Thanks, Robin, Denise and Alan!

Our grapes have been harvested and transported to Crushpad in San Francisco ready to start their journey from fruit to wine. That will start in about an hour from now but I’m 2,000 miles away in Minneapolis. That’s not a problem in this day and age as I’ll be joining via the Crushcam online. I’ll also be live blogging our progress here; stay tuned…

11:18 a.m. CDT - The Crushpad Cam is a bit choppy on my MacBook but the audio is fine… looks like the group is assembling now…

11:31 a.m. CDT - Alan has sent me pictures of the fruit… looks good with some raisins to sort out, etc. Several group members are online now on the Crushcam… and the first bin of Roussanne is in the sorting table now…

11:51 a.m. CDT - Several group members online chatting now trading Roussanne picks to try… sorting going well so far…

12:03 p.m. CDT - Now the group is getting geeky on yeast D47 & QA23 or shall we try BA11?

12:11 p.m. CDT - Sorting/Crushing complete… now the cold soak begins…

12:20 p.m. CDT - Just spoke with our winemaker and we will inoculate next Tuesday or Wednesday with D47 & QA23 yeasts (one in each barrel)… pressing is scheduled for 6:00 p.m. CDT today, so I’ll be back on the press cam then… will also post some photos here.

6:02 p.m. CDT - Back on the Crushnet cam, now focused on the press… not sure what is going on right now…

6:49 p.m. CDT - The Roussanne is finally going into the press…

7:09 p.m. CDT - Seems the pressing is near complete… a nice report from group member Robin on the juice; sounds like we have a good one in the works… a lot more as we get into fermentation, etc.

Cheers!

I just found out that the grapes for our open-source Roussanne will be harvested this Friday. There’s still time to join the group and participate in the sorting and crush, either online or at Crushpad in San Francisco. Unfortunately, it looks like I’ll be here in Minnesota for harvest but there will be a few group members in attendance and I’ll be holding court online.

To join us, sign up at Crushpad and join the Winecast group.

Update: Well, harvest is on Friday but because the winery is 4 hours north of the vineyard, we’ll be sorting, crushing and pressing the grapes Saturday… I think I’ll live blog the event here Saturday morning/afternoon depending on your timezone.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my short time in the wine industry, it’s controlled by special interests. Sometimes they are big distributors who are trying to protect their grip on the movement of wine, other times it’s State Legislators looking to boost taxes, but it’s always someone.

So I was pleased to see an email today from Tom Wark, fellow wine blogger but also Executive Director of the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, announcing their new blog (which is now linked on the sidebar here). Their mission is to open direct to consumer shipping for wine retailers and treat them the same as everyone else in the trade. This just makes sense so I support their efforts here.

Check out their new blog here and support your local specialty wine retailer.

If you have been looking for more about me than I disclose here then head on over to Tom Wark’s FERMENTATION blog for what he calls a “Bloggerview.” It’s his way of interviewing fellow wine bloggers and I’m lucky number 7 in the series.

Aside from being tripped up by one of Bernard Pivot’s signature questions I think I did OK. And Tom even publishes a wine geeky pic of me in my podcast studio Check it out for yourself.

Thanks Tom!

Gabriella and Ryan have posted the summary for WBW 38 as a Google map. Very innovative and quite interesting to see exactly where all those Portuguese wines actually were made. In all, over 30 bloggers tasted and reported on more than 60 wines.

Meanwhile across the pond in NYC, Neil from Brooklynguy’s Wine and Food Blog has announced the theme of next month’s virtual tasting as “Silver Burgundy.” Instead of wines made in Burgundy’s Côte d’Or (”slopes of gold”), he has suggested we focus a bit to the south in Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais. These appellations produce fine Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at prices that will not bust your budget. Join us November 14th to find out where the best values in Burgundy can be found.

I’ve just rolled back my Wordpress install to version 2.2.3 after my troubles with 2.3. I’m not totally sure if this has solved all the issues I had but things seem a bit more stable. I’ll be keeping an eye on this over the next few days… let me know if you see anything funky

It’s time for another edition of our monthly international virtual tasting known as Wine Blogging Wednesday. This month the theme is Portuguese Table Wines hosted by my friends Gabriella and Ryan from Catavino. From their home base outside Barcelona, Spain they cover wines made on the Iberian Peninsula shared by Portugal and Spain. This month they have asked us to focus on lesser known Portuguese wines so Porto, Madeira and Vinho Verde are out. Also out is the popular Douro Valley appellation where most of the wines on the shelves here in the U.S. are made.

With those guidelines in mind, I started to look for wines around town and frankly didn’t find a whole lot of choices until I ventured to one of the urban wine stores in Minneapolis. I selected two wines, a white and a red, made by producers I was unfamiliar with and regions I had never tasted before. One of the wines was even made from a grape variety I had not tried, Alfrocheiro Preto.

The white was made in DO Estremadura just northwest of Lisbon from 100% Alvarinho. This grape is mostly known here in the U.S. by it’s Spanish name Albariño and is one of my favorite white varietals. According to a fine piece over at Catavino, Estremadura is the second largest wine producing region in Portugal with 311,000 hectoliters produced annually. This wine is produced by DFJ Vinhos, which seems like a fairly large operation from their website, with a wide range of single varietal and blends, but there was not much else about their background from the sparse information there (in English, anyway).

DFJ Vinhos, “Grand’ Arte” Alvarinho (Albariño), Estremadura, Portugal 2005 ($9 on closeout)

Straw yellow in color with aromas of citrus and white peach. Refreshing grapefruit and mineral flavors finishing bone dry with good acidity. More in the lighter Pinot Grigio style than the ripe and generous Albariño I have come to appreciate more this summer. I think this wine is getting a bit past it’s prime but it’s still a nice example of Alvarinho that would pair nicely with a salad on a warm afternoon.

12.5% ABV
Natural cork closure
Score: 86
Rating:

My second selection was more in line with what popped into my brain when I first heard about this theme. A lot of very nice red wines from Portugal are appearing on wine store shelves and this is a nice example of what can be found for less than $15. It’s a blend of Touriga Nacional and Alfrocheiro Preto, two indigenous red varieties. Touriga Nacional is the best known as the lead grape used in Porto but it’s also getting quite popular in table wines. Alfrocheiro Preto is a bit more obscure but is an important grape in the Dão region where this wine was made by a cooperative. The Dão is south of the Douro Valley where their red wines must contain a minimum of 20% Touriga Nacional for some reason.

C.V.R. DAO, Quinta dos Grilos, Vinho Tinto, Dão, Portugal 2004 ($14)

Inky purple-black in color with aromas of strawberry, cherry liqueur, minerals and licorice. Rich in the mouth with juicy raspberry and cherry fruit, a touch of black pepper and plush tannins. A bit like a Petite Sirah in the color, body and tannin department but the flavor profile is more like a Syrah-Pinot Noir blend (think big Cali Pinot). A very satisfying wine that would pair well with roasted meats.

13% ABV
Natural cork closure
Score: 88
Rating:

So another great Wine Blogging Wednesday comes to a close with two very nice wines to pick up and enjoy. Thanks once again to our hosts this month, Gabriella and Ryan from Catavino . I’m looking forward to next month where we’ll be searching for affordable Burgundy. Look for the announcement soon over at the Brooklynguy’s Wine and Food Blog.

This is a quick one for all bloggers using Wordpress. Once you upgrade to the shiny new version 2.3 don’t just blindly convert all your categories into tags. Although you will have a cool tag cloud, there are some other issues to be dealt with… just keep those categories the way they are and start tagging your posts (where did I put that MySQL backup?)