15 Tips for Attending a Wine Tasting

Thomas Pellechia, Vivi’s resident wine industry veteran, has generously provided some wine tasting tips to help our readers 

Enjoy the Wine Life!

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Fifteen Tips for Attending a Wine Tasting – In Fun Of Course, with a serious side to it…

by contributing author Thomas Pellechia

1. After receiving your pour, get out of the way – don’t shuffle, walk.

2. Do not wear white.

3. If you must wear white, and you spill red wine on it, immediately splash the stain with white wine. And don’t forget to get out of the way, preferably in the method described above.

WineHacker – Supercool water for quick chill on White

This WineHacker tip I picked up from Alconomics, a professional consultancy to the alcoholic beverage industry (bartenders, etc…) that is based out of London.  I tried it and it works!  Leave it to the pros that teach the pros to come up with this one.

To chill a bottle of white wine quickly, put the bottle in a bucket with ice, water and a large handful of salt. The salt reduces the freezing point of water and will allow it to become superchilled, which will in turn chill the bottle of wine in six minutes flat!  Don’t believe it?  Try it out, its 7th grade chemistry at its finest (and you thought that science in school was a waste of time).

Enjoy the Wine Life!

Wine Blogging Wednesday #9 – Think Pink!

The ninth edition of WBW is being hosted by the Bay Area’s very own Becks & Posh is this week!  The last few virtual wine tastings have been dominated by red varietals so Sam at Becks and Posh threw us a curveball and went with Rose!

Just to review, Wine Blogging Wednesday is the Internet’s premier monthly Virtual Wine Tasting event.  Bloggers post their tastings on their sites and let the host know who, in turn, posts the summary on their site.  Its open to bloggers and non-bloggers alike.  For any non-blogger, you can either e-mail your tasting directly to the host or go ahead and post a comment here and I’ll post it with Vivi’s entry to the wine tasting event.

Blackball Blackwell on Long Island?

Lenn over at LENNDEVOURS has some pretty harsh words for Blackwell’s in eastern Long Island in New York.  The problem he experienced boils down to restaruant managers losing the plot when it comes to running a restaruant, particularly in the wine life.  We live in an “experience” oriented world.  People go out to nice dinners and wine bars in order to create a certain feeling – romantic, celebratory, whatever.  They want to create a sense of “getting away” for a little while.  When managing a place if you don’t act like one bad experience will turn away many people you’re in for a long, tough career.  The rule used to be 1 bad experience loses you 10 customers for life.  With the Internet, wine blogging, food blogging, etc… the damage could be far far worse…

Is Dry the Opposite of Sweet?

by contributing author Thomas Pellechia

You know that sensation you get when you take a little of that wine in your mouth and your tongue starts to stick to your cheeks? We call that “dry.”

How about that marvelous late harvest wine that has the intensity of a wallop of honey? That’s “sweet.”

“Dry” is the opposite of “sweet,” right? Well, it is, and it isn’t.

WineZap – Wine Search Engine Worth a Look

Sam over at WineZap.com alerted me to their site.  WineZap is a search engine for wines that helps consumers find, price, and compare wines from around the country. 

I use, and have used for a long time, Wine-Searcher.com.  That site is very extensive and been around for a while.  It actually has wines from retailers all over the world and since its easy to have wine shipped in CA its been great.  I put WineZap through my initial filtering process – I have gotten pointers to a couple of wine search engines and they usually fail simple searches.  WineZap has passed the initial test.

Spring has Sprung…I guess

May not seem like it for most of the US (for our International visitors, its been rough going all across the US this winter) but Spring has sprung.  An hour more of daylight, flowers blooming, buds breaking, picnics, and my favorite, grilling dinner outside.

To that end I just wanted to point out a tip I got.  At the Food&Wine website, Ray Isle published a Grilling and Wine Guide.  Short, simple and too the point I decided to post the link for readers because I really like his recommendations.  Burgers and Zin, Steak and Cab.  The only thing I might add is to the shellfish part I find that Conundrum  (CA white blend) is an excellent pairing.

Enjoy the Spring Wine Life!