Tag Archives: drinking

Drink well, but responsibly this New Years Eve

Posted on by

Happy New Year!  I hope your celebration of 2014 is an enjoyable and successful one.  2013 was a tough year for many and that may cause the celebration to see it finished be one of exuberance.  I hope you enjoy some great wines, regardless if you are going out or staying home.  We are staying home and enjoying some 1993 Lindemans Porphyry followed by a glass of 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port to bring on the new year.

Sydney_Fireworks_1000x300

I want to make sure you have an enjoyable time, but also that you travel safe, remain safe and make it home alive.  Drinking too much and driving can endanger not just yourself, but everyone around you.  As a Responsible Server of Alcohol, I urge you to take every precaution to make it home safely, including:

  • Plan ahead and have a designated driver
  • Taste, don’t drink
  • Eat plenty of food to absorb alcohol
  • Use a breathalyzer, now available at many establishments
  • Listen to your friends and loved ones if they mention you need to be careful
  • Hire a cab or grab a lift with a friend if offered and there is any doubt as to your sobriety

You are responsible for yourself, your loved ones and others around you.  A split second can change – or end – your life.  Don’t get so caught up in celebration, that you lose control of your senses and judgment.  Drive safe, keep well and have a great New Years Eve!

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013.  Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter:  Steve Shipley @shipleyaust;   InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

Rules for winning $100 bottle of wine give-away!

Posted on by

First off, there will be two individual prizes of a $100 bottle of wine.  That’s right, two separate bottles for give-away and you will have the right to win either one – just by following the SAZ in the Cellar website and blog or by following the Facebook SAZ in the Cellar Fan page.  Not one, but two bottles of wine will be given away!  In my next blog post, I will be describing this great and impossible to source wine.  But for now, I wanted to tell you how to enter and the rules for being eligible to win.  They are very simple to follow:

SAZ in the Cellar website:

To win the bottle of wine give-away for following the SAZ in the Cellar website, all you need to do is enter your email address in the field to the right of the website page you are currently looking at.

Snipped Follow Me for SAZ in the CellarYour email address, of course, will be kept confidential and not shared with anyone outside of the SAZ in the Cellar administrators.  By doing this, you will be entered into the draw for one of the $100 bottles of wine.  (If you are already following, there is no need to follow again – you are already eligible and entered!)  The obligation of doing this is that you will receive an email alerting you to my wine blog posts as they occur, usually about twice weekly.  And hopefully, you will be glad to receive them if you have an interest in wine.

For the $100 bottle of wine to be given away, we need to reach 100 followers.  Once we do that, I will officially open the draw and keep it open for 30 days.  You will be alerted of when that time starts and finishes.  Anyone who has already followed, follows to help us reach 100 Followers, or follows during the 30 days following reaching our goal of 100 Followers is entered and eligible to win!  Sound easy?  It is!  Make sure to follow now if you have not already.  And share this around as the sooner we achieve 100 Followers, the sooner we will be able to give the bottle of wine away!

Snipped SAZ in the Cellar Facebook pageSAZ in the Cellar Facebook Fan page:

To be eligible for winning the second give-away, all you need to do is to ‘Like’ the SAZ in the Cellar Facebook Fan page.  By doing so, you will be automatically entered and eligible to win.  Similarly to following the SAZ in the Cellar website, but once we get to 200 SAZ in the Cellar Facebook Fan page likes, we will then officially open the draw for a period of 30 days.  Anyone who has already ‘Liked’ the SAZ in the Cellar Facebook Fan page, or does so on the way to achieving 200 ‘Likes,’ or ‘Likes’ SAZ in the Cellar Facebook Fan page during the 30 days following that is eligible to win.  Again, “easy!”  And all it obligates you to is the occasional posting of SAZ in the Cellar status updates to your wall.  (If if you really don’t want to see them, you can hide them!  But why would you want to do that if you are interested in the wine anyway?)

There are just a few other rules you need to follow:

  1. You must be of legal drinking age in the country where you reside to be eligible and win.  If there is any doubt, I may require you to provide proof that you are of legal drinking age.
  2. You may reside anywhere in the world and I will mail the wine to you.  However, I will not mail wine to a country that forbids the import of alcohol.  But, if you win and are otherwise eligible, and you provide me an alternate address for shipping that does allow the import of alcohol, the wine will be shipped there.
  3. Each drawing will be done by assigning a number to each entry and then using a random number generator to select each winner.
  4. You may (and are encouraged) to follow SAZ in the Cellar both through the website and Facebook and may enter both drawings for a chance to win.  However, if you are extremely lucky and are the selected winner in both draws, you will only be allowed one bottle of wine.  The remaining emails in SAZ in the Cellar website will be randomly drawn again to determine the second winner.
  5. If for some reason, you do are a follower of SAZ in the Cellar website and Facebook Fan page, and have won, but do not wish to receive the bottle of wine, you may decline and we will then draw again to select an alternate winner.
  6. Once the winner is selected in each drawing, we will make every effort to notify you via email or Facebook and you have 72 hours to accept the prize.  If you do not respond within 72 hours, you will forfeit the bottle of wine and another drawing will be held to select an alternate winner.
  7. Once accepted, you will need to provide a mailing address for us to mail the bottle of wine to.

Why am I doing this and being so generous giving away two $100 bottles of wine?  It is simply because I love drinking wine, writing and talking about wine, and I want you to also enjoy similar experiences.  I also want to help build a brand and a following to make people be aware of the my upcoming book publication Wine Sense.  Hopefully, if you like wine and have enjoyed my blog writing over the last two years, you will be interested in buying the book once it is published.

And by following, you will also be aware of other giveaways in the near future.  I hope you enjoy SAZ in the Cellar and follow us at our website and blog and also on Facebook!   And share this around so we can quickly get the drawings open and officially underway.  I wish you the best of luck and hope YOU are the winner.

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013.  Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter:  Steve Shipley @shipleyaust;   InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

 

The Secret Ingredient in Wine

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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!