All things wine

The accepted wine bottle closure for nearly 300 years has been the cork. While some think that the cork has a substantial bearing on the way a great wine ages in the bottle, nobody really knows.

More and more, when a cork is popped, the smell of the wine is not the bright, fresh fruit that emanated from the last bottle of the same wine. The naturally occurring compound 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), present in only tiny amounts, can cause a wine to smell “corked” or “corky”. The malodor is similar to moldy cardboard. [click to continue…]

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How does someone KNOW the wine you may have at auction been stored properly?

We all know that the right wine has outperformed the market pretty handily the last few months.  If you bought smart, and stored it right, you have an asset that is probably worth far more than you paid for it even just a couple years ago.  Wine is historically unaffected by other, outside influences (like the stock market), and has been a pretty good bet.

But when you go to sell it, if you can prove it was properly stored for the time you have it, that will typically make it worth more than of the buyer has to take it on face value that it was in a properly conditioned cellar.  But how do you do that?  The Cellar Sensor line of products is an outstanding example of the right way to do just that.

At a very high level, the Cellar Sensor gear records the temperature and humidity of the air in your cellar, and the temperature in the bottle, and will report back to a private website what is happening.  If things get out of a user-determined range of parameters, you (or Vinaire) are automatically notified so faults can be corrected quickly.

Want to know more?  Contact us today, and we would be happy to talk with you about how this fits into your collecting strategy.

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In a “Wine Spectator” column some years ago, Jancis Robinson, M.W., compared regular-size bottles of a wine to the same wine in imperials (eight-bottle size) and found, in most instances, the bottles were better.

The first lavish big-bottle event I attended was some 25 years ago in San Francisco. At one unforgettable dinner, we enjoyed Chateau Leoville Barton 1929 (imperial), Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou 1929 (imperial), Chateau La Lagune 1929 (jeroboam) and Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou 1928 (jeroboam).

In the mid-‘70s to early ‘80s, wine auctions were few and far between, almost unknown except to devoted enophiles. We regularly purchased and drank Bordeaux wines from ’45, ’47, ’49, ’59 and ’61. Sometimes wines from the great vintages of the ’20s would surface on the block, and on the rare occasion, the great twin years of 1899 and 1900, as well as some pre-phylloxera wines, would emerge—and at ridiculously low prices. [click to continue…]

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If you saw a label that read, “Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese Erzeugerabfullung Egon Muller xw Scharzhof Qualitatswein Mit Pradikat Mosel-Saar-Ruwer”, you might continue down the aisle toward the California section. Skipping right over that label, let’s investigate some facts about German wines: [click to continue…]

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I once read a wine article in which the writer quoted a wine shop salesperson as saying that instead of reading wine guides or wine reviews, you should just trust your own palate. Well, that’s an interesting idea, except that it could take 10 wine purchases before “your own palate” finds one that is a great value.

There’s no question that different writers appeal to different consumers. I’ve had recommendations from wine shop salespersons and wine writers that were perfect, and just the opposite. When you do find someone in the know with whom you agree most of the time, better stick with him/her! [click to continue…]

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