Tag: France

Quaffing

Demière-Ansiot Champagne Blanc de Blancs Grand Cru Brut

Posted on by Josh

I’m not going to pretend that an ill-planned day involving a rideshare vehicle arriving at the same time as an unexpectedly delayed train deserves a bottle of wine, but I’m going to go ahead and say that it does because my standards are low this week. Maybe they usually are?

Part of me wonders whether watching all three seasons of The Great British Baking Show on Netflix counts as doing something productive on my spare time – though a friend unquestionably defeated me in that domain by finishing up the first season at the gym. I’ve convinced myself that kneading dough burns calories though, or maybe I’m just doing it wrong: one particular odd spark of inspiration on a Monday involved my regular two pans of cauliflower pizza followed by seventeen empanadas and twenty-four pandesal buns.… read more

Tasting

On Vinebox and vials

Posted on by Josh

What entices me about wine startup Vinebox is their potential solution to my half-concerns on purchasing full bottles of wine.

(I get that you might be scoffing – not at the their idea, but at the notion that I have genuine concerns about sipping every last drop out of a bottle like a greedy sink drain.)

The concept is simple: Vinebox sends you a flight of three wines they’ve sourced from different producers, catered to the wine colour of your preference and the kind of wine drinker you are – “adventurous”, “classic”, or “newcomer” – that way, you can have your own alcoholic Dating Game experience and possibly re-order the ones that tickled your fancy in all of their tubular glory, since the leading facet appears in the form of a patented bottling system that re-packages the wines in 100mL glass cylinders.… read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

2016 was questionable, so here are 20 wines to pair with 2017

Posted on by Josh

I ended a past blog post – themed: a review of 2015 – with the words “Welcome, 2016. I will cut you.” Though I feel like I did personally make some substantial dents in this crunchy titanium can of a year, the general consensus seems to be that we created a blueprint for goodness, but then said blueprint was stolen, lit on fire, and then puréed with an unwashed beige-coloured towel embroidered with the words “~fUcK yOu~”, styled in Comic Sans MS.

I won’t fill this post with hopes for 2017 so that I don’t build myself a bigger bowl of disappointment, but instead will list wines that remind me of an upwards trend of hope, a vague connection to the vapid consolation of Pantone’s Color of the Year, a fresh and flora-driven yellow-green named “Greenery“.… read more

Tasting

16 sparkling wines to drink alone in your room on New Year’s Eve

Posted on by Josh

Girl, do not limit yourself. You can pick any day! New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, or fuck: why not March 6th? I support you.

On that note of celebrations, though, I don’t understand why it’s ridiculously vogue to aggressively bluster about how you’re over partying with large crowds and noisy beats. We get it. Can you stop making me feel bad for not fitting into your definition of introvert, for once? I can be the biggest withdrawn human endlessly swaying to Björk and eating baby carrots, but maybe my version of Saturday night Chopin and Netflix occasionally involves enjoying a Hillary Clinton drag impersonator rip off four layered tearaway pantsuits in a row at a bar where I’ve made just the right amount of mistakes over the past few months.… read more

Tasting

Gamay Noir: the Sansa Stark of Wine Grapes

Posted on by Josh

(The night is dark and full of small spoilers. Tread carefully past the picture for the wines!)

I mention Beaujolais to people – in the same way that I might bring up Sansa Stark in a Game of Thrones discussion – and I watch as faces crinkle before I make my case for the dark horses.

Gamay is a red grape that hails from the Beaujolais region in France (and Sansa hails from Winterfell, but you knew that), and it’s fashionable to dislike Beaujolais. The ditzy Beaujolais Nouveau variations of the 1970s and 1980s – all laden with pear drops, banana, and bubble gum flavours from carbonic maceration – once represented half of all Beaujolais sold. It’s since dropped to around a third, but I find that a large fraction of consumers can’t seem to shake the image of what might be the essence of season 1 Sansa.… read more

Tasting

Rosé? For spring? Groundbreaking.

Posted on by Josh

Seminar led by the Wine Diva, but I’m quoting diva Meryl Streep, obviously. If you didn’t get that reference then why are we even friends? But really: I would wholeheartedly pair The Devil Wears Prada with a Loire wine. You’d need something light – maybe aloof – yet cutting, and dry. Also, that movie turns 10 this year? What?

I’ve once again come a little too underdressed for such an event, but I can’t help it because it’s muggy, sunny, and I like mesh a little too much. Cool off with Loire wines? Probably one of the favourite French areas of from last year’s Europe trip. My wallet cried.

Anyways, I think my main point here is that people need to get excited about weird Chenin Blanc and elegant light reds. … read more

Life · Quaffing · Tasting

24 wines for turning 24

Posted on by Josh

This post serves two purposes: a sincere smile-and-nod to the 23rd year of my life, and a spring cleaning wine dump of, coincidentally, a number of bottles that equals the number of anniversaries since I was pushed out of my mother. Alas. The past prime number of a year has been good to me, and I’m stoked for the next. Beyond this whole becoming-an-adult thing, I’ve done many things including completing the WSET Diploma (i hate to keep mentioning about it – but perhaps the youngest in BC to do so!), changing jobs, travelling to New York, travelling to France, travelling to Spain, and other things that would probably be best not to put on the internet. Heh.

And home. Oh God – connecting to your roots and family – sometimes I dig myself way too deep into wine culture and its countries that I forget where I come from.… read more

Quaffing · Tasting

The good, the bad, and the bubbly: 9 bottles to bathe in

Posted on by Josh

Okay – not literally, obviously, but I’m waiting for Gwyneth Paltrow’s new beauty regime that involves using a specific wines as exfoliants and face mask ingredients. Chardonnay from Puligny-Montrachet? Fuck that, she would say, with the flick of a finger. Chassagne-Montrachet is where it’s at. Or blanc de blancs Champagne, only from the 1996 vintage. And, of course, cucumber slices. Maybe an avocado.

Anyways, here’s a random collection of bub. I’ve finally tried a legit sparkling Nebbiolo after having joked about it for so long, and then there’s also a birth year bottle of Dom Pérignon, a stunningly electric sparkling British Columbian Riesling, and a collection of other cool and uncool bottles. It’s become suddenly warm in Vancouver, and I broke the summer hiking seal on the last day of March.… read more

Tasting

A bored ho tastes Bordeaux (2013)

Posted on by Josh

bordeaux2013

Bordeaux is in a bit of a tough spot at the moment – which isn’t saying much – but it’s far from being an underdog: Eric Asimov discusses this in a New York Times article in May 2010. The region in question once simultaneously exuded both normalcy and the unattainable; a seemingly conventional gateway wine to all other wines, yet having this aura of hubris and higher social status. But now that so many more wines are available, and with a new generation seeking wines that are anything but normal, it seems that less people are raising their hands for the classic French region. But I mean hey: people still whore out special bottles of Bordeaux for likes on Instagram, and a blog post on the mass-produced Mouton Cadet 2012, for some reason, is quite statistically popular.… read more

Life · Quaffing

On Dim Sum, Champagne, and not drinking

Posted on by Josh

dimsumchampagne2016

To be more specific, my shitty New Year’s Resolution is to only allow myself to drink in the company of other people, having only broken this rule (before its inception) on January 1st: a seemingly un-celebratory bottle of Trebbiano d’Abruzzo. We’re only a month in, and yes – it’s been difficult. Of course, the temptation drifts in front of me like a horse and a carrot: I work in the industry, I’ve returned to work hours that demand refreshment, and I study wine frequently. But it’s always the third day of no alcohol that’s the worst, where a sour mood brews and where my perception of the quiet becomes even quieter. Ugh. I’m also catching up on the latter half of Breaking Bad; someone just opened a bottle of Pol Roger and I’m dying.… read more