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Wednesday’s Meritage #155
Meritage time!
I know it is somewhat early, but let’s start with one of my most favorite wine events of the year – OTBN. We are in February already, and that means that OTBN – Open That Bottle Night – is around the corner. OTBN is an event which is more than 20 years old, invented by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, wine writers behind the “Tastings” column in Wall Street Journal, to help wine lovers to part with those special, cherished, treasured bottles which all of us try to hold on to for as long as possible – and thus often missing an opportunity to drink the wine at its prime. OTBN is celebrated on the last Saturday in February – February 27 this year.
For many years now OTBN had been an important event in my book, as I’m unquestionably one of those hoarders who can never decide on the right time to open the special bottle. Celebrating OTBN paved the way to experience some truly special bottles such as the 1982 Olga Raffault Chinon or 1999 Soldera Brunello. This year, however, will be very different, as it is hard to get together in person. So I would like to suggest that whoever wants to join the virtual OTBN celebration on February 27, please send me a note (you can use the Contact Me form, email, or DM on Twitter) so I will be able to get you a meeting invite closer to the date. And you can already start thinking about that special bottle you will pull from your cellar to celebrate OTBN 2021.
OTBN only happens once a year, but then if you need help deciding what to open, you can turn your attention to the “grape holidays”, as I like to call them – a celebration of individual grapes that are taking place throughout the year. To help you keep track and make sure none of the grapes will be upset with you, here you can find a full list of the dates and grapes to celebrate. Actually, I already missed the Furmint day on February 1st, so yeah, time to focus…
A few more interesting tidbits. James Suckling published the list of all 100 and 99 points wines from 2020. There are 133 wines on the list, 52 of them are 100 points, and 81 are rated at 99. In order to see all the tasting notes you need to be a subscriber, but the list itself is available for free.
On an unrelated note, Wine Spectator produced a video introducing the Spanish wine region of Cariñena, the second oldest winemaking region in Spain and “the region to watch”. The video is short but contains a good amount of information about the history of the region, grapes, winemaking, and more.
That’s all I have for you today. The glass is empty, but the refill is on the way. Cheers!
Wine, Super Bowl, and Commercials
Tomorrow is the day when a lot of towns in America will look like ghost towns, as people will be crowded next to the TV screens in their homes and bars to watch one of the most important entertainment events of the year – Super Bowl, also known as The Big Game. There are two main attractions of that night – the game itself and the commercials, which run at some obscene rates, reportedly $5.25M for 30 seconds commercial (going 2007 rate was $2.4M for the same, talk about the absence of inflation). And then, of course, there are food and drinks – you can’t spectate such an event on empty stomach, can you?
Super Bowl and wine … yep, don’t go hand in hand. The drink of choice at all of the Super Bowl party is beer – but of course, it is all about your company and your personal preferences. Have no doubts that wine will be a drink of choice at Casa Talk-a-Vino. But – it is not the subject of the post, it is the commercials I want to talk about.
I learned something very interesting from the Wine Spectator article a couple of days ago – until 2017, there were no wine commercials shown at Super Bowl broadcast. The reason? Anheuser-Busch InBev, the maker of infamous Budweiser beer, owns nationwide rights to alcohol advertisement during the game since 1989 so you can imagine that wine is not on the menu of the beer giant. To circumvent this restriction, one has to get really creative and play “local ad” card.
In 2017, one company (Deutsch Family, the importer) decided it is worth the trouble and went for it, showing the advertisement for Yellow Tail, the Australian wine made by the company called Casella – in the past, holder of the crown of most imported wine in the USA. It appears that trouble was worth it, and the ads affected sales in a very positive way – look at the WS article for more details.
What I want to do here is to share with you the Yellow Tail commercials from 2017, 2018 and 2019:
2017:
2018:
2019:
What do you think? Which one is your favorite? I can definitely get behind this message – “Tastes Like Happy“. And you?
How Not To Saber, Or May Be What Not To Saber
I know many of my readers are well familiar with Jeff, a.k.a The Drunken Cyclist, writer of the eponymous wine blog. Jeff loves Champagne, and Jeff also loves to saber those Champagne bottles – I learned from him that it is fun, and the bottle of Champagne can be sabered not only with a proper champagne sword, but with variety of household items, particularly with a wine glass.
A short while ago Jeff posted a video of his attempt to saber the bottle with a stapler. His attempt was not successful, and he ended up sabering the bottle in the “traditional” way – with the wine glass. After watching the video, I left him a smart ass comment that he used the wrong stapler, and I thought that if he would’ve used nice heavy device such as Swingline, he would have no issues prying that bottle open.
Emboldened by my earlier successes with sabering with the glass, I decided to demonstrate how pros do it, so the others would learn.
Duh…
Here is a clear proof of my failure – the only difference with Jeff’s video is that mine is shorter and not well edited (it is just no edited at all). Plus my dog was trying to voice her encouragement (nope, that didn’t work):
My embarrassment didn’t stop there. Feeling challenged by some annoying bottle, I decided to show it who is in control and brought in the nice Chef’s knife:
The end result of this exercise was damaged stapler (the bottom bent slightly, as it appears that what I considered a solid steel was just a thin steel shell on top of something soft) and damaged ego. I definitely think that my choice of sparkling wine was part of the problem, as this French sparkler from Saumur didn’t have much bubbles after all – and I think having exuberant Champagne ready to “pop” is important for the success of the sabering (however I was previously successful with non-Champagne sparklers).
Well, I might need to practice again with the glass, at least until my confidence will be restored. But what about that stapler? I know! Staple Gun is next…
Wine Videos: Funny, Interesting or Blah?
Happy New Year to All!
I decided to start the new year with something fun and simple – wine videos. Actually, it appears that it is not that simple to find even semi-decent videos, so I’m curious what you would think of the videos below.
Martini Prosecco (?!) Commercial:
Stacked Wine Commercial (I actually saw it in the store, and it looks pretty neat, but I didn’t taste it):
Beringer commercial:
And Georgian wine commercial:
So, which one is your favorite? Cheers!
Wine Videos: Don’t Do This At Home, Kids
Last week we compared wine video commercials from some of the major Champagne brands (in case you missed that post, you can find it here). Today I’m not asking you to rate the videos. Just watch and learn… or not (one of the videos is definitely giving me an urge to actually try it at home). In these videos you will see how professionals deal (meaning: open) with champagne bottles. This method of opening the champagne bottle is called sabering, and if you never heard of it before, just watch the videos (you can also read about some history of champagne sabering here).
First one is showing champagne bottles being opened in a rapid succession to achieve a world record:
The second video shows how sabering can be done with just a regular glass instead of a sword. While it looks easy and effortless in this video, make no mistake – it does require good amount of skill.
If you will be brave and try it at home, let me know how you will make out! Cheers!
Wine Videos: Big League Sparklers Showdown
Continuing the “sparklers” theme, I want to offer you three commercials from the big league Champagne.
First, a commercial for Veuve Clicquot:
I’m not sure if the next video is really a commercial, it looks more as a tribute by Dom Perginon to Andy Warhol – but in any case it is a wine video:
And last but not least is a commercial for my all times favorite Champagne – Krug:
What the verdict is going to be? Any preferences? Cheers!
Let’s Look At Some Wine Videos [Again]
It seems that Wine Videos almost becoming a feature on this blog – well, I’m not sure it will be possible to continue this trail indefinitely. After all, I only share the wine videos which cause at least some emotional resonance on my side – you shouldn’t expect to see dumb ads with flat voices here. But – as long as we are having fun, why not?
So for today let’s start with Australia (yes, again Australia, I know – but I promise that the next one will not be from Chile) – it is for the wine called Wild Oats:
The next one is from Portugal, and it is an ad for Sandeman Port (yes, it is not from Chile, but – it has a train in it):
To tell you the truth, I find both of them interesting – but what are your preferences?
Enjoy! Cheers!
Which One Would You Prefer?
While researching information for the new post, I came across these two videos. Both are representing best selling wines in US or may be even in the world. One of the them is for Yellow Tail wine from Australia, and the second one is for Frontera by Concha y Toro from Chile. Based on the videos, which wine would you prefer?
Here is Yellow Tail video:
And here is Frontera by Concha y Toro:
So, tell me – based on these commercials, which one would you prefer? I have my preferences, but I’m not telling until you do…
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