Being a festive occasion I personally would only go one-way, Champagne. But with one caveat, magnum bottles only! There is something about Champagne in magnums that I find often produces superior results. For best results I would suggest a vintage wine but nothing too old, say 1990 or younger.
Merry Chistmas!
Last nights 6.8 magnitude earth quake of the coast of New Zealand’s North Island has caused damage atPernod Ricard New Zealand’ s three Gisborne Wineries. Reports suggest a considerable volume has been lost. Fortunately no one at the wineries was injured.
I’ve been thinking about writing this for a couple of weeks and despite having tasted a great many fantastic wines this year, singling out just one is a bit tough. So I’ve singled out four interesting wines. Wine most in need of more time in the cellar. Chateau Latour 1990 I really wonder if anyone [...]
Police in France have apparently broken a ring of sugar smugglers. This may sound silly but the laws that are in place to protect the good name of it’s wine regions there are strict limits on how much sugar or acid can be added to Beaujolais and other French wines. Adding sugar is usually done [...]
Malo, MLF, Malolactic a fermentation you here about this constantly from wine writers and winemakers and wine marketers but what the hell are they talking about? Firstly what is it? Calling it a, fermentation is somewhat misleading in the first place as yeasts are not involved. Instead, its bacteria that transform Malic to Lactic acid [...]
I was at a Christmas party a few nights where on opening a bottle of was quite clearly corked (for me it certainly was). I immediately declared it to be so and set about pouring the wine back into the bottle for return. Before I could, I was surrounded by people who wanted to know [...]
Paris Hilton is promoting a canned Prosecco product call Rich Prosecco in nothing but gold paint. The drink also comes in a fruit infused variant, with the addition lower alcohol. Both variations come in a slim 200ml can. Personally I’m just not keen on the concept of wine in a can but it will be [...]
I discovered another Champagne blog today produced by Salon. It’s mixed lauguage and the content is interesting. They have been going for over a year so there is a bit of content there as well. Wondering who Salon are? Well, they invented blanc de blanc champagne and make one of the longest aging of all [...]
I just noticed and article in the NZ Herald about a wine being rejected for import into Germany because of excessive levels of copper. The maximum limit in the EU is 1 part per million. The article goes on to say that copper is used to remove odours produced by organic sulphur compounds that occur [...]
 The top search terms that lead people to this blog are often interesting and yet again “egg”is in the top 3. These are the top ten in descending order for November. wine preservative egg in free fining white consultant consultants champagne
The Wine Wanker has some interesting tasting notes on an 1996 Milton vineyard Chenin Blanc. The tasting notes by Megan at the bottom of the page are fantastic, and more a memory response than a the typical “fruit cocktail” tasting notes we all do. It’s great to see that sort of thing written up.
I hadn’t seen this before, but in a post from the 24th of October Wine Geek has a photo of frost damage from the frosts of October 19th.
“He should go back to selling dog food.†The Sydney Morning Herald reported this was the reaction of Bruce Tyrrell (of Tyrrell Wines) to a speech given by Dan Jago, the beer, wine and spirit director at Tesco. The speech was at the Winemakers of Australia Outlook conference. Now I don’t know if Mr Jago [...]
Portfolio.com have some interesting labels following on from my post last week. Link