Archive for the ‘Review white wine’ Category

So, how many of you out there remember The Millenium? It was supposed to be The New Years Eve To End All New Years Eve’s.  It was when the Big Universal Clock  was going to roll from 1999 to 2000, and all the world’s technology was going to (maybe) come crashing down.

So we all planned our New Year’s Eve celebrations very carefully. We wanted the most bang for our buck, since this might be our last buck (hopefully not our last bang…). Anyhow, I was bringing the bubbly to our party. I considered U.S. sparklers, of which there are many I like, and  even an Aussie  sparkler or two. But what I settled on was this: Cristalino Brut Cava, a wonderful (and wonderfully cheap) sparkling wine from Spain. I popped it open at midnight, and two things happened: 1- the world didn’t come to an end, and 2- everyone loved my bubbly.

Cava is the name the Spanish use for their sparkling wine, and before you get all “wine snob” about it, let me assure you that Cava’s can rival French Champagne for quality. They are made in exactly the same way as the French: the Cristalino bottle says, “Metodo Tradicional”, meaning “Made in the traditional Champagne way”. It is also “Fermented in this bottle”, which means the second fermentation has been allowed to happen just like in Riems, France. And that’s a good thing… Read the rest of this entry »

OK, we’ve just done four days and 2300 miles. We traversed eight states, experienced temperatures ranging from 37 to 102 degrees, and climbed from 1,200 feet above see level, to 10000, and back down 1800 feet. Did I say, in just four days?

I’ve gotta tell you, there are lots of amazing sights to see in this country. And lots of amazing stuff that’ll pop up and delight you if you keep your eyes and your mind open as you travel.

The welcome surprise we tripped over was the Colorado wine industry. Now I’m not a total, “American wines begin and end with Napa Valley” snob. I’ve written lots of good things about Washington State, New Mexico, and even Arizona. But I admit to being oblivious about Colorado wines until we started chatting with a very informative and helpful wine guy at a shop called Little Raven Vineyards in Denver. When we asked about the Colorado-made wines on his shelves, he recommended his favorites and pointed us towards the Grand Valley region in the southwest corner of the state. The next day we pulled off the interstate to investigate (always a good thing to do) and came across Plum Creek Cellars in Palisades, Colorado. And we were knocked out. Read the rest of this entry »

Friends don’t let friends use “Cooking Wine.” Why? Because it’s atrocious stuff that will ruin the taste of your food, that’s why!

Don’t believe me? Let’s start by rounding up every bottle in your kitchen that says “Cooking Wine”, “Cooking Sherry”, “Cooking Marsala,” or “Cooking Anything.” Now let’s see what’s in it. It’s wine, or sherry, or marsala (the cheap and nasty kind to begin with) to which they’ve added salt. Yes, SALT! Then they’ve boiled it. Yes, BOILED it.

You ask, why on earth would they do that to any wine? Because then the bottle is “shelf stable” and can sit on your grocer’s shelf (or in your pantry) for months or years. Every time you pull it out, it adds the same (lousy) taste to your dish. You may not have realized this, but that’s because you’ve never tasted the Real Thing.

So what’s a girl (or boy) to do? Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve all had bad sweet wine — stuff that tasted like table sugar or, worse yet, chemical sweeteners, and left a nasty aftertaste in your mouth. Yuck… So what do you do for good sweet wine?

Meet the Riesling grape. It’s native to Germany, which is one of the coldest places in the world where wine grapes are grown. The grape likes cold — in fact, it needs cool temperatures to develop the acid that makes the wine crisp and clean. Why is “crisp and clean good”? Because in a sweet wine the “crisp” keeps it from tasting syrupy or cloying. Read the rest of this entry »

RATING – 1 cork out of 5 Sometimes a wine is just a dog… Which in this case was a surprise, since I think other bottlings from this winery are a really good value. But a wine review has to be honest, so here’s what we thought of  Oxford Landing South Australia Pinot Grigio 2008.

After cracking the screw cap (not that there’s anything wrong with that), I stuck my nose in the glass the way I always do and smelled…nothing. When I really went to town with the swirling, I was able to discern some light mineral notes, and maybe a hint of pear. When I tasted this Pinot Grigio, even all my slurping and swishing couldn’t pull much flavor out of it. In its favor, though, it did finish nice and clean, although not as crisply as a Pinot Grigio should. Read the rest of this entry »