Screw caps are just fine. Corks have the advantage if you're aging the wine but then you also need the right wine and a cellar climate. I've seen more glass caps recently too. Canned wine was all the rage last summer and box wine is huge so I think people have become more accepting and less snobbish toward different packaging of wine. I just looked it up and apparently there are 149 Master Sommeliers in the world. I reckon that would be pretty close to the total number of trained astronauts in the world, maybe even less But seriously, that Somm documentary makes it look just about impossible to pass.
Nah, piece of cake. I don't even need to look at the back of my Medoc to know that it's 50 cab 50 merlot... okay, I did, but I knew there was cab in it!
Yep yep. Maynard from Tool has a winery out there. My life stopped for a few days when I heard about that one. Every time I hear Hooker with a Penis I picture him examining yeast cultures and testing specific gravity and carefully writing taste notes while he hums it under his breath. Not that I think Maynard would make a poor winemaker--far from it given his unique skill set of mad artistic genius--but something about that made me rethink everything about life. Goes to show that wine is so unfathomably awesome that it claims anyone who wanders too close to it. ETA: The more of this Medoc I drink the more I think anything might be possible.
That's still a lot, even without the markups. Yes, I'm all too familiar with the price difference between restaurant and liquor store. I'll sometimes have a glass of something with dinner if it's just because I want something nice to go with the food, but if I'm going to drink much more than that I'm going and buying it myself. No, it's not hard to sell food or alcohol, but the owners of any business are always reluctant to buy something they don't have to stock for daily operations... Having been on that side of business, I understand, but it still ticks me off when owners and managers don't know how to run their establishment. It's not rocket science, if you have it for sale, someone will buy it, especially if you have a good sales team. I'll probably try a Chianti just to see, my curiosity has always gotten the better of me at one point or another. I appreciate the tip there, I'll keep a lookout for those. Whenever I think of Chianti though, I don't think of The Sopranos...I think of Hannibal Lecter...disturbing, but true. lol Wine journal is a great idea, I'll have to start one. And no, I don't think that counts as drinking alone, or at least I won't count it. I'll take you up on that sometime. Cheers!
I've made blackberry and Elderberry as well (the trick to elderberry is not to go mad collecting the flowers in the spring) that said Elderflower makes a white pseudo champagne which is quite nice. Apple is another one although I mostly make cider (which i definitely don't freeze distill to make calvados because that would be illegal ) I don't drink so this is mostly for guests, but when i was drinking I found that grape based wine gave me a hangover from hell, which homebrew didnt
Most hangovers from alcohol are caused by dehydration, the trick is to drink plenty of water before going to sleep. Wine especially is notorious for it, not sure why it's so much worse than beer or even liquor, but it may have to do with some of the additives, which may be why the homebrew doesn't affect you as much. I'm just taking a stab in the dark though.
Dehydration and vitamin deficiency. Vitamin B complex is the culprit I believe. The vitamins break sugars down in your liver before alcohol, which is why sweet drinks will give you the worst hangovers. You run out of vitamins quickly and you liver is left sodden with alcohol, which is why you can still feel drunk in the morning. Margaritas or any mixed drinks with juice or sodas are hangovers on a sticks. Especially sodas because the carbonation is like a jetpack for alcohol absorption. One of the things we always teach in alcohol service classes is to watch anyone drinking anything carbonated because the booze goes straight to the dome. And we always serve the tipsy something fried (calamari works best) because fried food inhibits alcohol absorption best. With red wines the tannins bother a lot of people without even needing to get drunk off of them. A glass or two can do it sometimes. As well as histamine allergies... red wine is loaded with histamine and the associated allergy is one of those funny little ones that works off of levels. You can eat and drink things with histamine and be okay until the levels build up over several days. Drinking water is key but also taking vitamin supplements. I recommend keeping some gummy vitamins loaded in B complex handy for benders. It won't prevent a hangover but it will get you most of the way there. Wine makes for an awful hangover but it's not supposed to be a binge alcohol. That's what whiskey and beer is for!
Spanish & Georgian wine take my fancy. My favourites are some of the semi-sweet reds from Georgia - Khvanchkara & Akhasheni. You don't tend to find a lot of semi-sweet wine in the UK. It's either real dry for the proper wine stiffs, or ridiculously sweet for youngsters weened only recently from alcopops. @Homer Potvin Have you tried any of Maynard's wines?
Negative. Not sure if they're even available on the East Coast. Even if they were everything in New Hampshire is state controlled and it's illegal to import wine from out of state. Or to order wine on the Internet. Maine and Rhode Island are the same way but I think you might be able to order online wine in Massachusetts. I keep hearing that the federal government might take a look at the online liquor regulations but those clowns could screw up a bowl of cereal so I'm not holding my breath. ETA: also I've heard about Georgian wine but haven't had any yet. Never seen it anywhere in the US.
@Homer Potvin Yeah, Kentucky has a horrible time with online alcohol sales as well. There's some ways to get it, and a couple paces will ship, but it's pretty rare. They want you to buy your spirits here, mostly because it's such a big business I think. I swear, I really hate this state sometimes...well, most of the time... Poor as shit, too. I also found your information about vitamins being a cause of hangovers enlightening, that totally makes a lot of sense. I'm not very prone to hangovers in general, but in the last few years, as I've gotten older, it's started to occasionally happen. Maybe if I did take some vitamin B complex and stuff I'd be able to fight it off completely.
Ain't that the truth. I never got hangovers until I turned 30. Now as I near 40 it's more of the rule than the exception.
Well, I'm going to step a tad outside the box here, and say how much I love Hungarian wine. By that I mean the stuff made with the native Hungarian grapes, not some of the stuff they now produce in Hungary with more common European-wide grape varieties. These are okay, but nothing to write home about. The ones I really used to love (and were relatively inexpensive) used to be easily available at normal supermarkets here—Sainsbury's and Safeway—and I used to stock up on them. Whites, reds AND rosés. Then suddenly ...none to be had. Not sure why. I miss them. Because I had them taken away so unexpectedly, I never wrote down their names, and don't actually remember what a couple of them were called. One was a VERY pale white wine that looked almost like water in the glass, and it was delicious, crisp and easy to drink even on its own. And I'm blamed if I can remember what it was called. There was a delicious rosé variety made by a producer called Nagrédye ...and I don't remember what that one was called either. All of these were made of special Hungarian grapes. I'm currently working my way through a case of Hungarovin Egri Bikavér (Bull's Blood) 2014 vintage that I was able to order from Amazon.uk, but it's not nearly as good as the 2010 vintage I got from the same source. It's a lot more vinegary than the 2010, which is anything but. I don't know if keeping this a while would soften it a bit or not. Drat.
I remember living in NH with the state owned liquor stores but I didn't know you can't even buy wine online, that seems crazy. We used to carry Merkin's Shinola red blend but it took forever to sell a case so we didn't reorder it, I think it was around $25. We even made it clear that it was Maynard from Tool's winery but I'm not sure a lot of wine drinkers are into Tool haha We have another red blend called Cashmere so naturally I made a shelf-talker that reads "He called it... Cashmere!" I got a kick out of it myself but apparently no Seinfeld fans around here either... My best shelf-talker work was with this new whiskey we brought in around Valentine's day called "Climax"
I graduated from Keene State a few years back. And yes, I run the wine department of a decent size liquor store (6k sqft I think?). Its an interesting time here in Colorado for liquor laws. You're only allowed 1 liquor license so it caters to small businesses but the laws are changing soon because the big corporations will never stop lobbying.
I understand that wine is supposed to be stored long term on its side, but I've noticed that a good number of wine racks will actually tilt the bottle down slightly...why is that exactly? Wouldn't it make the bottle more prone to having a the cork leak?
I think it's to be sure the cork stays uniformly wet - if there's any air around the cork it can dry out and then it's no good.
The cork stays moist when its stored like that which is better for reasons I forget. Sometimes bottles in a case are put inside upside down for the same reason. Edit: Bay beat me to it!
Probably not. It might have been lightstruck or heated or stored improperly somewhere along the way. Wine will actually start to cook itself around 90 degrees F, so if it sat in the back of a truck for awhile.... You mean each person is only allowed one liquor license? So an individual can't own multiple bars? The cork won't leak in theory. If it can then there's a gap and the wine will have already become oxidized and taste like garbage anyway. The point is to keep the bottom of the cork moist so it doesn't dry out and disintegrate when the corkscrew hits it. That's why the waiter presents the cork in a restaurant so the host can inspect it and make sure the wine has been stored properly.
You still have to drink it. What if that's the only bottle in the house? Otherwise it's fruit peel, a bag and sugar.
Sorry, I meant off premise. But there's easy ways to get around it (business partners with their name on the license) but it limits the big grocery stores to only one license in the state which are pretty much all in Denver. All the other stores can only sell 3.2% beer, no spirits or wine. But like I said, that's all changing very soon.
States are weird with their blue laws. In NH you can't have a full service liquor license unless: 1. You serve food. 2. 50% of your sales come from food up to $1500 a month... meaning you can't just serve soup and call yourself a "restaurant." 3. Your bar closes within one hour of the kitchen closing. 4. You have twenty sit-down seats, be it tables or hightops (rather than bar stools). 5. Your bar area is clearly delineated from the dinning room. Basically that means that they're no real "bars" in NH. There are restaurants that have bars but you're not supposed to be a bar bar. When I worked in Connecticut, the liquor stores closed at 8pm and were not open on Sundays (they've changed that since). And--wait for it--you were not allowed to serve a drink to anyone on a holiday unless it was accompanied by food. Some when I worked in the casino on Thanksgiving, Xmas, Easter, whatever, we brought a free bowl of chili to anyone who ordered a drink. We're taking 50k visitors a day here and who knows how many drinks. So the kitchens had to cook up oil-tankers full of chili and we had to scoop some into a crock whenever somebody ordered a drink. The guests would look at us like we were crazy.
That makes sense, cork needs to stay wet. I figured being on its side would be enough, but I suppose tilting down is extra insurance. @Homer Potvin So it's about making sure the cork doesn't disintegrate into the wine itself? I've had that happen before, and must admit it's rather awful... Never knew exactly why the waiter shows you the cork though. I've seen some people smell the cork before, but always thought that was strange. I am learning so much. XD
