“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light.
Take off all of your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.”
~ Cesare Pavese
HOW TO TRAVEL
THE CABERNET SAUVIGNON IS IN!
Yesterday, our co-op got our allotment of Cabernet Sauvignon fruit from our source – Cass Vineyards in Paso Robles. 1100 pounds of very nice grapes are now fermenting in our cold room. They join the Merlot and Rousanne already through fermentation and await the Cabernet Franc fruit yet to come. The Rousanne will be bottled in 2015 and the reds in 2016.
The Rousanne will be bottled with the Rhone-style reds that have been in the barrels for a year thus far – Syrah, Mouvedre, Granache, and some Malbec. Then, in 2016, it will be Bordeaux-style wines for us.
A GREAT SITE FOR STATS ABOUT NAPA AND WINE IN GENERAL
I came across this site yesterday – thought I would share it. Lots of info about wine and wine production.
A VERY GOOD ARTICLE ABOUT THE PIEDMONT REGION OF ITALY
CELLAR MASTERS ON THE CELEBRITY SOLSTICE
As a wine lover, you will want to visit Cellar Masters, a feature of several ships in the Celebrity fleet. This nicely appointed wine bar features comfortable furnishings to sit and sip, a wine bar, and an Enomatic Wine Dispensing System that stores and pours with the use of a card.
We had experienced a Cellar Masters on the Celebrity Equinox a couple of years ago, and were eager to see what the experience on the Solstice would be. Our host is Csbas (Sha-vas) from Hungary, a very formal and knowledgeable young man who has had a passion for wine since he was 14. We stopped in to introduce ourselves and were very impressed with Csbas’ knowledge of wine and wine regions around the world. Celebrity has a very good training program for its international wine staff. The staff ranges from the wine stewards in the dining room, to the Cellar Master host, to the overall Ship’s Wine Master who reports to the Food and Beverage Chief Officer. As with most of the cruise line positions, there is a lot of competition to get promoted, and wine knowledge combined with the provision of excellent service, is the path to the top.
We visited Csbas often during the cruise.
On our first full day at sea, there was an Around the World Wine Tasting event at Cellar Masters. There were six wine stations, three representing the Old World – France, Germany, and Spain; and three featuring the New World – California, Australia/New Zealand, and Argentina. There were a total of 12 wines, six reds and six whites, all of which are available by the bottle on the Solstice. These wines were what I would call, price-accessible to just about everyone, meaning that they were not premium wines. A wine steward staffed each position. There was a table with fruits, cheeses, breads and crackers for palate maintenance. The tasting cost $20 per person, and was attended by about 60 people.
We had a very good time, between tasting wines from labels that, for the most part, we had never had. Speaking with the very knowledgeable wine stewards, and connecting with some of the others at the event.
In the next post, I will describe a higher-end tasting of a flight of four French wines that Dorianne and I enjoyed at Cellar Masters.
WINE ON A CRUISE SHIP?
This will be the first of several posts about my experiences with wine and other beverages on a cruise to Alaska
We booked an Alaskan Cruise this September. Dorianne and I are leading a group of twenty – something that we do just about every year; sometimes on land, sometimes at sea. Our 11 night cruise on the Celebrity Solstice departed from Seattle and will end in Vancouver, after exploring Alaska and British Columbia ports of call.
We chose Celebrity for a number of reasons. We like their ships (Solstice class especially), and they always do a good job with food and beverages. Celebrity is owned by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, and is more upscale than that line.
I will be blogging about the wine experience aboard a ship like this, which is positioned between the basic level lines like Carnival and Royal Caribbean, and the upscale lines like Crystal and Seabourne.
Celebrity has a wine list of over 60 pages to cover its many dining rooms, buffet areas, cocktail lounges and bars. There are a total of 35 to 40 wines served by the glass, the selection varying by location on the ship. Bottled wines are available across a wide spectrum in the main dining room and some of the specialty restaurants; and a more limited selection is available at the other bars throughout the ship. The bars range from upscale lounges with live music to a disco to pool bars to Cellar Masters, which specializes in wine. There are lots of options and very little waiting at any of the bars – the Solstice is brilliantly designed to minimize waits for food and beverages, as well as for just about all activities on board the ship.
The first thing to realize is that your wine experience will depend on some of the decisions that you make before you sail. Celebrity offers beverage packages in two basic categories – general packages that include all kinds of beverages; and specialized packages that give access to a narrow range of beverages. You can also opt for a pay-as-you-go process, paying separately for each drink or bottle that you order. There are plusses and minuses to these options, of course.
We generally opt for the premium general beverage package. This includes all non-alcoholic beverages, including specialty coffee drinks, premium bottled water, etc., and beer, wine and cocktails up to $13 per glass. The premium package costs $56 per day and must be purchased for the entire cruise. The package gives a 20% discount on bottles of wine. There is also a classic package for $10 less per day that limits you to beverages under $9 per glass. The packages do not cover cabin mini-bar or room service beverages.
There is also a wine-only package that gives you a certain number of bottles in one of three price categories for a discount of about 10% off of the regular bottle price. Celebrity’s markups are like restaurant markups – 2 to 2 ½ times the retail price of the wine.
With the premium package, you are better off ordering wines by the glass up to the price point of $13 per glass, which covers about 90% of the wines by the glass menu on the ship. There are a few places, such as the specialty restaurants, where you pay a premium to dine, and Cellar Masters, a wine bar, that have a higher number of upscale wines by the glass on their wine lists. BUT, when you order a wine at, say, $18 per glass and you have the premium package, you pay the full $18 for that glass – you get no credit for the first $13, according to Celebrity policy. However, we did speak to a person who said that she had ordered more expensive glasses on this cruise and was only charged for the difference. I will blog separately about the specialty restaurants and Cellar Masters – some very nice wine experiences are to be had there.
If you are a wine by the bottle person, you will likely do better with a specialty wine package and perhaps a general package that does not include alcoholic beverages, or a classic general package to allow you to get beer and some cocktails. There are well over a dozen bars on this ship, some with amazing cocktail preparations that may draw you away from a wine-only policy. Plus, you are on vacation – so have fun!
GREAT WINE SHOP AT PIKE PLACE MARKET
We are in Seattle, getting ready to lead a group on an Alaska and British Columbia cruise on the Celebrity Solstice, where I will be blogging about the wine experience aboard ship. Today, we visited Pike Place Market, the legendary Seattle landmark. If you go through the amazing Delaurenti gourmet market, just past the newsstand, you will find a staircase to a wonderful little wine shop.
The selection is relatively small, with the exception of wines of the Northwest, as you might expect. But even the selection of European wines is just large enough and well-chosen enough to give you a sense of real choices. There are great wines in most categories and they have been pre-selected by the owners. There really aren’t any wines here that you would not want to drink. There is also a large selection of great wines in half-bottles to use for a picnic with some of the delicacies downstairs in the gourmet market. And lots of bubbly choices, too.
If you are in Seattle, this is a real gem, along with Pike & Western Wines, at the north end of the market complex, another regional gem.
A BOTTLE OF WINE A DAY IS NOT BAD FOR YOU? NEW RESEARCH.
Another article based on research showing the overall benefits of drinking wine.
Here is a salient quote: “The weight of the evidence shows moderate drinking is better than abstaining and heavy drinking is worse than abstaining – however the moderate amounts can be higher than the guidelines say,” Dr Poikolainen reportedly told The Mail.
What are your thoughts on this?
A 2008 SANGIOVESE FROM OUR CO-OP
Tonight for dinner, we had a 2008 Sangiovese from the Conejo Valley Wine Co-op. This wine was made before Dorianne and I joined. We were gifted two bottles by our winemaker, Richard Clark, after a former member turned some wine back to the co-op.
From Wikipedia: Sangiovese (san-jo-veh-zeh[1] [sandʒoˈveːze]) is a red Italian wine grape variety that derives its name from the Latin sanguis Jovis, “the blood of Jove“.[2] Though it is the grape of most of central Italy from Romagna down to Lazio, Campania and Sicily, outside Italy it is most famous as the only component of Brunello di Montalcino andRosso di Montalcino and the main component of the blend Chianti, Carmignano, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano andMorellino di Scansano, although it can also be used to make varietal wines such as Sangiovese di Romagna and the modern “Super Tuscan” wines like Tignanello.[3]
Sangiovese was already well known by the 16th century. Recent DNA profiling by José Vouillamoz of the Istituto Agrario di San Michele all’Adige suggests that Sangiovese’s ancestors are Ciliegiolo and Calabrese Montenuovo. The former is well known as an ancient variety in Tuscany, the latter is an almost-extinct relic from the Calabria, the toe of Italy.[4] At least fourteen Sangiovese clones exist, of which Brunello is one of the best regarded. An attempt to classify the clones into Sangiovese grosso (including Brunello) and Sangiovese piccolo families has gained little evidential support.[5]
The wine was simply amazing – elegant, with a nose of fruit and spice, smooth in the mouth and clearly a wonderful wine. Kudos to Dennis Weiher, our former winemaker for this one!
For more info on our wine co-op, go to this link.
NEW WINE BLOG
My friend, Ellen Daly, has started Wine Loves Company, a wine blog – check it out
Jim Lockard On Wine 