The Finger Lakes Cork & Fork!

Yesterday was the first annual Cork & Fork festival in Seneca Falls, NY.  I got the opportunity to attend this event thanks to working at Casa Larga.  It was an interesting experience on two levels the first was that this is the first event like this I have been able to attend!   So it was a great experience getting to go to several of New York's wineries that I haven't been able to have the chance to try their wines.   The first winery I stopped by and gave a sip was Montezuma Winery.  I made a point of making this my First stop because my buddy Phil is the wine maker there and I owe him a great deal of thanks for getting me a job at Casa Larga.  I got a chance to try two of their wines that are the same blend but one is oak aged and one is just stainless steel aged.


Red-Tailed Red 
 This was the oak aged blend that I tried and it was delightful and a nice easy drinking oaked red.   
Canvasback Red
The Canvasback Red is the exact same blend as the Red-Tailed Red. I found this wine to be more enjoyable to drink than the Red-Tailed but thats because I don't enjoy oak as much. 


The next winery I got a chance to do some sampling of was the Swedish Hill Winery.  Quick note on Swedish Hill they won the 2010 Governor's Cup with their Riesling Cuvee, which I wasn't able to try at the event.  But what I was able to try was great!


2009 Dry Riesling
This was the first wine I tasted and I really enjoyed it.  This was a good classic Riesling with some great stony characteristic and the crispness you expect when you drink a great Riesling.
Viking Red
The Viking Red was the second wine I tasted from Swedish Hill and it was also pretty tasty!  This lightly oaked blend let the fruit come through the middle of the wine making it pretty smooth and not to dry.


The final winery I am going to talk about is Sheldrake Point  which has won best winery in New York two years running.  I am going to talk a little bit about their table wines.


2009 Luckystone White
This fun wine is a blend of Riesling, Muscat, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris and makes for a light easy drinking wine that reminds me of a sweet style Riesling. 
Luckystone Red
This blend is Pinot Noir, 08 Cabernet Franc, 07 Cabernet Franc, and Gamay Noir.  This fun wine had lots of fruit to it but also had some warmth and tannins to make it a great easy drinking red that if given the opportunity to try you should.


Now on to the reason that I had the chance to attend this event,  I was there being the face of Casa Larga and working their booth.  I had the chance to do my first tasting for people and talk about wine!  It was and absolute blast to get to do this for people.  Sure I was there to sell wine to people and get the Casa Larga name out there but more importantly I got to talk to people about wine.  Its always fun getting to see people try new wines and that moment of hesitation to see if they like the wine or just like to pass on it.  I do have to say that this was the first time that I have been the presenter of wine and that was a little nerve racking for the first hour.  But after that I settled in and was on a roll!   I really think that working in wine is a great match for me.

Some Weekly Things To Do!

Couple of things coming up this week. First off  a reminder that Wine Sense will be doing their typical Friday tasting with discounts on those wines from 5-7.  So if you aren't doing anything else check it out.

Something else that I have added to the calender is the Finger Lakes Cork & Fork event in Seneca Falls.  This is a paid event thats cost 25$ in advance tickets and 30$ at the door there will be demonstrations and tastings from a lot of Finger Lakes wineries.   I'll be there working for Casa Larga Vineyards on Saturday so stop by and say hello.

Thats what I have for right now I will continue to update the post as more things come up through the week.

Intro to the Glassware that Loves Wine!

So lets talk about glassware, more specifically the kind that we put our wonderful wine into!  Well the first thing we are going to talk about is what you can drink wine from.  The correct answer to this question is, pretty much anything.  Now there are somethings that are kind of frowned upon in society... like pitchers, ladles, straight from the bottle or from a bucket.   Now don't get me wrong how you enjoy your wine is none of my business,  my business is how ever to talk about the other vessels that are made for wine!

Excuse my slightly dirty glasses.

There are 3 main types of wine glasses, Red, White and Sparkling/Champagne. Everything else is a modification of those 3.  Above are examples of each of those 3. You will see wine glasses mainly made out of two materials, glass and lead crystal.  Yes there are plastic wine glasses but they don't warrant much discussion.

The next thing you should know are the different parts of a wine glass. Above you will see a diagram showing the 3 parts.  The top most part is the bowl and it holds the wine, obvious yes, but it had characteristics we will talk about later in the types of wine glasses section.  The next part down on the glass is the stem, again the obvious, its where you hold the glass and separates the bowl from the foot.  Speaking of feet the bottom of the glass is the foot it does what your feet do and keep you planted on the surface of your choice. So now that you are familiar with your wine glasses lets talk about some basic usage of your wine glasses.

Now that you know your wine glass anatomy lets talk about how to use your glasses.  First off when filling them only fill them to the widest part of the bowl this will allow you to get the best view of your wine as well as tilt it to get your nose in the bowl to smell it.  The next thing you should do is hold your wine glass by the stem... IT'S WHY IT'S THERE.  Holding the wineglass by the bowl or cupping the bottom of the bowl may look cool but it warms the wine up and leaves finger prints all over that will obscure your view of your wine.

Sorry about the tilt but its the only way I could get it framed on my Phone.

Finally the foot. Other than being the part of the wineglass that holds up the rest it is very useful when swirling your wine.  Placing the stem between your middle and ring finger and placing your hand on the table over the foot will allow you to swirl the wine in a very controlled way (see above video) allowing you to bring out all your favorite aromas.  So starting off with these fine pointers will get you on your way to enjoying your wine that much more.

My next post will be some suggestions on stemware, where to buy it and so forth.

~Court + Wine

Casa Larga's Vineyard Hill Riesling

Alright I bring you thing wine review thanks to my wife.  This past weekend we had to go up to Casa Larga so she could see where I'm working now and of course this bottle of wine came home with us! Now on with the show!

Price: 12.99 @ Casa Larga

Alcohol Content: 11%

Appearance: Pale Yellow with no legs.

Nose:  Green Apples and Pears.

Taste: The start of this wine was a sweet and had some light acidity to it.  After a little of swishing it bought out some stony/slate tastes which can be characteristic of Riesling.  The finish was slightly sweet and refreshing.

Rating: 4/7  This wine is everything you look for in a Riesling table wine but not much more.

Final Comments: This Riesling is easy drinking and people of both dry and sweet tastes will probably like this wine.  Good to have around if you like the Riesling but don't want to spend over 15$ for the equivalent of 2 bottles.

Coming this week an Introduction to stemware and the many price points, styles, and an overview of everything that goes with it!

Shinas Estates The Guilty: A Shiraz

After a wonderful tasting at Wine Sense I have returned with a bottle of Shiraz that was featured at said tasting!  This wine by maker Shinas Estate.   They only have three wines, The Guilty, The Innocent, and The Verdict.  Today the wine on the chopping block is THE GUILTY!

Cost: 18.99 Regularly - 16.99 Purchased during tasting.

Alcohol Content: 14.9% its a heavy hitter.

Appearance: A deep burgundy with slow drooping legs.

The Nose:  This wine has some great smells once I got it home and got it in to one of my glasses.  There was a little bit of dried leaves, also there was some toasty hints that came with a second good swirl.  The and hidden down there at the bottem was some black cherry and just a touch of nail polish (I think its from the high alcohol content.)

The Taste:  I loved this wine for the reason that the Aussies tend to have really spicy Shiraz and it can get out of hand in a hurry and this wine was light on the spice and big on the subtle flavors.  This wine had some bolder fruitiness to it which helped to balance out the spice that came towards the end of the drink.  Also this wine had some light tannins that resulted in the drying of the mouth.   Finally on taste there was some small hints of olives.

Rating: I give this Shiraz a 6/7 because I didn't expect this complicated of a taste from and Australian wine.

Final Comments:  When I heard this was a Australian Shiraz I was afraid of the over spicy flavor that comes with a lot of the wine that bears that name.  I was pleasantly surprised at the subtlety this wine brings to the table. I enjoyed this wine with a night tangy pork skewer and some buttered bread that played nicely with the little spice and tangy flavors in the wine.  All and all I was very impressed with this wine. 

10/8/10 WineSense Tasting!

The Wines we got a chance to sample tonight at the Wine Sense were three wines from the same winery of Shinas Estate.  Sadly they have poor little cups to drink from the its hard to get a good sense of the smell out of them. But regardless on to the wines!!!

The Innocent is a Viognier wine that was soft on the nose with slight grassy hints as well as some fruitiness.  The taste was equally as delicate and filled with fruity flavors and light acidity.  It was an easy wine to enjoy.

The second wine we tried was the The Verdict.  It was a Cabernet Sauvignon that I also found to be enjoyable.  The nose was light and a little spicy.  The taste was also light on the tongue and didn't leave much after taste.  It had some light tannins in the back end that lingered a little.  All and all it was an enjoyable drink.

Finaly we were on to The Guilty!  Which is made from the Shiraz grape, which is also the most prevalent grape of Australia, and was the wine that we decided to go home with! The nose had some roasted nuts and a little bit of spice to it very pleasant.   The taste was slightly spicy with a little bit of olives.  This was a very good wine from down under and I will be doing a full review of it in my next post!

So I hope you enjoyed this quick run down of the tasting I went to at Wine Sense.   Remember they have tastings every Friday from 5-7 and they do 10% off the wines they are serving!

The Week At Work and Some Odds and Ends

So my first week at Casa Larga is drawing to a close and its been a wonderful eye opening experience.  I've found that I haven't forgotten nearly as much about wine as I had previously thought.  Also for the first time I've realized a lot about what goes in to getting a bottle of wine ready to for the shelf... And I haven't even done anything pre-bottling!  I spent the first 4 days of this week putting numbered decals on the neck of their new vintages of Ice wine, Vidal Blanc, Riesling, and Cabernet Franc, to be specific (see above photo for the Cab Franc varietal).  I haven't had a chance to sample the Riesling or the Cab Franc but the new release 07 Vidal is pretty tasty and it might be something I do a review on.   So thats pretty much been this week in work, I am going in the next hour or so and will find out what is on the plate of things to do today.  I'll keep you posted!

On to some other news, Wine Sense  is having their weekly free tasting from 5-7pm tonight and its a chance to get out an get your Sniff and Sip on.   This is only my second day of working on this I will be digging around Rochester and locating any tastings I can find and posting them here, be they paid or free.  Also on Wednesday my wife and I were able to attend a tasting at the Lovin' Cup at RIT's little retail quad (sorry I don't know the name of the area yet) where they were doing a New York vs. California wine tasting.  This wine drinker does have a slight bias towards New York wines.... but that aside there was some fun samples there.  There was a great Chardonnay from Fox Run that was a great drink.  Also there was a Chenin Blanc from California that I wish I remembered the name of!  So I'll get back to you as things progress, again I'm open to comments on subject and just typical discussion!

Casa Larga's Limited Release Reserve Riesling

The first wine that I am going to post for you is the first wine I brought home from my job at Casa Larga.  The Limited Release Reserve Riesling is a Finger Lakes Region Riesling that is aged in old oak barrels and stainless steel.

Alcohol Content: 13%

Appearance: Light Yellow but darker than typical Rieslings.  From the oak aging I presume.

Nose (Smells from the wine): Apple, Hints of Caramel, Gummy Worms

Taste: This Riesling had the standard acidic bite at the start but mellowed quickly to a crisp finish.  I would say that this is a softer Riesling as far as acidity.  The finish was clean for the most part with a slight apple-ish back end.

Rating: 5/7  I was expecting something different with the oak aging and what I got was better than what I expected.

Final Comments: I enjoyed this different take on the Riesling, its slightly softer bite was an interesting change from what I'm used to with a more traditional one.  While I did enjoy this wine it isn't something I would pick up if I was looking for a true Riesling.  Casa Larga did a good job putting a subtle twist on this particular grape.

The Rating System

So seeing how this is a blog about wine and things like that I figured I should rate them.  And as you will see with my first rating post, Casa Larga's Reserve Riesling,  I rate on a 1-7 scale. You may be asking your self, Court? why 1-7.  Well I'm going to let you in on something.  1-7 has a defined middle.... 4.  And the way I use my scale 4 is a very important number.  Its the base line, it's what I expect out of the wine.  So if I'm drinking a Riesling and I've read the bottle I am expecting A,B and C from it.  If I only get A, B, and C from it gets a 4. Its exactly what I expected. But if it brings more to the table, like D, then I might bump it up to a 5-7 depending on how much more I like it.   And conversely if I expect A,B, and C and I get let down, by only getting A and B, the score might fall in the 1-3's.  The great thing about this scale is its based on your, mine or who ever else wants to use its expectations.  So if you don't like Rieslings and you get exactly what you expected... Its still a 4.

So this is the system I will be using.  Feel free to comment on it and discuss it with me if you don't completely get it!

a silly little endeavor.

So I find my self back in Rochester for the first time in 5 years for any length longer than a weekend and I have just landed a job at a local winery called Casa Larga.  I have discovered in the few days of working there that I truly love wine.  I'm starting this blog to share my adventures in the wine business, drinking of wine, and wine culture.  I'll try to make semi consistent posts on local tastings, wines I and my wife are drinking, and what I'm doing involving wine!  So on with it!