Did You Know?

Did you know that most wine does not improve with age? Only bottles marked "vintage" are suitable for aging and will gather more flavor as they get older. In addition, there is a classification of of types within the vintages, which is why a 1994 Bordeaux may be worth more than a 1986  Chianti. Additionally, the growing conditions of the season impact the final product, with warmer, sunnier years making for better grape harvests, ergo better wines.

Of course, new wines like a Beaujolais should be drunk immediately, not saved. You probably won't find any vintage wines on this blog in the near future anyway, unless one of us wins the lottery!

Casillero del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

I bought this wine for Halloween (think: devil) but didn't have the chance to drink it until now.

It was definitely worth the wait, and the extra cash spent (a whole 8 euros, I know - broke the bank on this one)! Delicioso. Very much like a Tempranillo, not too sweet, not too dry. A little spicy, but not devilishly spicy (wink, wink). It was bought on the same trip to Spar that featured the delicious Hiedler Veltliner.  All in all, a great round of purchases, I think.

Their website has a lackluster commercial in league with Manchester United (...in league with - get it? OK, so it's not all that clever) that probably fared a lot better with South American audiences than with me. Perhaps you need to be a real fútbol fan and not just a poseur (i.e. me). 

Jamek 2011 Grüner Veltliner

Oh, autumn! The most wonderful thing about autumn is the harvest - as it is getting closer to Thanksgiving, my American upbringing is kicking in and I am getting excited about stuffing and pumpkin pie! Here in Austria, the focus is not exactly on turkey and stuffing yourself until you explode, but quite a few seasonal delicacies have sprung up at the Naschmarkt, including mushrooms (it's mushroom season and a favorite Austrian pasttime is picking your own...) and Kürbis (translated as both "squash" and "pumpkin"). I've been experimenting with both ingredients, and since I decided to make a chantrelle (Eierschawmmerl) goulash for dinner, I thought I would flavor it with another favored Austrian autumn classic, a new wine! 


This delicious white wine, produced in the Wachau, is a soft, fruity, light wine - just what you'd expect from a new wine! Opening the bottle reminded me of spring, and though I don't often compare wines to perfumes, it really reminded me of Yoko Ono's signature scent, Ma Griffe (certainly it tastes better than Ma Griffe would, however). Sort of a lemony-sage-jasmine flavor (scent?). I tasted a distinct grapefruit flavor in the palate. The finish is a bit earthier than expected, and the color is a beautiful pale yellow.


I bought this wine for roughly €8 at Wein & Co. It's a bit more than what I normally pay at Spar or Billa, but definitely worth the splurge. 

Duca del Frassino Soave Classico

I picked this bottle up at Merkur, near my apartment. It was on sale for around 6 euros, and the bottle said it won a bronze medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2010. So I was surprised to find that in the US, this wine is marketed (and sold) in a box.

Perhaps I am the consummate snob. Perhaps I am woefully out of date. But the boxed wine I remember is Franzia in a four liter cardboard monster, being sipped out of plastic cups (or gulped straight from the carton) by very drunk and insouciant college students gathered in a dorm room, around a campfire or "hidden" in a thermos at a less-than-stellar poetry slam. Not the stuff of dinner parties or persnickety sommeliers.

The wine itself is nice, with a very crisp fruit taste, like Bosco pears or Macintosh apples. Or maybe a bit of both. I've had better Italian whites, I feel...but maybe I'm being overly picky. I prefer Italian reds anyway, but giving this a chance, I can say it is a definite improvement over Franzia, despite how it's marketed outside Europe.

Hiedler Kamptal Grüner Veltliner 2010

This wine was the Spar October "Wein des Monats" and is from Langlois, which is incidentally a place I visited around this time last year - it's a small town in the Weinviertel, near the Czech border. Touted as the "region's finest" on the chalkboard outside the wine section, I can even feel reassured that I was buying local when I bought this wine.

The Hiedler tasted excellent with butternut squash au gratin and bleu cheese. The wine is just sweet enough to be perfect with bleu cheese and just dry enough to be able to call itself a Grüner Veltliner. I might just be making this up, but i'm pretty sure I tasted notes of lemongrass and mint. Maybe even strawberry?! It was a very herbal-y wine, at least.

I would definitely buy this wine again. It can even be found online - props to being in a viniferous country!