Hey folks - a reminder for you that Twitter Taste Live is happening again tonight at 8PM ET.
This round will be for charity, as we will be drinking and reviewing the wines of Humanitas! (details available here).
Hope to see you online at twitter (you can also follow along with the action live below, and/or come back to this post for a recap after the event).
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Cheers!
Twitter Taste Live: Drink Charitably! TONIGHT 8PM ET
1WD @ WLTV & TTL (Have Acronym, Will Drink!)
What, too many acronyms for ya? WTF!??
I wanted to send a big THANK YOU out to Gary V. for mentioning me & 1WineDude.com on a recent episode of Wine Library TV. Thanks, bro!
I also want to send out a big CONGRATS to the fine guys over at Volta wine, whose wine Gary reviewed on the same episode. As frequent 1WD readers will recall, 1WD was the first ever media review of Volta's inaugural wine. Good guys, really, really good wine, and a fantastic start for such a newcomer on the wine scene. I'm personally very glad to see Volta tearing it up and getting stellar reviews, and I'm looking forward to watching how their wines progress in the years to come (and hoping that they keep sending me some of the Howell Mountain goodness!).
Click below to watch Gary's show in its entirety:
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The other way-cool thing going on this week is that we have two - count 'em, two - Twitter Taste Live wine tasting events going on before the end of the week!
The first of these is being hosted by the venerable Dr. Vino (Tyler Colman). The theme is "Drink Local!" and is a response by Tyler to the annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau (which can be sort of like the Bud Light of wine). I will be drinking (surprise!) the local Penns Woods 2004 Ameritage red blend for the event.
This TTL kicks off TONIGHT at 8PM ET. You can check back here on this post to follow the action live below, and also to get a recap of the event. Details on how you can participate can be found on TwitterTasteLive.com.
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And finally -don't forget that tomorrow night at 8PM ET, there is yet another TTL event - this time we will be tasting wine for charity, sampling the vino from Humanitas. Check out more about the story behind Humanitas at their website.
I will be posting tomorrow so that you can follow along live, or, if unlike me you have a life on Friday nights, you will be able to catch a recap of the twitter-ing (that probably isn't a word, is it?).
Cheers!
Ditch Your Wine Tasting "Training Wheels" (The Trouble With Wine Ratings, Part 3)
"Scores are like your training wheels - hopefully you take them off at some point." - Joel Peterson
I've never been a big fan of wine ratings or wine scoring systems. Mostly because I don't know anyone who speaks in ratings. Even sports fans (who, justifiably, love numbers, rankings, and comparisons) don't really speak in ratings.
"Man, the Steelers offensive line was totally an 87 in last night's game..."
Preposterous.
I also find it odd that wine rating talk generates so much passion when it is discussed. As cases in point, I offer two recent examples:
- Wine Enthusiast editor Steve Heimoff's critique of Mutineer magazine's critique of wine ratings (and Mutineer editor Alan Kropf's response).
- A thread on the excellent wine social networking website OpenWineConsortium.org, titled "What are the faults with the 100 point [wine rating] system" which, as of this writing, has eleven pages of responses.
Me, I've changed my tune slightly on wine ratings since I wrote two articles about the trouble with wine ratings (Part 1 and Part 2). That's because I've come to realize something very important when it comes to wine ratings.
There is no trouble with wine ratings.
Think about it - there is no harm at all in rating a wine. In fact, wine ratings have played an integral part in wine criticism, which itself has played an integral part in furthering wine into the incredibly exciting state that it's in today. There are over 7,000 wine brands available to U.S. wine consumers - somebody has to help consumers make sense of it all. As former wine writer and Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson told me recently over lunch (much more to come on that, by the way, in an upcoming post): "If we didn't have wine critics, we'd have to invent them!"
The trouble comes in how the ratings are used.
"A rating system makes an assumption that there is an absolute," said Joel. "We know that there are no absolutes. It's a more measure of like than of absolute quality."
To back up his observation, Joel told me a story about a tasting experiment that he performed with a group of experienced wine tasters: he took all of the Zinfandels that he could find that scored 90+ points in the big wine mags, and had them taste the wines blind. The result: all of the wines scored between 85 and 96 points.Joel then took all of the 90+ scoring wines from that tasting and had them taste those wines again at a later time. The result: the wines scored between 85 and 96 points!
Scoring is relative, and it's naturally tailored to the taster's palate. The trouble is, people put too much faith in scores without reading the fine print.
Joel's take: "Robert Parker was really the change-over point. A wine critic can make make or break a wine in the same way that a music critic can make or break a live music performance. Scores are like your training wheels - hopefully you take them off at some point."
Would you ride down the street proudly on your shiny Schwinn bicycle with banana seat, handlebar horn, and red sparkle paint job with training wheels still attached? All the while bragging to your friends about how you only ride bikes with training wheels on them?
Well, that's pretty much what you're doing if you decide to only buy wines from the Wine Spectator top 100 list, or if you insist that a sommelier only show you wines rating 94 points or above when dining at a restaurant.
Where you goin', training-wheel boy??
Far better, I think, to discover your own palate.
And then ditch those training wheels.
Cheers!
(images: allposters.com, ehow.com)
...And They All Got Baked... (Wine Blogging Wednesday #51 Wrap-Up)
Wow.
To say that I was impressed by the energy, turn out, and quality of the Wine Blogging Wednesday #51 participant posts would be an understatement.
Sort of like saying that the Grand Canyon is a minor geological anomaly. That kind of understatement.
To be perfectly honest, I was dreading (somewhat) having to carve out the time to read each entry for the event. That dread quickly turned into anticipation as my perceived labor became a labor of love.
And that is entirely due to the high quality of your posts - for those who participated, I can't thank you enough.
Once again, Wine Blogging Wednesday drew participants from varied backgrounds, different areas of wine-world involvement, multiple countries, and represented nearly the entire spectrum of wine expertise...
For those who didn't participate, below you are links to some great reads on a wine category that gets precious little attention these days - fortified wines - but whose expression can be just as sublime and enchanting as any of the typical, more attention-grabbing styles (for an excellent primer on some of this, check out K2's Madeira overview at the Wine Blog).
If you're still skeptical as to the power, finesse, and quality of baked / madeirized / oxidized / fortified wines, witness these two posts from two venerable and long-standing wine bloggers:
If that doesn't convince you, then you're probably not paying attention.
Following are links to the other fine articles from the event's participants, roughly in the order I received them.
Some revisited old faves, others tried something new, and many, many of them were pleasantly surprised by what sweet and fortified wines had to offer. If you're thinking of taking a plunge into the world of kick-ass fortified wines, you'd do well to read these posts as they offer a great summary of what's available to you on the market.
If you participated in WBW #51 and I didn't link to you below, please accept my apology in advance and leave me a comment here so I can rectify the situation!
In case any further proof is needed that WBW #51, in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk, "totally CRUSHED it," and also stomped it, killed it, and ripped off it's head to feast upon its supple eye jelly (sorry Gary, couldn't resist that one either), check out the way-cool WBW #51 mention on Wine Biz Radio - you can listen to the raw TalkShoe recording below, or download the entire show.
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Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com gpb.org)
Blind Tasting Smackdown: East Coast Vs. West Coast!
Actually, it's not so much a smackdown as, it turns out, a comparison of apples and oranges. Or, a comparison of Old World style vs. New World style.
After visiting both Opus One and Penns Woods Winery, located on the Left and Right Coasts, respectively, I thought it would be interesting to host a blind tasting between the 2005 vintages of both winery's Bordeaux-style red blends.
What would a clash of the titans like this prove?
Not much, it turns out, but it was an enlightening experience, and one that you will want to read if you appreciate differing styles of fine wines, and are interested in a bit of a litmus test on how far wines from both coasts of America have come...
Or, if you want to read the extremely geeky musings of two wine dorks.
Your call...
Anyway, for this blind tasting, I was reunited with my 2WineDudes partner in crime, Jason Whiteside, who was in town taking a few of his exams for the WSET Diploma in Wine & Spirits. The wines (hereby referred to as Wine 1 and Wine 2, until such time as their true identity is revealed) were decanted a few hours before our tasting, and neither Jason nor I knew which wine was poured into which decanter. Both wines were then poured into separate (but identical) Riedel wine glasses.
Following is the uber-geeky tasting play-by-play:
The Visuals
The Nose
The Palate
The Verdict
There you have it. East Coast meets West Coast turns out to be more like Old World Italy meets New World California. Who'da thunk it?
Cheers!
(images: 1WineDude.com)
Wine Blogging Wednesday #51: "Baked Goods"
Welcome to Wine Blogging Wednesday #51(WineDude)!
Dude here is hosting the 51st edition of the venerable WBW, and today's theme is "Baked Goods" - reviews of wines that are deliberately heated (aka "Madeirized"), and we're also allowing reviews of sweet Fortified wines to be included. For the scoop on how Wine Blogging Wednesday works, check out the WBW site. More details on the background of the theme can be found here.
Now... let's get this funk started!
I love Madeira. Love is a strong word. And I love Madeira.
It's often sweet, incredibly tasty, high in refreshing acidity, and because it's already been exposed to oxygen and heat (which would utterly destroy normal wines), it's virtually indestructible.
A Madeira wine from 1935 will pretty much taste the same today as it did in 1935, even if opened and enjoyed tablespoon by luscious tablespoon from then until now. Not only is it tasty, indestructible, and food-friendly, it also boasts an abv of 19% or more. It's a bad-ass wine!...
Normally, I'd expound on the storied history of Madeira, and give you background on the traditional styles of Madeira, food pairings, etc.
But...
Rather than take you through the history of Madeira wine - which I figured might be covered by one or more of the other fine WBW participants anyway (and if not can easily be found in detailed play-by-play on the web) - I thought I'd instead show you, by way of comparison, just how bad-ass Madeira actually is.
Let's compare kick-ass, indestructible Madeira to the so-called "Invincible" IRON MAN:The
"Invincible" IRON MAN
Totally Kick-AssIndestructible Madeira
AbilitiesSuperhuman strength, Repulsor-ray technology, Genius-level intellect Intense aroma
, Mouth-watering acidity
, Ass-kicking 19%+ abv
Edge: Madeira
ProtectionBullet-proof, temperature-resistant armor - TIE Impervious to hot ovens, attic temperatures, and long, perilous sea voyages
- TIE
CreatorStan Lee 
The Dutch Armada 
Edge: Madeira
NemesisThe Mandarin
, Alcoholism
, Soft spot for Pepper Pots
, Very large magnets
Edge: IRON MANCork Taint 
Tastes LikeMetal alloy Nuts, caramel, dried figs. -
Edge: Madeira
Result of
OxidationRust 
Characteristics of nuts and honey 
Edge: Madeira
No contest: Madeira totally trumps IRON MAN, 5-2.
Anyway, traditional Madeira comes in four flavors of grapes, each chosen to highlight a particular style of the wine, examples of which I tasted in comparison (witness below).
Notice how the color of each wine gets darker? This is a key to the style, which range from dry and nutty to lusciously sweet and caramely (is that a word...?):
Blandy's Dry Sercial (Aged 5 Years in oak): Made from the Sercial grape, grown in the cooler high-altitude regions of the Madeira island. Sherry-like, nutty (almonds, baby!) with searing acidity. Pass the hors d'oeuvres!
Blandy's 5 Year Vedelho: Made from Verdelho (also grown in the cooler Northern part of the island) - Sherry-like, but this time its darker and more 'Oloroso-ish'; the oak is more pronounced, and there's touch of sweetness balancing the acidity.
Cossart Gordon Medium Rich Bual (15 years): From the Bual grape (probably my favorite) from the warmer southern portion of Madeira, it ripens to higher levels so it can be made into a sweeter style. And sweet it is - as in sweet fig, vanilla, and hazelnut, with a long nutty finish.
Blandy's Malmsey 10 Year: Malmsey is the malvasia grape, grown in the warmest and lowest-altitude regions of Madeira. These wines can become ultra-indestructible and typically have a near-perfect balance between acidity and sweetness. In this case, the wine is bursting with burnt caramel, rum, honey, and smoke, with a smooth, luscious mouthfeel.
Now do you see why I use the word "love" when I'm talking Madeira?
Just don't tell Mrs. Dudette... she might get jealous...
Cheers!
(images: 1winedude.com, malone.blogs.com, historyguy.com, wikimedia.org, sahistory.org.za, d210.tv, wilsoncrfeekwinery.com, fruitsstar.com, purplemissues.blogspot.com)
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