The Secret Ingredient in Wine

Wine is made from grapes, and there is a basic process for how white wines and red wines are made.  Yeasts are used to start the process in almost all cases.  Many wine makers use sulphar dioxide to help the process along, while others use organic techniques.  And the grapes are effected by their terroir, which provides unique characteristics to different grapes from different regions with different growing conditions.  But none of these are the secret ingredient in wine.

The secret ingredient in wine is the fellowship and company with which the wine is drunk!

"Eating is an intelligent act, or it's merely an animal one. And what makes it intelligent is the company of other mouths and minds," says Adam Gopnik from The Table Comes First.  Well said indeed!  I believe that applies equally well to a table of food and wine and to just sharing a bottle with friends.  In my earlier blog post "Wine Snob versus Wine Enthusiast - which one are you?" I point out one of the differences between a

Wine Snob

• They bragged about the excellent wines they had, but never found the opportunity to share the wine with friends or to give a bottle to a friend

Wine Enthusiast

• They are happy to share wine, either by contributing a bottle, or by asking all who share to chip in for a special bottle of wine, or by setting some rules to have each person bring a bottle according to the rules established 

Wine (and food) goes better with people, and the better the people, the better the wine tastes!

We have a lot of work colleagues away from home during the week, so we regularly have a 'singles and strays' dinner to get them together and make sure they get both some good company and a good home-cooked meal.

When I was at (a Catholic) university, I had a priest teaching an honors course who said that "if you cannot find time to break bread and enjoy a meal with family or friends, then something is drastically wrong with your life."  I believe this to be true and and something 'busy' American families and many others do not appreciate.  We tend to grab a meal on the run, getting our daily bread where we can find or buy it, and each family member does so according to their own schedule.

There is great joy in sitting together, drinking together and eating together which is the essence of life.  We have made a point to have people over regularly, to find reasons to commune over a good meal and wine.  We are all better for it, and the wine taste better because of it!

Drinking Responsibly and Getting Your RSA

I have been thinking about writing a cheeky little entry on Breakfast Wines, but wanted to make sure everyone understood that I do not advocate nor do I drink wine or other alcohol in the early morning myself!  However, there are some wines that match up beautifully with all-day breakfast menus which are worth mentioning, so that blog is soon to follow.

But first, I wanted to discuss responsible drinking behaviors.  Whenever I host a dinner party or an evening out - among friends or with business associates - I alway alert people to the need to monitor themselves and each other to ensure we are drinking responsibly and will get get home safely.  A number of RSLs and other restaurants in Australia now have free Breathalyser machines so you can check your alcohol levels before leaving the venue and help decide if you are able to drive or should catch a ride from a friend or grab a taxi home.  I applaud them for that!

Providing this type of awareness is even more important if you are hosting a wine tasting evening with multiple bottles of wine to try.  We provide spit buckets, so you do not have to swallow everything you put in your mouth.  However, many people do not believe in the this, and feel they are wasting good wine by spitting it out!  (There is some truth in that, but if you are going to sample 10 - 20 different wines, some maybe several times, there could be a danger in swallowing it all!)  Therefore, we start every session with a warning of the perils of imbibing too much and some tips on being a socially responsible drinker.

And especially for your loved ones and even if you are at home and not driving, you should be drinking responsibly, or accidents can happen!

We plan in advance our travel based on how much we think we are going to drink.  If at all possible, I like to eat and drink at home, or go to one of the BYO restaurants down Kent Street from where we live such as Fish on the Rocks or Curry at the Rocks.  Both allow BYO wine (and serve a decent selection of wines and other beverages).  Then I can walk to the restaurant and back.  Same if I am visiting my favorite steak house, The Cut Bar & Grill.

But one of my favorite new restaurants is HUX @ Nortons, run by Jay Huxley, Masterchef finalist from last season and he does the most amazing pub food in the world!   Since it is further away and the train is not easy to use to get there, we either drive over and I will have one drink and drive home.  Or if I have two or more, then Deanna drives home.  Or if we both know we want a few, we will walk over (about a 75 minute walk) to get some exercise and then take a taxi home.  Regardless, a trip to HUX is always worth it!

Minimally, if you plan on doing wine tastings for sale, working at some wine events with friends, or occasionally helping out in a cellar door, in Australia, you need to acquire your RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) certificate and card.  This is required training for anyone in the field.  We are going to get ours very soon.  We signed up for a class last year at our vineyard, but it was canceled unfortunately.

In NSW, it was previously required that you attend a 6-hour (basically give up a day!) classroom course to get your certificate which was an impediment for us as busy as we have been during the last year.  But now, with the new legislation that came into effect on 1 July, 2012, you can take an on-line course to qualify for your RSA.  There are a lot of different places now to get your RSA, so check out what the best approach is for you.  We are going to take one of the on-line courses, but you may want to take it in person and use the opportunity to socialize and network with others

I provide links above for both an on-line course and an in-person course, but am not recommending them over any other course.  I have not attended or heard good or bad about either of them or any others.  Most courses cost between $50 - $150, but I expect there is very little difference in course content or value.

I highly recommend that everyone take their RSA to ensure you know the basics of responsible drinking and service of alcohol, regardless if you want to work in the field or not.  And now, that I have that off my chest, I can write the blog on breakfast wines that I have been dying to get out there!

Chianti perfect with pizza

The Chianti, a 2006 Gabbiano Classico Riserva was a perfect match for the pizza.  It was soft, but with enough complexity to mix beautifully with the various pizza flavors.

We were thinking of also trying a 2001 Rosemount Traditional, but after tasting the Chianti, realized that the Chianti was perfect and decided to save the Rosemount to go with corn beef.  (A separate blog on that will follow.)

As with all Italian Chiantis, the Gabbiano was made from the Sangiovese grape.  While Sangiovese is considered a secondary grape, it has real stature in Italy and is popular globally. There are a number of Australian makers of Sangiovese now and one of the very best is Tintilla, in the Hunter Valley.  The do a great Sangiovese and a Sangiovese / Merlot blend and some of the older vintages are nicely smoky and a bit rustic in tasting.

If you really want to have a good time, check out the Tintilla website and write them about their annual Sangiovese tasting.  I believe it just passed for this year, but there is always next year.

The Gabbiano comes in a Classico and a Classico Riserva, which is a better wine, using a more select collection of premium grapes.  The Riserva has a DOCG appellation in the Tuscany region which means it is 'top of the line' Sangiovese. If you like Chianti, but you are not aware of the different brands and which one is best, you can usually be safe in picking up a very good quality Chianti by choosing one with the "Rooster" label (picture to right) which ensures it is of DOCG quality (unless of course, it is a counterfeit.)

I was originally debating between a Shiraz and the Chianti, but decided the Chianti was a better choice and I was right.  Pizza crust goes better with Chianti than a Shiraz for starters.  Additionally, we had a pizza with salami, green capsicum, Spanish onion, mushrooms, garlic, chili and cheese.  The salami on its own would have fought a bit with the Shiraz, whereas it worked beautifully with the Chianti.  And it worked great with our guests, Ric and Cris, as Ric is Italian (Cris is Venezuelan) and the maker of the fine salami we used on the pizza.  Since having started to use Ric's salami as a topping, it has been impossible to use other salamis or pepperoni.  Ric's family made another 140 kilograms of salami today and we will be joining them in two weeks to help with the next batch.

My friend Jeff, who lives in California, suggested that a Red Zinfandel would also be a great match for pizza and he is correct.  I tend to forget about what a great wine Zinfandel is for many occasions, and pizza would be one of them.  We do not see much Zinfandel in Australia, but Cape Mentelle makes a great one.  I had a  2008 Cape Mentelle Zinfandel at Bistro Molines in the Hunter Valley several months ago and it was the first Zinfandel I had had in 15 years (since moving to Australia).  I also had a 2009 Cape Mentelle Zinfandel at The Cut Bar & Grill a little while ago with their slow cooked prime rib.  Cape Mentelle is in the Margaret River region which makes truly outstanding wines.  And if you are looking for the finest steak house in Sydney, you need look no further than The Cut Bar & Grill.  And the sommelier at the Cut, Gustavo Kroneis, is the finest around and has been outstanding at recommending great wines to go with our steaks.

It is easy to just break open a few beers when you are having pizza, but if you want to wine to go with pizza, try a Chianti or Red Zindfandel.

And BTW, here is a picture of one of the pizzas we made tonight.  Deanna will be posting a blog entry in DAZ in the Kitchen with the recipe if you want to try it.

Educating your wine palate and taste buds using potato chips

I have a number of friends who will drink any wine with any food and the combination does not seem to matter to them, but then many of them are drinking for the alcohol effect, not the taste.  Any many other friends know and can appreciate the basic and simple rule of 'white wine with fish, red wine with meat'.  However, there are a number of nuances the make a food eating and wine drinking experience even more pleasurable.  There are certainly wide variances between the taste of different white grapes such as Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and so on.  The same goes for various red grapes.

Wine tasters believe that the Sauvignon Blanc grape is the easiest to determine in a blind tasting and stands out as being the most different and distinguishable from other grapes.  And it is a classic to go with fish, making it a safe bet for most fish.  However, for a gamy, more solid fish such as swordfish, I find a good Pinot Noir is a perfect match, especially if the swordfish has a bit of light salsa or tomato sauce with it.  Therefore, people may look at what you are eating and drinking and believe you have made the ultimate wine / food matching mistake in pairing a red wine with fish, but I can assure you that this is a most pleasant pairing!

The sauce (and amount) and the method of cooking (broiled, roasted, BBQ, steamed, etc.) also has a big impact on what wine goes best with a particular food.  Even the difference between different styled wines from the same grape can make a huge difference.  And the aging of the wine changes the wine greatly over time, so it is important to select the wine close to the optimal time for drinking it.  You may find a white wine more acidic when young and more buttery and smooth when older.

While this may seem like a lot of effort to understand and rightly match food and wine, it really does make a great difference.  Even if you do not understand it, you will usually recognize it and notice the difference in how good the food and wine tasted (even if you cannot describe it).

However, what I really want to focus on today is much easier to appreciate.  A good first step to educating your palate is to just try different foods and taste them with your eyes closed and focus on what the flavor is telling you.  Try to pick out how dry or sweet the food is, is it acidic?, or bitter and so on.  This makes you more aware of the common taste characteristics of food.

Tonight I was a bit hungry, but it was a while until dinner, and my wife had an open bag of sour cream and chive potato chips.  I had just poured a glass of a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I grabbed a handful of the sour cream and chive potato chips, ate them and then took a sip of wine.  I thought the flavours would be competing against each other and it would be a horrible match, but it worked far better than I thought.

Then I poured a glass of a Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend (I had both bottles open from a day or two before) and tried it with the sour cream and chives potato chips also.  I would have expected this to be a better combination, but found out that was not the case as the Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend was a bit acidic, and did not work well with the sour cream taste.  Then I opened a few more bags of different potato chips and tried them with both wines.

Why do I suggest potato chips for this?  Because it is a lot cheaper to open a few bags of potato chips than it is to used real honey-glazed ham, chicken, etc.  Of course, you could always go the sliced meat route for another lesson.

By trying several different wines with several different flavors of potato chips, you can quickly educate your palate and zone in on grape and food flavor combinations you like and don't like  I will not tell you my findings of the various combinations of grapes to potato chip flavors to let you focus better and really learn more by tasting than reading.  I would also suggest you do this in the company of friends and discuss your findings.  You will be amazed at how quickly you will learn to identify tastes and combinations that work or not.  And talking about it while doing the tasting is a great way to learn (and socialize!).

When doing this, I would suggest using Kettle or Red Rock brand potato chips as they tend to have more intense flavors than other brands, and also have a wide variety of flavors including sweet chili, peri peri chicken, caramelized onion, honey coated, etc.  These wide contrasts can help you quickly zone in on categories of combinations that work - or don't!

Let me know what combinations of flavors and wine grapes work for you!  I am anxious to hear your feedback.

Premium Wine by the Glass

This is my second night in Melbourne and also my second night without any wine, an unusually long time for me!  That is becasue I am alone and do not usually like drinking a full bottle by myself.  I have been working extremely hard and also networking a great deal, so thought I would take the two evenings to be by myself (missing my loved one though!), rest up, and read and write a bit.

I don't mind going out to eat alone.  When doing so though, I typically will not drink wine a I am reluctant to order a full bottle by myself and very few restaurants have a good wine list of half bottles (a few certainly do, but I am not aware of one close to where I am staying in Melbourne).  There are certainly restaurants that sell a number of wines by the glass, but usually these are not the type of wines I like to drink, especially at $14 - $17 per glass!  I have too many very good bottles of wine in my cellar for which I paid less per bottle than that!

One of the well known restaurants in Sydney proudly proclaims that they sell 60 different wines by the glass, but there was not one on the list I would pay the per glass price for.  There are a few emerging small wine bars that focus on selling premium wines by the glass, but I was not interested in going to a bar - I was interesting in eating a meal and accompanying the meal with a good glass or two.  Some of the wine bars that are selling premium wine by the glass also have good tapas and small plates of food to share, so a drink and nibble combination with friends can result in a very nice evening out.  But again, I was without friends and looking for a restaurant.

James Halliday shared sage advice when he said it was far better to drink a good beer than poor wine, and I agree with him.  Therefore, when I am not aware nor can find a restaurant with good wine by the glass when I am alone, I will usually order a beer, or just water or juice.

And the last two nights I have been quite tired, so after walking around for a while and getting a little fresh air, I decided to just once again get a take-out Subway sandwich and bring it back to my room.  Yesterday, I had a Diet Coke with it and today an Iced Tea.  Not very exciting, but also no chance of disappointment.

If anyone knows of a decent restaurant (in Melbourne, Sydney, and any other Australian CBD or US city) that has a larger and good selection of very good wines by the glass, it would be great to know.  Please comment on your recommendations or write me, and I will keep updating and sharing the list with everyone.

Why I think Chataeu D'Yquem is the best wine in the world

Many people believe that Chateau D'Yquem is the finest wine in the world and it is difficult not to agree with that assessment.  For starters, the French classify their wines according to an appellation rating of Premier Crus and Grand Crus of First, Second, etc. growths down to Village and Table wines.

In the top tier are such stars as Lafite Rothschild and Haut-Brion, and a few others.  However, only one wine in the world has ever been given a 'premier cru superior' and that is Chataeu D'Yquem.  I was first introduced to the wine by my great friend, Michael Axarlis, when four of us were out drinking one evening.  We had the 1997 vintage and it was truly magnificent.  Several months later, it was Deanna and my 9th anniversary and we celebrated by having a bottle of the 1997 and then tried the 2004 for comparison.  It was sinful to drink the 2004 that early - most Chateau D'Yquems should be laid down for 20 - 50 years or bought for the next generation.  We then found a few bottles of the 1997 and the 1998 vintages at a 'reasonable' price (it is also one of the most expensive wines in the world!) that we now have in our cellar.

Thomas Jefferson also proclaimed it as one of his most favorite wines and purchased a lot of it for himself and the White House when George Washington, and then he,were President.

In total, we have have drunk 7 bottles of Chateau D'Yquem in our life, including 4 of the 1997 vintage (a great year!), one from 1998 (which we just had for our 11th anniversary, and the 2004 vintage which was part of our 9th anniversary.  But the greatest bottle of all was the full bottle we bought and shared at Deanna's 40th birthday party.  As Deanna proclaimed, "It's like having sex in my mouth"!

Now I will be a bit more restrained and just say that it is the best wine I have ever had, and I will tell you the reason why it is different from all other wines that I drink.  When I open a great bottle of wine and pour a bit into the glass to 'nose' it and taste it to make sure it is OK, I am often taken by the great bouquet the wine has and how it seems to fill my senses.  But with EVERY bottle of Chateau D'Yquem I have ever had, my reaction to 'nosing' the wine is one of a physical reaction and pure elation.

My nostrils flair and my chest starts to pulsate.  (I could graphically compare this to another experience where this happens, but will pass for now!)  The intense pleasure of smelling a Chateau D'Yquem actually overwhelms my body which is no longer under my direct control.  It is like my body has struck a perfect harmonic motion with the universe.

While I have had some truly great wines over the years, it is only Chateau D'Yquem that does that to me and it has done it EVERY time.  These pictures (the two immediately above) have been taken from our 11th anniversary dinner (a few weeks ago) and the vintage is 1998 which was not a great year (by Chateau D'Yquem standards!).  However, it was still a remarkable wine.  At our 9th anniversary dinner when I did this with the 1997 vintage, I brought the glass to my nose about 15 times in a row and the physical reaction occurred each and every time.

Chateau D'Yquem is a unique wine in terms of the labor that goes into making it, combined with the perfect location to be able to grow the grapes.  They use a Botrytis Semillon and have 11 pickings over 21 days.  This is much more labor intensive than most makers of a Bortytis Semillon desert wine which have one picking when they think most of the grapes have enough botrytis on them.  With Chateau D'Yquem, each grape is ripened almost to perfection, and not an average of the entire batch of grapes, with some being too ripe and others not ripe enough.

We only open a bottle to celebrate very special occasions, but have great joy when we do.  I have drunk many outstanding wines in my day, but nothing makes me pulsates like Chateau D'Yquem!

A "wino's" photo album

Our leaving Qatar and returning to Australia in the middle of 2009 was a bit of a shock.  I was feeling bitter about what had happened, how unfair it was and how it cost us a fortune because of petty politics, both within the bank and within the royal family of Qatar.  We were jobless and homeless and had only enough money to pay the previous year's taxes and live for about 6 weeks before we would have gone broke.  Prospects were pretty grim, especially given the GFC was rolling downhill quickly at the time!

Fortunately within two weeks, Deanna had her old job back, and my prospects were looking good, with three job offers firming nicely.  Once we found a place to live and both secured jobs, I was starting to put the terrible experience behind us, and really wanted to treat myself to something special, and for me, that would be a most special bottle of wine, which seemed to be a good cause for celebration, especially after coming from a controlling, alcohol-restricted country!

My wine was all stored in a public cellar as I had moved it out of the cellar I built in our house (which we were leasing out at the time).  Therefore, once we purchased a car, I headed over to my cellar and pulled out my oldest and dearest bottle of a 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port.  It was a truly heavenly drink and I had it over several months, relishing every drop.  It came in a beautiful bottle (the label actually) and was a real treasure.  I wish I had a picture to show you, but I threw the bottle out when I was finished as we were living in a small apartment and space was at a premium.  This was a mistake I have regretted ever since.

As much as I missed that bottle, it taught me from then on to save my 'precious' wine bottles and to display them.  They provide great memories and for each great bottle of wine, I can remember the time and the people I shared it with and with reasonable clarity (especially difficult since most of these moments involved a lot of wine!).  I call this 'my photo album for winos'.

In fact, I almost get as much joy out of my empties and my memories as I do walking through my cellar and selecting new bottles to drink.  With the bottles in the cellar comes a great responsibility to (1) drink them at the right time (always a challenge if one takes this seriously), and (2) who to drink this particular bottle with?  I sometimes find 'friend matching to wine' even harder than food matching!  Whereas with the empties, I just have fond memories of times gone by and the great friendships we have shared.

Yes, this does take some' real estate' to store so many bottles, but as you can see, we have used the tops of cabinets and the tops of bookcase for 'display' and for very special events such as Deanna's 40th birthday party, we have turned the display into 'art work'.

Wow - what an evening that was all around and probably the very best wine tasting evening I have ever experienced (see line-up in picture above)!  9 courses of food perfectly prepared and matched to the wines I selected.  Most of the wines came from Treasury Wine Estates and we had the perfect party served up at Lindemans, organized by Michelle Tracey, with Damien Harrison, who was our personal sommelier for the evening and contributed from his own collection a bottle of 1957 Lindemans Vintage Port (it was as close as anyone could find to the 1954 Vintage - thank you so much Damien!) and the food prepared by Craig Parkinson, Lindemans Head chef, with Pip Mason also serving us that evening.  But Deanna's 40th and the wines deserve their own blog entry which will follow soon.  This one is really about why to save your empties and how to turn them into memories.

Look at the character of this old bottle of the 1957 Lindemans Vintage Port from Damien!  Water damage to the label, but the wine was exquisite.

These empty bottles really mean a lot to me and I greatly enjoy them over and over again.  Most are displayed at our place in the Hunter Valley.  I only keep one bottle of each (a separate bottle though for each vintage), except for the two best wines in the world - Chateau D'Yquem and Penfolds Grange.  We drink so little of each that we do keep each and every empty we have created!

It takes a bit of room, but after tossing the 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port bottle, I learned a lesson.  That was a bit like tossing a 1951 Willie Mays rookie baseball card!  I greatly regret it and make sure to keep all the precious great bottles I have drunk since.  And if anyone can find me a bottle of the 1954 Lindemans Vintage Port, it will be greatly appreciated - filled or empty!

Malbec - A Secondary Grape

Shelly Medernach, one of my many favorite cousins, recently gave me the great pleasure to be able to pontificate on my favorite subject - wine.  She asked about the Malbec grape and I was ready to help as much as I could!  While not knowing much about the grape, I was surprised that over time, I had picked up some knowledge which I was glad to share.

Malbec is considered in a group of secondary (according to how much is drunk, not an appreciation for the quality of the grape) red grapes with Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Merlot and Shiraz being the 4 grapes in the primary red grape category. Malbec joins Grenache, Carmenere (mostly from Chile), Barbera, Tempranillo, Cabernet Franc, and a few others in what are known as 'secondary' wine grapes. This does not necessarily mean they are secondary in taste, but just wine sales.  Some of these grapes if grown properly and by themselves or in blends can provide some truly outstanding wines and that is true of Malbec as well as the others.

Malbec grows best in Argentinian soil, followed by Chile and then some spots in Europe and Australia. It is such a heavy grape with big tannins that it is usually blended with some other grapes such as Merlot or Cabernet Franc and provides some great blend combinations. I have had a few bottles of 100% Malbec and loved it, but you need to be careful not to drink too much as it is bigger, heavier and has more tannins than most grapes. If you love big robust Shiraz wines you will probably like a bottle of 100% Malbec.

It is almost grainy because there is so much tannin in it. Tannin is what is in tea that makes you suck in your cheeks a bit and provides texture to the wine (or tea). I love big tannin wines if they have been fully integrated to the wine (which takes years) so it must be well aged to smoothen the wine out and take the grainy edge off the wine. However if aged and cellared properly for 5 - 10 - 25 years, tannin is what gives some of the great red wines their structure and complexity.

Therefore, I would not drink a newly bottled Malbec, but would once it has 4 - 5 years or more of age into it. And you may want to try a blend instead of a 100% Malbec.

I think it is a great grape, when selectively used and from the greatest regions, such as Argentina. The grape is also very sensitive to its 'terrior' (the influence of the land, soil, weather, and growing conditions around it) similar to Pinot Noir. That is why some Pinot Noir and Melbecs can be truly great from one region and not from another region, and great one year and not the next. Both grapes are very sensitive and are influenced more than Riesling or Semillon which typically are more consistent, at least within region or from year to year.

The Malbec is very fruity, but can taste leathery, a bit smoky and spicy - a bit like black pepper, but these are all flavors in small quantities that give the grape great depth and flavor. If you like a Hunter Valley Shiraz (unfortunately you have probably not have had any if you are reading this from the US), or if you like any robust Shiraz, you will probably like Malbec, or at least a Malbec blend.  Give it a try!

Maturing as a wine drinker and collector

In my last post entitled "My first wines", I discussed how and when I started drinking (fake) wine during my university days and real wine during my graduate school days.

For the next 10 or so years (approximately 1978 - 1988), my wine drinking experiences did not evolve much.  I enjoyed decent enough wine, and had a few great wine drinking experiences which showed me how ethereal wine drinking can be.  Unfortunately one was truly wasted on me.  As a favor for a friend, I wrote a pretty complex COBOL program for him after he complained his company's IT department could not understand and deliver what he needed.  He paid me $400 for the effort, but was so delighted that when I had him over for dinner and celebrated the success back in 1978, he brought over a bottle of 1961 Château Lafite.  I think we drank it while eating beef strogonoff or something of the like.  I just did not have the palate for great wine back then.

I also started to travel more internationally for work and was introduced to more varieties of food and wine.  I remember once getting upgraded to First Class on Singapore Airlines and being served a 1975 Château Brane-Cantenac and really enjoying it.  (The whole experience of First Class on Singapore Airlines in the late 1980s was a great experience!)  I then found and bought two bottles of it while going through the Frankfurt Airport a few months later.

But the 1961 Chateau Lafite and the 1975 Chateau Brane-Cantenac were exceptions to my wine drinking, not the norm.  However, they did provide a taste of how great wine drinking could be and generated more enthusiasm for drinking good wine as a regular activity.

It was really during 1988 - 1990 when living in New Zealand and drinking more wine with meals and out with friends that I really started to enjoy wine more.  New Zealand is know for some great Sauvignon Blancs and Pinot Noirs, and has an excellent wine growing industry.  Drinking more wine on a almost daily basis became the norm.

Then when I moved to Australia in 1997 for a long project, I started to collect and drink far better wines (including having a business dinner with 18 bottles of the 1986 Henschke Hill of Grace (for 14 of us!) - but that is a story for another posting!).  I was fortunate to have a few good friends like Michael Axarlis and Rob Tudor who had very good palates and an appreciation for fine Australian wines and they got me headed in the right direction to better understand and appreciate how many different and great Australian wines there were.

They recommended and I started to collect some bottles including the 1992 Penfolds Grange,  1996 Lindeman St George, 1996 Penfolds 707, 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir, 1995 Yarra Yering Dry #1, etc., etc.  I started to learn to appreciate some of the differences between different wines from different regions, different vintages of the same wine, and how sinful it is to drink a wine too early or too late in its maturation process.

When I moved permanently to Australia in 2000, I started to collect and sample even more wines and have been loving it ever since.  For a while, I was so hooked on the quality and value of Australian wines that I drank very little of anything else.  However, during the last several years, I have now been appreciating a broader variety of French, Spanish, Italian, and American wines.

Probably the biggest lesson I have learned through 35 years of wine buying and drinking is not to buy too much of a single wine and limit your tastings to a limited set of wines, as exploring the vast variety of great wines is a joy in itself, and no matter how much you really enough a particular wine, there is always a better one to be found.

My first 'wines'

I started drinking alcohol while at university during my first year.  I used to drink vodka (because my dad did) gimlets while playing cards, beer while playing softball, bowling and other activities, and wine when we had nothing else.  My first 'wines' were not wines at all per se, but homemade concoctions my father and brother used to whip up with sugar and some flavoring.  Therefore, we had an assortment of flavored wines including apple, orange, dandelion, potato (which I think was just vodka under another name!), and others.

My dad and brother made this wine over several years until the cost of sugar rose too high.  I also think they got tired of cleaning up after numerous bottles exploded because they did not really understand the fermenting process!  I would then bring these wines to university to drink as required.  The 'Shipley Vineyard' classic was a bottle of the 1971 Oragneato.  My dad had some leftover Orange wine and leftover Potato wine, mixed them together, fortified it with a bottle of 100 proof vodka and bottled up four bottles.  The only remaining bottle in existence, sits in my friend's wine cellar next to his prized Nepalese Plum wine!

We also used to buy Boone's Farm wine, a low-level brand within the E & J Gallo Winery (my God, how bad it must have been to be considered the bottom of the Gallo wine tree!).  It came in Apple and Strawberry flavors and cost about $0.93 per 750 ml bottle.

The point of my wine (and other drinking) during university was to get inebriated on alcohol, not to enjoy the flavor of the wine or the experience of wine drinking with friends - we were just getting bombed!  It was not until I entered graduate school at the University of Minnesota that I started to drink real wine.  I am not sure why or how, but I assume some friend introduced me to wine drinking and I felt it a pleasurable things to do with a meal or while studying or being involved in other activities.  Fortunately, there was a wonderful wine store near the University campus called Surdyk's.  I did not realize and certainly was not in a position to discern what a great wine store Surdyk's was at the time.

The people were really helpful and friendly, provided great advice on wine, and steered me towards very good valued wines.  This was during the time when Chili was just emerging on the global wine scene and I was able to find some great Chilean reds for $3 - $5 per bottle.  I also was told by one of the staff to buy some of the 1977 Dow Vintage Port and I got two bottles.  I had one bottle several years ago and it was beyond superb.  I am pretty sure I paid only about $12 - $15 per bottle for it then, and it was one of the great buys in my life!  That was just the type of place Surdyk's is.  That whole experience changed my life and I started to experiment more with wines, pay a bit more and start to enjoy it more.

Therefore, it was visiting and getting help at Surdyk's that got me on the journey to finer wine drinking.  Last year, my wife and I were visiting Minnesota again to see my parents and I went by Surdyk's.  It looked and felt the same and I told some of the staff how much I appreciated their help some 35 years ago and what a great store it still is.  They also introduced me during that trip to the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling for $22 in the US which is an outstanding value.  I have since bought a dozen in Australia (where it was $30 per bottle) and it is a great, great Riesling.

In my next post, I will explain how my 'fallow' years as a wine drinker, but how I was introduced to several great wines which provided a true appreciation for how great an experience wine drinking can be, and how I became a real wine enthusiast while living in Australia, one of the great wine countries of the world!

Why I don't write for GT (Gourmet Traveller) Wine magazine

Well, simply because they have not asked me!  I would love to, and I expect so would the other 1,000 or so people who blog about wine.  Of course, I do plan on continuing to improve my wine blogging over the next year and hopefully get some amount of following and notoriety, possibly even some acclaim - who knows?  I have been writing a lot (on a variety of topics, not just wine) more recently, and been doing a lot of editing and guest blogging, so hopefully my writing will continue to improve.

The best way to get into GT Wine magazine is to enter and win their annual Wine Writing competition, of which the next round of submissions is in January, 2013 for the 2013 award.  In the meantime, I am planning on writing on the following topics over the next few months:

• Why I keep empty wine bottles
• Mistake of buying too much of a single wine
• Terroir and its influence on various grapes
• The difference between a wine snob and a wine enthusiast
• The wine region Alsace
• Review of matching wine with food and food with wine for special events
• Specific wine and wine region reviews
• Different varieties of corkscrews
• Use of aerators
• When and how to decant wines
• Storing wines
• Best wine magazines, wine blogs and wine writers to read
• Wine applications
• Use of iPad as a wine list for restaurants
• Why James Halliday pisses me off when he writes about the '27 Le Tache

and a variety of other topics.  I also plan on including more pictures and links to other resources.  I would be adding a number of pictures now, but we are packing to move apartments and most everything is packed for the move.

Hopefully, you will continue to follow and enjoy my wine blog.  Also, if you have any topics you would like to recommend that I write on, please let me know.  While I am not an expert on wine, I have a growing knowledge base, a lot of friends in the industry and love to share ideas and experiences with others who have a similar interest.

Working in the cellar - being prepared

Most of us probably don't own or lease our own cellar.  I have built two of them now, only to have changed homes and gotten very little value out of them which was a real shame.  Now we live in an apartment and I use a larger and smaller Vintec wine fridge to store about 150 bottles of wine for close access in my apartment.  However, when we are doing a tasting or I just need to replenish my apartment holdings, or more importantly if I just want to 'play' and organize my larger cellar, I sometimes will spend a considerable amount more time there - usually from 1 - 4 hours.  (My wife claims it is my 'man cave'!)

I rent a larger wine cellar from Wine-Ark which does a very nice job of providing cellar space.  They provide either a managed cellar service (where they inventory and store / retrieve your wine on your behalf) or you can rent a private and dedicated cellar space which is what I do.  It is located about 20 minutes from where I live, so I want to make sure I am both safe and productive while visiting my cellar.  The cellar is consistently cooled to 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit).  This is necessary for storing and aging the wine properly.  Other safety considerations include that I am mostly over in my cellar by myself.  During the business day and on Saturday morning the office is open and I could have access to the guys who man the operation, but mostly when I am over there working in my cellar it is only me in the location, so I take that into consideration.  For example, my old phone service did not provide strength of coverage being in the basement of the Wine-Ark, so I switched and my current coverage does.

While I do not think of organizing wine as a dangerous activity, it is possible I could fall off a stepladder, drop a case of wine on me, or have some other small accident (fortunately I have not had an accident in 4 years!).  More importantly, I want to be comfortable and productive.  I have seen guys enter their cellar in a T-shirt to retrieve a few bottles, and that is OK if you are only in 14 degrees in a T-shirt for a few minutes, but if you plan on spending 30 or more minutes at that temperature, you should prepare to keep your body warmer.  I always wear a long sleeve shirt and a wool sleeveless (to provide more arm movement when moving things around) vest.  However, once in my excitement to get over to the vault, I forgot my vest and it was uncomfortable.  Therefore, I now have a vest always stored in the cellar for such an event.  While it is not like being stuck in the freezing cold for an extended period, it does sap your energy more quickly and can be uncomfortable to the point of nausea if you stay in for too long a time without proper clothing.

I also keep 3 bottles of water (so as not to get dehydrated) and a flashlight in case the lights go out while I am working.  This should never happen as the electricity system needs to be backed-up to ensure constant temperature is provided for the wines, but the lights are motion sensor-ed or time controlled and can go out if you are not careful.

My basic tool kit comprises:

• preprinted paper to inventory my wine and making adjustments to inventory as I move wine in and out
• plain paper (for writing notes)
• Labels to overlay boxes that have text written on them already or as a mailing label is I am going to ship off some wine
• 2 pens
• Large tip black marker for writing on and labeling boxes
• Small tip black marker for writing on labels
• A wine review guide (to research specific wines as to when to best drink and mark it as such on the carton)
• Tape gun and extra roll of packing tape (I use 3M as there is no problem keeping it in the cold) to make up boxes as needed to move wine back and forth
• Roll and dispenser of regular (Scotch 3M) tape for taping paper or labels onto boxes
• Several one-bottle and two-bottle shipping containers in case I want to package up a bottle or two to ship off to a friend
• Extra boxes to store or transfer half dozen or dozen bottles as required
• Flat-head screwdriver to lift off wooden lids from containers (usually more expensive wines are shipped in wooden boxes)
• Cutting (Exacto) knife to cut open boxes of wine or to cut up empty cardboard boxes for recycling

I started with most of these items, but added a few as I learned the need for them over time.  All of my supplies and tools fit into a single cardboard box which is used to hold a six pack of wine, so it does not take much room at all.  The pens, markers and tape all work fine at 14 degrees, but I check them every now and then to ensure they are still working.  Wine-Ark provides stepladders and trolleys to provide transfer of your wines from the cellar to your car, so I do not need to keep my own of those.

If you plan on working for longer than 4 hours, you should also consider packing a snack, but I just make it a point to get out of the cellar (and warm up a bit) to grab a bite of lunch.

I get great enjoyment out of 'playing' in my man-cave and want to make sure it is a comfortable and productive environment.  It all adds to the enjoyment of drinking the wine.

The screw top controversy

For decades now, the controversy has been raging about the screw top and if it is as effective as cork for sealing a bottle of wine.  In my opinion, it is 99% as effective in 98% of the cases (the numbers are intuitive and have no statistical value).  And the risk of a corked bottle or bottles turning to vinegar because they were left upright for a prolonged period of time (and the corked dried out letting too much air into the bottle) is greatly reduced - therefore you will have far fewer bottles of wine that are damaged.  This avoids that disappointment of opening an anticipated and potentially expensive bottle of wine, only to find it is not drinkable.  Therefore, I am a big fan of the newer screw top method for sealing wine!

Almost all of the flavor and complexity of the wine (and its ability to mature and reach its maximum potential) is already inside the bottled when it is sealed, regardless of the type of seal used.  The quality of grapes and the wine-making process will mostly determine the ultimate quality the wine reaches when you drink it.  Regardless of sealing technique, there is air bottled inside to promote the microbiological development of the wine over time.

And here is where the minor difference between using a good cork and a screw top comes into play.  Once sealed with a screw top, no more air can get into the bottle.  With cork, there is some additional breathing that goes on (very little as the cork is always moist if stored properly and if not stored properly and the cork goes dry, then too much air gets into the bottle and the wine turns to vinegar).  This means that a bottle sealed with cork will mature and be drinkable slightly earlier than the same bottle with a screw top.  However, there are other factors that may influence the rate of maturation even more, including the temperature the wine is stored at.  The warmer the temperature, the quicker the maturation process.  However, most good wines can be drunk over a period of years and you need to occasionally taste a bottle to determine how they develop and when to optimally drink them.  By doing so, a very slight rate of maturation difference (which is what you have between a cork and a screw top) makes very little difference, either in determining the quality or the right time to drink the wine.

The big difference in my opinion is that screw tops are extremely consistent from cap to cap and each bottle of the same wine from the same vintage will taste the same - there will be very little difference from one bottle to the next.  For the most part, this is a very positive trait and provides for a consistent and pleasant drinking experience with no disappointment!  Whereas, cork by its very nature has faults or at least differences in the structure and composition from cork to cork.  While estimates vary study to study, significant cork faults can occur in between 3% and 15% of corks made.  And sometimes, whole batches of bad corks are produced and sold to wine makers which can ruin an entire vintage of the wines.

I once had two bottles one right after the other in a restaurant of the 2003 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay (a great wine BTW!) which I was paying $160 per bottle in the restaurant in 2007.  While both bottles were acceptable to drink, most of us at the table could determine the slight difference and the second bottle not being quite the same as the first.  Just being slightly different meant we found the second bottle to be less enjoyable than the first (because are taste buds had been set and were expecting the exact same taste).  I am assuming both bottles came from the same lot and were stored in exactly the manner, so the only difference between the two bottles was due to slight differences in the cork.

For some more complex and long aging wines, it may be possible the a specific cork variation may allow several bottles of that wine to achieve a presence that is unique and slightly better than the majority of the bottles.  This is one small advantage of cork as I see it - that because of the variation of the cork from bottle to bottle that some bottles may be better than average, however it also means that just as many may be slightly worse than average!  And if the cork is bad, the bottle may be undrinkable!  Therefore, the slight advantage that you may find a few bottles of a particular wine that are slightly better than the rest does not, in my opinion, justify the ongoing use of cork.  I believe screw tops provide significant advantages overall, including:

• consistency from bottle to bottle and 'no surprises'
• no wastage due to 'corked' (were the cork is faulty) bottles that have turned to vinegar
• no wastage from bottles that have been stored incorrectly (standing up) and the cork has dried out (even though it was a good cork) and the wine has turned to vinegar
• ease of use and convenience opening bottles

Most Australian and US wine makers have or are switching over all of their bottling to using screw tops and I believe this is the right thing to do.  The wine will not suffer and more of it will be drinkable over the years.

I have a variety of corkscrews and love taking the cork our of a bottle of wine, especially a saturated cork that has been in the bottle for 20 or more years.  Getting the cork out successfully is like the thrill of landing a 15 - 20 pound fish on a 6 pound test line!  Removing the cork from a bottle is like foreplay before sex - an enjoyable part of the anticipation and build up to drinking the wine.  Therefore, I have and will always have bottles in my cellar for the next several decades that have corks for sealing.  But I do applaud and agree with the wine makers to switch over to screw tops as the right thing to do - for the wine, the wine maker and the consumer.

What to drink with Thai food tonight?

We just got a call from some of our 'best buds' that they are picking up Thai food and bringing it over for dinner tonight.  We originally were going to go to one of our favorite restaurants HUX at Nortons, and will miss doing that now, but just 45 minutes ago, I had been looking at a Facebook friend's dinner picture of Thai food and got really hungry for Thai food tonight, so this is a great surprise.

Usually I like a day to prepare my wine choices in case I need to go to my larger wine cellar which is about 15 minutes away from where we live.  I always have some wine in the apartment anyway, but a somewhat more limited selection.  Usually I would choose a crisp Hunter Valley Semillon or a Gewürztraminer to go with Thai food, but the only Semillon I have here is a 1994 Waverly Estate Semillon which is far too rich and I will save that bottle to go with a rich scallop dish some day soon.  Therefore, we are going to pull out a 2007 Clare Valley Annie's Lane Coppertrail Riesling to go with the Thai food tonight.  Should be great!  Most importantly, we are matching up our three favorites things (1) great friends, (2) great food, and (3) great wine to have a great time overall.

A night off from cooking for DAZ in the Kitchen to enjoy some good Thai takeout and wine.