New Jersey Wineries Are Bringing Home The Bling.
Alba Vineyard in Milford New Jersey.
I recently picked up a brochure about all the great things happening in New Jersey. It was a very thin brochure. As I perused the pamphlet I was beginning to think there’s not much to do here once you’ve seen Lucy the Elephant (six stories tall in Margate) or visited the world’s largest light bulb (14 feet tall, 8 tons in Edison). But then a section about New Jersey wineries caught my eye.
I was shocked to learn my beloved state is now host to approximately fifty wineries. As recently as the year 2000 there were only a dozen New Jersey wineries and after visiting one a few decades ago I didn’t see any reason to build more. Fifty New Jersey wineries reminded me of that old joke about bad diner food; “This food is horrible, but at least there’s lots of it.”
Read MoreWine Evaluation; The Nose Knows No’s Not An Option.
Chapter Three, Part Six.
In certain wine circles people share the opinion that the difference between an aroma and a bouquet has to do with the age of the wine. They believe that young wines display aroma, and only when wine reaches maturity will it develop a bouquet. While studying for my Sommelier certificate, I was taught that aroma comes from the grape variety and bouquet stems from the vinification process. I, of course, don’t subscribe to either school of thought.
Le Chanceux’s Tale of Inspiration, Courage & a Little Luck.
At Napa Barrel Care “there were stories of wine coming out of the warehouse into the parking lot.”
Sue McNerney was hoping to turn her passion for wine into a profitable business when the Napa earthquake struck on the morning of August 24th. “I was standing in the kitchen when I saw the pictures on my I-pad and I walked over to the door and I said ‘Oh my God. It’s gone. It’s gone!’ ”
In 1999 Sue and her husband Bob bought property in the Coombsville region of Napa Valley with the dream of producing estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon. They converted a one-acre horse pasture on their property into a vineyard and named it Belles Filles in honor of their three daughters.
Read MoreThe Topsy-Turvy Vineyards Of Babcock Winery.
Bryan Babcock & WineSnark tour Babcock Vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills appellation of the Central Coast.
From the back seat of Bryan Babcock’s Volkswagen I noticed something unusual about his vineyards. The grapes were experiencing an unusually early onset of veraison (when grapes soften and change color) but it wasn’t the patch-quilt appearance of the clusters that caught my attention. Babcock’s Pinot Noir vines appeared to be growing upside-down.
Babcock, a born innovator, explained, “I’ve worked out a system that allows the vines to grow more naturally. I’ve taken the starting point of my growing higher off the ground so that my shoots can grow down naturally … as opposed to working against gravity.” The visual effect can be startling
Read MoreDon’t Be So Sensitive; Sensory Adaptation & Wine Tasting.
Chapter Two, Part Seven.
As a regular reader of WineSnark, you’ve learned the various ways your body perceives flavor so now you can relax, have a bite to eat and enjoy a glass of wine. Once you do however, you might as well throw all you’ve learned into the recycle bin because when you introduce new chemical compounds to your body the equation changes. By the way, my wife just loves it when she cooks all day and I tell her she’s made a delicious “chemical compound”.
Food is just one of the many things that can affect your sensory perceptions, most of which you can control about as well as a bad comb-over on a windy day.
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