What’s the Aging Potential of this Wine?

You’ll hear me ask this question at wine-tastings I go to. I should just include this phrase on my business card!

I was just going through some old magazines, “old” but “new” to me – haven’t read them. One of them was last Fall issue of San Francisco magazine. Apparently, I’d looked through the issue & dog-eared this article, “Better with Age”. Hmmm, how appropriate for yours truly – birthday coming up in May.

The article is about someone who ages wines – just like me, and owns a restaurant in San Francisco – unlike me. So he ages the wines for consumption & sale at his restaurant Heirloom Café. How refreshing! That’s awesome, Matt Straus!

Notice too many “wine bars” that place the wines on display shelves, left at the mercy of temperature variations, which often is either too warm (cooking, crowd), or too cold (San Franciscan evenings). Are you out there like me having a hard time finding those so limited, actually non-existent several-year-old wines.

These several-year-old wines could barely be called “aged”. But if they are worthy to be laid down, even just a few years more in the bottle, your patience will be rewarded with the complex flavors, with subtleties not found in a drink-it-today wines.

A word of warning: Not all wines could be aged.

Mature California Wines Can Now Be Found at a San Francisco Restaurant

Wine and Food Pairing: Rosé and Cheese

Please click here for FREE Weekly Wine Information “Bliss Wine Bliss Life”!

Cheese lovers claim that cheese is the most nutritious food in the world.

When it comes to cheese’s wine companion, a conventional approach is to pick a sweet wine (some call “dessert wine”).

Wanna try something other than a sweet wine?
Go for a rosé. A really nice rosé with some earthy, mineral quality, perhaps some herbal aromas as well, since great cheese also has these qualities.

Bliss Wine Academy is here to Enhance Your Life with Wine & Joy, One Glass a Time!

What does “Pinot Noir” and “royal marriage” have in common?

http://ping.fm/ND2o8

Wine Information: Stepping out of Napa/Sonoma

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Let’s step out of Napa/Sonoma for a little bit.
Off we go. To the far away place of Tasmania, where Tasmania Devils reside.

Tasmania first registered in my mind was through Tasmania Devil’s burgundy face on a bright sunshine yellow T-shirt of an old boyfriend. Also an islander myself, I had a natural affinity to the island of Tasmania. Fast forward to 2004, I watched on my new TV the royal marriage of Denmark, when Mary Donaldson – from Tasmania married the Crown Prince of Denmark. And Denmark, the birthplace of the Little Mermaid, my favorite childhood story!

My first Tasmanian wine was a Pinot Noir. I only remembered how my expectation of “all red wines taste like Cabernet” was transformed over the glass. That was for sure not a Cab! The easy, natural elegance of Pinot, like the girl next door who married well but never loses her genuine, warm personality, and the rich & generous earthiness, like an Earth Mother. Pinot Noir, by way of Tasmania opened my eyes to a different world of wine. It was an experience simply, captivating.

Wine Bottle Shapes

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OK, we’ll not talk about *all* shapes of wine bottles.
What we’re comparing in this post are just Burgundy and Bordeaux bottles

Now, Burgundy bottle is used for – obviously, red and white Burgundies, which are Pinot Noir (red) and Gamay (red), and Chardonnay (white) wines. Therefore, in the New World, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay wines are bottled in traditional Burgundy shape bottles.

Bordeaux bottles are used for Bordeaux wines (both Left and Right Banks), and wines of (major) Bordeaux grapes, which are Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

To Your Wine-fulfilled Life!

Newland Zinfandel, 1999

Following on the last posting on Monday “Wine is a Numbers Game”, here is a short note on aging wine – another “number” surrounding wines.

I had a Napa Zinfandel last week from my cellar.

A 2007 Christmas present from my friend Mark, who had noted that the wine was “ready” to be consumed. Consumed=enjoyed=quaffed. My Asian virtue of “saving the best for the last” made me “save” it in the section of the cellar for not immediate consumption. Although that’s neither the “long term” section, I still forgot about it, until …last week.

It was a Napa zinfandel, 1999, by Newlan. The winery’s phone number is no longer working. It was slightly passed prime – yup, it was still beautiful with brick-colored rim in the glass, gamey and brown spices flavors. Thanks to the acidity for holding it up for 10 years. If you happen to have this wine somewhere in your possession, find it, quaff it down!!

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Photo Credit: Jade Floyd

Wine is a Numbers Game

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What? Why? How is wine a numbers game?

Well, first of all, there are the scores and ratings, given by wine experts on the wines in wine publications.

Secondly, there are the prices that kinda separate many casual wine drinkers from winos. Knowing the cost of a good wine production (which starts from the vineyards), the latter are willing to pay $5-$10 more on any given region and based on any other decision criteria.

Furthermore, the vintage, or the harvest year. This is a significant number, particularly for the Old World wines.

We’ll stop here for the day. However, this does not end the relationship of wine and numbers. We are only getting you to start thinking, pondering, and discovering more of the “Wine is a Numbers Game” deal.

I am all ears for your “ah-ha’s” on “wine and numbers”. Please leave a comment with your discoveries on this, and that, and others.

Photo Credit: balcer17

Wine Quote

Just one wine quote for Wednesday the Hump Day:

It is well to remember that there are five reasons for drinking: the arrival of a friend; one’s present or future thirst; the excellence of the wine; or any other reason.
~ Latin saying

Here’s to your wine fulfilled life!

Pres. Obama in Spain – Read about Red Rioja

Apparently, Spain is on the headlines today, courtesy of President Obama.

Let’s get to know a little about Spain-ish wines -

http://ezinearticles.com/?Spanish-Wine—Rioja&id=2775510

What do you think? Comments, questions?
I’m only an email away!
Bonny@MadameWine.com

Wine Event: French Wine Society Conference

October 4-7, Sunday to Wednesday.

This event is more than just for wine professionals, it is for wine enthusiasts, too (“aussi” in French)!

The Pre-Conference Date, Oct. 4 is a fab opportunity to get educated on cheese, as if great wine tasting & learning is not good enough for 3 days.

Click here for details French Wine Society Annual Conference 2009

If you really couldn’t make it but oh-so-love to learn more about wine, click here for FREE Weekly Wine Information!