Wine

[andydp]

Not a big wine fancier.  I don't try to find tastes of strawberries and oak barrels in the latest MD 2020.  I just go with what I'm familiar with: in my case Italian wines. (Chianti is the exception)  I love the Bolla Valpolicella, Soave and Barolo.  Perfect wines for almost anything you're going to eat, not necessarily Italian food.

A month ago, I came across a wine called "1000 Stories" its claim to fame is its aging in bourbon barrels.  I just bought a bottle of Zinfandel to try with tonight's steak dinner. I am in love.  The aftertaste is amazing ! The little hint of bourbon at the end is a perfect ending.  Highly recommended !  Enjoy !!

Shameless plug:  I am a big fan of "Fontana Candida" a white wine from Frascati (near Rome) Italy.  Super wine with seafood.  I have wonderful childhood memories of Frascati:  we would drive up there, get some cold cuts and bread at a salumeria then go to a cantina.  My dad would enjoy the wine, I would enjoy the cold cuts (and a little watered down wine).  We had a great time.  Happy memories of Italy in the 50's.

[LFC]

Now you having me longing to get back up into the Finger Lakes region of NY. We really enjoy their dry Rieslings (I can't abide sweet ones from Germany), Cab Francs, and an Old World grape called Saperavi which is apparently from Georgia. We've had both red and rose made from Saperavi grapes up there and they have a lot of flavor without being overpowering. I'm faaaaaar from being a super taster but to me it almost feels like a nice full bodied red with a bit of port blended into it.

Maybe in May I'll take my wife back to the one cheese place where you can bottle feed the baby goats.

[Bact PhD]

Like the new topic!

I’m on the lookout to try new things when it comes to wine. Funny thing you mention the Finger Lakes, LFC, as one of my summer “go-to”s is out of that region—a concoction called Red Cat, which is reminiscent of sangria (the same outfit also makes a “White Cat”, but I didn’t care much for that one). Cabernet Sauvignons in the winter months, more Sauvignon Blancs in the warmer months, which means “most of the year” here.

I’ll have to get a little more knowledgeable on the Italian vintages; I’m always looking to sample.

What *don’t* I recommend? Wines from Florida. Seriously. Muscadine grapes, and everything that I’ve tried with that grape leaves a funky aftertaste.

[andydp]

I would remiss if I didn’t mention a favorite go to wine from the Finger Lakes that we love to give friends: Bully Hill Winery’s Special Reserve Red. Super wine with steak or roast beef.

Plenty of other great wineries in the Finger Lakes. So your only guide is what you like.

For great conversation starting souvenirs be sure to stop at “Pompous Ass” winery.

[goldenvalley]

Oct 2, 2021 21:38:42 GMT andydp said:

I would remiss if I didn’t mention a favorite go to wine from the Finger Lakes that we love to give friends: Bully Hill Winery’s Special Reserve Red. Super wine with steak or roast beef.

Plenty of other great wineries in the Finger Lakes. So your only guide is what you like.

For great conversation starting souvenirs be sure to stop at “Pompous Ass” winery.

Love the name.  Reminds me of a friend who sniffed his wine and announced "an impudent bouquet!"

[LFC]

[andydp]

Oct 3, 2021 23:54:18 GMT LFC said:

No poem was ever written by a drinker of water.

Horace

I told my wife a man is like wine, he gets better with age. She locked me in the cellar.

Rodney Dangerfield

[LFC]

Who knew wine making was so dangerous?

Four Italian men between the ages of 40 and 70 perished while producing wine from their family vineyard over the weekend, according to Italy’s fire brigade.

The men—Santino and Massimo Carnevale, aged 70 and 45, and brothers Giacomo and Valerio Scofano, aged 70 and 50— were all related and taking part in an annual winemaking tradition near the city of Paola in the southern region of Calabria. One of the victims, Valerio Scofano, was not supposed to be in the shed, having been condemned to house arrest in his home several miles away for stalking a former lover.

They were found on the floor of a small shed where they were fermenting grapes without proper ventilation. The local prosecutor, Pierpaolo Bruni, said that an inquiry into the deaths would be opened, but that the room was “not sufficiently ventilated” for the high level of carbon dioxide the fermentation process produces.

[andydp]

Oct 4, 2021 21:09:04 GMT LFC said:

Who knew wine making was so dangerous?

Four Italian men between the ages of 40 and 70 perished while producing wine from their family vineyard over the weekend, according to Italy’s fire brigade.

In 1967, there was a major wine making scandal in Italy. A company that was suddenly spending lots of money on ads and commercials was found to be making "fake" wine. They took the crushed grapes, put them in stainless steel tanker trucks and drove around Italy. After a couple of weeks the "wine" was fermented enough for selling.

[LFC]

Israeli Archaeologists Uncover 'World's Largest' Byzantine-era Winery

Israeli archaeologists on Monday uncovered a Byzantine-era, industrial-scale wine complex which produced some two million litres of the drink annually and was the world's "largest" such centre at the time.

The facility in Yavne, south of Tel Aviv that was a Jewish settlement during biblical times and a key city after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, is comprised of five wine presses sprawling over a square kilometre (0.4 sq mile).

The 1,500-year-old site covers warehouses for ageing and marketing the wine, kilns for preparing the clay amphorae used to store the wine and "tens of thousands of fragments and intact earthen jars", the Israel Antiquities Authority said of the "sophisticated" site.

[andydp]

Something new for retirees.  This is the Cubicool.  As shown it retails for 68.88 Euros ($75.61 USD).  You can get a double Cubicool that holds two different wines, or frozen fun drinks.

Who says ingenuity is stagnant ?

[Bact PhD]

One tradition that seems to be going away — the foil/capsule. Suits me. Of course, I find screw caps even better…

www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/05/26/wine-bottle-foil-going-away/

Are we seeing the end of the wine capsule? The capsule, also called the foil, is one of those anachronisms of wine, a relic of centuries-old tradition that hangs on because wine lovers like to think of themselves as part of a centuries-old tradition. But today we are seeing more and more wines bottled without them.

You’ve probably wrestled with capsules. Those blades on the end of your cork puller are notoriously dull, unable to cut through even the cheapest plastic covering. You really need to exert yourself to remove the top of a tin or aluminum foil capsule, and then worry about cutting your finger or getting shards of foil into the wine. And I’ll bet you’ve given up in frustration and just wrestled the entire thing off the bottle — a no-no for formal sommelier service but very practical at home.

[goldenvalley]

May 26, 2022 20:01:09 GMT Bact PhD said:

One tradition that seems to be going away — the foil/capsule. Suits me. Of course, I find screw caps even better…

We've noticed that the cork used these days is not very solid.  We've thrown out nice bottles of wine bought several years ago because the cork allowed air to get to the wine.  

[Bact PhD]

May 26, 2022 21:57:08 GMT goldenvalley said:

We've noticed that the cork used these days is not very solid.  We've thrown out nice bottles of wine bought several years ago because the cork allowed air to get to the wine.  

Ew.

I think I encountered that with a 2015 white I opened in 2021. It was definitely “off”— glad I wasn’t serving it to guests as I had originally intended.

[andydp]

May 26, 2022 20:01:09 GMT Bact PhD said:

One tradition that seems to be going away — the foil/capsule. Suits me. Of course, I find screw caps even better…

www.washingtonpost.com/food/2022/05/26/wine-bottle-foil-going-away/

Are we seeing the end of the wine capsule? The capsule, also called the foil, is one of those anachronisms of wine, a relic of centuries-old tradition that hangs on because wine lovers like to think of themselves as part of a centuries-old tradition. But today we are seeing more and more wines bottled without them.

You’ve probably wrestled with capsules. Those blades on the end of your cork puller are notoriously dull, unable to cut through even the cheapest plastic covering. You really need to exert yourself to remove the top of a tin or aluminum foil capsule, and then worry about cutting your finger or getting shards of foil into the wine. And I’ll bet you’ve given up in frustration and just wrestled the entire thing off the bottle — a no-no for formal sommelier service but very practical at home.

I always thought the capsule was part of the je sais qua of wines. If you go back a 'few" years the screw cap was reserved for something like Boone's Farm or Bali Hai.  Now I find them on good quality wines from Italy and France.  From what I understand, there is a severe cork shortage in Europe.  I have noticed our domestic wineries are using plastic corks for their product.  

All this means is there will be plenty of opportunity to test if corks or twist tops are better. Its a dirty, rotten, job but someone has to do it.

[Bact PhD]

On the local news this evening, the anchor mentioned that today just happens to be National Red Wine Day. Well, goll-eee, far be it from me to ignore National Red Wine Day… I think there’s something passable in my wine fridge.

[LFC]