|
Feenix posted:I don;t think it's possible to be that analytical about a bottle of wine in any successful manner without just really knowing about most/every vineyard, where it is, how long wine was stored, what the real estate costs are, how good the wine typically is, etc. Being able to do that for all of winedom is probably beyond the grasp of anyone besides Master Soms, and even they can't know everything.
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2011 22:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:21 |
|
|
Admirable Gusto posted:So Rieslings are a thing that I've been interested in lately; I visited RN74 in SF where they had a "Summer of Riesling" thing going on and had 5 half-glasses that night. Started with a recent Riesling Kabinett and ending in a syrupy mid-90s Donnhoff and was hooked every step of the way. Can you speak more about Rieslings please Caveat: I'm an amateur and most of the people in this thread know as much or more than I do. If I say something wrong I'm sure they'll speak up. Here is a relatively decent guide for year-to-year variation of German vintages. You can find good wines in pretty much every year, it's just easier to find a great Riesling from 1990 than from 1986. When both are likely to be more expensive due to age, that's not a bad thing to keep in mind. The general rule for Rieslings is that German ones are frequently sweet, while those from France (the Alsace, right on the German border) are frequently dry. Recently some winemakers on each side of the border have been emulating the other side's style, in part to increase market share and in part because the latest generation of German winemakers grew up drinking (and really liking) dry Rieslings, so they go with what they know. For reference: German wine regions (with weird Frenchy names or something), French wine regions. I'm not very familiar with the Alsace Rieslings, or French wine labeling in general - it's about as labyrinthine as American tax codes, possibly worse - but on German labels there are a few words to look for. Some connote dryness/sweetness: Trocken - dry halbtrocken - off-dry As far as Rieslings go, I generally get more information from the Prädikat designation. Prädikat tells you something about the must weight of the grapes when they were harvested - basically, how concentrated the sugar was versus how much water remained in the grapes. Traditionally these terms were tied to particular harvest times, but I'm not sure that is the case anymore. Exact definition varies by region, sometimes by producer, so they're not a perfect guide to sweetness or anything. Think of them as a one-word description of the winemaking process. The grapes get more raisinlike and are more likely to be infected with botrytis at more advanced stages of harvest. Kabinett - Main harvest grapes. Least expensive of the group, and the most likely to be fermented to dryness. Spätlese - Means "late harvest." Probably the best bang for your buck in most years, since the grapes still yield a decent amount of juice. Auslese - "Select harvest" grapes are very ripe, leading to richer, denser wines than previous harvests. Probably the broadest category as far as sweetness is concerned. These are my favorite food or casual sipping Rieslings. Botrytis isn't uncommon at this stage. Beerenauslese - "Select berry harvest" - these wines are made from hand-harvested overripe grapes. This style is invariably a dessert wine, extremely sweet with highly concentrated flavors. You can usually expect some botrytis infection at this point in the harvest, though it's not guaranteed. Trockenbeerenauslese - There's that word "trocken," which we learned above means dry. Don't let it fool you. In this case, it means "select harvest of dry berries." Grapes harvested at this point are basically moldy raisins, covered with botrytis and very dehydrated. These wines are extremely sweet, concentrated, and rich. Also really expensive - I've seen 2-oz pours cost $60 or more for this stuff. So, what to buy? I tend to go for Spätlese or Auslese as the price range is typically in my budget and the results are frequently good. Riesling is a late-ripening grape, so it's affected by weather more than faster-developing varietals. Years with hot summers (like 1998, the hottest summer on record) yield richer wines in general because the grapes ripen more quickly. Years with mild autumns (most recently 2007) produce especially good Ausleses, since the producers can sit around and wait for optimal ripeness without fear of losing harvest to too much rot, too much heat, etc. Overall cool years make Spätlese a better choice. If you want to buy something for cellaring, I'd recommend 2007 or 2008 since both of those years have great promise. To drink now, go for the early or late 1990s. If money isn't an object, go back to 1975/76 and you'll see what really aging a good Riesling does. Really though, in my opinion you can't go too far wrong with German Rieslings in general.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2011 15:49
|
|
|
Hello Winefriends. I'm going to be traveling up the coast of California from San Diego to the Russian River area and would like some suggestions of wineries to visit. I'm partial to really interesting/unusual wines, not a fan of stereotypical California chards. Kalin Cellars sprung to mind for their sheer oddity (and amazing website) but I'm not familiar enough with other options to plan for much. Any suggestions? Central Coast/Sonoma area stuff encouraged, it's a long drive to the Bay Area and I'll need something to entertain me on the way.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2015 23:30
|
|
|
Stitecin posted:So are we going to get a trip report or what? Trip Report: due to social engagements in San Diego, Anaheim, Monterey, San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and Santa Clara, I ended up driving more than stopping, was in Napa/RR on Veterans Day for which many wineries were closed, and my wine/beer/cheese vacation became simply a beer/cheese vacation.  That said, if you're in the Sebastopol area and like cheese you should totally drive out to Joe Matos Creamery and buy a few pounds of their excellent raw milk cheeses. It's a great experience, and they're good wine cheeses. Tonight's my wine shop's annual Thanksgiving Wines class, though. I can do a write-up of those if you like. It's a difficult holiday to choose wines for due to the crazy foods we seem to think we have to serve.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 19, 2015 20:38
|
|
|
Stitecin posted:I work just North of Sebastopol, but I've never heard of that place. It's really near the carnivorous plant nursery where I bought the plants that eat all the fruit flies that get in my office. Tried to, but they were closed. I chatted with the bartender at one of the local breweries and he said Bohemian was okay, but I should really go to Joe Matos instead. Joe Matos is the kind of place that's mythical among cheesemongers due to quality and low distribution. Cowgirl Creamery sells their stuff, but at literally twice the price of going to the source. It's down a side road of a side road, a turn onto a single-lane dirt driveway with a small vineyard on your left, following small "Cheese" signs around to the back side of a barn with no obvious parking area. Just park wherever. Don't worry, nobody else will be there. Walk into the little shack attached to the cheese aging building. Ring the bell if necessary, someone will come out of the cheese aging room (which you can see behind the clear plastic curtain) and give you a sample of each cheese. Then tell them how much you want, watch them cut it - from a fresh wheel pulled off the aging shelf if needed, like it was for my order - and pay. In and out in under five minutes. Be sure to wave to the cows that made your milk (I saw two herds, one Holstein and one I would have sworn were Guernsey) on the way out.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2015 17:43
|
|
|
Hi Wine Thread. Among my friends, Temecula has a bit of a reputation as a haven for bachelorette parties seeking almond "champagne" in mass quantities, but I'm sure there are some good things to be found. I'll be heading there in a few weeks for a day or three. Any suggestions on places that are a little more toward the higher-quality side of things?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2017 23:32
|
|
|
the_chavi posted:The gently caress is that Garbage-tier juice from random vineyards, sweetened and spiked with almond extract, then force-carbed to a bubbly, giggle-inducing celebration libation for the Arbor Mist crowd. They call it "champagne" for extra wow-points, and also to highlight how few ethics they really have. Like I said, I'd like to see what Temecula has to offer that isn't that poo poo. Supposedly there are some places doing interesting things with Italian varietals like Vermentino, but since my wine guy doesn't pick up much from the area I'm working on pretty low information right now.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2017 20:31
|
|
|
Other sources have recommended Doffo, Cougar, Leoness, and Miramonte. And yes, from what I can see the wineries in Temecula charge double what the ones I visited in Paso Robles did for a tasting. Bottle prices seem kinda high for the relative fame of the area, and their restaurants are hilariously expensive in some cases too (a $50 lunch entree?!). On the bright side, there are breweries and maybe a distillery or two to be visited if the wineries end up being poor ROI. But I'd like to give them a fair shot. I've visited Paso, Napa/RR, and the Willamette and want to keep adding AVAs to my collection. For that matter, are any of the spots right around San Diego any good? I've been impressed with the stuff coming up from Valle de Guadalupe in Baja, but it's nearly impossible to find north of the border and I won't have time for a day trip.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 22, 2017 22:22
|
|
|
I've been down to the Valle three times, and yes. It's a paradise. Excellent cheese, great wine, and nothing costs any money. I also try to eat at Misión 19 in TJ, because they use all Valle produce and local seafood/meat, paired with wines from Valle de Guadalupe. Javier Plascencia has done so much for Baja cuisine and Tijuana in general I always love throwing a tiny bit of money his way for obscenely well-done pairings. A fully correct trip to Baja includes Misión 19, a stop at La Guerrerense in Ensenada, at at least enough time in the Valle to buy the best olive oil in the world, the least expensive good cheese in the world, and some incredible wine. That said, my local guide won't be available and I don't feel like taking my newly-purchased car through TJ because driving there terrifies me, insurance supplement or no. So Temecula it is.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 23, 2017 08:13
|
|
|
pork never goes bad posted:I quite liked this post by Josh Haas of Tablas Creek on biodynamics - http://tablascreek.typepad.com/tablas/2017/11/our-skeptics-path-into-biodynamics.html Thanks for sharing that. For years, I described biodynamic practices as "hippie voodoo bullshit," sometimes loudly in very expensive settings. And I stand by that analysis for anything involving a cow horn or homeopathic-level dilutions. But I have come to the conclusion that the benefits of the actual good farming practices encouraged in the biodynamic system outweigh my objections to hippie voodoo bullshit. When I've tasted wines from similar areas, one from a biodynamic producer and one conventional - I've generally found I prefer the biodynamic wine. My wine guy says this is probably due more to the fact that biodynamic practices require vintners to pay much more attention to the vines day-to-day - they can catch problems before they impact the whole vineyard. I like that explanation, probably because it lets me maintain my scorn of hippie voodoo bullshit while still benefiting from the parts of their practice that have an actual impact. Whatever the case, I've grudgingly become pro-biodynamics.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 22:05
|
|
|
Per the posted article:quote:But it was still tremendously encouraging to learn that Demeter itself had come to the conclusion that if a winery focused on the elements that I grouped together in the “really good farming” bullet above, and made a credible effort at those I classified as “micro-additions of Biodynamic preparations” it was good enough for them. Still gotta be a cow horn homeopath to qualify. And that's hippie voodoo bullshit.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 9, 2017 22:36
|
|
|
Overwined posted:Who loving cares if it has no negative or positive impacts on the quality of the wine? Do you foist this kind of irrelevant poo poo onto e every bottle you drink? No, but I do foist relevant poo poo on people who are just plain wrong and try to call me out for lack of "diligence." Overwined posted:If you are diligent you'll notice that many if not most biodynamic producers opt out of the whole horn full of poo poo stuff and that the more ceremonial aspects of Biodynamicism are NOT required for AB certification. I read the whole article, which is plenty diligent thanks. They literally are required to make a credible effort to do that whole horn full of poo poo stuff. They can't opt out. And that's dumb, in a system that is otherwise good and produces wines that many people agree are better than conventional ones. It's perfectly reasonable to call that out in a thread devoted to wine discussion. If you disagree, feel free to quote your local reiki shaman's hot take on why three parts per billion of month-old cow poo poo aligns the grapes' chakras to the ley lines or something.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2017 07:36
|
|
|
I've followed Patrick McGovern's work for quite a while. He's a good archaeologist, and this is an awesome find. Highly specialized work like large-scale winemaking takes a degree of social complexity we've been hesitant to ascribe to people that ancient, but it's getting increasingly clear people were more organized much earlier than we thought. That's cool from an archaeology perspective, but not really relevant to this thread. I still haven't tried an orange wine I liked, though. So I for one am glad for several millennia of innovation and selective breeding.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2017 04:11
|
|
|
PT6A posted:There's a theory that humanity became more settled/organized and began organized agriculture as a way to ensure consistent access to alcohol (primarily beer, but wine appears to be a possibility too now). It's a bit of a chicken-or-egg thing. Alcohol may have been a reason for people embracing agriculture; it was also a major component in allowing many people to live in close proximity without killing one another. Less glibly, the adoption of agriculture seems to follow after growing social complexity. People were building huge monuments and had a semi-consistent ritual system in place for centuries, but population couldn't concentrate in large numbers (probably due to food availability). Agriculture was one thing that allowed permanent settlement, but even that was utilized more like seasonal gardens for small, semi-nomadic groups. The turning point was the invention of pottery, which allowed for long-term storage protected from the elements and pests. Then you get things like Mesopotamian temples - grain banks that stored, loaned, and controlled the excess crops. That established an economic system (with a side of religion) and bam, civilization was born. What place alcohol use has in that development is extremely hard to detect, but it seems likely humans had occasional access to alcohol far earlier, like the animals mentioned in that article. Modern day hunter-gatherers in areas without tons of fruit harvest honey and make mead. We probably found ways to ferment things as soon as we had a way to hold liquid for a few days - that could be pottery, which preserves really well, or things like large gourds, which don't. It's probably safest to assume if there are more than three people together anywhere at any time in history they're finding a way to get drunk. Speaking of drunk, is anyone interested in a write-up of the wineries I checked out in Temecula? There's some solid wine there, but I don't want to waste the time to type something up if nobody's interested.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2017 17:13
|
|
|
Where does DMS come from in wine? I've never heard of it outside of beer making context, where it's widely understood to come from grain - especially under-boiled grain. Are the "bad warm-climate Chardonnay" producers chaptalizing with maltose for some crazy reason?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2018 00:30
|
|
|
Stitecin posted:Chapatalizing is illegal in most of the new world. When it happens it usually happens with plain white sugar, no one would ever admit to it but on the rare underripe years in Napa the grocery store shelves will be bare of sugar. Yeah, I know it's illegal but I also know enough people in the industry to know it happens. When you're talking about a flaw developing it's good to be realistic about winemaker behavior. Stitecin posted:The real answer is struggling yeast. Lots of things are at play; fermentation temps too high or low, osmotic pressure too high, alcohol content too high, YAN (yeast assimilatable nitrogen) too low, lack of oxygen, competition with ML bacteria, etc. can all contribute to yeast stress and different strains of yeast handle different stressors better/worse than others. The same factors contribute to regular reduction. Most of the time when I have pointed it out to friends it has been in lots that stuck and had to be restarted. The association with bad Chardonnay could be high Brix/low YAN must plus reductive winemaking to preserve the little bit of freshness plus yeast strain meant to brighten up the aromatics that aren't suited to style. That's interesting. I found a UC Davis document that says DMS is metabolized from S- amino acids, which is obviously different form how it's understood to develop in beer. http://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/industry/enology/fermentation_management/wine/off_characters.html So that's cool. Thanks for the additional insights on the kinds of fermentation environments that can contribute. It's odd that meads don't show signs of DMS given how dependent they are on nutrient additions for sufficient YAN, but maybe they don't have enough S- amino acids to be metabolized. I'd think fruited meads would be a great environment for that kind of thing, but I've never tasted one that showed signs of it. Kasumeat posted:Yes, it can develop in bottle. If DMS is a product of yeast stress, that should only happen with MT sparklers. Pretty much everything else is sorbated and metabisulfated into inactivity, and fined (often filtered) so there shouldn't be any small-scale autolysis going on in-bottle.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 26, 2018 23:24
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 11:21 |
|
|
Kasumeat posted:It's possible I could be wrong. I wish I could find my source on this, but I can't seem to locate it. I know that the best winemaker in the country has said it can happen. I'm very open to reading a source if you can find it. Organic chemistry is a strange beast, and weird things can happen. Sensory DMS detection is increased by the presence of some higher alcohols. It's possible something in the alcohol profile changes over time in the bottle to make it more perceptible without actually changing the ppm at all.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 27, 2018 01:31
|
|