|
Greatest Vintage |
Second Best |
Top Producer(s) |
|
1912 |
1900, 1904 |
Taylor Fladgate |
|
1927 |
1920, 1924 |
Niepoort |
|
1931 |
1934, 1935 |
Quinta do Noval “Nacional” |
|
1945 |
1942, 1947 |
Dow’s |
|
1948 |
1950, 1955 |
Graham’s |
|
1963 |
1960, 1966 |
Fonseca |
|
1970 |
1975, 1977 |
Graham’s |
|
1985 |
1980, 1983 |
Taylor Fladgate |
|
1994 |
1991, 1992, 1997 |
Warre’s, Dow’s |
|
2007 |
2000, 2003 |
Cockburn’s |
I know it sounds so nit-picky. But, I’m here to tell you that I – along with many people I know – would make much different choices.
Why?
How about you?
How do you feel about this? Would it help you to make better choices?
And, no I didn’t send the wine back, because I had made the (uniformed) choice of what I was going to be drinking. I do have to share that after a while, some of the alcohol blew off, but that wasn’t the experience I was looking for in the first place.
nowineforyou replied:
I don’t think it would help anyone to print alcohol levels for various wines on restaurant wines lists. The reasons are numerous. Let me try to just list a few:
~ Alcohol levels listed on wine labels may not be acurate due to the variance allowed by TTB ( http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&rgn=div5&view=text&node=27:1.0.1.1.2&idno=27#27:1.0.1.1.2.4.25.8)
~ Alcohol perception varies greatly from one individual to the next and even professional tasters can be misled
~ Alcohol perception is a function of the combination of many factors: temperature, acidity, grape tannins, oak treatment, skin contact, viscosity, residual sugar, varietal character, oxidation…
~ Viognier is a white varietal with thicker skin than most other white varietals and therefore is proned to higher astringency levels particularly when subjected to skin contact.
I would suspect that the intense burning sensation (in your throat) may have been caused by free SO2..??
Monday, July 16, 2012
The Dullness of Wine Reviews Cured!
Is there anything more boring to read than wine reviews? OK, besides Jonathan Franzen. If wine itself were as boring as the average wine description, we’d all be drinking Nyquil to get high. Which makes a helluva Grasshopper, by the way. Wine critics assign numbers to give us a quick impression of how much they like or don’t like a wine, and then somehow manage to write a description to accompany it that is actually duller to read than the number. How the hell can you be duller than “89?” Yet Wine Spectator does it dozens of times each issue. And the descriptions are all interchangeable. If the descriptions got scrambled before the magazine went to press, how would anyone know? They don’t match the wines they belong to in the first place, what does it matter? And nobody, but the winemaker, reads them. Until they appear on a shelf talker at BevMo and then it’s the better alternative to speaking to one of the clowns that works there.
via HoseMaster of Wine™: The Dullness of Wine Reviews Cured!.
‘City of Wine’, Yantai
China’s oldest wine company’ Changyu Pioneer Wine Co, has announced it is to build a ‘wine city’ in Shandong province.
On June 26th, 2012 nearly 250 distributors, retailers, food & beverage directors, wine buyers and others invitees from the U.S. western region converged on the Montage hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. for the 2012 Wine Dialogues sponsored by E & J Gallo Winery. Attendees were treated to an insider glimpse of the wine business covering many different subjects such as: the red blend movement, wine in the California central coast, worldwide extreme viticulture, wine & food, digital marketing… All these subjects were supported by the live testimony of experts and the synchronized tasting of wine samples to further validate the matters at hand. The 2012 biennial Wine Dialogues was moderated by Doug Frost M.S. M.W. (Doug is one of only three people in the world to hold both titles).
The overall tone of this symposium was set early on by Doug’s great sense of humor combined with a modicum of modesty which allows him to keep the audience focused and interested which is not an easy feat considering that very few of the guest speakers are actually professional speakers but rather experts in their own field and shared their passion in their own words.
The day started with a meet & greet California style luncheon al fresco on the terrace of the Montage hotel. One of my early observations of the well represented Las Vegas, NV delegation was their comfortable acquaintance with the “wine bar” portion of the buffet!.?
After the obligatory introductions we were ushered into the ballroom of the hotel where we would spend the next 5 hours. Opening remarks came from Roger Nabedian, Senior VP & GM premium wine division E & J Gallo Winery. Mr. Nabedian joined Gallo in 1986 and today oversees 30 different international brands “…the goal is to create a dialogue in order to keep a moving flow of information…” The rest of the day would be broken down in mini seminars. As follow:
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