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Thursday, 18 August 2011 |
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One of the reasons to turn to white and rosé wines in the summer (other than that they're drunk chilled) is they tend to be lower in alcohol than reds. Alcoholic drinks tend to dehydrate us, unless we drink plenty of water, too, and we feel the effects more quickly in hot weather than we do when it's cool. So less alcohol is better. |
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Thursday, 11 August 2011 |
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I was tasting wine the other day with a winemaker, and he commented on the light colour of one of his pinot noirs. He observed that many people think that light colour means light flavours and he noted that many of the top burgundies are fairly light in appearance, though filled with concentrated flavours. |
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Thursday, 04 August 2011 |
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One of last month's Vintages releases featured wines that had been given scores of 90 or more by various wine writers. The Vintages catalogue notes that the 100-point scale was made famous by American wine writer Robert Parker, but it's uncritical about the scale itself. |
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Thursday, 09 June 2011 |
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Look along the shelves at the LCBO, and you'll notice a lot of the wildlife has disappeared. Yes, there's the odd wallaby, a few cats, an overweight hippopotamus, a francophone rabbit, a funky llama, and more. But the menagerie just isn't what it used to be, when many new wines came with a new critter. Now many have returned to their natural habitat, the little penguin back to the ocean, the giraffe to the savannah. |
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Thursday, 26 May 2011 |
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Many readers wrote in about corks and screwcaps after my column two weeks ago. Nearly all supported screwcaps, although one pointed out that older people often find them difficult to remove. Another told of a wine, brought home from a vacation and carefully kept for a special occasion, that had a cork that crumbled. "We had to fish out the bits and pieces of cork and it wasn't very appetizing or appealing."
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Thursday, 19 May 2011 |
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You'll notice a lot of new Australian wines in the LCBO and Vintages these days, reflecting a push to improve the selection from that country. Australia has made a major contribution to the LCBO range for years, but its sales took a hit in the last couple of years, after surging from the late 1990s. Argentina and Chile came on strong, and the selection of Australian wines was looking tired. The newcomers include more regions and grape varieties. |
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Thursday, 12 May 2011 |
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Ten years ago, when wines sealed with a screwcap ap-peared in real numbers on LCBO shelves, there was some push-back from consumers. Some insisted that nothing worth drinking would be sealed with a twist-off cap, and swore they would never give up their corkscrews. |
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Thursday, 05 May 2011 |
Like pop music stars, wine regions come and go. Peru (yes, Peru) used to be one of the world's biggest wine producers (this is way back in the 1700s), but it almost disappeared from sight in the late 19th century. Other South American countries, notably Argentina and Chile, have risen dramatically in the past 10 years.
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Thursday, 28 April 2011 |
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Many wine writers, including me, are cautious of using the words "acid" and "acidity" in descriptions of wine. When a wine shows good acidity, meaning it feels crisp and fresh, or even slightly tart, I use words like crisp, fresh, refreshing, clean and zesty. I usually avoid the word "acidity.". |
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Thursday, 21 April 2011 |
It was recently reported that excessive drinking of wine is associated with a number of cancers. This is the latest contribution to a welter of information that, on the one hand, warns that wine is harmful to health and, on the other, argues that it can help in the prevention of heart disease and some cancers. The critical point is moderation. There's a general consensus that moderate drinking is better than not drinking at all, and that excessive drinking is worse than either of those. Moderate drinking? Two glasses of wine a day for men, one a day for women.
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