Wine Chat | The Demystified Vine

A Wine Shopper’s Guide: Facts & Quick Tips

June 9, 2015

If you are headed to your local wine store to purchase some vino and you’re feeling a bit intimidated, check out these facts & quick tips.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, but it is a good starting point to help you feel more confident with your purchasing power.

Remember to try new things, explore, and be open to picking up that bottle that you have always deemed “must not be good”; you never know if it will surprise you. My personal suggestion: avoid buying big producers all of the time. You can often find a wine of much better quality for only a wee bit more coin.

Cheers!

An Infographic: Noble Grapes & Their Key Wine Characteristics

June 4, 2015

There are many winelovers out there who wish they could know more about wine. Consistently, I hear the comment, “Oh, I can’t tell the difference between a white and a red wine.” Okay, let’s start with colour, right? But I get it. It’s not about the colour of the wine. It’s about all that mumbo-jumbo that surrounds picking out key characteristics in wine and how those differentiate one varietal from another.

At that point, I usually find myself wanting to demystify those key characteristics because, well, I’m an educator. As such, I’ve created a quick reference guide for (most) of the Noble grape varieties. Noble grapes are also known as “Key Grape Varieties”. Syrah is considered to be a key grape variety as well, but I couldn’t work it into my web. Shout out to Syrah…you know I love you!

For those of you not entirely well-versed in wine, use this to help you on your wine journey. Please note that this is not an exhaustive list. There are many more characteristics used to describe these individual wines. The characteristics I have included are the most common for each grape and how that grape shows itself in its final product.

Enjoy, and remember to “like” the Demystified Vine on Facebook for fun facts, memes, and other wine-related articles.

Cheers!

The Demystified Vine

“Chardonnay Still Rocks” Says Cuvée de la Chapelle

Valerie Stride, WSET ADV Certified

5 comments

April 30, 2015

The other night I was enjoying a 2012 Chartron et Trébuchet “Cuvée de la Chapelle” Pouilly-Fuissé. While sipping it, I couldn’t help but be a little bit peeved over the fact that I’ve heard countless people say they hate Chardonnay. Don’t get me wrong. I know that there are a lot of people on that …

Has Wine Become a Classless Drink?

Valerie Stride, WSET ADV Certified

1 comment

March 1, 2015

As of late, I have been pondering the question of whether or not wine has become a “classless drink”. I am highly fascinated with how quality plays a role in this question, and if people even care about quality playing a role in whether or not wine has indeed become a “classless beverage”. For the …

The [Real] Truth About Wine Blogging

Valerie Stride, WSET ADV Certified

1 comment

November 14, 2014

Recently, I sat down with Brent Gushowaty (@BCPinotNoirInfo), avid Pinot Noir lover and respected colleague. We met briefly while I was doing a pouring at a local VQA liquor store, and once again at the wine bloggers conference in Santa Barbara, California. Early in the morning of July 24th, 2014, shortly following the conference, Brent …