Reviews of wines and spirits for the curious drinker.
Heavy Wine Bottles
In my posts, I’ve been calling out bottles that weigh more than the wine they contain, which I’ve named Bloated Bottle Syndrome. The web site of nearly every winery will usually include a mention of the operation’s dedication to “sustainability” and “stewardship.” Unfortunately, this often seems only to extend to the property itself. Many “premium” wines come in heavier bottles to allegedly denote higher quality.
Obviously, I enjoy wine, but I’m a fan of liquor too, especially brandy. Brandy is distilled from wine and aged in wood to give it its characteristic flavor and color. The word brandy comes from the Dutch brandewijin, meaning “burned (distilled) wine.” It is usually made from grape wine, but can be distilled from other fruit wines, most often apple, in which case it is called apple brandy or applejack generically and Calvados in France. Cognac is brandy that specifically comes from the town of Cognac and the delimited surrounding areas in western France. So, all Cognacs are brandy, but not all brandies are Cognac. For more detail on Cognac, click here.
How to Read a Wine List
This rant is also available as a podcast episode.
When presented with a restaurant wine list, don’t be rushed or intimidated. The server will often hand you a pages-long list, but then expect you to make a selection immediately, before you have any idea what foods you’re going to pair it with. That’s a bad idea. My suggestion is to just ask for water and then that will give you time to try and figure out what your entree is going to be. Sometimes the server will still try to rush you because they are on a schedule. Just politely say, “Well, we will have some wine with dinner, but we don’t know what we’re eating. So we need some time. Once we decide on our food, then we’re going to order some wine to go with it.”