Archive
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, #GrenacheDay, #ChampagneDay, WTSO Full-On and more
Get wine with free shipping on 12 bottles or more.
Meritage Time!
So, what do you think of Wine Quiz #29, A Guessing Game? I now understand that I goofed up with my logic (not the first time; sigh) and the way second question was asked implied the answer for the first – so I definitely have a room for improvement. I still hope it was fun, and – we have a winner!
Both reviews included into the post were for the same wine, 2001 La Rioja Alta Vina Ardanza Reserva Especial – the first one was written by Robert Parker, and second was Stephen Tanzer’s review. And the winners are (drumroll, please) whineandcheersforwine and thedrunkencyclist – both were able to correctly answer all three questions including the bonus part. Well done! As a side note, this is one of the best Rioja wines you can find for the money – it will cost you between $25 and $30, it drinks perfectly now, and will be for the next 20-30 years.
And now let’s move on to the interesting news section.
On October 2nd, the greatest purveyor of the QPR wines, Wine Til Sold Out, says “Make room in your cellars”, and I say “hold on to your wallets” – Full-On Marathon is coming. Starting at 6 AM Eastern time, WTSO will be offering wines staring from $15.99 and going all the way into the hundreds of dollars. The event will end at midnight on the same day. Knowing WTSO, this will be one amazing event which will put your family finances in a grave danger – but if anything, it will be fun to watch!
I almost missed it (changing the post after it was out) – International #GrenacheDay is coming on Friday, September 21st! There is not much time left – find that Grenache bottle and get ready to celebrate!
Champagne lovers, your special day is coming! 3rd annual #ChampagneDay will be celebrated through all social media outlets on October 25th – you can find your invitation here. You have enough time to be well prepared – start thinking about that special bottle.
There is an interesting debate going in regarding the actual state of the wine blogging – best of the best are trying to figure out if it is dead or alive (as I’m writing this post, I would consider it quite alive, but what do I know…). Here are couple of viewpoints: Joe Roberts, a.k.a. 1WineDude, and Steve Heimoff. If you have an opinion – write a blog post, join the debate!
Last but not least, St. Emilion region in Bordeaux has a new classification – you can read more about it here in Dr. Vino’s blog post.
We are done here – the glass is empty – for the moment, of course. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, #PinotSmackdown Results and more…
It is Meritage time!
Let’s start from the answer for Weekly Wine Quiz #28, Where is the wine in this picture? This quiz was done in a different format ( no multiple-choice answers), and it had a lesser number of answers than I would want to – but, we have a clear winner. Here is the answer, also in the form of the picture:
That glass fruit bowl which was shown on the picture in the quiz was a photograph of the original artwork of Flora C. Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, which I took at the winery, and that is what was shown on the the label of 1998 Artist Series Meritage wines. Congratulations to Mika on figuring out this (very difficult) wine quiz!
In the “interesting news” category, I only have a few things for you. First, the results for the #PinotSmackDown event, held on Twitter on September 6th (which I missed with the wine, but I cast my vote) were tallied up, and the winner was New Zealand (#NZ was actually my vote, but somehow I thought that I’m pretty unique with that opinion and New Zealand would not win) – here is the summary post for you.
Looking over recent posts at The Gray Report, I found this post with the link to the video from the series “Real Winemakers Read Wine Spectator Reviews” – the video is very entertaining, and you will also find more videos from the same series once you will finish watching the first one.
Believe it or not, this is all I have for you in today’s Meritage issue. Until next Wednesday – cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Blind Tasting Escapades, Wine Books Review and more
Yes, it is still Wednesday somewhere! I’m actually on the west coast, so I have an excuse (okay, lame) for this post not coming out Wednesday morning, as usual. But let’s get to it.
First, the answer for the Wine Quiz #27 – This Whiskey Can’t Age Any Longer. Looks like this was an easy quiz, as most of you got it right – it is a high altitude and climate which don’t let whiskeys such as Stranahan’s to age for the long time. As Stranahan’s distillery located high in the mountains, if the cask will be left to age for 8 years, there will be nothing left in that cask (ohh, those angels…). Stranahan’s distillery is not the only one with such problem – Amrut, a very good quality whiskey from India, can’t age for longer than 3 years due to the same issue of altitude and climate. Located at 3000 ft in Himalayan Mountains in the tropical climate, Amrut whiskey rapidly disappears from the cask if kept for longer than 3 years. As a side note, even with [only] 3 years of age, it is a whiskey you don’t want to miss – if you are into the whiskey, of course.
Going into the interesting wine happenings section, W. Blake Gray had done it again – stirred the debate, I meant. Here is the post and here is related poll (poll is closed, but you can see the results), all about blind tasting by the wine publications, or may be not so blind? Read and decide for yourself – and be sure not to miss the comment section, as it has a lot of emotions brewing.
Joe Roberts of the 1WineDude fame reviewed some of the wine books which I think worth your attention – you can read his reviews here.
It is the harvest time in the Northern hemisphere, so of course there are lots of harvest news from all over. Decanter magazine gives you a good harvest run down for Europe and US (they expect the prices of California wine to go up – this is great, I think I missed the memo about economy being in the excellent state), and here is a take on California harvest from W. Blake Gray.
Last, but [may be] not least – did you have Pizza today? You should’ve, as September 5th was a National Cheese Pizza Day. Well, yes, I missed it too.
The glass is empty – Meritage is all gone for today, however full shipment is expected to arrive in a week. Until then – cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, WBC13, #CabernetDay, Blog Monetization and more
Is it only me, or these weeks are flying by, literally faster and faster? It only was the beginning of summer, and kids just went to school…again?!
Okay, let’s get to our meritage business – starting with the answer for Wine Quiz #26 – Extreme Wines, Part 2. Actually I think the question was not difficult, which is also showing in having many people chose the right answer – Tavel. While Jerez, Marsala, Vin Jaune and Vin Santo are all aged in the open barrels, Tavel, while famous, is a regular Rose wine from Rhone. Just for the quick heads up, I think the next quiz will still be along the same line of “wines and factors”, and then we will probably play with “wines and places”.
Going into the news, let’s start with the important one – believe it or not, but it is harvest time already! Many vineyards in Texas already picked they grapes, and California wineries are well on the way. Dr. Vino just had a great quiz regarding the harvest – try it on for a size, you might find the answer quite surprising.
Wine Bloggers Conference 2012 just took place a week ago in Portland, Oregon – but the wine blogging doesn’t take any breaks, and Wine Bloggers Conference 2013 is already announced – it will take place in Penticton, British Columbia (yep, in Canada), on June 6-8. As I missed the one in Portland, I will have to really think about this one now …
Steve Heimoff wrote a very interesting blog post (love the language, very colorful) about monetization of the wine blogs, which was triggered by the discussions at WBC12. Whether you are thinking about monetizing your blog or not, this will be an interesting read – don’t miss it.
Interested in exploring 100 top restaurant in US? You are in luck! Forbes just published an article about those 100 best restaurants, circa 2012, just to make your job easier. And if you need more information, you can go directly to the source – the full list at Opinionated About Dining website (while I have no comments about the list, the overall design of that OAD website looks very unappealing to me – but hey, the information should be still good, right?).
This is the end of my wine news for today. Ohh, wait, no – whatever you do, don’t forget the #CabernetDay day tomorrow! And if anyone needs help to finish that bottle of Screaming Eagle, or Bryant, or Harlan, or (tired yet? I can continue) anyway, you got the point – I’m at your full disposal! Okay, fine, for real – what are you going to open?
Happy Wine Wednesday! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Wine Blog Awards, 1368 grapes, and more
Happy Wine Wednesday everyone! Hope that all the WBC2012 attendees recuperated by now and again consider wine as something enjoyable and not as a chore.
It is Meritage time, so let’s start from the answer for the Wine Quiz #25 – Extreme Wines. The question was about wines which are not destroyed by heat, but instead, are “made” by it. And the right answer is… Madeira! Madeira wine, which was discovered as a by-product of a long sea journeys of the wine barrels, is commercially made using the method called estufagem, where wine is heated up to 130F for at least 90 days. If you haven’t tried Madeira recently, you should, as the Madeira is currently in the process of revival, and it has a lot to offer.
And now for the sipping, errr – wine news section. Wine Blog Awards winners had been announced at WBC12 – here is the list. Congratulations to all the winners!
Decanter magazine just announced that Wine Grapes book is ready to be published. The book is written by Jancis Robinson and the team, and it provides information on 1,368 (!) wine grapes – looks like I got long ways to go in my Wine Century quest.
For those of us who missed Wine Bloggers Conference 2012, here is the summary by Tom Warks. I know that The Drunken Cyclist also attended WBC2012 – I will be very interested in reading his prospective on the conference.
Quick reminder for the upcoming wine holiday (NJVinoMan, please take notice : ) ): 3rd Annual Cabernet Day (#CabernetDay hash tag on Twitter) will be celebrated on August 30th – I hope you have enough time to decide on that special bottle.
That’s all for today, folks. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, [Super] Wine List, and Blogs, Blogs, Blogs…
Surely these Italian wines will get you talking!It’s Meritage Time!
First things first – the answer for the Wine Quiz #24 – Bottles Big, Bottles Small. The list in the quiz actually included names of the wine bottles of the different sizes, only slightly mixed up between the different regions. While some of the bottle names are the same between Champagne and Bordeaux, some of the names are unique and are used only in one region, and not in both. The question was to find “one which doesn’t belong”. While Piccolo (187 ml, or one quarter of a bottle) and Methuselah (6L, equal to 8 bottles) are uniquely used in Champagne, it is Imperial ( also 6L, or 8 bottles) which is one and uniquely Bordeaux, thus the right answer for the wine quiz is “Imperial”. Whomever marked “Imperial” as the right answer, please pat yourself on the back – you got all the bragging rights for the right answer for the wine quiz #24. In case you are curious about all the bottles sizes and their names, here is a Wikipedia link for you.
Now let’s talk about interesting “news and such” I came across during the last few days.
There was (yes, unfortunately “was”, not “is”) a restaurant in Spain, called El Bulli – literally the best restaurant in the world, by the famous chef Ferran Adrià (also one of the best in the world). The restaurant closed last summer, and now, as I learned from Dr. Vino’s blog post, about 10,000 bottles from El Bulli’s wine cellar will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in the near future. Dr. Vino’s blog post lists also a link to the El Bulli’s wine list, but for some reason it didn’t seem to work for me. However – in case you want to see the wine list – here it is, 139 pages of goodness… Drooling is acceptable.
Wine Bloggers Conference, a.k.a. WBC2012, is opening in Portland, Oregon in two days. At that conference, winners of the Wine Blog Awards will be announced. It seems that the subject of the awards is heated up considerably with various bloggers expressing their last minute opinions. You can reserch the subject on your own, but here is the opinion of Joe Roberts (1WineDude) – I recommend checking out the blogs he is referring to – they look quite interesting.
Last, but not least, a few interesting posts from The Passionate Foodie blog. First, here is a advanced notice of the upcoming great food holiday – October is a National Cheese Month! Cheese is definitely one of my favorite (if not The Favorite) foods, and knowing that in October I will have an additional reason to eat it, makes me happy. Also, as The Passionate Foodie writes from Boston, he mentioned that The Cheese Shop of Concord will be celebrating its 45th anniversary on October 6th, by offering a number of cheeses at 1967 prices – if you are into cheese, you still have time to find a good reason to be in Concord, MA on that date (I don’t think I need a reason – I plan to be there).
Also in the same The Passionate Foodie blog, you can find a series of posts about Port, one of the [wrongly] under-appreciated but amazing wines – here are the links for Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 for you – well worth your time, I think.
That’s all I have for today’s Meritage. Don’t forget – it is always [Wine] [Whisky] Wednesday – pour something good into your glass. Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Cheapskate Wednesday, Wasps, Wine Lists And More
Indulge in fine wine at WineChateau.com and enjoy.
Meritage time! I hope you are thirsty!
First and foremost, the answer for the Wine Quiz #23, There is a Vineyard in UK. While there were not that many answers, there was a nice spread between different options. And the right answer is… Riesling! The rest of the grapes are growing pretty successfully in UK, except for Riesling, which is a bit strange to me – Riesling does just fine in the colder climates – Finger Lakes, Niagara and other northern areas are making excellent wines out of Riesling, so it is surprising that it had not being picked up in UK. Well, may be it will be the next big thing, following success of the sparkling wines, but at least it is not there right now.
Next important item to bring to your attention – lovers of a great QPR, rejoice! Today is Cheapskate Wednesday at Wine Till Sold Out. All wines are priced in the range of $7.99 – $18.99 and new wines are announced only on Twitter every 15 minutes or so – follow @WTSO for the updates (I think you can also subscribe for SMS updates).
The Wine Bloggers Conference 2012 is taking place next week, August 17- 19 in Portland, Oregon. No, I’m not going, but may be next year. Are you?
Do you like wasps and hornets? Yeah, I thought so. It turns out that they play a vital role in making the wines complex. How? Read this article if you want to know.
Do you remember Dr. Vino’s blog post about NY Post restaurant critic’s problem with the wine lists (they are too esoteric to his taste)? At this point that thread has 49 (!) comments (depending on when you will read this post, number of comments might be even higher). While the thread might be too long to read in its entirety (but still worth it), make sure to at least read the comment by the critic (Steve Cuozzo) himself – read it slowly and carefully, and warn people around that you might laugh hysterically…
Want to know who are the most influential people in the wine world in the past year? Now you can. IntoWine.com published its 2012 Annual “Top 100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry” – note that the link will point you to the top 10 – you can navigate back using the links at the bottom of the page. I think this list is interesting – what are your thoughts on that?
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. Enjoy your middle of the week. 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!
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!
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!
Last Bottle Sign Up ($10 credit)
Talk-A-Vino 