Recently in Wine Category

Occasionally, I get offers from companies offering something, usually free products, in exchange for an advertorial. I usually direct them to the advertising opportunities on this site, and never hear from them again. But this time it benefits you, so I’m posting this voluntarily. My Wines Direct is giving readers of the Art of Drink $10 Off any order placed on their website. They offer a wide selection of wines in the $10 to $30 range and you can pick and choose any combination of six bottles you’d like to try. There are no shipping charges on wine orders (US only) and only a small five dollar charge on gift baskets. Check them out and if you decide to order some wine, as a gift to yourself, or friends and family, simply enter the code “drink10” when checking out to get your $10 discount. Just make sure you order before December 17th to ensure holiday delivery.

A few weeks ago I tried red wine (Yellow Tail Shiraz) as an after shift drink and it failed to impress. This week I’m trying some white wine (Reif Estate Riesling) because I have a bottle of it. While I was picking up some items at the LCBO I decided to grab a bottle of wine. I had heard some good things about Reif, which is located in the Niagara region of Ontario. I decided on Riesling because it is a good grape when grown in colder regions, and who’s colder than Canada. The price was modest and affordable so it was an easy pick. So does white wine fair better than red wine after a night of bartending?

In the world of being a bartender, at a fine dining restaurant, I tend to serve a lot of wine. Red is by far the choice with most meals, but pinto grigio (pinot gris) is a very popular white wine. I like wine, but usually only when I’m having food, or possibly drinking with friends who are wine lovers. My preference is cocktails and beer. There is nothing like a cold, malty, hopped up beer after an intense eight hours behind the bar, while listening to some tunes, like Green Day, Sam Roberts, Rage Against the Machine and the Tragically Hip. Anyway, wine doesn’t generally go with my post shift shutdown down procedure, but because I serve plenty of wine, curiosity got the better of me. That’s when I cracked open a bottle of Yellow Tail Shiraz (2005) that has been sitting in my wine rack for a while. Here’s what I thought.

Last week I contributed an article to Wine Blogging Wednesday, which happened to be on the topic of champagne. For this blogging event I decided I’d use up some of the champagne in the form of cocktails, which are always great. One of my favourite combinations is champagne and ice wine, which is an expensive combination, but well worth it. After creating the cocktails I was left with some ice wine, which I decided to drink neat and do a quick review, because if you haven’t tried ice wine, it is an absolute must.

This month Wine Blogging Wednesday is being hosted by Sam over at Becks & Posh. The topic is champagne, and only the real stuff will do, none of that generic sparkling wine from other regions. For this event I pulled out a bottle of Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial Champagne that has been sitting around in my wine rack waiting for the appropriate moment to be opened. Well it seems this blogging event has given me a reason to pop the cork. After giving the champagne a thorough tasting, I’ll also give you some champagne cocktail ideas.

On one of my “tours” I picked up some new products and one of them was a port wine style spirit called Angelica. When I looked up the traditional definition of Angelica, this is what I found: “An inexpensive fortified wine, typically made from mission or muscat grapes and enhanced with brandy. Angelica wine usually contains 10 to 15 percent residual sugar.” Now the quality of the Kittling Ridge Angelica is better than this definition provides, but the definition is basically accurate. This is a dessert wine made in the style of port wines, but because of international trademark laws only product from Portugal can legally be called Port, hence Angelica. It is a 1999 vintage product made from villard noir grapes, pot still brandy and barrel aged.

Sake is a traditional spirit from the East, most notably Japan, but China had it’s part in the creation of this drink. Now sake breweries are popping up all around the world. Yes, sake is more like beer than it is wine, even though it is referred to as “rice wine.” More on that later. When I went on my recent summer “booze cruise” looking for unique spirits and beer, sake was one of the items I picked up (Momokawa Diamond Sake, from Oregon). Trying new things is part of the fun of being a bartender, and knowledge is power, so the more I know about spirts the better off I am. So, let us see what sake has to offer!

When thinking about, or discussing how to further promote cocktails, the trick is to  get people off of their old drinking habits. But to do that we need to look at the primary competition. At the bar I work (“Mint”) wine is a significant part of the dining experience and the primary competition to the cocktail. Both wine and cocktails have their place in the dining experience, but wine tends to encroach where cocktails have traditionally been ordered, such as aperitifs and digestifs. Why does this happen and how can the situation be fixed to provide people with a balanced and enjoyable experience?

Every year, in the months of March and April, a stock market like event occurs in the Bordeaux region of France. This is of course the time to buy your Bordeaux wine futures. So what exactly is a wine future? Well, in simple terms it is an investment. You are buying wine in the very early stages of development in the hopes that it will gain in value over time. That value can be cold hard cash, if you decide to resell the wine. Or it can be for personal enjoyment, and as the wine ages it will turn out to be a magnificent vintage. How do you get involved, and what are the things you should know? I’ll give a brief rundown, but remember, if you truly enjoy wine, there isn’t much of a downside.