Nose of Wine (1)

Despite working till 12 - 1am lately, I really wanna motivate myself by writing at least 2 posts a week... here comes, the nose buds:

The beginners (like me) normally would ask questions like:
" The label says it has apricot, lemon and hint of vanilla...I smell nothing! or I could only say, I smell WINE!"

In fact, there are tools to help you understand the description of wine, help you express your feeling and share your joy with others.

Tool 1: Aroma Kit (Le Nez Du Vin -- Wine Nose)
This is so far the most direct way of introducing the taste to newcomers of wine world.
In each of the little bottle, they are generally presented in the form of wax so that the smell can be captured and long lasting.
They are the extract of the materials ranging from fruit to spice to wood to gas to provide us with a wide range of vials of aromas in wine.
Sometimes you may identify commonality in wine which consists of same grape varietal and this would be exceptionally helpful to those learners which memorize things based on smell.
A typical aroma kit has 36-54 essence, and the kit costs HKD$3000up.

Anyone can buy me one of these as birthday present??? I am happy to blow him / her a kiss, with a warm hug :)

Small talk on Terrior

People always draw conclusions that the quality of wine is determined by -- Terroir.
True, majority I agree is from Terrior. When I learn that from a book, the critical point is that uncertainty is quite complex; multi Terrior related factors in guaranteeing a good wine.

Rainfall, soil, sunshine...they are all determined by God. For example, grapes gained most of the sunlight when they are planted on 45 degree slope, good irrigation, retainability of water in soil is crucial in affecting the vines growth etc. No wonder Wine is called "Dew of God".

Amongst all factors, the one which is so "inborn" and "destiny" one is the altitude of the vineyard. Even it is within the same village, or even the same chateau, the Terroir may not be the same, which gives the variety and the uncertainty to wine, even in Chateauneuf - du - Pape, you might bought the wine next to the cuvee one and got disappointed. (hope it doesn't offend anyone :P)

Those in temperate zone like France will benefit from its geographical advantages. Thus Australia and Chile earn the same benefit. From the atlas, you can tell, the upcoming one is...China.

The one with most branding now is "The Great Wall". I am looking forward to how much people would invest in China to supply more funds in the investigation of the potential in wine development in there. Should be something interesting ^^

My first wine cellar

12 x Vintec Wine Cellar finally arrives~~~with 4 Hugel & Fils white wine :)

After unwrapping it, I try to put it in my window pane...oh yea, it's real.

It's stuffy, it's hot, but that's the only perfect place to make my room a bit...customized, a bit...myself.

The first thing I do is...open my dad's cellar, retrieve all my wines and store that into my new cellar. Here it comes! shxx! The size only accomodates red wine, the v.v. traditional red wine bottle size, they don't fit the white wine bottles at all @.@

So I ended up stored all my red wine and petit red & white into the cellar~ And place my Stitch puzzle above the cellar.

My first wine cellar.