Tag: Barbera

Tasting

My favourite position is Dogliani style

Posted on by Josh

Real talk: installing six pieces of IKEA furniture on a Sunday with subsequent plans to write, study, and plug away at a work report is a stupidly ambitious goal, but I knew plans wouldn’t work out as soon as I woke up hungover to see the delivery truck arrive just outside the window. Who says yesterday’s steamed golden lava bun-stained shirt isn’t fashionable? Cue scenes with nails that won’t screw and Viognier to quell such frustrations, and then Googling how many calories are spent putting furniture together for eight hours. And then, do you ever have fucking fantastic conversations with an AIDS physician on a Saturday night and 5-more-minutes yourself way too many times? Jesus Christmas.

Piedmont week is the thicc daddy of the Northern Italian portion of the Italian Wine Scholar, so you might imagine such panic coinciding with work and moving.… read more

Tasting

Bay/Bae Wines for Bay/Bae Moments

Posted on by Josh

This city is doing things to me. I willingly and happily went to a networking event, you guys! I mean, it was themed which made it as enticing as free booze at straight equivalents of such events: it was hosted at Oasis by Out in Tech, a company which focusses on LGBTQ+ folks in the tech world. I’ve attended the venue before, in the form of drag shows and fuzzy evenings, but upon a night of networking, it got packed real quickly, the drink lines as straight as the room’s sexualities.

I’m exclaiming my excitement for a queer tech networking event, yet weeks later I’m stoked about a regular one. 20-year-old me is grimacing at 25-year-old me. Also, you know you’ve reached peak queer tech when someone’s name tag says that they work at “U-bear”.… read more

Tasting

Mendocino’s medicine-o

Posted on by Josh

What terrible timing it was for the recent fires in California to start wreaking havoc around the same time as I started the California Wine Appellation Specialist course. It’s so unfortunate that a recent masterclass helped surge personal interest in a wine region that went relatively ignored during my WSET diploma studies, only for the terrible news to ensue. I hope that by learning more about the region I’m doing a part to support them – and thusly I may also retract my decision to not attend this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa? Sigh. We’ll see.

Testing my just-in-time schedule, I rushed out of the door from work to make it to class, being the last of the group that was on time, but that seems to be my Thing, anyways. … read more

Tasting

It must have been clove, but it’s over now: Speed Wine Tasting at WBC16

Posted on by Josh

I used to love the hectic clusterfuck of the two Wine Bloggers Conference speed tasting events, each involving twenty or so different tables and winery principals that rotate tables every five minutes for a total of ten sessions. Every micro-meeting involves at least a pour of a wine followed by a spiel, while we each have to: absorb as much information as we can; taste and take notes; desperately yell out questions as if the internet doesn’t exist; take blurry bottle shots; and perhaps come up with a witty tweet.

I’ve mostly given up on giving my 110% on the whole shebang, but hey: I tried. Newcomers to the conference were all “well, this isn’t so bad!” I side-eyed in tacit protest but actually mostly agreed.… read more

Tasting

8 Variations on Braida’s Barbera, the Arya Stark of Wine Grapes

Posted on by Josh

(Spoiler alert, sort of! Seek refuge underneath the picture below to avoid such things.)

I always saw Barbera as the Arya Stark to Sansa Stark’s Gamay Noir. It’s neither the king nor the queen of Italy’s Piedmont, which, in effect, belongs to Nebbiolo’s Barolo and Barbaresco, but it’s also not the bourgeois Dolcetto. No: I see Barbera as a trick, a ninja often producing wines unfortunately crafted into expressions that are sour and thin and second or third-rate, when in fact, it can produce wines with such concentration and shrill acidity, you’d swear that your mouth was being deliciously pierced by castle-forged steel. It’s a grape that brings in cash for producers while Nebbiolo unfurls itself in the cellar.

And, when it’s oaked – a style that Giacomo Bologna of Braida pioneered in the 1970s with Bricco dell’Uccellone – you might lose a bit of Barbera’s vibrant mouth-puckering red fruit (read: its identity), but you get more spice, mystery, and complexity.… read more

Quaffing · Tasting

Odd Italy

Posted on by Josh

The Vancouver International Wine Fest of 2016 is creeping up slowly – already? I distantly remember my tongue-related worries about trying Shiraz after Shiraz after Shiraz, so a duplicate worry replaced with the acidic Sangiovese grape was the first thing that came to mind when I found out that the theme for 2016 was Italy. And originally I wasn’t super stoked to find out Italy was the featured region, but recent bottles of inspiration have reminded me of grapes and regions I, for some reason, forgot to consider. I’m secretly hoping there will be a seminar on something fucked like a long flight of artisanal Pinot Grigio or “You Won’t Believe These 8 Pinot Grigios That Pair Well With Shitty Buzzfeed Videos”.… read more

Life · WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 10: Piemonte and Veneto

Posted on by Josh

Back to reality. It seems like everyone around me is getting post-holiday ailments but I’m doing my best to survive. The holidays were fun but thankfully, they’re never really over-the-top for me (besides last year’s Soave incident). I swatted all New Year’s Eve plans out of my view in favour for cooking myself a meal, drinking a bottle of wine, and sleeping at around midnight: and you’d think that would end up totally bumming me out, but I had a satisfying sleep as the planet fully rotated into 2015, and I woke up at a decent hour to do some wine reading.

I’m riveting. I know. No hangover: that was a thing, though!

I’m not the biggest fan of New Year’s resolutions, mostly because I don’t plan that far ahead, and because I think it’s weird to make weird and shallow decisions at some quasi-arbitrary time of the year.… read more

WSET Diploma

2010 Batasiolo Barbera d’Alba

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, pale ruby, legs
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, youthful, earth, cherry, black cherry, spice, red fruit, green or herbal component, raspberry, simple
Mouth: dry, med body, med+ acid, med flavour intensity, med- coarse tannin, med alcohol, med length, sour cherry, raspberry, earth, spice
All in all: Good quality: the wine is balanced especially with relatively higher amounts of acidity and rough tannin, but it remains a bit simple and could have a longer persistence. Drink now; not suitable for ageing.
Identity Guess: Mid-priced (Barbera [d’Alba]/Sangiovese/Nebbiolo) from Piedmont, Italy; 3 years old.
Is really: Mid-priced Barbera d’Alba from Piedmont, Italy; 3 years old.

2010 Batasiolo Barbera d'Alba[Tasted during WSET Diploma class – Section 1 – Week 11]

I have a soft spot for Barbera – I really do.… read more

Quaffing

2011 Andrea Oberto Barbera d’Alba

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, med+ ruby, legs
Nose: clean, med intensity, developing, earth, spice, dark cherry, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, dried fruit
Mouth: dry, med body, med+ acid, med- tannin, med+ alcohol, med+ finish, earth, spice, dark cherry, sour cherry, tartness, strawberry, med flavour intensity
All in all: Good quality: the length of the wine is relatively long, but the intensity and power of the flavour characteristics are what propel the wine. Unfortunately, both the acid and alcohol are a little bit off balance, and the nose is dominated by a smoky spice which mitigates other complexity. Can drink now, but has potential for short term ageing.

2011 Andrea Oberto Barbera d'AlbaYay! I chose this wine to celebrate my year’s 1st birthday (although let’s be real here this was just an excuse to open something), and so here I am.… read more

Quaffing

2009 Cascina Castlèt Barbera d’Asti

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Notes:

Eyes: clear, medium ruby, a little hazy?
Nose: med+ intensity, developing, cherry, hint of red fruit roll-up, wood spice, smoky, oak, touch of floral, vanilla
Mouth: dry, med- body, low to med- tannin, med+ acid, med to med+ alcohol, med+ intensity, med length, black pepper, expressive, cherry, savoury finish, blue fruits
All in all: Good to very good quality; drink now, but has potential for ageing.

The store was not as busy as I thought it would be. There were a couple of costumes here and there but nothing too wild. Which was great! I find Halloween @ UBC to be such a pooper, though, because no one dresses up – and even though I sort of hate Halloween, it kinda sucks when you’re all up in the Halloween spirit and end up embarrassed because you’re the only one in a 200-person lecture that decided to dress up.… read more