Bordeaux is a port city in Southwestern France. It sits on the banks of the Gironde River. Its canals link the city to the Mediterranean Sea to the west and to the east it divides into two smaller tributaries called Dordogne & Garonne. These two rivers create one of the most famous wine regions in…
Tag: new to wine
Bottles to Impress
Top 100 list from winespectator.com chose Lewis Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 from Napa Valley as their #1 pick. This wine is one of my favorites, even though the price tag is high for a new to wine person. It costs about $90 per bottle. What makes this wine great? We can start by saying it has…
Tasting Tricks – grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon
Now comes the fun part. We need to put to test all that we have learned about tasting. We need to practice. This is tough work, I know!:) In order to start developing our wine palate, we need to start tasting wines and we need to memorize its color and aroma. First of all, we…
Wine term of the Week
Tannins are one of the 5 most important characteristics of wine, remember the others? acid, fruit, body, sweetness. In nature, tannins are plant building blocks that protect, preserve and defend the plant from predators. In general, tannins belong to a group of compounds called phenols. Phenols aka tannins are the reason red wine is an…
Bottles to Impress
Quintessa is a red meritage, Bordeaux style blend from Rutherford, Napa Valley, California. Rutherford has the perfect soil for cabernets. The grapes that are used in a Bordeaux blend are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Cabernet Franc & Carmenere. This wine is aromatic and well balanced (acids & tannins). Also it has a long finish (once…
How to Taste Wine Like a Pro.
As we have learned, we start by looking at the glass in a 45 degree angle, away from us and over a white surface. COLOR. For white wine: lighter color indicates: younger age, cooler climate, specific grape and darker color indicates: older age, warmer climate, aged in barrel, specific grape. Red wines are the opposite, if…
Educate your Sense of Taste.
The third part of wine tasting takes place in the palate and it evaluates the wine’s structure and flavor. While we swirl the wine in our mouth, we should put our nasopharynges to work. This can be done by aspiring some air inside the mouth before swallowing the wine. New flavors and smells appear, specially if…
Wine tasting aromas…fake news or are they for real?
Being a wine newbie myself, I do appreciate wine aromas but I still do not get that a wine could smell like “sensitive and burnt cotton sugar with a suspicious raw red meat aroma”. Recently reading an article at npr.org I realized I was not the only one confused with all that “wine poetry” and hyperbole. To…
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