Recently I went to a Greek wine tasting. Although we normally think of France and Italy when we think of European wine, if we remember the Greek God of wine Dionysus, we realize that Greece probably made and enjoyed wine first. In this spirit, I decided to try some Greek wines, and share my experience with you. We went from light whites to strong reds.
1) Mountain Sun White from Semeli
The wine has Moschofiler and Roditis white grapes, and some people tasted lemon and melon flavors. When I tasted it, my impression was that it had very light flavor, and was neither sweet nor dry. Other tasters described it as a good "summery porch wine". This wine might go well with fish, vegetables, white meat, sushi, or pasta with seafood. My impression was that I wouldn't spend the money on this wine. It didn't have enough flavor to survive a slice of cheese!
2) Kallisto White Blend from Dom. Mercouri
This white was pleasant and moderately sweet, reminiscent of a good Riesling. On a summer day, this is the wine I'd have on a summer porch, roof, or front stoop. Just enough flavor to manage summer foods.
3) Argyros Atlantic White
The most interesting of the whites, this wine is floral, sweet, and dry -- balancing the three in a way that invites you to drink more. It is a wine from Santorini, and is supposed to go well with white meats or seafood.
4) Agioritiko "Red Stag" from Spiropoulos
My first reaction to this wine is that its a red for white drinkers. Usually white wine drinkers don't like the strong flavors of red wines ... this red has no strong flavor at all. It is very light and it should be paired with lighter flavored foods, such as chicken prepared simply.
5) Paranga Red, Kir Yianni
This red wine is grown in the Macedonia region of Greece, and is a blend of Greek Merlot and Syrah. Some people tasted notes of cinnamon, red fruit, and pepper on the finish. Other tasters were put off by a very powerful "ick", "barn", or "rotten vegetable" smell of the wine. The wine itself had a medium body but did not strike me as anything special. As a Syrah fan, my guess was that there was mostly Merlot in the wine!
6) Xinomavro, Dio Fili Estate
This red wine struck me as soft and subtle, and it was dry with potent tannins. It was listed as a wine that could age for several years. Some other tasters thought they'd prefer to let this wine age before opening another bottle. I liked it as-is.
7) Thema, Ktima Pavlidis
I really liked this red wine. This red is a blend of reds and has a dark color and strong flavor. My only comment on this wine was "yum". Its also among the most expensive of the wines I tried!
8) Thimiopoulos Young Vines Xinomavro
An interesting red wine grown on older vines, I enjoyed this wine too. Strong and subtle, it has Kirsch-like cherry aromas and delicate tannins.
A lot of local wine stores don't carry Greek wines, but when they do, I'll go looking for a few of these wines. In the meantime, I'll try some new wines and continue buying Malbec and Syrah!
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
The Taster vs. The Drinker, and Sulfates
Another thing that I have noticed about wine is that consumers are split into two different groups: tasters and drinkers.
Tasters are people like me, wine lovers who not only like what they know, but enjoy tasting what they don't know. Tasters enjoy going to vineyards, trying different wines made by different vintners, and hearing what the vintners have to say about the wine. It is a great way to taste wines that aren't in the stores, that you may never taste again! Many of the winery's wines are not widely distributed, especially if the winery is small.
Drinkers are the folks who are happy to buy the same bottle for dinner every week, enjoy the flavor, but don't have much interest beyond that. Drinkers are like the Europeans who drink wine with dinner, although they may not have the experience or expertise that Europeans have with wine. They just like the flavor of wine, and possibly enjoy the flavor of food more. Tasters may turn into drinkers, or be both, but I have yet to see a sure and steady drinker turn into a taster.
In my own role as taster and drinker, I went to the Brooklyn winery for dinner one night. I had a glass of the red "of the day", and a glass of Malbec. They were both "old world" wines, meaning the grapes were grown in regions that have been producing wine for centuries. Many people think that the old world wines are better quality, or more complex wines. Well, this was the first time in years that two glasses of wine gave me a splitting headache. The first time it happened, I asked around about why some wines would do that. I was told that sulfates, commonly known as preservatives, were the cause. Some wines put more sulfates in their wine than others. Typically vintners assume that the wine will be consumed pretty quickly, so they won't put much sulfate in the wine. In some cases, however, they won't take that chance. This is when the wine can cause allergic reactions that vary from mild (headache) to bad (in my case, puffy eyes, red face, and a headache). The latter has happened twice in my life, and I am grateful to say that few vintners put enough sulfate in their wine to give me such a bad reaction.
So, to all the wine tasters out there -- you have a chance to ask, before buying the wine, about the sulfate content. To the wine drinkers who are not tasters, if a wine ever gives you a splitting headache, check the label. Compare the sulfate content in that wine to another wine you've had. Chances are, there's a big enough difference. In either case, remember that Tylenol can cure a sulfate headache!
This blog is for all tasters and drinkers out there who are curious about or interested in wine. In my next article, I may write about a tasting!
Tasters are people like me, wine lovers who not only like what they know, but enjoy tasting what they don't know. Tasters enjoy going to vineyards, trying different wines made by different vintners, and hearing what the vintners have to say about the wine. It is a great way to taste wines that aren't in the stores, that you may never taste again! Many of the winery's wines are not widely distributed, especially if the winery is small.
Drinkers are the folks who are happy to buy the same bottle for dinner every week, enjoy the flavor, but don't have much interest beyond that. Drinkers are like the Europeans who drink wine with dinner, although they may not have the experience or expertise that Europeans have with wine. They just like the flavor of wine, and possibly enjoy the flavor of food more. Tasters may turn into drinkers, or be both, but I have yet to see a sure and steady drinker turn into a taster.
In my own role as taster and drinker, I went to the Brooklyn winery for dinner one night. I had a glass of the red "of the day", and a glass of Malbec. They were both "old world" wines, meaning the grapes were grown in regions that have been producing wine for centuries. Many people think that the old world wines are better quality, or more complex wines. Well, this was the first time in years that two glasses of wine gave me a splitting headache. The first time it happened, I asked around about why some wines would do that. I was told that sulfates, commonly known as preservatives, were the cause. Some wines put more sulfates in their wine than others. Typically vintners assume that the wine will be consumed pretty quickly, so they won't put much sulfate in the wine. In some cases, however, they won't take that chance. This is when the wine can cause allergic reactions that vary from mild (headache) to bad (in my case, puffy eyes, red face, and a headache). The latter has happened twice in my life, and I am grateful to say that few vintners put enough sulfate in their wine to give me such a bad reaction.
So, to all the wine tasters out there -- you have a chance to ask, before buying the wine, about the sulfate content. To the wine drinkers who are not tasters, if a wine ever gives you a splitting headache, check the label. Compare the sulfate content in that wine to another wine you've had. Chances are, there's a big enough difference. In either case, remember that Tylenol can cure a sulfate headache!
This blog is for all tasters and drinkers out there who are curious about or interested in wine. In my next article, I may write about a tasting!
Saturday, February 11, 2012
What Your Favorite Wine Has in Common with a Snowflake
We've all heard about the proverbial uniqueness of a snowflake. And on a good day when we're proud of human diversity, we smile about how each person is also like a snowflake. But did you know that your favorite wine is also like a snowflake? Most people know their favorite wine (such as Cabernet Sauvignon), and might even have a favorite winery -- and buy that wine all the time. This provides the comforting illusion that the wine you enjoyed last night with last night's bottle is a wine you can enjoy again. Well, I'm here to tell you that after talking to some gentlemen in the wine business, my suspicions about this illusion were confirmed. You can not repeat the experience of a bottle of wine from one night to the next. You may come very close, so close that you can't tell the difference, but it is not the same wine!
Let me back-up for you though. Let us begin with just your favorite wine type: a Riesling, Merlot, or whatever you favor most. You may have noticed that different regions produce wine made of the same grape. You have probably figured out that, for example, a French Cabernet Sauvignon does not taste like a California Cabernet Sauvignon. Wine is produced in territories, and just like any other fruit, the grapes from one territory doesn't taste like grape from another territory. The soil, climate, and altitude of where the grapes grow are among many of the factors that affect a wine's flavor very early in the life of that wine.
Okay, you may be thinking, that makes sense. Perhaps you're thinking about some exotic fruits, and how they can only be grown abroad, and shipped here. After the grape of your favorite wine is grown, it is picked and turned to wine. So, so many factors enter the equation for this long process. How long is the wine stored before it is bottled? In how many barrels? What kind of wood is the barrel made from? Where are the barrels stored? How many preservatives are used? The list of affecting circumstances go on and on for the average unblended wine.
If you find you are in love with a wine blend, such as a Malbec-Cabernet Sauvignon blend, or even a blend of three or four wines, then the life of each type that is blended brings with it a complexity that most consumers don't really contemplate. The flavor of each individual type depends on its own history, and then the flavor of the blended wine relies upon how well each type of wine gets along with the others.
All of this exciting and unpredictable flavoring occurs only in the barrel. But even after a wine is bottled, its flavor can vary from one bottle to the next! Never mind that it came from the same barrel, each bottle has its own experience. Each bottle has its own history with the winery, its transportation to the distributor, how it is stored there, its transportation to your store, and how the store keeps the bottle. After all, altitude and temperature affect how well each bottle of wine lasts until you open it. As if those were not enough variables, if a cork is used, it, too, can affect the wine's flavor. Twist-caps may be easier to handle, but still remove some favorable variables that corks have provided to wine for centuries.
Wine flavor is complex, subtle, and variable. A wine's history, just like a person's, is key to how it turns out at different stages of its life cycle. The flavor can even vary from one glass to the next, coming from the same bottle. Until the wine is consumed, it is a living, changing entity that is sensitive to every experience it goes through.
Wine is just life a snowflake. If you use that simile with someone in the wine industry, they might laugh at you. But if you ask them, does each bottle taste the same, and they are being honest, they will say no.
This blog is an introduction to my new blog on wine, wine tasting, and learning about wine. Stay tuned for future articles!
Let me back-up for you though. Let us begin with just your favorite wine type: a Riesling, Merlot, or whatever you favor most. You may have noticed that different regions produce wine made of the same grape. You have probably figured out that, for example, a French Cabernet Sauvignon does not taste like a California Cabernet Sauvignon. Wine is produced in territories, and just like any other fruit, the grapes from one territory doesn't taste like grape from another territory. The soil, climate, and altitude of where the grapes grow are among many of the factors that affect a wine's flavor very early in the life of that wine.
Okay, you may be thinking, that makes sense. Perhaps you're thinking about some exotic fruits, and how they can only be grown abroad, and shipped here. After the grape of your favorite wine is grown, it is picked and turned to wine. So, so many factors enter the equation for this long process. How long is the wine stored before it is bottled? In how many barrels? What kind of wood is the barrel made from? Where are the barrels stored? How many preservatives are used? The list of affecting circumstances go on and on for the average unblended wine.
If you find you are in love with a wine blend, such as a Malbec-Cabernet Sauvignon blend, or even a blend of three or four wines, then the life of each type that is blended brings with it a complexity that most consumers don't really contemplate. The flavor of each individual type depends on its own history, and then the flavor of the blended wine relies upon how well each type of wine gets along with the others.
All of this exciting and unpredictable flavoring occurs only in the barrel. But even after a wine is bottled, its flavor can vary from one bottle to the next! Never mind that it came from the same barrel, each bottle has its own experience. Each bottle has its own history with the winery, its transportation to the distributor, how it is stored there, its transportation to your store, and how the store keeps the bottle. After all, altitude and temperature affect how well each bottle of wine lasts until you open it. As if those were not enough variables, if a cork is used, it, too, can affect the wine's flavor. Twist-caps may be easier to handle, but still remove some favorable variables that corks have provided to wine for centuries.
Wine flavor is complex, subtle, and variable. A wine's history, just like a person's, is key to how it turns out at different stages of its life cycle. The flavor can even vary from one glass to the next, coming from the same bottle. Until the wine is consumed, it is a living, changing entity that is sensitive to every experience it goes through.
Wine is just life a snowflake. If you use that simile with someone in the wine industry, they might laugh at you. But if you ask them, does each bottle taste the same, and they are being honest, they will say no.
This blog is an introduction to my new blog on wine, wine tasting, and learning about wine. Stay tuned for future articles!
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