Old World vs. New World - A Tasty Comparison!

The Goddess of Wine and JD had some fun at Fossil Wine Bar in Atascadero last night with a group of eager and engaged students of wine. This was an opportunity to compare a few specific grape varieties made in different regions of the world.

Old World wine refers primarily to wine made in Europe but can also include other regions of the Mediterranean basin with long histories of winemaking such as North Africa and the Near East. The phrase is often used in contrast to New World wine which refers primarily to wines from New World wine regions such as the United States, Australia, South America and South Africa. 

Wining through the holidays…

It’s that time of year again. The “holidays”. You throw a party, or you go to a party. For a huge meal. It could be a traditional roast turkey, accompanied by stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Or it could be roast goose or duck, or a Honeybaked ham. Or (shudder) a turducken.

Regardless of what you, your friends and family choose to share, it’s going to be a big meal with a lot of different elements, so you’ll want to choose wines that will enhance and not conflict with the flavors found in your meal. You can play it safe and offer Chardonnay or Pinot Noir with your turkey, but how about trying something different to spice up your feast?

The Goddess of Wine tends to favor wines with good acidity to counter the fatty content of many of the tasty accompaniments to a hopefully moist and well-seasoned turkey. Oh, and I tend to lean more towards red wines, so here are some suggestions, all of which are locally available.

Wining about Shai Cellars...

Shai surrounded by his wines

The Goddess of Wine and a friend were talking about Shawn Shai Halahmy the other day, and she asked, "Have you written an article about Shawn?" I thought for a moment, and then realized that even though I talk about and write about Shawn and his wonderful wines, it's mainly in the context of hanging out with friends, and no, I have not written an actual article about him. So here we are!

JD and I met Shawn through Ian Blackburn and LearnAboutWine. During the period when we were working with Ian and his team on a regular basis, we were present at many classes and events, and this inquisitive guy was there, asking lots of questions about making wine. We actually found him kind of annoying (!) because he was quite persistent and wanted specific answers to his questions. Things changed when we - kind of by accident - adopted him into our rapidly-expanding group of Wineaux during a wonderful event, the Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux in January 2010. Suddenly, we couldn't get enough of him!

Wining with Wes Hagen...

Petit Vendome

The Goddess and JD had the opportunity to hang at the Petit Vendome in La Canada last weekend and do some tasting with winemaker and philosopher Wes Hagen of Clos Pepe from the Sta. Rita Hills AVA near the quiet hamlet of Buellton.

The Sta. Rita Hills is one of my current favorite AVAs. Its east/west valleys pulling in cold, foggy air from the Pacific and the seabed soils create the perfect environment for stressed (in a good way) vines to produce small clusters, small berries, and great flavor and texture. The wines tend to be lean and elegant, with relatively low alcohol; they're food-friendly and unlike wines from any other region.

Wining by Proxy...JD's account of the Barrel Seminar at Garagiste Southern Exposure...

As the Goddess of Wine was pouring Shai Cellars wines at the Garagiste Southern Exposure event in February, First Acolyte JD attended what was to be a seminar on the science of barrels in winemaking. It turned out to be a bit different from planned...

We started off with an easy and fortunately uneventful drive to Solvang on a beautiful, dry, bright Saturday morning. Let’s spend it inside learning about barrels, their effect on wine and taste some wine!

Ryan Render of the cooperage company Tonnelerie Saint Martin was sick, so unable to make it.

The original wine samples from McPrice-Myers were put into a reverse-layout side-by-side refrigerator/freezer the previous night. This situation was not discovered until the morning of the seminar. Alas, the wine was frozen. A quick scramble was done at Larner Vineyards and Michael Larner brought in a nice cross section of his in-process wine for the seminar.

Wining...and Blending with Four Brix...

Blending wine is an art. The goal of blending is to create a wine that is greater than the sum of its parts; to make a wine that other people will find pleasing to the nose and palate, and will want to buy from you. To make this happen, the winemaker must be part chemist, part artist. Part mad scientist helps, too.

I was invited to participate in a group blending experiment at Four Brix Winery in Ventura. Winemaker Gary Stewart sources fruit mainly from Paso Robles, carts it down to Ventura and makes wonderfully appealing, delicious wines. Having completed the bottling of the wines that were planned, Gary found himself with some wine still quite viable for further blending for a special bottling for the Brix Heads - the winery's club members.

Let's get some blending background first:

A standard varietal like Syrah or Chardonnay, is made from the same type of grape. In California, a varietal needs to be 75 percent of one type of grape, while in Europe it's generally 80 percent. It's possible for wineries to add other grapes to a varietal to enhance the elements and still call it a single varietal wine. Blends are what their name suggests. They typically consist of at least 40-50 percent of one type of grape and a smaller mix of two or more other grapes.

Wineaux of the Goddess - Northern Rhone edition

Northern Rhone - Hermitage

That hardy group of tasters known as the Wineaux of the Goddess met at Fab's Corner Cucina the second Wednesday of February to taste some selections of wines from the Northern Rhone Valley of France. We brought one bottle per person, handed it off to the lovely Amelia for bagging and numbering, and dove in. A few notes to get us started:


The Rhône Valley is the oldest established winemaking region in France, dating back 600 years before the Romans. The Rhône River flows west through the vineyards of the Valais and then northwest into Lake Geneva, rushing south through the vineyards of Savoie and then west to join the Saône at Lyons. From there, it turns south for some 250 miles and flows into the Mediterranean Sea west of Marseille. It is this last stretch, between the city of Vienne in the north and the city of Avignon in the south, where the wines of the Rhône Valley are produced.