Taking the world one wine at a time.
I caught this article by Lettie Teague in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago. In essence, she points out that NZ PN seem to be disappearing from restaurant wine lists and retailers shelves. She writes: It wasn’t so long ago that New Zealand Pinot Noir was hot—or at least there were a lot more of the wines around. After all, Pinot Noir had been touted as New Zealand’s greatest discovery since Sauvignon…
Read More
The theory view that hand harvesting of grapes produces the best wine is being challenged by new research from the University of Auckland. It shows that machine harvesting produces higher levels of the aromas characteristic of award-winning New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. “There’s always been the issue that perhaps the best wines need to be made only from hand-picked grapes. But this shows that with sauvignon blanc you really are getting the most intense Marlborough style…
Read More
Grapes 100% Sauvignon Blanc Facts Today I realized that this is the first New Zealand wine I’ve ever reviewed. Pretty crazy that it’s taken me this long, right? So what could have possibly caused this 2 year procrastination? Short-and-sweet, the sole reason is I’ve become bored of Southern Hemisphere Sauv Blancs and that I feel New Zealand has developed a reputation as “one trick pony” because of them. Most NZ SB’s taste…
Read More
Gallo Winery Gets Russian River Valley AVA Expanded. After years of regulatory wrangling, mega-producer E. & J. Gallo eventually emerged victorious in its quest to enlarge the Russian River Valley AVA, in a decision announced by the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade Bureau (TTB) on Nov. 16, 2011, effective Dec. 16. As requested in the petition from Gallo Family Vineyards, the ruling expands the RRV AVA by 14,044 acres (about 23 square miles). The AVA…
Read More
To Save Soggy Grapes, Winemaker Looks To Helicopter It’s been raining for days and the crop you’re a week away from harvesting is about to mold. If you don’t dry it quickly, you will lose the crop. What do you do? If you’re Bruce Cakebread, you call in a helicopter to be a giant grape dryer. When rain soaked Napa Valley two weeks ago, Cakebread — the president of Cakebread Cellars in Rutherford,…
Read More
Hand-Picked Grapes ‘Compulsory’ for Burgundy Wine The makers of the most expensive Burgundy wines have changed the rule book to make grape-picking by hand compulsory in bid to defend the region’s age-old traditions. The domains, who say machines damage taste and are bad for vines, want other top Burgundy wine makers to follow suit, in view of a total ban in the region by 2014. For the past fortnight, thousands of seasonal workers…
Read More
Trump to Mark Opening of Trump Vineyard Billionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump will fete the opening of Trump Vineyard Estates in Albemarle County on Tuesday with a reception including his son Eric Trump, Gov. Bob McDonnell, first lady Maureen McDonnell and Patricia Kluge. Trump’s organization purchased Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard in April for more than $6 million and next week will celebrate the revamped operation with an invitation-only affair. The reality…
Read More
Oops! Forklift smashes $1M worth of Australia wine A malfunctioning forklift dropped 462 cases of wine in Australia on Thursday, a spill with a price tag of more than $1 million. The 5,544 bottles of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove shiraz, with a price tag of $185 a bottle, fell almost 20 feet to ground of a wharf in Port Adelaide as the forklift was loading it for shipment abroad, according to media reports….
Read More
You won’t find me posting too many reviews of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc <cough> they all taste <cough> the same <cough>! Wow! I’m sorry. I really need to get to a Doctor with that cough! So anyway, as I was saying, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc’s; notorious for their crisp, refreshing, aromatic, grapefruit, and freshly squeezed lemon / lime flavors. The quintessential outdoorsy spring / summer wine. A little unfair to say that they all taste…
Read More
Pyrazine is a heterocyclic aromatic organic compound. Got that? Good! For those of us who don’t have a degree in Chemistry (me included), the relevance of Pyrazine to wine is that it gives it a “green” taste / aroma. It doesn’t take much for you to detect it either, around 2 parts per trillion to be exact. It’s stated that a single grape amongst tonnes of grapes will change the aroma of the entire batch…
Read More