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Agree with Al this time - that beef wellington looks great.
I'm sure you have something in the cellar that works fine. For Rack of Lamb, I'd personally suggest a California Rhone Ranger or something from Mediterranean Europe, or perhaps yet again, Australia (a good South Australian Shiraz).
California Rhone Blends sounds fun.
How about a GSM for the next Deep Thoughts theme? I’d like to find a CdP like Lynn brought over Tuesday.
For our 37th anniversary dinner tonight, this is the chosen bottle:
Sounds like a good idea. You can then source from throughout the world.
Everyone in agreement with a GSM blend? I'll give you five minutes.....
Strictly GSM?
Well, it's meant to be available across the world, from many wineries. I fear that not all of us have tried a GSM. How could we enlarge the choices? Grenache blends?
GSM or Rhone/Southern French style blends amount to the same thing for me, usually, although you might get some Carignan, Cinsault or some other "less noble" grape blended in; but that's OK between friends so to speak.
It must fit into the title block of this discussion topic. I can't put several dozen characters in there. Let's go with 'GSM' and be flexible with people's interpretation.
Would anyone like to make a presentation? Does anyone know some tasty stuff regarding GSM blends?
I could through a few things out there, but not truly a blend presentation. More like topic moderator.
If that is ok I acn throw something together for the 5th, by the way if you've never acned your not alone.
That sounds fine Paul. A moderator concept with some postings to keep things interesting might work well.
I'll throw something together.
This is coming up tomorrow night. Do you have your GSM ready?
Our wine is just a GS: Grenache 80% Syrah 20%.
2019 Guy Mousset - Cotes du Rhone AOC
I don't know if this is a GSM blend, but it is a blend. I'll be taking it to Allen and Sandra's house in a 1/2 hour or so.
2015 Ego Infinito, product of Spain (Jumilla)
Wine Spectator: 90 points
Decanter: 91 points
Vivino: 4.0
36% Monastrell
25% Cabernet Sauvignon
20% Syrah
19% Petit Verdot
Winemaker's Notes:
Intense and dark cherry red color with purple edges. On the nose, it is powerful and very intensely fresh. Exploits the black fruit touch of very ripe red fruit, almost jam, at some point liqourice with spicy creamy lactic. Fine floral tobacco touches. In the mouth, it is powerful, fresh and well-structured.
Jumilla viticultural area: https://www.wine-searcher.com/regions-jumilla
Best I could do for tonight.
OK, mine has some Petit Sirah in it.
Getting ready for Lynn’s arrival. I decided to open this 2018 Halcon Esquisto GMS blend. We acquired this via Kathleen.
And of course we don’t want to forget that it’s Cat Tuesday!
I decided to drink the same one as Allen
How original.
The Cellartracker reviewers say to decant it for 30 minutes. Don't disappoint me now.
Sandra has the appetizer plate ready.
Our dinner tonight is Pan Seared Tilapia with lemon garlic caper sauce, Parmesan Cheese Pasta Roni, Cheddar Broccoli and Cranberry sauce. Doesn't really pair with our wine so we are holding off on that until after dinner. My beverage (not wine) is Aslin Stout flavored with coconut, chocolate nibs, coffee and vanilla. A definite desert brew but15% alcohol (ouch!)! Allen, David wanted me to post our wine in front of his new computer he finished building which was a Christmas present. Its supposed to be a monster gaming computer!
No it's not a GSM blend - but it's blend - the point of the evening..
Seems like everyone except Steve and Ralph are here so let's get started -
Blending – Blending occurred naturally around 1,000 yrs ago (probably longer) as grapes were planted and drank as they were presented. Reds – whites it didn't really matter. There are 2 types of blending. First question – What are they? 10mns to reply.
Well, you're halfway there with the syrah and the Monastrell (spanish version of Mourvedre). Looks like that's going to be a fairly big wine, would love to hear your impressions.
Easy & hard?
Actually, maybe vineyards that are mixed, compared to vineyards that are separated.
Well if natural blending started occurring around 1,000 years ago, I'm going to guess that the second type of blending would be unnatural.
_**Answer **_- the Field-blend and the maker's blend. The following exerpt gives seek-a-boo look into it. It's lengthy and you can read at you leisure.
Why do winemakers blend?
“The art of blending, to me, is to take individual pieces and make the sum of what you’re blending better than those individual pieces you started out with,” says Mike Macmorran, winemaker, of Mark Ryan Winery.
Once grapes are in the winery during harvest, winemakers immediately start evaluating what they have, tasting first each fermenter and then barrel, keeping notes, rating and ranking along the way.
“I start building a map,” says Kevin White, proprietor and winemaker of Kevin White Winery. “I know this combination may work well because I’ve got earthiness here and bright fruit here and structure there and I’m going to get spice here. Five times out of ten, it was interesting in theory but didn’t work out, but the other five times it can be kind of interesting.”
The point at which winemakers decide to start blending varies. “I actually feel like the earlier you can get the wines blended, the more complexity you’re going to have in a youthful wine,” says White. He prefers to blend some of his wines immediately after fermentation is complete, while others he blends six months after harvest.
Others start much later. Macmorran typically blends wines 14 months after harvest. “It gives you more opportunity to taste the wines longer as an individual part,” he says.
Once winemakers start blending, they pull samples from a selection of barrels, and out come the pipettes and graduated cylinders, with winemakers often making 100 milliliter sample blends.
Many winemakers will start by making what is referred to as a ‘base blend,’ which will be the foundation of the wine.
“If I’m starting with our Cabernet-based blend, I’ll put together a really good Cab blend which will end up being 60–65% of the final wine,” says Brian Carter, winemaker and managing partner, of Brian Carter Cellars. “Then I look at increasing complexity and increasing balance by adding other varieties. If I add too many other things that it no longer tastes like Cabernet, then I’ve gone too far.”
Often winemakers will start by blending in larger percentages and then move to smaller percentages, evaluating all along the way. As they get closer, they might look at tweaking just one or two percent of a wine.
The Pioneering Family-Run Wineries of Washington
“A lot of people wonder, what does two percent do?” says James Mantone, winemaker, vineyard manager and co-founder, of Syncline Winery. “Sometimes it’s radical what it does. It can change the whole sensation of a wine.”
Some winemakers will take several hours to put a blend together. Others might take days, weeks, or even months, depending on the size of the winery, the winemaker’s approach and the vintage.
In each case, winemakers go through an iterative process of evaluating different blends. It might be a handful of iterations or it might be many more, depending on the particular wine.
“We may go through 60 to 70 blends of some wines before we’re happy with one,” says Mantone. “You’re progressively fine tuning.”
The process is not always straightforward. “It’s not intuitive where all of the best wine going into one wine creates the best wine,” says Chris Peterson, winemaker and partner, of Avennia. “Until you put it together and taste it, you can be really surprised.”
Winemakers say some blends come together quickly, whereas others can be a challenge. “Sometimes it’s overwhelming,” says Mantone of the process. “At a certain point, you just have to throw your hands up and say, ‘It’s no longer practical to keep tweaking it.’”
10 mns until next post.