Here are a few wine-, food- and Northwest-related blogs and Web sites worth checking out.
Blogs Beyond the Bottle Appetizers with Mike Dunne Wine Peeps Elevage Cornichon! Through the Walla Walla Grape Vine Pacific Northwest Cheese Project Seattle Wine Blog Write for Wine Seattle Bon Vivant An Exploration of Portland Food and Drink World Wine Weblog Paul Gregutt Woodinville Wine Update Ian Gorton's wine and food ramblings
Web sites Gismondi on Wine Washington Wine Commission Oregon Wine Board B.C. Wine Institute Idaho Wine Producers Commission
I opened a 2003 Cab tonight and on first taste I was ready to call it corked and move on. The Tannens were strong and odd,and there was a hint of that background taste that we have all experienced. But my curiousity made me try it again a while later and within a half hour I was drinking a really good red.
Anybody knows what gives???
Unfortunately, if a wine is corked, there's rarely any recourse but to pour it out and move on.
I am pretty sensitive to TCA, the compound that causes a wine to smell like a wet dog, but I've smelled wines that have other aromas that might remind me of flaws, such as barnyard notes or volatile acidity (which smells like fingernail polish remover). Some of these aromas might "blow off" after a bit or I simply become used to them.
However, I've not known TCA to blow off. Rather, it gets more intense as the wine opens up.
In my experience, defects such as volatile acidity sometimes "blow off", but a corked wine with TCA gets worse very rapidly. By the way, the TCA doesn't always come from the cork. It lingers in wineries on certain parts of wine barrels, and even on the cardboard cartons wine is shipped in. But once in gets into the wine it develops so quickly that you will think that your sweat socks have turned into a veritable gym in a matter of minutes.
Mitch,
While our publication focuses on commercial wines, we do have an interesting article in the Summer issue on "armchair winemaking" in British Columbia. A loophole in the legal system has allowed businesses to start up that provide a way for consumers to make their own wine at minimal cost and effort. If you can find a copy of the Summer issue, check it out. We haven't posted it to the Web site yet, but we probably will in the next month or so.
I'm not sure where you live, but there are a few vineyards in Washington's Columbia Valley that cater to home winemakers, so if you are planning to try your hand at winemaking, you should be able to purchase just about any kind of grape you want in the Northwest. Another resource is the Boeing Winemaking Club (but you have to be a Boeing employee to join).
Cheers.
Andy
Mitch here are some sites I found along with cheap WSU pubs on Home Wine Making . My friend makes wine at home and he says there is a surplus of grapes out there . He gets his grapes from a wine and Beer supply store behind Mchord AFB near Spanaway. steve
http://cru84.cahe.wsu.edu/cgi-bin/pubs/EB0719.html
http://www.washingtonwinemakers.org/learn.htm
http://www.a2zwines.com/homewinemaking/
http://www.homewine.com/news.html
http://www.brehmvineyards.com/articles/funwithgrapes.html
http://www.psawbc.org/
http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/referenc.asp
http://home.comcast.net/~jimalexander2/BeginningWinemakingTips.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~jimalexander2/Downloads.htm
I've really enjoyed reading your online Magazine but note not much on home made wine so far. Any one out thier to point to another link.
Thanks Mitch
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