Wine Tasting: Rugby, Wine and Rankings

Remember the Rugby and Wine post we did a little while back for the International Wine Tasting that Ruarri at Grape Thinking is doing? (It's o.k. - click here for a refresher). Well my husband and I have been watching all of the Rugby World Cup warm-up games which have caused a little shift in the rankings.

The top 10 teams going into the Rugby World Cup 2007 will be:

#1: New Zealand
#2: Australia
#3: France
#4: South Africa

Argentina has been bumped down a notch by Ireland (ya!) but so sad for the world of wine tastings in our house... looks like we're stuck drinking from only four nations. :)

Well what about our wines from here in the States?

Listen, I dumped Argentina for being 5th. Don't even get me started on the United States and their pathetic showing in the warm ups when they lost 6-10 to Munster (yes like the cheese). They are ranking in at 15 but I'm not expecting great things this year as they show little knowledge of the basics of the game - not even looking when they pass and let's not talk about the simple kicks missed.

Therefore I pledge to not drink any American wine in the month of September despite it being California Wine Month (there Joe, feel better now about being a month early?). I will be drinking and reviewing wines from the top four until we're left with two.

Look for our reviews here and at Grape Thinking for more fantastic picks - they're going to actually be in Paris for the games. Too much.

Beer vs. Wine Tasting

Beer verses wine is a question that puzzles us here at The Wino Club most days. Honestly, Darcy and I are severely uncomplicated people. We're the type of friends who would be just as happy opening up a bottle of MGD as a bottle of the finest wine as long as we were hanging out with other cool friends.

So this event intrigues us. On September 27, El Bizchocho Restaurant at Rancho Bernardo Inn in San Diego is hosting a six-course beer versus wine dinner.

Diners will taste a sampling of wine and beer with each course, then fill out a card noting their preference. At the end of the meal, which will include, among others things, hamachi, soft shell crab and lamb dishes prepared by chef Gavin Kaysen, the results will be tallied and announced. Championing wine will be sommelier Barry Wiss, who presides over the restaurant's cellar of over 1,600 selections. On the suds side, Greg Koch, CEO of Stone Brewing Company, the folks that produce the artisanal Stone Pale Ale, Stone Smoked Porter, and Arrogant Bastard Ale. The two will select the pairings in their respective categories. To reserve a spot, contact the restaurant at: (858) 675-8550. The price is $125 per person.

For more information, click here.

We highly recommend that our friends check out this link as the date of the event falls right in between my birthday and Darcy's birthday (call us if you need us to remind you of the exact dates). Tickets might be a great way to recognize our birthdays, don't you think?

Wino Club's Wine Journey

I was reading a post last night by a fellow blogger at Rockss and Fruit where Lyle was complaining that the big wines he used to favor and subsequently built his cellar around just don't make the grade anymore. And it got me to thinking about Darcy's and my wine journey.

There was a day when wine was just another drink. Two-buck-Chuck did the job just fine. Bunko was Drunko and the number of empty bottles at the end of the evening meant the difference of walking on the sidewalk on the way home or trying to find home. It was a beautiful place to be.

Then we started our own wine tasting club a few years ago with a bunch of friends and for a while we continued our naive tasting experience. Our palettes developed a little and we outgrew Two-buck-Chuck but weren't quite knowledgeable to venture much beyond our safe California wines. When Darcy and I started making our Wino Club Kits (shameless plug: a party in a box with instructions and materials to start your own monthly wine tasting club with friends) we started taking wine classes and certification courses in wine and the business of wine.

And our wine tasting world exploded.

Suddenly we knew what Chardonnay was meant to taste like and how the complexity of a wine was so much more important than the initial pop. And the more GOOD wine we drank, the pickier we became. And it's getting worse. I was at a party last evening and just couldn't drink any of the choices available because, well yuck. My palette doesn't crave yuck. It wants yum. So I drank beer. It seemed the better alternative (I may have to cancel my upcoming beer tasting classes though because I need some naivety in my palette).

It is horrible to go from one preference to another. We have to morn that blissful ignorant day when a glass of Two-Buck-Chuck hit the spot. And don't get us wrong, it's not that the more expensive is better. Some of our favorite wines are under $10. We don't need to reopen the debate about the State Fair again - it's not about that. It's about a subtlety of flavor that at an earlier point in our palette development just didn't matter. Now we're wine snobs. How horrible!

For me personally, I guess I will just have to serve the stuff I've outgrown for my friends who are still blissfully ignorant. I can't serve it to my Wino Club but my Drunko group will drink anything. Sorry ladies, but I can't let even bad alcohol go to waste!

California Wine Month Declared by Schwartzennegger

It's the middle of the harvest and California Governor Arnold Schwarzennegger has declared September to be California Wine Month for the third year in a row. On their new website, set up in honor of this great PR moment, the Wine Institute shows their enthusiasm by posting the actual proclamation that you can download. They even have California Wine Month tasting mats that you can print up for your celebratory event.

Go visit the site and see their calendar of events for a fun way to get a taste of California.

Fantasy Wine

I don't have high hopes of becoming a wine investor anytime soon. It's not the output of money that puts me off, although anything over $40 is spendy on something I'm consuming. No it's the not opening the bottle that gets me. It's the waiting. Being a typical American consumer / wine drinker I think that's quite normal. I have a small wine rack that holds about 12 bottles and it's my quest to always keep it full. Consequently that means frequent replenishing because I actually drink the bottles I put in there.

But with a free budget (meaning other people's money) to buy any wine as an investment online, could I just walk away for two years to come back to check on my profit? It's wine investing without the stress of looking at your unopened bottles beckoning to you "open, open, open," like a Mervyn's commercial.

Hold tight because Decanter Magazine runs a game that lets you do this. I believe it is full for the 2007 investment (winners to be posted in 2009 if you remember to check back) but those lucky players were given 10,000 pounds to buy a portfolio of wine. There were 25 different wines and to pick and choose from until the monetary allotments were spent. In 2009 their wine portfolios will be assessed and a winner will be determined.

It's like Fantasy Football for Winos and a really, really cool idea. The downside is that I have immediate gratification issues (did you read the first part of the article?) and could never wait two years to find out if I'd won or lost. If I had that sort of patience, I would actually buy the wine itself and wait to drink it, or sell it for that matter.

To read more about the rules and to find the lists of past winners go to Decanter Magazine here.

Rubgy and Wine

Now we never really correlated the Rugby World Cup and Wine... we love beer too and figured that Rugby and beer were a natural pairing, right? Then we received this email and we can't wait to start tasting.

Dear Stacy,

Thanks for your comment on our site! In the spirit of internationalism and world events – Grape Thinking is hosting the World Cup of Wine in September 2007 in honour of the World Cup Rugby in France this September. Basically, countries came to play Rugby in the same way that they came to learn the craft of winemaking – and the tradition comes from a long line of cultural sharing, and the World Cup Rugby represents a celebration of shared culture and the in these troubled times, is a demonstration of the world in union: different cultures and countries all playing the same sport and celebrating unity in diversity.

The World Cup of Wine 2007 aims to show how wine merely represents a facet of internationalism – and it is things like wine, rugby, food, literature and music that bind this world together – and for this reason they should be celebrated. We wish to do this by encouraging people to try wine from the great rugby playing nations and to then submit reviews to us.

Grape Thinking opens its pages to wine bloggers and enthusiasts from the 1^st of September 2007 to Sunday the 30^th – and we will feature reviews, bottle shots and pictures of wines from Italy, France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina that are e-mailed to Ruarri@grapethinking.com – all in all, we aim to feature in excess of 180 reviews.

Italy, France, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina are not only some of the world’s great wine-producing nations: but they are also great rugby nations.

Stacy, I’d like to personally ask you if you would like to submit a few wine reviews for the event. We will have a draw at the end of the event – and all the reviewers who submit will be entered into it. At the end of the month, the winner of the draw will be in the running to wine a bottle of wine from each one the featured countries.

If the Grapethinking team can be of any help to you, please be sure to let us know.

Also, if you have any comments, requests or suggestions in regard to the event or anything else please let me know.

Stacy, thanks for taking the time to read this.

Cheerz,

Ruarri

With an invitation like this, how can we not participate? We are looking forward to watching some awesome Rugby (alas only on t.v.) and drinking some great wine in the wine blogging community. Thanks go out to Grapethinking for the invite!

Passionate About Wine?

Hello!

Our post today is a bit less about wine and more about, well this whole blogging thing we're doing here. There are thousands and thousands of blogs in the world right now, making it more and more possible to not only get the information you need on any topic but to make it an ongoing education that's fun.

Case in point, if you enjoy reading this blog we would like to encourage you to visit the links that we have posted along the right side of your screen. These are some of the best wine blogs we have found and we keep in touch with what's going on in the world of wine by reading them regularly.

I know that most websites don't encourage people to visit their competition, but the Blogosphere is different. We Bloggers are like a giant community of people with similar interests, in this case wine. So surf away and support our fellow Winos! We subscribe to all of their feeds and we're hoping a few of them will interest you as well.

Our 'techy' trick to making sense of all of these blogs? We have Bloglines installed. It is a free program that enables us to subscribe to many, many blogs and then flip through the new posts within minutes without necessarily having to go to each site every day. You can use it for our blog too :) Check it out by clicking here. Then when you subscribe to any blog (like ours - there's a button on the right that you hit to subscribe) it will post the feed into your Bloglines each day so you can see who has updated their content and you can read the posts on your Bloglines screen. It's a great time saver AND a great way to learn about wine.

Have a great time... we'd love to hear about which blogs were your favorites! And if you find some you think should be added to our site, post the link in the comments area and we'll take a look.

Thanks and happy blog surfing!

Stacy & Darcy,
Original Winos at http://www.thewinoclub.com

Temecula Winos Gone Wild

O.K. seriously. Here's a story brought to our attention by fellow blogger Marisa D'Vari at A Wine Story about our little wine country here in Temecula, CA. I thought the epidemic was prevalent only on the East Coasts (see Lenndevours for details on this story) but evidently I was wrong.

Here is a top news story on CBS posted a couple of days ago.

I cannot say that I have not noticed drunken tours going through town, but when you have paid for a designated driver the tasting automatically turns into more of a pub crawl. We have over 20 wineries here in town. Even if some are banning the tours many are not. Locals wishing to avoid the chaos pick the smaller wineries. Do the tours make tasting a miserable experience? Absolutely NOT. People watching is as much fun as tasting the wine. I would object more if the tours were self directed with drunk drivers on the road.

Any thoughts on how Temecula compares to other wine regions? Is Napa Valley really so sophisticated as to not hold limo tours? I personally know of a group of friends that visited 11 wineries in one day with 24 people. Chaos? You bet. It's to be expected!

Naked Chardonnay for Wine Blogging Wednesday

O.K. so we're a day behind... did you read the last post about being on vacation? Anyhow, we did taste a Naked Chardonnay for Wine Blogging Wednesday and even though it's Thursday, we can't be left behind, can we?

Stats: Novellum 2004 Chardonnay Vin de Pays des Cotes Catalanes, imported by Eric Solomon/ Europesn Cellars.

We went to France in the region of Languedoc for a country wine (Vin de Pays) and spent a whopping $5 on this $10 wine because we have a store near us closing down. SCORE! This unoaked Chardonnay was definitely higher in acid than a typical Chardonnay, even one from France. It had a distinct nose with scents of stone, banana, burnt sugar, walnut and citrus. The finish was not long but was a nice crisp white wine with a beautiful golden Chardonnay hue. Serve it up with some spicy Thai food and you've got a bargain of an afternoon wine on your hands.

By the way, did you notice the Americanized label with the varietal listed instead of the region? It took us a couple of takes to really understand how European wines are adjusting to the times eh?

Check out all the wine recaps at Lenndevours!

Wine in Colorado

Did everyone miss us? Darcy and I both went on vacation at the same time. Darcy went out to Key West, Florida to visit her brother and family and I went to Denver, Colorado to take the kids to see my mom. My mother and her husband don't really drink so I was considering myself on sabbatical. Funny thing is that I just could not take a complete wine break.

It was an odd thing to be driving away from the Georgetown Loop Railroad and run into a winery. Yep. Middle of Colorado and not a vine to be seen and on the side of the road was a charming little winery called Canyon Wind Cellars.

Turns out the vineyards are 200 miles away in Palisade, Colorado along the north bank of the Colorado River at 4,710 feet in elevation. Their mantra, from wine maker Robert Pepi is "Taste what world class winemaking does for the wonderful grapes of Western Colorado."

O.K.. Four free tasting - how can I not? They offered the usual suspects with a couple of twists I found enjoyable. Of course there was a Rose since it is so hot right now. It was more of an American Rose tending more on the sweet side of blush. Their Chardonnay was twist one. There were two Chards: one oak and one not. Twist two was the wine I bought: 2005 Petit Verdot. It was such a little seen varietal that the uniqueness of it drew me to want to pack it up in my suitcase (which may be why they searched it and then lost it for a few hours, delivering it to my home unscathed at midnight).

This wine has some weight and structure to it for sure. According to their descriptors... “…a dark, rich wine with exceptionally deep color, great weight and structure. Aromas and flavors of violets, dark berries, and black cherries abound with a hint of bacon. Enjoy with hearty game or spicy Cajun food!”

Bacon? mmmmmmmmmm. Actually I did detect a leathery smell and flavor, perhaps tanned bacon? Anyhow, I'll be letting this one sit of a couple of years to tame it down and let some of the flavors mature. It will remind me of a Colorado winter because it's not one I'm going to be drinking in the middle of summer for sure!

My mother bought the Rose, but since White Zinfandel is her favorite wine it was not shocking. Please don't get me started.

So next time you're in Colorado I would encourage to you to stop in at one of their two locations. Their web site is http://www.canyonwindcellars.com.

Happy tasting!

Wine Blogging Wednesday - Spain Under $10

Imagine the front of a Syrah, earthy and gamey, with the finish of a Zinfandel, black cherry spice and heat, and you’ve got the Luzon Verde 2005 from Jumilla, Spain. We’ve been reading so much about the newer trend of organic wines that when we saw this wine we killed two birds with one stone. Finca Luzon is known for putting out perfectly dependable red wines out of Spain and this one is no exception. At 100% Monastrell, or Mouvedre, it is a bit unusual. Normally a blended varietal, it stands alone here and does a bang up job.

Honestly, the smell is not so pleasant as we immediately note a dirty sock floating around in our glass. It is definitely meaty with some tart fruity undertones of gooseberry and blueberry. The color however is an absolutely beautiful dark solid purple.

The tannins, normally quite high in this varietal are tamed out nicely, perhaps because of the tank fermentation used. The best part of the tasting was the duplicity of wine. It really does start out gamey and full and then rolls seamlessly into a spicy heat with a black cherry or red licorice finish. And let’s talk about the 13.5% alcohol. If Syrah and Zin had babies, this is what it would be.

This is an unbelievable value at under $10. Wines of Spain just went up a notch in our belts this afternoon sipping this bargain.

For more information on the upcoming Wine Blogging Wednesday, tune into http://lennthompson.typepad.com/lenndevours/wine_blogging_wednesday.html and a big thanks to this month's coordinator at http://www.wine-girl.net/. Happy tasting!