Halloween

It seems to me I posted a link to some random Youtube video of dressed up dogs recently. I just noticed it on the front page of Yahoo! - I am so ahead of the game. Before I dump loads of gel in my hair I wanted to note that my Wine.com shipment has finally just arrived. I ordered it 3 weeks ago, but whatever, I wasn't going to drink any of it yet anyways.

I bought a 2005 Haut-Medoc, a 2003 Gigondas, a 2006 Sancerre*, and a 2006 Malbec from Argentina that had a nice package. I'm excited about these; oh, and I also got a 2005 Spanish Tempranillo to round out my order total for free shipping.

The next few nights might be crazy, and they might be awesome. They also might suck.

*Sancerre is Sauvignon Blanc from Sancerre in the Eastern Loire Valley. Actually there is some red Sancerre which is Pinot Noir, but in general, when one mentions Sancerre it is the white variety. A similar wine is Pouilly-Fume, which is Sauvignon Blanc from across the river from Sancerre.

Postponements

What does my life have in common with the 2008 World Series? The answer is in the title. While it's made for a boring night, my Saturday seems to have just become much better. Last night I went to dinner at T Maccarone's; a nice little Italian-ish place in downtown. I ordered the Pasta Carbonara, and so did my.... I'm not sure what to call her. What defines a date? I don't know either. Regardless, I also ordered a local Viognier, and stupid me, I cannot remember who's it was. (Probably the most queer line I've ever written. Not that there's anything wrong with that...) I'm thinking Tertulia, but I need verification on this. Anyway, it wasn't bad and I feel it was a good choice with my meal, but it was served too cold as most whites are in this country of ours. I had higher hopes for Walla Walla, but alas, no beans.

It's amazing what a too-cold white wine will do. It tastes like water and smells like it too. I suppose that's good for a non-wine drinker, but that's the opposite of what I am. Did I mention I was drinking wine well past 4 a.m. on Friday? That made for a very long Saturday.

As the majority of westerners know, this Friday is Halloween. I'm typically more of a Helloween fan than a Halloween fan, but this one could prove to be a blast. I'm also usually opposed to dressing up, but I decided to go as Patrick Bateman this year, which is really pretty easy and it should be fun to be a total douche. If only I could find a way to make some quick business cards. Anyways, the plan is to meet at my... friend's house for a couple hours and then hit the town for probably way too long. For a sleepy little town though Walla Walla can sure pack a punch and really just be a total blast, to be frank.

As of now I'm waiting for some leftover wine to warm up and during that I'll probably drink another rum and coke. I'm wearing a grey light jacket from Old Navy and a white t-shirt from In-N-Out Burger along with strait leg indigo jeans from Express. My shoes are a European style casual dress shoe from J.C. Penny which accent my Rolex rip-off quite nicely. When I'm done with tonight's stretching exercise I might take a swig of Listerine and trim my sideburns before showering thoroughly to remove any built up scum from today's viticulture lab. In the morning to freshen up I'll likely apply some aftershave by Neutrogena for Men and take some more Listerine. If anyone made it through that paragraph I commend you.

The Little Things

This is a wine blog, so I'll try not to delve too much into my wacky personal life. That said, I wish I wasn't 21 in many ways, as it seems at least one of my problems would be solved if I were merely born in 1978 instead of 1987. Probably only two people in the world know what the hell that means.

Something that's not a problem right now is my Carmenere's fermentation. It measured in at 0.5 brix this afternoon, and I'm getting ready to measure it again right now. One moment please.

Ok, it just measured at 0 brix. This doesn't mean it's done - it usually goes into the negatives for reasons I don't fully understand, but I believe it has to do with the fact that alcohol is lighter than water. The burping of the airlock has slowed to once every 2 or 3 seconds as opposed to the almost constant burping after I first sealed it up. I'm looking at transferring the juice to the carboy on Wednesday and pressing the skins at the same time as much as I can. I haven't figured out how to do this yet, but it will probably be a lot of work.

Now that my wine is nearing dryness and hopefully starting it's long malolactic fermentation, There is one less thing in life to stress over. Immediately after this post comes my homework, followed by school, still followed by another likely failure success of a night. Perhaps it's a bit early to indulge in this, as it hasn't been solidified, but as of now the plan is me in Cuba in March. Don't tell the government. More on that later, and this confusion will be cleared eventually for those waiting on the edge of your seats.

Fire!

My building had a fire tonight. While wasting time listening to Falco and playing Scramble I noticed a ring in the background. To make a long story short the hallway was blanketed in smoke and I hightailed it out of there. Luckily I thought to grab a jacket because it was 3 degrees Celsius outside. During the 1.5 hours or so I was not able to go into my building I made a trip to Wal Mart.

This relates to wine because I bought the longest potato masher that I could find in order to perform 4 times-daily punchdowns on my Carmenere. The point of this is to extract more color and tannin and perhaps flavor from the skins. The fermentation pushes them all to the top with CO2, and the punchdowns just mix them back in with the juice. It's good news that a nice "cap" is regularly forming and it appears that fermentation is going quite well so far. The juice was at 21.5 brix this afternoon, which puts the wine at about 1% alcohol so far, although probably higher 10 hours later. It's also heating up a bit and appears to be around 75 degrees Fahrenheit. If it gets up much higher I may have to figure out how to cool it down, but it's well within range right now.

For now I'm going to attempt to sleep in a smokey apartment, and if this is the last post ever for this blog, perhaps the air quality was not good enough to be let back in yet, and someone should probably tell the authorities that everyone in the building is dead.

Carmenere Project

During my days between postings something great has occurred. While picking the Petit Verdot at the school vineyard our instructor informed us that the Carmenere did not ripen fully due to a freeze on October 10, and therefore, anyone could take it! I was the first one to bite, and I took the best of the best grapes. By the end I used about 17 gallons worth of grape clusters, which ended up making about 7 gallons worth of must.

The first step was to manually destem the grapes. I estimate that this took me 6 hours total, and I listened to music sitting in this very chair the whole time. Notice my new wine rack in the photo.

The next step in this process was manually crushing each grape with my fingers. This was partially achieved during destemming, but I spent at least another two hours getting very sticky digging through the must to find whole berries. This still isn't totally done, but I've now inoculated the must with the yeast, which should help. As of now the yeast appear to be multiplying and the wine smells very much like bread dough. I'll be updating on this project again maybe with some really boring but important details assuming that everything goes as planned.

Some more details on the stuff: I measure the juice to be 23 Brix, which is a good number. That means I'll be able to achieve just over 13% alcohol assuming fermentation doesn't get stuck. I haven't measure the pH, but it's probably pretty high so I'm expecting to malolactate (is that a word?) the wine as much as possible, and maybe still have to lower it inorganically. The only thing I've added besides grapes and yeast are campden tablets, which release SO2 into the wine, killing everything that shouldn't be living. Later I'll add more to stabilize the wine, but not until I'm sufficiently happy with the progress of the malolactic fermentation, as sulfates inhibit it. The only other detail is my preliminary wine label design, as this should pump out 25-30 standard bottles to be drunk from 2011 to 2018. Check it out:

Pong, Avec Wine

Wine pong was rough. This post is a result of it. Actually none of the under $5 wines were even quaffable, much less drinkable, and not even close to enjoyable. While there were still two people there when I left, I didn't feel like being the third wheel. I never understood that expression. shouldn't it be fifth wheel as cars have 4?

Lesson learned: don't buy wine at the Grocery Outlet for anything other than wing pong, as there's as reason it's $4 a bottle. It didn't sell because it tastes like feces.

Edit: I think the expression actually comes from electric trains, subways, metros, whatever one wants to call them.

Wingmen

As I'm sure many readers out there were sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to know my thoughts on my Vouvray with creamy pasta meal, alas, you won't be let down. Unfortunately the cheapest Vouvray in town* ($9) wasn't as good as my cheaper one, but overall it was a pretty decent combo. It was just lacking some acidity which would have been nice. A New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc may have gone better with the chicken fettuccine alfredo.

Other than that it was a fun night of approaching random girls on the street with my fellow CCer's new-found confidence. Nothing to write home about, but still a good time. The art of meeting women is a far more mysterious thing than that of fermented grape juice, my friends. While I thrive at useless knowledge and physics exams, those same skills almost destroy my chances at ever reproducing. It will be a sad day when Idiocracy is seen as the greatest profit of our time.

Tomorrow will bring peace and prosperity as I roam this baren desert in search of truth, and some pointy boots, and maybe even a few games of wine pong. If anyone can name that reference please post it in the comments and you'll win my greatest... gratitude.

Wine Nerd Notes: The wine was the Marchais 2006 Vouvray. I didn't mind it, but I wouldn't really recommend it either. Another funny thing that happened today is I checked corkd.com to see if that Tres Pinos wine that I bashed was rated on there. It only had one rating - a 93 - which is absolutely absurd. I gave it a 65, so now it's a 79. I saved countless lives with that one.

A 10 Minute Lecture on Vouvrays

Friday night was a big night. I lost my virginity - Vouvray virginity that is. This is shockingly late in my short wine drinking career, but there's a first time for everything. I have still yet to pass Chateauneuf-du-Pape through these lips.

Of all $7 wines I've ever had, I think this one has to take the place of the biggest success. It's just tasty and it smells good, and who doesn't like that combination? The wine was purchased at Trader Joe's, so unfortunately I won't be able to buy it again for quite some time, but it has motivated me to try the other 2 or 3 Vouvrays that are available at local grocery stores in Walla Walla. This one happened to be the 2007 Lachateau. It has a tiny bit of sweetness, not enough to bother me, but just enough to be refreshing. It was a great combo with the Creme de Menthe chocolate fondue.

For those who are not cooking up fondue on Fondue Fridays, I'd be pretty happy drinking this with some creamy pasta. That sounds so good that I think I'll try it later this week. Moral of this post: if you live somewhere with Trader Joes, buy this wine, and thank me later.

P.S. In case it went unnoticed, the title is a reference to the movie which most sufficiently potrays much of my life, Sideways.

Furnishings

In one of the most shockingly productive days of my life, my living room now sports a couch and a coffee table. The couch is a sleeper love seat, and maybe the ugliest such creation I've ever laid eyes on. (I've laid my legs on worse) I also received an Oeniphile 40 bottle wine rack courtesy of Amazon Prime and UPS. The problem with this is that I now need to buy 25 more bottles to fill it up, and all my expensive stuff (over $15) is still going in the wine fridge so I won't be showing off any Cheval Blanc just yet.

I'll keep it short today with a quick wine un-recommendation and a photo. On my Trader Joe's run a few weeks ago I grabbed a 2007 Tierra Blanca white wine from Tres Pinos in Paso Robles. My theory is everything they had left over went into this - it's a less than thrilling blend of Gewurtztraminer, Chardonnay, Viognier, and Muscat. While the Gewurtz and Viognier gave me hopes of potential, it just blows. It's like taking the worst of what Chardonnay can do and throwing it together with the aromatics of a sucky Gewurtztraminer. I'm assuming that the Gewurtz is the most prominent grape, because that's what I thought it was upon smelling, but it also has absolutely zero acidity and a really bitter finish that even a non-wine snob would be bothered by. Don't pay $4 for this, fork out $6 for a John Oliva's Pain CD in the bargain bin instead. Atrocious.


















Last night's sunset from the control tower in...... drum roll..... HDR!

College

A typical college class consists of lectures, notes, homework, papers, and exams. Today, mine consisted of alcohol. For "lab", we tasted through 8 different wines. The highlights were a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and a Five Star Cabernet Sauvignon from Walla Walla.

For my photography class we went to the top of the control tower at the bustling Walla Walla Airport. In case anyone was ever wondering what the city of Walla Walla looks like (more specifically the airport area and the mountains), click on this HDR panorama for a life-changing moment.






That's all for today. Next is a report on my (lack of) furniture.

Aussie Shiraz: Fact or Addiction?

That title makes no sense. Ignore it. As I alluded to in my previous post, the last couple nights consisted of a Syrah tasting and wine pong. First, the Syrah tasting was actually a Shiraz tasting (they are the same grape), and second, wine bong became beer pong after a couple rounds... when we ran out of wine.

Shiraz is Syrah, and I prefer the latter, but the Aussie's prefer the former. The grape is from the Rhone, not some city in Persia called Shiraz. That's Bologna. The Northern Rhone is dominated by Syrah, notably Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage, while the Southern Rhone which includes Chateauneaf-du-Pape is typically Grenache Dominant. Enough history though; the Australians are known for their over the top Syrahs (screw you, "Shiraz").

Despite that I've only been to two of these tasting groups since I've been... alive... this one was disappointing. The highlight wines were a Reynella and a Penfold's. I just wasn't feeling it, and neither was anyone else. I don't understand why these wines are so popular here, or maybe Australia just got a bad draw. In any case, next time someone wants to pop open an Aussie Shiraz, my only advice is run like hell. Actually I just finished off the 2005 Jacob's Creek Reserve Shiraz ($9) and it wasn't nearly as bad as I remember (I rated it last of 6 blind), so that's one bright spot for the land down under.

Next time you're in the mood for cheap Australian imports I'd go more the route of INXS's Greatest Hits (especially "Original Sin") or Foster's (Australian for beer). Wine pong looked for a while as though it would just be a practice round between me and one other alcoholic, so I picked up a scary cheap 2004 Pinot Noir Vin de Pays from Languedoc at $4. It sucked, but the Chateau St Michelle Blanc de Noirs wasn't bad, although surprisingly not as good as their Blanc de Blancs. But seriously, is it even possible to make bad sparkling wine? Needless to say when we had 8 people 3 bottles went quickly and we resorted to Keystone and PBR. I also managed to win a few rounds of water pong which proved crucial in preventing a work-impairing hangover. So the next wine pong match will involve more wine, but I'm not sure if I'll be bringing any Shiraz.

By the way, I love Australians.

Is There Anybody Out There?

This blog will one day have thousands of readers. Right now it has 2 on a good day. I must know if anyone else reads this (the two know who they are). Please leave a comment telling me how bored you are after reading strange writings on a subject most people don't care to know about.

In other news I'll be attending a Syrah tasting this Thursday and playing wine pong on Friday. And on second thought, the Riesling from the previous post wasn't worth much more than $6, if any.