I am a follower of the wonderful “Wall Street Journal“ writers, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher. Normally every weekend in the Personal Journal section they have extensive wine articles, wine reviews, and interviews. On November 21 they stated:
“At the beginning of this year, we printed a checklist of 20 things to do in 2009 to make wine more fun—easy, doable things. Put very simply, some of the items on the list were to open a sparkler for no reason; try a Sauternes; have a blind tasting; organize your labels; finally replace that old corkscrew; and attend a winemaker's dinner. For the complete list, drop us a note at [email protected] and we'll send it along”
I took the challenge and sent them a note about my progress on their challenges. This was a week prior to our hosting a wine tasting in our home. Little did I know that they would publish my comments in their Wine Notes. Here is the result of my note published in the November 28 “Wall Street Journal”:
So I threw the wine tasting for 20 people with 14 bottles of wine. Yes, and I did have both a Cab (a most outstanding Alpha Omega proprietary Era and a Chardonnay (a Chateau Montelena) in the mix. I selected good to great quality wines for each unusual (for the crowd) varietal. The following “new” varietals won over the die-hard Cab and Chardonnay drinkers as their favorites (in rank order of popularity):
Mendoza Malbec
Rias Baixas Albariño
Mosel Riesling
Rioja
Provence Rosé
Experiment on your next wine tasting event, and I think you will find some new varietals to make your next House Wine.
Comments