7 and 3/4 Month Anniversary

This blog has been going for about 7 and 3/4 months now, so the time seemed right for a brief look back. For me, the best thing about this blog is that when I look down the posts on this page I see reviews from Iron Chef, Vasco da Gama, Vesper, Peanutman and Tancred, as well as from me and Kelly, and Michelle is high up on the next page. Even better, the comments have been active, sometimes agreeing with the original post and sometimes not. This is what I had hoped for when I started the blog. It’s supposed to be a forum for people who like wine to exchange opinions - partly to help each other find the deals and avoid the duds at ANBL, and partly just for the fun of discussing the wine.

So give it a try - if you drink a wine that hasn’t been reviewed, write up a review and post it on the Make a Suggestion thread, or send it to me at nbwines / at / gmail /dot / com. If you drink a wine that has been reviewed, post a comment on the thread for that wine and let us know what you thought. Reviews don’t have to be long or elaborate - you don’t have to score it if you don’t feel like it. And the wine doesn’t have to be expensive - there’s nothing better than finding a really good wine for$14. Don’t be shy - no one knows who you are.

This blog needs YOU

I've been posting wine reviews every other day - or more often - for the last six months. At first it was mostly reviews by me and Kelly, but lately a few others - Iron Chef, Michelle (and what happened to Luke?) have also been contributing a lot. But now the pipeline from the regular contributors is dry.

That's not a bad thing. The concept behind this blog was never to have just a few people telling everyone else what wines are good or bad. My opinion isn't worth any more than yours - I don't know anything about wine except what I like or don't like (and even that seems to change day to day). The point of this blog was to share opinions, not to give me a pedestal to be a wine wanker. My goal was to start a CellarTracker for New Brunswick.

So how about it? What have you tried lately? What did you think? Post a review in the Make a Suggestion thread, or send it directly to me at NBwines /at/ gmail /dot/ com. It doesn't have to be elaborate. For example: "I tried Wine X. It tasted like wine. That's great value for $10.49." Or "I tried Wine Y. It tasted like Dr. Pepper. Dr. Pepper is cheaper."

A Matter of Taste

I'm posting this comment from Michelle on a very interesting question - taste. Do you have a taste for old world or new world? Has it changed over the years? Or even from day to day - I've discovered in recent months as my scores for the same wine vary depending on my mood. Do tastes vary from person to person, and is it just preferences, or do we each actually taste something different? Let's get the ball rolling on these questions with Michelle's comments:

--- Michelle's Comment --

It seems lately I have been reading more about the debate of "taste" and how its established. Some believe its something you develop. Others think its what you are exposed to. Or is it genetics. Regardless, each side has its merits I think.

The first wine I can remember trying was a Mouton Cadet white Bordeaux. In hindsight that was probably a bold one to begin with. I can remember thinking it was a bit tart, almost sour tasting. Which now, using my expanded wine vocabulary, would today say was citrusy. But I didn't stop there.

In the development side of things, I cannot say I have been exposed to a lot of different wines. In the early days starting with whites, experimenting with light reds and moving up in the scale to bold Shiraz etc. was typically what everyone did. Is that palate development? Another influence on taste could be that my wine mentors were somewhat limited in their exposure to different wines too. They usually drank mid priced wines, mostly Australian. French or American wines were not the rage then. They were so metro. Another point, my family does not drink wine so influences from what I grew up with is out of the equation. I was however, raised in the country surrounded by gardens, farms, earth. Maybe I associate that smell with home and comfort. Its definitely where my palette has gone. Oaky, earthy wines with ripe berries. Interesting thoughts.

A hotly debated subject today seems to be about the American palette and how they typically like fruit forward wines. Or an "international" style. Some of the smaller producers feel that the larger ones are selling out to produce wine for the masses. This debate even goes so far as saying the French and Italians are moving in that direction too! This would mean losing their terroir. Sacre bleu! Losing terroir! In a nutshell that means wine producers are fudging their wines to make them more palatable to the largest market in the world, the United States. So if you pick up a bottle of Bordeaux and it tastes like bubble gum, you know what happened!! On the question of terroir, how about this, perhaps that the process of wine making has become SO refined, that all of the "flaws' in certain wines have been eradicated? The characteristics that made a Bordeaux are flushed out. Gone because the process is so developed. Therefore its more appealing to the American market. Its not losing terroir at all. I love my oaky, dirt and violets of Chianti Classico. So hopefully that won't change anytime soon. Pretty sure since the CC region is under strict DOC regulation, I will be saved from the bubble gum nation. I shudder to think that Chianti Classico could taste like Boones Snowberry someday.

In my humble opinion, there is nothing wrong with appealing to the largest market in the world. It's a business, like any other. You move to what the market dictates. I know the purists think that the wines are suffering. But who's to say who is wrong and who is right? Buy and drink what you like. Don't be afraid to experiment. It is a matter of taste, and that is something that is as individual as a finger print.

The Tasting Machine

The topic of the tasting machine seems to have generated a lot of interest - well, I'm interested at least. I should have started a discussion about it on a separate thread, but since it's too late for that, I'll collect links to all the comments in this post.

It started when I said I tried a wine out of the tasting machine and liked it, but it was a small sip.

tancred agreed and complained about the price

Iron Chef likes the tasting machine and Luke loves it.

Kelly likes the machine, but not the price / quantity ratio.

tancred said the price should be lowered to encourage people to try and then buy.

Chris says someone has to pay for the wine.

I said, yes someone has to pay, but the price could be cut in half and still cover the cost of the wine.

tancred thinks the machine would generate more sales if the price were lower.

I said that I think it's fun, but not useful for making purchase decisions.

Any more thoughts? Let's continue the discussion in this thread.

Box of Wine!

Here is a review from Michelle, on a very interesting topic. As she points out, there are a lot of advantages for boxed wine, at least for wine that is intended to be drunk young.

---

In this environmentally conscious age, I want to bring to the forefront an often over looked and under appreciated section of our beloved ANBL store. The "Large Format" section.

Back in our parents’ day, the large format or box'o wine (or as it will now be known, the BOW), was usually filled with what some would call "the bottom of the barrel skunge." It was the cheapest, foulest liquid that I would be embarrassed to call "wine" Today however some of the world's largest producers are jumping on board. I have noticed, since I started to purchase BOW that the selection has grown. Jackson Triggs has a lovely "Proprietors" Shiraz. Also, wine experts believe that this is not only economical but environmentally friendly as well. The BOW has many advantages. The wine stays fresh, up to six weeks (although I have yet to keep a box up to six weeks) and there is plenty to go around when unexpected guests drop by. Sure you can whip out an impressive bottle from the cellar, but why not save those to enjoy at a tasting or alone on the sofa.

Seriously though, the BOW is a great value. Most are under $40 for a 4 litre box. Do the math, people, that's over 5 bottles! The reason I got on board with the BOW was the fact that it’s cheap, you can get a decent sipping wine and believe me, less recyclables. I was running out of room in the porch for my empties at one point . So give one a try and if you don't like the one you picked, serve it to unexpected guests. Remember, it stays fresh up to six weeks.

These are three I have tried.
1. Jackson-Triggs Proprietors Shiraz (3 L) $35.29
2. Naked Grape Shiraz (3 L) $36.29
3. Calballero Cabernet Sauv. (4 L) $36.29

New Year's Wine!

This thread is a great suggestion from Luke: what was / is your New Year's wine - either the wine you celebrated New Year's with, or your first bottle of the new year.

Value Rating

Now you can rate the wine by value! If you've tried the wine, just tick the box at the bottom of the post to give it a value rating. That way you can share your opinion without having to write a comment.

1 says "do not buy this wine at this price"
2 is disappointing, but not terrible
3 is average value - what you'd expect from a wine at that price
4 is good value. If I think a wine is worth a 4 for value, I'll put it on the "Recommended" list
5 means the wine is a steal at the price

Don't worry too much if you think it's a 3.5 and you can't decide whether to give it 3 or 4. Just go with whatever feels right. If enough people vote (please vote!!) it will all come out in the wash.

Closures

In an comment yesterday Chris MacDonald raised the hot topic of closures cork, screwcap etc. (well, it's a hot topic for wine lovers anyway). There are a lot of issues around closures - cost, convenience, how does it affect wine aging, etc. Chris raised the question of environmental impact to start things off. I've re-posted Chris' comment below, in this thread. But I'm going to abuse my power as blogmaster to strat things off with what I see as the main issue: cork taint. No one would be even thinking about screwcap for fancy wine if it wasn't for cork taint.

Personally I don't care much one way or the other about the closure for wine I intend to drink right away. Cork taint isn't much of an issue because ANBL has such a good return policy (though it's definitely annoying to bring a bottle to a dinner party and have it turn out to be corked).

But for fancy wine that I intend to cellar for a few years, cork taint is a real problem. I've read that something like 5%-10% of wines with a cork closure are affected by cork taint, and that pretty much reflects my personal experience. To me, that's a big problem. Fancy wine is expensive already - it's that much harder to put down $40 or $100 for a bottle of wine knowing that there is a 1 in 10 chance that it's undrinkable. And it's not just the money, but the disappointment when you pull out a special bottle that has been in the cellar for years and is now irreplaceable - and it turns out to be corked.

With that said, my understanding is that there are still questions about how well a wine will age with a screwcap closure. And Kelly and I haven't had as many corked bottle recently. I don't know if that's because the quality of corks is going up, or if we've just had a lucky streak.

Anyway, what kind of experience has everyone else had with corked wine? I've started the comments with Chris's original comment, that I grabbed from the "Make a Suggestion" thread.

d'Arenberg

While I want to keep individual wine reviews at the centre of this blog, it might be interesting to occasionally get a thread going on more general NB wine related topics. If anyone wants to write a comment on a general topic, please send it to me at "NBwines /at/ gmail /dot/ com." (I'm told I should spell out my e-mail address to avoid robots etc.)

To start with, here's a comment from Ted on the d'Arenberg winery. Ted lived in Australia for a few years and is a dedicated fan of Aussie Shiraz and Aussie wine generally.

"I've had a decade of experience with d’Arenberg reds across the spectrum from their entry level wines like d'Arry's Original and the Stump Jump to their flagship, the Dead Arm Shiraz. Up until the last few years d’Arenberg made universally dependable, often exciting and sometimes superb wines. Classically Australian fruit forward but very well structured and balanced, and with layers of flavours on the nose and palate. And the d’Arenberg entry level wines (priced at the $10-$15 range in Australia) were far better value for money than similarly priced wines from the big winemakers like Lindemans, Penfolds, Rosemount and Wolf Blass. Over the last few years I think the value end of the spectrum for Australian wines has become more of a crapshoot – including d’Arenberg. That was due in large part to an expansion of new plantings on more marginal land that was in response to the boom in Australian wine exports. But I think this was even more of a problem for the other, larger, Australian winemakers through the mid 2000s – the curious mid- 80s scores for Little Penguin and Yellow Tail from WS notwithstanding. (The resulting Australian wine glut saw cleanskins from top wineries going for $3-4 a bottle. This, combined with stiffening competition from South Africa, Chile and Argentina in export markets, has hopefully brought about a market correction.) The bottom line is that given the Australian selection we have here in NB, d’Arenberg is as close to a sure thing as there is among Australian winemakers. There may well be better value from other new world wines on the shelves, and there may be occasional missteps (such as the 2003 High Trellis), but d’Arenberg remains for me a winemaker that I can count on."