Your Wine Community
Top 10 User Rated Wines
Post a new wine
Do you have a favorite wine and it is not listed on our web site?
Please tell us all about it and well make sure that it will be added for you by clicking here
Please tell us all about it and well make sure that it will be added for you by clicking here
Best Ingredients Make The Best Wine
Author By: Tim Protzman
Best Ingredients Make The Best Wine
By Tim Protzman
A few years ago I was at an outdoor bar watching the sun go down. It was in the tropics and there was a laid-back, used feel to everything, including the palm- thatched roof rustling in the breeze.
Bertram the bartender came from Slough, England, and made a decent Pimm's #1 Cup, which is; Pimm's #1 (a flavored gin), ginger ale, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a cucumber slice as a garnish. Light and herbal tasting, this drink is lower in alcohol than a gin and tonic, because the Pimm's #1 is only about 45 proof. It was created for the gentry as a light afternoon drink during the brief English summer so the lords and ladies wouldn't get too pissed at the Henley Regatta.
Feeling hungry, we ordered from the bar menu. My choice, a personal pizza, was nixed by the waitress.
"Order the grouper sandwich," she said knowingly. "If you're from up North you'll hate the pizza."
"Why," I asked?
"The water," she replied. "The water down here just isn't the same. It doesn't have the same taste because it has different minerals. It makes the dough taste funny and gives it a gummy texture."
"With a good pizza recipe and the right water, you could conquer the South!" she said.
She had something there. One rule of mixology is always use the best ingredients. Squeeze your own juices. Avoid "juice drinks" (with high fructose corn syrup) as a mixer. And cover your ice! The most delicate, most delicious cocktail can be spoiled by bad tasting stale ice that's picked up the scent and flavor of Aunt Margaret's fish casserole that she made you take home. One friend who likes his single malt, 15-year-old Oban Scotch on the rocks even buys an expensive Italian spring water just to make ice cubes!
So when I interviewed Matt Lambo of Cisco Brewers, Triple Eight Distillery and Nantucket Vineyards a few weeks ago, I zeroed in on his first few sentences.
"Our products, especially the vodka, are different because in Nantucket we've been blessed with great water from our deep earth aquifers."
What this means is that you're kind of traveling back in time and tasting something you'd never get out of a tap. And all the products did have a clean crisp taste.
Lambo also told me that Triple Eight Distillery was "the first to apply for a new distillery license in Massachusetts in 50 years."
The company started as a home winery 25 years ago. The wine wasn't very memorable. Soon they started on beer. That really took off. In 2000 they started the distillery with a single malt scotch--which is still aging on Nantucket--and soon began producing vodka.
Vodka was Europe's equivalent of moonshine in early times. It can be made in a few weeks. Today it's refined, flavored, and distilled and is the most popular spirit. The process for making it is simple. Take something, ferment it, and distill it by heating it up and capturing the vapor. Where it gets complicated is deciding what to distill. Vodka is traditionally made from wheat and corn and grains or potato peels. In Tibet and Mongolia they even use dairy products. And Vermont Spirits in Passumpsic makes vodka from maple sugar.
Triple Eight makes its vodka from imported corn. Even though vodka is supposed to be tasteless, the ingredients, distillation, and filter leave a fingerprint. There's a vodka war going on now, for the hearts and minds of the consumer; and for the crown as the world's most ultra-premium vodka. Tasting panels seem to come up with a new ranking weekly. The goal should be a good tasting vodka, alone or mixed, that's affordable and low in impurities.
Being at the top of a tasting panel's list is great, but bargains and pleasant experiences are found with any product in the top half of the list.
The heart of Cisco Brewers, Triple Eight Distillery, and Nantucket Vineyards success is the people who started it and work there. They've created a corporate culture akin to a medieval guild. They're growing, but at the right size and speed. They use the Nantucket cachet and the branding power, and they're on the map as a major destination winery/distillery for tourists.
Tasting Report
Whale Tale Pale Ale, $6.99: It comes in an almost champagne-sized bottle called a growler. First thought--creamy, poured well. Nutty with a crisp clean taste (that Nantucket water again), some hops, and a British finish with just the right touch of bitter lemon hints.
Triple Eight Vodka, $27.99: It's named for artesian well number 888 on the south shore. Like Grey Goose without the slightly sweet finish. Not a lot of (IT) terroir like Stolichnaya, but it had one of the best finishes with absolutely no medicinal aftertaste.
Nantucket Vineyards Pinot Gris-dry, $15.49: The wine surprised me. It's very much a sleeper hit. They import Oregonian grown grapes. Light, with a touch of pear and honey, but nothing cloying, and a delicate acidic counterbalance reminiscent of expensive European wine.
I tried finding an Irish wine--and there are a few wineries on the Emerald Isle- -but even Kiernan at Tourism Ireland in New York couldn't think of any names, but says, "If you're ever in Belfast, visit The Crown, one of the city's oldest pubs."
By Tim Protzman
A few years ago I was at an outdoor bar watching the sun go down. It was in the tropics and there was a laid-back, used feel to everything, including the palm- thatched roof rustling in the breeze.
Bertram the bartender came from Slough, England, and made a decent Pimm's #1 Cup, which is; Pimm's #1 (a flavored gin), ginger ale, a squeeze of lemon juice, and a cucumber slice as a garnish. Light and herbal tasting, this drink is lower in alcohol than a gin and tonic, because the Pimm's #1 is only about 45 proof. It was created for the gentry as a light afternoon drink during the brief English summer so the lords and ladies wouldn't get too pissed at the Henley Regatta.
Feeling hungry, we ordered from the bar menu. My choice, a personal pizza, was nixed by the waitress.
"Order the grouper sandwich," she said knowingly. "If you're from up North you'll hate the pizza."
"Why," I asked?
"The water," she replied. "The water down here just isn't the same. It doesn't have the same taste because it has different minerals. It makes the dough taste funny and gives it a gummy texture."
"With a good pizza recipe and the right water, you could conquer the South!" she said.
She had something there. One rule of mixology is always use the best ingredients. Squeeze your own juices. Avoid "juice drinks" (with high fructose corn syrup) as a mixer. And cover your ice! The most delicate, most delicious cocktail can be spoiled by bad tasting stale ice that's picked up the scent and flavor of Aunt Margaret's fish casserole that she made you take home. One friend who likes his single malt, 15-year-old Oban Scotch on the rocks even buys an expensive Italian spring water just to make ice cubes!
So when I interviewed Matt Lambo of Cisco Brewers, Triple Eight Distillery and Nantucket Vineyards a few weeks ago, I zeroed in on his first few sentences.
"Our products, especially the vodka, are different because in Nantucket we've been blessed with great water from our deep earth aquifers."
What this means is that you're kind of traveling back in time and tasting something you'd never get out of a tap. And all the products did have a clean crisp taste.
Lambo also told me that Triple Eight Distillery was "the first to apply for a new distillery license in Massachusetts in 50 years."
The company started as a home winery 25 years ago. The wine wasn't very memorable. Soon they started on beer. That really took off. In 2000 they started the distillery with a single malt scotch--which is still aging on Nantucket--and soon began producing vodka.
Vodka was Europe's equivalent of moonshine in early times. It can be made in a few weeks. Today it's refined, flavored, and distilled and is the most popular spirit. The process for making it is simple. Take something, ferment it, and distill it by heating it up and capturing the vapor. Where it gets complicated is deciding what to distill. Vodka is traditionally made from wheat and corn and grains or potato peels. In Tibet and Mongolia they even use dairy products. And Vermont Spirits in Passumpsic makes vodka from maple sugar.
Triple Eight makes its vodka from imported corn. Even though vodka is supposed to be tasteless, the ingredients, distillation, and filter leave a fingerprint. There's a vodka war going on now, for the hearts and minds of the consumer; and for the crown as the world's most ultra-premium vodka. Tasting panels seem to come up with a new ranking weekly. The goal should be a good tasting vodka, alone or mixed, that's affordable and low in impurities.
Being at the top of a tasting panel's list is great, but bargains and pleasant experiences are found with any product in the top half of the list.
The heart of Cisco Brewers, Triple Eight Distillery, and Nantucket Vineyards success is the people who started it and work there. They've created a corporate culture akin to a medieval guild. They're growing, but at the right size and speed. They use the Nantucket cachet and the branding power, and they're on the map as a major destination winery/distillery for tourists.
Tasting Report
Whale Tale Pale Ale, $6.99: It comes in an almost champagne-sized bottle called a growler. First thought--creamy, poured well. Nutty with a crisp clean taste (that Nantucket water again), some hops, and a British finish with just the right touch of bitter lemon hints.
Triple Eight Vodka, $27.99: It's named for artesian well number 888 on the south shore. Like Grey Goose without the slightly sweet finish. Not a lot of (IT) terroir like Stolichnaya, but it had one of the best finishes with absolutely no medicinal aftertaste.
Nantucket Vineyards Pinot Gris-dry, $15.49: The wine surprised me. It's very much a sleeper hit. They import Oregonian grown grapes. Light, with a touch of pear and honey, but nothing cloying, and a delicate acidic counterbalance reminiscent of expensive European wine.
I tried finding an Irish wine--and there are a few wineries on the Emerald Isle- -but even Kiernan at Tourism Ireland in New York couldn't think of any names, but says, "If you're ever in Belfast, visit The Crown, one of the city's oldest pubs."
Members Comment
Addition Pages: