Our second wine tasting class was last night. The first hour Ted talked about why wine is cheap, or expensive. I won't do it justice because he has a very relaxed presentation style - I didn't feel like it was a "lecture" with bullet points.
I will summarize - there are many things about growing grapes that are not what you would expect. Poor soil and not very much rain is actually ideal, in a nutshell. You don't want big juicy grapes because they contain too much water and then the wine doesn't have enough alcohol which is key.
Mr. C wanted to know if there are Irish wines, hahahah but the answer is no, the lush greenness of it all does not lend the country to a Pinot Guinness. And England is not known for wines because centuries ago when English and French Royalty married they more or less agreed to grow the grapes in France. Hm. Bet they're sorry now.
Box wine comes from wine that wasn't considered "good enough" to charge what the winery needs to charge per bottle, to cover the costs of their crop (there's quite a bit of manual labor involved from pruning leaves off to get sun/air to the grapes, thinning down the grapes to concentrate flavor while growing, pulling out green / overripe grapes immediately after harvest, etc) Leaf picker... now there's a career option I might consider. Anyway, box wine can be nice, but not high enough on the quality scale to pull in the per bottle charge the winery is accustomed to. Since they have to get rid of it to have the barrells ready for next season, off it goes, into a box. How do you make a small fortune owning a winery? Start with a large fortune. (or something like that, can't remember exactly how he delivered the punch line, but You Won't Get Rich)
The good thing about the box is that it keeps the wine inside from being exposed to oxygen which will change the taste. (Which is why champagne always tastes like crap at a bad wedding reception - they put it in those stupid flat glasses instead of tall thin ones, and they pour it about 3 hours before anyone will drink it. Blaaaaaaaaaagh.)
If you need to chill a bottle of wine in a hurry, 35 mintues in the freezer will do the trick.
Ted gave us a list of some popular wine varietals (in other words, some of the ones he stocks)
- He raved over Muscadet and said that oysters are great with it. You will not EVER see me consuming raw oysters. Eww.
- Riesling - similar to white zinfandel but better
- Sauvignon Blanc is a good all-around (with chicken, fish, pasta & red sauce, etc)
- Viognier - a nice alternative to Chardonnay
Here's a website, for Sonoma county grape growers association: www.scgga.org
We tried 3 white wines. Ted pointed out you should try the driest first (and I thought "fine, if you know which one's which...")
Italy - Orvietto Classico 2003 (www.Ruffino.com) - he said this had trebiano grapes and my brother in law and I immediately looked at each other and said "Joey Tribbiano?" silently. I love him - but we are so pathetic. An ok wine, kind of tart.
Chateau LaFayette Reneau Seyval Chardonnay 2002 - from Seneca lake, if you know why that's funny. We liked this one the best but Ted said it has an "apple tart finish".... mmmm okay.
Glenora dry Riesling - NY state, 2002... I didn't like it - my first impression was the glass didn't smell clean. Apparently a GOOD riesling has a slight smell of Petrol according to the snootie tootie people.
Snacks were provided - a french cheese that was vaguely like string cheese, and a sheep's milk cheese that was semi soft and had a flavor like cream cheese or cottage cheese. I liked it, Mr. C did not. He frowns on things odd or unfamiliar. (More for me!) The sesame bread was good too.
We bought two bottles for when we cook (sister in law and I try new recipes together often, we're doing a French country cooking sort of pre-Valentines thing with brie in pastry, followed by scallops, eggplant/cheese/rice casserole, etc next weekend.)
- Chateau de Chasseloir Muscadet Sevre et Maine 2002.... about $10 or $15 for snacks/ main course
- for dessert, Robert Pecota Winery (California) 2001 Moscato d'andrea Muscat Canelli... a Napa Valley wine.
That's all for now. Cheers!
2 comments:
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Great, now I'm thirsty. ":-)
I love cheese so much I've thought about starting another blog, just dedicated to cheese. I don't know a whole lot about it, but they have awesome cheese shops out here. If it were possible, I'd move to Vt and work for Cabot...
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