Wine Wine Wine
Collection of wine news and wine-related feeds1855 Bordeaux meets iPhone
If you’re like me you can never remember the Bordeaux growth classifications. Now I don’t have to, I’m going to get the 1855 French Wine Classification iPhone app. It’s a quick reference guide to the system.
Why didn’t I think of that?!
Perfect. I’ll never get my wines mixed up again. Buy them here <link>
Red wines and fish
Japanese scientists have solved the mystery of why red wines don’t go with fish. Iron.
Japanese scientists asked study subjects to try 38 red wines and 26 whites while eating scallops. Some of the wines contained small amounts of iron, which varied by country of origin, variety and vintage. The tasters noted which wines really didn’t work with scallops. And the researchers found that those wines all had high levels of iron. So they doctored the wine with a substance that binds iron, keeping it away from the tasters’ tongues. And voila, the bad taste became a bad memory.
link to Scientific American
link to the full academic paper
Recommended Oregon Pinots
The Chronicle has done its annual review of Oregon Pinots. I normally like to write my own precis of the articles I link to but the Chronicle’s own is so good I’ve just included it.
A coda: After the trials of 2007, Oregon received a Pinot bounty last year. The initial 2008s we encountered were brimming with pretty fruit. If the ’07s are an uneven lot, a new crop of excellent Pinots should soon be winding their way down Interstate 5.
However to get their recommendations you have to read more: <link>
2009 Vintage reports
If you want to follow the progess of the 2009 vintage, Jancis has a collection of online reports and information here <link>
Much to-do about wine
- Try a Wine From a Different Country
- Go to a Wine Bar and Have a Flight of Wine
- Order the Cheapest Wine on a Restaurant’s Wine List
- Open a Sparkler at Home for No Reason at All
The last one we do all the time. These are just the first four items on the WSJ’s To-do list for wine <link>
The one I want to do is…
- Shatter Your Price Limit!!!
Top 10 restaurant wines
For 2008, the top 10 wines (by volume) sold in American restaurants, as reported by Restaurant Wine News, were:
1. Kendall-Jackson Chardonnay, Vintner’s Reserve, CA
2. Cavit Pinot Grigio, Italy
3. Beringer Vineyards White Zinfande, CA
4. Sutter Home White Zinfandel, CA
5. Inglenook Chablis, CA
6. Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio, Italy
7. Mezzacorona Pinot Grigio, Italy
8. Copper Ridge Vineyards, Chardonnay, CA
9. Yellow Tail Chardonnay, Australia
10. Franzia Winetaps, White Zinfandel, Vintner Select, CA
No Pinot Noirs and not even a single red wine. So much for the Sideways effect.
And the top 10 brands by volume were:
1. Kendall Jackson
2. Sutter Home
3. Beringer Vineyards
4. Franzia Winetaps
5. Inglenook
6. Yellow Tail
7. Copper Ridget
8. Cavit
9. Woodbridge
10. Salmon Creek
Read the press release here.
Mondial du Pinot Noir
A competition just for Pinot Noir. The 2009 results are just out.
“The Mondial du Pinot Noir 2009 awards offer a good reflection of the wines that participated in the competition, demonstrating clearly that Pinot wines show very varied expressions in different parts of the world. Two wines, one from Spain and the other from Switzerland, won the highest awards, a Grande Médaille d’Or.”
Deep in the list of medal winners are these two wines from Saint Clair Estates in New Zealand. The 2008 Pinot Noir Pioneer Block 14 Doctor’s Creek and Pinot Noir Pioneer Block 16 Awatere.
Here’s the site <link>
