Today, December 15, 2018, is our last theme for 2018: “French-Style Season” with Host Lynn Gowdy from Savor the Harvest with samples for the fortunate (like me!) from Vignobles & Signatures via Michèle Piron/Vinconnexion.
What does “French-Style Season” mean?
You can read some answers in the invite post from some of the Winophiles; to help us come up with our version, I posed the question to a few friends who are also wine professionals and know France because they live there now or have spent significant amounts of time there.
Last summer when we paired four Riesling from Alsace with fondue, we thought it would be so much fun to get together in the winter by the fire and do it again but with a potluck of German Riesling and German food along with fondue.
I’ll admit it: I’m not that big of a Cabernet Franc fan. In fact, if someone told me I had to choose what wine grapes I could take on Noah’s Ark and which I’d have to leave behind I’d have no problem not bringing Cabernet Franc onto the boat. Continue reading →
I will always remember my introduction to Port wine.
I had thrown my first “Warm Up The Winter” party with my house mates at our big old Craftsman house on the bluff above downtown Santa Cruz. We were celebrating that we got our hot tub fixed and I made my first batch of porter for the occasion. Continue reading →
November is full of “wine days” — days set aside to celebrate certain wines. For example, Merlot Day is Nov. 7 (for unknown reasons), Tempranillo Day is set each year by TAPAS and is usually around the second week of November, then Beaujolais Day is always the third Thursday in November because that’s the day they release the Beaujolais Nouveau, Zinfandel Day is the third Wednesday placing it squarely in advance of Thanksgiving, and followed by Carménère Day Nov. 24
These wines are all relatively known and easy to find but what about Carménère?
Nov. 24 is Carménère Day because Nov. 24 is the day in 1994 that someone figured out that those vineyards of vines in Chile and the wines they were making from them weren’t actually Merlot but Carménère.
Just in time for the holiday season, today we celebrate that quintessential California wine, Zinfandel, on Zinfandel Day which is held the third Wednesday of each November.
The fifth most popular wine in the U.S., Zinfandel places around fourth in California in terms of production of fruit.
