Shapely

• November 2009

  Or bottles shaped green chocolates with redberry juice!!

  Forum post in the topic Ridiculous USA wines law by cigarman168

  
  

• November 2009

  Fullbottle welcome. Somewhere or another there was a thread about the idea of Australians picking up "iconic" grapes for certain areas. I think it's pretty stupid frankly, but not because the people can actually produce everything well in every location. More because the cultural... Read moreFullbottle welcome. Somewhere or another there was a thread about the idea of Australians picking up "iconic" grapes for certain areas. I think it's pretty stupid frankly, but not because the people can actually produce everything well in every location. More because the cultural context under which those European regional identities were established no longer exists and never existed outside of Europe. Those are mostly legacies of feudal systems and not particularly necessary. Think about it - the US completely wiped out its wine industry in the early 1900s and basically started from scratch around the 1960s and 1970s. The Australians put together their 25 year plan in the 1970s and vastly exceeded their expectations. Both did it without artificially imposing Euro-style limitations on themselves. They let the market determine what worked. I'm certain that the Australians are going to come out of their current problems in fine shape. The idea of big, fruity, cheap shiraz has sort of run its course as the engine of growth for Australian wine as other places have come onto the wine scene - e.g. Argentina, Chile, South Africa, and even Spain. So the Australians will re-group and figure out something else. They'll figure out what works. But I sure don't hear any clamor for DOCG-type positioning. Frankly I think the Europeans would be better off if they abandoned those all across the continent and simply treated them as trademarks. Seems to work pretty well with luggage and watches. But start a thread on sparkling shiraz. I'll bet most people haven't had much.    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic Fullbottle by GregT

  
  
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  November 2009

  Estancia Cabernet Sauvignon Keyes Canyon Ranches Paso Robles Cabernet Sauvignon Central Coast 2006

  Snoothrank: Starting at $10^.69

  Good wine for the price. Well balanced, lots of fruit. I bought some 2007 and have not tasted it yet. Bought the 2006 at Sam's in Flagstaff and wine was in good shape. Cork was perfect. Price was $12.00

  Wine review by bigbear3208

  
  

• October 2009

  Ciao Filippo, Langhe wines are awsome. For those who don't know "The Langhe is Piedmont's most important winegrowing area. Located along the River Tanaro, the Langhe is shaped like a peninsula that includes all of the winegrowing municipalities of the province of Cuneo. This is... Read moreCiao Filippo, Langhe wines are awsome. For those who don't know "The Langhe is Piedmont's most important winegrowing area. Located along the River Tanaro, the Langhe is shaped like a peninsula that includes all of the winegrowing municipalities of the province of Cuneo. This is where some of the most important Italian wines, like Barolo and Barbaresco are produced. Besides being excellent, the wines of Langhe also boast a great history" - Italianmade.com    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic Hi All, by Stratego

  
  

• October 2009

  Not really. I built the room pretty quickly but spent more time thinking about shelving and figuring the space needed for bins, for shelves, for racks, etc., vs what I could store on them. I got all kinds of measurements for bottles and put up bins on one side. Loaded them up and... Read moreNot really. I built the room pretty quickly but spent more time thinking about shelving and figuring the space needed for bins, for shelves, for racks, etc., vs what I could store on them. I got all kinds of measurements for bottles and put up bins on one side. Loaded them up and within a couple of days started to hate them. So for the other side of the room I decided to build shelves. I had plenty of wood around so it didn't seem like a big problem. Then found that some Beaujolais, some Turley zins, and some Pax syrah and some Hungarian wines are just too fat to fit in any "standard" spacing regime. So I used 5/8 plywood, ripped it into 10 foot shelves about 9 inches wide, and cut little spacers of about 3 3/4 inch, and put them in. The idea was that I'd lay out four or five bottles, put a spacer, etc. Didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. The bottles are just too variable in size Then I loaded those up and damned if once again there wasn't a problem. The weirder shapes, like Tokaji-aszu or some of the extra long bottles from Tokaj or Italy roll around too. And Port and Madeira. So you really don't win no matter what you do. And somewhere during this process I got a DVT and got stuck in the hospital for a week. But I looked at people's blogs and talked to people who build these things and they're just too complicated and dumb IMO. The best insulation is extruded polystyrene. It has an R value of 10 per inch. Fiberglass isn't nearly as good. So if you buy a 2 inch piece you have an R value of 20 and if you double that you get 40 which is pretty decent. You get them already sized to 24 inches, so just use steel studs. Lay in the insulation, pop in the next stud, and so on and you've built the cellar room in a day. They aren't load bearing walls so 24 inches is just fine with minimal work. Your ceiling should be insulated better because in a basement you are under a heated room, so I doubled the insulation but essentially did the same thing there. And because I was nervous about possible water in the basement, I used cement board along the floor inside and out, rather than something like drywall. Doesn't look so nice but it's covered with bottles anyway. And here's a trick because it's full of holes -- get a good mildew resistant paint, mix it with drywall mud, and paint your cement board with that. It's easier than doing a skim coat and you smooth out all the roughness. But I was only looking for something functional, not something to show off carpentry skills. I did that in the rest of the house. A wine cellar is just a refrigerator and I don't have some fetish where I like to go and look at my "collection" which is just haphazard wines that I like to drink. You can build it in a weekend. The hard part is building and hanging the door and the racking. Had I been a little smarter, i would have made it a tad bigger. My thinking was that I could get drywall in 10 foot lengths and cement board in five foot lengths, so I made it ten by five so I didn't have to cut anything. That plan didn't work out either. And when building a door, if you hinge the outside, the arc the door makes needs to be considered. For a regular door it isn't such a big deal. But if your door is six inches thick, like mine is, your're basically swinging a box. You need more clearance because the inside of the door scribes an arc with a different radius than the outside of the door. So you have to make your opening much wider than the door and then you're stuck trying to seal that. The solution is to angle the closing part of the door, but I hadn't figured that out when I built it.    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic Turning a closet into a wine... by GregT

  
  

• October 2009

  More grist for the mill: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2009/10/geologists_have_the_dirt_on_wi.html Though seemingly confident in trying to debunk the minerality 'myth', the geologists et al. at the conference admit that they still don't understand just what is happening... Read moreMore grist for the mill: http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2009/10/geologists_have_the_dirt_on_wi.html Though seemingly confident in trying to debunk the minerality 'myth', the geologists et al. at the conference admit that they still don't understand just what is happening in the vineyard and the wineglass. Some quotes from the article: --'"I am not saying that chemistry and geology have no effect on the wine. It may have effects that we don't understand," Maltman said. "But whatever 'minerality' in wine is, it is not the taste of vineyard minerals."' --'Swinchatt agrees, but in California's Napa Valley, he's found subtle differences in soil texture that make a huge difference in grape quality. One grower told Swinchatt about a "sweet spot" in his vineyard that consistently produced his best grapes.... At another Napa site, vines growing on adjacent, similar-looking gravel-and-sand soils produced grapes consistently different in character. Swinchatt found that the two soil areas had different geologic histories: Floods laid down one, while volcanic debris flows deposited the other. "Some factors in the geology are reflected in the winemakers' tastebuds," Swinchatt said.' --'The soil's water-holding capacity can make a difference. Different soils create better or worse conditions for roots and the fungi that help roots extract nutrients. But scientists have barely started to explore these factors in vineyards.' --'Climate -- a hugely important wine-growing variable -- also is shaped by geology. In eastern Washington, the landscape is wrinkled into giant folds by north-south compression of the bedrock. As a result, "There are spectacular differences in climate over small distances," said Kevin Pogue, a geologist at Whitman College in Walla Walla.' So I'm going to go out on a limb and posit that 'minerality' is something real, that many of us can sense, but is still so delicately ephemeral as to be beyond science's present ability to understand and explain...    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic New to wine drinking and need... by dmcker

  
  

• October 2009

  I would think about whether that's a good idea for a few reasons. If it's a hallway closet, that means the surrounding area is probably your living area and it's going to be heated, no? So you will need a cooler in the closet that has to be vented somewhere. Then you have a cool... Read moreI would think about whether that's a good idea for a few reasons. If it's a hallway closet, that means the surrounding area is probably your living area and it's going to be heated, no? So you will need a cooler in the closet that has to be vented somewhere. Then you have a cool room inside a warm one so you have to really insulate the hell out of the walls, door, and ceiling, and maybe floor, because otherwise you'll get condensation. If your house is not air conditioned in the summer or if you turn off the AC during the day, the house can get up to 80F or more and your wine room should stay under 60 and even cooler if you can make it so. If you get condensation, you'll get mold and that might not be healthy for you to live with. All that is possible to address. Restaurants, etc., have pantries that are kept cool. But they're either stand-alone walk in coolers or they're constructed in place with super insulation all around. But in your case, you're only talking about 100 bottles. By the time you get your build-out finished and your racks and you get a cooler, I think you'd be far better off if you would just buy a wine fridge that holds 100 or 150 bottles. Cost-wise, you'll come out way ahead in terms of what you spend per bottle for storage and your unit will be specifically made for wine. The cheapest cooling unit for your closet space will probably be more than a 100 bottle fridge. If you're going to store a few hundred bottles, say 600+, it starts becoming more cost-effective to make a room. But with lower numbers it's really simpler and quicker to get a unit. If you're going to keep it in the closet or in the basement where you don't really care what it looks like, you can get some fairly inexpensive units that are perfectly acceptable. They are shipped in pieces and you put together yourself. The shelving is metal racking, so you can fit many more bottles into a given space than you can with wood racks, and they seem to hold up fairly well. I have a friend who has three or four of them in his basement. He keeps them at 53F and he's had them for years and he keeps pretty top-end wine in pristine condition. As far as racking goes - the wood racks that all the custom built cellars have are very nice looking, but inefficient in terms of space. Bins are far more efficient but they are difficult to work with because you always seem to want the bottle on the bottom. Even worse, they're horrid for Rhone shaped bottles, which are clumsy and don't stack well at all. If you figure a Burgundy bottle is about 3 1/2 inches in diameter, you need a space about 4 inches per bottle. Remember wood expands and contracts slightly and you want to be able to take the bottle out. So if the wood itself is 1/2 inch, then you need a 4 inch square for each bottle. That means for every foot of space vertical or horizontal, you get three bottles if your racks are made from wood with individual slots for each bottle. Bins are FAR more efficient for a given space, but they have the disadvantage that I mentioned. I ended up building a walk-in wine cellar when I overfilled my 250 bottle fridge and the 100 bottle supplement I bought, but it's in the basement and I really had no space constraints and it's insulated all around, including the door, to R60 in the ceiling and R40 walls and door. Best of luck.    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic Turning a closet into a wine... by GregT

  
  

• October 2009

  I know it wasn't stored "properly"...I have pictures on my system at home. All of the lables are still on, and in decent shape, just a little yellow. It's a Magnum bottle of 1959, Chateau Haut Brion Premier Grand Cru...I know it COULD have been a very valuable bottle of wine...but... Read moreI know it wasn't stored "properly"...I have pictures on my system at home. All of the lables are still on, and in decent shape, just a little yellow. It's a Magnum bottle of 1959, Chateau Haut Brion Premier Grand Cru...I know it COULD have been a very valuable bottle of wine...but I'm not too sure about the integrity of the wine itself. That being said...I don't want it...she doesn't want it...and we thought maybe if I could help her sell it it would help her out. Also I know that 1959 was supposedly considered the vintage of the century.    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic How do you sell a bottle of... by wineybeach

  
  

• October 2009

  Hello all, I recently got a very sweet present from my father. He informed me that he has been saving 8 cases of Sonoma and Napa Cabs from the year of my birth, 1974: Sterling Vineyards Napa Cab. Sauv. (Calistoga) bottled 2/28/77 Sterling Vineyards Napa Merlot, 1974... Read moreHello all, I recently got a very sweet present from my father. He informed me that he has been saving 8 cases of Sonoma and Napa Cabs from the year of my birth, 1974: Sterling Vineyards Napa Cab. Sauv. (Calistoga) bottled 2/28/77 Sterling Vineyards Napa Merlot, 1974 bottled Jan 13, 1977 Beaulieu Vineyard (BV) George de la Tour, Cab Sauv. Private Reserve (2 cases) Inglenook Cab. Napa Cab Sauv 1974 Haraszthy Cellars Buena Vista Sonoma 1974 Cab Sauv Cask 101 Sonoma Vineyards Cab. Sauv. 1974 Souverain Sonoma Cab. Sauv. 1974 Vintage Selection They haven't been moved and have been in relatively consistent conditions for their life, around 60 degrees, plus or minus, do to seasonal temp swings. I've opened a few to test and have gotten very mixed results. A couple were seriously compromised by the cork, and a few had incredible roundness and subtlety. Velvet on the tongue and strong dark fruits and flowers on the nose. I know how unreliable any predictions of how they might drink might be, however, I can guess some of you out there in Snoothland might have some experiences with this particular vintage. I'm guessing they are probably all peaking or past their peak, and don't need any more time in the bottle. I wish he had let me on this 10 years ago. Some might have been in better shape, but only opening the bottles will tell. I've done some online research and most sources have praised this vintage form it's longevity and development. Souverain and BV have been the best bottles opened so far. The Inglenook was less that stellar. No vinegar so far though. :) I'll keep posting the tasting results as I continue the test. Anyone else have some of this vintage in their cellar?    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic 1974 Vintage: Sonoma and... by dddunn

  
  

• October 2009

  I've tried lots of plastic glasses in search of one that does not affect flavor by imparting chemicals nor by the shape of the glass. Any glass will work just fine in a pinch of course but I was looking for something that would still be acceptable at a wine tasting event where it was... Read moreI've tried lots of plastic glasses in search of one that does not affect flavor by imparting chemicals nor by the shape of the glass. Any glass will work just fine in a pinch of course but I was looking for something that would still be acceptable at a wine tasting event where it was impractical to bring real glasses (I own a winery http://www.carivintas.com). The one I'm happiest with is called Govino. They are flexible/unbreakable/washable and recyclable when they are worn out. They are stemless and shaped like a Riedel O and are 16oz to the rim. You can get them online or perhaps at your local wine store.    (hide)

  Forum post in the topic Plastic wine 'glasses' by fleet

  
  

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