There are a lot of different sparkling wines out there in the wine world and which one is the right one for your celebratory New Years drink?

First off not all sparkling wines are champagne. The only sparkling wines that are actually champagnes are the ones that come from the region of Champagne in France. (unless you’re one of the few California wineries that have been around for over 50+ years that got grandfathered in…whatever) Everything else is sparkling wine.

Different countries have different names for their sparkling. Spain calls their wine Cava, Italy calls theirs Prosecco, and you might also see Spumante.

What is the difference between all of the different types? Let’s break it down:

Champagne is a dry sparkling wine usually made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and/or Pinot Meunier grapes.   The different types are Cuvee, Extra Dry, Blanc de Blanc, Blanc de Noir, Rose, and Brut.

• Cuvee means means blend usually the perfect blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes or another grape has been added
• Extra Dry isn’t the driest. It means semi-dry sparkling
• Blanc de Blanc means white of white which is 100% Chardonnay grapes
• Blanc de Noir means white from dark. Champagne is pressed from Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier or a mix of the two.
• Rose is using the dark grapes and the skins get left on for a small part of the fermentation period which makes it a rose color
• Brut is the driest Champagne you can get

With all that said, most sparkling wines are going to be a little on the dry side. Most Prosecco, Cava, Rose, and extra dry  Champagnes will have the same dry consistency like a Chardonnay but will have a hint of sweet at the end. California sparkling wines and Brut tend to me more drier like a red wine.

• If you’re a Riesling/Moscato/Sweet Red drinker you’re most likely going to like an Asti Spumante, a Sparkling Moscato, Pink Moscato, or Moscato de Spumante.
• If you’re a Chardonnay/Pinot Grigio/Sauvignon Blanc/Pinot Noir (or a light red) drinker you’re most likely going to like a Prosecco, Cava, Cuvee, Rose, Extra Dry
• If you’re a Cabernet Sauvignon/Zinfandel/Syrah/Dry White Wine you’re most likely a Blanc de Blanc, Brut, Brut Rose, Blanc de Noir

I will be hosting a free wine tasting at Liquor City Bakewell today and tomorrow from 4 – 8 and we will be tasting Champagnes, Sparkling wines, and Moscato. Stop on by during those hours anytime and I’ll help you choose the right sparkling for you.

Cheers,
Angela

French law dictates that Beaujolais Nouveau can be released at 12:01 am on the third Thursday of November. It’s so young at this point that the grapes were harvested only weeks earlier, with a short (obviously) fermentation period. Because of this method, the wine is often bright and fruity, with just a hint of tannins. I find it tastes best just a little chilled, and tends to pair nicely with Thanksgiving turkey, so it’s probably okay to age it about a week.

Environmentalists and slow food movement folks tend to get all up in arms about Beaujolais Nouveau. After all, with such a short production cycle, it’s hard to get all that wine exported and ready to go by the third Thursday. Beaujolais Nouveau has one hell of a carbon footprint.

In recent years, Beaujolais producers have really been trying to curb their environmental impact. More and more producers are using environmentally friendly PET bottles, for example. PET bottles use similar material to the 2L bottles of Coke you can pick up at the grocery. The material is 100% recyclable and weighs nearly 50% less than glass. That means it weighs less on the flight over, using less jet fuel.

Of course, not everyone is flying the wine over on a super-fast jet. Georges DuBeoeuf, the largest producer of Beaujolais, has a dispensation from the French government allowing him to bottle and ship early – on boats. (Most of our wine from Europe ships on boats.)This year, Michael Skurnik Importers are bringing in both Domaine Madone and Paul Durdilly Beaujolais via boat. While this takes longer, it’s better for the environment than piling everything on a jet at the last minute.

Beaujolais is a wine that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Every year, parties are held around the world at 12:01, popping the first cork of Beaujolais. It’s a party wine. Keep that in mind when you pick up a bottle and you should be able to enjoy it with a smile on your face.

The first thing we did was to purchase our tasting tickets and take in the wineries. We tried wines from each winery, including Kinkead Ridge, Valley Vineyards, Harmony Hill, Henke, and Ravenhurst.

Kinkead Ridge: It was great to finally meet Nancy face to face. She’s such a sweetheart! We really enjoyed their Cabernet Sauvignon (award winning!). It was all she had left. They were running out of wine and I think that’s just fantastic. We look forward to visiting their winery this summer, and hopefully a barrel tasting in the fall. Nancy also gave a us Kinkead Ridge shopping bag at the end of our day. She commented that she knew she had really made it when she got her own shopping bags. Cheers to that!

Valley Vineyards: We tried the Vidal Blanc icewine. I think I’m spoiled by the icewine in the Niagara Peninsula, because this just tasted too, um, grapey for me. Overall, I’m not really a fan of Vidal Blanc, I suppose. We didn’t try any other Valley Vineyards wines, and perhaps we should have.

Harmony Hill: We had a great conversation with both Bob and Patti at Harmony Hill. (They’ve built an honest-to-goodness wine cave!) It was a surprise to find out that they’re both nurses by trade, and the winery is a gigantic endeavor on the side. All of their wines have a musical theme – Woodwind (Seval Blanc), Serenade (Chambourcin & Marechal Foch), Concerto (Vidal Blanc), Ovation (Traminette, Cayuga), and the Chamber Suite (a sweeter Chambourcin). We purchased a bottle of the Ovation, which is just tropical enough to be a great front porch wine. Once we try it outside of the tasting area, we might just buy a case to represent our "summer white." Like Kinkead Ridge, Harmony Hill opens on weekends in the summer starting Memorial Day. It sounds like they always have some live music going on too.

Henke Winery: We tried the flight of wines offered at Henke and were pleasantly surprised by the Chardonnay. In fact, it was our favorite. Thanks to the Henke folks for talking us into trying it. We also really enjoyed their Vendange a Trois, a blend of 85% cabernet sauvignon, 10% cabernet franc, and 5% merlot. Henke Winery isn’t even that far from us, so we’ll have to pay them a visit soon. (You’ll find them quite frequently throughout our weekly Events listings.)

Ravenhurst Champagne Cellars: Ravenhurst did not blow us away. We tried both the Cuvee and the Rose sparklers. We preferred the Cuvee of the two. The booth was staffed by two Horticultural Society members who weren’t overly familiar with the wines, and didn’t seemed overly thrilled to be there.

Obviously, our favorites were Henke, Harmony Hill, and Kinkead Ridge. At all three places we had great conversations with the people who actually make the wine. I also find that when you meet the winemakers and the folks who really have passion for their craft, it adds something extra special to the wine.

After the jump, read some of our comments on the food portions of the show and on our suggestions for making the sophomore Fine Food Show even better.

There are simply too many food booths to mention them all, but I want to draw special attention to a couple of them.

• Essencha Tea House and Fine Teas: Essencha had some wonderful chilled teas. I was especially drawn to the vanilla lemongrass. It was calming and refreshing. A lot of folks, including a mail-order place called Teaposy, had Chinese tea flowers that bloom. No kidding.
• Shearer’s Marketplace: Shearer’s had these amazing little caramel puffs. I have to find some of these where I can buy them.
• Cheese From Britain: This place had some crazy cheese, including an amazing Sage cheese and a Lemon Zest cheese.
• Ole Ray’s Sauces: What amazing BBQ sauces! My personal favorites were the Apple/Cinnamon and the Kentucky Red Bourbon, but there were plenty more that hit the spot as well.
• Celtic Passions: We picked up a loaf of Irish Soda bread. I love the stuff. You can order the mix as well.
• Rossi Pasta,Ltd: They served a rather large sample dish of tomato basil pasta sauteed up in olive oil and herbs. It didn’t need anything else. It was that enjoyable on its own.
• Chrisman Mill Winery: Yep, a winery, except that they weren’t pouring wine. Instead, we ended up with a bag of goodies, including a chardonnay vinaigrette, a cabernet sauvignon chocolate sauce, tomato basil bread mix, and several dipping mixes. They’ll be pouring at the Northern Ky Int’l Wine Festival in May, so I look forward to trying their wines.

Everything at the Fine Food Show was local or boutique, and that’s what made it neat. From the wine to the snacks, these foods aren’t all carried at your local grocer (but they’re working on it). I was thrilled to pick up several different cards and brochures. If I can’t order some of these things online, I’ll be keeping my eyes open for them.

Some items the Fine Food Show might want to improve upon for next year:

• In all the publicity I received for this, I never realized you had to pay for wine tastings. .50/pour was not a hardship, but that’s not the point. At the door of the Flower Show we paid $20 each to enter, under the impression from the publicity that, like the Wine Festival, the wine pours are included in the overall price. Again, the cost of the pours was not the issue. But they should make it known in the publicity. (Maybe they did and I just missed it. This is also a possibility.)
• "Fine Food Show" might be misleading. I was very aware of what to expect, from the publicity I received from the Horticultural society – because I asked for the press release. Folks walking around the Flower Show who just saw the signage, well, that’s a different story. The name brings to mind a bunch of local restaurants offering samples of their goods. It’s not that at all.
• According to the folks at Kinkead Ridge, the organizers neglected to put out signage on Saturday, so business was slow. Sunday things seemed quite brisk, but there were plenty of signs pointing the way. The only confusing thing? There was also a big "Lecture Hall" sign on the pavilion, and I was convinced at first that we were wandering into a floral lecture and not the Fine Food Show.
• The physical arrangement was a little odd. The wineries were very crushed together in a corner, making it hard for people to talk to the winemakers and for others to get samples. In the non-alcoholic portion of the event, 2 or 3 vendors (including Celtic Passions, who make excellent Irish soda bread) were stuck in a hidden back row that was mostly empty. I think there might be a more user friendly way to arrange the Fine Food Show. I know that the Wine Festival has modified their arrangement each year, trying to make it more pedestrian friendly.

Overall, we enjoyed the first Cincinnati Fine Food Show. I really like that it showcased local foods and more importantly, local wineries. It was a great way to meet several local winemakers and try the local wines. It was definitely enough for us to sit down with an Ohio wine map and plot out a little weekend trek to several of the wineries. For more information on Ohio wineries, you can visit Ohio Grape Industries.

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Cincinnati Fine Food Show

Whenever I’m at a tasting or reading a wine book, the words tannic and acidic come up. Sometimes I wonder if the folks tossing the words around really understand what they’re saying, or if they’re just randomly using "wine words." In any case, thanks to the helpful glossary at Finewine.com, I can tell you what the words mean:

Acid/Acidic: A natural byproduct of
fermentation in wine. The acids provide the backbone of a good wine,
but too much can be unpleasant, while too little leaves a wine without
character. It gives a wine a sense of body and structure. Acidity is
never obvious in a balanced wine.

Tannins/Tannic: Referring to the presence of
tannic acid that comes from the skins, seeds and stems of the grapes.
Tannin is a necessary component of good wine, especially good red wine,
and is most evident in the first few years of maturity. Eventually, it
subsides during the maturation process. Tannin when young tastes or
feels like a cotton swab is being run down your tongue. It is that
drying sensation in your mouth not to be confused with the
mouth-puckering of acidity.

Still confused? Try this. Remember in college when you drank too much and the next day you had a dry, cottony feeling in your mouth? Well, if you’re drinking a wine and you get a bit of a reminder of those days with that dry cottony thing, that’s the tannins. As the wine matures, the tannins recede, much in the same way as hairlines and drinking binges.
Acidity is easy. You know that mouth-puckering feeling that you sometimes get with fresh orange juice? That’s the acid. You don’t want that in your wine. No puckering unless you’re out to kiss someone, and even then, best pucker on your own and not because of the taste of the wine.

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