WEINGARTEN
#1 MARCH 2012 WINE,
FINANCE & ASTROLOGY
It has been some time
since our last wine blog. For several months I have been besieged with computer
problems. It began when I dropped
my computer at a wine tasting (in the line of duty), not once but twice! Since
it continued working, I thought nothing of it until two days later when all was
lost. (This is like dropping your cell phone in water- IMMEDIATELY take out
your battery and dry it and you may save your phone). In the case of a
computer, IMMEDIATELY back up all data and run hard disk diagnostics. After
more than two months I was able to salvage all key files.THEN our website was hacked multiple times. I had planned to do a
major make over of our wine site and newsletter to make both more aesthetically
pleasing. This is now postponed until 2013. Now I am left with notes
from many wine tastings.In order to get
the show on the road, I am restarting with the following brief report.Over time I hope to eliminate some, most, or
all the backlog of tastings, book reviews etc. while also trying to remain
current. Finally I am happy to
report that we did achieve our 2011 goal of being voted in the top 20 wine
blogs on localwineevents (#18 out of 913). 1. MARCH TASTINGS 2. WINE NEWS & TRENDS 3. WINE & FOOD EVENTS 4. WINE REVIEWS 5. THIS AND THAT 1.
March 2 & 3 New
York Wine Expo Mar 08 Bordeaux Right Bank Grand Wine Tasting 2. Wine
may be Indicator of your Personality Wine
and Chocolate Taken to an Entirely New Level World’s
first paper wine bottle set for UK launch Champenois ditching flutes for wine glasses Drink Cheap Wine 3. This past week I
attended two favorite specialty wine tastings that I recommend highly to my
readers: KOSHER FOOD & WINE
EXPERIENCE (KFWE) Feb 13 My first time at KFWE was
very pleasant.All wines were provided
by the Royal Wine Corp and this was a very good to excellent selection indeed. To be consider a
'kosher" wine a rabbi must supervise the winemaking and only
Sabbath-observing Jewish men can handle the grapes after leaving the vineyard. But to this wine critic,
the fact they were kosher was somewhat incidental to the very high quality of
the wines.Clearly for readers such as
my GP doctor who keeps a kosher home this is a must experience (and she plans
to attend next year) but those who don't e.g. non Jewish, you will find a
variety of qualitywines as well as 30
tasty ethnic food stations. I liked hearing live
classical music which naturally connects me with the fine wine experience.I believe Music
makes wine taste better. My favorite winery
overall was the French selections of Domaine Rothschild both their Haut Medoc
2008 and the surprisingly tasty best seller Flechas de los Andes (Argentina)
Gran Malbec 2009. Israeli Domaine du Castel
Grand Vin 2009 and Carmel Winery limited Edition 2007 were both excellent as
was the Brut Rose by Laurent-Perrier.There were also unique offerings such as Boukha Fig Brandy.I could go on, but suffice to say I believe this
is an event all New York
wine lovers will enjoy attending (at least once!). Gala Italia February 2012
is a wonderful annual celebration of Italian food and wine with 30 Italian
wineries and 20 delicious Italian restaurants presenting. The food, unlike that at
some wine festivals, was excellent and by many Italian restaurants whose
signature or special dishes were to entice you to eat at their restaurants. I
made the mistake of having a full lunch. I would NOT recommend that.I enjoyed the short but delightful Italian
singing- I think there should be more of this. One unique feature was
that a first prize was assigned to the "best wine of each Italian
producer" by jury of wine specialists.My mission was to taste each of30 award wining wines. All but 2 were (very) pleasant. This is a touch
that I would like to see more specialty wine festivals follow.All in all a very pleasant evening and most
highly recommended. 4. I am happy we are
beginning to receive wines to review. (Economically being a wine writer is less
costly than losing a few million dollars buying a Napa valley winery- and it also saves me many
untold hours of work/aggravation.) Instead I simply enjoy the
"fruits" of my wine love. NASOL DE RECHENNA BRUT NATURE 80% Macebeo
20% Chardonnay (no sugar added) $13.99 SEMI-SECO 100% Macebeo
$10.99 I am happy to review this
Spanish Cava. I know Italian Prosecco is considered by many to be the cheap,
chic alternative to quality champagne. I don't agree. While it does cleanse
one's palette, I much prefer a quality Cava or French Cremant. (If you must
drink Italian I recommend Franciacorta, which unlike most other Italian
sparklers is made using the Champagne method
of crafting sparkling wine.) But here we have SPAIN- Nasol is
a pale yellow cava sporting fine bubbles and follows the traditional method, a
second fermentation in the bottle. Bottom line: This is a
great value and a tasty proposition. 5. 10
Hilarious Old Commercials for Terrible Wines "What
is the definition of a good wine? It should start and end with a smile."
–William Sokolin “Wine: How
classy people get wasted.” vs. “Beer because your friends aren’t that
interesting.” – Anon Please feel
free to forward our WEINGARTEN newsletter to your wine loving friends. They are
most welcome to subscribe by emailing wine@afund.com and then Vote
for My Blog on LocalWineEvents.com! Cheers Henry Weingarten WEINGARTEN http://www.afund.com/wine wine@afund.com Voted in the top 20 blogs (18 out of
913) on Local Wine Events