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Time for me to try a new grape variety.
For reds, I normally go for Shiraz or Merlot and some varietal combination of Cabernet. I usually prefer Riesling or Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris for white wine.
Few varieties but it took me a while to pick the best wine that I will enjoy. Now there's a new buzz around town, Malbec from Argentina.
I am on a hunt for the best Malbec for my taste.
[size=11pt] COURAGE SAN BEDA! <br />¡ÁNIMO SAN BEDA!<br />[/size]<br />¿Entiendes?
Danny, if you're lusting for a Malbec try to look for Argentinian and French brands. It's quite hard to find in other countries and there are only few wineries in California that make it. Malbec wine is almost always highly rated. Do let me know if you've experienced it.Originally Posted by danny
Meantime, i'll stick to my Los Boldos Cabernet Sauvignon Grand Cru 2006.
How to enjoy your whisky–especially if it’s the Scottish kind
One shouldn’t rush the experience, says Darren Hosie of Pernod Ricard, makers of the famous Glenlivet malt
By Jovic Yee
Philippine Daily Inquirer
11:04 pm | Monday, November 26th, 2012
HOSIE says mixing whisky with other liquors should complement and not hide the flavors that were aged to perfection.
In the highlands of Scotland, one region has been known to produce the best whisky in the world since the early 1800s. The Glenlivet region has been home to the whisky and distillery of the same name.
As the first legal distillery in that part of Scotland, Glenlivet was much-admired, such that many distilleries went to great lengths to reproduce the same whisky product and even add the word Glenlivet after their own distillery’s name.
But a legal ruling in 1884 said that only the original single malt could be named “The Glenlivet.”
While still leading the whisky industry for more than 200 years, Glenlivet acknowledges that there has been a change in how whisky, particularly single malt, is now consumed.
Pernod Ricard regional mentoring manager for Asia Pacific Darren Hosie attributes this mostly to consumer behavior.
“In the past, whisky would have been consumed straight from the pot, and that could vary quite dramatically in quality and flavor,” Hosie said. “But we are very fortunate to live in a time where whiskies are of the highest quality and consistency, and benefit from a very careful and selective maturation process.”
Depending on one’s preference, The Glenlivet’s 12-, 15- and 18-year-old whisky can be had on the rocks or with water.
Something new
Nowadays, he said, drinkers are always looking for something new and of high quality.
“If they enjoy The Glenlivet 12 years old, they may want to try The Glenlivet 15 years old French Oak Reserve. We [at Glenlivet] need to adapt and offer something new and high-quality to our fans. One of the great things about malt whisky drinkers is that they love to go on a journey of flavors, and single malts offer this.”
A whisky drinker himself, Hosie said that in his travels he had seen many ways by which whisky is enjoyed. Drinking whisky is a matter of preference, he noted. He himself enjoys his whisky in two ways—on the rocks or with water.
Whenever he’s in Asia where it’s usually hot and humid, Hosie prefers to have his whisky with a few cubes of ice. But when he’s at home, he just adds some water to his whisky and lets the water “open up the whisky and gently release the lovely, soft and complex aromas.”
Aged to perfection
Although he does not discourage mixing whisky with other liquors, he said it should complement the whisky and not hide the flavors that were aged to perfection.
“A mixed drink that I enjoy, especially on hot days, is a high-ball glass with some ice and a measure of Chivas Regal 12 years, topped with ginger ale and garnished with a slice of lime,” Hosie said.
Traditionally, whisky has been thought of as a drink that you can have before and after dinner. Nowadays, Hosie said, any time is the best time to enjoy whisky.
“The complexity of the flavors in The Glenlivet makes it an ideal whisky for enjoying with food.”
First-time whisky drinkers shouldn’t rush the experience, he said. “It is important to remember when approaching whisky for the first time that the flavors and aromas about to be experienced have taken many years to create and are very complex.”
Add a few drops of water, he said, and have a nose and taste. Then, add a few more drops until one hits the perfect whisky spot—then drink away.
A spirited year — or was it a century?
By Jason Wilson, Dec 18, 2012 06:45 PM EST
The Washington Post Published: December 19
When I reflect on the year in spirits, I wonder if I am looking back at 2012 or 1912. I mean, just the other evening, I was pouring an aperitif from a bottle of the bitter French gentian liqueur Suze while I read the newspaper. (Yes, a print edition.) It was Pablo Picasso’s 1912 collage “Verre et bouteille de Suze” come to life on my kitchen table.
Suze, created in 1885, has been a French cafe standard for more than a decade, owned by giant Pernot Ricard, but it has been absent in the United States until this year.
Suze wasn’t the only trip back to another century in 2012. In fact, Suze wasn’t even the first previously unavailable French aperitif to reappear.
In the spring, I got my first taste of the odd, biblical-ish-named byrrh. Byrrh is a quinquina, a red-wine-based, low-proof aperitif with a measure of quinine made from a 125-year-old Languedoc-Roussillon recipe. Close in taste to Dubonnet, byrrh has richer, more portlike aromas and flavors — notably ripe berries and herbs — and a balancing bitterness to the fruit. I mixed it with cognac and kirsch in the old-timey Byrrh Cocktail, one of my favorite drinks of the year.
I spent so much time thinking about the 19th century in 2012, I’m surprised I didn’t sprout mutton chops.
One exciting new cocktail ingredient is Swedish punsch, a blend of batavia arrack, sugar, spices and sometimes rum, citrus or tea. It’s a folk favorite in Sweden, often served during the winter with the country’s traditional Thursday pea soup. Kronan Swedish Punsch, newly imported by Haus Alpenz, is the first version of the spirit we’ve seen in the States in a long, long time. It was amazing in cocktails like the Diki-Diki (Calvados, Swedish punsch, grapefruit juice).
Then there is kummel, distilled from caraway seed, cumin and fennel by Combier, which has been making liqueurs in the Loire Valley since 1834. Kummel’s funky, pungent spicy-sweet aromas and flavors feel pre-modern, elemental. My tasting notes: “Wow. We are not in a world of Justin Bieber and Walmart and whipped-cream vodka anymore.”
Yet perhaps one of the most auspicious product launches of the year was Pierre Ferrand’s Dry Curacao Ancienne Method, a true curacao from a 19th-century recipe that’s similar to Grand Marnier or Mandarine Napoleon, with some aged cognac added to the blend. But the 19th-century recipe is much spicier and more complex — and, frankly, more old-fashioned — than the others.
Of course, there were also some more contemporary flavors to talk about. Sales of American rye whiskey surged, thanks in part to big-brand releases this year from Wild Turkey and Knob Creek. Enthusiasts discovered the joys of Japanese whiskeys. And port wine continued to reinvent itself as a cocktail ingredient, which I totally approve of, as long as it means that more fresh, fruity, new-wave ports like Warre’s Otima 10-year-old and Noval Black, both priced around $20, come onto the market.
These were some of the other deep, philosophical questions we pondered this year in the Spirits column:
■ Is 2012 the year we finally put to rest the question of “manly” drinks vs. “girly” drinks? Perhaps not, but the new local chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails, or LUPEC DC, a society of more than a dozen female craft bartenders in the District, certainly made the case that shots of rye and Fernet Branca are now “ladies’” drinks.
■ Is grapefruit juice simply the best cocktail mixer? Well, taste something like the delicious 866 recipe we published in April (with aquavit, Campari and grapefruit, and a sprig of dill), and you decide.
■ Is there a lonelier or more depressing spirits “occasion” than drinking from the hotel mini-bar? No. (Unless you check into one very, very expensive hotel.)
For my last cocktail of the year, I’d like to offer a variation on a trendy cocktail that’s been popping up on menus across the country: the “White” Negroni. One reason the “White” Negroni is trendy is that it calls for any one of three gentian-based aperitif liqueurs — Suze, Salers and Aveze — that entered the market in 2012.
Well, you know what we say about “threes” around here. Clearly, by the laws of lifestyle journalism, gentian aperitif liqueurs are a certifiable trend. Which means this Negroni is a perfect way to enjoy as you celebrate our year ’12 — whichever ’12 feels right to you.
Wilson is the editor of TableMatters.com. Follow him on Twitter: @boozecolumnist
Drink in southwest France
By Dave McIntyre, Mar 19, 2013 07:05 PM EDT
The Washington Post Published: March 20
Southwest France is a bit off the beaten track, in travel and in wine. When wine lovers go to France — and by that I mean the French shelves at our local wine store — we gravitate toward Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne and the Rhone Valley. The hipsters among us long for the Loire, while more old-fashioned enogeeks reach for Alsace. Most of us don’t get to the southwest, which is too bad, because the wines can be as delicious as the scenery is spectacular.
So the next time you feel like traveling by corkscrew, ask your retailer to take you to Irouleguy, Fronton, Madiran or Jurancon. You’ll taste unfamiliar grapes such as negrette, tannat and fer servadou, reds that produce wine at once perfumed and rugged. Gros and petit manseng produce aromatic whites that range from dry and delicate to unctuously sweet.
These aren’t the stylish wines of classed-growth Bordeaux chateaux, nor do they have the sublime luxury of premier cru Burgundy. But they are honest, tasting as though they were grown and produced in a particular place instead of according to a recipe. They are what some people might call “weeknight wines,” because they are inexpensive and uncomplicated. You don’t need to worry about which foods to match with them; almost anything works. They won’t take you too far out of your comfort zone. Most are blended with familiar grapes such as cabernet franc, malbec and syrah.
And it’s fun to say Irouleguy (ee-ROO-luh-ghee). That appellation name is one of the easier words to pronounce on the labels of the excellent Domaine Brana. The wine names reflect the Basque influence of the region; they include the Ohitza red blend, made from tannat that’s tamed with 20 percent cabernet franc.
Exploring southwestern France gives me an excuse to consult my favorite travel primer, “Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours,” by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz (HarperCollins, 2012), more an encyclopedic tome than a pocket travel guide, to be sure.
Tannat, for example, is known for its high tannin (the mouth-puckering, drying factor in red wine), though its name may refer to its dark color. Micro-oxygenation, the modern technique of bubbling small amounts of air into young wine to soften the tannins, was developed in Madiran, the appellation most known for tannat.
Fer servadou, or simply fer, derives from the Latin word for wild, and this grape is the genetic grandparent of carmenere, now popular in Chile. It shines at Domaine du Cros in Marcillac, an appellation that enjoys climatic influence of both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Negrette, as its name suggests, is another dark-colored grape, though more aromatic and less brooding than tannat. It is blended successfully with syrah, cabernet sauvignon and malbec at Chateau Bouissel in Fronton. While fer servadou may be native to southwestern France, negrette is thought to have been brought back from the Crusades by the Knights Templar.
If some of these grape names sound familiar, you might be hearing their Virginia accent. Tannat and fer servadou were planted in the 1990s by vintners eager to experiment with grape varieties that could ripen well in Virginia’s humid climate and contribute color and tannin to its sometimes pallid red wines. Today they show up in wines produced by Chrysalis, Hillsborough and Fabbioli Cellars in Loudoun County, as well as Delaplane Cellars in Fauquier County and Horton Vineyards in Orange County. Varietally labeled tannat can be quite good in Virginia.
Virginia is also making nice wine from petit manseng, a floral white grape that survives well against humidity and ripens with high acidity and sugar levels. In France, the grape plays a minor supporting role to gros manseng in the white wines of Jurancon. Those range from dry, fruity whites to unctuously sweet dessert wines.
With their combination of history, geography and ethnic culture in the glass, the wines of southwest France are too delicious to leave off your travel itinerary.
Drink in southwest France
By Dave McIntyre, Mar 19, 2013 07:05 PM EDT
The Washington Post Published: March 20
Southwest France is a bit off the beaten track, in travel and in wine. When wine lovers go to France — and by that I mean the French shelves at our local wine store — we gravitate toward Burgundy, Bordeaux, Champagne and the Rhone Valley. The hipsters among us long for the Loire, while more old-fashioned enogeeks reach for Alsace. Most of us don’t get to the southwest, which is too bad, because the wines can be as delicious as the scenery is spectacular.
So the next time you feel like traveling by corkscrew, ask your retailer to take you to Irouleguy, Fronton, Madiran or Jurancon. You’ll taste unfamiliar grapes such as negrette, tannat and fer servadou, reds that produce wine at once perfumed and rugged. Gros and petit manseng produce aromatic whites that range from dry and delicate to unctuously sweet.
These aren’t the stylish wines of classed-growth Bordeaux chateaux, nor do they have the sublime luxury of premier cru Burgundy. But they are honest, tasting as though they were grown and produced in a particular place instead of according to a recipe. They are what some people might call “weeknight wines,” because they are inexpensive and uncomplicated. You don’t need to worry about which foods to match with them; almost anything works. They won’t take you too far out of your comfort zone. Most are blended with familiar grapes such as cabernet franc, malbec and syrah.
And it’s fun to say Irouleguy (ee-ROO-luh-ghee). That appellation name is one of the easier words to pronounce on the labels of the excellent Domaine Brana. The wine names reflect the Basque influence of the region; they include the Ohitza red blend, made from tannat that’s tamed with 20 percent cabernet franc.
Exploring southwestern France gives me an excuse to consult my favorite travel primer, “Wine Grapes: A Complete Guide to 1,368 Vine Varieties, Including Their Origins and Flavours,” by Jancis Robinson, Julia Harding and Jose Vouillamoz (HarperCollins, 2012), more an encyclopedic tome than a pocket travel guide, to be sure.
Tannat, for example, is known for its high tannin (the mouth-puckering, drying factor in red wine), though its name may refer to its dark color. Micro-oxygenation, the modern technique of bubbling small amounts of air into young wine to soften the tannins, was developed in Madiran, the appellation most known for tannat.
Fer servadou, or simply fer, derives from the Latin word for wild, and this grape is the genetic grandparent of carmenere, now popular in Chile. It shines at Domaine du Cros in Marcillac, an appellation that enjoys climatic influence of both the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Negrette, as its name suggests, is another dark-colored grape, though more aromatic and less brooding than tannat. It is blended successfully with syrah, cabernet sauvignon and malbec at Chateau Bouissel in Fronton. While fer servadou may be native to southwestern France, negrette is thought to have been brought back from the Crusades by the Knights Templar.
If some of these grape names sound familiar, you might be hearing their Virginia accent. Tannat and fer servadou were planted in the 1990s by vintners eager to experiment with grape varieties that could ripen well in Virginia’s humid climate and contribute color and tannin to its sometimes pallid red wines. Today they show up in wines produced by Chrysalis, Hillsborough and Fabbioli Cellars in Loudoun County, as well as Delaplane Cellars in Fauquier County and Horton Vineyards in Orange County. Varietally labeled tannat can be quite good in Virginia.
Virginia is also making nice wine from petit manseng, a floral white grape that survives well against humidity and ripens with high acidity and sugar levels. In France, the grape plays a minor supporting role to gros manseng in the white wines of Jurancon. Those range from dry, fruity whites to unctuously sweet dessert wines.
With their combination of history, geography and ethnic culture in the glass, the wines of southwest France are too delicious to leave off your travel itinerary.
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