Hobbies and Other Non-Political Assorted Interests

Cooler climate varieties do well in the Northeast / Middle Atlantic area, but there hasn't been widespread sophistication in planting and winemaking. That being said, New York has an established reputation for Rieslings and ice wines from the Finger Lakes area, Long Island for Chardonnays. Virginia is beginning to produce some quality stuff though I haven't tried any yet.

 

I thought it was about 2002 that all 50 States( including Alaska) had verified wineries/vineyards?

 

Yup, wine is produced in all 50 states. High quality wine in about 5 or 6.

 

You’ll see mostly Viognier, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot in Virginia.

 

Three of my favorites. My winery does Viognier, I think its great (try it with rich shellfish like lobster) but its still relatively under-appreciated in the general market. Petit Verdot is a bit too much for a lot of people but done right its very good. I'll take Cab Franc over Cab Sauvignon every day.

 

There are several wineries local to me in MD that are very good. As in I like how they taste. I have no idea if a sommelier would agree with me.

 

Yup this got derailed, need to move the wine discussion to random thoughts.

 

I'm a somm, and by all means don't be guided by what you think a somm would like. Good wine is what you like, doesn't make a rat's a*s difference if I like it or not. I tell this to all my customers.

 

Shifting threads:

Wife and friends also prefer the Cab Frank. If you don’t mind, which winery?

That’s very cool. We watched the Somm series during Covid and have great respect. In fact, we watched a dozen or so alcohol based docs during that time. Apparently we Asians really really like scotch. (Guilty)

 

For the wine lovers this is a great book.

 

I've worked with Perissos Vineyard and Winery for about 10 years, we're committed to using only Texas fruit and making everything on site. It's about 55 miles west of Austin in the Texas Hill Country AVA.

The study and tasting regimen to prepare for the certifications is pretty intense; I got COVID in 2021 and lost my sense of smell for a while - that would have been a career ender. As you know the Somm series is about students preparing for the Master Sommelier exam - this is beyond-the-pale self abuse imho.

 

Definitely a great book, a very funny and entertaining look inside the NYC somm scene.

 

Awesome tasting room.

 

Cool!

I don't know shit about wine except what I like -- dry whites and Pinot Noir, because of Sideways. Literally. And it's fine for me. So nice to know I'm doing it right!

 

the snobbery around wine is absolutely ridiculous.

On the nose, one is immediately assaulted—nay, seduced—by the insolent aroma of hand-foraged Himalayan gooseberries, mingling with the faintest sigh of Venetian leather-bound manuscripts. The mid-palate reveals a scandalous flirtation between smug tannins and the ghost of a 19th-century Bordeaux harvest, while the finish lingers longer than a trust fund at a liberal arts college.

Best served at precisely 16.3°C, in a glass blown by a blind artisan from Murano who weeps for every stem. Pairs poorly with anything pedestrian, but sings when accompanied by existential dread and a rare, ethically ambiguous cheese.

 

Nope, not for me. The heavier reds (Shiraz Malbec many of the Languedocs) and I’m rather poor on whites. Viognier and some of the Burgundy whites at a push, but not a huge fan of them.

Fell away from Merlot because of Sideways and when I rediscovered it years later I realized that I had been a complete asshole (not for the first time in my life, to the surprise of no-one here) for believing a fictional character played by Paul Giamatti.

 

Most Brazilian beavers don’t surrender their cheese, so you did well there.

 

The funniest part of Sideways is, after all of Miles's rants about hating Merlot (and its true the movie significantly depressed Merlot sales in the U.S.) one of the last scenes has Miles drinking his prize wine possession out of a styrofoam cup in a fast food restaurant - a 1980's vintage of Chateau Cheval Blanc. Which happens to be one of the best recognized Merlot - Cab Franc blends.

 

Absolutely. Just got back from some tasting in Santa Barbara County and the wine notes were enough to make me wretch.This is an actual example - Bombshell of honey and toast sing through the nose down to the chest, straight to the heart. So grandiose yet delicately nuanced – a soft creaminess rides atop the sensory flood. Caramel drizzled pear peaks out over the honeysuckle. In the mouth, the wine coats but remains high toned with freshness. Long after the finish, more and more buttery coats reappear. FFS. It's a dry white wine that tastes like pear, green apple and some honey. Wine's actually pretty good but these notes killed it for me.

FWIW I tell my clients I only speak English, not "Somm".

 

That movie is brilliant. Miles is so full of shit. What a mess, what a character. Him not even being nominated for that performance is so ridiculous.

 

Bottle Shock is one of my favorite wine related movies. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t actually enjoy wine and my wife doesn’t rate NoVa wine at all, but it is a really nice day out.

 

Bottle Shock is a good one, about a key historical marker in American wine history - the 1976 Judgment of Paris. Two California wines beat their French counterparts in an expert blind tasting for the first time. Put California on the global wine map.