By: Daniel Hoey

Choosing the right wines for your Thanksgiving feast

Thanksgiving is upon us, and there is no better time to start selecting wines to complement the feast. It’s also a good time to buy the wine if you don’t have something already stored away that you want to drink, as many wine stores have sales the week before Thanksgiving.

By: Daniel Hoey

Where people are planning to wine tour and taste in the coming year

A recent survey of U.S. respondents found 48 percent planned to visit a U.S. vineyard in 2010. The top ten planned destinations were:

1. Napa Valley, California
The king still lives – long live the king. Home to many of the world’s flagship wineries, many wine tourists have begun to recognize that the corporate climate is not as conducive to the kind of wine touring experience they want to have – for example, being able to meet and talk with the winemaker. But there is still a variety of tremendous wine experiences here and the beauty of the valley and excellence of the wines lures more wine tourists than any other destination.

By: Daniel Hoey

The basics of decanting old and young red wines.

Decanting has two purposes: The first is to remove the sediment from a wine, and the second is allowing the wine to breathe. This typically applies to red wines as white wines do not usually need to be decanted.

Wines naturally have very small particles related to the contact with the wine skin during crush and fermentation that, over the years, settle out of the wine. That's why with older red wines, which have much more skin contact, you get more sediment. Most red wines over ten years old will have at least some sediment.

By: Daniel Hoey

When to Harvest – A Matter of Taste

We were in Walla Walla, Washington right after a harvest that was sped along dramatically by a frost the previous week. I met with Matthew Loso, award-winning Washington state winemaker, and talked with him about harvest – the “crush”.

As we walked through the Ahler Vineyard, where Matt is currently making wine for a new brand, Walla Faces, Matt explained his philosophy regarding one of the most important decisions winemakers make, which is when to harvest grapes. The time of harvest is determined primarily by the ripeness of the grape as measured by sugar, acid and tannin levels with winemakers basing their decision to pick based on the style of wine they wish to produce. As it did last month in Walla Walla, the weather can also speed up the timetable of harvesting. Sugar is measured in the U.S. using the Brix scale, which uses specific gravity to determine the percentage of sugar, by weight. Wine grapes are normally harvested between 19° and 25° Brix.