Grape of the Day

Neatly situated on a plateau between three separate ranges of granite-laden mountains, the Dao region of Portugal is known for highly tannic red wines. But, today, we are here to drink from an up and coming, yet still little known white wine known as Encruzado. Once known as nothing but a blending grape, Encruzado has begun to gain favor among winemakers who like experimenting with oak. First, what is Dao? It's a Denominacion d'Origem Controlada (DOC) centered roughly where the Dao and Mondego Rivers meet. Wine connoisseurs know it as the home of Touriga Nacional, the primary grape in most port wine. The history of Dao goes back to the early 20th century. Sometime around the beginning of World War II, in an effort to improve the quality of local wine, the Portuguese government established that wine in Dao would be made only by an oligopoloy of wine cooperatives. The experiment, however, was a complete failure, as the cooperatives cooperated with each other to produce cheap, low...

You're out for the evening at a restaurant you've never visited  before and along with the menu, you are presented with a formidable wine list. It has quite a number of selections and most of them look quite strange. What should you do? Before going down this path at all, I'm going to say that there is no universally right answer. So much is a matter of food, price, willingness to try, your own knowledge level, and your own tastes. And, we also likely need to break this into three categories (perhaps even four) of restaurants -- 1) those with sommeliers, 1a) those with sommeliers, but also with very knowledgeable servers, 2) those without sommeliers, but with somewhat helpful servers, and 3) those where you are on your own. Let's go through them. A sommelier is a person on a restaurant staff whose specific customer service job is to help the customers with wine and other beverage selection and service. He or she has special expertise. Often, you will see a sommelier wea...

There are lots of schools of thought when it comes to pairing wine with food or food with wine. To some extent, they are all correct, but the most basic one is really not.  What is that most basic school of thought? Drink what you like with whatever food you're having. Why do I say it's not really correct? Read on. We're going to put you through some basic pairing exercises that you can do even while you are sheltered in place. Here is what you need: A highly tannic red wine, perhaps a young Cabernet Sauvignon produced at high altitude; A brut sparkling wine, perhaps something labeled as Champagne or some less expensive label, but the brut part is important; A buttery Chardonnay; A highly acidic Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio or Albarino; A port wine, or if you prefer white, a Sauternes or Barsac, or an eiswein , or any sweet, white dessert wine. And,  An ounce or two of arugula with a vinaigrette dressing; A lemon; A glazed donut, preferably not with chocolate; Some neutr...

You're drinking a wine that you really loved last year and this year, the bottle of the same wine that you opened just doesn't seem to taste very good. What's going on?  Chances are, if you're like most people, that you are drinking wine from a different vintage. That means that the grapes were harvested in a different year -- presumably one year later. Does that really make that big a difference? Let's consider what is different. The grapes are different. They are likely from vines that are one year older (it's unlikely that that makes much of a difference) or they were picked from different vines, the weather during the growing season was different, either the barrels in which the wine may have been aged either had one more year of previous aging on them or they were different barrels, the blend or blending is likely different.  Ultimately, the vintage may make a tremendous difference. And, despite all their expertise, the experts can be very wrong in their pr...

We decided to go to some local wineries yesterday -- local if a 75 to 90 minute drive is local. We chose three in particular, all of them well-reviewed and recommended by friends, some of whose opinions on wine we value. We were excited for the day. All three are situated in the north Georgia mountains. From any of them, looking in the right direction, you can see Brasstown Bald rising up nearly 4800ft/1450m above sea level. This is a thinly populated area, so looking in any direction, you see a veritable sea of green from all of the dense forests in the rolling hills. The soil here is quite minerally, particularly dense in granite. Winters are cool, and while summers are hot, thanks to the elevation, they are frequently nearly 10 or more degrees cooler than you would find roughly 80 miles to the south by southwest in downtown Atlanta. It's also less humid here although still not ideal for grape growing. At the wineries, we learned that most of the white grapes are grown locally an...

You choose a bottle of wine. Perhaps it just came home from the store. Maybe a friend gave it to you. Perhaps you have been saving it for years and years because you've heard all the expressions about improving with age. Why do we decant? Does it help? Can it hurt? Will you notice the difference? Technically, there are two reasons to decant a wine. In practice, there is a third, much broader reason. Let's consider them in this order. As a (generally red) wine ages, or in an unfiltered red wine, solids includung sediment and crystallized matter, often sugar-based will form in the wine. The process of decanting the wine, that is, pouring the wine from the bottle into a vessel with large surface area, will allow the solid matter to separate out from the clarified wine. In particular, this will avoid the problem as you near the bottom of an aged bottle of wine of getting the chewy particulate in your mouth.  Honestly, there is nothing wrong with that chewy or crystalline stuff, but...

Do you like pesto? How about basil and oregano? Then, you are in luck today as we head high up in to the Piemonte region of Italy in the foothills of the Italian Alps. To be more precise, we're in the town of Gavi about an hour north of Genoa in the western part of the country. We're here today to learn about Cortese di Gavi, more frequently known simply as Cortese. The town was long a battleground. Once in the heart of the western part of the Roman Empire,  it was taken from the Romans by the Magyars from what is now Hungary and later by the Saracens invading from north Africa. Many centuries later, the French took over Gavi before it was recaptured by the Genovese. By the early 19th century, the Kingdom of Sardinia lay claim. Today, the only remnants are the fortress that encircled the city center and the palace, the palace itself a medieval church. More so than for its history, today it is far better known for this single grape that we get to enjoy today. It's a grape wi...