Archive
Weekly Wine Quiz #40: Wine Basics 101 – Tannins
It is Saturday, therefore it is time for the next wine quiz. And I have to honestly admit, my mind couldn’t settle on anything particular – “how about this? Nah… and what about that? Nope.. but then… Nope again”.
After not being able to resolve that in any reasonable amount of time, I have to proceed with something very plain and simple.
Today’s quiz relates to one of the basic characteristics of wine, tannins, and it consists of three questions:
Q1: What is tannins?
Q2: What are the sources of tannins in wine?
Q3: Name at least two other food items which cause effect similar to tannins in wine.
Have fun and good luck! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Wine Blogger Quits, Krug No More?, and more…
Meritage time!
In the last wine quiz #39 – Let’s decant some wines, you were supposed to identify an essential element of wine decanting, mostly used in the fine restaurants. I’m glad to say that we have a winner – Stefano was right on the mark with the detailed description of the decanting process. While wine cradle is important in some cases, candle is an essential element of decanting, adding a nice romantic touch, but most importantly, allowing to see when sediment is about to go into the decanter. thedrunkensyclist also suggested that any light source can be used, and not just the candle, so the prize (unlimited bragging rights) should be shared between both of them.
Let’s move on to the interesting stuff. I don’t know how that happen, but I just realized that most of the “finds” I want to share with you are rather sad – however, I think they are still interesting to read, so let’s proceed.
First, here is the post from Steve Heimoff talking about blogger who stopped blogging – Paul Gregutt, who was writing about wines of Northwest, announced that he will stop blogging, at least for a while. I know that some of you already read Steve’s post ( there was a comment from thedrunkencyclist there), but for those of you who didn’t read it yet, I think it is a worthwhile read. This is an interesting question which probably every blogger comes across every once in a while – as for the most of us, blogging is a labor of love, it takes not insignificant amount of effort, so I’m sure many of us have this question deep inside coming up from time to time – “so, may be hell with it”? Oh well…
Now, this one goes close to the heart. You know, you have a treasure, which you keep for yourself, and you know it is always there for you, and then one day you discover that whatever it was, it is all crumbled and fell apart, and you get very sad? This is the wine blog, right – so you don’t expect me to talk about some memorabilia which I was not taking the right care of? Yeah, we are talking about wine. My treasure – Krug Champagne. I really experienced it once (both Vintage and non-vintage), and it was enough to still roll my eyes every time I think or talk about it. According to the blog post from Alice Feiring, this is Krug no more – of course it is still produced, but looks like starting with 2003 vintage, it become complacent and indistinguishable, it lost all its royal traits which warranted almost religious following… If you have an opinion – please comment (I hope at least one person will).
Here is the post from Alfonso Cevola blog, talking about latest trends in the restaurants in US, which can’t be found in Italy – if anything, the pictures are cool, and his descriptions are fun to read.
Last but not least – a note of thanks. I was nominated for Very Inspiring Blogger Award by Stefano from Flora’s Table blog – I’m very grateful for the nomination and all the kind words. Stefano has a wealth of wine knowledge, I love the recipes in Flora’s Table blog, but the most amazing part for me are the pictures – some of the very best food pictures I saw anywhere on the net… If you are not following Flora’s Table yet – you should!
That’s all I have for today, folks – the glass is empty. Have a great #WineWednesday or #WhiskyWednesday – whatever your heart desires. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #39 – Let’s Decant Some Wines
Decanting is an interesting subject in the wine world. The question is often asked – do we need to decant the wines? Why? When? How can we decide what wines to decant? Then there is a group which says that you never need to decant the wines – but we will leave this discussion for some later time.
During the process of decanting, the wine is poured out from the bottle into a large glass vessel, which can have various shapes (duck, sphere, a toll vase, a short vase and so on).
There are two main reasons to decant the wines. First, the decanting is done with the older wines, to avoid the sediment from going into the glass. Second, the decanting is done for the younger wines and the wines of the certain types, such as Barolo, to let them breathe, to aerate, soften up and then show the fruit. For instance, it is generally recommended to decant Barolo for at least 3 hours before it will be served, just to let the wine “open up”. It is not enough just open a bottle in advance, as very little amount of wine goes in direct contact with air – in decanter, the wine gets in the contact with air over much larger surface compare to the bottle or even the glass, thus the process of breathing becomes a lot more effective.
There are lots of articles about decanting available all over the place (here is one link in case you want to read more) , so let’s get to our question (this is the quiz, remember?).
To decant the bottle of wine you need to have a bottle of wine and a decanter, of course. Then, in the “classic” decanting, often performed in the higher end restaurants, there is one more element, one more piece used in the process of decanting, when the bottle is poured into the decanter. Can you name that element and explain why is it used?
Have fun and good luck! Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #38 – Children’s Game With Wine Labels
It was clearly too much turkey, my friends – I couldn’t come up with anything super-creative for this wine quiz, so I decided to go with children’s game of “find the differences”.
When we arrived to the friend’s house on Wednesday, I spotted two bottles of Chateauneuf-du-Pape which looked absolutely identical at the first sight:
Little by little, I was able to realize many differences between these two wines – I wonder how many differences can you think of? Just to give you a few hints, don’t pay attention to the colors of the labels (color difference is just an effect of lighting, they really look absolutely identical in real life), and think about the wine as a whole when you will be answering this question.
Have fun and enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend. Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #37 – About History of Wines and Holidays
Is it seriously Saturday again? Where did the whole week go? Okay, yes, Happy Saturday, folks – and it is time for the new quiz.
I was back and forth on the theme for this quiz. It is last Saturday before Thanksgiving, big holiday in US, and I really wanted to connect together the subject of Thanksgiving and wines in some meaningful way. It seems that everybody everywhere are talking about Thanksgiving wines, but none of that stuff is quiz-worthy.
Therefore, you will be faced with two completely unrelated questions, with one small exception – both relate to US history.
Let’s start with Thanksgiving question, which will be our Question 1. As you probably know (even if you don’t live in US), Thanksgiving is the holiday where we give thanks to our country and life in general with the abundance of food, wine, and families getting together. Traditions of celebrating Thanksgiving in US go all the way back to the first pilgrims, and based on the historical records, it was usually celebrated between September and November. For the long time, each US president would declare the date for Thanksgiving holiday for each year – until Thanksgiving holiday became fixed to the fourth Thursday in November. Do you know which president signed that bill into law?
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. Woodrow Wilson
C. Franklin D. Roosevelt
D. John F. Kennedy
And now, let’s switch to the Question 2, which will be again about people, but this time it will relate to the history of California wine. There were many people who greatly contributed into making California wine industry what it is today. Below is the list of people, all pioneers of California wine industry – and this list has specific logic behind it – with one name missing. Who do you think is missing in that list?
André Tchelistcheff
Harold Olmo
Gustave Niebaum
Charles Krug
?
Robert Mondavi
Maynard Amerine
Brother Timothy
Georges de Latour
Please provide your answers in the comments section.
Have fun and good luck! Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #36 – Stomping The Grapes
It is Saturday, therefore, it is wine quiz time!
It seems that my last couple of quizzes generated quite a bit of controversy in terms of right/wrong answers (you can scroll through the comments in the “answer” posts for #33 and #35). So this quiz will top that, as it doesn’t have the right answer, or at least it would be possible to argue forever whether my answer will be right or wrong. Nevertheless, I hope it will be fun for all, as it will not require any knowledge of grapes, regions or winemakers.
Let’s get to it. Imagine that in the older times (doesn’t matter precisely when) you come to apply for the job as a grape stomper at a winery. There is one skill (you can call it requirement or ability) which you have to have in order to be hired for that job.
Just to be clear – this is not a body feature, like big feet, for instance – it is something which you have to be able to do in order to get the job.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this quiz doesn’t have an absolute answer – so I’m asking for your forgiveness upfront, just in case you will not like my version : )
Have fun and good luck! Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #34: Hello, My Name Is…
It is Saturday, and therefore, it is time for your Saturday wine entertainment (no, you don’t get to drink wine yet – first, you have to solve a puzzle, and if you don’t – no wine for you! Okay, I’m only kidding…)
Last wine quiz #33 caused some controversy – but you know what – this one might do the same. Or not.
Anyway, I have to thank Vino in Love for the idea for this wine quiz. In his last wine quiz, he used a made up name for the grape. Below you see a list of names of the wines – except one of them was made up by me. Do you know which name is a made up name?
A. If you see Kay
B. No girls
C. Frequency
D. Predicament
E. To the rescue
Give it a try! You don’t have much to win (outside of pride), but you have even less to lose.
Please provide your answer in the comments section. Have fun and good luck! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #33: Right Place, Wrong Vineyard
It is Saturday, and therefore it is time for the new wine quiz. I expect that you will not have much difficulty with today’s quiz. Here we go.
Below you will find a list of wineries, all of them from California, and all of them quite famous, if not legendary. While famous, one of those wineries doesn’t belong to the list. You need to figure out which one and why.
Here is the list:
A. Bryant family
B. Colgin
C. Araujo
D. Sloan
E. Pride Mountain
Please provide an answer in the comment section below.
Have fun and good luck! Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Wine Quiz Anthology
It appears that I reached a stumbling block with my weekly wine quizzes – the wine quiz #32, where you were asked to match 6 red wines with 6 wine reviews, didn’t get a single answer (so far). And not because people couldn’t answer the question, but because they found it too long and/or intimidating.
I believe this makes it a good point to take a little break and look back at the line up of the past Wine Quizzes. This is also a nice point for me as a software guy (yep, by education and daytime work : ) ), as 32 – I have 32 wine quizzes out so far – is a very round number in the world of computers (2 to the power of 5 is 32), so it feels like I accomplished something : ). I also looked at this project somewhat religiously from the point of view of the timeline – these are 32 [consecutive] weeks worth of quizzes. They all come in different shapes and forms, and I changed the format slightly from a quiz to a quiz. Until the Quiz #7, the answers were provided with the next quiz in a week, and then beginning from that quiz #7, the answers for the quizzes started coming out every Wednesday. I also used Poll format for many quizzes – that definitely generates a lot more answers (people don’t like to leave comments, sigh) – but with those polls nobody remembered their answer and it was impossible to declare winners.
Anyway, I don’t plan to close any of the quizzes, so if you see something you missed, you can still take part in it – and then even check your answer right away.
Without further ado, here they are – all 32 with the links for the answers. Enjoy!
Weekly Wine Quiz #32 – A Guessing Game: Ultimate Challenge, Part 2 – still waiting for your answers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #31 – A Guessing Game: Ultimate Challenge, Part 1 – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #30 – A Guessing Game, In Reverse – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #29: A Guessing Game – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #28: Where Is The Wine In This Picture? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #27 – This Whiskey Can’t Age Any Longer… – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #26 – Extreme Wines, Part 2 – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #25 – Extreme Wines – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #24 – Bottles Big, Bottles Small – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #23: There Is A Vineyard In UK … – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #22: Olympics For All – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #21: Do You Know The King? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #20: How Much Does It Worth To You? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #19: Wine, An Ultimate Facilitator of Art and Craft – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #18: Wine and Independence Day – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #17: Let’s Talk About Penguins (And Some Weapons) – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #16: Father of California Wine – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #15 – Most Historically Significant Spirit? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #14: True American Grape – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #13 – Wine as a Matter of Life and … Death – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #12: The End of Prohibition – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #11 – Bubbles, Big and Small – the answer is in the Quiz #12 above
Weekly Wine Quiz #10 – Where [In California] Am I? – use the link above for the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #9 – What Is In The Name? – use the link above for the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #8 – Do You Know Your AVAs? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #7 – Where In The World Am I? – here is the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #6 – No Pinot? – use the link above for the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #5 – Do You Know Kosher Wines? – use the link above for the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #4 – Which One Doesn’t Belong? – use the link above for the answer
Weekly Wine Quiz #3 – Judgement of Paris – use the link above for the answer
Lets Play a Little Game – Here Is A Wine Quiz – use the link above for the answer
Lets Play a Little Game – Here Is A Wine Quiz – use the link above for the answer
Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #32 – A Guessing Game: Ultimate Challenge, Part 2
And yet another Saturday is here, and, of course, a new quiz. It will be the last one (at least for now) in the Guessing Game series (previous three can be found here: #29, #30, #31). As promised, this one is about red grapes, but we will kick it up a notch – you have 7 grapes to match with 6 reviews – one grape is there just for fun, but in my opinion, it easily could’ve been for real. So here are your grapes:
A. Cabernet Sauvignon
B. Malbec
C. Merlot
D. Nebbiolo
E. Pinot Noir
F. Syrah
G. Zinfandel
And here are the reviews:
1. “complex, yet subtle, with blackberries, minerals and berries. Full-bodied and very velvety, with lovely rich fruit, with chocolate and berry character. Very long and refined. A joy to taste.”
2. “aromas of tar and smoke, with very pure, concentrated blackberry and spice notes underneath mark this exotic, seductive red. Silky and complex, it caresses the palate. It needs a little time to absorb the oak, but this is long and has great potential.”
3. “a seductive red, drawing you in with its pure cherry and floral aromas and flavors, then capturing you with the silky texture and harmonious profile. Stays fresh and elegant, with a long, ethereal finish.”
4. “still tight, with a wall of mocha and raspberry ganache covering the massive core of fig fruit, hoisin sauce and plum cake notes. This is extremely dense but remarkably polished, with a long, tongue-penetrating finish that drips of fruit and spice laid over massive grip.”
5. “delicious stuff; not huge, but impeccably balanced, nuanced and tremendously long and pure. It’s a cascade of currant, blueberry and plum fruit shaded on one side by subtle, toasty oak, on the other by hints of minerality and exotic spice. But it’s the elegance and the length that make this a winner.”
6. “torrent of blackberry, boysenberry and bittersweet ganache notes. But there’s exceptional drive and focus here as well, with a great graphite spine driving through the spice- and floral-infused finish. A stunner for its combination of power and precision.”
For an extra credit, try to figure out the country of origin for the wine in the reviews.
Good Luck! Have a great weekend and drink well! Cheers!
Last Bottle Sign Up ($10 credit)
Talk-A-Vino 