05.31.2009 Glass cork has clear advantages It was an amazing bottle of California Pinot Blanc - but not because of the wine. In fact, the wine was pretty terrible. But the cork, the cork was fantastic. It was my first face-to-face encounter with a Vino-Seal or glass cork. It was flat on top with just a small extension that dipped into the neck of the bottle. A little bit like an artistically interpreted glass mushroom - a small, translucent shitake. So elegant, yet so practical. It popped out, it popped in. Out, in. I haven't been so mesmerized by a simple action since I figured out which hole the square peg fit into. But I felt guilty. I come from a family of traditionalist winemakers who believe that wine comes with a cork, darn it, and it always will. Source: Worcester Telegram (UK)

05.30.2009 Brewing own beer, wine becoming a more popular pastime More Hatters are visiting their favourite home brew stores since the recent tax increase on alcohol. According to home brew experts, however, there are more reasons to switch to home brew than just avoiding the extra tax. You can produce your own beer for as little as 30 cents a bottle or for a microbrewed quality for 58 cents a bottle and the quality is much better than many years ago. "You can get a really good wine now." Jeff Steiner, owner of Home Brew says there has been an increase - particularly for beer where customers select anything from a light lager to a heavy Irish Stout. Source: Medicine Hat News

05.29.2009 Beware of these foods with wine Warning, there are "Ugly Stepsisters" that can wreck havoc with wine matching. These are foods that should not be paired with wine, according to the author of Wine Lovers Cookbook. Cooks and wine drinkers agree that food enhances wine and vice versa. There are some foods that are awesome on their own. But, be careful when you are planning to combine wine and an asparagus dish or four others on the list [artichokes, chiles, eggs, pickled foods]. Source: Examiner.com

05.29.2009 Chateau Cornwall? Top emerging wine regions Wines from the "New World," that once were the main challengers to "Old World" wines, are now having to contend with rivals too, as more nations win recognition for their wine production. Men's website AskMen.com has compiled a list of the top 7 emerging wine regions, as a new generation of winemakers educated globally return to their home countries to build or revive a wine industry and with global warming changing growing conditions. [The regions: Switzerland, Ukraine, Romania, Greece, Canada, Brazil, England.] Source: Reuters

05.19.2009 The digital drinker: Food-and-wine matcher is now available on iphones Foodie apps for iPhones and BlackBerrys are all the rage of late, and leading the charge in Toronto is sommelier and "unapologetically tipsy" wine lass Natalie MacLean. She recently launched a downloadable widget for her popular on-line drinks matcher, offering roadside assistance for LCBO-goers moored hopelessly between the Argentina and Vintages racks. The portable version allows users to pair food and drink from anywhere using a smart phone, then share the results via Facebook, MySpace, e-mail or Friendster. The app is downloadable from MacLean's site, Nat Decants, and provides access to the 50,000 wine reviews she's compiled over six years. That's a lot of tipsy. Source: Toronto Life

05.14.2009 The story of a French winemaking dynasty Wine is made in the vineyard, emphasizes a fifth-generation French winemaker. In other words, only well-cared-for vines and soil can produce good wine. In the case of Perrin wines, that means without pesticides and herbicides. The French winemaker has been practising organic viticulture since 1964 - long before it became fashionable worldwide. Mastering the art of winemaking is something Thomas Perrin knows all about. He should. It's in his blood. Together with his father, two brothers and an uncle, Perrin operates one of France's most legendary wine estates - one that has been in his family since 1909. . . While [consumers] don't appear to be buying less wine overall, they're buying less expensive wine, he said, noting that today's consumers are looking for value, not expensive wine. Source: National Post

05.04.2009 Pinot Plastic? Aussie winemaker tries plastic bottles Wine connoisseurs who turned their noses up at screwtop caps replacing corks now have a new innovative to sniff at - plastic wine bottles designed to resemble glass but with a 29 per cent smaller carbon footprint. Australian wine maker Foster's is going green by bottling two of its Wolf Blass brand wines in recyclable (PET) 750 ml bottles using a new technology that it hopes will overcome previous resistance to wine bottled in lightweight plastic. A crisp dry white blend and a shiraz cabernet sauvignon will go on sale in plastic bottles across Australia [starting May 11] priced at $17 each and marketed under the name "Green Label." Source: Reuters

05.01.2009 It's not your grandparents pinot Aging like a fine wine is an adage that may not be as pertinent to wine connoisseurs as in the past. While wine drinkers may typically have been of the forty and over crowd, younger generations are following suit, perhaps imbibing socially over a red wine versus the standby beer or mixed drinks. "It's no longer a old, stodgy business," Jeri Moser, tasting room manager at Cristom Vineyards said. Media may have a lot to do with this perception of change. Movies and popular culture have brought wine culture to the masses. "The movie Sideways got people in general interested in wine," Moser said. Source: WillametteLive.com

04.29.2009  Canadians are drinking more Alcohol sales increased 4.3 per cent in the year ending March 31, 2008, with an additional $18.8 billion rung up in booze sales. According to Statistics Canada, the tend was fueled by a rise in import sales, a 1.4 per cent increase in the population aged 15 and older, and a 1.8 per cent average price increase for alcoholic beverages. Across Canada, beer sales rose 2.4 per cent, wine sales were up 7.3 per cent and spirits were up 4.4 per cent. Sarnia Observer (ON)

04.29.2009  Expensive 'gadget' for home brewing Outside of home beer brewing and the bootleg bathtub moonshine that you hear about on television, I've always assumed that the creation of beer, wine, and spirits should be left to the professionals. So, I was surprised to learn that there are consumer devices like this personal winery available on the market. The Oenophile's Personal Winery, available from Hammacher Schlemmer, vinifies four cases of wine at a time in its chamber. It also comes with software that, when hooked up to a PC, lets you automatically graph and monitor the fermentation, Brix (grape sugar level), and temperature. Costing just shy of $6,000, it's a gadget that's meant only for serious wine lovers. Source: CNET News (Image Credit: Hammacher Schlemmer)

04.29.2009  Recession conscious dessert - wine and fresh fruit Ever since my first trip to my wife's family house in Southwestern France during the summer, many years ago, I have been in love with the mixture of fruit and wine. I can remember my father-in-law cutting up a fresh peach still warm from the orchards and putting the pieces in a wine glass, and covering with a good red wine to enjoy as desert. Peaches, Nectarines, Strawberries, Raspberries or a mixture in a glass of wine is one of the great treats of the gods! [Recipe included in the article]. Examiner.com

04.27.2009 Do-it-yourself Bordeaux Anyone want to open a bottle of Château DIY? The make-your-own-barrel-of-wine movement, which kicked off in earnest with the opening of San Francisco's Crushpad winery a few years ago and expanded with the debut of several independent, New York-based do-it-yourself wineries in 2008, is making its foray into the Old World. Crushpad announced that it will begin operations in Bordeaux with this year's harvest. And not only is the trend expanding to France, the profile of those involved continues to ascend as well. Crushpad's Bordeaux operation will be run out of St.-Emilion's Château Teyssier. Source: Wine Spectator

04.27.2009  BYOB: Don't just bring it, brew it Lately, it seems like everyone is rethinking what they spend their money on, and that may include your nightly cocktails. But there's a much more inexpensive way to enjoy your favorite drink. "I started with the lighter and progressively went darker. I like the dark beer," said Michael Artale who makes his own beer. "It was an expense for me because at the end of my day I do like my beer. It's half the price to make my own." Brewing your own ale is nothing new, but what is new is the onslaught of customers looking to save a buck while sipping their favourite cold one. Beer is not the only do-it-yourself concoction worth toasting to. [Wine] do-it-yourselfers say the quality of their wine is the same if not better than what you would find at the store. "Because it doesn't have the chemicals that commercially produced wines have. It tastes fresher, cleaner, it's a nice product actually," explained [one]. Source: FOX TV

04.25.2009  Recognize characteristics of the wines you enjoy My personal way to educate people on the various wine styles is [by grouping] families of wines with similar characteristics. These families of wine are established according to the flavour profile of each wine. When conducting wine seminars and courses, I always stress the fact that the first step to learn more about wine is to recognize the characteristics of a wine lover's favourite wines. Having a good knowledge of grape types, key wine producing areas and the wine style which they produce is certainly an asset. However, given the wide number of wine producing areas and types of grapes, plus various blends, it is not necessarily an easy task for all amateurs to know and remember all of this information. For this reason, I developed a certain way of categorizing the various table wines by styles and families. The following list includes the families of wine styles for white table wines. Source: Times & Transcript (NB)

04.24.2009  The merits of Cabernet and Merlot wine blends Whether we know it or not, most wines are blended from more than one grape variety. Even when wines are labelled as "varietals" - made from only one variety of grape - other kinds of grapes are allowed to be added... when 51 per cent is the lowest acceptable rule of thumb, sometimes as much as 49 per cent are "other." Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot are the two grapes that form the core of most red wines from France's famed Bordeaux. Merlot has muddled plummy flavours and ripens earlier, so it has dependably higher sugar levels - and makes wines with higher alcohol. Cabernet Sauvignon contributes brighter sharper "minty" blackcurrant fruit flavours - and also more tannic "grip."Source: Canada.com

04.22.2009 Drink wine? Don't complicate it There is now a dead Rabbit in our kitchen. We can't get the rubber wine cork out of its mouth. The Rabbit is a flimsy, plastic-molded wine-opening device with too many hinges that resembles a cartoon bunny. It was a gift from my brother. The Rabbit (Metrokane, $69.99) now joins last year's electric wine-cooling sleeve, mystifying wine-preserving vacuum pumps, stainless "barometric stoppers," and the iPhone application that, sigh, chooses the "right" wine. Wine is a pleasure to be enjoyed, not a problem to be solved. There are, of course, more sensible alternatives for all of these. Source: Boston Globe

PEI moving quickly to regulate FOP operations Legislation has been introduced in the PEI House that will hopefully be passed in this Session. Once that is done then the Regulations will need to be approved by Executive Council.
Assuming all goes as planned, and based on the Legislative Counsel Office work schedule on preparing new and amended Acts and Regulations for all of government, we are probably looking at late June before everything is in place. Source: CHWTA