Milestone!!!

Readers and friends, thank you; I have posted one hundred times on this blog and you have viewed the pages sixteen thousand times.  Many bloggers are more active than me and they have many more pageviews, I know, but I am very grateful for you and the opportunities I have had.  For me it all goes back to the glass and the beauty and artistry experienced from the wine.  I said it best in my very first post here.

I have a lot to learn still and hope you will continue the journey with me as we learn about and from wine.  Over the past years we have had some outstanding lessons:

The two most viewed pages are for the Magnolia Grove Chardonnay and Cabernet made for Starwood Hotels and posted during my time at The Westin. My posts on Texas wines have been very popular; the innovation at Bending Branch, the emergence of Wedding Oak Winery, the closing of Alamosa and the annual Rambling Rosé at Becker Vineyards.  One of my personal highlights in life and post has to be the Sommelier Selection blending at Raymond Winery in Napa Valley. Many great wines and great times are chronicled here.  I will continue to post and learn and share the Lessons in Wine with you.

If you are inclined to; click the "Join This Site" button over to the right in the "Followers" box. And, if you are curious at all, I have two event pages:  Famous for :15 at Francesca's at Sunset chronicle of the 2010 New Years Eve at Francesca's at Sunset (with over 1,700 pageviews!) and the wildly popular Your Last Supper at Francesca's at Sunset for the end of the world New Year's Eve of 2011 with videos! (with over 8,600 pageviews! people LOVE this one.)  More than you ever wanted to know!  Oh, but what fun!!!

Becker Wines; Always Available Near YOU!!!

I am very excited to see Becker Vineyards nominated for American Winery of the Year by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Their co-nominees are: Abacela (Roseburg, OR) Oregon’s first commercial Tempranillo. (???-SK)  Gramercy Cellars (Walla Walla, WA) darling boutique winery founded by master sommelier Greg Harrington and his wife, Pam. Justin Winery (Paso Robles, CA) Founded in 1981, widely recognized the winery that put Paso on the map. Schramsberg (Calistoga, CA) Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and branched out into high-end Napa reds with the J. Davies Estate label!  This is some tough competition, all VERY deserving of recognition.

This is recognition that the Beckers and their team have earned, I am convinced they should receive this award.  It will be great for them and it is time for Texas to get recognition as a wine region!

The other aspect that is amazing about this is just how widely available the Becker wines are to us in South Texas.  They are everywhere!  Abacela and Gramercy wines I can not find in San Antonio wine shops.  Justin and Schramsberg I can find at specialty shops like Joe Saglimbeni’s Fine Wine and Gaberiel's.  Granted; outside of Texas, where most of Wine Enthusiast readers reside, they will find Becker wines harder to find.  Too bad for them!  But, for us, we can pick up a bottle of Becker wine and a carton of Blue Bell ice cream from HEB on the way home!  And, you should, get a bottle of Becker wine today and toast one of the nominees for American Winery of the Year!

Screwcaps Age Wine Best!!!

Love them or hate them; Screwcaps are the BEST closure for wine in the bottle. (Period.)

3 Lessons:

Lesson 1.- Blind tasters pick screwcaps, in every single tasting they vote heavily for screwcaps, (a.k.a. Stelvin® closure. Stelvin, which rhymes with Melvin.) Sometimes seventeen to one in favor of the Stelvin® closure. These blind taste tests reveal that wine drinkers prefer the flavors of wine from bottles closed with the Stelvin® closure, tasters comment on the wines being more aromatic and showing more complexity.  Even wine aged in bottle with the Stelvin® closure wins! At this years Vinitaly a selection of top Australian wines matured under both screwcap and cork led to “ground breaking” results during a blind tasting...the international panel of judges voted for the wines aged under screwcap!

Lesson 2.- Stelvin® closure failure rate is virtually ZERO.  And, cork taint is very real; 2 to 5% of bottles with cork closure are ruined because of bad corks. Faulty corks generate a nasty chemical compound called TCA (2,4,6 Trichloroanisole) Cork taint gives wine a musty, wet cardboard character. Then there is the great account of the 1997 Cabernet Sauvignon reserve from Plumpjack; half of the production was bottled with Stelvin® closures and the other half with corks. I have met customers who had one of each and the cork sealed wine was tainted.

Lesson 3.- Time tested, the Stelvin® closure is nothing new. In fact the first screwcap is Patented by Dan Rylands in the UK in 1889 it found its first practical use on whiskey bottles, replacing corks. (When is the last time you used a corkscrew to open your bottle of liquor? Don't you miss the romance???) Then in 1950's the Stelvin® cap was developed in France specifically as a wine bottle closure and is still a registered trademark of French manufacturer Pechiney. In the decades since it's creation many laboratory test have been conducted. Chemical analysis proves that the Stelvin® closure is better for wine in a bottle, time and time again. and again...

One of you is thinking; "well, aren't corks time tested?" And I will refer you to the Chris's writing over at the Grapeful Dregs wine blog; "There are a lot of traditions in winemaking, and sealing the bottle with a cork is one of them, but think about this for a moment: The winemaker nurtures the soil, carefully tends the grapes, waits for just the right amount of sugar content, scrutinizes the fermentation, sterilizes the bottles and then stuffs a hunk of tree bark in the neck of that bottle. Does that make any sense to you? No, me either."

And, if you need more technical information; look here.

Do you have a screwcap experience you would like to share?  Please comment below...