Tasting notes for individual wines.
Situated just south of Lake Ontario in New York state, the Finger Lakes American Viticultural Area (AVA) is named for the long, slender lakes created over successive waves of glacial activity beginning over one hundred-thousand years ago. Retreating glaciers carved out the lakes as they moved south.
Thanks to the generosity of one of our wine friends, we recently tasted a group of wines from Canada’s Okanagan Valley. Our friend Stephanie travels to the British Columbia wine region regularly to visit friends and of course taste the wine. She recently made such a trip and returned with wine, some of which she generously shared with a group of her wine friends. We were happy to be included in that group.
We recently had the opportunity to taste the second vintage of the Lodi Native Project. This collaborative project is designed to showcase Lodi’s heritage Zinfandel vineyards by producing single-vineyard wines following a standardized protocol involving minimal intervention in the wine cellar. The idea is to show what the vineyard itself has to offer by taking the winemaker’s individual style out of the wine making process. The first vintage, 2012, was released in March 2014 and we tasted that first vintage as well.
Our challenge for the June wine pairing weekend (#winePW on Twitter) came to us from Italy, literally. This month’s #winePW host is Valerie Quintanilla, you can read all of the details of the challenge in her blog post. She is an American living in Italy, so her challenge to us of pairing a summer dish with Arneis, a delightful northern Italian white wine, was spot on.
The Willamette Valley in Oregon has earned a reputation for producing outstanding pinot noir and we are big fans of the region and the variety. In addition to pinot noir from the Willamette Valley, we have recently tasted some very fine chardonnay and pinot gris from the region. Kudos Wines are among the examples we have tasted lately.
Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, the May wine pairing weekend (#winePW) topic was South of the Border. The choice of topics by Christy Majors, this month’s host of #winePW, couldn’t have been any better. You will find an introductory post about this month’s paring on Cindy’s blog, Confessions of a Culinary Diva.
Montes Winery was founded with the goal of producing truly premium quality Chilean wine for export. At a time when Chilean producers were producing wines mostly for local consumption, the two original founders Aurelio Montes, Sr. and Douglas Murray, had bigger plans. The year was 1987 and by the following year Montes and Murray were joined by Alfredo Vidaurre and Pedro Grand and the winery was founded.
We celebrated Earth Day this year by participating in a online tasting of wine and cheese— naturally. The Earth Day tasting included four wines produced in accordance with Lodi Rules for Sustainable Winegrowing and provided a great opportunity to learn about Lodi Rules .
When Markus Niggli talks about his wines, you need to be prepared to pay close attention. He will recite harvest dates, º Brix, pH and TA levels so quickly it will make your head spin. His enthusiasm for and love of winemaking are evident. He loves making wine and taking about wine.
Our homework for the April Wine Pairing Weekend (#winePW) was to choose our favorite springtime flavor, then pair a wine with it. What a delicious assignment, courtesy of Wendy Klik. You can find the details on Wendy’s blog, A Day in the Life on the Farm. We had no problem eating a delicious pairing.
We enjoy wine, food and travel. Pull That Cork is a chronicle of our wine adventures, the food and wine pairings we create and our travels which are increasingly organized around wine.
