In the last 45 years that I have been drinking wine, probably well over a thousand

bottles of wine, I can really say that I have only had 2 bottles of what I had

considered wine that had gone bad and had actually been “corked”. Drinking

a sip of corked wine is something you will never forget once it has happened to

you, trust me on that! It doesn’t mean that the cork has slipped, moved, let in

damaging air (because all corks can do that) but in fact it means that the cork

has been attacked by fungi in the presence of chlorine used in the manufacture of

wine corks. Bluntly, it tastes like hell! You will spit and throw it away or return it

to the place you bought it, if recently purchased, and want to ram it up one of the

assorted orifices of their body. It’s bad.

What I want to relay is what the cork can do to your stored wine, subtlety. You

can detect something different but you can’t put your finger on it. It happens to

everyone who likes a certain wine, buys a supply of it for your home, and then

something happens and the next bottle doesn’t taste the same as the last ones.

What happened? Did my taste or memory of how it was supposed to taste change?

Possibly, but more than likely, the cork messed around with the wine and affected

the taste from the last bottle you tried. Years ago, there was a brewery in

Dubuque, Iowa called the Dubuque Star Brewery. It was an old, very small facility

and it had a reputation, other than being dirt cheap, that the beer never tasted the

same in any two different bottles. Well, that can happen to a wine that is bottled

and stored with a natural cork (tree bark for God’s sake) stuck in its top.

The cork is porous as it has veins and fissures running through it and even though

it is squeezed fairly tight in the neck of the bottle, it can still shrink allowing

movement, saturate and let fluid permeate it causing leaking and let air (oxygen)

into the wine letting it change in flavor in a bad way. Have you ever gone into a

huge barrel room in a winery? With all those wooden barrels, what is the first thing

you smell in the sealed barrel room? Wine! What is the color of the barrel in the

middle of its side around the “bung” plug made of wood or cork? Red wine stain.

That wine is breathing during the barrel fermentation. A wine bottle is a small

barrel with a natural stopper – cork. It will, at some time, be susceptible to all the

nasty things that can happen to natural cork. For that reason, when you store wine

in a too warm of a place at home (my favorite horrible place that I see people store

wine on the top of a warm, vibrating refrigerator) you will see the wine age quicker.

It will have pressures that are not to be considered normal and the wine will not

hold and mature as it should in cool dark place like a cellar.

People that store wine with a cork in it standing up in a cupboard is also a real

problem sitting there waiting to happen. Wine is heavy, air is light, the cork dries

out and you have bad wine. Don’t do it. Sunlight is bad too but that is another

addition to be attacked later.

What is the bottom line? Buy wine to drink within a reasonable time. If you drink

it soon, you can darn near store it any place and any way you want with little or no

chance of damage or premature aging. If, however, you are going to buy a case

and want to drink it over the next few months, store it in a dark, cool place on its

side like an internal closet or wardrobe. Even in the refrigerator is better that on

top of it! If you don’t want it to change as fast but store it longer at home, buy

good wines with screw caps. Don’t knock it – they really, really work! Ask the

Australians!

My job allowed me to travel to Northern Spain for a week in March to the town of

Vitoria. It is located just north of the fine wine region of Rioja, where most of the

great reds are grown using the Tampranillo and Granacha verities of grapes. I

arrived there in late afternoon and was greeted by a very fun and interesting guy

and a couple of his co-workers who insisted that we go out for meal at 8:45PM,

which is really late for this old “poop” to eat anything. We drove across the city

to a favorite spot of his and were seated at table in the back and not speaking

any Spanish, I let him order for the 4 of us. They asked if I had ever had the

opportunity to enjoy the local wine, rioja? Not ever having been introduced to it, I

told him no, but I was really looking forward to trying it. He asked me to pick one

from the wine list and I really smiled and pushed it back to him with the admission

that I had no clue as to what I was looking at. He graciously accepted the duty

and ordered a magnum that was from a local bodega which did not export wine

out of the country. (Oh Great! I’ll never get to taste anything like this again!)

The meal of calamari, prawns and Spanish thin cut cured ham was wonderful but

the wine was magnificent! I had never, ever had anything even close to it. They

could tell by my expressions that I was instantly in love with it. My host spoke

absolutely flawless English so the Rioja wine region stories began to fly fast and

furious. I learned where the region was, the types of grapes, the cheap prices and

all about the “bodegas” or wineries that were located only a stone’s-throw from

where we were dining. It was a great evening and I was totally hooked on rioja.

Over the next two evenings, we went pub crawling at the “tapas” bars, eating

wonderful inexpensive hot Spanish food and each pub had cheap glasses of rioja.

It was all fantastic. On the final day together, after all the meetings, I was taken

for a restaurant that we had actually eaten at the day before. I thought it a

bit funny that in a city as big as Vitoria, we would return to the same place for

lunch. We were taken in and then I was lead down three flights of stone steps

in this old building to the owner’s “private wine cellar”. Oh my God! What was

this place? There were probably 500 different cells, each with 10-20 bottles of the

finest Rioja wine in them in the country. Again when asked which one I wanted

to try, I politely declined and stated that I wanted to rely on their experience and

knowledge of this fantastic wine and they should pick it. They chose 2 different

bottles from the endless racks of wine and we were brought all sorts of “starters”

of fish, vegetables and crackers to have with the wine, which was absolutely

amazing. I thought that was great and a good way to have a light lunch, but I was

not finished! The lights came on in the next room off the cellar and we moved into

a completely lavishly set table and were set down to a 5 course meal. The food

was out of this world and the wine just kept flowing. It was an amazing “once in a

lifetime” experience.

When I returned to the UK I was skeptical about being able to find a good “Rioja”

or if I could afford it if I did find it. Soooo! Back to the little pocket wine guide by

Ned Halley. Guess what? I looked under the section of “Spain” and there were

several Rioja’s listed. Off to the store I went and picked up a couple for only £4 -

£7. I opened the first one at home for my wife and I and it was simply wonderful.

Another new wine adventure! We have since found 2-3 vintages that we really

enjoy for very cheap prices. The wine rack is filling up!

I vowed after that last bottle of pinot noir in central England from the up-scale

wine store that I would give up on French wines forever! I really felt that way

too, and did not want to break my resolution. I had been reading my little pocket

guide “The Best Wines in the Super Markets 2010” by Ned Halley and he is really

listing a few French ones that I felt now obligated to try. Hmmmm! What to do???

I went back to Tesco (still my local handy super market) and spotted the French

red from St Emilion. It was rated a “10” and the Tesco corp. bottled it under their

name “Finest St Emilion 2007”. The write up stated that, “Cunningly contrived new

era claret of epic weight and concentration with toffee hints of new-oak ageing is

also elegant and poised, alive with vivid fruit. Fabulous! £8.99

I was always taught that if it looked and sounded too good to be true, it probably

was! I was wrong! This wine was absolutely wonderful! An entire new taste to me

and both my wife and I really liked it. I bought more and we like it enough to keep

it stocked at home.

Now that I had some trust in the fact that France may have some good wines, I

looked at a “10” from the list of white wines at Tesco. I found one called “Tesco

White Burgundy 2007”. “Lots of lemon-gold color in this convincing apple-pie

Maconnais; pure uncorked Chardonnay of great character. Cheap! £5.89

Again, it went home with me to try, with a bit of skepticism with the country, the

price and the screw-cap, and once again, I was wonderfully surprised! It was really

good. I’ve since stocked and served this to many guests with the same review.

The toffee apple taste and the not too acid, not too sweet – just right taste is a

winner with everyone who tries it.

I am recanting what I declared about the French wines earlier in my journey to the

UK, but still am skeptical about the expensive reds I thought I had to purchase to

be a good tasting wine. The fact is that there are tons of good wine out there at a

very reasonable price. Taking advice from others on personal wine tastes is risky

and usually never agrees with what we like ourselves, but this little guide is for the

common person with a “mildly discerning pallet” that goes along with the last book

I read, “Life’s Too Short to Drink Bad Wine!” I agree – therefore I press on.

The company that I was working for moved me to Brighton in the UK for several

months so it was basically starting over setting up housekeeping, finding barbers,

dentists, grocery shopping and of course an entire new world of wines to purchase.

US wines are almost non-existent on the UK shelves and they are loaded with tons

of French, Spanish, New Zealand, Italian and Australian varieties. Where do you

start? How much should they cost? Nothing is familiar!

I’d tried a couple of wines in the super markets, usually a pinot noir, and it was just

OK. I spent time in a small town in the “Midlands” north of Birmingham and while

there, I spotted a small wine/liqueur shop and wandered in. The wine I had been

buying at the grocery was running around £5 - £9 ($8 - $10) so the prices in this

shop were quite a bit higher. I expected this as well as the quality to be quite a

bit higher. I visited with the establishment owner at great length about my love of

pinot noir in the states and he strongly suggested one or two from France as they

do make the best wines in the world! (According to him!) I bought a bottle for £21

and trudged back to my hotel room, procured a glass from the bathroom, pulled the

cork and poured a glass. The color was great, the nose was OK and it tasted like

the worst cheap pinot I had ever had. The vow was, “never French wine again!”

Soon after that fiasco, I wandered into a large book store in downtown Brighton

and found a section on wines. I picked up a copy of Ned Halley’s “The Best Wines

in the Super Markets 2010” and started to thumb through it. It looked just like

what I was looking for as my budget is more tailored for the supermarket costs and

their large variety rather than the costly boutique wine stores in England. It was

set up by store and then broken down into reds, pink, white and sparkling brands

further grouped by country as well. I bought it, headed home and started to read.

Once into it, I realized it was no good to me unless I actually tried these wines for

myself. He rated them on a 10 point scale where 7-8 were good enough to have

people try, 9 was very good and certainly one to give a go at and the 10’s which

were few, are really great, in his estimation. I circled the reds that had 10’s in the

section marked “Tesco” which was the closest large supermarket close to me and

went there for a try of a couple of these wines. I only found one, an Aussie red,

but it was only £5.95, so I bought it and off we went home to give it a try.

It was wonderful! Great nose, fruity soft start and a velvet finish and only £6!

Eureka! I had struck gold! This is the price range I could afford, easy to get and

enjoy. I then took the magic little book and found all the 10’s (of which there were

28 of the 120 wines he reviewed) and circled them with plans to check out all the

local market chains in the area to try anything I found to see what we really liked.

I circled reds and whites and started to sample many of them. I soon found out

that my taste and the taste of the author were pretty much the same.

I’d recommend this plan to anyone who enjoys wine, ends up in the UK for

any length of time and does not want to waste time and money. It’s fun!

Tags: UK wine

There are few times in life, mine anyway, when you get the chance to drink a cabernet that is 24 years old.  Now most things that I have read about the taste of old wine is probably not good unless one; you know exactly what you are drinking and two; how that wine has been stored over its many years of bottled life.  Many articles that I have read warn about developing a taste for “old wines”.  They are definitely different in structure, flavor, texture and color.   Continue Reading »

Tags: 1985, cabernet, Freemark Abbey, Freemark Abbey 85, old wine, Selyem, William, William Selyem, wine

This is the 18h installment find the 1st one here

We have had several different styles of wine glasses in our home over the 38 year of marriage and until recently, we have never paid much attention to what we were drinking out of.  We do have the red wine (balloons) ever since my friend pointed out, “You need to drink reds out a glass like that and not the skinny ones!” Continue Reading »

Tags: balloon, grand tour, red wine, red wine balloon, ridel, wine, wine balloon

This is the 17th installment find the 1st one here

Traveling for a large company as I do, takes me to some really strange, wonderful and interesting places.  On just that type of a 3 day trip to do “all-day” meetings I ended up in Albuquerque, New Mexico in the fall of 2007.  I stumbled onto a local winery when I was unconsciously thumbing through the rack of pamphlets and brochures for the local area near the elevator at the hotel, mostly out of boredom, waiting for it to come back down to the lobby.  One caught my eye as it was a winery/tasting room/restaurant not far from the hotel and meeting facility. 

Continue Reading »