Hereby marketh the fourth installment of the Weekly Wine Quiz! Based on feedback from ever-so-vocal-and-intelligent YOU, I will not be supplying the answer directly in the post – you will need to tune back in later in the comments section for the answer. So you can put your answer in the comments for potential bragging rights later (not that you’d gloat… too much…).

I’m en route to the Loire wine region this week, for the Salon des Vins de Loire (more on that next week), so the answer may not be quick in forthcoming (depending on how my access to the Global Interwebs fares during those travels); your patience is most appreciated!

Champagne: Room To Grow?

Finishing up our Champagne theme that kicked off the Weekly Wine Quiz, here’s one last question that has to do with the region, and the real backbone of its production!

The Champagne region is home to many storied brands with unique histories, including some that have become household names. You probably know many of the famous few brand names, but do you know how many grape growers actually own the vast majority of Champagne vineyards?

• A. 19,000
• B. 12,000
• C. 5,500
• D. 1,700

Cheers – and good luck!

Well… if this isn’t “proof that social media has forever changed the landscape of wine” (their words, not mine), then I’m not really sure what is.

Ok, so it’s not really proof, but it’s hard to deny the traction when someone like me makes the top 20 in a list like this. And #14?? Seriously?!? WTF?!??…

Read the rest of this stuff »

By some minor miracle, I may actually be able to attend the New York Wine Expo in March.

For the last few years, I’ve had to miss this vinous shin-dig held at the ginormous Jacob K. Javits Convention Center because I’ve been roughly 2,898 miles away from it when it’s been held. But this year, I’ll be just getting back from the Left Coast when the NYC Wine Expo gets going… so there’s a good chance that I might see YOU there, since 1WineDude.com readers get a $15 discount on the Friday March 2nd grand tasting event, now through March 1st!

Why? Because you’re all totally bad-ass, that’s why!

The expo will be taking place March 2 – 4, 2012 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center (trust me, it’s big enough that if you get reasonable close, you can’t miss it). Over 700 wines (dang!) will be poured from nearly 200 wineries, and there will be a few wine-related seminars outside of the tastings.

From now until March 1st, 2012 when you purchase NYC Wine Expo event tickets on-line you can get your $15 discount off the Friday night grand tasting event by clicking “Enter promotional code” at the bottom of the event form (directly above the “Order Now” button), and using the code “WINEDUDE” (without the quotation marks, of course).

If you’re going (and you should, if you want to give your wine tasting IQ a serious – and quick – boost), check out my mini survival guide for getting through these big tasting events alive (Hint: Spit. A lot).

Cheers!

Imagine this scenario…

You pour yourself a glass from a premium bottle, the aromatic liquid spilling forth with the tell-tale floral and stone fruit aromatics of high-quality Riesling. You take a long whiff, then a sip, swooshing the liquid around in your closed mouth to get all the volatile compounds going, noting the secondary aromas and overall presentation that identify the growing conditions of the vintage from which the grapes were harvested.

Then you pass the glass to your eight-year old daughter, who downs the rest of it unceremoniously.

This scenario can happen, with no ill effects to your pre-teen offspring, and all quite legally, if the juice happens to be from one of the $10 bottles made by the likes of Virginia’s Oakencroft Farm or Oregon’s Draper Valley Vineyard that are offering high-end, vitis vinifera grape juice – as reported earlier this month on USAToday.com.

As in unfermented grape juice. Like Welch’s, only made from vintage-dated Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gewurztraminer, and the like. Navarro Vineyards has been doing it for decades, in fact.

Why am I mentioning this? Because I’m fascinated by it, for a number of reasons.

First off, if you have too many grapes on your hands this is a brilliant way to put them to potentially profitable good use. And while alcohol is an important element of body and even flavor, this is also potentially an amazing tool for introducing people (and kids!) to different fine wine grape varieties, without the buzz (apparently, keeping the grapes from fermenting is one of the primary challenges in the fine grape juice biz, by the way). And the juices could spice up recipes that otherwise call for wine (Navarro sort of suggests this via their Verjus cookbook).

I’m not sure I’ll ever look at Welch’s quite the same way again (even if it will be to pause momentarily at the refrigerated section of the grocery store to give silent thanks that those Concord grapes never reached fermentation)…

Cheers!