Source: http://www.winespectator.com/dailypicks/show/date/2011-01-31/dwpid/7738
Monday, January 31, 2011
QUINTA DO ENCONTRO Bairrada Q do E 2008 $9 (Wine Spectator)
A crisp Portugese red with pleasant berry flavors
20th Annual ZAP Zinfandel Tasting: January 27-29, San Francisco
It's that time of year again. I know of no other event that seems to bring out the inner wine lover in so many San Franciscans more than the annual ZAP (Zinfandel Advocates and Producers) Festival. It never ceases to amaze me how many people turn out with such enthusiasm for this single varietal festival. Don't get me wrong. I love Zinfandel -- unabashedly so. But I tend to forget how many other people do too. Especially those that live in San Francisco.
Of course it's not just San Franciscans that turn out for this one-of-a-kind weekend. People come from all over. The Zinfreaks crawl out of the woodwork, so to speak, and march their way into San Francisco to celebrate their grape of choice, along with the rest of us who sometimes wonder where the rest of these folks hide themselves the rest of the year.
But come one, come all, there's plenty of Zin to go around.
This is the 20th anniversary of this festival celebrating the grape that narrowly avoiding becoming California's official grape, and as usual it is comprised of several great events.
The week begins on Thursday January 27th with the Good Eats and Zinfandel Pairing, a walk around event that features dishes prepared by chefs from all over the U.S. specifically designed to match Zinfandel wines. Attendees can wander from station to station with glass and plate in hand trying different combinations of food and wine until they find their favorites (or until they topple over like plump rabbits in a food coma).
Friday features a series of seminars that allow attendees to taste flights of wines in a guided fashion with commentary from winemakers, as well as the Evening with the Winemakers. This event features a live auction for charity, a pre-dinner tasting, and a sit-down dinner with winemakers. You can buy some great wine while giving to charity, and then you can have a great meal while a winemaker pours a selection of their wines and answers all the questions you ever might have about making Zinfandel.
And finally on Saturday, the ultimate San Francisco wine tasting begins. Starting at 2:00 PM, the floodgates open and hundreds of Zinfandel wines are available to the public for tasting. There is simply no other opportunity like this to educate your palate about Zinfandel as a wine, and no other chance to so easily discover new Zins for yourself. A list of the producers pouring is available on the event web site.
The event tends to get a little crazy as the afternoon progresses, both in terms of the size of the crowd and its level of inebriation, but don't let that stop you from showing up early, enjoying yourself, and then making your exit before the sloshing and stumbling begin.
Especially because you might get to go to the tasting for free
I've got six pairs of tickets to give away to the Grand Tasting and the Good Eats Pairing event, that I will award to six individuals by random drawing. All you have to do to enter the drawing is take the Vinography Reader Survey, which just went live today. Its got 36 questions and takes about four minutes to complete. Thanks for your time, and good luck!
ZAP Zinfandel Advocates and Producers Festival
Grand Tasting: Saturday January 29th, 2011
Doors open to the public at 2:00 PM (members can get in an hour earlier)
Herbst and Festival Pavilions
Marina Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94123 (map)
Tickets for the Grand Tasting are $70 if purchased in advance (which you should do most assuredly). Tickets for other events range from $65 to $225 depending on the event. ZAP members receive discounts on all tickets. For more information about the event and to purchase tickets, please see the ZAP event web site.
Tasting tips: I recommend wearing dark clothes that you won't mind getting a drop or two of red wine on when someone accidentally jostles your glass (or theirs). I also recommend showing up with a full stomach, drinking lots of water as you go, and spitting instead of swallowing. You ain't got any taste buds in your throat, and if you want to learn anything you need to stay sober. Otherwise you'll be one of the drunken fools that everyone makes fun of at 4:30 PM on Saturday. Also, please leave the perfume and the cologne off for the day.
See you there.
Source: http://www.vinography.com/archives/2011/01/20th_annual_zap_zinfandel_tast.html
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Vinography Images: Pedro Jimenez
Pedro Jimenez
Though this may look like an ordinary bunch of white grapes, it's really something much more special with an interesting story behind it. This grape variety is known as Pedro Jimenez in Chile (elsewhere known as Pedro Xim�nez) and only a very small planting of this grape exists in Chile's far northern Elqui valley, where I believe it is used to make the distilled spirit called Pisco. Whenever I see a grape so clearly named after a person, I'm always super curious about the story. It turns out that this grape got its name from the guy that packed it in his suitcase -- a solider in the Spanish Army who brought it to Spain from its (somewhat less clear) region of origin in the 1500s. -- Alder Yarrow
INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops.
To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions, while PC users should follow these.
PRINTS:
If you are interested in owning a print of this image please contact photographer Matt Wilson through his web site.
ABOUT VINOGRAPHY IMAGES:
Vinography regularly features images by photographer Matt Wilson for readers' personal use as desktop backgrounds or screen savers. We hope you enjoy them. Please respect the copyright on these images.
Source: http://www.vinography.com/archives/2011/01/vinography_images_pedro_jimene.html
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Closures: Diam?s guarantee, and new from Nomacorc
Haven’t mentioned the juicy subject of wine bottle closures around here for a while.
I’m seeing more and more Diams – the technical cork that’s made from fragments of cork cleaned from any contamination by supercritical carbon dioxide. In a new move, I’ve encountered my first Diam (in a Bordeaux white) that guarantees on the cork [...]
Source: http://www.wineanorak.com:/wineblog/wine-science/closures-diams-guarantee-and-new-from-nomacorc
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Do Bianchi on Big Beef and Big Critics
This is a must read. Blogger Jeremy Parzen ruminates on the career of Wine Spectator critic James Suckling, while teaching us how to cook bistecca alla fiorentina.
There’s no two ways about it: during James Suckling’s tenure at the Wine Spectator, the scores he gave to modern-style Brunello — with Casanova di Neri as its poster child — helped to eclipse the sale of traditional-style wines,
link: The James Suckling era ends (and what we ate and drank for my birthday) « Do Bianchi
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DRC 2008
Domaine de la Romanee-Conti is one of the world’s greatest wine domains. It’s thrilling wines are scarily expensive – but even if you can afford them, the real issue is getting hold of them.
Fortunately, each year Corney & Barrow – who have exclusivity of these wines in the UK – put on a tasting for [...]
Source: http://www.wineanorak.com:/wineblog/france/drc-2008
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Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
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