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What The Heck Is Treble and Where This Journey Is Going?
I think it is time to explain mysterious “treble journey” posts, before I will be fully declared “boring crazy win
e geek”. Starting from the beginning: about 3 years ago I came across something called Wine Century club. At first I couldn’t even figure out what the name means, and then finally I realized that this is a club for people who declare (completely honor-based) that they have try at least 100 different grapes. At that point, I was into wines already for a while, and due to the fact that I do my best to keep the labels from all the different wines I happened to taste, this task appeared to be somewhat simple. By the end of 2008, I was a proud owner of Wine Century Club certificate. Then in May of 2009, when the club was celebrating it’s 4th year, I found out that there is a new challenge level – doppel. In order to become a doppel member one have to try … you guessed it right – 200 different varieties of the grapes! This was substantially bigger challenge – but challenges make our lives fun, don’t they? And there I went, and mysterious “doppel journey” notes where coming out on twitter for a while (2009 for me was an active twitting year 🙂 ). While challenging, the mission was accomplished, and I received my next certificate, which I believe was proclaiming doppel members somewhat crazy… Anyway, I was convinced that I’m done with those “journeys” – until another anniversary celebration… yep, in 2010, I found out that club now has 3 “treble” members ( and even one quattro, but that deserves another post, I believe). So yes, a 300 grapes challenge – I just couldn’t resist the urge…. So now you have to keep up with those “treble journey” updates ( even though I do make an honest effort to do them in the fun way)…
Why “journey”? This is how I see it – I’m moving along in the world of wine, looking for something new all the time, looking for any obscure place in search of the most obscure grape – I think calling this process a journey is well justified. Also, it is a real journey, as I’m not doing it alone. Wine is meant for sharing (my honest opinion) so I always make an effort to take my friends along in such a travel – remember, I did mention the fun part already?!
What else makes it fun? I get a chance to work as a detective, to unravel the mystery. Come again, you say? Well, let me explain. A lot of wine labels don’t contain any information about the grapes the wine is made of. For some of the wines such information is easy to find on the web sites. For some of the wines, it is a real challenge – you need to find a web site which is not necessarily in English, find the right wine, and then there is a decent chance that you will find the names of the grapes. You think mission accomplished? Not so fast… Problem is that a lot o grapes have different names in different regions, but it really is the same grape! Of course it is easy to figure out when french grape Grenache is called Garnacha in Spain. But what do you think of Aragonez, Cencibel, Tinta Roriz and Toro? Yep, all are synonyms for Tempranillo, the most planted red grape in the world – therefore, as you can see, there is some fun work to do in order to get to the final destination.
Obviously one can spend a lot of time and effort on this (and don’t forget money!), but I think that end result is ultimately rewarding, as with any true passion. I hope my explanation make sense, and now you will be able to ignore the geek portion, and see the fun side instead – and again I promise to make an effort to bring out the fun.
And until the next treble grape comes along – cheers!
Daily Glass: Is There Such Thing As Dangerous Wine, or Carchelo
So, what do you think – is there a such thing as dangerous wines? Let’s leave all the issues of addiction outside of this conversation, as this is not worth debating – addictions are bad, no matter what the subject is, so let’s leave it at that. So let’s start again – when would you call the wine “dangerous”?
First, of course, there are all the forms of the wine faults – wine can be corked ( smells like musty basement, not pleasant to drink at all, because no flavor left), wine can be oxidized (again, no flavor left), wine can be “cooked” ( this is usually the result of of prolonged exposure to the heat, like transporting the wine for a day or two in the trunk of a car during hot summer), and so on. If you actually interested in learning more about wine faults, here is very good Wiki article.
Then the wine can be simply not made well. This is the case when you try the wine and you just want to spit, and then you declare a bottle “not good even for cooking”. Not sure if this is the case of “dangerous” we are looking for, but this is definitely the case of wine we don’t want to drink.
And now, let me explain what I call a “dangerous” wine. To me, dangerous wine is the one you can not put down. You take a sip, you say “wow”, you take another sip, your glass is empty, and then in a while you don’t understand what happened with the bottle? Where this all go? Did I spill half a bottle? Is my dog walks suspiciously – but, hey, she couldn’t reach that bottle, right? So what just happened here??? Yep, the wine was so 
smooth, so round, so it went down so easily that now you completely astonished – but it’s all gone… This is what I call dangerous :).
Recently, I was lucky to come across such a dangerous wine, thanks to my friend Zak from Cost Less Wines and Liquors in Stamford – this is the wine called Carchelo:
Carchelo 2008, Bodegas Carchelo, Jumilla, Spain
This wine comes from the Jumilla region in Spain, and it is a blend of Monastrell, Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon. The wine has very deep purple color, beautiful nose of dark fruit, plums, sweet cherries and blackberries, silky smooth tannins and good acidity, so all together comes in a “dangerously” balanced package. Final verdict:
Drinkability: 8
Try is today, and tell me if how dangerous it was for you!
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