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A Year of Wine

Would you like to know what wine to pair with a dinner omelette? What exactly is Moscatel de Setubal? Do you remember the French Paradox? No? Well then we have a treat for you! All this and more is on A Year of Wine. These one minute radio spots are a treasure trove of useful and fun information about wine and food. Plus with every paring we include the recipe! Click here to begin listening and stay tuned, there is much more to come.

Jazz-Min ViniCode™ and Wine Tasting Notes

To enlarge, please click on the image.

For more information about Jazz-Min please visit www.worldvintage.com. They can direct you to retailers in your area.

* The purpose of the ViniCode™ is to describe the wine, not rate it. We leave that up to you. Look closely at the scales and see if you think this style of wine would be appealing. If you like it, that's all that matters. Happy tasting!

Persimmon Creek Vineyards Ice Wine

fruit: honeysuckle, violets, lavender, orange blossoms
earth: gentle spiciness (Clare loved this subtle earthiness)
Are you sitting down? Clare and I just got through tasting something of a miracle. Persimmon Creek Vineyards in Clayton, Georgia produces an exquisite Ice Wine. Yes, I said Ice Wine. Here in the sunny south there is a true, honest to goodness, ice wine. As co-owner Mary Ann Hardman says, "Ain't no cryo!" Let me allow Mary Ann to tell you about the wine in her own words:
"Wine (well, real wine, not homogenized milk wines) is truly "a taste of a place." And in our wines I believe you can "taste" Persimmon Valley with its sandy alluvial soil and the meandering clear, cold, sweet mountain waters of Little Persimmon Creek. The Riesling Icewine is REAL. The frozen and shriveled yet naturally honey sweet grapes were harvested manually GRAPE BY TEENSY GRAPE in mid December at freezing temperatures (mid teens). They were then pressed outside (still frozen). Yes, it is a very time intensive as well as laborious affair--the Icewine grapes are very concentrated from the additional hangtime (the Riesling grapes for our 1% RS off dry Riesling were picked in September, as a comparison). Icewine is truly a product of Mother Nature -- extremely natural, sweetened on the vine, even beginning to ferment naturally there....you could "smell" the lingering sweetness of the grapes ready for harvest. We made only 47 cases of the 2006 Icewine. They are hand bottled, hand corked, hand labelled, AND handwaxed. A lovely package. MY MOTTO IS "WHAT GROWS TOGETHER GOES TOGETHER"---so a lovely pairing would be a lavender panna cotta with fresh peaches that is, if a chef is cooking, but if I am -- a peach tart would really complement the fruitiness of the Persimmon Creek Vineyards Icewine."
For more information on Persimmon Creek Vineyards, click here.
To find the local vineyards in your state, click here.

From a Drinker to a Taster

When Clare and I conduct our wine seminars all we ask of the participants is that they slow down and take their time with a wine. In other words, we want to turn them from drinkers into tasters. The next time you have a great bottle of wine, follow these simple steps and increase your enjoyment. Get A Big Slice out of that wine!

Appearance: look for three things
a. clarity - stand up and look through the glass preferably against a white background. Wines should be clear. Murkiness can be a sign of a bad, or unfiltered wine.
b. brightness - focus on the surface of the wine, check out the brightness of the reflections. This is associated with acidity and is especially important in white wines, it gives them their structure.
c. color - be creative. Take note of the depth. Color can be a good indication of the age of a wine. White wines get more golden, and red wines more brick colored with age.

Smell: really stick your nose down in that wine.
a. still - Before swirling the wine. This allows you to detect any real subtle tones.
b. swirl - This runs the wine up on the sides of the glass, increasing the surface area, giving it a greater chance to oxidize.
c. cover and swirl - This is going to release the heaviest molecules. Be careful - often these are the most unpleasant; oak, fingernail polish, alcohol. But it can also help with a "dumb" wine.
d. nose - the smell on the way in, aftertaste - after you breathe out and the wine has been warmed by the mouth.

Taste: slow down and savor this moment, you may never have this wine again.
a. We can only taste four things, sweet, acid, salt, bitter. Nice thing is, these are things we can't smell.
b. Remember, tasting is communication. Dogs and children are more sensitive, but cannot communicate what they are tasting.
c. Tasting is more difficult than smelling, there is only a limited time we can hold a wine in our mouth. Try to gather information first, describe the wine without judging it. Then interpret second, decide what you liked or disliked about the wine.