Archive
Weekly Wine Quiz #91: Grape Trivia – Cinsault
Cinsault Grapes. Source: Wikipedia
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
We are continuing our grape trivia series, with the focus still on the red grapes, and today’s subject is Cinsault – for the French purists, we should drop an “l” there and call the grape Cinsaut.
At first, I wanted to call Cinsault an “unsung hero”, but I don’t think it would be the right way to put it. Yes, about 20 years ago, Cinsault plantings in France were exceeding those of Cabernet Sauvignon – but this was 20 years ago. Cinsault is best known for 2 things: it is a blending grape in many of the Rosé wines in Provence and Languedoc, and it is a father (or mother, if you prefer) of Pinotage – the unique South African grape we talked about last time. Cinsault is a black-skinned, early ripening grape which has a tendency to overproduce, easily yielding 6 – 10 tons of grapes per acre (high yield typically means less flavor in each grape). When the yield is controlled at 2 – 4 tons, Cinsault produces very aromatic, fragrant grapes. Cinsault grapes also naturally low in tannin but impart good color, which makes them well suited for Rosé production.
While the biggest Cinsault plantings are still located in France, the grape is growing all other the world – Algeria, Chile, Italy, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, United States and number of other countries have Cinsault plantings. What is interesting to note that today, when winemakers are constantly in the quest to produce unique and different wines, the single grape red (!) Cinsault bottlings from Chile, South Africa and the United States from the last few vintages have wine critics and writers rave about beautiful, fresh and elegant characteristics of the wines. I think we didn’t see the last of Cinsault yet.
And now, to the quiz!
Q1: Name 3 grapes, traditional blending partners of Cinsault in Provençal Rosé
Q2: In which US state the history of winemaking is associated with Cinsault?
a. Oregon
b. Texas
c. Virginia
d. Washington
Q3: The oldest continuously producing Cinsault vineyard in the world is located in:
a. Algeria
b. France
c. South Africa
d. United States
Q4: True or False: Cinsault is one of the 30 most planted grapes in the world
Q5: Considering Cinsault plantings worldwide, sort the countries below from the largest area plantings to the lowest:
a. Algeria
b. France
c. Morocco
d. South Africa
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, #MWWC7 Theme, Booze Map of the World, Wine Obsessions
Meritage Time!
Let’s start with the answer to the wine quiz #90, grape trivia – Pinotage. In this quiz, you were supposed to answer 5 questions about South Africa’s signature grape, Pinotage. Here are the questions, now with the answers:
Q1: Explain the origin of the name Pinotage
A1: While Pinotage was born as the result of the cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, Cinsault, one of the Rhone varietals, was known in South Africa as Hermitage (which is actually the name of the region in Northern Rhone), hence the name Pinotage.
Q2: While Pinotage primarily grows in South Africa, California also has some plantings of the grapes. Can you estimate the approximate size of Pinotage plantings in California?
a. 50 acres, b. 250 acres, c. 500 acres, d. more than 1000 acres
A2: The amount of Pinotage growing in California is miniscule, but it is trending up. The correct answer is 50.
Q3: Here is the list of of nasty aromas often associated with the smell of Pinotage wines, except one. Do you know which one doesn’t belong?
a. Burnt rubber, b. Rusty nails, c. Paint solvent, d. Sauerkraut
A3: Sauerkraut flavor is not generally associated with Pinotage.
Q4: Wine Spectator calls wines rated in 95-100 range Classic (the highest and the most prestigious category). True or False: there are no Pinotage-based wines rated in the Classic category
A4: True. 93 is the highest rating allotted by Wine Spectator to Kanonkop Pinotage.
Q5: Pinotage was created in 1925, but for the long time it was used only as blending grape. Do you know when single-grape Pinotage bottling was first released in South Africa?
a. 1946, b. 1961, c. 1976, d. 1989
A5: b, 1961. While the first released vintage was 1959, the wine was commercially available in 1961.
I’m glad to report that we had a good number of participants in the quiz, who also expressed a lot of admiration for Pinotage wines. We have 3 winners this time around – barring spelling mistakes, the drunken cyclist, the winegetter and Wine Everyday answered 5 questions correctly, so they all get the coveted prize of unlimited bragging rights. I would like to also acknowledge Caspernick who correctly answered 4 questions out of 5. Well done!
And now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web.
The new #MWWC7 Theme had been announced, and it is … Devotion! With all the love and devotion in the air (February 14th – Valentine’s Day – is rapidly approaching), the theme sounds very appropriate. Pour yourself a glass of wine, sharpen your pencil (okay, flex your fingers) and start writing! The submission deadline is February 17th. For the detailed rules and regulations, please take a look at the announcement post by SAHMMelier, the winner of #MWWC6.
Want to know what is the most popular drink in the United States? Italy? China? Now you can! Few days ago, Yahoo! published Booze Map of the World (if you want to skip the article, here is direct link to the map). So it seems that Vodka is a drink of choice in most of the places (USA included), but then Rum in Italy? Really? Was Grappa even on the list? Anyway, have fun analyzing the map.
Last but not least – are you wine obsessed? Do you search for the most unusual wine on the restaurant wine list? Do you remember what is the next “almost extinct” grape you always wanted to encounter in the bottle? Matt Kramer, one of my all time favorite wine writers and Wine Spectator columnist, wrote a very interesting article regarding the wine obsessions – I suggest you will read it for yourself here, it definitely worth your time.
That’s all I have for you for today. The glass is empty – but the refill is on the way! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #90: Grape Trivia – Pinotage
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
We are continuing our grape trivia series, with the focus still on the red grapes, and today’s subject is Pinotage.
Have you heard of Pinotage? Have you ever tasted it? What do you think of it? What, looks like I start with the quiz before the quiz? Well, kind of. Just setting the scene.
Pinotage is a unique grape, purposefully created in South Africa by Professor Abraham Izak Perold in 1925. Pinotage was created as a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault grapes. Originally used only for blending, little by little Pinotage developed into a signature grape of South Africa, similar to what Zinfandel is for California, or Malbec for Argentina.
Pinotage might be one of the most polarizing grapes in the world – well, not the grape itself, of course, but rather Pinotage wines. From the very first smell, not even a sip, Pinotage effects a love/hate relationship on wine consumers and professionals alike. Sometimes, the off putting aromas are so strong, it really makes people to put Pinotage into the “never again” category.
Lately, with the advance of the latest winemaking methods and improved winemaking knowledge, there are more and more Pinotage wines which are easy to like. A good Pinotage typically shows dark ripe berries, accompanied with hint of smoke and earthiness, without any of the “non-wine related” flavors. While Pinotage is a South Africa’s signature grape, it is also successfully growing in many other parts of the world – New Zealand, California, Virginia, Brazil, Australia are all making interesting wines out of the Pinotage.
And now, to the quiz!
Q1: Explain the origin of the name Pinotage
Q2: While Pinotage primarily grows in South Africa, California also has some plantings of the grapes. Can you estimate the approximate size of Pinotage plantings in California?
a. 50 acres
b. 250 acres
c. 500 acres
d. more than 1000 acres
Q3: Here is the list of of nasty aromas often associated with the smell of Pinotage wines, except one. Do you know which one doesn’t belong?
a. Burnt rubber
b. Rusty nails
c. Paint solvent
d. Sauerkraut
Q4: Wine Spectator calls wines rated in 95-100 range Classic (the highest and the most prestigious category). True or False: there are no Pinotage-based wines rated in the Classic category
Q5: Pinotage was created in 1925, but for the long time it was used only as blending grape. Do you know when single-grape Pinotage bottling was first released in South Africa?
a. 1946
b. 1961
c. 1976
d. 1989
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, #MWWC6 Results, WTSO Marathon Next Week, Champagne in Numbers
Meritage time!
Let’s start with the answer for the wine quiz #89, grape trivia – Dolcetto. In the quiz, you were supposed to answer 5 questions about the red grape from Piedmont called Dolcetto. Here are the questions, now with the answers:
Q1: Except the “sweet little one”, what is the other possible explanation to the name of the Dolcetto grape?
A1: Dolcetto is likely named after the hilltops where the grape is growing (“duset” in Piedmont dialect).
Q2: Sort these Piedmontese grapes in the order of time of ripening, from earlier to the later: Barbera, Dolcetto, Freisa, Nebbiolo
A2: Typically, Dolcetto ripens two weeks earlier than Barbera, and Barbera ripens two weeks earlier than Nebbiolo. Freisa ripens a bit earlier or about at the same time as Nebbiolo. Thus correct answer is Dolcetto – Barbera – Freisa – Nebbiolo (the last two can be also swapped in place).
Q3: Wine Spectator calls wines rated in 95-100 range Classic (the highest and the most prestigious category). True or False: there are no Dolcetto-based wines rated in the Classic category
A3: True. The highest rated Dolcetto wine is only has a 93 rating, thus there are no Dolcetto wines in the Classic category.
Q4: One of the North American grapes for the long time was assumed to be identical to Dolcetto ( until recent DNA tests proved it wrong). Do you what grape was that?
a. Chambourcin, b. Charbono, c. Marechal Foch, d. St. Croix
A4: It was actually a Charbono grape which was erroneously assumed to be Dolcetto.
Q5: What is the suggested serving temperature for Dolcetto wines?
a. 65ºF to 75ºF, b. 60ºF to 65ºF, c. 50ºF to 60ºF, d. 45ºF to 50ºF
A5: The answer here of course is not universal, as the serving temperature should be rather linked to the style of wine – light style Burgundy will command different serving temperature comparing to the full bodied Pinot Noir from California. However, on average, Dolcetto wines are considered to be light-bodied, or lighter style reds, which are generally recommended to be served slightly chilled, at under 60ºF. Thus correct answer is c, 50ºF to 60ºF.
This time around we don’t have a winner, unfortunately. Yes, I understand that the grapes are getting a bit more obscure, but hey – they are still no too obscure for Google! I can give you a hint for what to expect in this grape trivia series – we still have quite a few interesting grapes to talk about, so you should expect to see here Pinotage, Tannat, Montepucliano, Bonarda, Viura, Gruner Veltliner and others. See, now you have a head start!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web!
First, the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #6 with the theme of “Mystery”, hosted by Jeff a.k.a. The Drunken Cyclist, has its winner! Alissa of SAHMMelier is the new queen of the MWWC! Here is the link to her winning post, in case you didn’t read it yet. Alissa is now working on the announcement of the new theme, which will be … spoiler alert? nope, you will have to wait for it to appear in Alissa’s blog.
I’m repeating here my note from the last week. Wine Til Sold Out, better known as WTSO, is conducting their Cheapskate Marathon next Tuesday, January 28th, starting 6 AM Eastern – be there ( in front of your computer), or risk missing out on the great wine deals. The Marathon will be conducted with the usual rules: all the wines are priced in $7.99 to $18.99 range, no e-mail announcements, all new wines are announced on twitter and only on twitter, new wines are offered every 15 minutes or sooner if the previous wine is sold out, free shipping for the quantities of 4 and up of the same wines. Happy hunting!
Last interesting item I want to bring to your attention is a few numbers about the sales of Champagne. It looks like the sales of Champagne worldwide are down for the second year in the row – there were 5 million bottles less sold in 2013 compare to 2012, and 2012 had even bigger slump comparing with 2011. Here is the link to the article in The Drinks Business which contains a lot more of the detailed numbers, including statistics by the different countries.
And we are done here. The glass is empty – but the refill is on its way! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #89: Grape Trivia – Dolcetto
Dolcetto grapes. Source: Wikipedia
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to your new wine quiz!
We are back to our grape trivia series, continuing with the red grapes, and today’s subject is the grape called Dolcetto.
If you look at [probably best] known Italian wine regions, you will find some very interesting differences. If we take Tuscany, which probably comes to mind among the first, its signature grape, Sangiovese, is successfully growing in many other parts of the world, and lots of international varieties is producing magnificent wines on the Tuscan soils (super-Tuscan, anyone?). If we will now look at Piedmont, the home to Barolo, the king of wines, and Barbaresco, that region produces magnificent wines almost exclusively from the local indigenous grapes – and those local grapes are very scarcely distributed around the world, producing the wines of limited value.
Dolcetto, the subject of our today’s trivia, is one of the three better known red grapes of Piedmont – Nebbiolo and Barbera are two others. It is not very clear how Dolcetto made it to Piedmont, with some of the references suggesting that it had been growing there at least from the 16th century. The name of Dolcetto technically stands for the “little sweet one”, but it is believed that this is rather a coincidence and the name has actually a different source. Dolcetto is an early ripening variety which produces wines which have nothing to do with sweetness. Dark thick skin of Dolcetto contains large amount of anthocyanins, and imparts quite a bit of tannins to the resulting wines, as well as the dark color. Generally, Dolcetto wines are dry, lighter style than Barbera or Nebbiolo, with dark red and black fruit profile, such as black cherries and plums.
Best Dolcetto wines are mostly produced in the 7 different DOCs of Piedmont. It is also growing in Liguria under the name of Ormeasco. Dolcetto has very limited success around the world, growing in Australia and in a few regions of United States – California, Texas and Oregon.
And now, to the quiz!
Q1: Except the “sweet little one”, what is the other possible explanation to the name of the Dolcetto grape?
Q2: Sort these Piedmontese grapes in the order of time of ripening, from earlier to the later: Barbera, Dolcetto, Freisa, Nebbiolo
Q3: Wine Spectator calls wines rated in 95-100 range Classic (the highest and the most prestigious category). True or False: there are no Dolcetto-based wines rated in the Classic category
Q4: One of the North American grapes for the long time was assumed to be identical to Dolcetto ( until recent DNA tests proved it wrong). Do you what grape was that?
a. Chambourcin
b. Charbono
c. Marechal Foch
d. St. Croix
Q5: What is the suggested serving temperature for Dolcetto wines?
a. 65ºF to 75ºF
b. 60ºF to 65ºF
c. 50ºF to 60ºF
d. 45ºF to 50ºF
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and the rest of your weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, #MWWC6 Vote, WTSO Marathon, Shoe as a Corkscrew
Meritage time!
Let’s start with the answer for the wine quiz #88, What Is It? In the quiz, you were given a picture with wine (alcohol) related object, and you were supposed to explain what this object is for and how it is supposed to be used.
Below is the quiz picture with two additional pictures, which together should give you a good idea of what and how:
This tiny hammer is packaged with every bottle of Beluga Vodka Gold Line – hammer is intended to be used to break the wax seal on top of the bottle and brush should be used to clean up all the small pieces of wax.
This quiz had a number of comments with the answer, but pretty much for the first time I remember running these quizzes, many people referred to one of the previous answers as a correct one, instead of providing their own answer. This creates an interesting challenge in announcing the winner. Nevertheless, the winners of this quiz are Misha and Emil, and Patty of Bota and The Beast, Julian of VinoInLove, Trace Lee Karner and Suzanne of apuginthekitchen are all getting a “supporting winner” title. Well done!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web!
First, the Monthly Wine Writing Challenge #6 with the theme of “Mystery”, hosted by Jeff a.k.a. The Drunken Cyclist, has concluded with the record number of participants (25). Now it is time to vote for your favorite post (actually, you can vote for up to three) – for all rules and regulations please refer to Jeff’s post here.
WTSO is doing it again! Mark your calendars – Tuesday, January 28th, starting 6 AM Eastern – you better be glued to your computer, or you are risking to miss out on hundreds of great deals! WTSO marathon (a Cheapskate Marathon) will be taking place with all the usual rules: all the wines are priced in $7.99 to $18.99, no e-mail announcements, all new wines are announced on twitter and only on twitter, new wines are offered every 15 minutes or sooner if the previous wine is sold out. Happy hunting!
Last interesting item I want to bring to your attention is a video about using the shoe as a wine opener in the crisis – okay, not really a crisis, but if you have a bottle of wine, and you want to drink it, your date is getting impatient – and there is no corkscrew in site – does that constitute a crisis in your book? Well, shoe is to the rescue! You can read about using the shoe as a bottle opener in the Dr. Vino’s blog, where he also offers a collection of cork screw errr shoe-opener videos – here is the link.
And we are done here. The glass is empty – but the refill is on its way! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #88: What Is It?
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
I was planning to go back to the grape trivia series with this quiz, but then I was shown an object so peculiar that my immediate thought was – I have to make a quiz out of it! Here we are: take a look at the picture below – you don’t need to name the object (not sure if it has any specific name), but you have to explain what it is for and how it is used. Sorry – I know, this is not the best photo ever, but it shouldn’t be a problem for solving this quiz.
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
Wednesday’s Meritage – Wine Quiz Answer, Wine Crimes, #MWWC6 Last Chance, Wine Books, New World’s Most Planted Grape
Meritage time!
First, let’s start with the answer for the wine quiz #87, how well do you know your wines.
In the quiz, you were supposed to identify 8 different wines/wineries using the pictures of the top foils of the bottles. Here are the answers:
1. White Cottage Ranch, a winery in Napa Valley (looks like it might be closed now 😦 )
2. Burgess Cellars – winery in Napa Valley, making great Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and other wines
3. St. Francis – winery in Sonoma, producing wonderful Zinfandel and other wines
4. Lopez de Heredia, one of the classic Rioja producers from Spain
5. Talullah, a boutique winery in Napa
6. No Girls, an extremely limited production of Syrah and Grenache from Walla Walla Valley
7. Jordan, great producer from Sonoma, probably best known for their Cabernet Sauvignon
Bonus: Casa Burmester, a boutique Port producer from Portugal, also making wonderful dry wines
And here are the same pictures, only now you can see what is what:
-
- 1. White Cottage Ranch
-
- 2. Burgess Cellars
-
- 3. St. Francis
-
- 4. Lopez de Heredia
-
- 5. Talullah
-
- 6. No Girls
-
- 7. Jordan
-
- Bonus: Casa Burmester
As I said many times before, this was a very tough quiz – people generally don’t pay attention to the bottle tops. In this round, Zak correctly identified 6 wines out of 8 ( including the bonus), so he is the winner of this quiz and he gets the distinguished prize of unlimited bragging rights. Well done!
Now, to the interesting stuff around the vine and the web!
As wine keeps growing in popularity, it becomes the subject of crime with much higher frequency. An excellent article from Mike Veseth at Wine Economist is talking about some of the latest wine crimes, where wine was stolen in a very sophisticated fashion. I like the “CSI Fine Wine” designation used for the article – definitely an interesting story to read.
Have you written about the wine mysteries in your life? Mystery is a theme for Monthly Wine Writing Competition #6, hosted by Jeff, a.k.a The Drunken Cyclist. The submission deadline is Monday, January 13th. You can read about all the rules in this post – but don’t delay, there are only few days left!
Do you like wine books? I personally do, but I don’t read them nearly enough – I read more blogs than the books lately. Nevertheless, here is an excellent list from W. Blake Gray, where he is talking about 9 of the latest wine books, all sounding very intriguing and worth reading, like “The Billionaire Vinegar”, which had been on my radar for a while. Did you read any of the books in the list? What do you think?
Last but not least – some wine numbers, for all of you, number junkies out there. The Drinks Business publication just published a very interesting article regarding the most planted grapes in the world. It appears that the most planted grape in the world as of now is nothing less than… (cue drum roll) … Cabernet Sauvignon! And hated/loved Merlot now is a close second – quite a change from Airen and Grenache being in the lead for a while. For more of the interesting interesting data, here is your link to the original article.
That’s all I have for you for today, folks. The glass is empty – but refill is on its way. Until the next time – cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #87: How Well Do You Know Your Wines, Part 2
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
As I skipped the traditional Meritage, I would like to start with the answer to the wine quiz #86, How well do you know your wines. In the quiz, you were given the pictures of the top of the wine bottles, and you were supposed to name the producer or wine based on that picture of that foil top. Here are the answers (and below are the pictures, now with the producer/wine names):
1. Laetitia, the winery in California producing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines
2. Cambria, the winery in California, also producing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines
3. Wente, large winery in California Livermore valley
4. Turley, California Zinfandel and Petite Sirah specialist (however, the picture was taken from the bottle of Turley The Label Cabernet Sauvignon)
5. La Rioja Alta, one of the best Rioja producers in Spain
6. Peter Michael, California winery producing great Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon
Bonus: Satrapezo, a great wine made out of Saperavi grape by Marani winery in Georgia – I understand that this is a very obscure wine for many, this is why it was set as a bonus question.
-
- 1. Laetitia
-
- 2. Cambria
-
- 3. Wente
-
- 4. Turley
-
- 5. La Rioja Alta
-
- 6. Peter Michael
-
- Bonus: Satrapezo
Talking about the results – this was a tough quiz, with a few people being able to properly identify Wente, and then some guesses for the #2 being Cline – this is close, but incorrect. The “C” on the Cline bottles is done slightly in the different style.
I still like this quiz, so here comes round number 2 – hopefully you can do better! Here we go:
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
And the bonus question:
B. 
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
Weekly Wine Quiz #86: How Well Do You Know Your Wines?
The Wine Quiz series is not meant to intimidate. The whole idea here is to have fun and learn something new. When answering the questions, it is fully encouraged to use all available sources of information, including Google or any other search engine. There are no embarrassing answers – the most embarrassing thing is not giving it a try…
Welcome to the weekend and your new wine quiz!
Similar to the last week, today’s quiz will be visual again. And I have to tell you upfront, that I can’t take the full credit for it – I got the idea from Ryan Sorrell, an artist who is creating pictures from the top foils of the wine bottles (take a look at his web site here). Ryan posted this picture on twitter and asked people to guess what wine it belongs to. I know that many people pay attention to the wine labels – but how many people pay attention to the top of the foil, while they are cutting that foil out? Let’s find out! Below are 6 different foil tops – you will need to identify the wine producer behind each one of those tops (note – click on the pictures to zoom).
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
And the bonus one (as this one is harder than the others):
Good luck, enjoy the quiz and your weekend! Cheers!
Last Bottle Sign Up ($10 credit)
Talk-A-Vino 