Talk-A-Vino

Meritage Time!

Let’s start with the answer to the wine quiz #61, grape trivia – Tempranillo. In the quiz, you were supposed to answer 5 questions about Tempranillo, the noble Spanish grape. Here are the questions with the answers:

Q1: What is the meaning of the name Tempranillo?

A1: Name Tempranillo comes from Spanish word temprano, which means “early”. Tempranillo typically ripens two weeks earlier compare to many other grapes.

Q2: Name 3 grapes,  traditional blending partners of Tempranillo

A2: Traditionally, in Rioja wines, Tempranillo is blended with Mazuello, Grenache and Graciano.

Q3: What is common between Bodegas Muga, La Rioja Alta, Lopez de Heredia and Vina Real outside of the fact that all four are very famous Rioja producers and of course make wines out of Tempranillo?

A3: This was definitely a difficult question. What this four wonderful Rioja producers have in common is … location. All for wineries are located within walking distance from each other around old train station in Haro.

Q4: Tempranillo is used in production of the wine outside of Spain, which is at least equally famous to Rioja. Do you know what wine is that?

A4: Port. Tempranillo is known in Portugal under the name of Tinta Roriz, and it is one of the essential grapes in Port production.

Q5: Name two producers of Tempranillo wines – one is the most famous and another one is probably the most expensive.

A5: Another pretty difficult question. Vega Sicilia is definitely the most famous producer of Tempranillo wines with their flagship wine called Unico. And while it is quite expensive at $500+ per bottle, Dominio de Pingus makes probably the most expensive Tempranillo wines. Both wineries are located in Ribera del Duero region.

Based on the low participation in this quiz I can only say – people, you have to drink more Spanish wines (see, I’m only using bold font instead of capitalizing  = screaming)! Especially from Rioja and Ribera del Duero. Anyway, as I said, at least two questions were quite difficult. We don’t have clear winner today, with Emil ( he doesn’t have a blog) coming the closest with about 3.5 points, so he definitely gets an honorable mention.

And now to the interesting stuff around vine and web!

First – don’t miss the WTSO Cheapskate Wednesday which is taking place today, June 19th. Yes, it is not super convenient to keep WTSO open in the browser and hit refresh all the time, but you have very few alternatives to that. You can also follow WTSO on Twitter – the only medium where new wine information is updated in real time. Make sure you have all your correct information on file with WTSO  – shipping address and the credit card – otherwise you are risking to miss on the wine you want while you will be filling up the details (being there, done that). I posted many times before about WTSO events – if you are interesting in taking the look at the past sales, use this link.

Next, I want to bring to your attention an interesting article by Master Sommelier Tim Gaiser, called “How to taste wine”. I’m sure that many of you tried at various occasion to figure out what exactly is in your glass – it is a fun challenge to take random glass of wine, look, sniff, swirl, sip – and confidently say “Shiraz, Barossa, Penfolds, 1998 or 1999” and then find out that you’ve been right, or may be it was actually an Argentinian Malbec. Using techniques offered as part of any serious wine education (Master Sommeliers, WSET, Master of Wine, etc.) can actually increase your chances of being right. This article explains in good detail the approach to the blind tasting taken by Master Sommeliers.

If you are a Pinot Noir aficionado, this article might be for you. Written by Jay McInerney for Wall Street Journal, it is dedicated to David Hirsch of Hirsch Vineyards, one of the pioneers of Sonoma cool climate Pinot Noir.

Last but not least, here is an interesting blog post by W. Blake Gray, where he is talking about the study regarding cork taint. According to that study, 10% of the people actually prefer corked wines! For the first 10 minutes after I read it, I had mostly expletives roaming through my head – then I was able to compose myself and leave a [decent] comment. Yeah, well, no further comments – read it for yourself…

That’s all I have for you for today – the glass is empty! Refill is coming, and until the next time – cheers!