This one is a bit “darker” than my benchmark.

A “goth”, overripe Damson Plum.

And “full bodied” for my taste.

Who’s the winemaker???

Elvira releases a new brand of wine!

I always liked her style.

I’m going to guess that there was a “rough” oak treatment.
(Squirm.)

Let’s consult the WWW…

Amazing. I can’t find ANYTHING. The Ayres site doesn’t
even claim this one.

I wish I had a marketing department to sell them.

On the other hand, maybe their wine sells itself.

Manager: When will the wine be ready?
Winemaker (her makeup cracking as she smiles): We’re bottling it today.
M: Great, I’ll call the distributors so we can get some sales rolling.
W: Say what? My fashion consultant already bought the entire vintage.
M: Did we make any money on the deal?
W: Who’s WE, blondie. And tell that flyover dude to stop snooping around
MY winery.

Apparently this wine is SO GOOD that you can use it to
loosen compacted soil or as a blood substitute in the opening
scene of Blade.

Surprised?

Why are wine reviews so BORING?

Maybe I should hire out to AA.

Reporter: It looks like you’ve been sober for two weeks.
Wino: That’s right.
R: What happened.
W: I read one of HIS reviews.

Or how about a description of the “IMAGINED oaking” technique?

The old French oak barrels are disassembled and the staves are
planed down to reveal “fresher” wood.

3/8 inch holes are drilled in the wood, 2 inches apart,
to a depth of 1/4 inch and a 1 inch segment of grape vine
is inserted into the hole and secured by a drop of pine resin.

This is done in the spring to give the resin time to harden.

The barrels are re-assembled at harvest time.

After initial fermentation, the wine is poured into the modified
barrels which are spun/rotated at a rate of 120 RPM.

The time in spinning barrel can be from three to six months
depending upon which sin the wine has committed.

Careful filtration must be done in order to remove the loosened
grape vine segments and rosin. (This is prescient if I do say
so myself because I wrote this way before I got to the bottom
of the bottle.)

After use, barrels modified in this fashion are donated to
hair transplant victims as a needed tax write-off for the winery.

The result will be a wine that lulls you to sleep and
makes YOUR head spin.

I wouldn’t SWEAR that THEY used THIS technique, but they did
SOMETHING to make the wine REALLY GOOD.

This is getting too easy.

I need to branch out. Tibetan Malbec comes to mind.

And JUST MAYBE, this “rough oak treatment” is what it takes
to bring out the tannins I THOUGHT I was looking for in PN.

It tames some of that acidity. It’s all in the balance.

SMOOTH, ACIDY, NOT-TOO-OAKY TANNINS. Why is that so hard?

PN may be the only (or most popular) grape that presents
this challenge to the Elvira-and-kit-shicker-wine-making wannabes.

I DON’T KNOW.

Dreamtime is over. I get to have some of this one
for brunch tomorrow.

Menu for tomorrow: 2016

NOW, let the sunshine in…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPK7ZF6jfJE

(The songs make more sense of you imagine that
all those little round things are fermenting grapes.)

————————————-

Day Two…

I didn’t save ENOUGH of this one.

I’m having MORE of the STALKY GREEN STUFF for
brunch.

All I can say is…

There’s SOMETHING about this wine.

It’s beauty is “singular” and edgy.

It’s rough and seductive.

I’m imagining an Oregon PN “shootout”.

Winemakers instead of quick draw artists. Bottles
instead of guns.

Hopefully, this bottle-slinger wasn’t a good winemaker…

I KNEW IT!!!

The last pour produced the most “compelling” bunch
of sludge that I can possibly imagine in a PN.

NOW I know what I’m looking for.

Wine Merchant: How can I help you?
Wine Slush: I want Pinot Noir.
WM: We have this wonderful wine from the “Central Valley”.
WS: No.
WM: Perhaps something MORE fruity?
WS: No.
WM: How about something rich and full-bodied?
WS: No.
WM: We have an oaky one from Mozambique.
WS: No.
WM: What exactly DO you want?
WS: Sludge. I want sludge.
WM: In a PN?
WS: Oh yeah.