April 2011 Blog Posts (10)

Maintaining a constant, cool temperature is the best way to preserve your wine collection. After all, wine is an investment and certain conditions are needed to keep it that way.

Temperatures over 70 degrees Fahrenheit should be avoided, as that will age wine too rapidly. If heat is trapped in your wine storage area or wine cellar, it can have an effect on the taste of the wine. Also stay away from drastic changes in temperature. The rapid change from heat to air conditioning will…

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We got our hands on two free passes to the Portland Indie Wine & Food Festival, which will be held in NE PDX on Saturday, May 14th.  It's a fantastic way to taste the wines of small, independent producers (who were picked to appear in the festival by juried tastings), as well as several wineries that used to be tiny and have since grown.  Several restaurants also participate with food bites during the event.

 

Tickets are $75, but we've got two to give away, and have paired…

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Boxed wines have come of age. A number of wineries are now boxing some of their higher end wines in boxes. According to April Schlanger, owner of Sip...A Wine Store in Cary, North Carolina, boxes can have a smaller carbon…

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As a decorative artisan concerned with improving indoor air quality, I would like to re-introduce you to the lovely attributes of lime and clay plaster wall finishes for…

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There's a lot of interest in — and a lot of confusion about — what makes a wine sustainable in today's increasingly eco-conscious world. Does organic mean sustainable, and vice versa? What does it mean to be biodynamic? After talking with some area experts in the field, Danielle Jackson, editor of Wake… Continue

Some enlightening information about the wines of Spain and Portugal was shared by Craig Heffley, owner of Wine Authorities in Durham, NC and Mic Finger, the shop's Vinodrome, in the Spring 2011 issue of Wake Living Magazine.



If you've… Continue

Not being a wine connoisseur, I love it when I open a new wine and just fall in love with what I found or what, in this case, was sent to me for tasting.  Recently I received a few samples from Cinnabar Winery in the Paso Robles region of California.  Tonight I opened the 2008… Continue

This week has been about as far up and down on Pinot Grigio as it can get.  Earlier in the week I tasted what maybe the worst tasting Pinot Grigio I ever had.  Then, on Sunday, I opened what may be one of the best.



I was not to surprised on the quality of the… Continue

Tonight I opened my first Greek wine and another new white wine grape to add to my growing list of new wines.

The grape is Moschofilero. Moschofilero is an aromatic white grape of Greek origins with a rosy hue and quite spicy flavor with good acidity.  Grown throughout much of Greece but especially in the Peloponnese where it is used to make a dry and bold wine with lots of spice and perfume.

The winery is Tselepos… Continue

Did not really want to get back into my white wines for a least another couple of months, but I was kinda forced by Shirley to open one for one of her recipes.  This week she made a delicious Chicken Cacciatore and needed 1/4 cup of a dry white wine. Usually with this dish, I will have a Chianti or sometimes a Pinot Noir, but after taking a taste of the Salneval Albarino I opened for Shirley, I decided to go with a white wine for dinner. I have recently reviewed a… Continue