Aging Gracefully

posted by Annie in Wine

As we approach the end of the year, we all take stock of what has changed in the last 12 months. Socially, politicially, and personally, everything matures, dematures, and alters throughout the year. 2008 is right around the corner and no matter how hard anyone tries by eating organically, doing pilates 14 times a week before Wednesday, or drinking a glass of red a day for “health reasons”, at some point in the next year your age will increase by one number. Hopefully this change will be for the best, but how about that 1971 Richebourg you have been saving? You think the bottle should still be good, but is it really? Your bottle of wine hasn’t been exercising and eating healthy like you, so is the start of the New Year actually benefiting your bottle or has it gone the way of the Spears family?

My parents have a rather extensive wine collection that I cataloged on Snooth on Christmas Day. They have a fair share of wines from the 70s and 80s, some from wineries I hadn’t heard of and vintages I knew nothing about. I’d love to tell them that their collection is a very tasty one (considering they own a few bottles of Krug, Louis M. Martini, Inglenook, and Opus One), but how could I be sure I wasn’t getting their hopes up?

There are a few ways you can check.

1. Has your wine been stored in the proper way? If not, it could be bad. (See my wonderful blog post about Wine Storage)
2. Is there an abnormally large amount of sediment in the bottle? This might indicate the wine is bad.
3. Does it look like the bottle is less full than it should be? There could have been evaporation and/or leakage due to a not-so-tight seal.
4. Does the cork cover turn around? If its stuck and won’t budge, it’s possible, but not indicative, that there has been leakage.

Last but not least, there’s my favorite test and by far the most fool-proof one: pop it open and take a sip. Since my parents collection is over 100 bottles, I decided for my own personal health (and safety once my parents figured out what I was up to), it was best to not test them all out. Hopefully, using the tests above, they can decide down the road what’s going to be good to drink and which ones just might look better as decorations.

Have a Happy New Year Snoothers!

The Holy Trinity of Wine Storage

posted by Annie in Snooth, Wine

I am a resident of Manhattan. Therefore, I live in a shoebox studio apartment, where foot of my bed is also my dining chair and my living room side table doubles as a nightstand. The wonderful (and loud) steam heater turns on and off at the whim of the superintendant, and the windows are most definitely not doing any insulating whatsoever. Needless to say, proper wine storage is a quandary.

In order to store wine properly, one must regulate light, humidity, and temperature. UV light has the ability to breakdown certain organic compounds in wine and causes premature aging. Humidity can affect the seal that the cork has with the bottle. A constant moderate temperature will help keep the seal on the wine tight, and more importantly allow the wine to age properly and keep its structure.

I enjoy having a wine collection. However, how can it be possible in a small New York City apartment to keep these three essential variables all in check when at least two of them aren’t controllable? Sadly, I have lost many a wine bottle to NYC steam heat – one that caused me the most distress was a 1998 Chateauneuf-du-pape Valentine’s Day gift. It was totally undrinkable and it made me cry.

My solution: If you have space (which I have recently made room for, after disposing of completely unnecessary items like “tables” and “chairs”), buy a small wine fridge/cooler. I now am no longer worried about the health of my most recent Valentine’s gift – an 1999 Opus One. Keep whites in the refrigerator if at all possible, and never put a wine rack on top of the refrigerator – even loaves of bread go bad up there with all of that heat! Steam heat can be evil for wine, so I’d also try to avoid putting a wine rack near your radiator. Maybe an air humidifier could help the wine a bit, as well as your throat and skin.

How have you other spatially-challenged wine lovers overcome this issue?

To Sparkle or not to Sparkle…

posted by Annie in Wine

I’m not that big a fan of sparkling wine. Champagne more specifically (I know I know), but all sparkling wines in general never seem to come close to my love of still wines. On occasion, a nice crisp Prosecco does the trick, but I think something in the flavor profile is lost for me with the addition of fizz (not to mention that lovely morning-after headache that comes after an evening of bubbly). Perhaps its the bite of the carbon dioxide bubbles on my tongue and the tingle as it goes down my throat. Perhaps its because I love rich tasting reds and crispy whites over creaminess and subtlety.

Last night we went out for the Snooth holiday party, and a celebratory glass of Paul Georg Napoleon Rose was poured in a flute in front of me. Reluctant at first, I took a small sip expecting to have my usual underwhelmed reaction - fizz, yeasty mild flavor, meh. Instead, what greeted me was a crisp and fruity, yet bold sparkling wine. My tongue was not overcome with fizz and the fruit really punched through. This needed more investigation. I took another sip, and then another, and another. Before I knew it, my glass was near empty. I had enjoyed it.

My experience with Paul Georg has intrigued me and left me with a few questions. Where has all this delicious champagne been all my life? Is it possible that only one or two bad experiences turned me off from enjoying this well celebrated style of wines? Or, have I been permanently scarred by my college days of drinking Andre straight out of the bottle?

I plan on doing some “research” in the coming weeks so I can be sure to have a similarly pleasant experience on New Years Eve. Any recommendations for this budding sparkling wine drinker?