Tag: United States

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 · Travel

Josh Likes Maryland: Part 3

Posted on by Josh

We were literally scheduled to just chill out and have an appropriate lazy Monday the day after New York City, though some of the family opted to go visit some large church or something. Monkeying around seemed much more fun, though I can say I went to a Chipotle for the first time ever, so technically I accomplished something. #goals

We ventured back out to DC the next day, getting as close as we could to the White House because how can you not, and then we had a big nerdy day at both the Freer Gallery of Art and the Museum of National History, both of which I loved. You can only retain so much information, but hey: cool rock exhibits are pretty and science is awesome, kids.… read more

Life · Tasting

Vancouver International Wine Festival 2015: “All About Syrah”

Posted on by Josh

Legit tried to give my ticket away or sell it just hours before like a chump, because the previous day’s Australian Shiraz tasting made me seriously question what possessed me to buy a ticket to an event where I was subject to taste eleven more Syrah wines. No ma’am. I couldn’t even give my ticket away to someone for free, as he reluctantly looked at me as if I’d just knocked on his door and asked if his life had been saved by Syrah yet.

I thought it was a bad sign when some sort of false fire alarm went off right when the beginning of the event rolled around. As soon as I was going to test if the rhythm would match up with an Iggy Azalea song, the blaring Windows 98-like noises stopped.… read more

Life · Quaffing

Pre-Vancouver International Wine Fest 2015

Posted on by Josh

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

Life · WSET Diploma

WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 14: Business of Wine

Posted on by Josh

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

WSET Diploma

Halloween candy: Mark West 2012 Pinot Noir

Posted on by Josh

Mark West 2012 Pinot Noir[Tasted during WSET Diploma – Unit 3 – Week 4: Workshop]

The second wine in our flight of three was clearly the lowest quality, though perhaps premature conclusions were drawn just from smelling the three without having tasted them yet. It’s that sort of jammy strawberry and vanilla thing, but it’s not a complex strawberry compote sort of deal. Maybe kind of like those Campino candy things without the yogurt connotation (and maybe even worse than that), but maybe candy is on my mind because I haven’t had my fair share of Halloween treats this year. Hrmph. I suppose this comes close. I mean it’s an orange label.

The palate seals the deal with a lightly-bodied wine and almost no acid to balance out the sweetness, but I suppose the saccharine fruit superficially lengthens the flavours on the back palate.… read more

Quaffing

Liquid Love Handles and Marshmallows: 2011 Treana White

Posted on by Josh

Tasting Note:

Eyes: clear, med+ lemon, legs
Nose: clean, med+ intensity, developing, oak, vanilla, baking spice, sweet spice, marshmallow, stone fruit, nectarine, orange peel, floral, perfume, ripe citrus, nuts, honey, hint tropical
Mouth: dry, full bodied, med acid, high alcohol, med+ intensity, savoury, oak, butter, ripe citrus, orange peel, savoury, baking spice, sweet spice, peach, floral, nutty, med+ length
All in all: Good (to very good) quality: one of the poster children of complex hedonism. Fantastic concentration, body, and balance of oak – but the alcohol is slightly imbalanced, and the structure may be lacking for some consumers. Drink now, not suitable for ageing.

2011 Treana WhiteI haven’t had wine in 9 days (for some dumb pseudo-reason like being really sick or whatever) with a few servings of both horrible and delicious beer in between.… read more

Tasting

Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 – Speed Tasting i.e. Tinder for Wines

Posted on by Josh

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

Life · Travel

Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 – First Impressions

Posted on by Josh

Day 1. First off: intentionally-chosen attire: Brettanomyces shirt. Onwards.

By something like 4AM on the day of my flight, I was excited out of my mind. I was absolutely stoked for the Wine Bloggers Conference, but I also love early morning flights – I love the feeling of escaping while the whole city is asleep (though I hope that this doesn’t say more about my myself than I’d like). There’s also something I find weirdly satisfying about successfully passing the airport security portion. Like, I’m fine – why do I even worry? The metal detector can’t check for bad personalities.

“Sir, can you please step over here? We looked at the scanner and we noticed that you enjoy puns. Can you Gew over there for a pat down, please?”… read more

Life · Travel

Wine Bloggers Conference 2014 (in Santa Barbara!) – Scholarship Recipient

Posted on by Josh

My knowledge of any sort of Wine Bloggers Conference begun in 2013. It took place in Penticton (so close to home!) and so it was a bit of a bummer that I couldn’t make it. The knowledge of the next one rolled around and a friend stirred up my excitement – I was eventually convinced to go, leading to eager registration during a tight schedule, i.e. attempting to apply for the WBC scholarship on an iPad during a movie night with friends. (For the record, we watched “The Purge”, which would have paired nicely with a smoky and gamey Pinotage reminiscent of gunpowder and revenge.)

Obviously I was thrilled when I found out that I had earned the scholarship, and thusly I immediately had a 5-minute Madonna dance party where I replaced all instances of “Holiday” with “Chardonnay”.… read more