WineSpeed - Wine Intel from Karen MacNeil

Rosé—It’s Even Better When it Sparkles

Thursday, June 10 at 5pm PT / 8pm ET

Join Karen and vintners from the three top sparkling wine producers in California. Together they will talk about and taste their stellar sparkling rosé from different California appellations. You’ll discover why California’s North Coast is an ideal location for making world-class sparkling wine. Register HERE for the virtual event.

SCHRAMSBERG Brut Rosé 2017 (North Coast)

Hugh Davies, Vintner

ROEDERER Estate Brut Rosé NV (Anderson Valley)

Arnaud Weyrich, Winemaker

DOMAINE CARNEROS Late Disgorged Brut Rosé 2015 (Carneros)

Remi Cohen, CEO

The wines are available for purchase at

Gary’s Marketplace.

Karen MacNeil tasting Bairrada Nossa Calcário 2018

FILIPA PATO AND WILLIAM WOUTERS

"Nossa Calcário" Baga 2018

(Bairrada, Portugal) $37

If you’ve never had a wine made with the red grape variety baga, and never experienced a wine from the Portuguese region Bairrada, this wine is the perfect must-try. To begin with, it’s hard to imagine a more passionate winemaker than Fílipa Páto, who learned viticulture and winemaking from her grandmother and father. With her chef/sommelier husband William Wouters, she is determined to prove baga’s and Bairrada’s potential to the world. Their beautifully structured wine Nossa Calcário, from biodynamically farmed 80 to 130 year-old vines growing in limestone-laced soils, goes a long way to doing that. Its big thrust of flavor—spices, leather, tobacco, fennel, cocoa and vanilla—is interwoven with a wonderful sense of freshness and aliveness. A naturalist, Fílipa uses the aloe plants surrounding her vineyards to make an infusion which she sprays on the vines as a sun protectant. This wine and some grilled lamb, and your weekend is set. (12.5% abv)

94 points KM

Available at Spectrum Wine

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What are bor and ardo?

A. Two tools that have been used by coopers to make barrels for several centuries

B. Herbal/mineral infusions that are sprayed on vines right after flowering as part of biodynamic farming

C. Types of fine clay that can be used to fine extremely tannic red wines

D. The words for wine in Hungarian and Basque

Hungarian, Basque, Turkish, and Greek are the only European languages that have words for wine not derived from Latin. The Hungarian word for wine is bor; the Basque word is ardo.

Sherry is fortified, oxidized, and maderized.

Answer: False.

Sherry is fortified and undergoes some controlled oxidation. But Sherry is not maderized. Maderization means the wine was intentionally heated. The wine that is fortified, oxidized, and maderized, not to mention sometimes aged for decades, is Madeira. Arguably the world’s longest-lived wine, Madeira at its best is a wine of such spellbinding complexity it’s almost hard to fathom. Great Madeiras do not sit in your glass; they scream with tangy deliciousness. Madeira comes from a small cluster of steeply rugged volcanic islands, the largest and most important of which is also called Madeira—from ilha da madeira, “island of the woods.” Although Madeira and its tiny sister islands are geographically part of Africa (about 310 miles off the Moroccan coast), they are nonetheless a province of Portugal (about 620 miles to the northeast).

Typicity

A quality that a wine possesses if it is historically typical of its region. Whether or not a wine demonstrates typicity is subjective and has nothing to do with how good the wine tastes. In certain European wine regions, an evaluation of typicity is required by law in order for a wine to obtain appellation status.

Champagne – A Commitment to the Earth

Fantastic Tan-Plastic!

Tannin in wine provides two things: structure and ageability. Found in the grape’s skins, seeds, and stems, tannin is a natural preservative. Red wines, with considerably more tannin than white, can thus age longer. Tannins belong to a class of complex compounds called phenols, powerful antioxidants believed to give red wine its reported health benefits. Some scientists believe that antioxidants offer a way to also slow fresh food spoilage by reacting with chemicals that cause oxidation. Paul Kilmartin, a professor of wine chemistry at New Zealand’s University of Auckland, discovered that plastics impregnated with discarded grape solids during the manufacturing process retained the tannin’s antioxidant benefits. Testing their effect on packaging for various edible oils, Kilmartin was able to extend the oil’s shelf life up to 30%.

Peter Michael
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April 30, 2021
Sir Peter Michael is the owner of the Peter Michael Winery in the Knights Valley appellation of Sonoma, California. Since it was founded in 1982, the Peter Michael winery has accrued dozens of accolades for its wines.… Watch and Read Interview
Hugh Johnson
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April 16, 2021
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Will Harlan has been the Director of Promontory, the latest of his father Bill Harlan’s Napa Valley wine projects, since 2015. … Watch and Read Interview

124

Number of known species of coffee in the world. Thanks to their high quality flavor, just two dominate: arabica and canephora (aka robusta). Both species originated in Africa and both have a narrow band of temperatures at which they can grow (18 to 24 degrees C). We bet you know what’s coming: yes, the warming planet is now threatening coffee. How much bad news can we take?

4

Minimum number of different odors a person needs to intentionally sniff two times a day for several months as part of “smell training.” According to a recent international panel of smell experts, smell training is the most effective, side-effect free treatment for people who have lost their sense of smell because of Covid-19. About 20% of people with Covid-related smell loss have not recovered 8 weeks after contracting the virus.

700

Percentage increase in sales of biodynamic wines for the 52 weeks ending March 2021, according to Nielsen. Sales of biodynamic wines totaled $6 million for that period. During the same time frame, sales of organic wines soared from $27 million to $154 million. Year-over-year, organic wine sales increased 21% by value. Sales for natural wine cannot be tracked because the term has no definition.

"Nossa Calcário" Baga 2018

by The WineSpeed Team

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