April 2009

Decanting Wine

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My mother has three decanters that I know of. One is part of a sherry set, and my parents did sometimes use the set to serve sherry and port, and on at least one occasion the port truly did need to be decanted. The other two are wine decanters, and I don't remember ever seeing them used. One of them my mother bought and used fairly frequently when she was living in Germany, and drinking German and Italian wines. She was quite clear about the reasons she used it, when I asked her; some wines had sediment in them, sediment that could be seen when you held the bottle just right. And some, particularly red wines, just needed "a little air," as she put it, to taste right. Plus, they looked pretty.

Washington Shiraz Reviews

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I very much wanted to try different Washington state Shiraz—or Syrah—because I liked Australian Shiraz quite a lot, and there's a fair amount of buzz about Washington Shiraz; I heard people rave about it before I moved to Washington. Some wine experts were disappointed by the first few years of Washington Shiraz, and the consensus seemed to be that initially, at least, the wines promised more than they delivered. But more recently, with more mature vines, and more Shiraz in production, there's a degree of enthusiasm and quite a lot of optimism about the potential of Washington Shiraz to be something truly special. This local optimism led me off onto a taste-comparison of several local Shiraz. To be fair, I limited my samples to under $15 a bottle; wines I'd be comfortable purchasing to serve with an everyday meal. The results were interesting, and admittedly, a bit disappointing.

Washington Wine Bicycle Tours

A reader left the following question in a comment:

We are looking for bike tours of the wine region in August. Can you suggest some?

That sounds like a great deal of fun. I'm hoping that by posting your question, readers other Washington wine bloggers might have suggestions to make in comments, or possibly repost the question for their own readers.

I don't know of any Washington wine bicycle tours this August; however, I do know that for several years there's been a bike tour of Yakima Washington wineries in September. There's an old 2006 Seattle Times article about them here, with some contact information. There's one this September of Wenatchee wineries; this is a striking culturally rich area of Washington. There's some information about it here.

About Pinot Noir

Pinot noir is a truly ancient grape, with a long history of use in wine. A dark grape, famed as an ingredient in the French Burgundy red wine blends, pinot noir has traditionally been regarded as a "difficult" grape to cultivate, outside of the narrow regions of France's Burgundy region. The name Pinot noir, French for "black pine," describes the typically tightly bunched grape cluster, similar in shape to a pine cone. The pinot noir is technically Vitis vinifera, but the grape, favored by the Romans as early as the first century C. E., has a variety of different names, as does the wine made from Pinot noir. To the Romans, it was Helvenacia Minor, mentioned with favor by Pliny. In Austria and Germany, it is known as Spätburgunder, while it's called Pinto nero in Italy.

About Shiraz (or Syrah)

One of the very first red wines I ever tried and liked was an Australian Shiraz in 2001 from Rosemont Estates that I bought at Trader Joe's. I liked it so much, I later went back and bought a couple of other bottles, including another Australian Shiraz from Black Opal. But none of them were anything like as enjoyable as that first. After moving to Washington, the very first wine I liked enough to buy by the case was Washington's Red Diamond Shiraz. I've not had a lot of chances to try Shiraz, but I'm about to embark and some fairly devoted exploration.