Do Wine Words Matter?

I always find it nerdly amusing when 'wine words' such as grape names are spelled as they are often pronounced. Semillon seems to attract this quite often. Mind you, I'm not quite sure why it's ever pronounced as Semillion when Semm-ill-on would appear to be the easier option!

 

I flagged SuperValu Semillion as far back as three years ago!!

This blog, though, is not about pronunciation or readability. Let's face it, a market full of the likes of Squinzano and Cserszegi Fuszeres names will throw up its fair share of confusion and mistaken spelling.

No, 'wine words' in today's context are those used to describe aroma and flavour. 

Wine words, of course, are seldom anything to do with grapes or even wine. They are borrowed sentiments based on experience elsewhere. Let's see ..... 'it tastes of green apple with a hint of nectarine'. Do we ever see an apple described as, 'a young Viognier slightly bottle aged'?

Here's the rub. If reviewers, critics and wine experts are paid to describe a wine to us should we not expect absolute accuracy with regards to the words used?

Green Apple; Peach; Orange; Tomato leaf; Tobacco pouch; Gooseberry .......  are all very different to each other. Surely they could never be swapped around?

photodictionary.com

School Time:

Read the following four (published) wine descriptions and then try to guess the wines that are being described: 

1.  ... hint of complexity with sherry, date and hazelnut flavours leading to a strong finish.

2.  ... attractive cherry fruit and long length.

3.  ... lovely strawberry fruit with a smooth clean finish.

4.  ... floral and citrus aromas leading to a refreshing palate with crisp red-apple fruit.

I'll come back to the answers soon! My point here is that if strawberry is the dominant fruit in Wine 3 above then it really must/should taste distinctly different to Wine 4 where red apple shows well. This then will allow me to choose accordingly. I therefore have great faith in the experts knowing their hazelnuts from their cherry's thus making Wine 2 very different to Wine 1.

wikipedia

Not so.

Wines 1 and 2 are in fact the same wine as indeed are wines 3 and 4. Not only that but the column that these descriptions are published in is an edited one. (They're not from the web or blogs where anything and everything is possible!!) Surely the editor in question would take a look and say 'hold on a minute there' ..... mmm perhaps the sway of expert opinion can sway even the most editable of editors ....

The language of wine is not a a precise one. Wine words are seldom original and are almost always comparative. Why should they also be conflicting and used so loosely that they make no sense and convey no message other than a smart use of words? 

coffee-types.com

The four, or should I say two, wines above are all good value Cavas. 

In my September column for Checkout Magazine I had a look at the difficulty of marketing wine in a price driven market. I make the point that today's consumer has become more confident buying inexpensive wine and that the inexpensive category has more acceptable wines in it then ever before.

I firmly believe that anyone attempting to taste these wines for the consumer, as a paid critic, needs to be absolutely and rigorously held to account for the words that are used in their description. Perhaps its time to demand more interaction with critics. Score cards anyone? 

The Vanilla Grape in Kenmare - Well worth a Visit

Just back from two glorious weeks at Parknasilla in Kerry. Recommend their lodges folks!
Of course, whenever I get away there's always an element of a busman's holiday to it. Who could resist visiting Kenmare and NOT drop in for a chat with Alain Bras and his wife Christine at The Vanilla Grape? I was gutted, though, to find I'd missed Alain performing with his Barber Shop Quartet a few minutes earlier at another of Kenmare's treasures The Soundz of Music. Now that would have been a good photo opp.

 

Alain and Christine at their Vanilla Grape in Kenmare

 

As I was just finishing a column for Checkout, on marketing wines in a market where price seems to Rule the Roost, it seemed reasonable to ask Alain how on earth he can compete with the local Aldi and SuperValu stores?

He reports that for the first year in a few he has posted a profit for his business; is bringing in a couple of wonderful and exclusive labels directly from Brigitte Lurton in the Coteaux du Salagou (The white Viognier is tremendous...) and a further quite brilliant range from La Bastide Saint Vincent in Gigondas; can now supply true quality at affordable prices to large events such as weddings; is very happy that he managed to maintain a stock holding of quality wines through the lean years as these are now feeding 'fat' back into the business; is trading well from his website at www.vgwines.com. All Good News then from The Vanilla Grape in Kenmare.

This is small business reality. It allows Alain and Christine to smile and to compete. It's not easy. It's not all about price. It's about wine as well.

ibrew Home Wine Making - My Pinot Grigio - Blog6of6

I've thoroughly enjoyed my ibrew Home Wine Making experience. From the very beginning I've found the journey enjoyable and intriguing.

Important points:

1. All of the equipment that came with the kit can be used again.
2. All of the equipment that came with the kit is of a very durable and a very high quality.

The wine that I made came from a can of concentrate. Rule number UNO in wine making is that it's very easy to make poor wine from excellent grapes and nigh on impossible to make excellent wine out of rotten grapes. So, use the best material that you can.

Our concentrate for this project was supplied in a tin can. Canning requires extra stability to protect the juices from fermenting, oxidation and or being tainted by the can itself. This is usually in the form of coating the inside of the can, giving the juices an extra dose of acidity and a bit of an extra wallop of sulphur also. Nothing wrong with this when the pineapple or pear, or whatever, is being ladled into a dessert dish. How does it fare when the product is being fermented? 

This is my wine. It looks perfect.

Appearance: Light gold and very clear.

Bouquet: Straw and sulphur. The latter is very much of the burnt matchstick variety. Vinous bouquet in background. No varietal definition.

Palate: Very young with lots of piercing acidity. Harsh, astringent, tight elements pervade. Fruit compromised at back of palate with warm and peppered sensations.

Finish: Short and unpromising with little fruit and a lot of structure.

Conclusion: Leave it settle for a few weeks and look again. Sulphur and acidity levels however are too high and it is unlikely that whatever fruit comes through will be able to balance this wine out. 

So there we are. I'll look at this again in a while and note any improvement, ageing or development. The concentrate seems to have been shock proofed possibly so that it would have a long shelf life. This, however, seriously compromised the final wine. Fermenting the concentrate seems to have concentrated the poor elements and lost the fruit along the way.

Suggestion: This iBrew kit and how it works is excellent. The concentrate is not.

• Perhaps purchasers could be given a code with every kit sold. This code could then be exchanged for fresh concentrate packed in something other than a can

• Could the concentrate be freeze dried, or preserved in some other way, rather than sulphured?

• Can I use this equipment with fresh fruit? I dunno, but I think I'll give it a try!!!!

Many thanks to iBrew for their support here. I'm a fan of the process if not my finished product. When I perfect my technique later in the year I'll come back to this and write the prologue.

  

Ah, we'll miss you ibrew. Must have you around again soon!

Cases in Galway sends us a Good News e-Letter

Heading to Galway for the weekend? Here's ten good reasons from Cases on the Tuam Road as to why they should be your source of all that's wine    ....  A Good Blog.

If you were to pay too much attention to the media in recent times, you’d think there were only troughs in our collective lives right now. Bad news sells and on that basis, there must be a lot of newspapers selling right now. But for every trough, there is a peak. There are still plenty of peaks in this country and we’ve certainly had a few this eh, summer!

So here are the top 10 peaks in the little world of Cases Wine Warehouse so far in 2012:

1.       Our new Italian wines have been a revelation. Over the last 5 years, we had struggled in particular to find really good Chianti at a good price but the Ser Dante Chianti DOCG and its Classico and Riserva bigger brothers are just that!

2.       How proud we were when our Domaine des Anges red & white wines from the Ventoux in the Rhone Valley were chosen as the pouring wines at the banquet to mark the arrival of the Volvo Ocean Race fleet at the start of July. Produced by one of Ireland’s brilliant diaspora, Gay McGuinness from Kilkenny.

3.       The launch of Mona Wise’s new book ‘The Chef & I’ in May. Mona, a Galway native, is the new food writer in the Irish Sunday Times and a prolific blogger!

4.       The arrival of the lovely Espigueiro Vinho Verde from Portugal. It would have seemed a simple task to find a great local white to rekindle fond memories of a great Portuguese holiday, but it is amazing how many of them fall short without the sunshine and the holiday atmosphere. This one is the exception!

5.       Our Irish craft beers. This time last year we started to delist the behemoths – Guinness, Carlsberg, Budweiser, Bulmers and Heineken in particular – and stock an exciting range of beers brewed all over Ireland in small batches. They have exploded in sales and we are proud to a small part of that success story. Apart from the fact that they taste like REAL beer and create way more jobs per pint than the multinationals, it is deeply satisfying to see Ireland’s local brewers re-emerging after decades of assault from the big boys. Unfortunately not available online because the margins are too low to cover the couriers!

6.       Spain. The country that had reacted best to the difficult times we live in, possibly because they are going through the same thing. We are seeing a constant stream of really good, great value, well-presented wines pouring in from Spain and it is a pleasure to deal with them. Already, the organic and biodynamic wines from Dominio de Punctum in Castilla have become one of our biggest-selling ranges and tomorrow, we take delivery of new wines from Rioja, Ribero del Duero, Viura, Priorat,  Catalunya, DO Cava and Castilla. Exciting wines, exciting times.

7.       Stonewell Medium Cider. From Kinsale, Co Cork. Craft cider. One of the restaurants we supply told us that once their customers try it, they don’t want to go back to the ‘more commercial option’. Need we say more? Also now available in Dry for real cider aficionados.

8.       Our new Top-8 Wine Shelves. In order to help our customers orient themselves and to entertain ourselves, we have set up new shelves showing our top 8 selling red and white wines. And our top 4 selling roses and sparklings. Why top-8? Because that’s the way the shelves came.

 

 9.     Our new bubblies. Particularly the most ‘summer in a bottle’ wine we’ve ever tasted, Innocent from Australia. Plus in the middle of peak wedding season, our great new Prosecco - ask us for a special price for your wedding!

10.   Bank Holidays. We can’t claim any credit here but these weekends add a regular peak to our summer weekends and for that they deserve much credit. So much so that we’re launching over TWENTY deals for this august Bank Holiday. Check them out HERE

Now, that’s better.

Have a great Bank Holiday.

Peter

Cases Wine Warehouse

Riverside Commercial Estate

Tuam Road

Galway

Tel: 091 764 701

Fax:  091 764 706

www.cases.ie

Best National Wine Warehouse, Sunday Business Post Annual Wine Awards 2012

Winner, Bridgestone Irish Food Guide Award 2012

Proud sponsor of the 2012 Galway Arts Festival

Proud sponsor of Self Help Africa, our Charity of the Year

As usual, if you no longer wish to receive our occasional emails, please reply with the word REMOVE. And if, as sometimes happens, you’re receiving multiples of our emails, please reply with the word DOUBLE and we’ll track down the duplication.

SpainGourmetour - Loss of a Brilliant Magazine

Whenever SpainGourmetour drops through my letter box I crank up a fresh brew of coffee and prepare myself for a feast of food and wine visuals. Then, over the coming month, I'll dip into the flesh of the magazine and indulge myself with fact and opinion on a myriad of food types, ingredients, grapes and wines from Spain.  

It dropped by yesterday. It had a covering letter. It explained why it will be no more. Gone for ever. Production Costs ...... 'This is however to be the last you will receive in a printed format' .....  What a Shame. 

Call me old fashioned but opening an e-newsletter just isn't the same as cracking a magazine with sumptuous, silky photos and more than a vague hint of printers ink. I'll sign up for the newsletter at www.foodsfromspain.com and I'll enjoy it but I'll miss these  .....

 

Lots of Montes in Tesco Sale

Wines sales are now a regular feature of the retail landscape. In general its hard to go wrong as the prices are not simply being reduced, they are being slashed. The current Tesco sale has 25% off everything if we buy six bottle at a time! That wouldn't be such a great offer if it simply meant we could buy at reduced prices. After all, we know that the 'full' or 'regular' price for many wines are artificially high. Don't get me wrong - they are legitimate prices but if the idea is to actually sell product, and make profit, then these wines would never have been listed in the first instance UNLESS they were capable of returning a margin AND capable of being sold at an attractive sale price in the first instance. These days Nothing sells off promotion! 

This latest Tesco sale runs until the 8th August. When I looked at the brochure that popped through my letter box I yawned. Too much detail. I couldn't see the woods for the trees. Just another sale then. Well, as with all wine sales these days there is always some real value hidden in the detail. (Mind you, last time I went poking for some of this 'real value' shelves had been stripped clean leaving the druff behind. I reckon a few resturanteurs get in on the action for more than a few bottles along the way .....)

Too much detail! Where's the Action?

 Then a press release arrived onto my desk. That helped.

Great Buys:  Montes Alpha Chardonnay and Montes Alpha Cabernet Sauvignon at €10.00 a bottle are extraordinary value. Buy six and get 25% off. Very impressive.

No, this wasn't when I told Aurelio Montes the price of his wines  in Tesco!

 photo: Paul Sherwood at www.sherwood.ie

The Montes family name is synonymous with quality. Labels such as these always deliver quality whether the price is €19.99 or €10.00. Price in many instances has nothing to do with quality. As long as Aurelio Montes lives his wines will reward the drinker with absolute pleasure. There are however many wines that might just get away with being reasonable value at the sale price and at the inflated regular prices just do not deliver on pleasure or quality. Read  the reviewers folks. They get to taste a lot so you get told what not to buy.....well, now, there's the rub. Do they? 

My mother in law is a great fan of Santa Rita. (Hi Mary.) Anyhow, last night she told me of how she had bought so well in this latest Tesco sale. No, she doesn't ask my advice ...... Both Carmen and Santa Rita offer real value in this sale. The point was well made though that sales only work if shoppers feel they have been rewarded by the experience. Tesco seems to have hit that on the head again.  

Finally, who says Australia can't deliver on price? Mount Pleasant wines from €8.00 and 25% off is not only worth buying but reminds me of my very first blog. In it I had a bit of a laugh at a telly advert that spelled Semillon as we so often hear it pronounced - Semillion. That was years ago. Surely we've moved way beyond that - or have we? 

Aurelio Montes Jr  at a Tesco Tasting last year in Dublin. Aurelio is guiding their winery Kaiken in Argentina to new heights of  excellence.

Kaiken Reserva  Malbec at only €7.00. Burn the steak and bring it on.

iBrew Home wine Making - Boxing the Wine. Blog5of6

Finally. The Day Arrived. My 21 days are up. I have made the wine and it is ready. Well, those of you who have kept tabs on me will realise that this all happened last week. (When my blog goes quiet I'm busy writing something else that helps to pay for the groceries.....!) 

Three weeks ago I set out on a quest to make a wine from one of the iBrew Home Wine Making Kits being given away by Decanter Magazine as a readers prize. I have blogged and photographed each of the processes involved and finally have come to decanting the wine off its lees into its bags and boxes.

Here's what the Pinot Grigio looked liked before fining:

And now here's what it looked like just before bottling and after sitting for six days after fining: golden. (Imagine it without the blue haze from the container!)

Big problem here was positioning the container so that I could decant its contents without disturbing the very fine sediment (lees) at the bottom.

TIP: store it in a place that you can decant from without having to move it at all - otherwise you get this and you'll need to let it settle down all over again

I have to admit that I wasn't entirely comfortable passing all of my heretofore protected wine from the air through the air to get it into the bag. Might have been better if I could have screwed the box onto the tap. Oxidation came to mind. As it happens I had no need to worry - more on this in my next and final blog in this series.

Bagging and Boxing.

 So. What did it look like? Well, if I hadn't been careful with the sediment this is what would have happened:

I was careful. TRA LA!

This is what was boxed. It's golden clear and really does look the part. Success. Well not yet. I have to taste it and I'm leaving that until tomorrow!!

Let's see that clear wine all over again   ....   oh, I am impressed.