by Minnesota Uncorked™
It’s in a wine-shaped bottle, but capped like a beer. It’s CALLED wine, but wine doesn’t have barley in it, does it? To get to the bottom of this, I talked to Ryan Petz, co-founder and President of Fulton Brewery (Minneapolis, MN); makers of “Patience” barleywine.“Barleywine is an Ale style beer” said Ryan.Wine folks, read on– because it’s not that simple that simple: barleywines can match wine in complexity and character– and can even benefit from cellar aging of up to 5 years!Barleywine is brewed and fermented similar to other ale style beers using primarily barley (whereas true wines use fruit for fermentation, not grain). However barleywine uses more grain compared to other ales.“A lot more, in order to change as many starches into fermentable sugars as possible....
by Minnesota Uncorked™
One of life’s great pleasures is having a glass of wine (maybe after doing all the laundry for the week?!)That pleasure shouldn’t be avoided over a worry about spilling, wine is easy to remove from your clothes if you know a few tricks.The first and most important tip is “DON’T PANIC”, we can get it out (and there is no reason to worry, other than you wasted part of a glass of wine!)Cotton, Linen, Polyester (and most fabrics other than wool or silk)In the moment, blot like the devil! You want to remove as much of the wine as possible, not as much for stain removal but because it will be more comfortable if you can’t change out of the garment right away. Don’t worry about rinsing if you are wearing it, it will be fine!When you are ready to wash the garment, use oxygen bleach ...
by Minnesota Uncorked™
Is honey wine, wine?You may have heard some recent buzz about honey wine and wondered if it’s something new. This tasty drink actually goes way, way back. It’s what Ragnar and Lagertha are quaffing out of horns in “Vikings”. It’s Jon Snow’s beverage of choice in “Game of Thrones”. In fact, honey wine (aka mead) was probably the very first alcoholic beverage people ever made. And we’re still making it today. So, what is mead?Is it just something they used to drink in ye olde timey days to ward off evil spirits? Not at all! Today you can still find select mead (or honey wine) available in liquor stores. Made from fermenting honey, mead is a remarkably adaptable drink and easy to infuse with herbs and fruits, or experiment fermenting with different yeasts.The versatility of...
by Keith Wallace
Northern Italy Wine PairingsItaly is the country of multiplicity and it’s hard to make generalizations. This is especially true when considering the food & wine pairings of the northern regions. From the borders by the Alps to the northern coastal areas on Ligurian and Adriatic seas, indeed, elevation, climate and landscapes can change radically, and can therefore determine a wide variety of different products.By and large, we can identify four iconic kinds of wine from Northern Italy.From west to east, with some interesting deviation, they are: Full bodied, long-living red wines Charmat-Martinotti method sparkling wine Mineral and elegant white winesPiedmont red winesBarolo is the name of a small hamlet by the small town of Alba in the (not so small, to the Italian parameter...
by Dean Morretta
From MD to BU… that is the path of Kerith Overstreet, owner winemaker of Bruliam Wines.All delicious bottles from this California producer displays the Bruliam Wines logo, a riff on the Periodic Table of Elements. The center of the logo bears “Bu”, an amalgam of Kerith’s three children, and a nod to her past career in medical science as an MD. Their motto: “Wine is elemental”.We met Kerith Overstreet during her trip to New York last week and learned of her path from medicine to wine, while tasting one of the most elegant Sonoma Pinot Noir’s we’ve experienced. Kerith, a California native, has a some New York in her background. She graduated from Cornell University in 1994, and then returned to California and her husband, Brian Overstreet.Together, they shared a love for ...
by Dean Morretta
They got the saying wrong. Behind every good woman is another good woman. Today’s story of Emmolo Wines is really a tale of two women: Cheryl Emmolo and her daughter Jenny Wagner. One can only wonder if Cheryl, when launching Emmolo Wines in 1994, imagined that roughly twenty years later she’d hand the reins over to her daughter. Now, Jenny's winemaking expresses her individuality while continuing her mother’s work.Jenny’s wine roots start long before mom Cheryl. Her great-grandfather Salvatore Emmolo immigrated from Italy to the Napa Valley and founded a grapevine rootstock nursery in 1923. The nursery became a leading supplier to the Valley’s winemakers for decades, and grew phylloxera resistant vines, the resistant vines that continue to protect the industry from repeat...
by Dean Morretta
It’s time to start previewing the tasting wines for the upcoming Go-Getter Girls & Grapes on May 17th! Go-Getter Girls & Grapes is a women's professional networking and wine tasting evening, featuring global wines made by female winemakers and owners. Tickets are $15 and are still available for the next event at http://www.elizabethmillerwine.com/gogettergirlsgrapes.Wine #1 is from the Lady of Morellino herself: Fattoria Le Pupille Morellino di Scansano Reserva DOCG 2012. Who is The Lady of Morellino? Elisabetta Geppetti, owner and head of Fattoria Le Pupille in Tuscany for almost three decades. Elisabetta’s entrepreneurial ability and tenaciousness has made her estate the anchor of the region in an otherwise male dominated industry.In marriage, Elisabetta became part of the famil...
by Dean Morretta
Listening to Greg Gove’s life in wine is like driving down the North Fork Wine Trail. We met for breakfast on a very rainy morning at the charming Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck. I was excited to meet this veteran North Fork winemaker, whose new label Race Wines had been selling so well at Vintology. The conversation led us from winery to winery, and into the real science of making wine on Long Island.“19 grams of sugar gets you a sparkling wine. 35 grams of sugar gets you a court date,” said Mr. Gove, humorously discussing a new sparkling wine he has in the works. Our conversation was filled with both his humor and clarity in explaining complex winemaking principles, a talent that likely came from studying chemistry in college. He went Cortland and Columbia Universities, and l...
by Dean Morretta
Bravery is not absent in Valentina Buoso. When she took over as winemaker at Pascal Jolivet in the Loire Valley in 2013, she was filling the shoes of a predecessor with 22 years at the renowned domaine. Her 2015 Sancerre Rosé, which we’ll taste at the upcoming Go-Getter Girls & Grapes, is proof that she’s not only filled those shoes, but she’s running in them.Ms. Buoso and I recently discussed her winemaking background in a transatlantic email conversation. She grew up in northeastern Italy, in a small village between Venice and Verona. Though she was surrounded by wine production, in the area best known for Prosecco and Valpolicella, it wasn’t until the age of 16 that she became interested through a tasting course at school."My tasting professor at that time introduced me to ...
by Dean Morretta
Sometimes industry makes the man, sometimes the man makes the industry. Every now and again, the man and the industry grow together. Such is the case for Richard Olsen-Harbich, veteran winemaker and author of AVAs, whose career has established and refined the Long Island wine region. I recently met with Olsen-Harbich in his winery office at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue to discuss the story of Long Island wine.A Big Red StartOlsen-Harbich’s resume spans some of Long Islands most famous wineries and wineries long since closed. Before that first bottle, however, he was an agronomy student at The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University. Its prestigious viticulture and enology program was not yet established and Olsen-Harbich puzzled pieced together a study of wine,...
