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Jen’s back at work, so that means the cellar is getting re-stocked for the return of Wine Wednesdays.

Last night Jen was telling me a story about a tasting they had at work earlier in the week. Jen’s company reps Gabbiano. It’s a winery from Italy with a great heritage, and an absolutely horrible label.

And that’s the problem. The wine inside is perfectly brilliant, but in this world where few of us are wine connoisseurs, but all of us are wine lovers - we have to judge the juice by it’s bottle. Gabbiano’s Pinot Grigio is an excellent selection for this smokin hot weekend we’ve got coming up. Floral, crisp and just right for the heat while the kids run through the sprinkler. It’s just $10.99 at the liquor store, but when placed up against Voga, another Italian Pinot Grigio that’s $4 more expensive, it’s getting killed at the till.

Do a blind tasting and you’ll probably pick Gabbiano. Voga isn’t bad, it’s just the Gabbiano is better. However, we don’t do our buying by taking a blind taste test. We taste with our eyes before we taste with our tongue, and just one look at the Voga bottle will have you whipping out $15 faster than you can say “Hey, it looks a lot like the Voss water bottle, doesn’t it?”

So if you’re rocking the bbq this weekend, or just chilling in the backyard and watching the petals fall off the tulips, pick up the Gabbiano, and decant it in an empty Voss bottle. Your friends won’t know the difference.

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We finally got to the wine part of the trip today. Well, we’ve actually been cracking bottles regularly in our room each night, but today we actually got to do a proper degustation in Vouvray, just east of Tours.

Moncontour was the first we hit. Ick. The tasting room was, at first, closed. The woman spoke little english and did even less in french to show off her wines or take us through a proper tasting. She basically asked for us to point to something on the list, she’d crack it and leave it to us to decide if it was any good. It was okay. We bought a couple bottles, out of guilt for having wasted her time.

5 seconds down the road I found the winery that Rick Steves recommended to visit, Marc Bredif. What a difference in approach. A formal, beautiful tasting room with bilingual guides who asked a few questions about our tastes and then took us on a fabulous journey through dry bubble to aged chenin blanc wrapping up with a super sweet nectar. We bought 2 bottles here, wishing we hadnt bought the 2 before.

They even let us wander their caves underneath the winery where I shot this video telling more of the story:

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We’re in France - why wait til Wednesday?

Actually, Wednesday is the day we do some serious tastings here in the Loire, so expect a longer post then. In the meantime just a quick little video we shot tonight mixing some Nicolas Feuillatte Champagne and Chambord Liqueur Royale.

We visited the Chambord Chateau today, and on the way back to Le Moulin Du Port (our B&B), we passsed the Chambord property - pretty cool.

Once again, our pairings are TOTALLY off, but what are you going to do when you’re in France with a 10mo old and curfew is each night at 7p, and the restos don’t open til 8? Well, you do a quick video with some champagne and Chambord for y’all and then settle in for a few episodes of Dexter on the MacBook.

BTW, tomorrow, we walk the 4k along the banks of the Cher to Chenonceau, a chateau with no moat, because it was built on the river.

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To celebrate our engagement on Monday night, Jen and I opted for a romantic dinner in.

A couple of boxes of takeout from Mezzo di Pasta and a bottle of Tavel from the marche.

Again, we’re not pairing this properly, but Jen was so excited to see this half bottle on the shelf, she dropped it (must have been the extra weight from that engagement ring;). It didnt break, we bought it.

This wine is only available in the spring and is ripe for the hot Mediterranean days to sip on a patio with a bucket of mussels. It’s about +2 and raining in Paris and we’re having bolognese pasta. So the pairing is off - way off. But this is Paris, and Jen and I got engaged today, and Zacharie is sleeping. All that makes a perfect pairing.

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If you dont know a lot about wine (like me) you get easily seduced by the labels on the bottle. The pretty colours, the style, the design.

I used to buy music this way. Back in highschool, when I was getting to music, I would go to A&A Records and flip through stacks of wax by bands I had never heard of - if I liked the cover, I’d buy it.

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s be real - we all do.

So what’s in a label for a bottle of wine. Check out these three:

Which are you more apt to buy? The classic art piece on the Gabbiano? The richness of the Rosemount? The simple Penfolds?

The Rosemount label is a redesign, but to me it still looks 80s. It lokos like a rich steakhouse, but to me it’s just a little cheesy. The Lindemans labels are the same for me.. meh. Now that says nothing of the wine inside, because last week I RAVED about the Lindemans Bin 95, but if I just saw that label, I’d scream right past it.

I’m not a fan of the Gabbiano label either. It may be a vintage representation of Il Cavalieri, a representation of the knights who protected the winery castle in the middle ages, but it just looks old to me. Like a 50s version of vintage, not a timeless interpretation. I would walk right past that one too.

The Penfolds labels are the ones that really make me stop and take notice. Classic, simple and refined. Simple white labels with the red name splash and the varietal beneath. There are a wide variety of wines from the Penfolds house, but they all have the same format on the label, and it’s a winner.

Jen and I were taking it light this week on the libations, no real drinking was done. Next week, however, Wine Wednesday will come to you live from France with the goooood stuff.

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Gary Vaynerchuk owns Wine Library in New Jersey. It’s a wine store. Gary has a website for his wine store.

But that’s where the usual link between bricks and mortar and the internet end. Gary’s site is an alive and active blog with stories and tastings and humour and videos as he rolls around tasting wine and sharing his passion with the world.

Gary’s key goals are twofold: “First, I want people to try different wines. How can you have a favorite if you only know a few? Second, I tell people to trust their palates. If a wine appeals to your palate, then it’s a good choice. Don’t feel pressured to like popular brands or what experts recommend. Buy what ‘brings the thunder’ for you.” [source]

Jen and I have described wine as tasting like band aids, musty, fruity etc.

O RLY?

Gary is out to prove it. He recently went on Conan, where he had the host taste some wine, taste some dirt - and realize, “Hey! It’s the same!”

http://view.break.com/343258 - Watch more free videos

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Sometimes Mommy needs a drink.

Yesterday was one of those days. Le Grand Monsieur is fighting a stuffy nose and congestion. Yeah, I gave it to him. It took me 3 days to kick it, hopefully the little guy can get it done quicker.

So Jen tried for an hour to get him down, no luck. Then he played for a bit before keeling over for 40 mins at around the time he should just be waking up. Poor guy. Poor Mommy.

So when I got home Jen had a bottle of Lindeman’s Bin 95 Sauvignon Blanc 2007 freshy ‘corked’ and poured on the counter.

From the website: The generous flavours and contemporary, easy-drinking style combines easily with food and most social occasions to deliver maximum enjoyment from the first glass to the last.

From the label: Lifted tropical flavours, with a crisp, dry finish.

The Sav Blanc hit the spot for Jen. Easy drinking, fruity and crisp. You could have it with a salad, mussels, fish - or on it’s own, after a tough day. Green apple and grass without a lip puckering tartness - that’s the difference between the Aussie and New Zealand Sav Blanc’s - the kiwi ones have a bit more mineral and gooseberry tang to go with them.

One other cool thing about this selection is it has a screw top. It’s all good, they’re cool now. Jen preaches the screw top as the best way to have just a glass and keep the bottle in the fridge door - for the next hard day.

Lindeman’s Bin 95 Sauvignon Blanc is “beyond a bargain,” Jen says, for ONLY $12.95 at your BC Liquor Store. You CANNOT get a local wine of this quality at this pricepoint. As we move into spring break, a long weekend and then summer - stock up and get some on standby.

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In September 06, Jen and I went to Onterrible (as she calls it) for a cousin’s wedding. They live in Stoney Creek, just south of Hamilton out towards Niagara Falls.

The Niagara Escarpment is the big wine growing region in Ontario, so we took the opportunity to visit some of the wineries. The one we enjoyed the most and spent the most time chatting with the staff was Thirty Bench. We left with a couple of bottles and this week we cracked one.

Thirty Bench 2002 Benchmark Blend.

From the label: This wine contains 50% Cabernet Franc, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 25% Merlot. The wine was fermented in small bins using various yeasts to gain complexity, was left to macerate for a few weeks to soften its tannins, and was subsequently aged in french and american oak barrels for almost a year. You can enjoy this wine immediately after its release, but it will improve considerably with age.

From the website: Tasting notes of toffee, oak and stewed tomatoes on the nose.

We made the mistake of having it with spicy food, chicken, beans and yam fries. It didn’t stand up very well, not at all. It was fruity for me, exploding in blueberries and plums, and while it was probably fine with roast beef, pork chops, or a flank steak, it just couldn’t handle our spicy food.

Even though we didnt pair it properly, Jen was still disappointed with her palate on the decision. She thinks we should have drank it right away when we got home, or maybe they served us a ‘better bottle’ at the winery. Even still, she says if she tasted tonight what she tasted then, she wouldnt have bought that bottle.

It’s one of those things that happens when you go to a winery, you can get romanced into buying things that just don’t quite taste the same when you get home. We also picked up a Pinot Meunier Rose when we were there that, on site, tasted like Thanksgiving Dinner - cranberries and sweetness and excellence, however at home - it wasnt anything like that.

So we’re 0 for 2 from Thirty Bench so far. Beautiful winery, not so much with the wine.

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It’s been going all week and tomorrow the main event of the 30th Annual Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival hits town - the wine tastings at the Trade and Convention Centre

However, this past weekend, Jen and I along with a couple of other couples, had our own little wine fest! When you’re married to a wine rep, and head over to a colleague’s house is a wine rep, and also married to a wine rep, you know some grape will be poured and 4 bottles of beauty hit the table on Saturday night.

First the menu: There was a spicy sausage and creamy cheese tray with baguette while we chilled, then dinner was a beef tenderloin that absolutely melted with white asparagus, green beans and potatoes. A roasted tomato and spinach salad was on the side.

Here are 2 of the 4 wines we polished off:

Domaine de Montfaucon 2005 Viognier - Now I don’t recognize this grape right off the bat either, it’s not a big 6, but this Viognier was smooth and easy drinking. Right away I could taste the honey, our hosts said honeysuckle, but I thought it was richer, right to honey. Wiki says: The color and the aroma of the wine suggest a sweet wine but Viognier wines are predominantly dry.

Pinotage - Jen thinks this one tastes like band aids, the South Africans at our table were drifting back home as they talked about the smell being like an African camp fire. After all, it is South Africa’s signature grape. In the end, I agreed with Jen, it had a dusty medicinal taste that just didnt do much.

Some interesting choices there for your weekend sipping, or maybe you’ll head off to the ‘Fest and get your glass on. Before you do that, have a quick look over the Insiders Guide for Wine Festivals.

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The Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival is in town this week. The formal tastings and dinners are wrapping up and the main event is ready to roll.

For 3 nights the Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre will be turned into one giant juice pit as thousands turn out, glass in hand.

Jen is a wine rep. She’s worked this event for.years. I picked her brain to get the tips and tricks as you head down to get your grape on.

1. Respect the pourer. They’re not $10/hr hostesses, but actually knowledgeable sales reps, maybe the President of the company, or perhaps even the Winemaker
2. Respect your palate. Start with the light wines and finish heavy (ie save the Ports til last) If you’re going on 2 separate nights, do white one night, red the other
3. Leave your big purse at home. It’s tough to balance all that and a glass, a wristlet with your id and keys should be enough. That said …
4. Bring a journal or notebook to take notes on what you’re trying. Trust me, 5 glasses in you’ll forget what you had first
5. Try something different than what you always buy – here’s your chance to go on an adventure with minimal risk
6. If you like it, buy it. All wines poured on site, are available at the store on site, so if you really love something, pick up a couple bottles before you leave as many “show exclusives” are brought in for this event only
7. Don’t wear white. Even if you don’t spill, someone else might. Jen saw someone in a beautiful white suit one year, with a lovely streak of shiraz right down her back
8. There are no dumb questions, you’re there to learn, and the pourers are there to help
   Have something to eat before you go. You’re going to be drinking a lot, and you don’t want to do it on an empty stomach. Which leads us to …
9. Spit spit spit spit! You’re going to be drinking a lot, so even if you’re looking to get your drunk on, spit
10. Don’t rinse your glass with the water at the table, people think they’re spittoons (see #10). Instead, ask the pourer for a splash of the wine you’re about to sample to rinse out your glass.
11. The good stuff will be gone by Saturday night, all the expensive bubbles etc are in limited quantities, so look for them Thursday and early in the night on Friday

That may sound grand, but not all is wonderful, there are some pet peeves of the staff working the event you should try to keep in mind to keep your experience the best.

1. This is their Christmas. Most pourers have been pulling 12+hour days pouring wine and entertaining VIPS all week, so be patient with them.
2. Sloppy drunk people may be fun at the Roxy, but they’re not fun at WineFest. Have a good time, but keep it under control
3. Raising your glass and clinking it on the bottle isn’t necessary. Say “when”, when you mean “when” and they’ll stop pouring
4. Perfume and smelly hairspray. One of the most powerful qualities of wine, is its bouquet. Dousing yourself in Curious by Britney Spears and emptying a bottle of Final Net on your head before you leave will not only kill all your senses, but those of the people around you. You think we’re kidding, we’re not. Not even a quick spritz. Go au naturel to this event. PLEASE!
5. Going right for the decanter. It’s not necessarily the most expensive. Jen and her team have been known to take the cheapest bottle they’re pouring and drop it in a decanter just to fool the smart asses. ASK first, they might even reach under the table and pull out a secret bottle for you to sample
6. The know-it-all is almost as bad as the candy perfume girl. Yes, you’ve been to Napa. Maybe you’ve even golfed with Ernest and Julio, but remember tips 1 and 8 from above. You may be bragging to someone even more special than yourself, and, in the end, everyone is there to learn and have fun

So now that you’re well versed in the behind-the-scenes secrets of WineFest, you’re almost set. One final thing to remember: visit the Get Home Safe Booth for a free transit pass to get your buns home safe.

Everyone loves wine. Nobody likes a dead drunk.

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