Tag: Nebbiolo

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

Valtellina, this is a lip sync for your life we need to see your lips

Posted on by Josh

As a west coast Canadian native, it slightly hurt to miss the GuildSomm seminar on Ontario wines after having snagged a ticket to slightly make up for missing last year’s Canada-themed Vancouver International Wine Festival. I also missed the first half of the Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna seminar for this week’s Italian Wine Scholar class because of things. I’m missing some marks, y’all. I didn’t get to cry my tears of Canadian Riesling, but I did get to cry tears of Lambrusco. I’m also not afraid of disrupting the middle of class to pour myself a glass of Franciacorta. Bitch, I paid for this course. Give me that fuckin’ yeast.

The week also involved a day of packing and moving to a new apartment.… read more

Tasting

Fumin Behaviour

Posted on by Josh

Friends who’ve taken the challenging WSET diploma have even told me to prepare for the difficult buffoonery of the two-part Italian Wine Scholar course. I was making flash cards on two of Italy’s smallest regions and my hand quickly cramped up in a painful taco-eating position. I’ve got the Valle d’Aosta and Liguria mostly down – two sub-regions which are mere footnotes in most wine reference books – and I fear for study time when it comes to Piedmont and the Veneto. I’m TREMBLING.

Speaking of shitty timing, the two-edged sword of moving homes is happening again! I’m moving closer to the city with, somehow, much cheaper rent and a better location. But that also probably means I have to study flashcards and take apart a bed at the same time?… read more

Tasting

“Backroads of California”

Posted on by Josh

I can’t believe I even made it to this masterclass, because tickets to these GuildSomm events usually sell out quicker than it takes today’s somm to name their favourite natural wine producer. Then again, I guess it’s a California-themed one held in, well, California, so perhaps everyone else in this city is just more familiar with these tipples. I’ve lived here for around a year, so a masterclass titled “Backroads of California” implies that the theme is the vinous road less travelled – but considering this state was a quasi-neglected region during my WSET diploma studies, you could imagine how badly this information stuck.

That being said, our presenter, Kelli White – author of Napa Valley Then & Now – was a fantastic guide who eventually tipped the scale in my mind in favour of taking the California Wine Appellation Specialist course.… read more

Tasting

28 bottles of Nebbiolo to warm your lonely frigid heart on Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Josh

For 2013’s Valentine’s Day, my 20-year-old collegiate self suggested Gewurztraminer to pair with Chinese takeout and Adele; Muscadet to pair with tears and oysters; French rosé to pair with loneliness; and Asti for guilty pleasures. I might be suggesting Nebbiolo this time around, but let it be known that I’m still as happily unkempt as the last of those 2013 pairings. Good job, past self. My university persona regrets almost nothing: maybe one moment involving that necklace MacGyvered from a nondescript sabred sparkling wine cork, some wire, and two mismatching chains. I wore this everywhere for a good chunk of time. Alas.

Amongst what I would expect are the inevitable and seasonal release of tedious yet informative wine-and-chocolate-pairing articles (We get it!… 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

Quaffing · Tasting

The good, the bad, and the bubbly: 9 bottles to bathe in

Posted on by Josh

Okay – not literally, obviously, but I’m waiting for Gwyneth Paltrow’s new beauty regime that involves using a specific wines as exfoliants and face mask ingredients. Chardonnay from Puligny-Montrachet? Fuck that, she would say, with the flick of a finger. Chassagne-Montrachet is where it’s at. Or blanc de blancs Champagne, only from the 1996 vintage. And, of course, cucumber slices. Maybe an avocado.

Anyways, here’s a random collection of bub. I’ve finally tried a legit sparkling Nebbiolo after having joked about it for so long, and then there’s also a birth year bottle of Dom Pérignon, a stunningly electric sparkling British Columbian Riesling, and a collection of other cool and uncool bottles. It’s become suddenly warm in Vancouver, and I broke the summer hiking seal on the last day of March.… 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

Tasting

Josh tastes 118 wines at Top Drop

Posted on by Josh

If there was one unforgettable takeaway uttered by a wine god during this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference, it was the keynote speaker Karen MacNeil (author of the Wine Bible) who opined – and I’m paraphrasing, here – that people should pay more attention to tasting the wines during such events. Of course, I was thrilled, because that gave me even more validation to ignore people. Ha! Key advice when the militant goal is to taste every wine during a well-curated tasting, but it’s harder than it sounds because I guess I like to wave and flail at people.

A regretful ode to the few tables I did not get to visit: Anthonij Rupert, Badia a Coltibuono, Elio Altare, Giusti, Latta, Montenidoli, Orofino, Scribe, Spottswoode Estate, and that miscellaneous Australia Table.… 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