It’s been a couple of weeks since my last Bits & Bobs and I miss doing it. A lot happens in a week let alone three weeks. I have a lot to write but won’t burden you with all of it in this segment. More to come of course. December is a big month for me. I have decided on my winery of the year and need to make a phone call to the winemaker for an interview to round out my article. I am very excited about this winery and what they are doing. I will post it on my Blue Collar Wine Guy site on the Seattle P.I. as well as here on stanthewineman.com. I am also working on my top 40 wines under $20, something I have been doing for a number of years. This is the most time-consuming assignment I have given myself and sometimes I wonder why I put myself through this. A lot of wine writers put out lists, this is to be expected. However, very few go through the trouble of adding the tasting notes with their choices. I put it all out there for you to read. The reason, of course, is so that you can see why the wine made it on the list. The tasting notes help.
I’ve been busy on You Tube, putting out episodes on Tuesday and Friday. This month I am focusing on wines for the upcoming holiday. Recently I reviewed wines from Hess Select, a blend and a Malbec from Argentina. Hit the link and watch as I review the Malbec. In it, I mention several times that I feel like it would open up with some time. Guess what? The next day, after being open for over twenty-four hours, I tried it again and it was a beauty! It showed depth and intensity and was probably one of the best $16. Malbecs I have tasted. I should have gone with my gut and gave it a higher grade on that episode. That being said, my whole point of doing my You Tube channel is to taste the wines the way I believe most consumers will approach them. Even though I advocate decanting, I know that most don’t. It is said that the average wine buyer consumes a bottle within an hour after opening. That would hardly be decanting. So, I open the bottles I am going to review about an hour before I shoot the episode. I think this is fair since you as the consumers are going to experience exactly what I am finding in the wine at the time. Make sense? With white wines, I review them cold, since I know that most consumers drink their whites on the cold side. there are wine critics out there that swear we should all drink our whites closer to room temperature. It is true that whites will reveal more of themselves when drunk at room temp. Once again, it would not be fair for me to review them this way since that is not how they are going to taste to most of you. I don’t try them ice cold of course, but they are only brought out of the fridge about twenty minutes before I shoot. This way, you as the audience get what you will experience when you try them. That’s how I roll, but I will soon put up an episode on decanting, using the Hess Select Malbec as an example of the value of making it a practice.
On a final note, Susie and I are getting very excited for our trip to England, Paris and Italy. I have set up some wine tours and hopefully a couple of interviews with winemakers. I will have a ton of things to write about and excellent content for my You Tube channel. I am pumped to visit the Barolo and Barbaresco regions of Italy as well as Verona. I love the wines from this part of the world. Aside from the wine part of the trip, it will be our honeymoon which is, of course, the most important part of the trip.
Cheers!
Stan The Wine Man
