Days are leading up to the wine fest. Not that it’s daunting or anything – if that’s how I’m making it seem – but I’m purposefully not training my palate for the Shiraz-fest to come in favour of gracing my mouth with more refreshing whites. I’m sort of mirroring the sunny weather we’ve been having in the form of alcohol, and I find that it also helps to have some inspiring wine when you feel anything but. Yesterday’s Martin Códax “Burgáns” 2010 Rías Baixas ($25) was just that – perhaps not as fresh as it should be at that age, but bringing an unintentional spotlight to its funky hint of brine, along with something that seemed a bit nutty and yeasty amongst its peachy fruit.… read more
Tag: Riesling
WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 15: Germany
It’s been a weird past couple of weeks. I don’t know why I think it’s necessary for me to mention that I moved onto my first iPhone, but I’m going to: I’ve moved onto my first iPhone. And I instantly turned into the person I thought I would never be – the person constantly glued to their screen, swiping down on every app just to refresh what might be minuscule and insignificant updates that other people filter just so their lives look more entertaining than yours. I’m making it seem like I’m much older than I am, which seems to be a shitty inadvertent theme anyways?
Fancy dinner on some Sunday. It was great. I shall not talk about the accidental crunchy journey home because it’ll give you more fodder to poke at what might be my already hilarious life, but I’m still mentioning its existence because it makes me look mysterious even though what it should make me look like is gross.… read more
WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 14: Business of Wine
Woah! I’m feeling mighty uninspired. I think it might have to do with the clouds and rain, which are normally quite nice, but something’s blocking my brain and I feel like I have to obligatorily blame it on the weather. Maybe I need to watch a movie, or go on a mini vacation, or just hug someone for a really long time. It sure is an excuse to get juices flowing with actual alcoholic juice, but I’m going to not because my brain is telling me no. (Which means it’s going to be one can of beer or just a hint of scotch. And then maybe more scotch.)
Two weeks ago, I skipped class on southern Italy to attend an afternoon whisky seminar followed by a sobering nap.… read more
A freshly opened can of tennis balls: Pewsey Vale 2006 “The Contours” Riesling
[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 7: Australia]
Anyone who knows the austere and rubbery Australian Rieslings à la Somm‘s “freshly opened can of tennis balls” knows that this is an example of a wine that splits people in the middle so much that I become afraid of suggesting it to customers (and friends) without what’s essentially a verbal pre-installation Terms and Conditions page that they’ll pretend to read.
I’ve literally heard stories of people who return bottles of Clare or Eden Valley Riesling (one of the bottles which was this exact one) because they believe them to be flawed or “off”. I once held a meeting with some UBC Wine Club executives and chose a bottle of the Watervale Clare Valley Riesling, amongst others, as a wine that we could enjoy while we held our big annual retreat, subsequently followed by me making everyone watch Somm.… read more
Salted caramel ice cream and pride glitter: Domaine René Muré 2007 Riesling Vorbourg “Clos Saint Landelin” Sélection de Grains Nobles
[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]
I’m sad I didn’t have more time to spend just tasting minuscule sips of this wine, whose colour I haven’t seen for a wine in a very long time, and the same colour you’d swear was more akin to sherry than a Riesling. Add a Sélection de Grains Nobles wine to the list of wines that are so rare, such that getting to taste one is simultaneously enough and not enough.
Fuck.
It was reminiscent to the first wine in our flight of three, in that there was a real evolved pomaceous fruit character, with bruised red apple and dried pear that met with dried peaches, some apricots, honey, spice, mushroom, and apple jam.… read more
“Chelsea Dagger” – The Fratellis: Trimbach 2012 Riesling
[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]
Continuing on our speed tasting train. This is the brightest wine of our flight of three, and also the palest. Our flight of three was obviously chosen to display three different styles or quality levels of Riesling (the Alsatian grape we hadn’t tried yet in that session), the one previous to this being a Grand Cru Alsatian Riesling, this one being one at the regular Alsace AOP level, and the third being a Grand Cru Sélection de Grains Nobles.
This is a great example of its style, where bright Alsatian Riesling is mouth-commanding and almost abrasive, reminding me of a young and irritatingly chipper business-forward politician or Daenerys Targaryen.… read more
Liquid autumn and potpourri: Domaine Eblin-Fuchs 2010 Riesling Rosacker Grand Cru
[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 5: Alsace]
We literally start the last flight of three wines with six minutes left in class, so everyone’s struggling to speed taste, sort of like that scene in the first book of Harry Potter where Hermione has to figure out what potion Harry has to drink in order to make it through to save the world from Apothic Red, or whatever. They may have cut that scene from the film?
Originally there were simply three appellations for Alsace, and you may still very well group them in that way: there’s regular Alsace, there’s Crémant d’Alsace (sparkling), and then there’s the Grand Cru appellation which implies higher quality than the regular, but of course it’s still a subject of controversy.… read more
Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 – Speed Tasting i.e. Tinder for Wines
Speed tasting. It’s one of the unique events of the Wine Bloggers Conference that’s always explained to you if you’ve never heard of the WBC before, kind of like the warning nod of the hangover to the newly legal. It’s always described as “speed dating but with wine” – though in this case, it’s only a one-way road of looking at your date in disgust. So there’s a plus, and it’s sort of like a Tinder swipe-left-or-right sort of situation.
In the essence of the Live Wine Blogging event, you have 50 minutes to taste through 10 wines. In each 5-minute session, the winery representative pours you wine and gives you a bit of a quick overview before moving on to the next table.… read more
Margaery Tyrell: NV Skillogalee Sparkling Riesling
Tasting Note:
Eyes: clear, med+ lemon, bubbles
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, youthful, citrus, lemon, lime, lemon zest, petrol, floral, white flowers, mineral, green pineapple, hints of yeast, hint smokiness
Mouth: dry, med body, high acid, med alcohol, med+ length, pronounced flavour intensity, lemon, lime, lemon zest, floral, citrus explosion
All in all: Good (to very good) quality: the wine excels in its uniqueness, flavour intensity on the palate, and relatively persistent flavours. Slightly more complexity would have propelled the wine into a higher category. Drink now, not suitable for ageing.
A wine that smells and tastes like flowers, citrus, and sparkles like royalty. Hence the whole Margaery Tyrell sort of thing and the eternal sun that Highgarden seems to be in.… read more
Bree Van de Kamp: 1997 Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Ruppertsberger Gaisböhl “R” Riesling Auslese
Tasting Note:
Eyes: clear, med+ gold, legs
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, developing, mineral, ripe citrus, lemon curd, marmalade, red apple, baked apple, apple pie, peaches, petrol, spice, honey, floral
Mouth: medium-dry, med+ body, med acid, med- alcohol, med+ length, pronounced intensity, ripe apple, honey, spice, minerality, earth, lemon, peach, dried apricot, slate, pastry
All in all: Very good quality: this unctuous Riesling Auslese achieves great balance with the body, intensity, sugar, and acid. Alcohol has just the slightest imbalance despite a mere 11.5% ABV and there could be a little more complexity. But the intense concentration of what flavours are there is impressive. Drink now, not suitable for ageing.
It’s a Friday night. I’ve been home all day studying (and recovering from last night, for that matter) just to give myself an excuse to open something fantastic given I work through this fat stack of Champagne flash cards (which I did).… read more