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Too much make up?

22 Apr

make_upRare are those natural beauties who look great the minute they wake up in the morning… I think that a touch of make up can help a woman hide some minor flaws so she can feel great about her complexion. I am turned off by huge amounts of make up, frankly it scares me. Once it is all removed you basically discover a stranger.

Fluffy wine descriptors are the make up of (wine) writers which they use to embellish their description of a wine and to build their credibility vis a vis the readers. I get turned off by such style of writing. I have a pretty good command of the wine lingo and over the years I have learned to use it in moderation. Recently I came across a piece about a wine that sells for $7.99 retail ( so most likely around $5 bucks wholesale) it made me realize the predicament in which the author of the article was in:

  1. If the writer uses simple descriptions it will give the reader the impression that both the wine and the writer are not very good.
  2. If the writer uses descriptors and hyperbole that is beyond the average reader’s comprehension it enhances the perceived quality of the wine and the writer once again has fooled both the reader and the editor and manages to keep his job for another week.
  3. In this article I also realized that the author ran out of (fluffly) steam toward the end since he could only describe the balance as “nice”, the finish as “lovely” and the wine overall as “interesting”

After you read the article ask yourself the following simple questions:

  • What are phenolics? (do not cheat / do not use a dictionary)
  • When was the last time you had Brambleberries?
  • What is medium-high painted viscosity?
  • How much oak references do you expect from a $7.99 wine?

Here is an excerpt of the article:

“… (The) wine is a deeply opaque blackish-red color with a deep purplish core going out into a fine bright violet rim definition with medium-high painted viscosity.

On the nose: There are deeply concentrated and powerful notes of crushed black fruit dominated by black cherries, loganberries, elderberry fruit and brambleberries. Following that initial onslaught, there are minty phenolics, licorice extract, white pepper references, herbs, blackberry liqueur and earthy minerals underlying.

On the palate: The wine fills the mouth with a concentrated, powerful and richly spicy nectar of crushed black cherries, plums and boysenberries. Layers of extracted black fruit, phenolics, pepper-laced cherry juice and minerals follow, going into a tremendous midpalate that is just loaded with quality in fruit extract, oak references and star anise-infused berry juice. The finish is lovely and lingering with a nice balance among the concentrated fruit, relatively high alcohol and ripe soft tannins that at no time intrude on the quality or taste of this interesting wine.”

As I mentioned earlier, make up is not for everybody but if you decide to use some (and that’s your prerogative)… be sensible!

 

Top 10 ‘Confusing’ wine descriptors

15 Apr

When polled, 55% of the 1,000 (British) volunteers (who were all “reasonably well-informed” about wine) said that many descriptions did not help them understand the taste of wine. Forty-three tasting notes from leading wine brands and critics were presented to the test group, which in turn was asked to pick the terms it found the least helpful.

And the winners are:

10. Leathery

9. Vegetal

8. Brooding

7. Spring hedgerows

6. Haunting

5. Tongue spanking

4. Wet stone

3. Nervy

2. Old bones

and the most useless wine term is:

1. Firm skeleton

read more: http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2013/04/confusing-wine-descriptions-revealed/

15th April, 2013 by Rupert Millar

via ‘Confusing’ wine descriptions revealed.

Marriage = Health danger for women

24 Aug

A new study has found that men are likely to drink less when they marry, but married women tend to increase their alcohol intake.

A team led by Corinne Reczek, assistant professor in sociology at the University of Cincinnati, analysed data collected over a 47-year period from 5,000 Wisconsin residents who graduated from high school in 1957. Continue reading 

Should wine labels list ALL ingredients?

14 Aug

What if wine labels actually listed the ALL ingredients? There might not be room for them all. Well, maybe on a magnum.

BREAKING NEWS: wine isn’t just fermented grape juice. The European Union permits 59 things to be added to it, some of them seemingly innocuous (water), others icky (“lactic bacteria,” “edible gelatine”), still others downright scary-sounding (“ferrous sulfate,” “polyvinylpolypyrrolidone”). The United States permits many of these things, plus a few dozen more.

Yet unlike makers of, say, yogurt or soft drinks, winemakers are required to disclose only one additive, sulfur dioxide, via that nearly ubiquitous footnote that reads, “contains sulfites.”

At a time when consumers are demanding more transparency about the things they eat and drink, there is still a distinct lack of veritas in vino. Unless you have an unusually sophisticated palate — “I’m getting hints of betaglucanese here, with a note of potassium ferrocyanide, followed by a nice touch of urease on the finish” — it can be difficult to tell what’s actually in the wine.

What do you think? would this be a good thing for the consumers??

Yeah? / Neah?

via Organic Wine Journal | Your Guide to Organic, Biodynamic and Natural Wine.

New wine lists “options”

6 Aug

After reading FLORENCE FABRICANT’s article, I would like to propose the following disclaimer on future wine lists:

** All wines are served with a side of ice cubes, lemon wedges, mineral water and simple syrup.**

It is up to each customer to regulate the temperature, dryness, concentration and alcohol level of their wines. Management will provide guests with toll free phone numbers to various wineries so customers may offer their invaluable feedback directly to the people responsible for the production of their favorite libation.

Also, I am adding the following “options” to all future wine lists:

~ All sparkling wines are served with a stirrer (those bubbles sure make me burp)

~ White wines are served warm (they say: you can actually taste something when served that way)

~ Sweet wines are served with a wedge of lemon ( to cut through the sugar lump in the back of your throat)

~ Ports (served with a splash of soda, that stuff is way too thick)

~ The following are always served with a side of water:

  • Barossa Shiraz
  • Napa Cab
  • Mendoza Malbec
  • Algeria Sidi Brahim
  • Lodi Zin

On August 3, 2012, FLORENCE FABRICANT wrote the following article:

The notion of cooling red wine has gained some traction in recent years, and many restaurants now ask guests if they would like their bottle put on ice. But at Ruschmeyer’s, a seasonal hotel and restaurant in Montauk, N.Y., chilled red wine has its own section of the list…

You can read the entire article below: Continue reading 

HoseMaster of Wine™: The Dullness of Wine Reviews Cured!

17 Jul

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!.

Taxed to the Max?

26 May

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