Grange makes great mouthfeel

Posted on December 22, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Is Penfolds Grange worth the money? I certainly asked that question back in 1997 when I bought my first Grange, the newly released 1992 vintage at $200 per bottle. I was drinking some fine Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon and Hunter Valley Shiraz for less than one-tenth that price. Of a total of 4,000 bottles in my cellar at peak, I never had more than eight bottles of Penfolds Grange. I only have one bottle of 1981 Grange left.

The question ‘is Grange worth it?,’ certainly depends on who you are and why you are drinking it. As I have become more comfortable with drinking quality instead of drinking brand – a concept I explore in Wine Sense – I find a lot of alternatives to Grange which are far better value. Another concept I discuss in Wine Sense is the first two things I really picked up on many years ago when starting to drink better wines: I could identify (1) good balance and (2) good mouthfeel. Mouthfeel is what happens when wine is in your mouth and felt (not tasted via your taste buds) by your palate. It is often most noticeable as tannins affix themselves to the inside of your cheeks. It is also felt through the weight of the wine (due to alcohol level and how the wine has been processed) and if the wine sits comfortably in your mouth or not.

It has been two-and-a-half years since I drank my last Grange until last week. It was the 1971 vintage which is the best Grange I have tasted. It was a special treat as the birth-year wine for my wife’s 40th birthday. This wine is featured in 1001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die by Neil Beckett. The 1971 Grange had great fruit and spice flavors, perfect balance, nuances of oak, fig and dates manifested with each swirl around your mouth, and it had great, great mouthfeel. Given the quality of the wine and event, this Grange was well worth it!

A week ago, we had another Grange, this time the 1993. While it was consumed as part of a standard weekend luncheon among friends, it is a bottle I gave to my friends when they were married several years ago and they insisted on waiting to drink it together with us. We found that opportunity last week, celebrating the birth of their new son and also reuniting with some mutual friends we had not seen for a dozen years.

The 1993 Grange is not considered one of best Grange, yet it is still an outstanding wine as every Grange is regardless of vintage. Penfolds always sources the very best grapes they can find, maintaining as much control over the quality of the grapes as they can in any given year, and year-in, year-out, Grange is made with a style that is identifiable. I was a little worried that the 1993 Grange may be at the end or beyond its best drinking life, but the cork was in perfect condition and the wine excellent. We decanted it for several hours to be served with a Persian beef fillet for the main course. We had a nice Italian Chianti on arrival followed by a 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling to go with eggplant and tomatoes and then a 2009 McLeish Reserve Chardonnay to go with chicken. Then out came the beef and the Grange!

The wine opened beautifully and came to life during two hours in the decanter. I had been sniffing the Grange to make sure it still had robust flavors and was ready to drink. It had strong plum and blackcurrant flavors and that opulent Grange style. On taking my first mouthful, it was the unique mouthfeel a Penfolds Grange provides that really struck me; full and expansive, yet not over-the-top. The wine and my mouth fused in perfect harmony. The wine did not need to be paired with beef as it was paired with my tongue and cheeks perfectly! My upcoming book Wine Sense discusses how our senses are used to appreciate and enjoy wine. We use all of our senses from our sight to smell and taste, but also feeling and even hearing wine. Our perception of taste is cross-modal and one of the wonderful things about tasting wine is how our senses of smell, taste and feeling come together to provide such a sensually fulfilling experience. With Grange, you can really feel the wine. By reputation and weight, Grange possesses strength and firmness when holding a glass of it. But it is in your mouth that Grange shows it worth. It may seem strange to talk about ‘feeling’ a wine, but you do feel Grange while drinking it. It demands being held longer in your mouth than other wines to enjoy the feeling it provides. It also demands being swallowed in several small swallows with each mouthful to make your mouth and throat muscles work, enhancing the feeling further. If there is a wine that is enjoyed by being felt, it is Grange.

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 September 7, 2013 by Steve Shipley

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.

Your 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!

SAZ 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:

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.
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.
Each drawing will be done by assigning a number to each entry and then using a random number generator to select each winner.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Win a $100 bottle of wine give-away!

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I have been growing a social media presence, but one without significant influence or success to date. I am the first to admit I am a neophyte and I do not work as hard to increase my presence as I can. I also get a bit cranky when I realize my writing and copy-writing efforts are suppose to focus on ‘gaming’ Google by targeting my content and copy-writing for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I love writing for an audience, not Google! But people tell me that is naive, so I continue to learn and continue to work at it. I now have a social media strategy, or at least a ‘to-do’ list of things to try.

I have seen a lot of other writer’s conduct virtual blog tours and provide a give-away to help drive up traffic (and ultimately to sell more books). I am providing a guest blog tour for a writer friend in a few weeks. But by just providing a beauty package give-away, my wife, Deanna’s World, drove significant new traffic to her YouTube channel. During that time, her subscription based doubled, increasing significantly, and she had a lot of people sign up for the give-away. And fortunately, her AdSense revenue also doubled because a lot more people were viewing her videos and clicking through to related ads.

I must say that I have been impressed and have learned a lesson in how to effectively attract social media. That is why I have decided to copy her idea! I will now be doing a give-away for following my wine Facebook page (SAZ in the Cellar), and for subscribing and following my wine blog and website (also called SAZ in the Cellar). Since my upcoming book Wine Sense is still several months from being published, I will be offering a special bottle of a 2005 Reserve Hunter Valley Shiraz which is no longer available to give-away to the general public. The wine is very approachable and can be drunk immediately, or it will last into the early-mid 2020s (if you have the discipline to keep it that long!).

It is a great wine, and unique in that it is not available from any other source (unless you find someone who has a bottle or two from a while back still in their cellar). I was fortunate to buy the last several dozen of this wine a few years back. The wine is worth $100 per bottle and has been cherished when received by select business colleagues and visiting Chinese diplomats among others.

I will be giving two bottles away, wherever you may be located anywhere in the world! One will be awarded if you are the lucky draw from those of who ‘Like’ my Facebook page, SAZ in the Cellar. The other will be awarded similarly if you are the lucky draw from the group who Subscribes to follow my blog and website, SAZ in the Cellar. Feel free to join both and be in for two chances to win! I will be introducing the wine and drawing up the simple rules and conditions over the next few days, but by Liking Facebook or Subscribing to my blog now, you will be notified when the rules come out and how long we have to go before announcing the winners!

And be sure to help me out as I don’t like losing to my wife, Deanna’s World, and right now I am getting crushed!

Wine writing update

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

First and foremost, SAZ in the Cellar is a wine resource site. It is my intent to blog about wine, share ideas on enjoying and appreciating wine, and provide links to other resources on wine. I believe my upcoming book, Wine Sense(s), fits into that concept. Therefore, I will be providing the occasional update on the status of Wine Senses(s) and post on other wine writing. I will also provide reviews and links to other wine blogs and books that I find useful and expect you will enjoy to broaden your wine reading. Over time, the Resources page and sub-pages on this website will provide references to other wine blogs and books, and wine-related products and services that hopefully will be of interest.

But the focus of my blog posts will continue to be on wine tasting and enjoyment. We will review wines, match wines with food and also provide useful tips for buying wine, storing wine and most importantly, drinking wine. These ideas are being consolidated into the book and should provide you with a great read in the coming months. I have found that in blogging about wine and then researching and writing a book on wine that I learned a great deal – much more Continue reading →

Wine blogging or wine book writing?

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Many people have asked why I have not been releasing as many blog posts in the last few months. I used to post about 10 – 15 per month, but have only posted twice now in the last month. I apologize for that and need to get more diligent. But there is good cause as I have been very focused on getting my first wine book published. This has been a far larger effort than my previous book Still Stupid at Sixty which I wrote under the pseudonym, Blake Stevens. It was a great experience and I learned a lot about the electronic publishing industry. But that was a tale that I needed to write, not a book that I hope influences a much larger audience.

I have written about 300 pages so far and expect the wine book will end up between 350 – 375 pages. I am putting a heavy-duty effort into finalizing my research and restructuring the book to make it more readable and accessible. I am really excited about the book and hope it reaches a wide audience that will enjoy and benefit from it. My last book was only published in electronic format and limited to Kindle mobi format (which has about 90% of sales for authors electronically). My wine book will be published both electronically (in a number of different formats) and in printed form and will have a number of photographs. It will also have video links using QR Codes. The photography and video components adds a great deal of work to the effort, but is well worth it.

My last book was a personal tale so I did not need to do any research or citation of references. My wine book will have a substantial bibliography and set of footnotes and endnotes. This is another dimension of why the wine book requires much more effort than my first book did.

Note taking in Evernote

I had been writing the book in Word, but have now converted the Work In Process (WIP) to Scrivener which is an authoring management system. I am also using Evernote for collecting research and clipping notes. Both are brilliant applications which have really increased my productivity. I review my sources, enter comments into Evernote on my iPad (see picture), then cut and paste into the correct section in Scrivener. This has really helped me to improve the organization and structure of the book. It has also provided me a vehicle to do much more electronically instead of working with paper to-do lists and a multitude of different files, notebooks, Post-It tabs, margin writing, etc. Additionally, I am learning HTML and CSS to be able to better understand and control the final output of the books even though I will have a professional designer work with me to accomplish that.

However, all of the book writing and coming up to speed with new applications (great as they are!) on top of working a full-time job has limited my desire and ability to blog, and for that I apologize. I am flattered that a number of people have been querying my whereabouts and look forward to my posts! And I want to let you know that I will be blogging much more over the next month again. I will do limited writing on my wine book, but much reading and research and restructuring of the book before I get into doing a significant rewrite in about four to six weeks time. This will leave more energy over the next month for blogging. Plus I will extract a number of the basic concepts from the book and use those to create blog posts and to start to introduce you to the book.

Thank you so much for your support! I really appreciate it and hope you will become as interested in my wine book as you are my wine blog. I will release some ‘teasers’ along the way as each section of the book is further developed.

We had a tremendous time in the Hunter Valley, meeting with some wine makers and cellar door friends, and also meeting some new great chefs around the region. It was so wonderful to have two solid weeks of vacation to do a major restructuring of the wine book, but my blogging has suffered due to my dedication and focus to the book. I will try to keep both better balanced while I am finishing off the book. I promise each of my three blogs will receive more attention.

Thanks again for your support and interest, and keep drinking well!

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

Tag Archives: wine book

Grange makes great mouthfeel

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

Wine writing update

Wine blogging or wine book writing?