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Feb. 24th, 2005 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kamomilYesterday I purchased two bottles of wine:
Red: A Merlot from the Niagara region
White: A Riesling from the Rhine valley area of Germany
My sister got me a New Zealand Chardonnay Christmas before last, and I worked my way through it over time, and it paid off; when I drank a different white wine at someone's house, and was TOTALLY able to distinguish the two. The NZ Chardonnay was more full-bodied and darker-tasting than the other white, which was thinner and sharper.
I bought the Merlot because it was not a blended wine. There are blended wines, but I wanted to learn what a straight-up variety tastes like. I also wanted to try a red. I will concentrate on whites though, because I enjoy them more, also I am building on slightly more knowledge of them already.
I bought the Rhine valley Riesling because I was in the Rhine valley region last summer. I saw grapevine fields. (they were kind of hard to miss) My uncle lives in Germany, and I guess being smack dab in the middle of a wine region, you learn a bit about wine. Also my sister (who lives there) brought home a €1.50 bottle of local wine, and it was good.
I am staying away from the Celine Dions of wine, eg. Jackson Triggs and Blue Nun, which are blended, branded wines, and I will concentrate on the Sarah Sleans and John Southworths of wine, which are wines that reflect the different grape varieties, different regions, and different personalities of the wine manufacturers. These ones will probably vary in taste from year to year as well. Hopefully at some point, I will be able to distinguish wine made from one grape variety from another, and one wine region from another. I figure with polished, consistent wines, I won't learn a thing, but with wines with lots of quirky variations, I will remember the differences better. I picked the German Riesling for fun, but I think I will concentrate on getting to know Niagara and California wines because I have to start somewhere, and there is indeed more variety of local Niagara wines to choose from. From Germany, there was only the Riesling, that seemed to be the equivalent of the local Niagara wines.
Red: A Merlot from the Niagara region
White: A Riesling from the Rhine valley area of Germany
My sister got me a New Zealand Chardonnay Christmas before last, and I worked my way through it over time, and it paid off; when I drank a different white wine at someone's house, and was TOTALLY able to distinguish the two. The NZ Chardonnay was more full-bodied and darker-tasting than the other white, which was thinner and sharper.
I bought the Merlot because it was not a blended wine. There are blended wines, but I wanted to learn what a straight-up variety tastes like. I also wanted to try a red. I will concentrate on whites though, because I enjoy them more, also I am building on slightly more knowledge of them already.
I bought the Rhine valley Riesling because I was in the Rhine valley region last summer. I saw grapevine fields. (they were kind of hard to miss) My uncle lives in Germany, and I guess being smack dab in the middle of a wine region, you learn a bit about wine. Also my sister (who lives there) brought home a €1.50 bottle of local wine, and it was good.
I am staying away from the Celine Dions of wine, eg. Jackson Triggs and Blue Nun, which are blended, branded wines, and I will concentrate on the Sarah Sleans and John Southworths of wine, which are wines that reflect the different grape varieties, different regions, and different personalities of the wine manufacturers. These ones will probably vary in taste from year to year as well. Hopefully at some point, I will be able to distinguish wine made from one grape variety from another, and one wine region from another. I figure with polished, consistent wines, I won't learn a thing, but with wines with lots of quirky variations, I will remember the differences better. I picked the German Riesling for fun, but I think I will concentrate on getting to know Niagara and California wines because I have to start somewhere, and there is indeed more variety of local Niagara wines to choose from. From Germany, there was only the Riesling, that seemed to be the equivalent of the local Niagara wines.
