What's New

We believe in learning something new every day.  This is especially true when you live with a 3-year old.  To our son, every experience is a new experience and each day is filled with a litany of questions.  The constant barrage of questions leads one to a set of revelations inspired by our 3-year old:

Fizzy is fun, and it makes me giggle – There is something magical about sparkling wine. It doesn’t have to be Champagne – Spanish Cava will do nicely, thank you. Dry, slightly sweet or unctuous, it doesn’t really matter, as that little tickle always brings a smile to one’s face.

You can never drink enough of your favorite wine – There are some wines that seemingly never go out of style and remain timeless in their enjoyment that are sometimes forgotten in the craze-happy  world of fine wine. Take for instance, Saint-Émilion. Almost always well-balanced, great companions of food and possessed of many of the traits that make wines great, these Bordelaise gems are often overlooked for more trendy bottles.

Deep down, red wine is what it’s all about – As the French would say: Égalité! Yeah, right. White wine is nice, but red wine is better. In classes, we espouse the importance of open-mindedness and a willingness to give all wine a chance, but overwhelmingly, red wine is where our money is at.

Sometimes you just don’t have to swirl, sip or spit – Yes, tasting for critical appreciation is important and practicing the techniques will not only improve your palate, but it will add to your enjoyment of wine. Sometimes, though, just drinking the wine is enough.

It’s okay to like Riunite – Anyone who has attended our History of Italy in Ten Glasses already knew this to be true. Nothing else needs to be said.

There will always be another vintage, but why wait? – The wine media is a machine that starts hyping vintages before the grapes are in the crusher. For the most part, the hype is useful for establishing excitement about wine and the latest bottles from our favorite producers, but there lurks a danger: buying too much  of a good thing. Did we really say that? Yup—and it’s true.

You simply cannot argue with a 600 year track record of success – If one more person asks why New World wines don’t take center stage at many of our events, we are going to scream. When California can boast a 600 year track record of fine wine production, borne out by documented sales and quality, then west coast wines will get equal billing on the menu. And so folks don’t think we’re unkind, California produces some very respectable wines (and yes, we saw Bottle Shock), but longevity is what counts.

Grape growing is about farming the land, not building temples to our vanity – The act of growing grapes and making wines is an agricultural process, involving dirt, weather and really hard work. Shake the hands of a true wine maker and you will feel the hard, calloused roughness of a farmer. Look into their eyes and you will see passion, surrounded by weather-beaten, sun-burned skin. A wine maker’s reward is the smile that bursts on a visitor’s face after that very first sip. If you want art, go to a museum.

Recessions are good for wine – Financial catastrophes are good for over-priced, bloated markets. Recessions force corrections and that usually means good values for consumers. Some markets have corrected better than others, but the savvy consumer can put a lot of wine in their cellar today for not a lot of dough.

Price is rarely an indicator of enjoyment – With the recession comes a tighter focus on more affordable bottles and the constant reminder that you don’t have to spend a lot of money, often no more than $10 to get a really enjoyable bottle of wine. Notice we didn’t use the word “great,” largely because the term “great” usually connotes characteristics like elegance, structure, pedigree and age worthiness – certainly some of these elements can be found in that value-priced quaffer, but more often than not, a truly great wine will have a truly great price.

Cheers!
Paul & Betsy