Talk-A-Vino

We like puzzles. We like those little challenges, which are innocent but give us a sense of fight, achievement and winning. Here is a little puzzle for you – let’s see how well do you know grapes. Please name a grape which starts with ”O”, 6 letters. I will give you couple of minutes, take your time. Done? What it is? I’m sure some of you could’ve known it, but I honestly think that majority would not.

I don’t want you to feel discouraged. There are about 8,000 different grapes in the world (or more), and about 1,600 of them are used in winemaking, so chances of knowing all of them by a one person are slim to none. Okay, so what is my point, you ask?

The whole point of this little puzzle exercise was to show you an opportunity. An opportunity for an exciting journey and discovery of new experiences. This is an easy journey, which doesn’t require months of planning and tons of special equipment. You can start it any day by joining Wine Century Club. You can download an application, check-mark at least 100 grapes you tasted in your life (doesn’t have to be single grape wines – all blends are perfectly ok), and voila – you can become a member.

I started this journey about 4 years ago. It was relatively simple to get to the first hundred grapes. By the time I received the certificate, I found out that the club now has a new level – Doppel, which requires tasting of 200 grapes. New challenge, great! I started a new journey which was not as simple, and … yes, you got it right – by the time I got to the 200 grapes mark, Treble and Quattro levels appeared! I got to the Treble mark last year, and it was quite hard – had to start including clones in order to get there. But – if you are a ”life traveler”, your arrival to a specific place only means an opportunity to start going to the next destination – so I kept on going.

Just to make myself clear – the point of all this “wine century” journey is not collecting accolades or feeling unique and special. Not at all. The whole point of this journey is a discovery. I can’t tell you how many amazing wines I tried along the way – if you are looking to expand your “grape universe” and collect new experiences – this is definitely what you can achieve with this exercise of purposefully seeking new grapes and unknown bottles.

Trying to reach the ”Quattro” I decided that this shouldn’t be set as a hard task, definitely should be enjoyed more and taken easier than before. I don’t call it a ”quattro journey”, I do very limited updates, and only keep the total grape counter, which you can see at the top of the page if you’re reading this post on the web site.

Nevertheless, it seems to be a good time to provide and update and change the grape counter, as I tasted a number of new wines (read: grapes), at Michael Skurnik tasting and not. First, an answer to the puzzle. The name of the grape which starts with ”O” and consists of 6 letters is Ortega – it is used in Germany and produces wines similar to Riesling. Overall, here are 10 new grapes to add the list:

Resi – 2010 Chanton Weine Resi  Visp Wallis AOC, Switzerland

Vidiano – 2010 Alexakis Vidiano, Greece

Malagousia – 2010 Alpha Estate Axia White, Greece

Clairette Rose – 2010 Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc ‘Cuvée Speciale Vieilles Clairettes’

Doña Blanca – 2009 Godelia Bierzo Blanco, Spain

Bacchus – Château de Briat Armagnac, ‘Hors d’Age’ NV

Folle Blanche – Château de Briat Armagnac, ‘Hors d’Age’ NV

Ortega – 2006 Anselmann Trockenbeerenauslese Ortega. Pfalz, Germany

Ojaleshi - 2005 Marani Ojaleshi, Georgia

Agraman – 2009 Barkan Classic Merlot Agraman, Israel

And here are some pictures for you:

In case you want a head start on the project, I decided to share the list of grapes and reference wines  -  you can find a full table here. Note – if “reference wine” is empty next to the grape, it means I didn’t try that grape yet (example: Picpoul Noir). Conversely, if you got a suggestion for me as to where I can find an appropriate wine, I will be very appreciative…

That’s all for now, folks. Look for that unknown bottle on the shelf – who knows, you might find your best wine experience ever. Cheers!

When you run a wine tasting, one of the great ways to keep people engaged all the time is to ask questions – trivia type and not. One of the simple warmup questions I like to ask  the audience is “What do you think, how many states make the wine in the US? This sounds simple enough and goes into “your guess is as good as mine” category. People usually start with some random number (trying to put sense into it, though), and sometime someone will say “all 50″ – often just as a joke . Actually, it is the correct answer – for w while, all 50 states produce some wines.

So did you ever think of exploring and experiencing the wines of all 50 states? I’m sure that you had California, Oregon, Washington and New York wines, but what about the other 46 states? Last week in Florida, I came across Lakeridge Winery Southern Red Premium Table Wine produced in Clermont, Florida.  This wine  allowed me to add one more grape to the grape count – Muscadin. And this wine prompted this blog post and the table which I would like to share with you, which lists my experiences with the grapes and wines of all United States to the date:

What is your experience with wines of 50 states? Can you count and share? It is definitely a fun exercise and it might bring some good memories back while you will be at it. Happy counting! Cheers!

Among many good wines of recent (yeah, I’m really behind in my writing) there were few of new grape encounters which I want to share with you. First is 2004 Ambasciatore Friularo Bagnoli DOC, made out of the grape called Friularo. I have to tell you that I actually have one problem with this wine – it is not available in US (if you know otherwise – please let me know), and I brought only one bottle from Switzerland (it is an Italian wine which I got in a supermarket in Geneva). This wine was beautiful, layered and powerful, very balanced, with great amount of dark red fruit, all complemented by great acidity and good tannins. This wine would age perfectly, so quick expedition to Geneva or any other place where this wine can be found, sounds like a good idea.

Next three wines were also very good – and they are all available in US, plus all three would be perfect for the summer day, so you can also expand your wine horizon and have good wines at the same time. Starting with the white, 2009 Petite Burja Vipavska Dolina from Slovenia was very nice and unusual – good acidity and sweet herbs on the palate. This wine didn’t have any pronounced sweet fruit notes, but instead it had well defined sweet herbs, may be cucumber-sweet. Very easy to drink. I have to note that this wine also sports one of the most unusual labels I ever saw – it seems that the winemaker had a problem with the getting the modern printer, and had to use a very old one, incapable of producing any graphics (or may be wine maker also used to be a computer engineer, who knows…).

Moving from White to Rose, the next wine is 2010 Contini Nieddera della Valle del Turso IGT – nice and light, with medium body, good refreshing acidity, showing notes of cranberry – very good wine for a hot summer day. Nieddera actually is a local grape which was used for production of this wine.

Last but not least is 2006 Jean Bourdy Cotes du Jura Rouge, which is made out of three gapes – Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir (Trousseau is a new grape). This is a bio-dynamic wine, and it is very unusual in its flavor profile – but it is light enough to be enjoyed during summer (as soon as you will train your palate a bit on bio-dynamic wines – I will explain myself in one of the future posts very soon).

Four new grapes, four very interesting wines – very happy with this journey so far. Try to find them and experience for yourself – I’m sure you will not regret. Cheers!

As you know, I’m still counting the new grapes as I come across them. Recently, I was able to add a few to the collection, which I’m happy to report on. I also want to note, that it is quite a rare case when all the new grapes are red (I think there are simply more white varietals used in the wine making), but it happened to be so. Without any particular order, first is the red grape called Hondarribi Beltza, which was one of the grapes used in 2010 Ameztoi Rubentis Rosé Getariako Txakolina wine form Basque region in Spain. The wine is difficult to find, but it worth seeking – very easy to drink, lightly fizzed (should be rather called effervescent), refreshing – perfect wine for the hot day.

Next wine comes from Switzerland (as usual, courtesy of my friend Patrick), and it is made out of the red grape called Plant Robert. 2007 Plant Robert J-F. et J. Potterat Villette AOC, Cully is very nice, somewhat similar to wines made out of Gamay grape, however, this wine is more spicy and structured than a typical simple Gamay wine. It is very balanced and pleasant to drink (definitely an 8 in Drinkability terms). It is a pity that the wine is not available in US – it is great sipping wine which will also work quite well with wide variety of foods.

Next new grape is called Trepat and it again comes from Spain (as our first grape). I don’t know what is so special about many of these “unknown grapes”, but this 2009 Trepat Josep Foraster, same as many other rare grapes, is very elegant and spicy (of course always possible that my palate is off), with lots of dark fruit and structure on the palate.

So these are the 3 new grapes – so we need to talk about the “old ones”. The old ones are clones – but they are prominent clones. One of such clones makes the wine called Brunello di Montalalcino, and this clone is called Sangiovese Grosso. It is related to the main grape of the Chianti wines, Sangiovese, however, it has a lot more structure and power than regular Chianti wine. I had Brunellos many times, and it has very distinct taste, so this is simply logical to use Sangiovese Grosso as the grape in it’s own right.

Last but not least, another “old grape” is called Tinta de Toro, and it is used in the Toro region in Spain. Technically, Tinta de Toro is a clone of mainstream Spanish grape variety called Tempranillo, which is the main grape in Rioja and Ribero del Duero regions. Toro produces very dense and powerful wines, which require time to mellow out. I had Toro wines before, but my recent experience with the wine called 2007 Teso La Monia Alabaster (there will be a separate post about it) from Toro DO (which is considered best wine produced in Toro region) convinced me that this grape also deserves its own place in the grape quest, as it has lots of differences with the regular Tempranillo.

With the addition of these 5 grapes, I’m inching forward to the next level with 317  grapes accounted for. It’s a long journey to the 400 spot, but it is real fun – let the grape quest continue.

Treble Journey finished, destination reached – 301. Do I simply stop or do I leave the port for the next destination – Quattro? 400 different grapes to be experienced in some form?

Yes, I have to honestly admit that I enjoyed that Treble journey. I happened to discover real gems along the way, such as Nielucciu, Grolleau, Grignolino, Pigato, Pugnitello, Romorantin and many others. What now?

As it often happens with me, I decided not to decide. I don’t want to set my mind on the “quattro journey”, as level of obsession will go again ( as it was with Treble) really high. At the same time, the need to look for “what is actually inside of that bottle, may be it is a new grape?” became really ingrained into the DNA, and nothing I can do about it.

The decision is to take it as it goes. I’m not going to spend hours on internet, looking for the grapes I need to try to advance to the next level. At the same time, I’m going to keep paying attention to “what’s inside”, and continue counting the new grapes. To reflect that, “Treble count” on the front page is now “Grape Count”, and it will keep ticking.

And to make an early advance, I was quite lucky (thanks to my friend Zak) to attend a big wine tasting event (one of the posts in the near future will be raving about amazing wines we tried), so the grape counter is advancing by 8 – here is the list:

Gamay Saint Romaine: 2010 Domaine Robert Serol Cote Roannaise Rose “Cabochard”

Tressalier: 2009 Domaine Nebout SAt. Pourcain Blanc Tressalier des Graviers

Mondeuse: 2008 Roger Labbe Mondeuse

Colorino (Tintoretto): 2010 Terenzuola Rosato “Merla Rosa”

Albana: 2009 Fattoria Zerbina Albana di Romagna  Secco “AS”

Vespolina, Uva Rara: 2004 Vallana Boca

Prugnolo Gentile: 2006 La Spinetta Il Gentile di Casanova

I’m looking forward continuing this journey - and of course, I will report along the way on all discoveries. Let’s go…