Five for Friday VI
Photo credit goes to Delta Mike / CC BY 2.0”
This has been a busier than expected week, which is a good thing. The 365 days of sparkling wine quest is rollin’ right along and support continues to come in from all over the world, which makes me more excited than when I started.
So, in keeping with that theme, we’ve got a few things related to bubbles to kick off this week’s edition of Five for Friday, my regular (okay, somewhat regular) weekly feature of five things I’ve read or seen that I think you should too.
Holiday Champagne and Sparkling Wine Tips!
This 6:22 long video is of the VP of Wine & Spirits for Morton’s Steakhouse giving some introductory information on Champagne and sparkling wine. I did notice one “mistake” at around the 2min mark, when he comments that Brut is the driest style of bubbly. Actually, that would be Brut Extreme or Brut Zero. I also would have liked to see a grower Champagne on his list, but otherwise, it is a nice introductory video on bubbles.
Taking Stock of Champagne Dom Perignon
The world’s most famous Champagne and mass cultural icon for luxury, Dom Perignon is often maligned by insiders and considered overrated. Author of the piece and Champagne über-afficionado Ed McCarthy disagrees. I found this piece fascinating because I’ve been a Negative Ned in the past when it comes to Dom. With the fact that it was a bottle of ’96 Dom that gave me my first aha! moment in wine, I’m still guilty of poo-pooing it. Reading this piece makes me think I missed the boat. After all, Ed has way more experience with Champagne than most folks and I trust his opinion when it comes to the bubbles. Makes me wonder how long I should hold onto my other 96s?
The video is in French, but who cares? How often do you get to see harvest videos from Champagne?
Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines of 2009 Guessing Game
The annual hoopla of the Wine Spectator Top 100 Wines of 2009 begins in 12 days. I won’t get into the reasons why this list was always a thorn in the retailer’s side, but I will say this blogger has made a guessing game and it can be fun to enter, since it costs just a bit of time and you can win a prize. The Top 10 is all you have to guess, but believe you me, it is no easy task. For example, I’ll use Don Melchor. This is a premier Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile. I thought it would be a Top 10 selection last year (2005 vintage) based on the 96 point score. I mean, classic score, under $100 price point, large production (18,000 cases) and the previous time it got a 96 (2003 vintage), it snagged the #4 slot. Last year, it was #12. The 2001 got a 95 and landed in the same spot. Granted, the wine was much cheaper then and more of a bargain, with the 2005 retailing for $70, it wasn’t that cheap anymore. Perhaps that was the reason for the drop. Anyways, you see that if you enjoy this sort of mental exercise, this could be something fun to do. If it isn’t your cup of tea, but you know someone who loves the Top 100 list, pass the link on to them.
I don’t remember how I found this, but I thought it was very cool that kids in Tanzania were using Twitter to connect to the rest of the world. The world is getting smaller and while I don’t think technology is an end all be all savior to every problem we have, it is allowing us to connect and communicate in new ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago. Keep in mind, the Internet as we know it is only 14 years old. Anyways, I thought this was a cool project.
Have a Fabulous Friday and enjoy the weekend! Get outdoors, hug your family members, cry a little, laugh a lot and be good. We’ll see you the flip side of Sunday.
I was actually just reading how Morton’s was taking the opportunity to buy up lots of great wine for low prices. Hoping to see how this changes their wine lists.
Have a great wine weekend!
Cheers!
I’d love to see all restaurants lower their pricing, especially on bottles. With the law here in GA now stating you have the right to take the bottle home with you, I think lowering prices would increase sales and improve profits. I love wine with food, but almost always go for a cocktail because I know bad the pricing is, especially for by the glass.