Biurko Gorri Arbanta Rioja

Hello Wine Lovers!

Well, we did it! Our little girls is married and (as I write this) celebrating her marriage in Positano Italy!(I posted a picture of the village for you to see) It Sucks to be her! The wedding was absolutely perfect. It was flawless, of course I had my issues... crying when I first saw her in her dress, during the speech, and of course during the actual ceremony, but overall, I would have to say I held it together! Don't ask my daughter... she may have an entirely different spin on things.

Now the wine, another great value from Spain, Arbanta Rioja. About $9 at Wine Discount Center. This wine is 100% Tempranillo, from vines of 15 to 20 years old, fermented in stainless steel, no oak, with natural yeasts. Arbanta does not age in barrels like most red wine from Rioja, which is why it is so pure and the fruit shines through! Red fruit and spice with a touch of smoke in the nose, plum and bittersweet cherry with enough acidity to make your mouth drool.
Delicious and unmasked by oak! You will be blown away by this wine for the money!
The Tempranillo vineyard for Arbanta is located in the small town of Bargota in the foothills of the Sierra Cantabria Mountains. The farming method is organic, another nice selling point, with use of plant and animal-based fertilizers to keep the soil healthy. My suggestion is to go to the store and buy this before it is all gone!

I have included a few pics from the wedding

Wine Trivia

Hello Wine Lovers!

This month has been very busy for me! My Daughter is getting married next Saturday so you can just imagine my life right about now... lots and lots to do! I am so looking forward to next Saturday! It will be an absolute blast!

I thought I would have a little fun with today's entry and share a bunch of wine info / trivia I have compiled over the years. Some of it you may find interesting, and some you may find useless, but after you read this blog... at the very least you will have some trivia you can pass on. Here goes...

It takes approximately 2 1/2 pounds of grapes to make a bottle of wine

800 gallons of wine is produced from 1 acre of vines

There are over 10,000 varieties of grapes in the world today...

Over 17 million gallons of wine is produced in California per year

Approximately 400 grape vines make up an acre

Wine was first made by the Mesopotamians around 6000 B.C.

20 million acres of grapes are planted worldwide

It takes 4-5 years to harvest a grape crop from newly planted vines

It takes .90 cents per bottle to age wine in a barrel

An empty wine barrel weighs around 120 pounds

A bottle of opened wine will last 6 times longer than an opened bottle at room temp

CA, NY and then FL are the top three states of wine consumption in US

5% of adult Americans consume wine on a regular basis

The average cost of grapes to produce a $20 bottle of wine is $2.64

Wine has more organic chemical compounds than blood serum

The average age of a French oak tree to make wine barrels is 170 years

A bottle of Chateau-Lafite Rothschild costs about $13 to make and sells for $500

Corks close 69% of wine bottles, plastic corks 20% and 11% are screw caps

Cork is made from a bark of a tree

(go to You Tube and search for 100% cork campaign, First date)

The cork industry spends 22 million dollars on ad campaigns per year

A rough idea for grape costs is $3500 per ton

A cork oak must be at least 25 years old to strip away the bark to make cork...

It can then be stripped away every 8 to 14 years

Cork has been used as bottle stoppers for over 400 years

A wine barrel holds 59 gallons of wine

The cost of an oak barrel is over $600

Whew! And I still have more... a later date!

Hope you had fun!

Cheers!

J

Storyteller Chenin Blanc

Hello Wine Lovers!

Today's entry is a wine from South Africa, Storyteller Chenin Blanc. Available at Binny's for $6.99 (are you kidding me?) It still surprises the heck out of me how you get a bottle of wine to market for this kind of money! An aromatic nose of melon, lemon and pear are followed by a slight honey and pear on the palate. Very approachable with a lot of complexity for a wine at this price point! Pair with poultry dishes and seafood with cream bases.

Let's discover Chenin Blanc. Known also as Pineau de la Loire, is a white wine grape variety from the Loire valley of France. Its high acidity means it can be used to make everything from sparkling wines to well-balanced dessert wines. Outside the Loire it is found in most of the New World wine regions; it is the most widely planted variety in South Africa, where it is also known as Steen. The grape may have been one of the first to be grown in South Africa. The Chenin Blanc grapevine buds early in the growing season and ripens late—traits that would make the vine more ideal in warmer climates rather than the cool Loire Valley. However, in warm years, the balance between the Loire's marginal climate and the warmth needed to attain full ripeness has the potential of producing wines with some depth of complexity and finesse.It provides a fairly neutral palate for the expression of terroir, vintage variation and the winemaker's treatment. I think you will find what they did to this grape in the Western Cape is quite enjoyable and a very nice wine to sip on the patio in the summer!

Cheers!

J

Pennywise Chardonnay

Hello Wine Lovers!

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there! To all you do, let's tip a glass of Champagne to them! When you think about motherhood is there anything on this great big beautiful earth that is more important? I can't think of anything! Everyday should be Mother's Day! Call your Mother!

Today's entry, Pennywise Chardonnay is available for, steady... $7.99 a bottle at Wind Discount Center! Not too long ago I reviewed their Pinot Noir which was also very good. This wine you will find aromas of honeysuckle, fresh orchard peaches and jasmine. It has a complex finish for a wine of this price point with a touch of French oak.It is a blend of Chardonnay, Viognier and Chennin Blanc. Pair this wine with grilled salmon over mango salsa, jasmine rice and bok choy. It would also go nicely with a cold shrimp salad with tropical fruits. A nice wine for all the Mother's!

Cheers!

J

Hello Wine Lovers! After writing my last entry about wine fraud and such it got me to think about wine tasting in general. I asked myself if a wine's cost and status help determine what it tastes like? But before I get into all that (you know how sometimes I can get wordy) today's wine pick is a easy to find Chardonnay from Sonoma County, Chateau St Jean. Available at Binny's for $9.99 and worth every penny! You will find this wine to be a classic Sonoma County Chardonnay, meaning it displays bright aromas of lemon and notes of toasted hazelnut. This wine has a subtle elegance with a nice, soft, lingering finish. With warm weather just around the corner, this is a perfect patio wine! Now this is where I get wordy... does a $90 bottle of wine taste better than a $10 bottle of wine? One would think the answer would be a big fat YES! In many cases, I believe it is the expectation, and not the wine itself. In other words, the marketing for a particular wine, or it's reputation, force you to think it tastes better! I have hosted many a dinner party where I served the wine in brown bags and was quite (or should I say pleasantly) surprised with the outcome. Let's talk about a Champagne that I am sure you are all familiar with, Dom Perignon. It sells for, let's say $150 in round numbers. Another I'm quite sure you are also familiar with is Domaine Ste Michelle, a Sparkling wine from Washington State that sells for around $12. Now, this is where it gets interesting. According to the book The Wine Trials, 41 out 62 tasters, in a blind tasting, preferred the Ste Michelle! Does this mean you are wasting your $138 on the Dom? When you think about it in these terms, yes! Marketing has become what the old winemaker used to be. The winemaker would make his/her wines to express what the vineyard had given them, tell you straight up, price it fairly, and sell it to the public. Now, in my opinion, the new "winemaker" is the marketing department. Make the wine any old way and we will sell the public on a "lifestyle" add a sexy woman to the ad, show celebrities drinking the wine, and charge higher prices so the public will think they must have it! When a wine company spends more on marketing than making the wine, in the long run, the consumer will lose! The moral of the story, drink what you like, buy what you can afford, but be true to your taste, not your ego! Cheers! J

Wine Fraud

Hello Wine Lovers!
A dear friend called me this week and after taking care of business he stated he heard on the radio an article relating to wine fraud in restaurants. He suggested I write my weekly blog about this growing phenomenon and after a little thought... here it is!Wikipedia defines wine fraud as a form of fraud in which wines are sold to a customer illicitly, usually having the customer spend more money than the product is worth, or causing sickness due to harmful chemicals being mixed into the wine. As wine is technically defined as the product of fermented grape juice, the term "wine fraud" can be used to describe the adulteration of wine by substances that are not related to grapes. This can refer to the use of coloring agents such as elderberry juice, or flavorings such as cinnamon and ginger. While some varieties of wine can naturally have deep, dark color and flavor notes of spices due to the presence of various phenolic compounds found in the skin of the grapes, the use of additives in order to artificially create these characteristics is generally frowned upon in the wine world. In recent years, much attention has been focused on the label fraud, where counterfeit labels from cult wines and other rare and expensive wines are affixed to bottles of less expensive wine and then resold. Wine fraud can involve less expensive wines if they are sold in large volumes. Wine Spectator noted that some experts suspect that as much as 5% of the wine sold in secondary markets could be counterfeit. There has been a good number of books written on wine fraud and my favorite is Billionaire's Vinegar about the Thomas Jefferson bottles. But most of the so called :wine fraud" is centered around collector wines and not everyday wines you purchase at the store or your local watering hole or restaurant. There has been some talk of certain restaurateurs putting inexpensive wines in more expensive bottles and re-corking them... or adding wine to a 1/2 full bottle. When served a wine, or you open one at home, look at the cork. More and more producers are using corks with labels because it is harder to "fake" a cork. The bottom line is this, as with everything, there seems to always be someone that has to come along and start a revolution of theft and fraud and the wine industry is no exception. I'm quite sure this will grow in the US to more and more everyday wines! Purchase from a reputable shop and buy from the same shop as much as possible so you build a relationship with them. If you do feel you have purchased a fraudulent wine and you have a good relationship with the shop, I'm quite sure they will stand up and do the right thing.
Books on fraud:“The Winemasters” by Nicholas Faith (1978), a terrific history of a Bordeaux wine trade. That was followed by “Wine Scandal” by Fritz Hallgarten (1986), “Wine Snobbery,” by Andrew Barr (1988), and “Is This the Wine You Ordered, Sir?” by Christopher Fielden (1989). Each book refers to various scandals in all areas of the wine trade.
Cheers!
J

Lagar de Robla Premium 2008

Hello Wine Lovers!
Let's talk Spain! There are more and more great value wines coming out of Spain than you can shake a stick at! These wines are food friendly, complex, fun, well made, easy to find and easy on the pocket book! Spain has over 2.9 million acres planted—making it the most widely planted wine producing nation, but it is the third largest producer of wine in the world, the largest being France followed by Italy. This is due, in part, to the very low yields and wide spacing of the old vines planted on the dry, infertile soil found in many Spanish wine regions. The country is ninth in worldwide consumptions with Spaniards drinking, on average, 10.06 gallons (38 liters) a year. The country has an abundance of native grape varieties, with over 400 varieties planted throughout Spain though 80 percent of the country's wine production is from only 20 grapes—including Tempranillo, Albariño, Garnacha, Palomino, Airen, Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel·lo, Cariñena and Monastrell. In Spain, winemakers often use the Spanish word elaborar (to elaborate) rather than fabricar (to produce/make) when describing the Spanish winemaking philosophy. This relates to the view that the winemaker acts as more of a nurturer of the grapes and wine rather than as a producer.
Now that's out of the way... the wine for today is Lagar de Robla Premium 2008. The first thing you will notice when you pour this into your glass is the beautiful, dark color, almost black. This is a relatively unknown, Mencia is the grape, and it is thought to be a relative of Cabernet Franc. It shows red berry fruits, pepper notes, medium soft tannins and a nice smooth finish. Really a great wine for the $9.99 you will shell out for this beauty at the Wine Discount Center. Buy this and impress your friends!
Cheers!
J