Archive for the 'Wine Tasting' Category

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blog, you know that holidays with the in-laws don’t usually make my list of culinary highlights. This Easter was no different. But I did manage to squeeze in a decent bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape this weekend. The only problem with the 2004 Domaine de Cristia on Friday evening was that the car ride home must have been too warm, because when I first tried it the alcohol was rather noticeable (it’s labeled 15%).

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Leftover roast chicken is a pretty blank canvas, so I grabbed a bottle that I’d purchased a couple of months ago and been meaning to try but hadn’t gotten around to yet. The wine: 1988 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett from Max. Ferd. Richter in the Mosel.

Yes, I found a 20-year-old bottle of Riesling in a retail shop. Here’s the story of how it happened…

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I have a playlist on my iPod devoted to music I think I like but I’m not completely sure; I’ll need a few more listens before I decide to keep the songs or jettison them. Some of my favorite songs and movies are those that I wasn’t completely sure of the first time I heard or saw them. That was true of books, too, back when I had the patience to read a couple hundred pages of something that was mystifying or irritating, just because I had a feeling that I held greatness in my hand, if I could only persist.

That’s the wonder and glory of the arts: sometimes the works we resist, those that are most difficult and alien, will move us most deeply and stay with us long after, the plays of Shakespeare being the most obvious example.

That’s true of wine, too.

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Having recently returned from nearly a week in Napa Valley, I want to touch on the idea of wine vacations. Not the kind where one visits exotic locales, tastes at wineries or cellar doors and overeats at starred restaurants, but the kind that for me generally follows a trip like that. A vacation from wine, if you will.

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Despite all of the negativity surrounding Merlot in recent years, it remains Americans’ favorite choice when it comes to red wine, accounting for approximately 10% of all wine sales in the United States. That’s a lot of wine, considering most serious wine collectors tend to poo-poo the stuff.

Last week, when I sat down in our magazine tasting room to a flight of Australian red wines, I was pleasantly surprised when the wines turned out to be pretty good, albeit commercial, and even more surprised when they turned out to be Merlots. No, these were not powerhouse, complex wines of great aging potential, but they offered ripe fruit, moderate alcohols and fresh, engaging personalities. Merlots from Deakin Estate, Climbing, Oxford Landing, Yalumba’s Y Series and Hope Estate all scored relatively well given their modest price points (look for reviews in the May issue).

Against that backdrop, I was looking forward to gathering at a friend’s house last weekend, in which the theme of our tasting was set to be Merlot. Would the wines show themselves as something special, worthy of wine-geek fawning discussion? Or would they reinforce that insidious Sideways stereotype?

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Raymund Flandez of The Wall Street Journal recently visited our new Mount Kisco, NY office to ask the question: “How do you taste wine?” In this video, Joe Czerwinski and Susan Kostrzewa answer it by explaining the blind tasting process while sampling some Australian Shiraz.  Everything from color to intensity, complexity and clarity are considered, amongst many other things:

How do you judge a wine’s quality? Leave us a comment, and let us know!