Category Archives: EMPTIED BOTTLES

Here reside my bottle breakdowns. These reviews provide information about each wine’s context: history, geography, value, etc., and composition: from appearance and aromas, to sweetness, acidity, tannin, body, length, flavors and quality within its type. Each review features a chart where I rank the wine’s qualities (e.g. light, medium, or full bodied) according to the Wine and Spirit Education Trust’s tasting guide. These are snapshots of a wine and reviewer. Don’t be surprised if the wine and your perception of it change. Use this data to buy and taste wine with purpose.

Stop worrying if a wine is bad or good. Judgment only describes the judge. Instead, treat each wine, each bottle, even each sip as a meeting unique unto itself. Find new wines here to stretch your mind and palate.

Open bottle. Open mind.

Tasting Chateau Chalon, Vin Jaune (yellow wine) and Marc (brandy) by Bourdy Jura, France

Posted on February 19, 2015 by waywardwine

A few months back Wayward Wine reviewed Biodynamic wines by Bourdy from France’s smallest, most extreme region: Jura, France (click here for that post). From 2010 to 1967, the wines ranged wildly from taught and acidic to spiced and honeyed. … Continue reading →

Posted in Savagnin, Uncategorized, White | 1 Comment

Jack Creek Cellars, Estate, Pinot Noir Reserve, Central Coast, California, 2006

Posted on December 22, 2014 by waywardwine

Let’s break from our EU Austerity Drinking Tour for something more to home. This Thanksgiving our family took a turkey break and visited Pinot Noir country in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Stops at Archery Summit, Angela, Lange, and Troon all highlighted the many forms and clones that Oregon Pinot could take on. Continue reading →

Posted in Pinot Noir, Uncategorized | Tagged 2006, and Troon, Angela, Archery Summit, California, Central Coast, Estate, Jack Creek Cellars, Lange, Oregon, pinot noir, Pinot Noir Reserve, Willamette Valley, yamhill carlton | 3 Comments

Scheurebe Wine from Bruder Dr Becker, Rheinessen, Munich, Germany

Posted on December 15, 2014 by waywardwine

With the holidays in full swing, we need to escape from the joy/stress of shopping, family/work parties. So Wayward Wine will up posts EU Austerity Drinking Tour in the following weeks.

Last Monday’s post, Munich’s Residenz palace managed to glow through winter. We slighted some rather nice beer (mainly out of frustration with the monopoly of big producers). So let us give Germanic wine a chance.

Munich lacks water bodies to make wine this deep into the continent. So this white comes of the steep banks of the Rein, in the heart of Germany’s western wine country: the Rheinhessen: Continue reading →

Posted in EMPTIED BOTTLES, Riesling | Tagged Brüder Dr. Becker, Germany, Kabinett, Rhein river, Rheinhessen, riesling, scheurebe, wine | 2 Comments

Serendipity: Biodynamics -vs- Wines from Jura #MWWC13

Posted on December 4, 2014 by waywardwine

Serendipity provides the lucky theme for this 13th Monthly Wine Writing Challenge. So, what role does fortuitous chance play in wine? Well, one theory thinks we can control nature’s chaos: biodynamics.

Logo DemeterImagine organic wine-making on astrological steroids, based, weirdly, on lectures given by Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner in the 1920s. I won’t bore you, but biodynamics looks at a vineyard as a whole ecosystem tied to celestial phenomenon and proscribes rituals to better enhance sustainability and produce. Intriguing…

However, bio-ists also latch their lunar planting calendar to a wine tasting calender (no really). 1st century Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder said the moon “replenishes the earth; when she approaches it, she fills all bodies, while, when she recedes, she empties them.” In theory, wine lives, and moon phases effect it just like living plants. Now wine certainly evolves and changes chemically with time and oxygen exposure, but to consider it “living” is like believing in zombies: those grapes aren’t growing anytime soon.

But can this (pseudo) science really predict chance? If we can calculate and plan our pleasure: “today is a leaf day, I shall avoid wine for maximum delight!” does it rob us the joy of surprise? Can we control serendipity?

Continue reading →

Posted in Savagnin, Uncategorized, White | Tagged biodynamic winemaking, biodynamics, Bourdy, chardonnay, Chateau Chalon, demeter, Jean Bourdy, Jura, mwwc, mwwc13, Poulsard, Savagnin, serendipity, Trousseau, Vin Jaun, wine | 12 Comments

Thirsty Thursday: Cape Mentelle, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, Margeret River, Australia 2014

Posted on November 20, 2014 by waywardwine

This Thirsty Thursday we travel to Bordeaux….via Australia? Yes, far away from the famed/derided/wallabied land of Shiraz in South Australia, on the Western coast flows the Margaret River towards India: Like Bordeaux’s Gironde River, Margaret draws moisture from the Indian … Continue reading →