Weekly Hangover

Posted by Him on December 5, 2009

At the end of every week He summarizes what He has learned. Or just rambles on about things he wants to write about that may or may not be directly related to His wine education.

When buying inexpensive (err, cheap) wine from your local corner liquor store, you win some & you lose some.

A couple of weeks ago we watched How It’s Made on the Science Channel. The episode included cork, from sustainable farming practices to production. Upon more research, it turns out actual cork is more ecological than the synthetics. Also learned this week: Three bottles with synthetic corks will leak all over your fucking refrigerator.

So, She gave me a little sneaky Sauvignon Blanc/Chardonnay challenge this week. I didn’t do as well as I hoped. But c’mon. An Australian SB? I don’t know that I have ever even had one before. And that other one that tasted like genocide? I prefer SB to Chardonnay, but those were confusing and gross, respectively.

Only $24.95 for the most useless product ever, a screwcap wine opener. Is that an image of Kid Rock on their site? Is he their pitchman?  I swear to go if this thing makes money…

And finally, the Silverlake Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library is open. So nice to have a branch just down the street from our HQ. It’s small, but pleasant and you can go online and have any book in the LAPL sent to you. Currently in transit: WineWise, A Hedonist in the Cellar: Adventures in Wine, The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop, Noble Rot: A Bordeaux Wine Revolution, Bacchus and Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar, and Wine and War: The French, the Nazis, and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure.

I need some Advil, see you next week.

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Weekly Hangover

Posted by Him on November 6, 2009

Every Friday, I will summarize what I have learned that week.  This week we have strayed a little from the studying (reading wine books and drinking wine) because we have been dealing with CSS-BS, and of course getting our Twitter & Facebook pages up and running.  We are still working out the kinks, but it’s really almost there.  I did learn a few things this week:

Cabernet Franc is a red grape, duh.

I would have liked to have met Didier Dagueneau, but I’ll have to settle for drinking one of his Pouilly-Fumés.

I watched Bottle Shock.  I knew of the “Judgement of Paris“, but not in any detail.  It piqued my interest, so I read a bunch of websites.

OK, someone clear this up for me.  When opening wine do you cut the foil:

We will get back to the books next week.  Today we are off on a field trip to the San Antonio Winery, look for our write-up next week on “Field Trip Fridays”.  Cheers.

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