Want to know more about wine?
Want to get more enjoyment out of every glass of wine that you drink?
Want to feel more confident when you head out to buy your next bottle of wine?
Are you ready to Taste with the Big Boys?

The Dude is here to help!

I’m happy to announce that my Wine Tasting Guide, How to Taste Like a Wine Geek: The 1WineDude Wine Tasting Guide is now available!

Preview a sample of the guide at LuLu.com.

My Wine Tasting Guide details the same practical tasting approach that I used to increase my own knowledge about – and enjoyment of – wine (the greatest beverage in the world). Some of the highlights:

• A step-by-step guide to tasting wine like the pros (only without the spitting or the snobbishness!).
• The story of how I overcame my own personal fear of wine, and was able to go from total WineDunce to the 1WineDude (and how that journey helped to form my tasting approach).
• A practical example of the tasting approach in action.
• Printable Forms for capturing your own wine tasting experiences.
• Links to lots of helpful resources, wine accessories, & more (for further wine learning).

The Guide is an expansion of the wine tasting advice that I touched on in one of my previous blog posts. I received such strong positive reactions to the post that I decided it would be fun to create a reference that went into more detail about how my tasting approach developed, in the hopes that it would help others to get more enjoyment out of wine.

The Guide is targeted at those that are either new to wine, or who enjoy wine now but really want to get more out of it and are not sure where to start. If you’re one of those people – now you have a place to start!

The eBook is available for $7.95 USD. It’s in PDF format for maximum portability. If you need a PDF reader, you can get one for free for both PCs and PDAs from Adobe, and other software providers (my personal favorite is the light-on-the-resources FoxIt Reader).

Reviews:

• “This ebook, combined with a sample half case or case of wine, can start novice wine geeks on their way to becoming confident wine buyers.” – Kathleen Lisson, CSW & Wine Century Club member
• “Succinct information about how to taste wine, what to look for, and how to really determine which wines suit your palate best. Using his scale, I can confidently state ‘I Love It!’ when reviewing 1 Wine Dude’s e-book.” – Douglas Trapasso of Chicago Pinot

Purchase Options:
1) Buy the eBook version at Payloadz.com (PayPal & Google Checkout) – $7.95 USD. Go Get It!

2) Buy the eBook version at LuLu.com (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express) – $7.95 USD. Go Get It!

3) The printed version of my tasting guide can be purchased at Cafepress.com for $10.95 USD. Go Get It!

4) As of July 2008, the Tasting Guide has gone Kindle! If you’re hip to Amazon’s ultra-cool techno reader, you can grab the Kindle Edition of the guide directly from Amazon.com for $7.95 USD! Go Get It!

Cheers – and Happy Reading!

Affiliate Program
If you’d like to sell my eBook on your blog or website, I’m offering a whopping 47% of the sales to affiliates! You can check out the details here.

So… what does a 40 year old wine taste like?

This past New Year’s Eve, Ker & I stopped by Cosimo to grab a glass of bubbly with Jason (the Wine Director). After a bit, Jason paused during our conversation at the bar and gave me that look – the look that serious only wine geeks give each other when they have SSS (some serious s@*t.

It’s the “let me show you what we’ve got in the decanter, but don’t tell anyone else, man” look.

They had cracked open a bottle of 1967 Chateau Latour. I’d never had a 40 year old wine before, and Anthony (the venerable Cosimo proprietor) was keen, so Ker & I had a taste. The experience further convinced me of what I’ve been saying for a long time now: Most people shouldn’t age wine.

Now, I am NOT saying that I did not like this wine (I loved it actually); and I’m not saying the wine wasn’t aged / stored perfectly (it was). What I am saying is that most people in the U.S. would fine this wine “interesting” (i.e., “not worth the price tag”).

Why? Because our tastes in this country are like our wars: Big. Bold. In-yo-FACE!

My tasting notes on this wine read like a textbook definition of classic “claret” for the Brits, which is to say that it looks the list of most nuclear family’s kitchen garbage bag contents: cigar, black nuts, pencil shavings, game, “slim jim,” earth (aka ‘dirt’).

I don’t know too many people that would plunk down the serious cash it requires to purchase aged first growth Bordeaux after seeing that list. It wouldn’t be enough to add that this is all normal stuff for a well-aged Bordeaux, or to talk about everything that was sooooo right with this wine (like the delicate tannins and fruit notes on the finish, which was long and strong and lasted until about 4PM the next day I think), or how the integration of all the components showed that this wine aged so beautifully. Most folks in the States simply would not have the patience to wait 40 years for a wine to reach peak maturity anyway – and they might not be happy with the results if they did anyway. Because our tastes are different from that of the Brits.

So who’s right – us, or the Brits?

We’re both right.

The moral of the story: don’t sweat aging / storage of your wine too much. 98% of it will not benefit from aging anyway, and you’ll enjoy it better now while it’s fresh, fruity, and in your face. If you decide you like red wine and want to develop your palate, start experimenting and aging to find out the balance YOU like best between big fruit and lots of tannin vs. the earthy, meaty flavors that will develop with aging.

There’s no right wine answer on aging – apart from your preference. And you’ll only learn your preference after experimenting (not exactly a chore considering all of the great wine to be had out there!).