Archive for the ‘Beer & Wine’ Category

Among the literal plethora of tools, appliances, and other gadgets that have been manufactured and marketed towards both newcomers to wine appreciation and the ardent wine aficionados. Wine openers is a particularly important but often overlooked or even underrated tool in any wine enthusiast’s arsenal of wine related tools. While wine openers like the Oster Inspire are able to open most bottles of wine, their relative performance and easy handling can vary dramatically as not all openers are equal in effectiveness.

Low quality and poorly designed openers can often be a source of grief for users who are forced to apply unusually high if not excessive pressure in order to get the cork out of the bottle. Good quality electric wine openers on the other hand are incredibly simple to operate and can make the process of pulling a cork much simpler as it should be. Most cordless electric wine openers have enough power per change to open up to 40 to 60 bottles of wine.

Wine clubs allow people to easily sample different bottles of wine, usually by mail and usually on a monthly basis. Wine clubs give members access to a large variety of wines that they might not have known about or considered purchasing. They allow members to become familiar with new wines. This benefits both the members, who get the experience and pleasure of a different wine each month, as well as the sellers, who are able to get their product to consumers that may not have otherwised purchased their product. They most often are offered by vineyards or wine shops, though they can exist independently as well. The propagation of wine clubs has been widely facilitated by the internet, allowing potential members to learn about the clubs, choose from a wide selection of different types of clubs, and join quickly and easily. Wine clubs turn wine into something more than just a simple product. They make it easier for people to form part of wine culture, where wine is not just consumed, but learned about and talked about.

Castalia Wines is among the more interesting in all the Russian River Valley. An outstanding choice as a wine gift Castalia is owned and operated by Terry Bering who is the cellar master at Rochioli, where he both makes his wines and purchases his fruit. A nice intro to the Rochioli fruit and brand, without the extraordinary expense these wines are consistently among the best values in all of California Pinot Noir. With only three hundred and fifty case lots these are difficult wines to find locally, but joining the wineries growing mailing list is not to be missed. We think it’s always fun to find the next top winery before your friends and family and Castalia Wines of the Russian River Valley may be your best chance to do just that. Having been around since 1993 these wines have a nice history of consistently high scores from all major wine critics.

This is a familiar name to almost every member of my wine club although many members can’t exactly put their finger on why, or when they’ve tried the wine themselves. Winemaker and owner Nick Venge is originally from Los Angeles, but of Danish ancestry and grew up in the wine industry because his father was a distributor in Southern California. After working for some time are larger vintners like Sterling, Venge opened his own winery in 1983 and his personality shown through since the beginning. Largely known for big wine, lots of oak and of a style which makes French wine lovers cringe, these wines are often bigger than life. The only concerns about the wine come from the often large vintage to vintage variances, however we always tell our wine club members that vintage matters! Thinking that it doesn’t is an old distributor way of thinking making wineries think that after one good wine, they can live off the reputation for years to come.

Christmas is over for another year and we are all trying to cut back but with the wine rack empty and social events planned for the coming months, you can’t forget about bargain hunting when it comes to wines. At the moment the supermarkets have reduced all the offers they had before the festive season. Gone are the 50% off deals and everything is seeming more expensive with the new VAT rate but don’t lose heart. Many of the big wine merchants still have deals on their bin end wines and lots of these offers are available all year round. Bin end offers are a great way to get a high value wine at a very reduced price. Often it is because the stockist will not be getting any more in so they have less than one case left and need to sell it off. Be sure to try out new wines all year round and make a note of the ones you really like so you can get the bin ends in the new year. I’ve been taking this approach for a few years and I end up getting a mixed case of very nice bottles for special occasions- and for treats once January is over!

How many people out there in the world typically buy gourmet coffee online at various coffee web sites or coffee clubs? One thing I have noticed, is that many people have not even took the time to really consider buying all of their premium coffee from the web. In actuality, there are a ton of stellar deals that you can keep if you just do your shopping online. For example, I found one particular deal with a coffee club that I consider being the best deal on the web at this moment. This coffee club has structured a special offer where they will give you two boxes of fresh gourmet coffee and a premium gourmet coffee maker for a nice, modest cost. When I saw this deal, I had to hurry up and purchase this offer because I did not know how long it would last. So I am really anticipating the coffee and the coffee maker now.

Immediately after investing a whole entire day writing articles and material for the brand new magazine, I got very tired and was hunting for a brand new cup of premium coffee to offer me that very last boost of performance. Well, to my surprise, I had totally went out of coffee and based on exactly how I was feeling, I was certainly not going to complete crafting this informative article before the deadline. Therefore, I decided to go next door to my neighbors and pleaded for a scoop of gourmet coffee from them. These people started to tell me how they buy gourmet coffee online and the excuse of why they will do it is to circumvent a similar issue of owning no premium coffee from taking place to them. Soon after, I decided to purchase a subscription for Gevalia gourmet coffee and I’ve been delighted about this brand of coffee from that time on.