WINO 101

Hello Friends and Wine Lovers!

It’s a celebration! Welcome to the Thursday Celebratory Newsletter of Celebratory Celebration and the Announcement of the Celebration of Bubblies with the Carpe Vinum Annual Celebration of the Bodacious Bubblerific Bountiful Belly Full of Bubbles Buh . . . Tasting Thing! Wait . . . where was I? Bouncing around linguistically like, say . . . a bubble? That’s right! Tomorrow we are popping the corks off seven different sparkling wines from around the world in celebration! What are we celebrating? Just about anything! To begin with, we’ll celebrate the upcoming celebrations. Does that seem redundant? Not at all!

Champagnes and sparkling wines have always had the largest romantic appeal of any wine out there. There’s the exclaiming pop of the cork as it flies across the room, or directly towards someone’s eye. (Always point the bottle away from people you like. People you don’t like, on the other hand . . . that’s your choice) Then there’s the liveliness of the wine dancing in the glass. Then there’s the . . . well, I guess that’s enough, really. I guess it’s the *POP* of the bottle that gives the wine its celebratory feel, like fireworks in a bottle, and the very-suggestive flying cork and the wine frothing out of the bottle (Wink, wink. Kinda makes the end on NASCAR races seem a bit dirty, doesn’t it?)

But before the *POP* was under control, it was a relatively bad thing. Before sparkling wine production as we know existed, the fizz was usually accidental. The wineries of old, before modern heating, would chill down with the seasons. Once the fermenting grape juice dropped below a certain temperature, the yeasts stopped working and went into a hibernation of sorts. If the wine was bottled at that time before the fermentation was complete, the yeasts would still live and continue working once they heated back up. Sure, they started producing the carbon dioxide that produces the bubbles we all like, but they also started causing bottles to explode from all the pressure. This was also before decent bottle technology. Did I mention that?

So with that in mind, Dom Perignon, one of the earliest developers of the wines of Champagne, although attributed with the quote “Come quickly! I’m tasting the stars!”, was actually trying to produce still (non-sparkling) wines. The quote was actually part of an 1800s advertisement for the Dom Perignon wines. The real quote of Dom Perignon was probably something like, “Merde! All the bottles exploded again!” Hm. It sounds more romantic the other way, doesn’t it?

Well, while I’m bursting bubbles of sparkling romanticism, I might mention that popping the cork out with resonance upsets the wine, and causes those precious bubbles to go flat. The best way to get that cork out is with a strong hand and “whispering” the cork out. But to me, the more fun way is “sabering”. This is the knocking the top off the bottle with a sword. It’s easier than it sounds, but more dangerous, considering the shards of glass flying about. So, again, keep the bottle pointed only at your enemies. Wait . . . Why are your enemies at the party, anyway?

So here’s a collection of wonderful, and wonderfully priced, bubblies! I found that I ended up pouring most of the same ones every year, so I went out of my way to find new and interesting sparklers I’ve never tried before. Once again, though, it’s a tour of the world with a stop in Italy for Prosecco, Spain for Cava, Australia’s Tasmania for their sparkler, Oregon and California for more sparklers, and off to France for one bubbly from the Loire and one true Champagne. And best of all, we don’t need any corkscrews!

So Friday, December 15th, between 4:30 and 9:00 PM it’s:

Bountiful Bodacious Bubbles!!!
Ruggeri & Co NV Prosecco Gold Label, Veneto, Italy
Didier Champalou NV Vouvray Petillant Brut, Loire, France
Gramona 2002 Cava Grand Cuvee, Penedes, Spain
Jansz Tasmania NV Premium Cuvee, Tasmania, Australia
Domaine Meriwether NV Discovery Cuvee, Willamette Valley, Oregon

Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles!!!
J 1999 Sparkling, Russian River, California
Joseph Perrier NV Champagne, Cuvee Royal

A stellar deal at $10 for the First 5, $6 for the Extra 2 Premium Pours.
Hope to see you here!

Seize the Wine!

Next Friday tasting is Procrastinator’s Gift Guide!

M