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Weekly Wine Quiz #23: There Is A Vineyard In UK …
As the world’s eyes continued to be glued to the XXX Olympic Games in London, I think it is appropriate to follow the steps of our previous wine quiz and talk about UK wines.
Global warming or not, but the winemaking in UK is booming lately. Few years back, nobody thought of United Kingdom as a world-class wine-producing country, and now UK sparklers are winning one wine competition after another and attracting a lot of attention as worthy competitors of coveted Champagne. And it seems that winemakers in UK are moving pretty rapidly past just the sparkling wines and making other wines worth seeking.
As UK is a very young wine-producing country, there is limited number of grapes which are successfully growing there and producing the wines of notice. Below you will find a list of some of the grapes successfully used in the winemaking in UK, except one. Do you know which grape doesn’t belong?
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage
Meritage Time!
As usual, we are staring with the answer for the Wine Quiz #22: Olympics for all, where you had to figure out which “unusual” country supplied one of the “official” wines for the XXX Olympics in London. It was interesting again to see the spread of the answers – however this time we have a winner (as he left a comment in the Quiz post). And the right answer is …(drum roll, please)… Brazil – as the host of Summer Olympics 2016. And the winner is – The Drunken Cyclist – he gets a big prize in terms of unlimited bragging rights!
I have a couple of things to bring to your attention. First, I found a very interesting blog called Foodimentary. Particularly, this blog lists all the daily (!) food holidays in US. I didn’t check all 365 days, but so far it seems that every day has a designated food holiday! If before you had to eat simply because you were hungry, now you can eat with the purpose and celebrate particular foods! There is a lot more in that blog besides the list of the food holidays – check it out.
Next, there was an interesting post by W. Blake Gray, talking about New York Post food critic’s opinion regarding restaurant wine lists – I don’t want to spoil it for you, I will just tell you that it is quite controversial ( and practically 100% opposite to my own opinion), so read it for yourself.
And last but not least – an advanced wine Holiday warning for you. While Foodimentary blog lists tons of food holidays, there are many wine holidays which are not mentioned – and I think the important one is coming up. On August 30th, wine social media will be celebrating 3rd annual #CabernetDay! I’m sure this will be quite exciting for many of my readers. I have only one request – if anyone plans to open Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Colgin, Bryant or anything else of that caliber, can I please, please (with the cherry on top!) get an invitation? There, I said it – now I have to let universe to work its magical ways.
We reached the bottom of our Meritage glass. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #22: Olympics For All
XXX Olympic Games just opened with the beautiful ceremony in London, and for the next three weeks, the world will be cheering, screaming, crying and celebrating people willing to do more than their best. And of course, the world will continue eating and drinking.
At the moment, everything evolves around Olympics, and food and wine are no exception. Well, I don’t know if there is specially designated Olympic food – but wine – yes, there is.
Number of wines had been specially selected to be served during the Games. And truly in the spirit of the Games themselves, where 204 countries (I had no idea we even have that many on this little planet…) will be competing, some of the wines will be coming from quite unexpected places. The list below consists of lesser-known wine producing countries – and one of the wines you see above is coming from one of such countries. Do you know which country is that?
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage
Hello and welcome to the special Wednesday – Wine Blogging Wednesday #79 it is, a.k.a. #WBW79.
Let’s start from the usual routine – the answer for the Wine Quiz #21 – Do you Know the King? Similar to the previous quiz, this one also had a diversity of opinion as to which wine is called a “King of the Wines”. And the answer is … Barolo!
Believe it or not, but until the middle of the 19th century Barolo was a sweet wine (it probably sounds funny for anyone who experienced the power of Barolo) due to the deficiencies of the winemaking process. In the second half of the 19th century, invited French oenologist managed to change the winemaking process which resulted in production of completely dry wine. This dry Barolo wine became so popular among nobility of Turin that it was often described as “the king of wine” (here is a link for you with more information on the subject). Now that you know the king, you can enjoy Barolo even more (but don’t forget to decant it!).
Now it is time for the wine news. Let’s start form the Wine Blogging Wednesday #79 – Summer Reading, Summer Wine. This is probably one of the more difficult WBW events, as you are required not to drink the wine yourself, but rather explain to the world what kind of wine your favorite fiction character should be drinking, and why. I’m still not decided if I will will be writing my blog post for #wbw79 – may be yes, may be no – but I’m sure it will be fun to read what the other people will have to say.
Now, all the wine lovers who like value – please pay special attention. Wine Till Sold Out (a.k.a. WTSO) Cheapskate Wednesday is coming up on August 8th. Starting at 6 am Eastern, deeply discounted wines will be offered for sale every 15 minutes or may be even faster. All the wines will be priced in the range of $7.99 to $18.99 and you will have to buy 4 bottles or more to get free shipping. These “marathon” events are usually offering great values and shouldn’t be missed – here are couple of reports (one and two) I compiled from the past events in case you want to have a frame of reference. Get your cellar ready!
Moving along. Next, I want to bring to your attention two more interesting posts. First, W. Blake Gray wrote about the results of market research of consumers’ emotional attachment to the brand (of course primarily concerning alcohol brands). This is pretty short post (here is the link) – read it, some of the results are staggering and hilarious at the same time.
Last but not least: if you love wine and live in a close proximity of Boston (remember, airplanes are known to greatly shorten the distances), there is a restaurant you must visit until the end of August. Why? Because this restaurant (Troquet) is offering mind boggling dealson superbly aged wines (1966 Bordeaux for $75? unreal…) – for more details, please read this post by Richard Auffrey who writes The Passionate Foodie blog.
That’s all for today, folks. Hope you enjoyed this Meritage, and don’t worry – the next Wednesday will be here much sooner than you are expecting, so we will be talking again. And… don’t forget to leave a comment. And – think about your #WBW79 post. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #21: Do You Know The King?
We had quizzes about history of the wines, we had quizzes about [big] numbers – let’s go back to the grapes and wines for now.
For today, I have a very simple question for you. We like to assign some human references to our wines. Some of them we call “the best in the world”. There is a particular Beaujolais which is considered “the most feminine” wine in Beaujolais, and then another Beaujolais wine is called “the most masculine”. And then there is a King. One of the well known wines (not a particular bottling, but the whole wine type) is often referred to as King of Wines. Do you know which wine is it?
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage
1774 Arbois ‘Vin Jaune’ ©Serge Reverchon
Brand new Wednesday is here, so is your serving of Meritage.
Let’s start with the answer for the Wine Quiz #20 – How much this wine worth to you? I believe this was a hard quiz, may be even hardest so far. I’m glad to see a full spread of answers with 5 out of 6 being picked as potential choice. Another interesting thing for me was that I had one mostly a bogus wine in that list of answers (1878 Petrus), and it was not picked up by anyone – 1878 was the year when Chateau Petrus received gold medal at Paris Exhibition, but I’m sure that it was not the vintage which got the award. Here is a quick run down for the rest of the wines: 1929 was one of the all time best vintages of DRC, so I’m sure that wine would do very well at the auction. 1873 Chateau Mouton Rothschild is the real wine which I saw in the cellar of The Forge restaurant (here is the post which has the picture of the label) – no idea how much that wine could be sold for at an auction, but I’m sure it would not be insignificant.
If you heard of “shipwreck champagne”, 1825 Veuve Clicquot is the one. It didn’t get that much money at the auction, but someone still paid a respectful €30,000 – here is a link for the you. And 1715 Terrantez Madeira might be the oldest wine in existence in the world (certainly the oldest Madeira) – here is a link for you (warning! extensive drooling might occur!).
If you noticed, I skipped 1774 ‘Vin Jaune’ – yes, you got that right – this is the wine which was actually acquired for €57,000 at the auction in France – you can read all the details here. Surprising as it is, we have to assume that it was worth it. My only question is if we will ever read the tasting notes on that wine (hmmm, I wonder how I can get invited to that tasting? yeah, not happening, I know).
In the “interesting news” department, here are few things for you. First, an interesting short post by Dr. Vino – it appears that French politician is proposing to ban California wine as a response to Foie Gras ban in California.
And then I found that two of the [professional] wine bloggers I follow, Blake Gray and Steve Heimoff, completely independently wrote about their experience with bad wines. Both posts are different and talk about different situations, but nevertheless, they both appeared in a very close timing proximity from each other. Blake Gray is talking about bad $80 California wine and arrogant winery owner, and Steve Heimoff is talking about simply a bad wine and wine critic’s dilemma. Be sure to read the comments to both posts, as they are also very interesting.
Last but not least: The finalists for the Wine Blog Awards 2012 are announced – take a look and vote!
That’s all, folks. Happy Wine Wednesday and stay cool (I had to say it). Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #20: How Much Does It Worth To You?
As you might remember, last week’s quiz was about numbers – quite large numbers, err – prices, I have to say. But if you think about it, those $168K are paid mostly for the bottle and not for the wine – you can acquire exact same wine for a tiniest fraction of that price.
Today, continuing the subject of wine and numbers, I want to talk about auctions, where for the most cases you actually pay for the wine. And while auctions take place all the time all over the world, this particular auction took place in France (mind you, not in Hong Kong or China), a little more than a year ago, and the buyer of the wine was French. He paid €57,000 for a bottle of wine, beating another (also a Frenchman) bidder in a tight battle (nobody expected that particular wine to fetch such price).
Assuming money is not an issue, which wine do you think was worth acquiring for that amount?
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage
And the brand new Wednesday is upon us – and here are [by now the usual] updates for you (by the way – let me know if you like this Wednesday mix, or if I better spend time on something else).
Let’s start with the answer for the Wine Quiz #19 – Wine as Facilitator of Art and Craft. I’m glad to see that my readers are well informed (or have an unfathomable capacity for guessing the right answers) – the price of the Penfolds Ampoule is expected to be set at around $168, 000 (in US dollars) and it will be presented in Moscow, Russia by Penfolds Chief Winemaker, Peter Gago – here is a link to an official press release.
In the “interesting news” department, let me share a few things with you.
- Wine Bloggers Conference 2012, also known as WBC12, will be taking place in about a month in Portland, Oregon (the dates are August 17-19). No, I will not be attending, but I still think this event is worth mentioning (well, may be one day I will convince myself…). In conjunction with WBC12, I would like to bring to your attention this post by Tom Wark in his Fermentation wine blog, where he is helping to collect money for Wine Bloggers Conference Scholarship Fund, which is then used to subsidize attendance of the WBC by individual bloggers (Tom is personally matching all donations for up to total of $500).
- The theme for Wine Blogging Wednesday #79 (Twitter: #WBW79) had being announced, and it is not a simple one in my opinion. This #WBW79 is hosted by BrixChiks, and the theme is “Summer Reading, Summer Wine” (here is the link to the announcement). You are supposed to answer one “simple” question – what would your favorite fiction character drink? I’m not sure if I’m up for the challenge, but – there is some time to think about it. This #WBW79 is taking place on Wednesday, July 25th – go get your book, and make sure your character is over 21 (hmmm, really, I just said that? Would that be necessary?).
- Last, but not least – the never ending debate about cheap wine versus expensive wine and consumers versus wine snobs, wine critics, wine ratings, twist, twist, another twist… just got a new twist in the form of an article in Forbes magazine and response from the wine critic Steve Heimoff in his blog. This is the subject of the endless debates, which I don’t want to casually enter (both sides are perfectly arguable and therefore it is a subject of endless debates without possible conclusion) – but I recommend that you will take a bit of time and read both articles and then … comment below! Let’s have the debate here – after all this is the blog for talking about wine, isn’t it?
This is the end of news and updates. Happy Wine [Whiskey] Wednesday, everyone. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #19: Wine, An Ultimate Facilitator of Art and Craft
Last week, I learned something fascinating about the wine world. And why my first inclination was to share it with you in my Wednesday’s Meritage, I decided to make the wine quiz out of it first.
Take a look at the picture – what do you think it is? No, this is not a quiz yet. This is actually a very unique bottle of wine (there are only 12 produced, and we are talking bottles, not cases). This bottle is a result of collaboration of some of the best craftsmen and artists in Australia, and it holds the wine made by Penfolds and called 2004 Penfolds Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine was produced only twice, in 1996 and 2004, and it comes from world’s oldest continuously-producing Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard. This Kalimna Vineyard was planted in 1885, 30 years after famous 1855 Bordeaux classification. I recommend that you will read the full story of this unique wine project, Penfolds Ampoule at this link – you will find all information about the wine, videos of making those 12 handmade bottles and more.
If you are lucky enough, you can buy the bottle of 2004 Penfolds Block 42 Cabernet Sauvignon (not the Ampoule, just the regular bottle) for about $600+. Penfolds Ampoule is available for sale now, directly from the winery – would you care to guess how much this Penfolds Ampoule would cost you should you choose to buy one?
Have fun! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage: Happy Independence Day!
First and foremost: Happy July 4th! It feels a bit strange when the holiday falls in a middle of the week, but still it is a nice break.
Now, here is the answer for the Wine Quiz #18 – Wine and Independence Day. It was great to see a variety of opinions, but the right answer is…Madeira! Now almost forgotten (but seemingly coming back, little by little) Madeira was the wine used to toast Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776. The great thing about Madeira is that it was made to easily withstand a sea voyage in the barrel, were the other wines would arrive in totally insipid condition. If you want to read a bit more about Madeira, here is the link for you. And I would actually recommend to take it further – if you haven’t had Madeira recently, find a good bottle (forget the cooking stuff, please, get the real thing) – you might discover something you will really like.
For the news updates, I have a few things for you. First, for the “local” news, I finally updated my blogroll to add all the blogs I mentioned in my recent post.
I also want to bring to your attention a special “wine day” holiday. It is not even a day – it is a month-long holiday! In one of his recent posts, NJVinoman mentioned that we need more wine holidays – so his wish is granted – July is The 31 Days Of German Riesling! Now you have 31 days to celebrate the light, refreshing and versatile wine, perfectly complementing any hot summer day.
Last but not least – in addition to The Generous Pour program I mentioned in the last news update, The Capital Grille announced the return of their $18 “Plates” lunch menu for the summer. Well, there is a fine print there – you should check if you local Capital Grille is actually participating in the program – you will find the list of location at the bottom of the link I just shared. But if your Capital Grille is listed – don’t miss it!
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. Let me know what you are going to open to celebrate July 4th (Madeira, may be?). Happy Independence Day! Cheers!
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