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STOP(PER) THAT WINE–Part II

A while ago we posted about wine preservation systems–those gadgets you use to keep wine that has been opened fresh.  While we just gave you our opinion on what works, blogger Christopher Null has taken it a step further and compared 5 currently available systems using taste tests after the bottles have been stoppered for two and seven days.  Certainly a more comprehensive treatment of this subject than we did…

Our only gratification was that Mr. Null’s Numero Uno system, Private Preserve, was the same one we like to use.  Read about his results here.

Wine preservation systems 300x292 STOP(PER) THAT WINE  Part II

 

 

 

 

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DRINK GREAT WINE AND HELP SEND A KID TO CAMP

Wine Roses logo DRINK GREAT WINE AND HELP SEND A KID TO CAMPMark your calendars!  Sunday, June 9th marks the 30th annual Wine & Roses Charity Wine Tasting in San Diego.  Sponsored by the Social Service Auxiliary of San Diego, the event features award winning wines from the San Diego International Wine Competition and food from some of San Diego’s finest restaurants. 

Proceeds from ticket sales and the silent auction help provide “camperships” to San Diego boys and girls who attend summer camp at Camp Oliver, a youth camp in Descanso, CA.

Wine & Roses is San Diego’s oldest and largest charity wine tasting. This year’s event will be held from 3:00pm to 6:30pm at historic Liberty Station near Point Loma.  Click here for more information.

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IT’S THAT (BORDEAUX) TIME AGAIN!

‘Tis the season.  The Bordeaux en primeur season that is, and many Bordeaux lovers are focused on release prices for their favorite clarets.  At the same time consumers are wading through the onslaught of interviews and articles telling us about the high quality–or lack thereof–of the ’12 vintage.

During this time of hyperbole, it’s good to get the opinion of someone who is grounded in wine criticism and is respected around the world for his level-headed approach to wine evaluation.  Steven Spurrier, a senior editor at Decanter Magazine, is one such guy and the publication has just released a video of Steven discussing the 2012 vintage.  Enjoy!

Steven Spurrier on 2012 Bordeaux

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DON’T GIVE UP ON BORDEAUX!

In recent years, especially since Asia discovered fine wine,Ch Lafite price increases DONT GIVE UP ON BORDEAUX!Bordeaux has become the punching bag for oenophiles frustrated by astronomical prices. And it’s true that prices for the top-ranked châteaux have gone through the roof (see graph). But while it almost seems that Bordeaux has become the wine people love to hate, it’s a mistake to think of the five First Growths as price drivers for the region.

first growths 300x215 DONT GIVE UP ON BORDEAUX!In fact Bordeaux produces on average 58 million cases of wine every year. And together the First Growths produce an average of 74 thousand cases a year. So (crunch, crunch) the math shows these elite chateaux that get all the press and hoopla about soaring prices represent only .001 percent of the region’s annual total production.

Competition from around the globe has forced every major wine region to focus on quality in order to stay in the game. And today in Bordeaux there is more exciting, and affordable, wine being produced than ever before.

There is a new generation of quality, as Oz Clarke recently wrote in Decanter Magazine, “…based on youth, as a new generation takes over and is simply not prepared to commit the blood and sweat of their working lives to producing a mediocre drink.”

So if you’re looking for good Bordeaux at affordable prices, search out wines bordeaux map 300x191 DONT GIVE UP ON BORDEAUX!from the un-sexy right bank appellations such as Côtes de Blaye and Bourg, Lalande de Pomerol, Castillon, Fronsac, Bordeaux Supérieur, and even basic Bordeaux. You’ll be amazed at the quality you can buy for under $30.

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Concierge Club takes the “work” out of collecting wine

Collecting wine is fun, if not a little addictive.  As your cellar grows, however, it can become a challenge keeping track of what you have and when you should be drinking it.  Many of our collectors have admitted to us that they know they have wines in their collections that have either reached their prime or, god forbid, slipped over the edge. 

To help solve this vexing problem, we offer cellar management services which include taking a complete inventory of a customer’s wine collection and adding suggested drinking windows for each label.  We then sort the collection to highlight which wines need the owner’s immediate attention versus those that can continue to sleep.

Now, based on feedback and suggestions from our customers, we have bundled together our cellar management services into Concierge Club, a one-stop shopping service for San Diego Wine Storage customers. 

 Concierge Clug gold lettering jpeg 1024x341 Concierge Club takes the work out of collecting wine

In short, Concierge Club is a fixed price, personalized package of services that gives our collectors updated information about their collection and eliminates the “work” in collecting wine.  Benefits include:

  • Complete inventory management
  • Day-to-day updating of inventory–deposits & withdrawals
  • Drinking windows with annual updates and drink-now alerts
  • Online access to your collection via CellarTracker™ or My Cellar, SDWS’s proprietary wine inventory management system
  • Order wines to be pulled from your collection for pick-up
  • Receive wine articles and buying opportunities based on your personal profile

Contact us if you want more details on Concierge Club and our cellar management services.  You can call or email us or, easier yet, just fill out the Contact Us form on the right side of this page.    

 

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WINE CLUBS–CAVEAT EMPTOR

blind faith1 WINE CLUBS  CAVEAT EMPTORIt always amazes us how, in this day of super-targeted marketing, most wine clubs still take a shotgun approach to selling wine.  “Sign up for $__ and we’ll send you 6 bottles of delicious wine every month.”  Of course the wine is chosen by their “experts” so you’re sure to like it.  Not.

A lot of wineries are the same way.  Instead of tracking which wines you actually buy from them, you get the same wines that your neighbor or the member in Peoria gets. And it’s no secret wineries use this medium to get rid of their slow sellers; you get two bottles of what you want and two of something you may not care about.

But the times are achangin’, at least with third party wine clubs, as they develop more targeted marketing WINE CLUBS  CAVEAT EMPTORsophisticated technology to pinpoint customers’ flavor profiles.  Now instead of joining a club that sends out California wines of every stripe, for instance, you can specify subsets within the club, like aged cabernets. And it should only get better as technology allows clubs to drill down on—and remember—exactly what you like to drink.

WineClubReviews is a handy website you can check out to find out about wine clubs and what they offer.  The owners of the site have done a lot of the grunt work in vetting wine clubs and rate the clubs based on specific metrics, such as QPR (Quality-to-Price Ratio), degrees of customization, and return policies. 

 

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Wine Faults–Reduction

 Wine Faults  ReductionEver put your nose into a glass of wine only to get a thoroughly unpleasant whiff of rotten eggs, cabbage, onion, or even tires?  These are sulfurous smells that most likely are the result of “reduction”. 

Should you swear under your breath and dump the wine out?  Maybe Wine Faults  Reduction not!  Simply put, reduction is the opposite of oxidation, so some of these stinky smells can be cleared by just aerating the wine.   Get a decanter and splash decant the bottle, swirl it around and see if it doesn’t help. 

Tom Mansell is a Ph.D in chemistry and is the wine science editor for Palate Press.  Here’s a short video, courtesy of Palate Press, with Tom talking about reduction and how you might be able to cure it.

 

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Finding Wine Movers

Wine on cart 150x150 Finding Wine MoversOne of the hardest things about packing and moving personal wine collections is finding a company that is willing to do it.  Most household movers don’t want to touch wine and, because it’s such a niche business you may have difficulty Googling up someone who has the knowledge and wherewithal to safely pack and transport your wine from point A to B.

San Diego Wine Storage specializes in local moves here in the San Diego area.  Most involve collectors moving from one residence to another, where we come in and pack up the wine and then either move it directly to the new residence or store it temporarily in one of our two San Diego County facilities until the new house is ready.  We also coordinate with national and even international moving companies who are qualified to safely transport wine under refrigerated conditions from one state or country to another.

One thing to remember is that UPS and FedEx won’t accept wine from unlicensed Truck4 150x150 Finding Wine Moversshippers, so they won’t work for most collectors.  And ask wine shippers questions about the extent of refrigerated services; make sure that your wine isn’t exposed to inclement weather at any time, from pick-up to drop-off.  Finally moving a wine collection is a great opportunity to catalog what you have so you have an accurate database once you reach your new location.

Here is a shortlist of wine moving companies that specialize in wine shipments:

Western Carriers — Located in New Jersey, Western can pack and ship your wine anywhere in the U.S.  They use their own refrigerated trucks on the long-haul portion and work with local moving companies to deliver the wine to your door.

www.westerncarriers.com;  (800) 631-7776

Domaine Wine Storage and Cellar Advisors – Headquartered in St. Louis, Domaine will take on almost any size collection, from a few cases to several hundred. They can also coordinate international shipping.

www.cellaradvisors.com; (314) 667-5328

Premier Wine Shipping – Based in Napa, Premier works with local wineries as well as collectors.  Long distance moves are usually shipped via UPS.

www.premierwineshipping.com; (707) 963-2686

Wine by Air International – Here’s a company that specializes in moving wine via air freight.

www.winebyairintl.com; (650) 508-9631

 bottle and boxes 150x150 Finding Wine Movers

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STOP(PER) THAT WINE!

Stopper 150x150 STOP(PER) THAT WINE!We are always getting asked what the best way is to store open bottles of wine.  Options include just sticking the cork back in, pumping air out of the bottle, or injecting inert gases to replace the oxygen, which of course is the spoiler of wine.  Sure there are others but these are the ones that seem to be the most popular.

Rather than go through the pros and cons of each method, we’ll just share with you the method that works best for us; and believe us when we say we’ve had a lot of practice…

Tests have convinced us that using inert gas, such as Private Preserve, and then putting the bottle into the fridge keeps wine fresher than any other treatment.  We used to use a pump but noticed that the pump caused the bouquet to dissipate, and the rubber stoppers they give you don’t seal very well.

Of course all of these solutions just delay the inevitable, so just drink up and save your money to buy more wine instead of wine accessories (especially ones that don’t work).

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Wine Resolutions for 2013

300px Winebottlesrack 150x150 Wine Resolutions for 2013Matt Kramer, the respected columnist for Wine Spectator, recently challenged his readers to take advantage of the abundance of good wine out there and start a wine cellar.  We couldn’t agree more…

In the January 31st issue of WS, Kramer asks “Is This the Year That You…?”

… Finally start a wine cellar? This is one of those “honey-do” things. Yeah, yeah, you’ve declared a dozen times that you’re going to start a proper wine cellar. That not only will you find or create a cool storage space, but that you will actually buy enough wine so that you’ve got more than, say, a month’s supply, if that. So why not now?

So go for it!  We have temperature controlled private wine lockers holding 12 to more than 300 cases, and offer a host of concierge services that make collecting and cellaring wine easier than ever.  So will 2013 be the year that you…?

SB lockers2 150x150 Wine Resolutions for 2013

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