New Year (Wine) Resolutions

So now that Christmas has passed once again and New Years celebrations already seem like a distant memory why not make some New Year’s (Wine) Resolutions?  As part of your new year’s resolutions why not start to record thw wines you tried and in particular the wines you really liked.  This doesn’t have to be anything too fancy.  Start with basic notes and build up from there.  So did you enjoy a particular wine over Christmas?  Did you jot down the name?  Or save the label?  No? - Then dash out to your glass recycling bin and fish out your favourite tipples from the season.

To make a wine note for future reference you should record: What the wine was, its name, brand, country it came from, colour, grape variety and any other info that helps you remember it.  If you want you could also mark it out of ten.  Remember that it is also important to record details about wines that you may not have liked so much - this will help you avoid buying a style of wine you don’t like in the future.

A layout for your tasting note might look like this:

An example of how you could complete this tasting note would be:

Your note should reflect your thoughts and feelings for the wine.  Don’t feel anxious or intimidated about how you describe it.  Use words and phrases that you can relate to and which sum up the wine as it tasted at the particular time.  After you have written a few notes you will start to feel more comfortable about describing wine and should also begin to find yourself identifying flavours and tastes far easier.

Best of Luck!  Tom

Tags: new year, tasting, tasting note

Choosing Wine for Christmas

There are so many different occasions that take place over Christmas and each one necessitates its own particular style of wine(s). 

Christmas is the ultimate party season.  At times it may seem daunting when faced with the challenge of deciding what wine to buy for groups of people, particularly with so many different styles of wine & your guests differing palates for wine, consider also the style of party food that you will be serving during the party. Some simple tips when choosing wine for parties would include: 

• Pay attention to grape variety of the wine and where it comes from.  Look out for fruity but easy drinking whites and reds (avoiding too much tannin in the latter). 
• Use wine that will compliment whatever food you plan to serve at the party.  Fresh whites such as Sauvignon Blanc with loads of juicy and tropical fruit flavour work well with party food, rich sauces and spicy flavours.  For red try soft easy drinking examples such as ripe Merlot or fruity Shiraz. 
• Look out for bargains - At Christmas many great wines will be on promotion and represent very good value for money.  Your sales assistant in the wine store should be able to guide you here. 
• Error on the side of caution with exceptionally special offers unless they are brands you recognise, know and trust.

When buying wine as a gift, talk to the sales assistant in the store.  They should be knowledgeable about all the different wines they have on their shelves.  Some wines will have colourful promotions but before you are lured in by these give the sales assistant some information about the person(s) you are buying the wine for.  Do you know what style they like to drink?  Do they have a grape or country of preference?  If you’re unsure - why not choose something that you like or sounds good to you.  Have the advisor in the shop tell you something about it and its background, that way you’ll have a story to tell when you hand over the wine as a gift, the person who receives it will certainly be delighted that you put that extra thought into your choice.  Most shops should offer a Christmas packaging service where they will gift wrap your purchase or maybe have a nice wooden box to hand.

Christmas Dinner and Wine pairing can be tricky.  Quiet often people will put such hard work into preparing a wonderful three course meal and at the final hurdle fall short with the wine.  The wine you choose for your Christmas should compliment the food, when paring them there should be a harmony between both.  Important things to remember here is that it’s not just the turkey that needs to be paired with a wine but also all of the trimmings, sage or chestnut stuffing, cranberry sauce, crispy roast potatoes etc.  Remember the spicy flavours as well as the bland.  Try to find a wine to compliment all these characteristics. 

If you enjoy white wine try a bottle of Chablis Premier Cru.  This wine is packed full of fresh apple and gentle pear flavour typically complimented further by subtle use of well integrated oak.  For a more substantial white with greater body try a Californian Napa Valley Chardonnay. 

If you prefer red wine go for a wine with juicy berry fruit characteristics - this will work well when up against turkey meat which can tend to be a bit dry.  Nice ones to choose would be a Cotes du Rhône from France, Rioja Reserva from Spain or Reserve (>€14) Merlot from Chile.

One purchase you should make this Christmas is Champagne.  Try some wonderful, quality Champagne with a fresh crisp fruit style and the lovely biscuit-yeastiness typical of all great Champagnes.  Ask in your wine shop or off licence for some recommendations.  Use this to get a party started, for Christmas morning festivities and above all to ring in 2010.

If you’re still stuck for some Christmas gift ideas why not pick up the gift of a Wine Course for your friend or loved one?  We have wine courses scheduled for throughout 2010.  If you not sure that you want to commit to a particular date then you can simply choose to purchase one of our gift vouchers.  These are packed in seasonal cards and will arrive to your address discreetly in discreet plain envelopes so as not to alert any of the intended recipients.  Click here to browse our course dates.

Happy Wine Shopping!

Tags: advice, Christmas, course, dinner, gift, turkey, voucher

Christmas Wine Preparation

If you’re starting to put together a to-do list in the run up to Christmas then make sure you include your wine plans too!  The more advance planning and purchasing you can achieve now the more you will save in the final days & weeks before Dec 25th. 

First off, decide what you are buying wine for.  Do you need to purcase for any or all of the following events:

• Pre-Christmas entertaining -
  • people calling around, supers and parties? 
  • How about Christmas Day itself? 
  • Wine/Christmas gifts? 
  • New Years Eve? etc etc

If so then make a list, including any other events/occasions.  Decide what is your budget for all of these purchases?  Whitin this budget how much do you plan to spend on your Christmas day wines?  For most people this will see the highest average spend per bottle.  And why not!  If you’re going to go all out and prepare one of the tastiest and most anticipated meals of the year then surely you deserve to treat yourself with the wine you choose to accompany it?  Adding up all the occasions and events you may need to purchase for might result in a frightening total, but remember that some of those who call round to an event or to visit may also bring wine as a gift too.  Now that you have a list prepared - stick to it!!

Sourcing your wine in advance and buying it in bulk (multiples of 12 bottles) will entitle you to greater offersand discounts at your local wine retailer.  Most will offer 12 bottles + 1 free of charge or 10% discount on these bulk buys.  Don’t let this oportunity pass you by.  Many shops will have complimentary wine tasting events underway for Christmas or maybe a few bottles oopen at the weekends to let you try before you buy.  Similarly online retailers have special packages prepared for any events that may arise during Christmas.  Many ‘branded’ wines will be available on special offer pre-Christmas. With the year that’s in it we are most likely to see some of the best offers in a long time!  Before the usual Christmas week traffic chaos arrives, plan in advance and get out there to pick up your bottles or have them delivered from the internet - many will offer free delivery.  If you can do it now it might even free up your December budget for other seasonal purchases?  Remember these wines are for Christmas - resist the temptation to dip in too early! 

Now that you have the wines home/delivered put them aside and sort them according to their occasion.  Other items worth doing a quick check on include wine glasses - do you have enough?  Keep an eye out in supermarkets for special offer eight and twelve packs - ideal for parties and large groups, especially when there might be breakages.  If you want to get the most from your wine it is worthinvesting in some good glasses.  These glasses will be lighter and have a better balance and feel than the more inexpensive options at the supermarkets.  Avoid ‘designer’ glasses withetchings, frosting, gold trims etc - these look attractive on the shelf but can often be clumsy, while distorting the appearance and flavour of the wine.  Simple glass/crystal with a narrow rim are best.  The narrow rim makes the glass feel far more comfortable as it touches your lips for a sip.  These glasses can be a treat or special Christmas present to yourself?  Look out for Riedel & Speigelau among other brands,  expect to pay about €20 per stem. 

can occasionally break corks

Final checklist should include a good quality wine-opener.  Try to avoid the cheaper ones in supermarkets, these have a nasty habit of splitting and breaking up corks in the neck of the bottle. 

waiters friend corkscrew

 Instead opt for openers with a wide bore.  These are known as ‘waiters-friends’ and are a simple yet very effective way to open even the most stubborn of corks.  On average these will cost about €12 and will be available from a local wine shop.

Check back soon for the next Christmas update, including wines for Christmas and a review of some good seasonal bargains!

Tags: bottle opener, Christmas, gift, riedel, shopping checklist, speigelau, waiters friend

Wine by the carton ?!

Back when I began my travels talking about and teaching wine, one of the questions I was asked most was about screwcaps.  At that stage wines sealed with a screwcap had just started appearing on our shelves.  The most notable early arrivals were from New Zealand with a selection from Australia and a smattering from France.  Now, I am asked about screwcaps less and less and even when I raise the issue and speak about it really seems to be of little concern to most wine drinkers.  This is great!  It’s terrific to see how many wine enthusiasts from novice to expert are open to change and new ideas from the wine industry.

I recently had a chance to look through a selection of new wine packaging methods and containers, one of these are pictured below.  

Wine by the Carton

This is a range of white, red or rosé wine packed into a tetra-pak carton as opposed to a bottle or bag-in-box.  While this is something you may have seen before, (particularly if you’ve completed a backpacking holiday to Australia or such like and drank your fill of ‘brick wine’), the pack featured in the image here is only 250ml.  That is the equivalent of most large domestic wine glasses.  (Quarter bottles in Ireland are 187ml).  This baby brother of the ‘brick’ wines, i.e. the full one litre size tetra-pak cartons, at first glance can seem a little gimmicky.  I popped a few samples into the fridge and must admit I’m pleasantly impressed.  They fit comfortably and chill quickly.  Each pack comes with a straw attached and easily pierces the foil closure on the carton.  These cartons simply use the same design as any regular fruit juice carton you might already have chilling at home.  The benefits - one (large) single serving or one carton per person while on a picnic or at the beach.  The tetra-pak system being used is really great for preserving the quality of the wine, it is sturdy and completely airtight, no light or UV rays can penetrate into the liquid thus the juice inside is preserved unti you pop into it with the attached straw!  The packaging is also very environmentally friendly, being recyclable and crushable for waste disposal.  The part of the experience I was least looking forward to was the whole idea of sucking the wine through a straw.  The makers have thought of this too.  Instead of the typical open ended straw they have designed a straw which is sealed at the tip but has four different smaller holes which act like jets - directing the wine across different angles in your mouth.  This has been dubbed the “sensory straw”.

The wines I tasted were produced by Cordier in Bordeaux.  The white & rosé were crisp, refreshing and had a nice amount of fruit and citrus flavours, perfect for that elusive Irish summers day on the beach.  The red, well it’s still in the press - will update later.  Cordier wines are imported into Ireland by GWL in Cork and can be found in the Carry Out chain of off licences.  Although the small cartons have yet to arrive the full size bottles from this innovative producer should be on the shelves.

Tags: bordeaux, carton, packaging, screwcap

Video wine tasting with Bodegas Valduero - Part One

I mentioned in an earlier post that I had an opportunity to meet up with a friend from the Spanish winery - Bodegas Valduero.

While I had the chance I switched on the video recorder and saved some of the tasting.  Roger provides a good deal of additional info about the winery & the region.  Hopefully we’ll get more and more video posted over the next while, afterall a picture (or video) is worth a thousand words!

Take a look!

Tags: Ribera del Duero, Spain, tasting, Tempranillo, Valduero, video

Conversations with… Valduero

Just last week I had an opportunity to meet with an old friend,  Roger, from Bodegas Valduero.  Roger was travelling around Ireland for a few days to raise awareness for his wine - Valduero.  The winery is based in Ribera del Duero D.O.   Ribera del Duero is the most important of Castilla y Leon’s five DO zones.  (Get to Madrid and drive north for about 2hrs).

Ribera del Duero received its D.O. status (Denominacion de Origen) in 1982.  In the early eighties Ribera del Duero was relatively unknown outside of Spain, (Rioja was still commanding all the attention).  The main grape variety in Ribera del Duero is Tempranillo,  referred to locally as ‘Tinta Fina’.

In 1983 Don Gregorio Garcia established Bodegas Valduero in the region.   It was one of the first wineries to establish itself in the region, as I write this today there are over 200 registered wineries operating in Ribera del Duero!  Certainly a lot of the new wineries to the region are benefiting from the success & prestige of the region generated by other wineries such as Vega Sicilia & Valduero.

The Valduero winemaking team is led by Yolanda Garcia Viadero, daughter of Don Gregorio.  Yolanda has been at the helm since the wineries inception back in the early 80’s.  Certainly Valduero has benefited greatly from the continuous stewardship shown by Yolanda over the last 26 years.  I tasted my first Valduero crianza back in 2003 and have been a big fan since.  The style of Valduero is very elegant, producing a fine, well structured wine with typical aromas of dark fruits, tobacco, hints of mocha and subtle earthy characters all wrapped in a refined yet impressive veil of rich oak.  I am always impressed by how ‘alive’ and fresh the wines of Valduero taste, this seems to hold true throughout the selection of wines produced.  I got to try a nice selection including a five year old crianza and a ten year old reserva, and despite their age I remarked on a couple of occasions how big, fresh and alive the fruit flavours were.  This style of wine is not simply achieved overnight.  It takes years of experience with the vines in the vineyard, some trial and error and careful nuturing to produce a harvest that achieves such powerful and memorable wines - well done Yolanda!!

Some of the main points Roger was keen to remind me of… !!

• The Bodega is situated at 840m above sealevel, making it probably the highest vineyard in Ribera del Duero.  This altitude is important as it contributes to large temperature variations between day and night, this works to stress the vine as it doesn’t have a steady temperatue to develop in.  Such stress to the vine ultimately produces fruit which will take a little longer to ripen and will have a lot more character than its rivals.
• The vines (tempranillo) planted for the red wines are trained (although they may appear hacked) into low bushes. 
• 200Ha. (Each. - hectare, is about the size of a football pitch) of these low bush vines are planted, making it the largest area of low bush vines in Spain!  The fruit is all harvested by hand into small crates to ensure that the berries do not get squashed enroute to the winery.
• The winery is still family owned and managed.

The winery reinvests heavily into their vineyards and facilities to ensure quality year after year. 

One of my own favourite features of Valduero is thier enormous winery - it’s made up of three long tunnels buried into the side of a hill. 

Each tunnel serves its own function:

1. Fermentation tunnel,

2. Barrel Ageing Tunnel,

3. Bottle Ageing Tunnel. 

Another update from Roger was about an additional tunnel - required to keep up with demand and addition volumes being produced at the winery now.  (Production of a white wine unique to Valduero has steadily increased over the last five years).  This new construction is to be capped with a tasting room offering a magnificant view across the vineyards of Ribera del Duero.

I had a chance to travel to the winery last summer while on holidays and took a few snaps while I was getting the grand tour.  While I was there some other keen tourists stopped by to check things out.  If you do get the chance to travel to the area it is certainly worth checking out - even ring in advance and you might be welcomed with a glass of wine!  It was early days in the holiday when I visited so I still had the enthusiasm to scribble some tasting notes - I’ll dig them out and compare to what I got to taste last week.  I’ll try get them posted later this week.

Tags: Ribera del Duero, Spain, tasting, Tempranillo, Tinto Fina, Valduero

New course date announced for Dublin

We have just confirmed the details for our next Dublin wine course.   It will be held at the Hilton Hotel, Kilmainham, Dublin on Saturday 2nd May.

Full details about the course can be found here.

The course will be our very popular “One Day Wine Appreciation Course”.  This course covers all the wine basics you need to know from vineyard to bottle.  We pack plenty of information into the day along with lots of tasting and interaction.  A full lunch with wine is included in the price and the official tasting glasses we use (6) are yours to keep and take home after the course!

Tags: Dublin, Upcoming Courses

NEW Courses…

We’ve just recently completed our latest set of wine courses around the country.  Whether you were part of the class we were with in Cork last month, in the group which joined us on a rainy Saturday in Galway or among the gang we welcomed before the Ireland Vs Scotland rugby last weekend in Dublin I do hope you had a great day out!!  It was a pleasure to welcome you all along, whichever group you were part of.  It’s really great to get out and about talking about & explaining the background and details of winemaking, wine tasting and most importantly enjoying whatever bottle you may be about to open!! 

Thanks again to everyone for the feedback and kind wishes we received following each course, it help us to know that what we teach is beneficial to you whether you are a novice wine drinker or wine tasting enthusiast.

I’ve had a number of queries to the website over the last few days about our next set of upcoming wine courses….  These should be confirmed in the next few days (again we’ve taken your feedback into account when selecting dates & venues for the upcoming courses).  If you have emailed us with an enquiry we will be replying directly once venues are confirmed.  These new venues & dates will also be posted here as soon as possible.

Good luck to Ireland against Wales this Saturday!!

Tags: Cork, Dublin, Galway, Upcoming Courses

Here we go!

Hi all,

Just penning a brief note to get the ball rolling with our new blog!

Bear with us while we get comfortable with this new addition to the website.  If you have been clicking onto the site occasionally you will notice some new features and additions have also been added.  We have created some new sections for you to explore. 

The very fact you’re reading this means you have discovered the first of our new additions: Our blog!  As time goes by we will be updating this blog frequently with a whole host of info on various wine related topics.  I have a few ideas my self to begin with but if there are any questions you might have or advice you might need please feel free to post them right here on our blog.

In the main body of the website we have freshened up our appearance and introduced some new pages – “Upcoming Tastings” & “Wine Basics”. 

Upcoming Tastings

In the near future WineCourse.ie will be bringing you information about wine tastings in your area.  These will range from casual wine club tastings and discussion through to tutored tastings & wine dinners hosted by winemakers and importers.  (If you are involved in a wine club or associated with an upcoming event please drop me a note, info@winecourse.ie, and allow WineCourse.ie to help promote it for you).

Wine Basics

Maybe you haven’t had a chance to come along to one of our wine courses or wine tasting sessions yet.  Click on ‘Wine Basics’ over the coming weeks and we will provide you with some of the essential basics to allow you enjoy your wine further and develop some wine tasting technique!

Like I said at the start, we are eager to share info with you about wines in Ireland, wine education opportunities and any other info that might come our way.  We’ve lots of exciting ideas so remember this page and come back to visit soon!!

Tags: tasting, wine basics

Welcome to our Blog!

Thanks for stopping by at our new blog!

This blog will be the more interactive ‘face’ of WineCourse.ie.   It’s all well and good having our structured wine courses around the country, but sometimes we just want to get something off our chest or pass along little snippets of info that will help you make more informed decisions about selecting and enjoying the wines you love.

I look forward to putting up some new content shortly, including video and interviews with some of the worlds leading wine producers.

For the moment however, can I recommed you click onto our website: http://www.winecourse.ie where you will get a feel for what we do and also see a list of our upcoming courses.

Speak soon,

Tom Q

Tags: http://www.winecourse.ie, Tom Quinn, Welcome, WineCourse.ie