Last week, I wondered aloud (on twitter) whether or not anyone out there cares if a winery uses cultured yeasts instead of wild yeasts.

The feedback from the twitterati is included below after the jump (if you chimed in already via twitter, your response may be listed for all of the 1WD faithful to see – don’t say I didn’t warn ya!).

The short (and grossly oversimplified) answers to the question, by the way, seem to be "Yes!" for wine geeks and "No, who cares as long as the juice tastes good!" for the majority of people, based on the twitter responses that I received.

The topic of wine yeasts, and why they seem to touch off a hot-button reaction among wine pros and the geekier of wine aficionados, requires a bit of a primer, because to most wine drinkers, this is gonna be some pretty esoteric shiz.

During my last trip to Napa, I stopped into Chimney Rock for some barrel samples tasting (that’s samples of wines from barrels, not tasting samples of barrels) and spent a few hours geeking out over all things wine-related with the affable Elizabeth Vianna (CM’s winemaker who last week was promoted to GM).  Elizabeth is open, honest, and easy to get along with, and she’s not shy when it comes to expressing her opinions.  And yet, when she was explaining the winemaking process behind each of Chimney Rock’s wines, she became almost apologetic when she mentioned that they – gasp! – inoculate their wines with cultured yeasts! 

Imagine, the audacity!  The HORROR!!!…

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Many moons ago, a very nice young lady by the name of Alana Riley, who had friended me up on twitter, contacted me to see if I was interested in a customized twitter background for my twitter landing page.  You know, so I can keep up the appearance of professionalism and all that.

Was I interested?  Well… Duh.

I was amazed at the finished product that Alana produced for me, which you can see below (click to embiggen), for those of you who are tweetdeck fanatics and never visit anyone’s twitter pages directly.

I’ve been thinking about giving Alana’s biz a plug on here for a few months, and never really got around to it because I suck and should be destroyed, and probably should mow Alana’s lawn and then pay her $2 when I’m done.  Anyway, better late than never!

Here’s how Alana describes her new biz:

“I create custom websites and logos for individuals / small companies, offer graphic design & logo services, as well as social media services (from setting up an account for someone to running an account should the individual want to outsource that).”

You can check out her wares at www.sixtwentymedia.com which should be going live soon, or email Alana if you’re interested in a kick-ass twitter background.

And yeah, I know this has nothing to do with wine but you’ll get over it because you’re cool like that.

Cheers!

It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack…!

Wines of Germany will be launching their very own TasteLive.com events page, and to celebrate they will be kicking it off with a redux of the on-line live tasting that we’d originally scheduled for the end of October.

I’ll be your blogger co-host for the on-line tasting, which will take place at 8PM ET / 5PM PT on December 3rd.  This event is gonna be good – both upstate New York’s House of Bacchus and Manhattan’s Roger Smith Hotel will be hosting tweet ups for the event, and the wines are all kick-ass Rieslings from four of Germany’s premier Riesling-producing regions. 

These wines all do a great job of representing their place of origin and how the terroir of those areas impact the final flavors of the wine produced there (they’re probably the next best thing to being there yourself):

Selbach-Oster, Riesling, Kabinett, Mosel, 2007/2008

Leitz, Riesling, "Eins Zwei Dry," Rheingau, 2008

Dönnhoff, Riesling, Nahe, 2008

Darting, Riesling, Durkheimer Nonnengarten, Kabinett, Pfalz, 2008

Join me on Dec 3rd, get the word out, and don’t forget to RSVP at TasteLive.com. 

Cheers!

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is No, 1WineDude has not become a German Wine Blog.  It just looks that way because October has (primarily) featured German wines and German wine happs.  This is due to TasteLive.com having dedicated the month to featuring selections picked by the organization Wines of Germany (I helped to set this up and might collect a modest “finder’s fee” for that – if I’m lucky).  Also, Wines of Germany keeps sending me pictures of the German hotties who were vying for the German Wine Queen title, and I’m just shallow enough that those caught my interest.

Anyway…

I’m excited to announce that I’ll be your co-host for the wrap-up German wine event at TasteLive.com on October 22, which is open to the public – that means that you can join us in tasting and tweeting about the following wines live from the comfort of your favorite drinking chair!  (TasteLive has partnered with Bacchus Wine and Spirits for those that can’t source the wines locally).

• Selbach-Oster, Riesling, Kabinett, Mosel, 2007/2008
• Leitz, Riesling, “Eins Zwei Dry,” Rheingau, 2008
• Dönnhoff, Riesling, Nahe, 2008
• Darting, Riesling, Durkheimer Nonnengarten, Kabinett, Pfalz, 2008

I’ve had the Selbach-Oster and the Leitz, and they’re both really tasty wines, which probably bodes well for the other selections.  Those of you who have been following along at home with the previous October events featuring German wines know that the selections have all be very good, so I’m really looking forward to the 22nd.

More detail is available on the TasteLive Blog.

Sign up over at TasteLive.com, get yourself the wines, and join us on the 22nd!

Cheers!