Wine Glass Info

If you’ve been invited to a housewarming party, wine makes a fantastic gift. It’s also a nice gesture to bring a bottle of wine when you’ve been invited to a dinner party. But any time you have to transport wine, it’s a harrowing experience. Letting it roll on the backseat of a car can lead to a broken bottle, a lost night’s worth of wine, and a terrible mess. Even having somebody hold a bottle of wine is tricky, because there’s no guarantee the bottle doesn’t slip right out of their fingers.

To make transporting wine a little bit easier, try a leather wine tote. These carrying cases are designed specifically with wine in mind. The exterior of the case is a hard plastic, meaning it will protect the wine inside from bumps and jolts. In order to cushion the bag from any potential shock, it is also lined with suede.

The totes are usually designed to carry anywhere from one to three bottles of wine, and they are secured internally by elastic straps. And the entire bag is finished off with an adjustable shoulder strap.

So, transporting wine just got a little less stressful!

When you’re throwing a dinner party, it’s easy to forget little details like slipping the champagne or white wine into the fridge before your guests arrive. So if you hear the doorbell ring and realize you have a counter full of lukewarm champagne, you don’t have to worry—so long as your freezer has a champagne cooler.A champagne cooler is essentially a frozen ice pack that can be slipped over any champagne or wine bottle. The “ice jacket” will cool the bottle in as little as five minutes.

Some people opt to chill wines in a champagne bucket, but this takes much longer than a champagne cooler. Plus, it makes the exterior of the bottle wet, which can result in water rings on wood dining room tables. With the champagne cooler, there won’t be any water, and there won’t be any mess.

These devices are sturdy and durable, and as such, they can be reused often. When you’re done with the party, just throw the cooler back into the freezer for the next event.

Sometimes in buying a younger wine, I will find one that will make me shutter. It has a very harsh finish; the balance is not there yet. The question is will a wine like this become any better with time. I think it depends on where the wine has originated. If that vintner puts out fabulous aged wine then I believe in the weakness of the very young wine. I have taken such an experience to the test and even after just four years of sitting, it has become a beautiful wine. I knew it would. I could tell it just needed time. The longer this vintage sits in the wine rack, up to a point, the better it will become. I look forward to drinking it in a few more years to see how it is doing. I will let you know.

Purple Lips

I have learned over the course of the year, how much all the vintners talk among themselves about the weather and how it is affecting the grapevines, the grapes, and each vineyard. I also have learned how I take these same vintners for granted. These people always appeared to me as the elite, with their grand vineyards and picturesque estates, however I am very wrong. As it is said, “things are not always the way they appear”. The vintner is a very hard working, dedicated, farmer of grapes. I never ever thought about them being farmers, but they are. Yet these very dedicated people are the ones that help to bring you your favorite memories, with your favorite people, in your favorite place.

This year in California, after staying up night after night, listening to the howling wind and pounding rains, wondering if the roof would blow off, they have watched their best vines wash away in the January and February flooding rains. They fought to save their grapes against an uncommon frost until the very end of April, only to loose the first formed buds. They hoped for warm weather to start a new crop and their prayers were heard, the heat came and came and came.  It became incredibly hot. Record breaking hot. Do not forget that brush fires go with the heat. Thick smoke settled over the wine valleys draping them like a thick cloud of fog which made breathing most difficult. Nevertheless, the weather began to cooperate and with their hard work, the grapes grew in spite of it all.There is a small crop of grapes to meet the need for the 2008 year. I hope God has blessed this year’s grapes. The blood, sweat, and tears of the growers, in the California valleys, are in that wine. I hear it should be an excellent year for California wine. When the time comes to open a 2008 vintage, I will think about you the vintners. I will never take you for granted again, be it in California or anywhere else in the world that grapes are grown and wine is made. I lift my wine glass to all of you, thank you, for what you do. Thank you, for some of the best memories in my life. Here is to a good year ahead.
 
The Wine Cohort