Wine for Normal People
In this show, I continue to take a page out of my own book -- literally! In this back to basics show, I return to review basic wine vocabulary from chapter 1 of the "Wine For Normal People" book and introduce a new series that I'll be doing now that I'm hosting the show alone... This Back to Basics series is my updated take on some basics, without distraction or interruption, and with the perspective of 20 years in the wine industry and 16 years of teaching others about wine. In Part 2, I cover "taste" and "structure" words, which are some of the most misunderstood and...
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In this show, I take a page out of my own book -- literally! In this back to basics show, I review some basic wine vocabulary from chapter 1 of the Wine For Normal People book and introduce a new series that I'll be doing now that I'm hosting the show alone... Taylor Swift has "Taylor's version" of her songs, and similarly, this Back to Basics series is my updated take on some basics, without distraction or interruption, and with the perspective of 20 years in the wine industry and 16 years of teaching others about wine. This time, I am tackling some essential wine tasting...
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This is an encore presentation of a wonderful show I did with importer of French wine (and American via Quebec…) and friend of the podcast, joins us to talk about the Loire Valley. It's especially relevant for those of you who are part of the , as the "All Serge, all the time" shipment is heading your way soon! Photo: Serge Doré. Credit: Wine For Normal People Serge has been visiting the Loire since 1985 and has seen its evolution over the decades. He joins to give us the world of Loire from his perspective, humanize it with stories of producers he imports and some he has...
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Ok, I know this is an obscure show and I promise we’ll get back to mainstream stuff next week, but there is a reason for doing this show now. PLUS, it's super dorky stuff and that's awesome! I was putting together the with Serge Doré that is going out soon and one of the wines was from the small appellation of Saint Mont. I pride myself on having an awareness of most appellations in France, but I didn’t have a clue where or what Saint Mont was, so this show is as much for me as it is for you! In the show, I do an overview of the regions, which have a lot in common, so...
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For more than 30 years, has been quietly churning out some of Sicily’s best wines in a tiny enclave of Virzì, about 35 miles southwest of Palermo, on Sicily’s west coast. Photo: Francesco and Enrica Spadafora. The Spadafora family has been in Sicily since 1230, and their family came from noble roots but (Princes of Spadafora) vineyards and winery didn’t really start until the late 1980s, when Francesco Spadafora decided to concentrate full time on growing grapes and making wine from a family property that had previously been designated only for bulk production. Since then, the...
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If you are an avid follower of the show you know that my friend Jim Morris, hospitality guru, and wine industry veteran has been on the show many, many times. His first appearance was on Episode 30 and he has appeared on Episodes 130, 230, and now 530 – as I say, he is the man of the 30s! Photo: Courtesy of Jim Morris This time Jim joins to pull the curtain back on how Napa and Sonoma tasting rooms, the original model for all others in the world, have evolved over the last 40 years. We discuss how tasting fees started and how they have mushroomed out of control, and the tough...
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This week I welcome Patron , a Certified Master Kitchen and Bath Designer and Certified Aging in Place Specialist. Robin has a kitchen design firm in the Portland, Oregon metro area (called ). She has been creating award winning kitchen and baths for more than 28 years and she comes to tell us about the various ways we organize our wine storage and her preferred solutions. Once again, this provides us with fantastic expertise and a woman with a great personality who is willing to help us out with her deep knowledge on a subject! Here are the show notes: We first discuss...
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Washington State is the second-largest wine producing state in the US with about 1,050 wineries making over 17 million cases of wine. In this show I cover the largest sub region of the Columbia Valley AVA, Yakima Valley AVA (and its sub-AVAs). Yakima is in south-central Washington, at 46˚ N latitude. In 1983 it became Washington State’s first federally-recognized AVA. Responsible for nearly 1/3 of Washington’s total planted land, the major grapes in Yakima Valley are the American standards: Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, plus Riesling and Syrah. ...
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Wait, I thought you only covered wine in this podcast? I do! And guess what? Vermouth is wine. Vermouth is an aromatized, fortified wine flavored with botanicals like roots, herbs, barks, flowers, seeds, and spices. Although aromatized beverages have been around for millennia, vermouth's origins lie in the Kingdom of Savoie in the 1700s, first in Torino, Italy and then in Chambéry, France. Photo: Botanicals. Credit: Unsplash First offered in apothecaries for the healing properties of wormwood, the main botanical in Italian vermouth, royal courts and then high society...
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Right now, it’s so hot in much of the country, it’s hard to get creative about anything, let alone a new wine that may provide some refreshment. That’s what I’m here for! Ok, maybe not just me…this is a list that comes from the Patrons in answer to our weekly discussion question about what they drink when the weather gets hot. I added a few in for good measure, but this is the list of what the best and smartest community in wine has in their glasses when the sun beats down! In order of popularity… 1. Rosé: Provence, New World, Tavel,...
info_outlineAfter more hairy details on our crazy and delayed move, and a shout out to UNC Business School, our alma mater for helping when things got tough, we discuss the topic: Glass bottles, which are the most common container for finished wine and their evolution is fascinating!
Photo: Pexels
History
- Antiquity – long jars/amphora
- Romans invented blowing glass –maybe used to serve wine
- 1636 – first time glass bottles in post-Roman Britain
- 1690 – 1720 a typical bottle looked like an onion!
- In the 1730s, binning (storage on wine on its side) became popular and that made cork a better closure – kept cork wet and not dried out. The cylindrical shape was popularized!
Glass making and glass size
- Bottle glass is made by heating together sand harvested from dunes, sodium carbonate, and limestone. If recycled bottles are used, they’re crushed, which hastens the melting process. Furnaces get to 2,700˚F temps to heat glass enough so you can shape it!
- Size: Larger bottles = slower aging
- Standard: 750 ml, half/split is 375 ml
- Magnum: 2 bottles (1.5 L)
- Jerobaum: 4 bottles (3 L)
- Rehoboam: 6 bottles (4.5L)
- Methuselah: 8 bottles (6 L)
- Salmanazar: 12 bottles (9 L)
- Balthazar: 16 bottles (12 L)
- Nebuchadnezzar: 20 bottles (15 L)
- (I forgot to mention Melchior! 24 bottles)
The Marketing behind bottles…
- Regions adopt a specific bottle size and shape
- Thicker glass makes a bottle stronger, which is useful for sparkling, and large-format bottles, but for most wines it’s for perception and the extra cost is passed on to you
- Shapes:
- Burgundy bottles – sloping shoulders, long neck
- Bordeaux – big shoulders
- Flutes – no punt
- Champagne bottles – thick because they have to protect 6 atmospheres of pressure
- Punt: is an inverse indentation. This is important for stability in Champagne bottles, but doesn’t matter for other bottles. A deep punt requires more glass to make, again the cost is passed to us! The flute shape has no punt!
- We wrap with a discussion of bottle color – from brown, to dark green, to deadleaf to clear, we break it all down!
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