Wine Review: 2006 Ridge Lytton Springs

24 04 2011

Zinfandel! When made right, still one of my favourite reds.

Happy Easter everybody!!  Special occasions call for special wine, and on this Easter weekend I turned to Ridge, a classic California producer who is giving serious attention to a grape that’s often treated too frivolously:  Zinfandel.  If any of you reading this just said “Hang on, I thought Zinfandel was white?”, banish that thought from your head forever.  While an ocean of blush jug wine has been created bearing the name “White Zinfandel”, Zin is actually a red grape.  What makes White Zinfandel white (or, more accurately, slightly pink) is that when it is made, the fermenting juice is only left in contact with the grapes’ skins for a very short time, after which it is quickly separated so that the skins can’t pass on much of their dark colour to the finished wine (thus preventing it from being red).  White Zinfandel is a cheap, uninteresting, bastardized version of a varietal that, when shown the proper care, can create some of the truest versions of American red wine out there.  The US (especially California) is the predominant producer of Zin in the world; Zinfandel really only shows up elsewhere around the globe in southern Italy, where it is known as Primitivo. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Wine Reviews

The Basics: Do Wine Glasses Matter?

4 04 2011

The short answer:  yes.  The slightly less short answer:  wine glasses do matter, but as long as yours meet a few simple criteria, they will serve your purposes just fine.  It is very easy to get carried away with the finer points of matching a wine to a particular glass — if you don’t believe me, check out this site from the world’s top wine glass maker, Riedel, which showcases multiple unique glasses designed specifically for particular varietals (i.e. Gewurztraminer), regions (i.e. Paulliac, in Bordeaux, France), ripeness levels (i.e. Beerenauslese, a German designation), quality levels (i.e. Beaujolais Cru, higher-end Beaujolais from Burgundy, France) and even non-table-wines (i.e. Cognac, Port).  While this hyper-specific wine/glass matching might pay dividends for a select few wine experts, it is horrendously impractical for the rest of us and likely won’t result in any clearer appreciation of the underlying wine.  However, for anyone enjoying a drink of wine, your glass will help rather than hinder your drinking pleasure if it fits within these guidelines: Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : The Basics

Tips & Tricks: Don’t Drink Your Reds Too Warm!

27 03 2011

This fridge wants to see your reds for a few minutes.

One of the most insidious falsehoods about wine that still gets passed around like fortune-cookie wisdom is that red wines should be served and drunk at room temperature.  If your “room temperature” is the thermostat reading inside a one-room stone cottage in the 1600s, you may be on to something, but otherwise you are doing your reds more harm than good if you follow this “standard” rule.  In my opinion (and that of every wine author whose book I’ve read), there is no dinner wine that shows best when served at 20-21 degrees Celsius (70-72 Fahrenheit)…and yet every time I go to a restaurant or a wine tasting and am presented with a glass of red, it tastes like it’s been stored in the furnace room or directly above the kitchen range (in a couple of places in town, it literally is!).  This, if you haven’t gathered already, is a huge pet peeve of mine. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Tips & Tricks