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Posts Tagged ‘white wine’

Juice Boxes

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , , , on November 6, 2011 | 2 Comments »

By which I mean Bota Boxes, by which I mean I’m reviewing the two wines I’m throwing into the Bolognese I’m making this afternoon. Because I have a lot of time while this sauce cooks can. Because these wines seriously look like they’re juice boxes. Also, because box wine has come a helluva long way from Franzia.

To start off with, the 2010 Bota Box California Pinot Grigio, as presented to you in Glowing Sunlight Bright-o-Vision:

Region: California (not any particular region in California, but people, this is a $4 carton of wine. It’s pretty impressive that it’s got even a California appellation)
Grapes involved: Pinot Grigio
Cost: $4.00 or so
Food pairings: I typically do Pinot Grigios with lighter pasta dishes, especially in the summer. That being said, this is a wee tiny box of wine, and I’m throwing 90% of this into my cooking. *That* being said, this wine is good enough that it doesn’t need to be consigned to the kitchen.
Rating: (DUDE IT IS A BOX WITH A RATING(!)) 84 from Wine Enthusiast. This wine has been on a ton of Best Buy lists. It’d also be a good, cheap Thanksgiving wine for the Chardonnay and Riesling haters out there.

The scent here is vibrant and strong, slightly citrus-y without being the grapefruit bomb of most Sauv Blancs. There’s some minerality here, as well, and a definitely sense of acidic dryness.

Flavor-wise, there are some pears and citrusy flavors (mostly lemon), topped with bright acidity. There are a few hints of peaches and something sort of tropical (pineapple-ish, honestly), and then something that’s definitely rocky. It’s highly acidic in that way that activates your saliva glands, meaning it’s a good bet for pairing with food. The aftertaste has a sort of oaky moment that I’m not sure what to do with, but that fades out and turns into apples as it goes away.

Next, the 2009 Bota Box California Cabernet Sauvignon, in slightly-adjusted-for-but-still-glowy Bright-o-Vision:

Region: California
Grapes involved: Cabernet Sauvignon
Cost: $4.00 or so
Food pairings: Well, you know, it’s a Cab Sauv. It likes steak. Or cheddar. Like, it kind of rocks with a good sharp cheddar mac and cheese. And, you know, it’s good for cooking.
Rating: 85, Wine Enthusiast

This, like all drinkable reds, needs a few minutes to open up. Once it does, it’s predominantly bright red cherries and some spice of the allspice/nutmeg variety, with a hint of earthy woodsiness in the background. There’s even a touch of a sort of caramel note to the woodsiness.

Tasting, it’s a lot of cherry and nondescript berry with a bit of green olive, a touch of wood and some warming alcohol (that blends nicely into the cherry). It’s a fairly soft Cab – there’s decent structure in the tannins, so it’s not going super velvety, but it’s not scrapy or harsh or tooth-and-mouth-drying either. The aftertaste is some kind of awesome combination of cherries and bright red Macintosh apples which lingers for two-three minutes or so before fading off. This is, following current trends the way one would expect a box wine to do, a very fruit-forward Cab – the fruit hits first and lingers longest.

So there you have it. Box wine can be totally good, and that’s before I’ve bothered getting into the 88-point, Lodi-appellated Malbec and Zinfandel that Bota makes (which I drink for realz, y’all).

I’ll be slapping the Bolognese recipe up here later complete with more bad pictures, but I figured I’d give you the wine review now. Because with a 6-hour sauce, I’ve got plenty of time to write.

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2010 Finca La Linda Torrontes

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on October 5, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Region: Cafayate, Argentina
Grapes involved: Torrontes
Cost: erm, $11-14 or so,  I think? My boss gave me this bottle, so I’m going off what I found on the Google.
Food pairings: Ceviche. Period. It would be *amazing*. See also: guac. Like this thing is begging for avocado.
Rating: nothing that my lazy butt could find, but I was admittedly being lazy

So, this amused me. I twisted off the cap (sidenote: I *love* twist tops on wine) and was presented with something that looked like the sort of child proof/tamper proof cover one finds on every OTC painkiller out there:

The nose is orange blossom, grass, something slightly citrusy, and something white floral like (davana comes to mind). The white floral notes grow stronger the longer the wine sits out and warms up. It’s a pretty, perfume-y smell.

The mouthfeel is pretty full for a white. It doesn’t have the sort of buttery texture that comes along with a long stay in oak barrels, but it’s still nice and full – it’s much richer than most white wines, without the really acidic bite that comes with a lot of Sauv Blancs and some Rieslings. The flavor is a bit of melon and peach with a lot of orange blossom (yay for bitter florals! <3), something that kind of seems like apple blossom (that I hope isn’t interference from my perfume), some lavender, a touch of some kind of white floral (this time, I’m coming up with paperwhite more than davana) and some lemon and orange rind and the slightest hint of green bell pepper. It’s got a really nice bitter kick that goes in with the florals - as a Campari lover and certifiable hophead, this is probably my favorite aspect of my wine.

The aftertaste, for whatever reason, is mostly green melon.

This is lovely and I could slurp on it forever, especially if I could find myself presented with a plate of ceviche. Enjoy.

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2010 Fire Road Sauvignon Blanc

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , , on March 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »

Country/Region: Marlborough, New Zealand*
Grapes involved: Sauvignon Blanc
Cost: $10-15
Food pairings: alone as an aperitif, with seafood (especially shellfish – scallops would be dreamy), anything with citrus or lemongrass (NZ Sauv Blancs are one of the few non-Riesling wines I could see pairing well with Thai)

Point of order one: I’ve been working all day and got lazy on the picture – one will be forthcoming should I decide to dig out my phone and the bottle and have at it.
Point of order two: I opened this bottle a week ago and took some notes, and then decided today to see if it’d be possible to have half a glass while typing this up just to help refresh me on it. Corked wine usually starts to turn at about the four/five day point – this is a screw cap, and it’s still absolutely fine 8 days after first opening.** Color me impressed.

Alright. Most Sauvignon Blancs have a major grapefruit component to the nose and flavor. This one, not so much. My nose is screaming passionfruit at me, with hints of orange blossom and maybe honeysuckle. It’s mostly passionfruit. There’s maybe a touch of grass in there as well.

This wine is fairly light-bodied, crisp, and very acidic. Flavor-wise, it’s bright citrus – think tangerine more than grapefruit - passionfruit, something floral (I’m reverting again to orange blossom/neroli – something in that range), and maybe a hint of honeydew. It’s really bright, really dry, and leaves a long, lingering acidic/citrus flavor.

Overall, the Fire Road SB is like bottled sunshine, and fantastic on this oddly warm, humid day we’ve got today. I would say it’s definitely worth trying, especially if you’ve had enough of Cupcake or Kim Crawford and want to try something new.

Would I get this again: oh, oh yes.

As a fun comparison, check out my Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc review from a few weeks ago. The Peñalolen is from Chile, and it’s all grass and hay. When put side by side with the Fire Road, you can get a really good idea as to the range of what this particular grape can do.

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*If you like bright citrusy wines and have never had a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, do so immediately. If you like Sauvignon Blancs but have never had one from New Zealand, again, do so immediately. If you already know you like NZ SBs (I am not typing that out again), then search this one out, because it’s new and different and fun.
**If you’re wondering how on earth any wine survived more than a couple of days in this house, well, I was in a friend’s wedding. Not a lot of home drinking time this week. Also: tourney time = beer time. And wing time.

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2007 Villa Wolf Pinot Gris

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Region: Pfalz, Germany
Grapes involved: Pinot Gris
Cost: $12.99
Food pairings: Lemme think. This would be epic with some seafood, especially oilier fishes. Like salmon baked with lemon and dill. Frankly, it’s awesome on its own, which is how I’ve been going about it.

The nose is bright citrus, a hint of sweet white floral (not all the way to jasmine – maybe paperwhite), and a touch of mineral. It’s very clean. I would like a perfume of it.

This wine. OMG. It’s tangerine right on the tip of the tongue, and it has a hit of really bright acidity right at the beginning. Then it sort of fades into this taste that I can best describe as being “wet rock” – minerals! – which is the main thing I sort of look for in Pinot Gris/Grigios and which has turned into one of my favorite tastes in white wine. It’s clean, somehow, and rocky, and honestly really awesome. Really rocky-tasting mineral water would be the best comparison.

So basically: tangerines and rocks. There’s a few grassy hints and whatnot to sort of round it out, but mostly tangerines and rocks.

Me likey. A lot.

At the moment, this is my new favorite Pinot Gris. It’s FANTASTIC. It’s so packed full of flavor that it makes most of the Pinot Gris/Pinot Grigios I’ve had taste frankly watery. Like, I didn’t know this grape could do this. Eat it, Santa Margarita.

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 (yes, I was in fact motivated to put hearts here. Sorry. That’s honestly never happened before in six months of reviews. So… that should tell you something.)

Fun Note: this wine is imported (read: IMPORTED NOT MADE BY, since he apparently has vineyards of his own – I played around with research and am going on what I’ve managed to turn up. So if I’m wrong, holler and I will edit!) by a guy named Ernst Loosen, who apparently imports flipping awesome wine. So if you’re playing around in the Germany section of your local wine store, his name is apparently a good indicator of a good bottle.

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2009 Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on February 20, 2011 | 2 Comments »

Region: Casablanca Valley, Chile
Grapes involved: Sauvignon Blanc
Cost: $13.99
Food pairings: This was bangup awesome with seafood and with the veggie tapas we were having. Jen has all the foodie details here. I understand if you hate us by the time you’re done reading it all. Specifically, you need to get your hands on the zucchini fritters and the white bean spread/baguette with this wine – so, so, so good. *drool*

That said, this is a not-great pic with an even less-great attempt at sangria in the background. So, um, I won’t share the sangria recipe with you because it was lackluster at best. This wine, however, is top notch, even if we were drinking out of mason jars.*

So in the great world of Sauvignon Blancs, I’m used to New Zealand’s more than anywhere elses. The reason for this lies in the sort of dilletante-ism that rules my life when I’m not being particularly careful or methodical about learning – i.e., I read in a magazine article at some point in college that the best Sauvignon Blancs come from New Zealand, and so I have generally ever since grabbed NZ Sauv Blanc whenever that was the sort of wine I was going for (without, you know, doing any of the research or anything necessary to tell me whether or not that one line in a magazine might actually be worth listening to). The upshot here is that due to that one randomly-grabbed tidbit of information, this was the first non-New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc I’ve had in years.

NZ Sauvignon Blancs (<—— I am getting sick of typing that, so I assume you’re sick of reading it,) are  bright and citrusy and cheerful. This was… not that. It is still a bright and cheerful wine, and it still has some decidedly citrusy characteristics, but it’s different.

The nose is predominantly grassy and herbal, with a hint of something that I swear my nose read as rosemary. And there’s something citrusy as well, but it’s lemongrass more than lemon – citrus-like, but planty rather than juicy.

The flavor is fantastic: it’s lemon rind, herbs, grass, hay, and something quite mineral-y. After a few more sips, it gets even more strongly grassy and develops a topnote of tangerine out of nowhere, which I really enjoyed.

This wine has a nice acidity and a pure, clean flavor (this is largely a combo of the citrus and the mineral: mineral always reads “clean” to me).

Overall, it’s flipping fantastic. It lacks some of the citrusy brightness of New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, but makes up for it in the grassy, hay-like mineral area. This wine is radically different than any white I’ve had before. I’d really like to have it again, and to try some other SBs from South America. Good stuff.

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*wine glasses were available – the mason jar thing was my fault. What can I say – I had just chopped off most of my hair and was feeling sorta hipster. And wine glasses are so establishment, y’all.

And finally: the mussels recipe is in the next post. Enjoy!

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2010 Frisk Riesling

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on February 16, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Welcome, everyone! This is the first post of my lovely new blog. I’ve imported everything from my old beer and wine blogs here so that you can surf the posts at your leisure without the trouble of blog-hopping and so my brilliance can be amassed in one spot.

This post is a review of the bestest of all best Rieslings I’ve ever had, dedicated to the lovely Dr. B for her naming brilliance: new blog’s name comes courtesy of Dr. B’s brainworkings.

Wine: Frisk Riesling
Vintage: 2010
Region: Victoria, Australia
Grapes involved: Riesling
Color: fairly clear with light golden hints
Cost: $11.99
Food pairings: It could do spicy, sweet, savory, cheesy, beefy, chocolatey or nothing at all. Who needs food when one has wine like this?

This wine is my current favorite wine on the planet. It’s the first wine I’ve ever believed I could consume in case-sized amounts. It’s light and sparkling and slightly acidic and slightly sweet-but-still-dry-ish and, like Walt Whitman, contains multitudes.

The scent is a wild combination of powdered sugar, jasmine, and all kinds of citrus-y things with bits of guava and tropical fruits of that ilk thrown in. It’s glorious and wonderful.* And I do mean powdered sugar (icing sugar for the Canadians out there): I never really noticed that powdered sugar has its own smell until I smelled this wine and had powdered sugar come to mind specifically.

Flavor-wise, it’s peach and jasmine and pear predominantly, with bits of tangerine, guava, passionfruit, grass, and something that hand-on-heart I think might be bubblegum. It’s maybe, maybe off-dry, slightly sweet in a manner that isn’t cloying and isn’t dessert-like. It has a really nice, bright acidity to it, which helps pick up the citrus-y fruity notes.

Bonus: it sparkles.

Like, it’s not a bubbly wine: this is not Champagne’s next  knock-off. The label calls it a “Prickly” Riesling, which I think works. There’s enough CO2 to make tiny little bubbles all over the glass, some of which float up through the wine and play on the tongue and all that sort of fun stuff, but that’s it.

I really do honestly think this wine is just about perfect. It’s my current standard for all other Rieslings – they have a lot to live up to now.

Please note: my photography skills are still  lacking. One day, this will be a much better, clearer picture with an honest-to-goodness readable label and everything.
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*I would beg and plead for a perfume that smells like this, but my skin kills jasmine and sugar faster than you can say “caramel factory on fire” (which is about what that would smell like on me). So I’m going to hope that some wonderful person comes up with a way to turn the scent into a candle.

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Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , , on February 1, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

We’ll consider this post as a two-fer on recommendations/requests – the Chateau Ste Michelle rec from Steph (do you have any favorite reds from them I should check out?), and the Riesling request from Dr. B (who might be happy to know that there are a few more Riesling reviews coming soon).

Also good to note is that I think I’m beginning a major love affair with Riesling. I hadn’t had too too many before I started this whole project under the mistaken impression that they were superduper sweet. Turns out that this isn’t the case. We’ll leave superduper sweet to the world of Muscato. Riesling has this lovely brightness to it that Muscato seems not to – Muscato seems to go more the way of near-dessert/ice wine sweetness.

Wine: Chateau Saint Michelle Riesling
Vintage: 2009
Region: Columbia Valley, WA
Grapes involved: Riesling
Color: fairly clear with light golden hints
Cost: $11.99
Food pairings: Seriously, I could see all kinds of things working here – Riesling seems like a really good wine for pairing. Specifically, I’d hit Thai, Indian, or some other spicy Asian food in a heartbeat, or any variety of soft cheese/bread/fruit, some kind of fruit dessert, chocolate, Nutella, anything you could dream of with chicken or tofu or whatever.

Sorry for the tinytiny pic, everyone! The label is pretty standard – name of the winery, name of the wine, pic of the estate. Functional.

Onwards to the wine itself then, shall we?

The nose on this is amazing – one of those “must have perfume of this” wines. My notes include pear, lemon, a possible hint of peach (which I then crossed out and changed to nectarine), orange blossom and a touch of sugarcane (not sweet so much as, well, it said sugarcane at me – like unprocessed form).

Flavor-wise, it’s pear, nectarine, melon, a touch of honey, some acidic, citrus-y brightness and peach. It has wonderfully bright acidity with a medium (I’m guessing) body and a shorter finish.

Notes from the label: The label mentions ripe peach, juicy pear, and racy acidity in the tasting notes. It also mentions that they use a long, cool fermentation to preserve the fruitiness and crispness of the wine.

Would I order again? Definitely yes, especially if Frisk Riesling isn’t available. Good stuff. I’m dying to pair it with some kind of Thai curry.
For that matter, this would be a good wine to enjoy even without food.

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2008 Kunde Chardonnay

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , , , on January 18, 2011 | 5 Comments »

Wine: Kunde Chardonnay
Vintage: 2008
Region: Sonoma Valley, California
Grapes involved: Chardonnay
Color: a sort of nice, slightly buttery golden yellow
Cost: $12.99-$17.99 or so
Notes from the label: tastes of ripe pears, crisp apples and toasty oak; pairs with fresh green salads, seafood*, or roast chicken and veggies.
Food pairings: as suggested above, really – this is definitely a “chicken” wine to me.

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My notes: The Kunde Chardonnay has a nose of oak, toast,** pear, and apple. Here’s the thing with this list, though – I don’t know for sure that this is what I would have come up with without the label notes. With the label notes, I could smell the wine and think “okay, that all makes sense.” I feel like I was sort of biased ahead of time, like I was playing hide and seek with the flavors rather than making my own judgments, and I don’t really like that. I think what I’m going to do is only allow myself to look at label notes once I’ve finished with my own reviewing notes, so that I can overlay what I think onto what the amorphous “they” thinks and see how my guesses stand up to expert opinions. Long story short: the label notes work for me here. I agree.

Flavor-wise, there’s an initial hit of what I suppose is “toasty oak,” now that I know that’s what they call it, along with pear and/or apple (I have the hardest time distinguishing those sometimes – this is some sort of apple-pear mélange, maybe). And maybe there’s a touch of something slightly peachy. It’s dry, with a medium, smooth mouthfeel. Not a ton of acidity. Very long finish.

I had this with the chicken stew that was made with the Nathanson Creek Chard, among other things. The stew was fantastic with the Kunde Chard, so I’m thinking I’ll post the recipe. After all, it wouldn’t be a wine blog without foodiebits, would it?

Would I order it again? Absolutely, if I were making something similar to chicken stew for dinner, because it was a really good pairing. I’m not sure I’m all that big on Chardonnays, however – I got to taste my first Sauvignon Blanc in roughly four months today at work and was forcibly reminded that Sauvignon Blanc has this happy citrus-y zing!*** that I adore beyond all reason, a zing! which Chardonnay lacks and which I find myself missing. However, I can also say that the Kunde is one of the best Chards I’ve ever had (not that it has a ton of competition), so this is definitely something I would go for were a Chard what I was going for.

Fun Tidbit: this wine won a Best Buy tag and 90 Points from Wine & Spirits, along with some other awards. The winery has gotten all kinds of recognition for being environmentally friendly and using sustainable growing practices. Yay!

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*This is the point where I got sick of transcribing the “insert adjective before noun” part of the marketing copy. Putting an adjective before *every* noun is flat-out bad writing.
**It had for seriously never occurred to me before this that when a label tells me something smells/tastes like “toasty oak” or “toast” anything, they really do mean toast. Like, toast-for-breakfast toast. Real toast. Bread toast. I’m used to finding toasty notes in beer, but that’s always made sense to me because beer vaguely resembles bread in my mind. Toast was never anything I expected to find in wine. I don’t know what I thought I was looking for, but toast-like-actually-toast wasn’t it.
I’m kind of a dumbass sometimes.
***Long-time readers of my beer blog will know something of my irritation with what I refer to as Extraneous Exclamation Point Syndrome. I recognize that by adding the extraneous exclamation point to my zing, I am in fact adding to the problem. However, Sauvignon Blanc doesn’t just zing, it zings WITH JAZZ HANDS. The extraneous exclamation point is therefore necessary. Deal.

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Nathanson Creek Chardonnay

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

Wine: Nathanson Creek Chardonnay
Grapes involved: Chardonnay
Color: is actually well-represented in the pic, for once!
Cost: $7.99
Region: California (no more specific than that, though)

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So. I generally think of myself as not a particularly big fan of Chardonnay. Most of the time, I’d rather have a Sauvignon Blanc. I’m doing an experiment today – I’m trying this right now, having just dumped half a bottle into some chicken stew I’m making – and I’ll be trying the 2008 Kunde Sonoma Valley Chardonnay tonight with dinner. The goal is to start getting a better sense of Chards in general.

So let’s start here. The nose is a combination of something sort of slightly woodsy vanilla (I’m taking it this is an oaked Chardonnay, then – the label doesn’t say, and so I’m assuming oak because oak is the appropriate default assumption to make with California Chards, yes?) and some grapes and alcohol. It’s all pretty faint – I keep huffing the wine like I’m trying to get high on it and I’m not smelling much of anything.

In the realm of taste, this has a bit of bright acidity, some flavors of vanilla and wood, and some sort of bright fruit* like a very tart pear. Maybe a hint of green apple. It’s a very smooth wine, maybe (I’m totally guessing here) medium- to full-bodied?

The aftertaste is a lot of alcohol with hints of caramel, wood, and really tart apple.

Would I get this again? It’s not that bad, really. It’s not great, however, and I’d at the moment be much more likely to grab something I know I like better (like a Sauv Blanc). For the price, however, it could be *much* worse. Like this winery’s Merlot.

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*Here’s the thing: I don’t eat tons of fruit. So I kind of suck at differentiating between which fruits it is that I’m tasting. I’m getting better at it with red wines – like I’m starting to get the differences between “plum” v “cherry” v “black cherry” v “cranberry” v “currant” etc. White wines, however, not so much. I think it’s because it is (as evident by the background of the picture I took of this wine) the dead of winter, meaning I’m generally in a red wine mood moreso than a white. We’ll see. Maybe this whole experiment will end in me eating much more fruit in an attempt to describe wine flavors with a greater degree of accuracy.
Wood, however, I’m all over being able to describe. My beer and perfume learnings have prepared me quite well for that.

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2009 Smoking Loon Viognier

Posted in Wine, tagged , , , , on January 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

The first thing I figured out today in starting to review this is that when writing about wine, one lists the year/vintage(?) first.* So I did. This implies to me that the vintage is more important to those who know what they’re looking at than the winery or even the grape used to make the wine – I guess the weather the grapes get to grow in really *is* that important.

Without further ado, let’s kick this journey off with the white wine I had with dinner last night. Per a suggestion from one of the wine geeks at work, I got a Viognier to go with some spicy stir fry that Tony made for dinner. My first reaction was something along the lines of “what’s a Viognier?” which, in my mind, was a good reason to try it.

Wine: 2009 Smoking Loon Viognier
Cost: $11.99
Label-provided tasting notes: none. The label did give me a vignette about why the company is called Smoking Loon, but that doesn’t help me have any idea of what the wine is about.
My guesses on food pairings: Spicy stuff – it was awesome with the spicy chicken/beef/tonsaveggie stir fry I had it with. If it goes with cheese, it would have to be a really light one.

Pretty, yes? It’s a very light straw color.

Thoughts: This wine has a very light bouquet that I would mostly describe as “white wine.” (Sorry, but, well, there it is.) I think there are some hints of pear running through it. Taste-wise, this is mostly pear with subtle hints of honey and citrus, and what I think might be oak. I’m not sure. I think this was a fairly low-acid wine, so what I’m reading as “maybe oak” might also be “low-acid not-oak.” When I think about whites, I largely think in terms of Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Grigios. This was closer to a Pinot Grigio - Sauvignon Blancs have a sort of acidic citrus-y brightness that the Viognier didn’t have. This was almost, like… oily? maybe? in comparison. Like I think it would make beautiful salad dressing. The Viognier was a bit sweeter, too, without being Riesling-sweet. Also interesting: this wine had 2000x more flavor when I started eating dinner – the food seemed to help bring out all the flavors in a way I didn’t notice them when I was drinking it pre-dinner.

Fun Research Bits: Viognier is a white grape that is grown alone the Rhone Valley in France. Wikipedia** tells me that Viogniers (the wine, not the grape) are known for heavily floral aromas. I didn’t really notice any floral notes, but this was only my first one. I should probably note to myself something along the lines of “look for flowers along with fruits and spices” or something to remind myself to pay attention for that sort of thing. Viogniers apparently also get turned into dessert wines from time to time.

Something else I’ve learned in the past two days: winemakers go insane happy nuts when grapes have miserably rough growing conditions, because apparently miserable grapes in low-yield, hellish-to-grow-in years makes for the best wine. Out of misery comes beauty, or something like that. Winemakers are apparently something of an emo bunch.

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*Actually, the first thing I figured out is that I’m nervous about writing this blog in a way I’ve never been nervous about the beer blog. I suppose it’s one thing to blare one’s knowledge all over Teh Intarwebz; it’s another thing to blare one’s ignorance/learning process.
** Y’all, I *desperately* need a better site for information on wine than what I can find on wikipedia. Any suggestions?

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