Kicking off another giveaway, just because I can (hey, it beats being bored!).

This time, we’ve got a brand new Vinturi Essential Red Wine Aerator (about a $35 value) to give away, something that I recently acquired from a gift basket left for me during Auction Napa Valley 2012. It’s branded with the Folie à Deux logo, so as long as you’re cool with that then you’re good to go for our latest giveaway!

If you’re curious how well the it operates and the impact that it has on red wine vs. using a decanter, check out my previous Vinturi review (in summary: not as good as old-fashioned, time-tested decanting, but certainly not a slouch and it does help some wines to open up quite nicely).

Now, listen up because due to my travel schedule – Rioja coming up next week, and then Crete very quickly thereafter (for a piece that will probably run in Sommelier Journal in 2013) – this giveaway will NOT run for the normal one week period here on 1WD, but will end Saturday, June 23 (when I will randomly select a winner from the comment authors).

Here’s the skinny: Comment on this post (twitter and FB comments are welcome, as always, but they won’t count as an entry in the giveaway), with your answer to this question: When – and how – do you decant your reds? Is it only for older wines, younger wines, unfiltered wines you think will throw some sediment, or all three? Do you use alternative methods, like aerators, or a blender (seriously – search the site, that blender-as-decanter topic has gotten some airtime on this blog!).

We’ve talked near and around that question before here on the virtual pages of 1WD, but have yet to really get into it. So… shout it out in the comments!

Cheers – and good luck!

Though certainly at what many would consider well-deserved retirement age (he turns 65 this year), Robert Parker – still the single most influential critic of any kind in the world – is not retiring any time soon.

If you’ve read the interview with Parker by sommelier David D. Denton in the April 15, 2012 issue of Sommelier Journal, you already know that Parker has called the rumor of his retirement “totally not true.”

You’d also know that he has critical words for overzealous followers of fresh produce in the restaurant world (“I don’t need the entire history of the vegetable from the time it was planted to the time it was harvested”), fervently believes that former Wine Advocate contributor Jay Miller and MW Pancho Campo are innocent of any pay-to-play wrong-doing (“this guy Jim Budd seems to have something against him, and I don’t know what goes on there” – he’s apparently lawyered-up and hired an investigative service called Kroll to find out), and that he considers himself the first wine blogger (an interesting comparison that I think was first explored here on the virtual pages of 1WineDude.com during my interview with Parker).

And if you’d read that SJ interview, then you’d also know that Parker reserves his most vitriolic words for author Alice Feiring and her position at the forefront of the crusade to bring natural wines into the public consciousness (links and emphasis mine):

“We don’t promote this, but Beaux Frères [ the Oregon wine producer of which Parker is a co-owner ] is biodynamically farmed, the wines aren’t fined or filtered, and I’d say that for most of the vintages we’ve done to date, we didn’t need to put SO2 on the label because the levels were so low. So when we talk about all these catchphrases like ‘natural wine,’ I can tell you that people like Alice Feiring are charlatans – I think they are no better than the snake-oil salesman of yesterday. They are selling a gimmick. Most wines are natural.”

Think the critic doth protest too much? If you asked me that question, the answer would be “probably, but I’m more concerned with how the rest of us are going to look now”…

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So, like what is this stuff, anyway?
I taste a bunch-o-wine (technical term for more than most people). So each week, I share some of my wine sample tasting notes with you via twitter (limited to 140 characters). They are meant to be quirky, fun, and easily-digestible. Below is a wrap-up of the twitter reviews from the past week (click here for the skinny on how to read them), along with links to help you find them so you can try them for yourself. Cheers!

• 07 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant en foudre (Central Coast): A wild animal glimpsed among the blue flowers & tangy Rubus phoenicolasius. $35 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 07 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant en demi-muid (Central Coast): Somehow got the entire guinea fowl with spiced plum reduction in there. $35 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 07 Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant (Central Coast): Floral, feral & vibrant; might be too plummy, but it’s a compellingly complex beast. $38 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 10 Ca’Bolani Pinot Grigio (Friuli): We need more mineral-driven, crisp, well-built wines like this, if only to keep the snobs quiet. $13 B >>find this wine>>
• 09 H&G Chalk Hill Cabernet Sauvignon (Chalk Hill): More like Chocolate Hill, & said hill is solidly fortified w/ dark fruit structure $14 B- >>find this wine>>
• 09 David Family Anderson Valley Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley): Leather label adorns serious juice; needs patience & a penchant for Big $90 A- >>find this wine>>
• 10 Malk Sauvignon Blanc (Napa Valley): Living large & isn’t afraid to flaunt it a bit, w/ surprising breath-of-fresh-air action, too. $33 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 09 Craggy Range Te Muna Road Pinot Noir (Martinborough): Admit it, you didn’t really know the boys in NZ grew up *this* big, did you? $44 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 08 Draconis Syrah Traditional (Lodi): A Jennifer Garner in the glass; sexy, cut & svelte – but voluptuous in all the right places. $45 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 08 Chateau de Cosse (Sauternes): As tangerine as Tangerine Dream’s Atem; but it’s the vinyl re-issue version, remastered for clarity. $48 B+ >>find this wine>>
• 10 Chimney Rock Sauvignon Gris (Napa Valley): A strange grape, it comes in peace; but wants a chicken & provolone sandwich now please. $29 B >>find this wine>>
• 10 Los Galanes Airen (La Mancha): Minerally refreshment w/ a streak almost as complex as the harsh La Manchian climate it calls home. $8 B- >>find this wine>>
• 09 Selbach Incline Riesling (Mosel): Apples & lime zest, acting like two best friends & playing politely outside in the park. $12 B- >>find this wine>>
• 08 Allozo 927 Cosecha (La Mancha): Don Quixote travels to Oz, then takes on jammy Shiraz, & lives to talk (a bit confusingly) about it $29 B >>find this wine>>
• 05 Dinastia Vivanco Rioja Reserva (Briones): Tempranillo’s tangy equivalent of Giganotosaurus, that nests inside an enormous oak crate $25 B >>find this wine>>

In Spain’s La Mancha winegrowing region, there is a saying (and no, it’s not “Don Quixote slept here,” though that’s a reasonable guess):

“Nueve meses de invierno y tres meses de infierno.”

Which means, “nine months of Winter, and three months of hell.”

This is how the locals describe the climate of La Mancha, where it can go as low as 10F in the coldest months, and in the low 100sF in the hottest. Rainfall is ridiculously scant in the region (about 14 inches per year), and so vines are planted on average about eight feet from one another in order to maximize the amount of that scarce resource that does manage to hit the ground.

The result of such low planting density is that La Mancha has nearly half a million hectares under vine, making it not just the largest winegrowing area in Spain, but the largest winegrowing area worldwide.

And the grape that lays claim to the majority of that space?

Meet the lowly Airén – a white wine grape that most folks know nothing about, but which, by far, dominates the statistic (trivia alert!) of most-planted grape (in terms of  area under vine) in the world…

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