#learning about wine

[jamesthewineguy]

Learning About Wine: Crémants of France - Regional Sparkling Wine of Fr...

[jamesthewineguy]

[peppurthehotone]

For All That is Instagram-Holy (I mean, announcing Her Words, His Wine!)

For All That is Instagram-Holy (I mean, announcing Her Words, His Wine!)

It’s June 24th, my brother’s birthday. In honor of this special day, Matthew and I are debuting “Her Words, His Wine” which is a YouTube channel about … you guessed it, words and mostly wine. Here is the blurb:Episode 1 : “Leaving Los Angeles” or FROM CHENGDU TO CHANDLER Story: Introducing Peppur and Matthew Soraci, a newly-married couple from LA moving to the suburbs of Arizona. As first-time…

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[chimpatravel-blog]

WIne Tasting with Simon Woods: White Wines from Slovenia, the Loire, South Africa & Chile

WIne Tasting with Simon Woods: White Wines from Slovenia, the Loire, South Africa & Chile

[ad_1] video-1 [ad_2] http://youtu.be/s_ROd-mhfmk

Simon Woods digs into an interesting sextet of white wines from Slovenia, France, South Africa & Chile. Or at least he TRIES to dig into them…

For tasting notes and links to producer/retailer websites, go to http://www.simonwoods.com/wine-tasting-video-three-chenin-blancs-two-slovenia…

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[there-goes-trouble]

So far, I really like Cabernet Savignon and Venturini.

[sentencesforcari-blog]

March 21, 2014

Dear Cari,

Today I went on another wine tour, this time with another group of people for my friend's birthday.  I got quite drunk (dammit being a light-weight) but it was a lot of fun and a lot different than the last one (which makes me feel less bad about going on two).  We went to five different vineyards and got to tour around the back or the grounds of all of them which meant we learned a ton, got to try wine straight out of the barrel and when it still had the skins soaking in it, and now I can tell you what makes different kinds of wines and champagnes different which is pretty cool.  I spent the night sobering up and just hanging out but I also have resolved to become even more knowledgable about wine (maybe become a connoisseur?) because I actually find it super interesting and I feel like it would make for more appealing small talk that Abraham Lincoln facts.

Missing you tons, Lexi

[tastewinewith-blog]

New Post has been published on Taste Wine With Us

New Post has been published on http://www.tastewinewithus.com/tasting-lesson.html

Tasting Lesson

One thing people new to wine drinking tend to forego is a simple wine tasting lesson. It is amazing how difficult the average person wants to make wine tasting. I started drinking wine in college because I could not stand the bitter taste of American beer. Admittedly my early preference was for the inexpensive, sweet stuff, but I soon grew out of that phase and moved to the standard of those days – Chardonnay. Since then, I have grown to like all varieties of the grape.

There really are only three basics elements to tasting wine. 1) The look; 2) The smell; and 3) The taste. Some of these steps may seem pretentious, but they do add to your ability to put your own stamp of approval to your favorites. Here is a brief look at each step.

First, how does the wine look? Hold the glass up to a light or to a white background. Can you see through it? Does it look cloudy? If a white wine is cloudy, that could be bad. On the other hand, a red wine that looks cloudy could just mean that it is unfiltered (it will probably say so on the bottle). All you are trying to do here is see that the wine looks normal. The light or background allows you to see if the wine generally appears to have been kept properly. You don’t need to spend a lot of time with this step.

The next step is to smell it. This entails putting your nose in the glass. This is typically the hardest part of a tasting lesson. Don’t be shy – get your nose in there and take a big whiff. What you mostly want to do is to see if there are any odd odors. Of course if you come across some familiar fragrances, you should keep those in mind. Different wines, made in methods will probably give off different aromas, but that knowledge is for a different and more in depth lesson. As a beginner, just make sure it does not smell so bad that you don’t want to drink it.

Finally, taste the wine. Take a small sip and hold it in your mouth for 10 to 15 seconds. Now here is the easy part – what flavors does it remind you of? Take the first things that come to mind. Don’t try to find the flavors you read about or the ones the person next to you speaks about. Use your own words. The truth is that whatever you taste is the correct taste. If you are with a friend or the winemaker or among strangers, feel free to compare tasting notes, but remember it is your palate. Own your taste buds.

These are the first steps of a simple tasting lesson. As you get better, you may want to enhance the experience by adding other elements like the glass or even the temperature of the wine. The language of wine can look and sound intimidating. Just start off making it easy on yourself. It will make the experiences much more fun.

[lot18]

The Very Basics for Wine Beginners

Bonnie Graves, Girl Meets Grape

Even the most involved enophile has a few friends who don’t know the difference between Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. You want to help them learn to love wine too, but when you start talking terroir and vintage variation, they get overwhelmed. What’s elementary to you just might not be so basic to a newbie. Here are some common new-to-wine questions with some straightforward answers to help you help them:

When do they add the alcohol to wine? 

They don’t. Ethyl alcohol is the natural by-product of a fun little process called fermentation, in which yeast and sugar (like the sugar present in grape juice) interact to yield the only kind of alcohol that’s safe to ingest, ethanol, in addition to heat and carbon dioxide. That CO2 comes in handy if you’re making sparkling wine, as our friends in Champagne figured out some centuries ago. And NO, isopropyl alcohol is not for cooking or drinking – save it for boo-boos and other disinfecting purposes. 

When do they add the butter to Chardonnay and the blackberry jam to Zinfandel for that matter?

See the answer above. They don’t, but don’t feel badly if you were confused on this point. While you can make ethyl alcohol from just about any organic product that contains sugar (wheat to beer, rice to sake, corn to whiskey, apples to cider, etc.) fine table wine is made only from grape juice. While Chardonnay wines that have undergone full “malolactic fermentation” might smell or taste buttery, at no point has anyone tossed any Land o’ Lakes into the mix. Ditto for that blackberry jam aroma in red Zinfandel. Wine enthusiasts often use these tasting terms to describe what they are smelling, but they are only descriptors, not ingredients in a recipe. 

How long are you supposed to swirl the wine in your glass?

This one irritates me. I recently stopped in at a tasting room where the enthusiastic and entirely misguided dude pouring the wine assured the customer at the counter that she needed to swirl the wine for exactly 7.5 minutes for it to “taste right.” Nonsense! While most wines benefit from a little oxygen interaction, give that glass a swirl for a moment or two at most. What is important? Taking the time to smell the wine BEFORE you suck it down. Most of the enjoyment of wine takes place in your nose folks, so take time to sniff and think about your wine as much as you smell those proverbial roses. 

I am allergic to sulfites so that must be why wine gives me a headache, right?

Nope, you’re not allergic to sulfites. Very few folks are and if you were, you’d have issues with everyday products like orange juice and dried fruits too. Sulfites are added to lots of things to protect against premature spoiling; because the federal government insists that wine labels bear sulfite warnings, many people assume this means they cause headaches. Usually, it’s over-consumption and dehydration that have you running for the Advil. Drink less and drink water. You’ll be fine.