Tag: Riesling

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

Tasting · Travel

Josh tastes 41 New York wines

Posted on by Josh

I can be a combination of thrifty and stubborn. If I’m spending money to fly to New York for the Wine Bloggers Conference, there’s no way I’m going to waste a single sober second not writing down a tasting note. I’m getting my money’s worth, y’all. Militantly shoving my head in between suits and dresses has trained me for these moments (I wonder if I was born easily?), and I planned to taste every wine in the damn room during the opening reception. Which I did, I think. Followed by cocktails, because why not gloss over my dying mouth with vodka?

I obviously tasted fewer wines than that time I tasted 173 BC wines in a row, but the BC torture session was in a brightly-lit room with chairs and quiet.… read more

Tasting · Travel

Women in Wine, Ventosa Vineyards, and Anthony Road

Posted on by Josh

After the WBC15 pre-excursion to Villa Bellangelo, we travel to our living quarters. We’re handed our room keys as we get off of the bus, and the front desk worker stops me as I walk through the lobby. She specifically stops me asks if I’m Josh – I say yes, obviously, and I wonder whether or not it’s because she’s secretly an undercover agent, and that this is the beginning of some really exciting spy film where I would discover my undiscovered penchant for leaping off buildings and using my wine knowledge to save the world. God, I need water.

I know she’s asking because there was some sort of logistical airplane snafu with my friend Kayla (who was also a scholarship recipient last year) which led to her having to get someone to drive her up to Geneva from Elmira.… read more

Tasting · Travel

Wine tastings on buses and Villa Bellangelo

Posted on by Josh

Was my current alarm set to that one Vampire Weekend song on which I clicked snooze too many times? The answer is maybe. Anyways, I’m told I have like half an hour before we leave for breakfast.

It’s finally the day that the pre-excursion for the Wine Bloggers Conference 2015 starts – so Christine, Amy, Leeann, Sujinder and I pack up, eat breakfast at a place (i.e. delicious instant-regret-omelettes), and drive back to Elmira where some of us enjoy Gin and Tonics at the airport to revitalize our brains. Some fellow bloggers began arriving: some remember that we met last year, where I was plagued by lots of self-doubt more than the capacity to retain faces and names (ugh what a great start), and we all board the pre-excursion bus on the way to Villa Bellangelo.… read more

Tasting · Travel

Finger Lakes: first spits and fire pits

Posted on by Josh

More wine in this post, I promise!

For some reason I was not tired after The Night Of No Sleep. My body knew. On a rainy morning dodging puddles and people, Christine, Amy, Leeanne, Sujinder and I bussed up to Elmira from NYC. This of course involved a cryptic and boisterous man who sat behind our group and modified the intensity of his New York accent depending on who he was talking to on the phone, including Joey, which included a mild conversation about picking up sodas at the dollar store; and then Beryl, to whom he aggressively told to check her mailbox and to “not worry about it” (severed hand?!). Obviously the world knew our NYC experience wasn’t over yet, and we’ve accomplished a lot before anything officially #WBC15.… read more

Tasting

#WBC15 Tinder Wine Session #1

Posted on by Josh

i.e. Live Wine Blogging but I like my name better.

Somehow, Mykha’el and I got an entire table to ourselves, but we owned that shit. Every representative that came to our table sighed with relief and took a chill seat next to one of us; they relaxed and poured us their wine and talked about it for five minutes until they heard the dreaded ding, indicating that they had to move on to the next table, for a total of 10 times. We were told that this year would be different, and every wine we would have in both this session and the next would consist solely of wines from New York.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

Post-Pride and Pre-WBC15 Wine Dump

Posted on by Josh

Bit of a tasting note dump between the Maryland trip and Vancouver Pride, since I am not drinking for a week in a simultaneous effort to recover from Vancouver Pride antics and to prepare my liver for the Wine Bloggers Conference in New York. Huzzah. I am surprisingly doing well so far, and I have stepped into the world of non-alcoholic beer.

(I’ve failed miserably.)

There’s not really a common thread here, except for maybe the general Old World?

I’ve also found out that my travel buddy had to cancel her attendance to both the Wine Bloggers Conference and our pre-conference trip to NYC due to a health issue, so I’m semi-alone in NYC (semi- because I’m meeting up with some Vancouver friends still) and I’m a little scared but also super excited. … read more

Life · Tasting

Sun rays and Vouvrays

Posted on by Josh

Studying for the upcoming diploma exam in around 4 weeks is just as terrifying as it is satisfying, with each strikethrough on my study planning sheet providing temporary pleasure before moving on to another daunting section, though I was particularly proud of myself for the past few sections on Australia and USA. The sun’s also begun to commit to bright and humid days, which means more exposed skin and mostly, weekend days that equate to regret when I’m literally rolling around in my bed with my laptop trying to relax and study at the same time. And it works – almost too well, to the point where I’m questioning why my growing talent for memorizing soil types isn’t better put to use by, say, memorizing blood passageways in the human body, or types of diseases that affect the brain.… read more

Tasting

Rock out with your Hawk out

Posted on by Josh

March 23, 2015

(Because, like, Alsace and rocks. And Hawksworth.)

Alsace as a person: some sort of plainly elegant freshly-shaven man – or a woman clad in some sort of colour-blocked dress – maybe something in-between? Possibly something cleanly cut yet bright that evokes images of Twiggy from the 60s, and maybe something equally as razor-sharp like a Polo and slicked-back hair with nary a thread out of place. Or like a United Colors of Benetton advertisement that shows five outfits that would all look disproportionately gross on me. (Truthfully, I’m an American Apparel medium and a Gap extra small, but I’m pretty sure my thighs set off fire alarms.) No oak, no malolactic, all vivid.

The brightness is no argument, because Alsace is literally the poster child-region for the dry and sunny climate that’s mentioned in every first paragraph that talks about the region.… read more

Life · Tasting

Vancouver International Wine Festival 2015: “Decades Apart”

Posted on by Josh

I’m feeling inconveniently gross because I was supposed to study the rest of Australia last night, so it seemed like a good idea when my best friend posed the idea of doing some late night work together at a café. We drove around, and the few places we could think of were all full at 9PM on a Tuesday, so we thought we could grab a small bite at the Union before heading back out to scout a place to get some shit done.

It was not a small bite. We did not do work afterwards.

Long story short: it’s the day after. I’m tired and gross and for some reason I decided to wear this really thick button-up because I’ve been saving it for semi-relevant moments like these, and I’m thanking God that there isn’t a saccharine Chardonnay in the flight that raises my body temperature by a few degrees.… read more