Talk-A-Vino

Meritage Time!

Of course we are staring with the answer to the weekly wine quiz #109, where you were supposed to identify 8 wines by the image on top of the bottle cap or a capsule. Below are the pictures, now with the answers:

While nobody was able to identify all 8 wines, Zak (no web site) did an excellent job identifying 6 out of 8 wine tops, so he is definitely the winner of this round and gets the unlimited bragging rights! I also want to acknowledge wineandhistory, who correctly identified PEJU wine. I’m also glad to say that a number of people said that they will start paying more attention to the bottle tops, which makes it all more fun.

Now, to the interesting news around the web and the vine!

First, the WTSO is on it again – Summer Cheapskate Marathon is coming to the browser next to you on Tuesday, July 29th. Starting at 6 am  Eastern time, the new wines will be offered in the $7.99 to $18.99 range every 15 minutes or sooner if the offered wine will sell out. All wines are offered in the quantity of 4 bottles or more to get the free shipping. The marathon will finish at 11:59 pm Eastern time.

Next up is an interesting post by W. Blake Gray. I made a number of attempts to come up with a clever abstract for his blog post; instead, I just have to explain why I think it worth a few minutes of your time. In the article, W. Blake Gray explains how two of his short posts on twitter led to the angry rebuttal from the Cellar Tracker founder, Eric Levine, with the declaration of “wine snob” being literally slapped on W. Blake Gray’s face (yes, as a figure of speech – no bodily harm took place). Twitter is a dangerous medium – the condensed format requires lots of careful attention to what one is saying – and viral potential of any twit making huge waves should always be taken into account… Anyway, read it for yourself, including the comments, and if you will, let me know what you think.

What do you think of natural wine? Yes, I know that the term itself is somewhat controversial. But, considering that the wine is a form of art, I only see it as one of the styles, which is perfectly valid alongside of many others. However, it seems that a lot of wine professionals don’t see it like that. First was an article by Bruce Palling, called “Is there anything natural about raw wine“. Jamie Goode, a winner of the Best Overall Wine Blog Award at WBC14, responded to this article on his blog, in the post called “Comments on Bruce Palling’s anti-natural wine article“. Then Steve Heimoff jumped in with “I weigh in on Jamie Goode’s post on “natural wine””, and even Matt Kramer couldn’t stand aside and wrote the post called “When Did Wine Become So Partisan?“. If anything, I’m definitely siding with Matt Kramer and his question – I don’t understand why the opinions about wine, which is an extremely, extremely subjective in terms of “good and bad”, should be so fiercely antagonistic. If someone doesn’t like the taste of Australian Shiraz, does it mean that Australia should stop making Shiraz? And if the answer is “of course not”, then I don’t understand why natural wine should be any different. Anyway, I suggest you will spend a few minutes of your time reading those articles – and don’t forget to read the comments.

And we are done for today. The glass is empty – but the refill is on the way. Cheers!