Lowering The Boom On Bordeaux Labels
Chapter Seven. Part Three.
Next month marks the 24th anniversary of my life in the wine and spirits trade but my preoccupation with wine actually began about a dozen years earlier. In fact, by the time I bought a wine store in 1994 both my wine cellar and my liver were overflowing with classified Bordeaux. Given my penchant for drinking mature claret you may find it hard to believe that I still own the very first first growth I ever purchased.
In 1985 I visited Sherry-Lehmann for three consecutive days before I finally summoned the nerve and the capital to purchase a bottle of 1982 Chateau Margaux. How different would my life have turned out if I used the money for something more practical – say repaying my student loan for example. I might be writing a blog about fiscal responsibility instead of wine and then what would I do with all those liver jokes.
Read MoreProper Stemware? Bah Humbug!
I‘m not one to obsess over matching each specific wine varietal to its own particular type of wine glass. Just last week I tasted Shiraz from a Riedel Syrah glass and I couldn’t even tell they were spelled differently. I’m even less sensitive when it comes to spirits. I drink my whiskey from one of those pint beer glasses. Anything less and I’d have to get out of my chair too often.
Riedel Glass Unveils the “C Cup” for Coffee Connoisseurs
Riedel Stemware unveils the “C-Cup” for Coffee connoisseurs
Reuters April 1, 2016
KUFSTIEN, AUSTRIA The Riedel Glass Company today revealed a new product line that may do for the coffee drinker what Riedel stemware did for fine wine aficionados worldwide. Over fifty years ago Riedel developed revolutionary stemware designed for specific wine varietals. TIME MAGAZINE wrote, “this Austrian clan of master glassmakers has done more to enhance the oenophile’s pleasure than almost any winemaking dynasty”.
The 11th generation scion of the Riedel empire, Maximilian J. Riedel, proclaimed, “if my father could convince the Baby Boomer generation to buy a different glass for every type of wine, how hard will it be for me to convince the Millennial Generation, a generation that shells out 9 bucks at Starbucks without batting an eye, to buy a different cup for every type of coffee?”
Read MoreCh Ch Ch Changes to the 1855 Bordeaux Wine Classification
Chapter Sixteen, Part Four.
“Every time I thought I’d got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet.” David Bowie
The authors of the Official Bordeaux Wine Classification made an unusual entry on the original handwritten document drawn up in 1855. Cantemerle (now known as Chateau Cantemerle) appears to have been written on the bottom of the historic list in a different hand than the other entries. It is squeezed into a narrow space below the Fifth Growth ranked Croizet-Bages (formerly the bottommost entry) and looks like an afterthought on the part of the authors. Cantemerle was also left off the map of estates that was displayed at the 1855 exposition, although it has appeared on every subsequent map since 1856.
