Taking the world one wine at a time.
Grapes 40% Gamay, 30% Malbec, 20% Cabernet Franc, 10% Pinot Noir Facts If you were to make a list of the red wines coming out of France, Loire Valley reds would certainly come near the bottom; not because of quality, but for the fact it’s one of the more overlooked wine regions. Loire reds have a tendency to be overshadowed by the whites from famed Sancerre, Vouvray, Pouilly Fume and Muscadet regions, and certainly…
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Renegade Washington winemaker Mr. Charles Smith, has his sights set on Chardonnay and only Chardonnay, with his new winery project. The move represents a change of pace for Charles, as his usual focus is towards making top-level Syrah. The once rock band manager, Smith bought the Whitman Cellars facility after it declared bankruptcy in Walla Walla (Washington) earlier this year, and plans to use the 20,000-case winery exclusively for Chardonnay production. “There are some really…
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The next time you’re popping the cork on a bottle of vino, you might want to spare a thought for the humble hornet/wasp! That’s because Duccio Cavalieri, a professor of microbiology at the University of Florence in Italy, claims hornets and wasps are one of the secrets behind a wine’s flavor! Prof. Cavalieri and his colleagues recently made the discovery that wasps and hornets bite into the grapes and help to give the fermentation a…
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It’s dishes like this that make you question why you even go out to eat. Seriously.There was a decent amount of prep up-front on this recipe, but the beauty is that it can be made a day or two ahead of time, and if you have a large party, the quantities can be easily modified. Once you get the initial prep out of the way, the rest is a piece of cake!
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A very nice wine infographic, brought to you by the kind people at ONE HOPE.
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I’m not breaking new ground when I say that wine labels are so bloody difficult to make sense of! The good news is that Californian wine labels are, for the most part, much easier to wrap your head around than European labels. However, they’re still kind-of a minefield! The following list will help to shed some light on what all that lingo means and hopefully guide you in your wine buying decisions…at least with Californian…
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Rusden Wines, (a winery located in the Barossa Valley region of Australia) has announced it’s giving-up on the screw-cap, and will return to bottling all of its wines under a cork. Rusden winemaker Christian Canute cited “persistent quality control issues” for the reason behind the move.“Our wines are handmade and bottled without fining or filtration. Under a screw-cap I have noticed the wines ‘sweat’, producing overly dominant reductive characters, a problem we have never…
Read MoreNow why didn’t I think of this!?!?!? Genius!!!I wonder if the same thing can be done with bad wine reviews…
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Grüner Veltliner [groo-nur felt-leen-er] Origin According to DNA analysis, Grüner Veltliner is thought to be a cross between Grüner Muskateller and Traminer grape vines. The first mention of Grüner Veltliner was in documents dating back to 1855. Before then it was referred to as: Weißgipfler. And you thought Grüner Veltliner was difficult to pronounce!!!Grüner (its name for short) is also known as, GrüVe, Green Veltliner, Greener Veltliner, Manhardsrebe, Veltliner and Weißgipfler, but luckily,…
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What’s your background and is this your full-time job? I grew up in North-West Michigan, and I always loved building and drawing. After high school I headed to Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo to study art and education. For the past 10 years I’ve been teaching high school art, carving out a few hours a week during the school year to make my own art and a few more hours during the summer. How…
Read MoreSzymon Klimek has too much time on his hands. This Polish guy builds amazingly intricate machines inside of wine glasses that are fully-functional and serve absolutely zero purpose…apart from looking AWSEOME! Below is his latest, called Sponge. Made from 0.1 millimeter sheets of brass and bronze, Klimek’s miniature machines dance effortlessly in wine-glass enclosures that measure little more than 4 inches across. Klimek’s latest creation, Sponge, is a steam engine-like machine named for the latticework…
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Below is a really handy guide to how Spanish wines are classified, in terms of the minimum length of time they’ve spent in the barrel/bottle. Since terms such as Crianza and Reserva will frequently appear on bottles of red Rioja, but are infrequently explained, it’s useful to remember their definitions! I have a simple mantra I learnt many years ago in order to memorize the length of time red Rioja’s are aged for. It is…
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