Wednesdays on the BottleBlog will feature an education session on wine, beer or spirits. Today Shannon Spare shares her experiences as a beginner in the World of Wine.
Welcome to Workshop Wednesdays! My name is Shannon, and I was brought on by Joe Canal's to manage our web content. When I was offered the job, I was told that I would "have to drink a lot more wine," which was, to be honest, just fine with me! While I've drunk wine, and liked wine, for many years now, I don't really know wine, and I've always wanted to. I still consider myself a novice. (I'm the "Average Joe" at Joe Canal's, if you will.) I thought it would be a cool idea to blog about my experience learning the ropes of the wine world, since so many of our customers are just like me in the sense that we love wine, but don't really know it.
I've been to a few wine festivals and tastings before, in my past life, and it was always a lot of fun bringing my little glass to all the tables to drink lots and lots of wine. I never really paid attention to what I was drinking, other than "Okay, this one tastes good," or "Ew, that's gross, give me more of that blackberry one to wash the taste away." I only remember one wine clearly, because it tasted like chocolate. No, seriously. The wine tasted LIKE CHOCOLATE. It was a Cabernet Sauvignon, I bought three bottles of it, and they were gone within a month. The next year we went back to the same festival and tasted the new vintage of the same wine, and it didn't taste as much like chocolate anymore - it tasted like wine. Disappointment aside, that was the first (and last) time that a wine really tasted like anything to me, and it was my first exposure to the subtle (and not so subtle) changes in different vintages of wines. It also made me realize that there's a lot more to this wine stuff than "this is delicious," and peaked my interest to learn more, so I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to do so now (and get paid for it)!
One of my first days here, there was a staff tasting spread out in our Liquid Learning Center to sample some new wines we would be bringing in to the store. She poured me a glass and I asked, "So... what do I do now?" And she performed this ritual that I, quite honestly, felt pretty stupid and uncoordinated duplicating, especially considering the red wine I had dripping down my chin.
Although I still couldn't pick much flavor out of the wines other than "This tastes good to me," or "This tastes bad to me," I did learn about some important wine qualities to consider when tasting, and they didn't really have to do with tasting at all.
The first thing I learned to look at is the color of the wine.
Red wines can range from a light brick red to a deep maroon-purple color, and everything in between. In general, the darker or brighter the color of the wine is, the younger it is. The subtle color changes can be noticed more on the edge of the wine in the glass, and darken in the middle. Very aged wines can even have a brownish tinge to them.
With whites, the opposite is true. Young wines start as what wine folks call "water-white," and move through a spectrum of pale yellows, straw, and finally settling into a warm golden color when they are fully mature.
Since my first "official" tasting, I've been noticing subtle color differences in the wines that I've been drinking. Interesting stuff!
Until next time, I'd love to hear your experiences with the wine color spectrum, and if you have any more information for me to soak up! Just leave a comment!
Highball: Highball glasses are typically used in drink that have a high proportion of mixer to liquor, like rum and cokes, gin and tonics, and scotch and sodas. They generally hold 8 to 12 ounces.
Lowball: A lowball glass, also known as an Old Fashioned Glass or Rocks glass, is a smaller glass that is generally used for alcohol served on ice, or "on the rocks," as the name implies. 6 ro 8 ounces is a standard rocks glass size.
Red Wine Glass: This doesn't need much explanation other than it's okay to also serve white wine in this glass, if you are just starting your glassware collection and it's either one or the other.
Shot Glass: Though there are a wide variety of shot glasses available in thousands of shapes and sizes, a standard single shotglass is 1.5 ounces and used for serving shots or to measure alcohol into mixed cocktails.
Beerware: A pint glass is the perfect vessel for your draft beer if you're lucky enough to have the space and resources available to keep kegs in your home bar. Frosted mugs always are appreciated when serving suds, and although a Pilsner glass is traditionally for beer, margaritas, pina coladas and other frozen cocktails present beautifully in this tall, slender glass.
Martini and Margarita Glasses: Shaken or stirred, you're going to want a martini glass to serve the traditional olive-laden drink, as well as trendy drinks like Cosmopolitans and Chocolate Martinis with swirls of chocolate sauce decorating the inside of the glass. And a salt-rimmed margarita glass is a perfect presentation for on the rocks and frozen tequila delight.
Irish Coffee Glass: Topped with whipped cream and sprinkled with cinnamon or chocolate shavings, this glass makes an Irish coffee or any other hot drink look good!
Ok, as I may have mentioned, I really enjoy gin. It is that crisp, sharp, aromatic flavor that makes it stand out from other spirits. A spirit that can actually quench your thirst in a Highball (there is nothing like a gin & tonic with a slice of lime on a warm summer day), or can pique your hunger in an aperitif. My favorite, of course, is the Martini, but when we are going out to special restaurant (and the Mrs. is driving), there’s nothing I look forward to get the taste buds going than a well-made Negroni. Since it combines gin with Campari, it certainly does pack a wallop.
So what is it? Well, sometime in the 1840s, Gaspare Campari created his "bitter" using herbs, spices and fruit peels in Turin, Italy. It became an almost immediate success. Gaspare eventually settled in Milan where he set up his Café Campari. His drink was such a hit, he allowed other cafes to use his as yet unnamed concoction, as long as they displayed a "Campari Bitters" sign. Even today, all across Italy and much of Europe in fact, you can find sidewalk café tables adorned with Campari labeled umbrellas. 
Well, Campari is not for everyone and even some who like need to try it a few times in various cocktails to acquire a taste for it. But skillfully made, the Negroni is a terrific beginning to a fine meal. According to their website, the Negroni is an Italian cocktail invented in the early 1900s by Count Camillo Negroni, a Florentine aristocrat. Camillo asked the bartender to add some bite to his favorite drink the Americano. With the addition of gin, the Negroni became the Count's new favorite.
Simply put, White Port is made from indigenous white grape varieties that tend to be higher in acidity. The grapes are crushed in concrete foudres (sometimes by foot, sometimes mechanically) then spend a short maceration (skin contact) time. During fermentation, the process is halted by the addition of grape spirits (brandy). The style of White Port can range from very sweet to bone dry according to the how much sugar the producer chooses to leave in the wine. The Port was traditionally aged in wood, giving the wine more complexity and a slightly nutty flavor. Some producers forgo the wood aging and mature the wine in steel tanks or concrete vats. This type of aging produces Ports that are lighter and more fruit forward. 
There is no cocktail that so brings to mind balmy tropical breezes, Hawaiian shirts, flaming tiki torches by a long bamboo bar, and Pu Pu platters, than the Mai Tai. With the resurgence of the "Tiki Culture," the Mai Tai is now an absolute must fixture of the repertoire of the amateur mixologist. But what were the origins of this delightfully refreshing, yet powerful, concoction of rums and syrups? 
Of course, most folks do acknowledge the original purveyor of all things tiki, Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, a young man from Louisiana who, like Victor, sailed extensively through the South Pacific. At some point upon his return to the states, the well traveled Ernie changed his name to Donn Beach and launched the legendary Don The Beachcomber Restaurant in Hollywood in 1934. Donn was the first to mix rum with fresh fruit juices and flavored syrups and almost singlehandedly created the "tropical drink." Originally known as Rhum Rhapsodies, these concoctions were a hit with movie stars and studio bigwigs, but we know them by such colorful names as Scorpions and Zombies. But I digress...
Trader Vic's Original Mai Tai
Scorpion Bowl (makes four servings)
Perhaps the most famous cocktail in all of cinema is James Bond's martini: "Shaken, not stirred." This well-known line was first spoken by actor Dr. No in the film of the same name in 1962. Bond himself, however, didn't say the words until Goldfinger in 1964. It was said in nearly every Bond film that followed, with only a couple exceptions.
