Meditation 101

There are a ton of reasons to meditate, which I won't elaborate on too much here, but I will say it is one of the best things I've ever started doing.

Frequently people will ask me to 'point them in some kind of direction' on how to start meditating.

This is my advice in short:

Download two meditation apps:

1) Headspace

2) 1 Giant Mind

Do the Headspace 10 day free trial, including watching all videos.

THEN do the Giant Mind 12 day free trial

Once you've completed both you'll have a decent grasp on the two main schools of meditation and from there it will be easy to start a self practice that you enjoy the most.

The process above is simple, and in my opinion TOTALLY worth it. The total time commitment is approximately five hours over three weeks.

Also if you want to casually read something, that won't teach you how to meditate, but is an interesting and enjoyable read on the subject I recommend Sam Harris's Waking Up.

Note that I am generally biased towards his writing style and thought process.

The Five Star Wine

A little while ago I put together my Winter of Wine, and wrote a lengthy discussion of the experience. Since then I’ve probably consumed another fifty or so bottles, totaling one hundred seventy five wines rated. One of the notable discussions from that post was that I have never rated a wine 5 stars. Not willing to identify something as perfect has plenty of deep-seated issues surrounding it but here I am, progressing as a human being – and defining what I believe is my first all-around 5-star wine. I might go as far as to say it is the perfect wine.

I’ll split this post into a couple sections. The first will be specifically about this wine, and what you need to know if you want to drink it. Next I’ll talk about what we can glean from what's on the label. Lastly a ‘why the heck not’ deep dive about this specific wine since it is my first perfect wine.  Feel free to grab a drink; 1600 words ~7 minutes reading time, ignoring links.

Section One – The Red Stuff in the Bottle Made from Grapes

What it smells like:

Plums, dark cherries, blueberry, faint sweet blackberry, little caramel or butterscotch and a bit of alcohol on the nose

What it looks like:

Beautiful dark shimmery red wine with long legs

What it tastes like:

Bright fruit early on, cherry plum blackberry with a reasonable amount of acid, wood mingles after, mainly tasting of leather. Leaves the palate dry followed by a spicy black pepper feel.

After decanting:

The best word is gentler. The nose itself is softer and sweeter – the little alcohol has faded, and all that remains is fruit with a new touch of pepper.

The flavor profile still has acid on the front, but toned down, back end tannins are much subdued, with the pepper bite less abrasive but still present (tending to still really show itself if consuming with food.)

How to drink it:

The producer recommends drinking it at 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 F) I think it performs a little better slightly cooler. Treat it like the great wine that it is. Currently still fairly big and tannic, you can do a couple things to make it softer (including cellar it for a few years which I might do with a case.) Decant it – let it sit for an hour. Serve it at the right temperature (if you’re decanting it, don’t be shy about refrigerating the bottle then using the decanter for an hour.) Rinse your glass with a little wine before you drink it to clean your probably dirty glass. If you do these things, I give you my word that this will be one of the best, reasonably priced bottles of wine you will ever drink.

Section Two - The Label

What do all these words on the bottle mean?

Tommasi Family Estates is the big family winery who own different estates in a variety of locations – those wines have various brandings. This wine is from Poggio al Tufo seen at the bottom here:

Maremma Toscana  - Maremma evidently means salty swamp or salty marsh – not what we want our wine to taste like. Let’s instead refer to this as meaning Southwestern Tuscany.

Rompicollo – Translation here seems to mean something to the degree of ‘neck breaking.’ Evidently Tufo-rich soils are hard to farm, so they decided to mention how hard it was to dig the ground on the bottle, and I suppose neck breaking is the Italian cultural equivalent of back breaking. Tufo, is the same as tufa, which seems to be basically limestone. More info for all casual geologists here.

Quick Aside:

I often actually get frustrated with Italian/Spanish wines. They name them after regions – as opposed to grapes. It’s kind of like if you went to the grocery store and instead of there being blueberry jam and strawberry jam, they would call them Hammonton and Watsonville jam. You guys are making it harder for the consumer.

Stop it.

All that being said lets thank Tommasi for actually at least mentioning the grape types on the bottle.  While they don’t specify the exact blend (on the front label at least,) this is a mix of 60% Sangiovese and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon. 

Lastly we have the Vintage:  2012

Section Three - The Deep Dive

How they make the wine

Fermentation process happens for 10 days in stainless steel, but then they finish it in 12 months in Slavonian oak.

What happens when I google Slavonian oak?

I first learn that Slavonian oak is a sub species of quercus robur, the same species of French Oak, rather than a different tree a la American oak. Slavonia is a region in north east Croatia, a former part of Yugoslavia. The ancient romans knew it as Pannonia. Not to be confused with Slovenia, an actual nation in Europe.  Supposedly these barrels are super awesome (I guess that’s why they mention them in their descriptions) – fairly popular in the Piedmont region of Italy. Banfi, another popular producer, uses similar wood. What makes the wood good?  Compact fibers and tight grain. What makes the 65Hl barrel good? They’re big barrels which cut down on surface area, resulting in subtler flavors and softer tannins. Big barrels naturally hold more wine, which means bigger consistent batches but also has the downside of ‘mass production.’

Why any of this matters at all?

Mainly because Slavonian oak is cheaper than French Oak.  Cheaper often doesn’t mean worse, and sometimes can be better. Akin to lobsters formerly being peasant/servant/poor man food but now selling at Whole Foods for $15 per pound. Back in the 1800s they were so abundant that four or five pound lobsters were considered too small. You can read more about that here. 

It’s like how all of a sudden in the past decade it’s become cool for super nice restaurants to serve random animal innards. Think raspberries – silly spelling, good marketing, insanely priced. More expensive isn’t always better, sometimes the opposite.

The New York Times did a decent piece on why wine costs what it costs, but here are the big takeaways of where costs come from:

The grapes themselves: $1-$15 of value (unrelated, and I didn't have time to dive into it, but Japan fruit is confusing, note these most expensive grapes ever.)

Barrel: A normal sized American Oak barrel costs $300-$500, French Oak $700-$4,000. Standard barrels hold 280 bottles, so add another $1-$15 per bottle in barrel costs.  East European Oak barrels like the Slavonian oak cost around $500 for standard barrels, and naturally a lot less for shipping to the old world than American barrels simply due to geography. The bigger barrels will additionally be more economical.

Bottle: $.50 - $3

Corks $.10 - $1

Labels - $.25-$.75

So the two places you can save significant money on production are the grapes, and the wood. Tommasi is saving some money on the wood here. Cabernet and Sangiovese grapes (which make up Brunello’s) can be some of the higher priced grapes in the wine world, both of which are contained in this bottle.

               

Let’s talk about the grapes.

One of Italy’s best-known,  highest rated, and most expensive wines are the Brunello di Montalcino – coming similarly from the South Western part of Tuscany. Despite years of denial from the region that their grapes were unique, recent scientific testing has shown that Brunello and Sangiovese are the same grape.

Here is an independent consumer guide vintage chart of that region:

The Brunello’s are certainly the most relevant, but the other two regions are close by and it is reasonable to include them here.

Here is what wine enthusiast’s vintage chart looks like:

Note from the original wine post, one of my favorite ‘expensive stuff’ bottles was this 2006 Brunello.

The 2010 vintage of that bottle sells for $240 retail (likely double that or more in most restaurants that stock it!)

How far is Poggio al Tufo from Poggio di Sotto (producer of the above wine)?

About 100 minutes by car (without traffic.) It only takes that long because of the roads in this part of Italy, in reality they are about ~76km (47 miles) apart. Even if there is an accident on Strada Provinciale della Badia di Sant’Antimo, or you stop for an espresso en route, we’re talking about pretty small geographical distances. Could I be missing something about the very different soils of the two places? Maybe. Could it be that the same Sangiovese grapes grown 50 miles away are pretty similar and Tommasi was smart enough to scoop it up? Probably.

Where does this leave us?

All it means is I consistently like these kinds of wines, which we learned before and I’ve found a much less expensive version (<$20!) that is ~100% of the way there of the super expensive (>$200) stuff, maybe better (I’m thinking lobsters again.) It’s also notable that I decided I liked this wine a LOT before ever knowing how close these two locations were, which is ultimately comfortably reassuring.

There is some more follow-up to be done here. What else does Tommasi produce from that winery? How much more does this impact the model of what I like? What years should we be looking for as they are released?

Mainly due to laziness, but partly because this says I’m hovering right around the optimal length for long form posts I will wrap it up here. Maybe in a follow-up I can do more analysis on other Tommasi wines, and what we can learn about other well priced producers.

Cheers.

100 Wines - Winter of Wine

In the spirit of my post on wanting to write more, I've decided to open up this blog to my general musings. I'm here to write about topics that, at the very least, I currently think are interesting. All that being said I would like to talk about the winter of 2015-2016, specifically my 'Winter of Wine.' I'll start with my strategy on tasting, a couple notes on the experience, my broad conclusions, and then give recommendations of bottles by price point. I actively stay away from trying to teach anything about wine.

For most of my life I have drank boxed wine, and bottles that cost between $10-$20. Occasionally at a work dinner, or a fancy occasion I drink more expensive wine. I agree pricier wine can taste a little better. I also acknowledge some people would find that last sentence blasphemous.

I generally like wine. I find too much beer makes me gassy, and I find hard liquor (or cocktails) are either inconvenient or don't necessarily fit the occasion. So I set out to attempt to drink (try) 100 bottles of wine. I have done something similar in the past, using Beer Advocate to do a 'Winter of Beer' back in 2012-2013. I learned that I generally like higher alcoholic beers, that are fairly well balanced, explicitly not sweet, and sometimes on the hoppier side. If you care to know more than that, you can visit my reviews here.

Strategy 

I use Vivino to track my wines, implementing the same strategy for tasting as I did beer: What does it look like? (Look) What does it smell like? (Nose) What does it feel like? (Mouth Feel) and What does it taste like? (Taste) I then gave wines an overall rating. I specifically targeted bottles in the $15-$35 range, though occasionally found myself outside. My top goal was finding styles of wine that I prefer, which would help me in the long term pick out bottles that I had a strong chance of enjoying regardless of price range. I implemented a full out Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It strategy when reviewing the wine, which should be obvious if you peruse the actual reviews.

To qualify as a proper review I required an entire glass. I have officially reviewed  more than 120 wines and in this post will share my results. Full disclosure, this blog is definitely not sponsored, and these are simply my preferences. I make no promises about whether or not anyone else will like the wine that I do, and I loosely apologize for to the winemakers who's wine I trash.

Wine Sample

In terms of sourcing what I drank, I mixed it up between a couple different distributors for my bottles (mostly east coast) and was not shy about getting involved with wine by the glass in the New York and Philadelphia regions.

I drank Cabernet's more than anything else, followed by Pinot Noirs and some red blends. California dominance not surprising given my geography.

This is the list of wines where I had more than one bottle of a specific varietal located in a region. This is how Vivino splits up the wine, so no reason to fight against that for now.

Ratings

I rarely gave a wine 1 star. I like wine. Rating the consumption of alcoholic grape juice a 1-star experience did not happen. Even if the bottle was bad, something I rarely experienced, it would be unjustified to give those a poor rating without tasting a non-spoiled version. All that being said, I never gave a wine 5 stars. At my extremes, I rated six wines 4.5 stars, five wines 2 stars, and one wine 1.5 stars.

Note this review:

Teetering on undrinkable yet I still gave it 2 stars?!? I should be more harsh. 

My worst wine?

Definitely a style issue - but I would consider recommending the worst wine of 120+ I drank?!?!?

In general seems that I was too forgiving, or I lack differentiation abilities, or I just live in a world where on a 1-5 scale for anything 95% of my reviews will fall between 2 and 4.5. There are all sorts of interesting implications if that is true, but for better or worse that lies outside the scope of this post.

Price of Wine

Three of my six 4.5 star ratings were under $30, as was the majority of the wine I tried during this period. While I did rate some nicer wine worse, on average if I knew the price of the wine, I believe I was skewed a bit higher (though also could be more critical of bad 'expensive' wine.) This is partly correlated to environment as well. 

Environment

Not surprising, but it is strictly true that I would often enjoy wine better out of wine glasses than Solo cups, and at a white table clothed dinner table over standing at a bar. The thinner the wine glass, the better. Decanting probably does more for me in presentation than it does in a changing of flavor profile. Candles always help. 

Random Thoughts and Tips

My experience with decanting has been mixed, with wines definitely changing, but differing opinions on getting better or worse. On average I would say they evolved better, but as I mentioned before, wine presented in a decanter will probably taste better because of presentation alone. Either way the conclusion is the same, buy a decanter, use it.

If I had to recommend one tip to a casual wine drinker (especially if drinking mostly at home) it would be to rinse your glass with a little wine before starting to drink. This sounds silly, but after numerous tests, my wine always tastes better if I take an ounce or so and rinse out my glass before pouring a full glass (some others might notice that the second glass of the same wine often tastes better.) Maybe it is because I don't wash my glasses well, maybe it is because soap gets stuck in there, or maybe because there is always some sort of water residue left over, but a quick rinse keeps my wine tasting better. This naturally applies to decanters as well. For what it's worth, I drink the rinse, I'm not that big of a fan of wasting wine, but if you prime the decanter and a couple glasses with that same ounce or two, you will notice it tastes disgusting.

Conclusions

I like higher alcohol reds, medium to full bodied, exhibiting dark over red fruits. Additionally I had a slight preference for more earth than not, and wood barrel aging over stainless steel. By style, I started looking more proactively for the Grenache, Syrah, Petite Syrah, Priorat, Rioja etc. They continue to be higher overall on my ratings list. They are currently the majority of my wine in storage, along with Brunello's from a trip last year to Montalcino. Expect further reviews on these styles in the future.

Top Picks by Price Range

Note I am sorting by Vivino's price ranges, so these are likely a blend of retail and restaurant price points. I would guess all of these skew a little cheaper.

Under $15 

Since Californian Cabernet's are local, you can get some decent wines cheap, hence most of these being Cabs. The Rhiannon Red is notably an incredible Syrah blend for the price point.

$15-$25

Entering this price range, you can start to get some good imports, and this is where I was able to isolate what styles I like the best. All of these are pretty big reds, including The Criminal, which despite the odd label is a delightful Petite-Syrah/Syrah blend.

$25-$50

Even I'm surprised a Pinot Noir snuck in here.

The Pricey Stuff

Other Wines

Loxton: located in Sonoma - really love this port. Heavy flavors of blueberry, but not too sweet overall fantastic.

I generally knew what I like in white wines. Most of this experience has been in reds, and maybe sometime in the future I could be open to doing a more rigourous tasting of whites. Below is a few go-to options.

Petroni is a winery visited a while back, that is at the very least super beautiful. A lot of their wines are very good, their Chardonnay is great. Cloudy Bay is a favorite for a higher end Sauvignon Blanc, with Oyster Bay being a more every day choice.

Now the Winter of Wine is over, as is the first non-travel related post on this site. Assuming all goes well, expect more coverage on the Spring of Something.

Cheers.