Robert Biale Zinfandel 1999

Thanks to my uncle who reserve the wonderful Zinfandel "leftover" for me even though I can't spare time dining with him. Very touched.

Zinfandel

Observation: Very light rim, Long legs, massive sugar residual
Nose: Strong punch of red fruit. Intensive alcohol.
Body: Well-balance, smooth, need oxidize a bit
Taste: Prune, Licorice, Red Fruit, meaty, slight Oak
Length: long

Strongly recommend as this demonstrate a very nice zinfandel characteristics


No wonder it's more than 90 parker points :)
One of the before 2000 wine that I have enjoyed~

The media of wine

People often ask me where do I learn all the wine and related updates. Obviously not much source, they are from the internet, comics, of coz the word of mouth. Right, you can check some of the blog links on the left navigation bar. Today, I'm just glad to share my knowledge source so that you can have a glimpse of it and be the amateur :) Enjoy~

Wine Books & Magazines              Wine Tasting Events
Decanter                                                Ponti Wine
Wine Monthly                                        ASC Fine Wines
Wine Spectator                                      Concord
神之水滴                                              Tell Me Wine

Wine Making Game

BigFishGames again comes first in terms of online game, or even iphone gadget games now.

Impressed by wide sorts of games available, including Winemaking. Must be wine enthrusiasts cuddled together and think of what to play with.

Unlike Sally's salon (I was playing that at a real salon and the hair stylist thought the salon I was playing makes me look busier than him, LOL), it's all about simple clicking and tapping, relax and airy game.

Things you may learn: Famous wine producing countries. Grapes availability. Origin of grapes and bottle size pairing. Ratio between grapes and Vinis Vinifera etc... Not to the details, let the screencap motivates you~

***Enter the game by clicking the title***

Gathering 2: Give a "Themeless" a Theme

2nd anniversary at Lian - Theme: BIG WINE

12 wines all-you-can-drink. They got red, white, sparkling... Shall I treat that as irrelavancy or bonus offer??

They are from all over the world-- France, Aussie, chile, Spain, south Africa, Germany...you can call it
WWW - World War Wine.

Unlimited refill 6-10pm, unfortunately I arrived at 9. What we do is hiding the glasses and raise our hands for moreeeeee...
Yes, you're right, it's more like drinking competition. Me? Half drunk on the way home (ssshhhhh...)

Slight comments for some wine:
1. Loxarel, Cava Brut 2004: fizzling as usual, more for mouth cleansing, end with stale and metallic note.
2. Moscato d'Asti: Honey comb pungent, vanilla round the palate, fresh and sweet, go best with cholate or cake, groan that I didn't have...it's the lady killer in my fd's mind. I can't agree more as the next day my fd proved the 'theory' right!
3. Shiraz, Malbec: Typical Shiraz & Malbec, goes well with pork and light red meat.
4. Barbera D'alba: Intensive dark cherry flavour; delicate, a well-balanced red of the day. Goes nicely with beef cubes
5. Casablanca Nimbus Gewurztraminer 2007: Less lychee, still retain the crisp, the after-taste is very short, and little acidic, a fair fair average. Can't beat the Moscato to become gal's favourite, that's unusual.
6. Viognier: Drunk...can't recall...

============================
Recommendation to LIAN:

Problem with THEMELESS drink is that you will find it hard to do food pairing. Especially the dishes come at different times the chemical reaction may not sync.


WHY don't we take Lian as a "Food Pairing Workshop"? Customers to pay reasonably to achieve win-win wine & cuisine night under comfy environment, nice pairing service and NIL complaints on fishy food only becoz they match it wrongly.

Blog ME!

I was randomly searching google for pictures tonight, wondering if I search "Obama", I'll see Jason Obama picture. If I search "Sammi" , I'll see Sammi Cheng as first picture.

What if I search "Lillian Chan"?
Ok, I see myself on 3rd picture.

How about "Lillian Chan" & "Wine"?
OMG!!! I saw my picture on somebody's blog!!!!!! (US accent plzzz)
http://maxbordeaux.blogspot.com/2009/11/hong-kong-is-seriously-wine-crazy.html

Title: Hong Kong is seriously Wine Crazy!
(I am a bit calm, at least not only pinpointing at me...V_V)

Now I remember this Mr. Max, echoing my blog post:
http://par-lor.blogspot.com/2009/10/chateau-montrose-1996.html
http://par-lor.blogspot.com/2009/10/chateau-canon-la-gaffeliere-2002.html

Thanks for remembering me and most of all --> BLOG MEEEEEEEE ^.^

Now I become your official blog follower~~~

God of Dew

Studying the aroma wheel the other day, reminds me of a miracle...

When people get into the world of wine, their first tasting question would be

"What smell? I smell wine! What flavour? Wine! alcohol! grape @.@"

They are then very shocked by the label description of "toast, strawberry jam, licorice..." @@@@@@@@@
"Where the heck are these aroma from?"

Imagine...How can our devoted winemaker create all these~~~

Winemaker has been using more than 10 years to fertilize the vineyard before the grape is capable to absorb the nutients of terror. Not even mention the history of soil itself. (some are like hundred years!!)

They then spend several years experimenting the best combo of tannin, flavour, alcohol to ensure it accomodate customers especially wine judges' taste:
1. Tartration
2. Carbonic Maceration
3. Sussreserve
4. Chaptalization
5. Controlling compression of skin
6. Malolatic Fermentation
7. Fortified or distillation
They all affect the taste

Certainly the bottle turning, corkage, storage all have huge impacts to the quality. See how fragile and delicate wine is. Any tiny mistake in between would spoil one's impression on that wine. (base on wide range of variety, people prefer drawing conclusions quickly than giving many chances to the same wine). It's a Fame or Lame to the winemaker.

They also acquire chemistry knowledge to investigate what are the essence that induce which flavour, followed by sensitive senses to cross check the wine quality through sight, smell, palette etc...just like a wine judge and sommelier.

Not to mention the selling skills...
So now you know why winemaker is respectable. They are the real God of Water~ Winemakers ROCKKKKKKK

Reference Picture: http://www.dannyhellman.com/imgs/maxim_winemaking.jpg

A Catchy Title

This post is more like a Branding / PR post.

Was thinking hard these days what to write for a blog. There are millions of blogs, forums, media, which one would you pick? What's your choice? How would you determine it?

Typical example is Twitter. Every 10-15 mins, there are more than 100 tweets from numerous followers, worshippers, etc. depending how much you were exposed to / being exposed to.
From these hundreds of tweets, which one would you look at? The eye-catching phrase? Those related to you? or you don't even care, only those you know, while others just stuff the space?

I had downloaded the twitterrific function and I found dizzy replying...
Nowadays, being "Trendy" and "Up-to-date" is not by week or by day, IT'S by MINUTE / SECOND!!!

People tend to read limited words / icons to share ideas. Imagine this is how the next generation is brought up, what would the world be like. No in-depth meaning, only impulsive response and intuitive judgement, no theory, no philsophy to support.

Back to the title. So what kind of catchy title would you prefer to click onto?
Another consumer behavior survey...your comments are important ^^