The Wine Knows

I know better than to dry my crystal wine glasses by putting a cloth inside the glass then twisting the base.

I know better.

Here's the "I've Gotta Have That" wine glass of the week - and it isn't even from Riedel.

My wife found this in the Museum of Modern Art catalogue: It's an inside-out sparkling wine glass.

I've sort of become addicted to sabering bottles of sparkling wine. I've now sabered three and am looking for excuses to drink bubbly. While at the grocery store yesterday, I saw some Mountain Dome Brut on sale, so I bought two bottles.

Until Saturday, I'd never opened a bottle of sparkling wine with a saber. If you saw our 100th episode of the Northwest Winecast, you know all about sabrage, the act of opening a bottle of bubbly by slicing off the top.

I ran across this automated tasting bar in use at a Chicago wine shop. It provides tastes of up to 24 wines at any time, and the person wanting to try a wine simply uses a "smart card" to buy tastes. Tastes cost anywhere from 50 cents to $5, depending on the wine. The wines stay fresh, thanks to the nitrogen gas system.

Today, we published our 100th episode of the Northwest Winecast, our weekly video show that features the people and places of Northwest wine country. To celebrate, we decided to open a bottle of bubbly. With a saber.

I will admit to being a bit of a wine glass snob.

Three months ago, I bought the soon-to-be-released Oregon Pinot Noir glasses created by Riedel. I haven't tested them yet to see if they really are better for Oregon Pinot than the Riedel Vinum Pinot Noir glasses I own.

For any wine that is reviewed in Wine Press Northwest (including our Wine of the Week selections), we taste blind. What does this mean?

If we taste single-blind, it means we know what kind of wine we're tasting (such as Syrah) but not the producer. If we taste double-blind, we know neither the producer nor the variety or style.

I got some pretty good responses via email to my post last week about (not) drinking and driving. It got me to thinking about another question I get rather regularly: Do professional wine tasters get drunk during big judgings?