Kristen Siebecker has been a great fan of viticulture and vinification since her first illicit sip of Boone's Farm wine beverage many years ago.
More recently, she became a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers, completed the Advanced Certification program from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust with distinction and is certified in Advanced Blind Tasting by the American Sommelier Association. Kristen continued to hone her skills for several years in the wine retail industry, advising customers and assisting in the “Sommelier for an Evening” program.
Kristen is available for all things wine related! She is the currently the Events Director for Swirl Events providing private and corporate wine tastings in the NYC area. In addition, she is a wine consultant and occasional on-site sommelier for Good Commons, a retreat center in Vermont, as well as the NYC Celiac Meet-Up group.
Kristen's current favorite wine is Cotes de Provence Rose! Spring is here!
Feel free to contact Kristen about wine pairing, shopping for wine, sourcing appropriate wines for your next special event, or putting together your own tasting!
www.swirlevents.com
www.WineWithKristen.com
Twitter: WineWithKristen
e-mail: WineWithKristen at gmail.com
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
2 for 1....BOGO...that's 2 for the price of 1!
I am going to be going to the green mountains of Vermont June 21-24 and there is NO better offer out there than Matthew Wexler’s “Roo de Loo”offer. Go get it!
The short answer, I have no idea! But it’s fun to think about.
Admittedly, I am not much of a collector. I don’t have the facility or the patience for it. Wine collecting takes a lot of money and it is essentially a living thing, unlike say a painting, it can change and get past prime with time or bad storage.
If you think about wines that are from around 200 years ago, there’s not many of them. And of those, only a few people (our great great grandparents) would of had the means and storage to do such a thing. In any case, I read recently that only about 1-3% of wine produced is meant to be aged beyond 10 years.
Granted, there was an article last week about the oldest bottle of wine, over 1500 years old, and they are afraid to open it:
museum-afraid-to-open-worlds-oldest-bottle-of-wine
In a way, doesn’t that defeat the purpose? I mean, I want to drink the wine.
Just a few of the wines that arrived from Spain today! Hooray!
Many people prefer this type of corkscrew, maybe the added exercise regiment is the reason why?
Decanter Awards 2012
Now, take these awards with a grain of salt, and they are not the be all end all for your good wine choices, however, I think these listings can be a great guide to start with, especially for regions /varietals that you aren’t familiar with and maybe want to try.
It has a handy dandy search tool for regions. Like for me, I wanted to check out the Black Sea region of Turkey…and while there ar only two producers, it gives me an idea of what to look for while shopping.
And check out China!
Sounds like great advice!
Echezeaux and Peanut Butter
This seems cuckoo bananas, and is possibly cringe worthy, but no, it was masterful. Let me set the scene.
My friend Cory and I had finished some events and started to wind down with a little bubbly (a French rose form Sud De France). He had been storing some wine at my place, one of them a 1997 Grand Cru Echezeaux from Domaine Bizot a highly regarded Pinot Noir from Burgundy. This wine had been procured at a restaurant job many years ago and it had traveled with him all over the country in some less than desirable storage situations (car trunks, sunlight, not on it’s side, etc). He had given it to me as a gift, but I never really thought about drinking it, I should wait, right?!
Well, this was the night. We just decided, let’s open this puppy. And so we did.
First, we opened it and the cork was in pretty good shape, then we poured the first bit and it was clear, great. Still loads of fruit, but that mushroomy funk (in a good way) and genuinely pinot noiresque. We thought, did we just open something that should’ve aged longer? Ah well, it was already open, but we may have murdered said puppy mentioned before and not let it mature into an adult.
The next pour was cloudy (see “not ideal storage” comment above), so we decided to decant. There came this chewieness that wasn’t altogether unpleasant, but we knew it wasn’t in it’s ideal form.
My hubby, then arrived to taste some wine. He had just given some peanut butter in a treat ball to our dog and had licked the spoon before having a sip (my husband, not the dog). He said that that was great with the peanut butter! So I immediately got two more spoons of PB and we tried it. It was like the most delicious peanut butter and jelly (and prob the most expensive) that you could imagine. The cloudiness was mostly the sediment thrown about, but it gave it a chewy grape jelly like quality that was really decadent.
In general I don’t recommend trying this again, unless you have the disposable income to do such a thing, but it was delicious and fun, and that’s what wine should be all about. Right?
Such a great idea, @Fastvinic in Barcelona has enotech machines that give you local wines to go along with your sandwich (gluten free bread, too!)
Most Popular Wines 2012 Restaurant Poll
I was delighted to attend this tasting in New York that featured over 120 wineries showing off their most popular wines from a poll done at the end of 2011.
Some of my favorite producers that were representing were Iron Horse, Schramsberg, Grgich, Ridge and Domaine du Vieux Lazeret.
You really can’t go wrong with these producers, they always impress and show well at the table.
As Mr. Campbell said about whether to switch from wine and cocktails to coffee at the end of dinner, he says “I’m having too much fun for coffee. “
Well said, Pete.
