Pinterest for sharing the wine lifestyle

I have slowly been adapting to social media over the years, probably at a slower rate than I should have.  It started with LinkedIn and then Facebook some four or five years ago.  Then about six months ago, I started blogging and using Twitter.  And now I use Pinterest.

Pinterest is a 'pin board' or scrap book where you pin pictures into various albums.  My bride loves to pin great looking guys (even though I have not been able to find my picture there yet!), her cooking recipes and other things.  I have created two wine boards, one for 'Wine Labels' and the other for 'Wine Humor.'  As I find new wine labels and humorous posts on wine, I save and then pin them in Pinterest.  (I also have a few other non-wine boards.)

I like the concept in that I can find a home and quickly add related items if they are a picture of some sort.  I have about 25 Wine Labels and about 40 Wine Humor pins so far and it grows every week.  And it is possible if you have a picture in a blog post or an article that you can actually pin the blog post by attaching it to the picture you are pinning.  Therefore, it can be used as another channel to introduce people to your blogging.  Each board and each picture can also be captioned.

Feel free to follow me on Pinterest if you like.  Or just check in every now and then to have a wine laugh or see what new labels I have added.  Many of the labels are of wines I have recently drank or have drunk previously and want to remember.  I also plan on starting a board on 'Wine Decanters' and 'Other Wine Paraphernalia' very soon, maybe as soon as this weekend.

I am less interested in building a following for Pinterest than I am for other aspects of social media I use, but it is fun and and an easy way to share new dimensions of the wine lifestyle.

My 5th best wine meal ever!

In a recent post, I list the wines that were consumed in my Top 5 wine meals ever.  They were all great meals, and you will notice that three of the five took place at The Cut Bar & Grill.  This is my favorite steak house in Sydney.  They have a great sommelier and wine list and a great menu.  It is a perfect place to host a business meal, or a personal celebration.  We frequent it regularly and usually order wine off the menu, but sometimes we ask if for a special occasion, we may bring our own wine.

The reason we do that is because we want to make the night even more special by having spectacular wine and being able to match the wine to the occasion and the people involved.  When we do this, The Cut Bar & Grill charge $25 per bottle for corkage which is very reasonable as they decant the wine, pour it for you and have to clear and wash the glasses and decanters.  It saves us a great deal of money also and allows us to spend more on their great food!

That is why The Cut Bar & Grill is one of our favorite places and is the venue for three of the Top 5 wine meals ever!  Make sure to frequent them and check them out.

For my fifth best wine meal ever, the situation and wines consumed were as follows:

#5 evening - My 59th birthday - November 26, 2011, at The Cut Bar & Grill

• 2005 Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon
• 2000 Waverley Estate Chardonnay
• 2000 Houghton Museum Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2000 McWilliams Mt Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
• 1975 Lindemans Porphry 

We shared a great evening with best friends, Owen and Lucy, Ric and Cristina, and Kevin and Yanna.  The eight of us often share a great meal and wine together and everyone has a pretty good palate and enjoys good wines.

When at The Cut Bar & Grill, we usually start with oysters, a plate of cured meats and a plate of salami.  Plus they have the most amazing Sourdough bread served with oil and butter.  We will serve up the white wines with this course and relaxed conversation.

This is typically followed by our selection of some fine red meat, either the slow roast (prime rib for you Americans in the audience!), or a Waygu New York Strip or Scotch Fillet, or one of the other great steaks they serve .  This gives us ample time to enjoy the reds.

And finally, we move onto dessert from their great dessert menu and have an assorted cheese plate to go with the Sticky!

Each of the wines that evening was superb in it's own right and made a good line-up for the evening.  The 2005 Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon is among the best ever made - just look at all those gold medals!  This wine is crisp, yet polished and beautifully balanced.  It went great with the oysters.  While the famous 1999 Tyrrell's Vat 1 Semillon is the iconic vintage, the 2005 vintage in the Hunter Valley was truly outstanding and in another ten years, this may pass the 1999 in reputation.  (Hope I can make my remaining few bottles last that long!)

Waverley Estate is known for their aged white wines, both Semillon and Chardonnay.  Their 2000 Chardonnay is spectacular.  This wine drinks like a Montrachet, but at about a quarter of the price!  It is rich, smooth and buttery.  This wine relaxes you after the crisper, more vibrant 2005 Tyrrell's Vat 1.

We then opened the wine of the evening, the 2000 Houghton Museum Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon.  I have never had a better Cabernet Sauvignon (except the 1991 Caymus Special Reserve from Napa Valley now that I think about it).  This wine is perfectly balanced, large fruit taste with the slightest taste of  smoke and leather.  I had a few bottles of this previously and it is ethereal.  This is one of those wines my wife would say is like "sex in the mouth" when drinking it.

I always like to start with the slightly lighter, more elegant red before moving onto the heartier Shiraz, which this evening was the 2000 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O'Shea.  This wine was a real treat.  I only had two bottles and this was the first one I drank.  The other was polished off last week at the #4 Best Wine Meal with my BPAY teammates.  This is an excellent wine, with good tannins, and lots of refined fruit and spice.  It is perfectly integrated and the amount of age on the wine was perfect.

Another highlight from this evening was the full bottle of 1975 Lindemans Porphry.  Wow, what a treat that was!  Any time you are drinking a 35 year old wine that still tastes as fresh as this one, you are in for a treat.  I am delighted to know I have another three bottles of this!  It has a rich honey taste which almost sticks to the inside of your cheeks.  Needless to say, it went well with dessert.

When drinking a line-up like this, it is important to get the wines in the right order, generally going from white to red to Sticky, and the lighter, crisper grape to sturdier, heavier grape (for example, the Cabernet Sauvignon before the Shiraz), and younger to older vintages.  Then the anticipation and satisfaction continues to build throughout the evening.

While this was a great evening, it does not compare to the four others I have mentioned.  Stay tuned as those will be described in future posts over the next several weeks.

Wine Foreplay and Sensual Pleasures!

Yesterday afternoon I had my first wine in three weeks.  As mentioned in yesterday's post "My first wine in three weeks!" I drank the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a beautiful wine to drink on its own while blogging and also to go with dinner, an exceptional mince and cheese casserole that my lovely bride made.

While I was looking forward to the wine drinking with some enthusiasm, I was not prepared for the sensual experience that came from the 'foreplay' or preparation.  The excitement started to ebb by making the choice of what wine to drink, and increased as I proceeded to open the bottle.  Since the bottle had a screw top (instead of a cork), I did not have the sensual pleasure of removing a challenging cork which some of the 'more mature ladies' use in protest of one's advances! 

However, things quickly picked up again when I decanted the bottle through a filter and aerator.  What a joy to visualize the rich, almost purple color of the beautiful liquid spray out through the aerator and cascade down the side of the decanter.  The smell of wine drifting upward as the liquid trickles down providing a tingling to multiple senses.

As the wine continued to decant, I approached my selection of Riedel glasses, choosing to go with the Cabernet Sauvignon Vinum Extreme (a slightly more sensual stem over the Vinum!) and brought it back to the counter.  The excitement mounted as I poured the wine from decanter into glass to the perfect height (the widest part of the globe) and tenderly and slowly swirled the wine to further speed the aeration process and watch the magic liquid go around and around, like the CERN particle accelerator in (very!) slow motion (crikey, I am sounding like I should be writing "50 Shades of Red" or something!)

As I walked to my desk, anticipating my first sip in three weeks, I was trembling and had to be careful to not spill the wine onto my clothes or the floor.  I then placed the glass on my desk and stared at my prize, my possession that I was about to consume, being in total control of the situation.

My God, I am breathless again writing this as I remember the pursuit and the anticipation more than the act itself!  This is the closest I have been to comparing the wine drinking experience to an erotic sexual experience.  However, for now, let's just leave it that drinking wine can be something sensual!

On a final and true physiologic note, what makes wine drinking truly sensual is that it fills and satisfies all of the senses from sight to smell to taste to feeling (the texture of the wine on your palate) and even in some cases hearing (by listening to the decanting and swirling processes).  And you can't do many things that excite the senses more than that!

Is wine better before, during, or after sex?

As intriguing as this posting sounds from the title, I could lead you through a lot of advertisements and other more boring things before I finally brought you to the answer, but I will provide it to you immediately - wine is best before sex.  It can be used during all three phases, but for most guys, if we only had wine during sex, we wouldn't be drinking much at all, and if we were to drink during foreplay, there would not be time to get even one sip in for your typical male.  And seeing a woman drinking wine preparing for or participating in sex, is a very sexy thing indeed!

Why do I believe wine is best before sex?  First of all, I am passionate about wine and sipping a little bit of a nice wine, like lighting candles, makes me more interested and passionate about having sex.  And after sex, I am usually flushed with contentment (BTW, I am talking about sex with my wife - a loved one, not random sex, paid sex, group sex or anything like that.) and wine would be an overload.  Therefore, I never drink wine immediately after sex.  (Today I had an intervening nap and two hours before I got back to drinking wine!)

Wine can play an interesting role and use during sex.  First of all, lips soaked in wine from a recent sip can act as a perfume or another special taste co-mingled with your lovers other scents.  Additionally, sprinkling a bit of wine over your lover's various body parts and lapping it up can be quite sensual.

One warning though about drinking wine before sex - have only a little to help the mood.  Too much and you may not be able to perform!  A little alcohol can act as a stimulant, but too much becomes a depressive.  And for you older guys, it is not a good idea to combine Viagra and wine as too much of either can give you heartburn.

And now the other key question - what wine goes best with sex?

Without question, that would have to be a bubbly, like Champagne.  And make sure to be generous and share some with your partner!  Otherwise, your selfish ways may turn her / him off.  Or some exotic or difficult to find wine.  The wine being special is a reflection of her / him being special.

As many of you know, I blog a lot about matching wine to food and I have also blogged about matching wine to chocolate.  And soon, I will do the same for cheese.  However, I do not have any useful ideas on matching wine to sex, except to repeat what I said above - bubbly or difficult to find wine for most sexual experiences!

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!

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.