Facts

Facts April 22, 2012

Is it Necessary for Wineries to Give Full Disclosure on their Labels?

Winemaking has come to be romanticized as simply grapes, barrels, and time. But, not surprisingly, there’s a little-more to it than that! There’s chemistry, microbiology, additives, smoothing out the rough edges, tweaking flavors, clarifying, deepening the color, and doing everything else to meet the expectations of the wine drinking public.. This gap between public perception and reality has sparked a bit of a debate in the winemaking industry, and inspired a very few bold wineries…

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Facts April 19, 2012

A Guide to Wine Faults – Herbaceousness

Herbaceousness Green aromas (such as bell pepper, asparagus or generally vegetal aromas) in a wine can sometimes be mistaken for bad winemaking or harvesting the grapes too early. But most of the time it’s just a character in that particular grape i.e. Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet Franc, and can’t really be considered a true wine fault.  In fact, “green” aromas have long been considered a staple of French wines (due to the colder climate and…

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Facts April 17, 2012

The 5 Most Common Mistakes When Building a Wine Cellar.

This is a “two birds with one stone” post. Firstly I’d like to welcome my newest sponsor: Joseph & Curtis. The specialty of these two gents (Joseph Kline and Curtis Dahl) is building custom wine cellars and racks for both residential and commercial clients, to suit any budget. Their work speaks for itself (as you’ll see from some of the stunning photos in this post). Needless to say I’m extremely proud that they’ve chosen to…

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Facts April 11, 2012

What’s the rule for how long a wine should be left to breathe in a decanter?

Tough one, and not with a very straight-forward answer! But this is wine, right? And if there’s one thing to be learnt from the world of vino, it’s that nothing is straight-forward! Ever! When it comes down to it, it’s really a matter of preference for how long a wine should be left in a decanter before you serve it: – If a wine is young and bold, an hour or two should suffice. Any…

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Facts, News, Social Media April 6, 2012

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog – Part 1 of 2.

As is the way with these types of posts, I started writing this article hoping to try and fit it all into one, and soon realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. In reality, this post could have probably been 10x the length it is right now. What follows is part 1, and part 2 will probably be posted sometime over the next few days. These are my 10 questions to ask yourself (in…

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Facts April 6, 2012

A Guide to Wine Faults – Brettanomyces

Brettanomyces [Breht-tan-uh-my-sees] Brettanomyces (or “Brett” if you want to sound like you know what you’re talking about) is a yeast that is found on grape skins, in barrels and in the winery itself. Brett can be found mainly in red wines, as the color is extracted from the skins of grapes during red wine fermentation, although Brett can and does occur in white wines, and can sometimes be attributed to sloppy (unhygienic) winemaking. Brett is…

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Facts March 30, 2012

Is it Possible to Pair Wine and Cigars?

Pairing wine with cigars is really not much different than pairing wine with food. I’m sure this is a subject that I could get in MUCH greater depth on in the future, but I may need to look for a little assistance from a true cigar connoisseur to examine their take on this pairing situation. I’m obviously coming at this from a wine perspective, and for now I have it categorized under the Facts section…

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Facts March 29, 2012

A Toast to Champagne Infographic

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you (we) don’t drink enough Champagne! Understanding sparkling wine can be a slight nightmare though, as there’s about 5 different to give a wine its bubbles, not to even mention all the history details! Luckily the nice people at wine.com have put together this great little Champagne infographic for people looking to learn a little more about true Champagne. If after studying this whole thing from…

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