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1 June 2012 Newsletter North Alabama Chapter of the American Wine Society (AWS) Wine by the Bottle June 24, 2012, 3:00 pm Hosted by Jay and Gisele Wilson How many blind tastings have you been to where the goal is to identify the subject wine? And how did you do? Well you can get a head start on the analysis, guessing for some of us, by looking at the shape and color of the wine bottle for clues. While there is not a worldwide wine bottle standard there is at least a generalized format followed by many wineries. If the bottle alone can tell you the type of wine, varietal, country of origin or even the dryness of the wine, that should go a long way in amazing your friends and improving your wine knowledge. The tasting protocol is to display many different types of wine bottles (sorry these are all empty, research you know) where you will be given the keys to the blind tasting. Your task will be to taste the wine from a label-less wine bottle (please use the glass provided) and make your assessment as to the wine type, grape and origin. It should be a beautiful summer day, so come out and enjoy the patio. Reservation Form is on the last page of newsletter 1

2 Results of the May Wine Tasting The North Alabama Chapter held a Hybrid Wine Tasting on May 20, 2012 hosted by Luke and Brooke Hyde. Seven varietals of wines were tasted by 26 members and guests. The chapter learned about the history of the grapes created by breeding French and American grapevines together to create a hearty grape with a combination of good flavor and winter-sturdiness. The wines evaluated were: First Flight Red Wines (1) 2010 Lincoln Peak Winery Marquette, $14.99 (Winner of 1 st flight) This Marquette wine exhibited cherry and black currant flavors and aromas typical of many hybrids. It showed complexity with integrated notes of blackberries, pepper, plum, tobacco, leather, and spice. The Marquette grape is best in this type of medium-bodied red table wine. (2) 2009 Honeywood Winery Marechal Foch, $20.00 This wine is made from Marechal Foch grapes. It shows the typical characteristics of this grape with strong acidity, aroma of black fruits, bitter chocolate, vanilla bean, and musk. A gamey nose was also described in the taste profile. (3) 2008 Greendance Winery Noiret, $15.00 Noiret was a hybrid created by the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station. It is primarily cultivated in New York and Canada. This Noiret wine is peppery with hints of raspberry. (4) 2010 Girardet Winery Baco Noir, $25.00 Oregon s first Baco Noir vines were imported by Philippe Girardet in 1971 for his winery located in Umpqua Valley. The popularity of Baco Noir in Oregon has been notably increasing and beginning to branch out to the Willamette and Rogue Valley in recent years. Today, the most recognized Oregon Baco Noir still belongs to the Girardet Winery. Second Flight - White Wines (1) 2010 Oliver Winery Vidal Blanc, $14.50 Vidal Blanc was developed in the 1930s by a French breeder Jean Louis Vidal; his goal was to develop a variety to produce vines suitable for the production of cognac in the Charente region of France. However, due to its winter hardiness this grape variety is cultivated most extensively in Canada and north-eastern United States. The wine had a fruity aroma, with grapefruit and pineapple taste. (2) 2010 Six Mile Creek Seyval Blanc, $9.99 This Seyval Blanc had characteristic citrus element in the aroma and taste, as well as a minerality comparable to white Burgundy. The nose also shows an attractive aroma of grass, hay and melon. It was oaked and subjected to malolactic fermentation. (3) 2010 Swedish Hill Winery Vignoles, $11.99 (Winner of 2 nd flight/overall Winner) Vignoles is a complex hybrid wine grape variety produced from a cross made by J.F. Ravat of two grapes, Seibel 8665 and Pinot de Corton. The wine had a sweet and flowery bouquet with a clean crisp sweet pineapple flavor balanced with agreeable acidity. These wines are often compared to German dessert wines. 2

3 Recipe from May Wine Tasting DRIED CHERRIES, PECANS & ROSEMARY BRIE EN CROUTE Serves: 14 Ingredients: 1 egg 1 tbsp. water 1/3 cup dried cherries, softened 1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans 1/4 cup honey 1/2 tsp. chopped fresh rosemary leaves or 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary leaves, crushed 1/2 of a 17.3-ounce package Pepperidge Farm Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet), thawed 1 (15-ounce) Brie cheese round Directions: Heat the oven to 400 F. Beat the egg and water in a small bowl with a fork or whisk. In a separate bowl, stir the cherries, pecans, honey and rosemary together. Unfold the pastry sheet on a lightly floured surface. Roll the pastry sheet into a 14-inch square. Cut off the corners to make a circle. Spoon the cherry mixture in the center of the circle. Top with the cheese. Brush the edge of the circle with the egg mixture. Fold the pastry up over the cheese to cover. Trim the excess pastry and press to seal. Brush the seam with the egg mixture. Place seamside down onto a baking sheet. Decorate the top with the pastry scraps and additional rosemary, if desired. Brush with the egg mixture. Bake for 25 minutes or until the pastry is golden brown. Let stand for 45 minutes. Serve with the crackers. Note: To soften the cherries, stir the cherries and 1/2 cup hot water in a small bowl. Let stand for 1 minute. Drain the cherries and pat dry. From pepperidgefarm.com via Brooke Hyde 3

4 AWS North Alabama Chapter Logo Our chapter logo has been digitized and is ready to be embroidered on items of your choice. You may either take or buy items at the shop. Logo can be 3, 4, or 5 inches. Stiches and Ink, 504 D Jordan Lane, Huntsville, AL, Director s Article (Edwin Núñez, Director) The American Wine Society stresses the knowledge of wines through education. At the National level this is accomplished through scholarships granted by our Educational Foundation using money donated by the Chapters. At the personal level, education requires the tasting of wines, reading about wines and their lore, and sharing wine knowledge with others. At the Chapter level we have an excellent resource: our monthly Newsletter. I am sure members realize our Newsletter's education section invariably has excellent articles. No matter what the wine theme happens to be for the month, Marj will produce an interesting and relevant article. I encourage all members to read the education section a couple of times. Unlike articles in the most popular wine magazines, the Newletter's education section specifically addresses the month's tasting theme. You will definitely have a greater enjoyment of the tasting when your wine evaluation is enhanced by Marj's articles. Chapter Web Site (Jay Wilson, Webmaster) When you have time, check out the AWS web sites for both the National ( and our local chapter ( If you haven t been to the North Alabama Chapter of the American Wine Society web page, you are missing a fine opportunity to explore not only our Chapter s history but a lot more. For example, there is a Tab that can explain how to conduct a wine tasting. Here you can find out it is not as hard as you may think to host a tasting. On several other Tabs, you can see the schedule of future tastings, as well as photos of past events. There are archive Tabs for the monthly Newsletter and Education articles going back to The Recipe Tab has almost 50 delicious recipes that tasting hosts have generously provided. There is even a tab where you can contact directly any member of the Board. A lot of effort and time has gone into this website and it is recognized as one of the best in the AWS. To help you find your way, the monthly Newsletter is posted in both PDF and HTML formats, easily downloaded to your phone, to review driving directions to the tasting or re-read Marj s Education page for the month. Our Chapter web site belongs to us, take a few minutes and explore. 4

5 Wine Bottles (Marj McCulley, Education Chair) The shape of wine bottles can communicate a great deal about the taste of the wine inside. In Europe, many wine producing areas developed unique wine bottle shapes that became the traditional bottle for wines of that region. As winemaking spread around the world, new wineries often adopted those traditional European bottle shapes in order to communicate with their consumers. The high shouldered 'Bordeaux Bottle' is used by most wineries for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and most Meritage or Bordeaux blends. This is because those are the key grape varieties that are allowed for use in red wines from the Bordeaux region. The Bordeaux bottle is also generally used for Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon. These are the primary grape varieties allowed in the production of white wines in Bordeaux. The slope shouldered 'Burgundy Bottle' is generally used for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir around the world. These are the two key grape varieties used in the Burgundy region of France for white and red wine production. Syrah can be found in both but usually in Burgundy style. This shape is also used for many Loire Valley wines. The tall 'Hoch Bottle' is used in Germany (green in the Mosel and brown in the Rhine) and also in Alsace (northeastern France). It is used by wineries in many parts of the world for several grape varieties including Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Muller-Thurgau. Punt A punt is the concave bottom of wine bottles. The earliest origins of the punt are lost in history but there is much conjecture. Punts likely existed either for strength of the bottom of the bottle (especially with sparkling wine) or in order to form a stable (non-rocking) bottom in the hand-blown bottles. Today a punt is unnecessary because modern glass technology allows bottles to be made that do not require a punt for strength or stability for either sparkling or still wines. It exists only because many consumers equate the presence of a punt as an indication of quality. 5

6 Standard Wine Bottle Sizes Split 1/4 bottle 187 ml Half 1/2 bottle 375 ml Bottle 1 bottle 750 ml Magnum 2 bottles 1.5 L Jeroboam 4 bottles 3 L Methuselah 8 bottles 6 L Salmanazar 12 bottles 9 L Balthazar 16 bottles 12 L Nabuchadnezzar 20 bottles 15 L Programs (Margaret Fall, Programs Chair) The AWS family has had another successful tasting which was so educational. The theme was French Hybrid Wines. The group did explored (7) wines types for those working toward the Wine Certificate by the Wine Century Club of a 100 Varietals. The great start to the 2012 incredible calendar of events set for our chapter has begun to spill over to the 2013 calendar, BUT we still need Host to come forward. If you want to host and don t believe your home will hold a large group, we do have the option of having the tasting at the clubhouse at Karl and Judy Starkloff's subdivision, which we need advance notice to arrange. Please do not let the size of the tasting be a factor of whether to host a tasting. If you have not hosted for some time, this is a good opportunity to schedule a tasting in your favorite month and include one of our new members to co-host. Paul and I are looking to host a BLIND TASTING in Jan 2013 so we are looking for CO-HOST. If you have an idea for a theme or you would like to host a tasting and need help with a theme, please give me a call, since all of the months are open for 2013 at this time. Also, if you would like to host in a particular month, but the 4th Sunday doesn t work for you, we can look at moving the tasting for that month to the third Sunday. As Programs Chair, I am available to help select with the theme, wines to serve, and determine costs. You can reach me at: (home), (mobile). For June 24 tasting we are preparing for Wine Bottles hosted by Jay and Gisele Wilson. A blind tasting is in store from a label less wine bottle and the challenge is for you to determine the wine type, grape and origin. Again, I personally love blind tastings, so see you there! 6

7 2012 June 24 Wine Bottles Wilson July 22 Beer Tasting Schumann August 26 Pinot Noir Young September 23 National Tasting-Pinot Noir Starkloff October TBD Annual Dinner Programs November 18 Sparkling Wines Boling December N/A No Tasting N/A 2013 January 27 TBA Fall/looking to partner February 24 VA Wines Garay March 24 Let s Shout: Olé! Núñez April 28 TBA McCulley May 19 Open Open June 23 TBA Boling July 28 Open Open August 25 Open Open September 22 Open Open October TBD Annual Dinner Programs November 17 Open Open December TBA No Tasting N/A Chapter 2012 Board of Directors Director Edwin Núñez Director Elect Tracy Norman Secretaries Susan Coddington and Kristen Lindelow Treasurer Chip Boling Programs Margaret Fall Education Marj McCulley Newsletter - Karl Starkloff Webmaster - Jay Wilson 7

8 Why We Raffle We hold a raffle at each monthly tasting to help increase our chapter s annual contribution to the AWS Educational Foundation (AWSEF). The purpose of this fund is to assist graduate students in continuing their studies that support the American wine industry. We all enjoy the fruits of their labors! Just bring your raffle item(s) to the tasting each month and we ll raffle them off. Just $10 buys 12 tickets and $5 gets you six tickets! May Raffle We had a total of six donations for our raffle this month and six happy winners: Margaret Fall won and selected the 2010 Post Familie Vineyards Chambourcin from Arkansas; James Caudle held a winning number and picked the 2009 Honeywood Marechal Foch from Willamette Valley, one of the wines from our tasting; Scott Montgomery s number was selected and he took the 2008 Bella Luna Winery s Tempestuous Tempranillo (very limited production of 400 cases) from San Benito, CA; our host, Luke Hyde, was a winner and chose the 2008 Eagle s Rock Piedra del Aguila Pinot Noir from Argentina; Gisele Wilson s ticket number was called and she picked up the set of Venezia Studio Wine Bottle Stoppers & Charms; and Steve Young took home the black and white houndstooth wine bottle carrier. Thank you to everyone who donated a prize to the raffle! What will you bring to raffle at our June tasting? Chapter AWS Educational Foundation (AWSEF) For the May 2012 tasting, $60 was raised from the raffle, $48 from the amount added to the tasting cost for a total of $108. The balance in the chapter s AWSEF fund is $3,006. Our chapter is committed to supporting the AWSEF. As most of you are aware, we add $2 to every tasting and this money is designated for the AWSEF. At almost every tasting we hold a raffle of items donated by the members. The AWSEF has raised the scholarship award amount from $3,000 to $3,500; therefore our chapter s goal for our next (4 th ) scholarship award is $3, G oal oal Funds Funds Rai Rai sed sed To To Dat Dat 8

9 Reservation Form for this Month s Tasting Wine by the Bottle (June 24, 2012) Reservations deadline Saturday, June 16 th AWS member names Phone Guests names Phone (Guests, is this your 1 st, 2 nd or 3 rd time as a guest?) Total number $17. =. Attendance is limited to 36. (NOTE: $2 of this cost goes to the AWS Educational Foundation Fund and is Tax Deductible) Additional contribution to AWS Educational Foundation: (Add to amount above and include total in check; make check out to AWS, North Alabama Chapter) Please mail your check and reservation form to: AWS, North Alabama Chapter, P.O. Box 461, Madison, AL Cancellation Policy: To receive a refund, you must cancel by 5 pm on the Wednesday prior to the tasting, unless you have a compelling emergency. To cancel, call our treasurer, Chip Boling (phone number and are listed under AWS North Alabama Chapter 2012 Board of Directors paragraph). 9