Yesterday, the first (annual, we hope) VinoCamp Vancouver. I covered several of the sessions, found a Riesling I actually really enjoy (which is unusual for me), and became a hardcore Riedel glass convert.

Here’s some of the great shots from participants yesterday.

Image source: Megan Cole. You can see more of the images from the day here.

Post from: EveryJoe

VinoCamp 2008 Wrap Up, In Pictures

See? Great Wine Rack.

Annie and Kelly write Full Bodied. They talk about wine, and, well, wine. Check them out. They also blogged VinoCamp. It’s all so very good.

Post from: EveryJoe

Wine Blogging

If you want to look at organic wine, you have to look at France, where it started.  A gazillion years ago.

The one thing to understand about organic wine is that there are 100s of wines you’ll never see on an “organic” shelf in the liquor store. They, much like several of the organic vegetable growers, can’t certify organic. It’s ridiculously expensive to get official organic standards.

There’s also a lot of “green” packaging in the world, but that doesn’t make wine “green” or “organic”.

Take a look at the videos by Gregory Finch. He’s talking about organic wine, better than I can.

shhhh… watch.

part 2:

and, part 3:

Post from: EveryJoe

Organic and Sustainable Wine

The senses are the first things that help you taste wine. Your eyes let you take everything in, and then your sense of touch. You feel a smooth round stem with Riedel.

There’s some controversy over stemless glasses, but have you noticed, that when you knock over a stemless glass, it weebles, wobbles and yet, it stands back up, thus “saving the wine, which is important”.

The Riesling glasses are designed to deliver the wine to a different place in your palate. The “everyday wine glass” is built for durability, and has a large rolled rim. The wine smells different; it smells flat. Boring. Like… nothing. Pouring that same Riesling back into the Riesling glass, and the scent is more powerful, it’s more intense. The nose is sharper, and the flavour is delivered more to the middle of your tongue.

What I assumed was a “red wine glass” and is a big bellied wine glass is opening up the buttery flavour of the Chardonnay. We poured the chardonnay into the everyday glass and you lose the buttery flavour. In the Riesling glass (which also works for zinfandel, sangovese, chianti and sauvignon blanc), the Chardonnay became more bitter, less open, less buttery and overall, not as good.

The fourth glass we have is another big bellied “bucket” as Riedel calls it, rather affectionately. Mr Riedel (the … fourth generation wine glass maker, i think) calls the typical red wine glass “the enemy of red wine”. This is a super soft crystal glass, which holds 1.05 litres of wine (!!!), but it’s soft enough that (a trained professional) can wobble the stem and squeeze the rim.

The Pinot Noir glass (which is a $140 stem!!!) we have was originally the Oregon Pinot Noir Glass because the Oregon wine makers wouldn’t stop bugging Riedel to make their own glass.

This glass looks for the tannins in the pinot noir. The tannins in pinot noir are notoriously hard to find and this glass opens up the tannins and adds to the beautiful mouth feel of this wine.

David Sanders, the lovely Riedel glass guy, keeps trying to get us to pour the wine from the glass it’s supposed to be in into the other glasses. He’s making the wine taste bad.

The Cabernet Savignon, which is normally a very tannin-y wine, has a glass that is hiding the tannins. The glass is called a Tannin Tamer. Pouring the Cab Sauv into the “pinot noir” glass, the tannin finder, brings out the tannins and makes it almost … astringent.

For the average wine drinker, the general rule of thumb is to buy the glass for the wine you enjoy the most. If you had to pick two to get, that would cross the widest variety of wines, get the Cabernet Sauvignon glass and the Riesling glass.

Like I said, I knew that Riedel glasses were made for the wine, but I had no idea that the wine would taste, smell and feel so differently in different glasses.

I am now officially a Riedel convert.

(image source: Megan Cole)

Post from: EveryJoe

The Glass as a Messenger

(wow, that Prospect Winery Riesling is amazing!)

House Wine offers a variety of wine related services, from private and corporate tastings and team building seminars to restaurant wine list consultation and staff training.

First rule of thumb: drink what you like. That’s what Gary Vaynerchuk says too. (crap = we weren’t supposed to drink the Riesling! oops)

Think about the weight of the dish. If you’re looking at a ceaser salad vs a rich lamb stew, you’re going to want to match the weight of the wine with the weight of the dish.

Full bodied wines and “fuller bodied” foods go better together so that you don’t overwhelm the dish. You’re looking at making sure that you combine the flavours so that you don’t knock your palate out.

One of the myths or rules was to drink white wine with fish and red wine with meat. It has more to do with which fish you choose, (salmon or tuna which have a fuller flavour) and the wine you choose.

Having a salty dish makes you want to go with a softer white wine because salt brings out the tannins in wine.

Wine and cheese is a traditional wine pairing. A lot of people believe that red wine and cheese go together, but the salt and acid in the cheese will bring out the tannins. Generally speaking, a white wine will work better with the cheese plate, but what do you do if you like red? Go for one with fewer tannins but more acid. A Pinot Noir or a Bougelais.

The rule of intensity – weight and intensity are different. When you eat an intense food, you have that flavour in your mouth for ever and ever. An intense wine or an intense dish is compared to a petite woman who might have a big personality. It has nothing to do with her physical stature. Same thing with wine and food pairing. You need a wine that will stand up to the intensity of your food and not get sucked in.

Spicy food needs to be met with a lower alcohol wine because they will cut the spice. It’s getting harder and harder to find lower alcohol wines – you’re looking at a 9-12% alcohol. German Riesling, and the Muscat are lower in alochol.  Viognier and Gewürztraminer are higher in acohol.

Riesling, Viognier, Guewertzameiner, and Muscat are all grapes that work with dry and off dry wines that will stand up to intense foods.

Acidity of wines (makes your mouth pucker, and you feel it on the sides of your tongue) wines will also cut through the spiciness of your food. Acidity is an opposites attract pairing. Vinagrette, tomatoes, artichokes, are all highly acidic foods. Your best option when pairing with high acidity foods is to go with a more highly acidic wine. Sauvignon blanc and Riesling and sangiovese wines will all stand up to a high acidic meal.

At the end of the day, it’s more about what you like to drink. Enjoy your wine, follow the rules of thumb, and you’ll be ok.

Post from: EveryJoe

Food & Wine Pairing 101

Brad Cooper, the winemaker for Township 7 (one of my favourite BC wine brands), is talking about how you can have the wine experience at home. If you add sugar to grapes and leave it for a while, you’ll get wine. It might not be good wine, but it’ll be wine.

Wine started out as a communal effort and continues as such today. The problem is, many of the wine we drink today is “factory” wine. Grapes go in, wine comes out, et voila. It’s not a bad thing, but we don’t have to drink it forever.

Consumers are a pendulum – they go from a Wolf Blass and run with the crowd, and then they go and find the small producers, from an old fashioned way of wine making, and start catering to their palate.

If you don’t want to make your own wine, you can commission your own wine. At the beginning, people begin buying from “boutique” wines – the smaller wineries.

Wine making is messy and dirty to make it from home. “The human foot is an excellent tool for crushing grapes. Incredibly gentle.” says Brad. His better idea is to make it at someone else’s home.

The best idea, if you can afford it, is to contact a winery or professional winemaker and they will do a “custom crush.” It’s gonna cost you though. You’re looking at 100$ an hour a for 10 cases of wine that will take 25-50 hours.

The newest thing is the Crushpad experience. Based in SF, they’re making wine for people in downtown SF. Crushpad provides grapes from the West Coast’s top vineyards, an industry-acclaimed wine making team and a state-of-the-art winery 100% focused on making wine in small lots. You choose your level of involvement and we do the rest. No matter where you live, you can now make your own wine.

The entire building is recycled. It’s hip with a capital H. It’s all in an urban setting, and they have crushed 700 tons which is about 40,000 cases of wine. In over 650 separate batches.

There are 10 winemakers on staff. They’re taking the whole “web 2.0” shtick, and turned it into Wine 2.0. They’re guaranteeing wine from Washington in Kiona Winery to be on the Crushpad in 12 hours.

This is really really cool and Gus and I have already decided we’re going to San Francisco. Crushpad is opening in Seattle soon as well. (oh. wait. we might not be able to bring our wine back.)

There are screens above the sorting tables where your winemaker can talk to you at any time. (Can you tell I’m really excited about this?)

Crushpad is, according to Brad, the hottest start up in the wine world. You can have your own “winery” though Crushpad. They’re waiting to expand into the wine regions across the states, and are getting ready for the plug and play wine business.

The main problem for Gus and I is that it’s only available in the states.

Sigh. I need a VC. I have two three projects to get up and running. Anyone wanna help a girl with three fantastic lifestyle brand ideas out?

Post from: EveryJoe

Beyond Homemade: Alternatives for that premium wine experience.

Kathy Malone, a winemaker, who works at Artisan Wine Co, is talking about the BC wine growing regions, calling geography is a flavour. (image source: Mission Hill Winery)

Terroir. That “somewhereness” – that special combination of topography, soil, climate and people captures in wines of singular character and personality. It’s thought that it takes 40-50 years for the vines to express the minerality in the soil. The BC Wine industry is very young still – we haven’t yet seen how the soil will affect the wine, and that makes it hard to categorize our wines on the world stage.

There are four wine growing regions in BC. Vancouver Island, the gulf islands, the Fraser Valley, Similkameen Valley and Okanagan valley.

The island has a long growing season, and have a low frost risk. Pinot Gris, Ortega, Pinot Noir, Madeleine Sylvaner, Auxerrois. 1.2% of BC wines comes from Vancouver Island.  More delicate flavours, floral and more pretty wines. they’re not particularly “gutsy” wines.

The gulf islands are similar to Vancouver Island, they’re dry, and require irrigation throughout the summer. 0.2% of the BC wine harvest come from the Gulf Islands.(image source: Wines NW)

The Fraser Valley – west of the coastal mountains – can have a lo of rain in the spring yet need irrigation in the summer. early ripening varieties do better here. The Fraser Valley represents 1.0% of the BC wine harvest, mostly germanics.

The Similkameen Valley has a greater risk of frost damage and can be hotter in the summer, which can put greater stress on the vines. People are planting all kinds of different grapes in the valley to see what happens. They don’t know what will come out of the Valley yet and don’t know what the quality will be.

Vines can take up to -27 degrees C, but it’s not a sustainable temperature.  They can’t take the cold cold winter over and over again without the vines suffering damage. The Simikameen valley represents 6.6% of BC’s wine region.

The Okanagan Valley, which is where the remainder of the BC Wine harvest comes from, lines up almost perfectly with Napa. It’s very well protected in the valley, but only has 7500 acres vs California with more than 52,000 acres. (image source: Adam McDiarmid)

Kathy is explaining Degree Days and how they affect the vines. I knew that wine was complicated, but this is more complicated than I had ever known!

Wine researchers are still trying to determine if there is a terroir differences between the wine regions of BC. There are six sub regions in the Okanagan Valley alone.

Overall, it’s looking like the Similkameen Valley is going to be BC’s up and coming wine region.

Kathy’s final point: Okanagan wines are the best in the world. Buy them.

Post from: EveryJoe

BC Wine Regions

in the last 10 years there have been 11 million dollars in grants. Dr van Vuuren studies the genetic construction of wine yeasts, and has genetically engineers malolactic wine yeast (no bioamines, which van Vuuren claims is what gives you the severe wine headaches) and a urea degrading yeast strains, (no ethyl carbamate)

The UBC Wine Library has thousands of bottles of wine. They obtained 24 bottles of the same wine and open one each year in order to test how the wine ages.

We’re wondering at this point, exactly how one get on the panel to help Dr van Vuuren test that wine. (image source UBC wine library)

Post from: EveryJoe

The Wine Research Centre at UBC

Vancouver’s first VinoCamp is bringing wine, people and tech together in one place, making wine accessible, educational and ideally, fun.

I’ll be live blogging the entire conference – everything from the BC Wine region through to Indian food and wine pairing cooking class. We’re looking at sustainable and organic wine making, wine blogging, and “the glass as a messenger” from Riedel.

We’re getting started in about 10-15 minutes, and I’ve got Gus, his partner Russ, Dario and Amanda and two people I don’t know at my table. :)  This is definitely half geek event and half wine event…

More to come!

Post from: EveryJoe

VinoCamp 2008