I gave you a task the wine Yogi. Yeah, I gave you a task. A listener sent an email. Of course, if I was a good host, i'd have the email here to read. But I'm not, because we just chatted the entire time about how much we love theme parks, even though we're not going back, like we both love theme parks.
No, I'm going back, I.
Know, but I'm talking about Disney too. We both have a soft spot. Well, yeah, we're not going there anymore anyway, I asked her. A listener sent an email and said, Hey, I live in a rural area. My only options for wine are at the grocery store. How do I choose the best wine at.
The grocery store?
And I want to start there because you wrote great blog posting that I linked on the blog that everybody can go read from her. I am thewinyogi dot com website. But let's talk about the basics of shopping for wine at the grocery store. Even the same stuff applies though, I mean the same tip supply wherever you're buying wine.
It does.
And I began by prefacing, you have to understand if the grocery store is your only option, the people who are buying the wine and bringing it in are not going to be very knowledgeable, and it's probably whatever the distributor, and it's probably just one rep that's going to come in, and it's probably a large distributor, and there are some that are nationwide and so they all have the same portfolio.
So that's why you can go into if it's a grocery store or even just your small liquor store that's like right next right to the grocery store, or a state run ABC store red Dot if you're in South Carolina, those liquor stores, you're going to see the same usual suspects.
Nineteen crimes is.
You know the Snoop Dogg has a Nineteen Crimes red blend. You're going to see if you're looking at more expensive wines, things like Camus and Marsileat for Shardonay, you'll see these kind of standard wines and that's because they come from the same portfolio or book and that's from that distribution company that sells it. And so they're going to have certain quotas, just like any kind.
Of sales rep. Is I have a quota that they got to meet.
So a lot of times when you are stuck dealing with stores that don't provide kind of that personalized service, and it's a reality. I definitely have been in those places. Where I was in Indianapolis, I didn't have enough time to go find a local wine shop and get to know the wine, you know, the owner's shop, and then start talking to and maybe have the rep come in and taste them while I happen.
To be standing there, which I have a knack for doing.
I just did it in Golden so but you know, I didn't have that time, so we stopped off, you know, on our way back to the hotel, because we wanted, you know, a decent bottle of wine. So I always begin first with if you have a good idea of what you enjoy, that's where I would gravitate towards. And so for me, I'm definitely as I'm getting older, my palette is evolving and continues to evolve. I am much more of an old World or European style wine drinker.
I don't like the higher alcohol. I don't like a lot of sugar. I like dryer, lower in alcohol wines that have a lot of nuance, not just big tannin bombs or big fruit bombs. Want. I want some acidity and I want different layers of various things in that class of wine. So I tend to find and not old Not all Old world wine is like that because they do cater to the American palette. But there were some there are some definite go tos for me that I know that are going to have those kinds of things.
But if you enjoy those other things, if you like Oki shardon ay and you like big cab sab California style cab sab, then that's what I would look for when you are going into your grocery store setting or a small liquor store setting.
So I do want to point this out. Let's talk about AVV, which is alcohol by volume, because I didn't know this until I read it in your blog today. So you look at the ABV to determine the range of whether this is going to be a sweeter wine to a more acidic wine. Explain that that ratio.
So if you kind of just and it's not necessarily always hard and fast rule. But let's say you pick up a bottle of prosecco and you don't know based off of the verbage that they're telling you is this going to be a dry percho semi sweet or is it going to be sweet?
Because I get that a lot.
I don't like prosecco because it's sweet, right, and typically because a lot of times.
It is, especially if it's from cupcake.
But if you flip that bottle around and you look at ABV, and by law, all wine in the United States that is sold in the United States has to list alcohol by volume and that's ABV, that's that percentage, and so if it is under that ten percent range, it's.
Going to be sweet.
There's going to be residual sugar in that.
Is that because the sugar was not all kind of consumed by the yeast and that's why it has lower alcohol as well.
Or they halted fermentation to preserve some of that sugar. Okay, So, because the byproduct of yeast consuming sugar is it produces alcohol and CO two carbon dioxide, and so if it's a still wine, no bubbles, that just breathes off and then what you're left with is alcohol. Now, sometimes you can't have sweet wines that are going to be higher in alcohol content because they're pushing more of that fortified wine.
Right, So they're.
Actually adding in it's a sweeter wine that they're adding in a brandy. It's some type of fortified distilate to bring up the alcohol to make more of a dessert wine. So if you find instead of it's a seven hundred and fifty mili liter bottle, which is your standard size, if it's half of that, that three twenty five and it says things like late harvest or you know, ice fine, you may notice that those alcohol numbers might be.
Slightly higher just because of that.
Because it is fortified with something else.
It might be. It might be expressibly, could be.
And I guess the sweet spot or not sweet spot, depending on your palette is between eleven and where I would say for me personally that thirteen and a half.
I like to stay under fourteen, just because when I start getting into fourteen and above and a lot of your bigger California wines, your New World wines could also be South American. They because of the the demographic that they're targeting, they want those ports pounders is what I would refer to it as a party which pounders and that's just wine.
That you serve to everybody.
Yeah, it's at a party, You're not necessarily eating. It's not the idea isn't to pair this with dinner and or with this course or that, you know whatever. It's just a drink and to you know, feel the effects of the wine. So if you're thinking, like you're at a party, or you know, you've just had a really long day and maybe just need something, but you don't want to drink you know, bourbon or whiskey or that's
kind of you know, spirit. These these wines tend to be higher in that alcohol content, but it's affecting me, you know, and just as yeah you've said, but more so my husband and I have noticed it's just when we have those higher alcohol wines, we just feel it the next day. It may affect our sleep, but it may also just like whether it's stomach or just kind.
Of that residual malaise.
And I have just found that that under fourteen, so like if I can get around thirteen twelve to thirteen, for me as a sweet spot, I have a lot of lovely nuance. Whether it's acids that I'm looking for in the wine. Softer tannins often occur in that range, although it really it does depend on the varietal. But for me that just seems to be those kind of wines, and a lot of them are old world wines that just kind of are more for the wine itself, not the alcohol.
I was kind of surprised to see number three to cork or not to cork, and you came out saying, look, there's nothing wrong with a screw top. That's become a thing, because honestly, quark's cause a lot of problems for wine makers. They do.
They're expensive. It is because it's a tree, so it has to be harvested. So also a lot of you know, when you start getting into sustainability issues, it's just it becomes an issue and can be very expensive. We had recently in the last couple of years, glass was also very expensive.
So you're seeing a lot of wine makers.
The mom and pop, smaller productions moving towards canned wine as well. But the idea of cork, while I love it, you'll see a lot of them are synthetic.
That's a less expensive.
It also prohibits the interaction of a little bug TCA. I'm not going to give the lung scientific version, but it's a little bug that lives on natural cork and it affects anywhere from ten to fifteen percent of all wine out there that has natural cork.
And what this bug does.
Is it interacts with the wine when it comes into contact, and it leaves the wine smelling like wet dog, wet carbuilding.
It's skunky.
And I have experienced enough with people when I have said this wine is corked when trying to return something, to know that they have absolutely no no me what I'm saying. Of course it's corked, it has a cork in it. That's not what I'm talking about. And most places, reputable wine stores will take corked wine back and replace it.
I've never had a problem taking corked wine back to any place. I've taken it back to grocery stores. I've taken it back to publics in Florida.
Publix is a different kind of grocery. I mean, I know it's magical.
It is a magical question that someone's got. And by the way, there's more stuff in this blog posting that you can find linked on my blog at Mandy's blog dot com. Mandy asked the wine Yogi if the score cards in the wine store actually means something, So if.
You want to taste what Robert Parker and it's not even Robert Parker anymore, or you know, whether it's Wine Spectator, wine Independent, all of these different This is a group of editors that are going to go in and they're gonna taste wine and it's their palette. And then also, while people will deny it, it's who's who's advertising in their magazine, who's got big buys in their magazine yep, and things
like that. Yes, the wine score cards can be a good place to start, but I personally don't pay any attention to what Wine Spectator says because that's.
Not my palette. I don't really care.
I can maybe look at it to see how they're describing the wine if if I didn't get a enough description on like the back of the bottle. But honestly, if you have your phone right there, google what grenache should be like? Uh, if you are looking at grenache to ra mouved blend from the Rhone River Valley, what are the typical tasting notes of that that particular blend.
Do you use a wine app because I use Levino, but the vino is for me. Just like Amazon reviews, you have to read all the reviews and look for the common threads and take everything else out.
I would say I used to encourage people to use Vivino because it is a great place just to snap a photo of like and get information and get information, but like you're out of dinner. For me for the longest time, I just used it just to kind of remember, and now.
I don't really need to do that kind of thing. I will take pictures of.
Wines, but then I would I just file that in a different right, you know, file in my gallery on my phone. Wine Folly is a great website that I think does less about because they sell their own stuff. They sell more like educational wine MESP right right and books like that. But they I think provide a very h fantastic baseline and introduction to different grape styles, different regions, different approaches to wine making.
Without all of the.
Purchasing power of certain winemakers out of California that influence all of your wine spectator type magazines.
It would be lovely if every wine was like the what is it Taska? I Taska wanted? Because the winemaker of this wine out on the Western Slope writes the best, most perfect descriptions of her wines. Ever, so I grabbed the bottle. I want to read this description, just as if any other winemakers are listening. Where is it?
I don't know what I did with it.
You just left a bottle of wine somewhere.
I think it's in my bag.
Okay, ang on one second, because I want to see this. It would be so nice if all winemakers wrote their descriptions on because sometimes you'll flip because I always look at the description on the back, and sometimes it's like imagine walking to a field of golden rod. It'll hit your palette like a bright sunshiny ray, and then it is strong. You won't know what hit you. That is not helpful. It's like the people who named the odorant, so it has told me what it smells like.
I would like to say, though, I like to make fun of those kind of reviews, So when I write my wine notes for my wine classes, I will say, pair's great with the Broncos getting blown out by sixty points versus Miami.
Things like that.
So this one says this wine is tropical, floral and citrusy with a sharp natural acidity and dry finish, And that is exactly what it tastes like it is that is exactly what it tastes like.
Well and Jamie, So, Jamie Henderson, she has an amazing palette. This is the storm cellar of her and Paionia in Colorado, and she and her husband Steve were psalms at Shanahan's and so they her background is being able to describe things to customers so that they can understand it's not just wine, it's the cocktail she's going to create for you.
So she's just fantastic at taking, you know, these understandable vocabulary words and not sat challenging words and to kind of, you know, convey like what this wine is gonna taste like, what it should taste like to you it may not and that's please always take that kind of with the grain of salt.
That it is.
The scripture, the scriptures that on the talking points that are from the winemakers themselves. A lot of times, if they're big and they're in your grocery store, it's a marketing team that has come up with these things because they know that words like strong suppultanins or you know, uh blovity blogging forward, they know that these things will capture also ladies I do, and I'm guilty of this too.
They know that we buy based off of what the label looks.
Correct and well, I used to, and then I bought a bottle of gropa in Italy and it ended my love affair with pretty bottles because gropa is disgusting. Well, that's when you just.
Pour it out and you keep the bottle. I turn it into a camp I still have bad feeling.
About that, just really bad feeling about that. What is it that, I wait, Why is it that I drink wines in Spain and don't get a headache, but if I drink spain wines in the US, I do so.
Oftentimes part of it is just the experience of where you're at.
There is just.
Something to be said for you know, walking in the rolling hills of Tuscany.
Yes, and you know you're sipping on your Kiani.
Class a field of golden rod.
There you go.
But there is something to be said with because you're relaxed already.
You're just you're in that vacation enactment.
Also, if you are drinking like the local produced wine.
They don't have.
The the the soul fights and the preservatives that wine that is going to have to be traveled, transported across the Atlantic or from the Pacific and come into a.
Port or maybe sit there off of those ports.
If they got stuck in the traffic jams waiting to come in and then make their way to Colorado. So I hate to say it everybody that's like, you know, I don't drink red wines because sulfights give me headaches. Your white wines have even more because they have to be even more shelf stable because they don't have the tannins as a natural preservative.
So when there's there's also so many wines over there that they're never intending for expert exactly. So like in Switzerland, I think like seventy five to eighty percent of the wine produced in Switzerland is consumed in Switzerland, so they don't put any of that crap in it because it's not going anywhere.
And a lot of times the alcohol is slightly lower because it's not meant to lay down for ten years. It's not going to be, you know, sitting in a cellar somewhere. It's meant to be drunk with your payea or if you're in the Asorus texted Mandy the other day, I love the Asors. First time I ever had red wine with fish, I had Portuguese red wine in the Asors with swordfish and it was amazing and it was life changing.
And I love the Asorus.
So this texter just said, Colorado wine is trash, peaches and corn. That's what Colorado does when I moved here eleven years ago. That was also my experience. Since I've been having the wine Yogi on the show, she has introduced me to an absolute wealth. Would have wines from Colorado that are outstanding, and you could put them up against any wine from anywhere in the world.
And I would encourage that texter to follow ted Lasso's advice, and that's don't be judgmental, be curious, and maybe expand your horizons and try something that isn't from your big producers. On the Western Slope, there are a lot of small, mom and pop producers. I talk about them frequently anytime I bring in I'm doing a.
Whole I'm doing two whole classes that I've sold out on.
Colorado wines, which if anybody calls the Wine Gallery right now, I'm opening up two spots in the one thirty and the three o'clock classes.
But you got to call the Wine Gallery to reserve your spots.
Because they are sold out. Otherwise, what's that phone number? Oh my gosh, you're you know it's the Wine Gallery in Colorado Springs and tell them Crystal, just open how many more spots? Two in each class? Okay, but you have to call. You can't do it online. Now you know what time it is. It's time for the most exciting segment all the radio of.
Its kind in the world of the day. Well done, Snide backed away so that I could I did use my.
I could use my command voice, Ryan Edwards does it back away?
No?
No?
Oh, here we go, all right? What is our dad joke with the day?
Please?
It's a wine dad joke? Okay? How do you determine how much wine to drink?
Whatever's in my glass?
I do not know. It's taking on a case by case basis. That's a good one. That is a good one. By the way, Crystal has information about the itask of wine, her class and everything on her blog. You can find that at my blog Today's jeopardy or excuse me, oh the day you'll get there. Word of the day is a verb. Perry P A R. R. Y. Doesn't that mean something to do with sword fighting?
Word counter? Yeah, the counter.
Two basic meanings to perry can be to defend yourself by turning away from, or pushing aside a weapon, or to evade something such as a question, especially by using a clever response.
We're giving ourselves credit for that. Yes, I feel like we got there. What would I know this? And I'm so super excited that I know this answer? What was the title of Olivia Rodrigo's debut studio album, Absolutely no idea, sour, so good care It's so good.
You know I took fencing in college.
Did you really have never looked?
I bet amazing because you're constantly in that little squat.
I bet. Okay. Here is what we're doing now, Jeopardy and category Okay, can you make sure I'm a fever? I literally had a tiny tiny bit of wine too, but like she was barely a taste.
Why should be just a little bit. She's already plastered. Haven't been drinking prepping for Chicago. The category is say it with Chocolate?
Say it with chocolate? Okay. I feel like either of us is God go either way.
The bitter Native drink Chaco Latti had sugar added to it by these sixteenth.
Century who were the Aztecs?
Wroteenth century conquerors?
Crystal the Spanish from keyst Do from Keysta doors is what I would say.
Okay, you determined as you get credit. It's the Spaniards. Oh yeah, i'll give her that. I'll give her that.
And I said, no.
Making sure?
Okay, yeah, so let's us wonder one.
Yes, it might ring a bell that these chocolate cakes from Hostess debuted in nineteen.
Oh dang it, what a ding dongs ding dong?
Charlie Bucket is the title character. It was Willy Wonk on the Chocolate Factor. What in this nineteen sixty four children's book.
You're gonna hate yourself? Come on, Charlie in the chocolate factory? What did I say? You said, Willy Wonk?
Willy Wonk?
Oh my god, man mass ah way, anyway, it's a disaster.
Originally it meant coffee that came from Yemen. Later it came to mean coffee flavored with chocolate.
Manny, what is mocha? Correct? That one minus one?
In addition to its famous square in San Francisco?
What is Gia Deli correct?
Okay, I'm back to zero solid wind my crystol with two zero, I just had to be quiet, but I did. I did manage to avenge my earlier stupid answers. You're cut up.