Rebel Rose

1. It does vary by type and region, but generally we have seen that well-made cabs and syrahs will easily go twice as long. 2. The wine itself will still go through stages and plateaus, but probably more slowly in a larger bottle. It's always such a mysterious process--who knows what's really going on under that thick, dark glass? 3. Price differences vary widely. Producers who customarily bottle a large run of magnums may offer lower prices because of economies of scale--price breaks on supplies and bottling line time. Smaller producers who only offer a few select large format bottles will have significantly higher prices, partly due to the outrageous cost of producing just a few large formats, and partly due to the limited availability. 4. I have no idea! 5. Of course Champagne in magnums is desirable! There's more for everyone!

Here's a link to jbonne's article, Wine Drinkers Defiant about Bans on MSNBC!

Aha! Bottle arrived today. Opened after four hours of rest in a cool cellar. (Okay, I waited.) The color is a deep brick red, and the first whiff is herby and oaky. Freshly crushed garden herbs (thyme, maybe), and French oak. The first sip has got lots of cherry fruit, and it's got that chewy, black cherry skin "thing" that I love, with a squeeze of lemon on the back. It's got some spunky tannins, but not overwhelming. I love the acidity--and yet for a barbera, it's got a thick depth that indicates it's probably got a hefty pH balance as well. All in all, it's a yummy mouthful. My only criticisms would be that--one, it doesn't seem to have a definitive barbera character, or any vineyard presence. I haven't tasted a lot of barberas yet, and I'm looking forward to becoming better educated , but if I were to blind taste this wine I don't think there's anything here that would lead me toward recognizing a barbera in the future. And two, it's got a bit of a VA/Brett nose--which actually I think is kind of sexy, sort of like slut sandals on a librarian, but I don't know how other people would feel about that . . . and it's more evident after the wine has been open for awhile. All in all, I think it's a rich and pleasant wine, with a bracing acidity that will go well tonight with our roasted half chicken, caramelized onions and red peppers, and caramelized brussel sprouts.

Coop, we'll certainly try. And we'll be bouncing the WOW (Wine of the Week) around the globe. We won't all have a chance to try everything, but I would be happy to participate even once a month or so. I would love to try some of those Canadian wines! A PNW girl myself, I think it's cool that one can now wine trail from Baja to BC.

Well, this isn't a personal shipping story, but . . . I tried to ship a case to a couple in Minnesota, well after it became permissible to do so, and I received a nasty call from a UPS representative in Minneapolis saying that either I had to pay to have the case returned or they were going to destroy the contents!! I had an extremely cathartic temper tantrum and the wine was delivered. I learned from that encounter that even eight months after the law had been changed, the UPS employees and supervisor in MN did not care or comprehend. For two years afterward, I printed out the Wine Institute's synopsis of the MN law and taped it to every MN shipment along with the shipping label. I also do that for other states that have recently changed their legislation, because obviously the carrier employees are not well-informed. Another time I innocently UPS'd some wine to West Virginia, which is a totally legal, reciprocal state, and I got another nasty call from Kentucky stating that they were going to destroy the wine and not bother to return it, because it had arrived in their warehouse en route to WV!! So then I discover that UPS refuses to fly wine anywhere, under the assumption that it might turn their carrier planes into Mile High Molotovs. Therefore, if I need to leapfrog wine over the felony states, I use FedEx, which has no such reservations. However, even with the Wine Institute discount, they can be more expensive, and their software is more cumbersome. If they can ever compete with the UPS technology, I'm switching in a heartbeat. UPS does have a special "Wine Shipper Contract" now, which I have, and it states that we are responsible for, basically, breaking any laws. So I can now UPS to more states, but since I never know when I'm going to get some Neo-Nazi interpretation, I stick to FedEx when in doubt.

C'mon guys and gals, don't let Caroyln intimidate you! She's right, but there's more than one right answer! Well, and maybe a few wrong ones . . . So, Carolyn, what's your reasoning? Why would you choose medium toast? And how do the flavor profiles of Seguin and Taransaud differ? Why did you select them?

I just called Renwood Winery because my bottle has not yet arrived. Kevin in the tasting room says that online orders are only downloaded once a week and are fulfilled at the winery location--not the tasting room. Bummer. My wine should arrive on Monday, however, and I will taste and post Monday evening. Oh, he also says the winery is now sold out and that I am getting the "last" bottle. Looking forward to it!

Sharp eyes, jbonne! I can imagine the head screenwriter: "We need, we need . . . something authentic . . . yeah. That's it, dude. Whaaat? No buts here, missy. Let's do it, let's do it! We need," snap, "authenicity! You got it the change? All right all right, you're cute, let's do lunch, right?" To someone else, "Whaddya mean, Minnie Driver said no!?"

goshi, you're fine. Brave and entertaining post. The rest is just wishful thinking on our part! Bux, I'm going! I'm going! Truth is, I am deathly afraid of Adria. I'm afraid of going down in history as the one person who asked the most famous chef in the world the most stupid question in the world. I can't stand Rosengarten. His dry delivery and cheap set put me off my feed. Unwrapped makes me sick, but our twelve year old loves it. Emeril needs to leave the set and get out more. We do Rachel Ray impersonations when unloading the refrigerator. I love Sara Moulton, but the show is a little fifties. When the calls start coming in, we turn the sound off and make up our own little-old-lady questions. Alton rocks. In spite of it all, it's our favorite background chatter channel while prepping in the kitchen. I agree with Chris. It's great for unwinding at the end of a long day.

Busted. Actually, I really liked the part about the box knife. Hopefully, Carema, aka Les Combettes, will include a link to the G&CB website in her signature so those of us who enjoy her reports can check in frequently.

You and a small group of friends decide to buy 120 gallons of bulk wine—Napa Valley 2003 cabernet—from Joseph W. Ciatti Wine Brokers. You plan to spend $4000 on the wine. Your wives think you are nuts but they're happy you all have a hobby. You are going to age, finish, and bottle the wine yourselves. Now it's time to buy the barrels. Test your oak knowledge below. Some questions may have more than one "correct" answer! How many barrels will you need? a) 1 b) 2 c) 4 d) none of the above How much are you prepared to spend on your barrels? a) $50 b) $200 c) $700 d) $1500 What kind of oak would be best for your cabernet? a) French b) American c) Baltic d) some of each Your group decides to buy some French oak, because it's French, and they put you in charge of purchasing. But when you begin shopping you are confronted by the following choices. Which should you buy for your cabernet? a) Francois Frere b) Taransaud c) Tonnellerie Radoux d) Seguin Moreau You choose a cooper, and the representative asks you for more details. Which will you want for a fine cabernet? a) light toast b) medium toast c) heavy toast d) toasted heads Before putting your expensive bulk wine in the barrel, you decide to: a) blow out any wood dust with your wife's hair dryer b) fill it with water to see if it leaks c) put a gallon of cheap wine in it and roll it around to season the interior Your neighbor Fred, who is notoriously cheap, has also decided to make wine, and he wants your advice on oaking it. However, he plans to keep his wine in borrowed pony kegs. He has ordered some oak powder and wants you, the neighborhood oak guru, to show him how to apply it. What should he do? a) dump it in at the beginning of aging and stir b) dump it in a week before bottling and stir c) sprinkle in a little a time, and taste d) make a tea bag and hang it in the wine Meanwhile, the barrels of wine in your garage have developed tiny leaks. Looking closer, you see that boring beetles are burrowing into your barrels. What should you do? a) stuff toothpicks in the holes b) temporarily remove the wine and roll the barrels around with SO2 solution inside c) heat the garage to drive the bugs out d) hose the barrels down thoroughly

Tonight, Sunday, is the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. We will be outside tonight at 10 pm Pacific time, cuddled up in a blanket (or two) with a glass of either our Bordeaux blend, or the syrah port. And Dan sometimes pulls out something from the personal cellar for stargazing. (I may also wander outside at 4 am for the peak viewing of up to 120 meteors per hour, as that is when our deaf cat always wants out! He may be deaf, but he can apparently read the clock.) Anyone else planning a late night stargazing moment?

Thanks, LEdlund! I have also ordered mine and it should be here by Friday.

Where to start, so many questions . . . Wine is basically fermented juice. Nothing is added except yeast. (And perhaps some yeast nutrient, which is basically a B vitamin made from yeast hulls.) By macerate, I mean the skins of the grapes are broken, sometimes just barely, in order to release the juice. We don't soak the grapes in anything but their own juice, and then just long enough for that light-colored juice to soak some of the color and flavor out of the skins. Then we squeeze everything together tightly, letting the juice and color run into a pan, and we throw away the squeezed-out skins. Washing the grapes would be pretty cool, but we can't let them dry in the sun because they are very sweet and the wet grapes will get moldy and buggy. Also, drying them would raisin them up, making them unfit for wine. We need them to be juicy. There are "washing tunnels" for grapes that blast a small stream of water into the grapes and then dry them with blasted air. But the machines, which come with sorting belts, etc., cost around $100,000. I think. They blast off all the dirt and earwigs. Tannin and sulfites in wine are actually a good thing. They naturally preserve the wine. Some people are sensitive to tannin or sulfites, but those people would also be highly allergic to other foods, as well. Here's a link to how wine is made at howstuffworks.com.

Merriam-Webster still defines a chef as a skilled cook who manages the kitchen (as of a restaurant). It defines sommelier as a: : court official charged with transportation of supplies, or pack animal driver, from Old Provençal 'saumalier' pack animal driver, from 'sauma' pack animal, load of a pack animal : a waiter in a restaurant who has charge of wines and their service: a wine steward. From cook to culinary wizard, from saumalier to sommelier. What effort, training, and talent are required of a sommelier? Do only the top talents survive? Does it require dedication to one's craft? And can the sommeliers of the new millenium be as approachable and personable as the celebrity chefs that have brought the concepts of fine cooking to millions of hungry people? If we had an Iron Sommelier vs. Iron Chef challenge, would there be enough sommeliers to weigh in opposite the celebrity chefs?

From Michael Kean, general manager of Manresa: "I would think 2000 Testarossa, Sleepy Hollow Vineyards, Santa Lucia Highlands. This would do nicely." Thanks, Michael!

I am pleased to announce that after the holidays, beginning the week of January 17-21st, the wine forum will be hosting a series of guests on topics dear to our pickled hearts. Many thanks again to KatieLoeb, who lined up our first guest, Stuart Devine of Villa Maria. Our first 2005 guest will be Mel Knox, barrel broker extraordinaire. We will post a formal bio and announcement in January. Be sure to bookmark the eGullet Society Calendar and check it frequently for updates, as we have nearly a dozen guests on our radar for January through June! In the meantime, let's get warmed up for Mel's visit. What would you like to know about oak? What do you think you know? In case anyone needs a question to steal or borrow for the Oak thread, here are a few to get you started . . . Where are the various French oak forests? How do they differ? How do the different French coopers and barrels differ from each other? Why are the insides toasted over a fire? Why do they call it a bunghole? Why are barrels round, and not square? Wouldn't square barrels make more sense now that we have forklifts? And would they then be called 'squarrels'? Does anyone have any suggestions for informative sites on barrels and cooperage? Beekman Wines & Liquours, New Jersey

Dang it! I knew I should have kept that bottle!

California has 847 brick-and-mortar wineries. Each winery has a low average of 10 annual selections. That's at least 8,470 wines produced per year. Winegrapes are grown in 45 of California's 58 counties. Wine is California's most valuable finished agricultural product. California's 847 commercial wineries are predominantly family owned and operated businesses, which are active in local community affairs. Charitable contributions from wineries and grape growers were $62 million in 1998 (the last available figures.) Source: The Wine Institute Out of a realistic 10,000 wines produced here annually, I'd look within California to find wines to serve. (And personally, I'm nuts for the Old Wave Zin, having drunk my way through three vintages. When I find a bottle that the winemaker's kids have colored in with colored pencils, that's really special. It's $18 retail, $34 to $42 in local restaurants, assuming you can find it. It won't go with Manresa's food, though. Too bad, more for me.)

naguere, you are also right. Sodium metabi is a common sterilizing agent, and we use it in solution to rinse tanks, barrels, hoses and equipment. Most wineries keep a small tub of metabi solution on hand into which gaskets and fittings are tossed after use. They are later rinsed and hung up to dry. I also pour it on the crush pad before scrubbing it with a broom. And I fill a large garbage can with a metabi solution for brooms, scoops and pitchforks during harvest--it helps keep them clean and sanitized with a minimum of effort. While Dan is busy making wine, I am the metabi queen.

Yes, Len, welcome! We hope you will visit often and share your insights into the NY wine scene. Oddly enough, we have a fine chardonnay produced here in Paso Robles from Long Island North Fork fruit. Check out the Silverstone 2000 Chardonnay, North Fork of Long Island. Winemaker Dan Kleck was previously the winemaker at Hargrave and Palmer, before Jess Jackson wooed him away to work for Kendall-Jackson. After arriving in California, Dan decided to move to Paso Robles and start his own winery, where he continues to purchase and feature NY fruit. (His bio needs updating--he no longer lives on the Monterey Peninsula.) But honestly, if it weren't for knowing Dan and his wife, Debbie, all I would know about NY wines is that they exist, and are often very, very good. . . we don't see them in our local markets.

Ore, yes. The use of sulphur as a disinfectant is very common. Barrels should not be stored "dry" for any period of time because the wood will dry out and shrink, causing leaks and other problems, but if a barrel is to be set aside for a short period while other winemaking tasks ensue, then sulphur is used to discourage and destroy bacteria. The modern convenience of SO2 gas canisters makes it pretty easy to gas a barrel--we stick the wand in, turn a valve, hold our breath, count to ten, turn the valve off, and pop the bung tightly into the barrel. Decades ago it was common practice to hang a small cone of sulphur on a wire coat hanger, light it with a match, and hang the cone in the barrel to burn for awhile. This is not the sulphur you find measured in wine, however. The wine will pick up minute amounts from dirt, grapeskins, and barrels, but the majority of the free SO2 in wine remains from additions made directly to the wine by the winemaker. There's more discussion on sulfites in wine in our Wine 101: Sulfites, Nothing to Sneeze At! thread. By the way, ore, your question on barrels reminds me that we will have a special guest in January (scheduling details to be confirmed by the Keeper of the Calendar) who knows everything about barrels! He'll be joining us for one week to discuss cooperage, oak forests, and the effects of various oak on wine, so this might be a good place to start practicing your questions!

Thanks for the great links. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Today we had an interesting opportunity to try: 1990 Ridge California Mataro, Evangelo Vineyards, San Francisco Bay Region, 90% Mataro, 5% Zinfandel, 5% Alicante, 13.6% alc.: A grower brought this in and opened it for a group of us today, eight in all, and the tasting notes that follow are our communal opinion. First of all, the label says, "should develop fully over the next five years." So, this was more an excursion into vinarcheology than anything else. But hey, why not? The price sticker said $9.99. Bottle: After we'd poured some wine out, we examined the bottle, which had that nice unfiltered-unfined sediment around the neck. Above the wine level, the champagne-green glass (that's the deep color green, not the dead-leaf green) was tinged red. Very heavy red pigment deposits--enough to turn the green glass red when held up to the light--which indicates that the wine was probably much darker upon release. Color: Brick red but still fresh, no tinge of brown at the edge. Aroma: Sawdust, some French oak, pencil lead, roast beef. No fruit at all. Flavor: Nice acid. Plenty of acid. Caramel flavor, and teasing undertones of not-quite-ripe strawberry. The consensus was that the flavor was long gone, but the acid made even the caramel a little, well, racy. Finish: Zero. Except for a very green note that only half the tasters objected to. All in all, an interesting excursion in time. BTW, after being opened for 2 hours, there's still a little fruit--sort of like a strawberry dried in cinnamon powder.

I love her well-modulated and soothing voice. It never fails to put me right to sleep.