“Of all of the wine days to fall on my birthday,” says Sue plaintively, “why Moscato? why must it be MOSCATO? It is by far NOT my favorite wine!”
If she could have her way, I bet she’d have been born on Cabernet Franc Day. But no.
Will this Hat Ranch Dry Moscato from the Snake River Valley in Idaho change her mind? Only our taste test will tell.
HAT Ranch Winery – 2015 – Dry Moscato – Estate Grown – Snake River Valley – Alcohol 12.7% 182 cases $18
When my son saw this bottle of wine, he asked: is it an elephant or a hat?
“I showed the grown ups my masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them. They answered:”why be scared of a hat?” My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.” The Little Prince Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
In The Little Prince, we are reminded that as we age, how we see the world changes. We have certain expectations, and these expectations limit us, and our imaginations. When we were children, the world was fresh, and alive: we let our senses give us information, and we could imagine the extraordinary this way. (Read more about The Little Prince and imagination in this article from the Scientific American).
And so it can be with wine: been there, tasted that. Ho-hum.
This month, Sue and I are hosting the Italian Food Wine and Travel group’s exploration into Sparkling Wine of Italy. We chose this theme because
we love any excuse to pop open a bottle of sparkling wine
many people don’t know about sparkling wine from Italy other than Prosecco
we had a sample on hand of a 2006 Ferrari that we wanted to pop open
we love sparkling wine with food and think more people should too
we wanted to learn more about the Trento region of Italy
we thought it would be a fun to learn about sparkling wine of Italy
it’s just in time for Mother’s Day, graduations, and weddings
Because over 150 million bottles of Prosecco are produced each year, it’s no wonder that this popular sparkling wine is the one from Italy that most people are familiar with these days.
Trentodoc photo
But the mountainous Trentino region in northernmost Italy has produced metodo classico sparkling wine for over one hundred years, and Trento is the region Sue and I decided to focus on with two $15 wines non-vintage wines from Rotari and a $56 2006 reserve from Ferrari. Continue reading →
With Sauvignon Blanc Day on the horizon, Sue and I thought it would be fun to test our knowledge and to compete and contrast wines from around the world in a blind tasting. Imagine our surprise when in response to our request we received six wines from Terlato, three from NZ Wine Navigator, and three from Brancott to add to samples from Idaho and others! With a dozen to choose from, we selected two wines from the Marlborough region of NZ, one wine each from NZ Wine Navigator and one from Terloto for Sauvignon Blanc Day #1 on April 25 And set aside the rest to choose from for a recent blind testing where
we tasted seven wines from five continents!
It was a warm day in Ojai so instead of paper bags, we wrapped each bottle in foil, used painters tape with sharpie to number them, printed out tasting sheets, made a plate with goat and other cheeses and appetizers including a pesto pasta salad, and away we went! We grabbed them randomly from the ice chest and plopped the on the table for the tasting. Here are our results: Continue reading →
On the first Saturday of each month, a handful of wine writers from around the world participate in #ItalianFWT — or Italian Food Wine Travel. That means the host comes up with a theme to prompt us to taste, learn, and write, then we all do so and share the results.
It’s quite fun and so Sue and I offered to host with the theme of “Sparkling Wines of Italy.” We sent out the invitation here on this blog as well as on social media, and here’s who will be joining us this Saturday by posting about sparkling wines of Italy including travel opportunities in the regions where you’ll find sparkling wine, and Italian food to pair with sparkling wine from Italy. You will also learn about different kinds of sparkling wine from Italy as you can tell from these post titles:
David Crowley of Cooking Chat finds for us examples of “Italian Sparkling Wine Beyond Prosecco”
Lauren Walsh the Swirling Dervish will teach “Why You Should Learn to Love Lambrusco”
Instead of England’s early Sunday dinner, a postchurch ordeal of heavy meats and savory pies, why not a new meal, served around noon, that starts with tea or coffee, marmalade and other breakfast fixtures before moving along to the heavier fare?
By eliminating the need to get up early on Sunday, brunch would make life brighter for Saturday-night carousers. It would promote human happiness in other ways as well.
“Brunch is cheerful, sociable and inciting.” Beringer wrote. “It is talk-compelling. It puts you in a good temper, it makes you satisfied with yourself and your fellow beings, it sweeps away the worries and cobwebs of the week.”
— William Grimes, “At Brunch, The More Bizarre The Better” New York Times, 1998[7](from Wikipedia’s Brunch entry)
— Gwendolyn Alley, Art and Wine Predator (@ArtPredator) May 1, 2017
Whether you stay up late carousing or you’re trying to figure out what to do for Mother’s Day, let’s do brunch this month for Wine Pairing Weekend!Continue reading →
Guilio Ferrari is a very special cuvee from Ferrari Trento made from grapes grown in the far north of Italy in the Alps
As we near spring and summer time celebrations, my mind turns toward BUBBLES!
And while most people associate bubbles with Champagne, there’s so much more! Sparkling wine is made all around the world, in different styles from Prosecco in Italy to Cava from Spain, as well as sparkling wine made in the traditional way of Champagne France. Continue reading →
wine predator.............. gwendolyn alley 