This is a first in a two-part series because, well, I just have that many (amazing) Tablas Creek wines to try.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Tablas Creek story, here’s a brief synopsis (Jason, feel free to step in and edit me if I got any of this wrong)…
Happy weekend, my friends. Let’s take a look at some of the headlines in wine this past week…
Remember how the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee released a report significantly changing the recommend daily alcoholic intake, stating men should not consume more than two drinks per day and women should only consumer one? (Yeah…right…) Well, the NAWR has something to say about that. And if that doesn’t put a damper on things, it looks like tariff drama continues and its affecting wine businesses all over the world. (They really want to make it hard for us to get a drink around here, eh?)
It looks like COVID’s latest wine victim is the ancient art of food-treading. Wine Spectator reports that more and more Port producers are turning to mechanical means to make their wines this vintage.
Over in Russia there seems to be something of a wine boom, according to Wine Intelligence’s latest report. The younger generation wants to steer clear of their parents’ and grandparents’ typical imbibes (vodka) and want something “modern” and “lower in alcohol,” which for them means—wine. Which is funny, because my cohort Jim Gordon wrote a short piece for Wine Enthusiast saying that to attract U.S. Millennials, wine producers need to emphasize the health benefits of wine on their labels, calling out organic, biodynamic practices and even providing clear tasting notes. (Seems like we’re going to need bigger labels…) I have thoughts on that. What are yours?
Oh yeah! NOT wine: Sonoma has officially planted its first legal hemp farm. Not something I’m into personally, but kind of interesting how things evolve. Curious if this trend will continue.
Interesting stuff—and there’s tons more. So scroll through, and don’t forget to check out the Blogs for some independent insight.
Stay well, stay healthy. Cheers.
This will be the last post in my WSET Exam-Type Questions series. At least as far as my D1 is concerned. By the time you read this, I’ll have already sat the D1 exam—hope I did ok. Stay tuned, though. D2, 3, 4, and 5 are still ahead of me.
For this last piece, I created two separate winemaking scenarios. To be fair, I pulled certain situations—climactic and soil conditions, wine style type, and even North or South Hemisphere—out of a hat in order to formulate these scenarios. (You know, so I wouldn’t cheat and just ask a question about Sonoma’s Los Carneros AVA and look out my window for the answer.) My goal with these scenarios is to walk through as many steps of the viticultural and winemaking process to prove (to myself) I can talk about all the applicable factors.
Here we go.
First let’s define tartrates. You may have heard them called “wine diamonds.” You can find them on your cork, in the neck of the bottle, and in extreme cases floating in the wine itself (or sunk to the bottom). It’s not bad. It’s just not pretty. Some consumers think it’s a “fault.” It’s not. But to prevent any misconceptions or unhappy conversations, many winemakers will stabilize against them.
What these crystals actually are are deposits of potassium and calcium tartrates. It often happens when a wine (that hasn’t been stabilized against tartrates) sees a dip in temperature—tartrates are less soluble at cold temperatures.
[Information based on DipWSET D1 material]