This week’s wine trivia question was: Q. When tasting wine (or food), which part of your tongue is more sensitive to sweetness? (a) The back (b) The sides (c) The tip (d) The center A. The answer is (c), the tip of the tongue. While scientists now believe that every area of your tongue includes receptors for every basic
Here are two Carpineto wines from Tuscany we tasted at the recent Opici Wines importing seminar given at Century Pittsford Wines. The 2011 Carpineto Dogajolo Rosso is a “Super Tuscan” blend of 70% Sangiovese and 30% Cabernet Sauvignon grape varieties, which are vinified separately in stainless steel tanks, since they ripen at different times, and then
At a recent wine seminar held at Century, Erica Mitchell of Opici Wines gave an interesting presentation on the wine import business, including the strict regulations on wine bottle labeling imposed by the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The TTB requirements for wine sold in the United States include such
With the last of our Thanksgiving leftovers, we enjoyed a bottle of 2011 Valckenberg Gewurztraminer, a fruity, full-bodied off-dry white QbA wine from Pfalz, Germany. This wine had a pleasant aroma of flower blossoms and flavors of ripe melon and peaches, with a hint of lychee on the finish. Perfect with turkey sandwiches and cranberry
To make mimosas with our Sunday morning breakfast, we popped open a bottle of JCB No. 21 Brut, an inexpensive French sparkling wine which is not from the Champagne region, so it cannot carry the name (or the price) of “Champagne.” It is actually from the nearby appellation Crémant de Bourgogne A.C. We didn’t know
We are adding a new feature to OurWineBlog.com – a weekly wine trivia question. Each week on Sunday we will post a new question and then post the answer the following Friday. Here’s the first wine trivia question: Q. When tasting wine (or food), which part of your tongue is more sensitive to sweetness? (a) The
To accompany our Thanksgiving leftovers, we popped open a bottle of Lucien Albrecht Crémant d’Alsace Brut Rosé. Perfect with turkey sandwiches and cranberry relish! While Lucien Albrecht may be best known for his white wines from Alsace, including Rieslings, Gewurztraminers, Pinot-Blancs, Muscats and Pinot-Gris, this delicious rosé sparkling wine is made from 100% pinot noir
Happy Thanksgiving Day! With our traditional Thanksgiving dinner, we served a 2010 Weingut Johannishof Charta Riesling. This is a dry Riesling from the Rheingau area of Germany. In fact, it was very dry, with 11.5% alcohol and only 0.84% residual sugar. It paired beautifully with our turkey, dressing, cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, squash and green
The 2009 Perrin & Fils Côtes du Rhône Villages comes from the Côtes du Rhône Villages appellation, considered to have the better vineyard sites and to be a cut above the Côtes du Rhône appellation in terms of quality and value. This wine is made from a blend of 50% Syrah and 50% Grenache grapes.
Last week we compared a couple of new Rhone wines from the 2009 vintage: one from Domaine Paul Autard and the other from Perrin & Fils. The 2009 Domaine Paul Autard Côtes du Rhône is a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre and Cinsault, grown in Courthézon, a small village near near the old papal city of