional in some capacity.
So, that’s motivation to bring your "A" game when writing about a topic or coming up with a unique take on a common wine related issue.
The other good thing is I can completely be psuedo-columnist and vaccillate and ride the fence on issues from week to week—which is fun.
This week, I write about wine and the Indianapolis 500. Mario Andretti, a former winner, and perennial runner-up owns a winery that makes some good vino and both his son and grandson drove in the race this weekend—Marco being beaten at the very last moment in a very exciting finish.
Check out the post and let me know what you think.
Posted in, Wine Sediments. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
May 26 2006
Folkseverywhere will be firing up the barbecue this weekend for the first of theholy trinity of summer holidays.
TheZin’s can take care of the steaks and bbq, the Sav. Blanc can handle thegrilled vegetables and fish and a nice Rośe can really bridge the two.
Evenwith White Zinfandel sales dwindling, Rośe sales are picking up with somevigor.
Anda Rośe by any other name really, to borrow from Shakespeare, is a White Zin,but with two different target markets.
WhenRośe is featured in Food & Wine magazine and Martha Stewart Living as theyboth are this month, you know that the demographic is probably skewing a littlebit closer to your preferred wine consumers then the average White Zin which isconsumed by more casual drinkers.
JaimeGoode, from his site Wine Anorak, had this nugget on Rośe, the rest of thearticle can be found here.
Just a note on how rosé wines are made. Red grapesare crushed and only brief contact is allowed between the skins (which containthe coloured pigments and tannins) and the juice (which comes from thecolourless flesh of the grape). [I should add here, that there are some rarered grapes which have pigmented flesh, called teinturier varieties, butthis is the exception. These cannot by definition be used to make rose.] It isthe degree of the contact between the skins and the juice that determines thefinal colour of the wine. Thus rosé wines lack both the deep colour and thetannic structure of red wines made from the same grape varieties, and in thissense are more like white wines, and are best served very cold. It is also rareto find rose wines subjected to oak treatment.
The other aspect of wine consumption that isgrowing rapidly, especially amongst younger drinkers, is Sangria.
I attribute this to the re-awakening of awareness to the Spanish wine industry. And, RealSangria, is
packaged with a “never went out of style” retro labeling. Spain, of course, is credited with creatingsangria—specifically the Andalucia region, where it is kind of the officialdrink of the region, the southernmost part of Spain.
Sangria, in general, is a wine-ish, citrusy spritzer;it’s a refreshing and sluggable drink that my wife can put away by the halfgallon.
Here at the Good Grape household, we’re not big onthe wine/food blogging aspect, leaving that to folks that really are morecommitted and better cooks than my bride or me. But, because she does do a really nice sangria, I’m including therecipe here.
And, her preferred version is with a WhiteZinfandel. Ahem. If you, mr./mrs wine consumer prefer to usea White Zinfandel because it’s at least $6 cheaper, I promise not to tell.
Basic Red Sangria
1 orange
1 apple
1 lemon
1 cinnamon stick or a dash of ground cinnamon
1 C sugar
1 C brandy
1.5 liters of the cheapest Cab you can find.
Wash and slice fruit. Put it into a big pitcher with the sugar and
These white and pink variations are basically the same as the red.It’s
White sangria is the same recipe (sans brandy) as red, but youshould use a
My absolute favorite way to make sangria is to use white zin withoranges,
Enjoy the weekend. Drinksome wine. Grill some food. Hang out with friends and family and hold ontight. Summer blows by quickly andfootball season and harvest will be here as quick as you can recall how closeValentine’s day seems.
Salud!
Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
May 25 2006
Lastyear as a wedding gift from my wife she bought me a gift certificate to aU-vint place so we could make some wine together.
Posted in. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
May 24 2006
Inspired by the overall Biodynamics debate and this blog post from Wine Caveman. An overview explanation from his post:
It is difficult to speak of biodynamics without waxing philosophic.While it parallels organic farming in it’s use of organic materials forenriching the microbiology of the soil, it embraces a much moreholistic vision that sees any farm as a single organism whose successor failure is dependant upon the health of the greater organism in it’sentirety. Unlike both chemical and organic agriculture, it is notsolely based on the ‘soluable,’ the simple reduction of a plants needsto elemental additions of nutrients, but ties the plants health into amore unified ecological vision. It is concerned with the subtlemanipulation of life forces (energies) and aims to work alongside theserhythms of nature.
Posted in, New World. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
May 24 2006
When in New York recently my bride and I enjoyed a sevencourse wine-paired tasting menu at Esca—Mario Batali’s fish restaurant.
Imentioned in a post before that the absolute standout of the wines presentedwas a barbaresco. I was mildly franticwhen I came home because I had tucked away the menu so I could have a record ofthe wine and only within the recesses of the suitcase, tucked behind a dirtypair of socks from nine trips ago, did it materialize. The menu changes frequently and my hopes forrecovering the name of the wine served were probably pretty good, but still itwas a relief to find it nestled amongst some dirty laundry, just the same.
Thebarbaresco was the 2000 Cascina Morassino. Made from the Nebbiolo grape, which is notorious for being very difficultto drink in its youth based on extreme tannins—though, this one wasexceptional. Medium bodied and pairedwith fish, it was lively and eminently drinkable—so much so that I drank mywife’s glass, as well.
Batali’s partner in crime …er… restaurants is a guy namedJoe Bastianich, who is also a wine importer in his own right, so I was somewhatsurprised that he wasn’t pimping just his wines, but Mario and Joe, from adistance, both strike me as extremely authentic in that the food and thecustomer come first and profits will arise out of that service—a mistakencontrast for so many other businesses.
From the importer’s web site:
The ten acre CascinaMorassino farm is located in the steep Ovello zone of Barbaresco proper. Run byRoberto Bianco, age 38, and his father Mauro, it is one of Barbaresco’s oldestproducers. Though Roberto continues to attentively adapt to each vintage, a1971 Barbaresco Morassino he and I recently enjoyed, shows that his fatherMauro did things spectacularly well in the pure, old fashioned style. Needlessto say, Roberto and Maura do everything themselves. They would never even thinkof passing off vineyard work to someone else.
ItalianNebbiolo producers have been working with the wine to make them more drinkable while they are youthful. The importer’s web site for the Cascina Morrassino seems to alludeto this:
Roberto’swines show the unique, fragrant side of Nebbiolo but they never lose the spicygrip of Nebbiolo. These wines show that Barbaresco in the modern day does nothave to give up its deeper roots.
Ironicallyenough, I found this wine and purchased it online at … a NYC wine shop—one thatTyler
from Dr. Vino recommends—Crush Wine & Spirits. Had I known that, I certainly would havebought it while in town. But,nonetheless, this beauty of a wine is worth $30 in shipping
Eventhough it was very nice with a strawberry-ruby hue and a soft bouquet, Iimagine it was well-decanted.
Whileat MoMA on the same trip, I saw an incredibly handsome decanter for anincredible price. It has six grooves inthe stopper so it disperses the wine down the sides of the decanter—and,
supposedly, creates more opportunity for oxygenation. The L’Atlelier Du Vin was $145, however. If you are dying to spend money on adecanter the likes of which has dubious merit above and beyond the $15 versionat Bed, Bath & Beyond, you can find it here.
But,for my money, if you were asking for a recommendation, I would buy 4 bottles ofthe Cascino Morrassino for the same amount of money. It’s the wine that makes a meal and event and certainly our meal was an event made special by a delicious wine.
Posted in. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
Enter your email address for a monthly summary of posts, additional news and information available only to email subscribers. Your email is never rented, nor sold to anybody else!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Design by The Blog Studio
 of 04 A Rafanelli Cab_thumb.JPG "A Rafanelli Cab")
