What sort of lengths do you go too to get your favourite wines? I was reminded this morning of a particular customer who I assisted in his endeavours when I worked as Fine Wine Manager for a large wine company in Auckland. For what ever reason “John†as I will call him did not want [...]
Here’s another type of fining to surprise and amaze you. Gelatin. On the face of it it doesn’t sound like it would help a lot I know. However it is quite good for improving bitter wines, tannin removal and reducing astringency. Being a protein means that great care is needed not to over do things [...]
A question that we here often is what is fining? Fining is simply a process that where a material is added to wines, mixed in and allowed to settle out. In the process some particular component of the wine is reduced or removed. The fining agent and the component of the wine it removes falls [...]
Well overnight things have changed quite a bit. Only 14 mm of rain here in Auckland so far. Looks like there might have been more further north. Hawkes Bay and Gisborne have received a little rain so far. So nothing too bad for grape growers in the North Island which will be quite a relief [...]
At present the north of New Zealand appears to have an appointment with tropical cyclone (south pacific speak for a hurricane) Funa which is currently a category 3 storm. By the time it reaches New Zealand it will no longer technically a tropical cyclone, a depression of tropical origin I think the term is. But [...]
The explosion appears to have occurred at Drayton’s Winery in the Hunter valley this morning. No reports on the cause as yet. A truly terrible tragedy. Sydney Morning Herald
Matakana has become a very popular area over the last 10 years. It wasn’t that long ago it was hard to find anyone who knew where it was. However a combination of beautiful countryside, fantastic swimming beaches, and its proximity to Auckland has led to it’s growing popularity. The local vineyards and wineries have played [...]
Some how I’ve managed to open two different New Zealand wines from 1994 in the same week. I’ve actually always found it to have been a fairly good vintage and the results from opening this bottle and the Stoneleigh Riesling have been consistent with that. This particular wine is a Cabernet Merlot blend from the [...]
Decanter has news of an astounding court decision in France. Hat tip Vinography
I tried this yesterday. The Stoneleigh Marlborough Riesling 1994 to give it full title, then produced by Corbans Wines.. I’d picked a couple of bottles of this up at auction a month ago as curio’s but half hoping for something exciting. I had to pay $18 NZD per bottle, which was a little more than [...]
We sometimes forget the stupefying properties of ethyl alcohol in the wine trade. Yet Ethanol is a strong depressant and should be treated with care. Thankfully the Darwin Awards, document just why alcohol (including wine) should be consumed in moderation and is best consumed orally (check the link). For example; It’s not a good idea [...]
News of a wine forging ring in Hanoi being broken. It would be interesting to know what labels they were actually purporting to be.
You may remember, about a month ago, I blogged about the release of the Paris Hilton’s Prosecco in a can Rich Prosecco. Well now the wine growers association of Treviso is on the case. President Fulvio Brunetta is less than enthused by the credibility Miss Hilton is lending Prosecco. But that’s not really the problem. [...]
Hanoi police have confiscated 5000 bottles 2000 of which were labeled as 1996 Bordeaux
Taste a wine, and then place it somewhere on an arbitrary scale to convey relative quality. Sounds good in principle, but what about the scale? Obviously a scale with only one position is not going to convey enough information, yet one with a thousand positions is probably too much. And opinion varies widely. Lyle at [...]
I’ve been using WordPress for a bit over a year now and find it fantastic. If you’re thinking of starting a blog on your own URL you should have look at the WordPress main page. It’s easily customisable and has heaps of plug-in options for all manor of purposes and it’s really quite easy to [...]
I was just writing the last post when I thought of something amusing. Well, vaguely amusing… sort of. In September I was at the NZ wine trade show. There was something strange in the atmosphere, an odd sterility. On the second day I realised what it was when I saw (and heard) someone pull a [...]
This past year I have been surprised by the amount of times I have seen this particular fault often in accompaniment of high Volatile Acidity. It’s only 6 times but all of those occasions were when the wines were being presented either at shows or events. A few years ago you could always pass off [...]
Writing my last post got me thinking about some other tasting disasters I’ve had. Probably the one of the worst, from a financial point of view was a particular episode around 10 years ago when three successive bottles were corked or spoiled. First up was a Meursault village 1995 from which had been excellent on [...]
During the Christmas break, I visited some good friends in Rotorua, New Zealand. Knowing my interest in old wines they pulled out a number of “vintage†wines they had been “cellaringâ€. My friends had some wines that were perhaps past their best and I might be interested in them. Having had a lot of success [...]
For a while in the early 1990’s Waiheke was certainly the hot place for boutique production of New Zealand Bordeaux reds led by Stonyridge and Goldwater. As the decade wore on and new vineyards entered the market, a gap between expectation and reality opened up. Although there were a number of poor vintages that contributed [...]
Wishing everyone a great vintage 2008.