Just an Update and a Couple More Varieties Added

In my prior post, one of the wines I tried was Gavi and the grape variety was Cortese. The wine was pretty unpleasant, and I thought the bottle was flawed. I can confirm, at least in my own mind that the previous Gavi was indeed flawed. This weekend we opened a bottle of 2006 Villa Sparina Gavi and enjoyed it very much. Kind of a funky looking bottle, but the wine inside was very nice. Light straw colored with a lot of citrus and pineapple flavor. Alcohol at about 13% makes it a nice summer sipper. Needless to say, I’ve revised my impressions of Gavi in a favorable way. At $18, the QPR is not great, but reasonable.

Later, we opened a bottle of Masi Masianco which is an Italian wite blend made up of 75% Pinot Grigio and 25% Verduzzo. Verduzzo is a new variety for me and it’s a grape grown predominately in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeast Italy. I’m not necessarily a big fan of Pinot Grigio, but this was light, fruity and pleasant. Again, 13% alcohol makes is a good summer afternoon wine, and at $13 a good QPR.

It just struck me, I guess this was an Italian, white wine weekend.

On Sunday, we opened a bottle of 2006 Terredora Dipaolo Greco di Tufo, made from 100% Greco grapes from Santa Paolina in the Southern Italy region of Campania. This was my favorite of the three wines – lots of fruit and well balanced with a nice mouth feel. It was a little more full bodied than the others with slightly higher alcohol. QPR was about the same though as this was a $22 bottle.

So, I’m progressing along toward qualification for the Wine Century Club. Now at 72 varieties of the required 100. I’ve got three more new varieties ready to open and will get to them in the next few weeks. I think getting to 80 or even 90 should be pretty straight-forward, but the last 10 might be very tough.

Posted by DRHamp as Wine-Wine-Wine at 11:25 AM GMT-0500

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Ok, today I can tick off three more grape varieties on my quest to qualify for the Wine Century Club. These three will put me at 70 – Pretty good for an old guy, but still 30 short of the 100 variety requirement.

On Friday, we opened a bottle of 2004 Broglia Gavi La Meirana. Gavi comes from the Piedmont area in Northern Italy.Having never had a Gavi before, I wasn’t sure what to expect –

It really was unpleasant and I’m sure it was a flawed bottle. It wasn’t completely bad, but bordered on it, almost like it was cooked. It really reminded me of sherry – with a nose and taste very reminiscent of fortified wine. It was semi-sweet with a medium to dark golden color.

So, I’m going to assume it was a bad bottle and try another Gavi to verify it – we’ll see. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I picked it up at a local retailer and it was the only Gavi that I saw and just thought I should try it.

At the same retailer I ran across a bottle of 2006 Terredora Falanghina. Ok great, another variety that I’ve never tried. Falanghina primarily comes from Campania in the South of Italy near Naples.
Now the Falanghina, unlike the Gavi was excellent – loads of fresh fruit, good balance and mouthfeel, …hmmm, a little cinnamon on the mid-palate. Very nice, full bodied white with a light golden straw color. At $13, a great QPR. I like this a lot and will have to have more.

The third variety is Counoise. And it contributes about 14% to the 2000 Tablas Creek Esprit de Beaucastle. Counoise (pronounced “Coon-wahz”) is a key component of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. The label image to the right says 2002, but the wine we tried is the 2000 vintage. The tasting notes in CellarTracker on this wine we’re ok, but not great. I found it to be excellent – loads of fruit and silky smooth with good balance. I actuall picked this up at the same local retailer and they we’re closing it out at 25% discount, so QPR was excellent.

So, there you have it – three new varieties:

Seventy varieties down and thirty to go — should be fun!

Posted by DRHamp as Wine-Wine-Wine at 8:20 AM GMT-0500

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Amazon dropped the Kindle price 10% to $359 and I just couldn’t resist. Free two-day shipping got it in my hands on Wednesday and I’ve now had a couple of days to work (actually play) with it and have formed some early-on conclusions.

First and foremost, it’s a book reader. Amazon developed and markets the Kindle as a book reader, and that’s what I bought it for – sort of, but more on that later. As a book reader, it’s excellent, about the size and weight of your average paperback, weighing 10.3 oz. Readability of the electronic paper display and the digital ink is every bit as good as reading a paper book. No glare, no strain, at least, no more so than a regular book. The Kindle designers have even added some features that enhance readability for everyone by allowing you to choose, on the fly, one of six font sizes to suit your own reading preferences. For old eyes like mine, this feature is invaluable.

So, as a book reader I would give it very high marks — is it perfect? No it isn’t, but it’s on the right track and very serviceable and very cool as-is. One of the few problems I have with the Kindle, but this is a major one for me is holding it. It’s not really clear in the image at the left, but on the left side are two buttons that extend the full length of the screen. The top button is the “previous page” button, and the bottom, shorter button is the “next page” button. On the right side of the Kindle (the full length of the screen) is another “next page” button. It is difficult/cumbersome to hold the Kindle without inadvertently hitting one of these buttons and moving to the next or previous page. The little flat space where the holder above has his thumb on either side of the logo is about the only places you can rest your thumb without contacting a navigation button. I’m getting more use to this as time goes by, and there are some other tricks that I’ve learned from user reviews, but this is my single biggest complaint so far.

So, if you have a Kindle, you have a great book reader, but wait, you really have so much more. It’s easy to think you have a book in your hand when you’re holding the Kindle – Actually you have a library in your hand – virtually instant access to 120,000 books, a variety of newspapers and magazines, hundreds of blogs and that’s just the beginning.

Using the high-speed wireless, Sprint EVDO data network capability that is built into the Kindle (and access is currently unlimited and free – USA only) you can instantly access the Amazon Kindle store and their library of content, choose a book or periodical for purchase and download it immediately to the Kindle. It takes about 60 seconds to download a full book. Of course, you have to pay for the content, seem to be somewhat less that the cost of a paperback.

This is really cool and being a fanatic gadget freak, it blows me away!

If you buy the Kindle as an electronic book reader, you won’t be disappointed and you’ll get so much more. You can listen to MP3s, listen to “Audible” books, Why, just a few minutes ago, I accessed my Gmail account and read my email – really, I did !

Go to the Amazon site to check all the features and functions, they are very impressive.

Do I like my new Kindle? – Does a wild bear sh-sh-sh- show up in the woods?

Posted by DRHamp as Gadgets & Stuff at 6:40 AM GMT-0500

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