SWILL wine tasting party blog

Close your eyes. Picture yourself sipping wine with good friends surrounding a crackling campfire just before sunset. September is a great month to enjoy delicious wines in the brisk fall air, and SWILLparty’s Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit provides a simple way to turn your fall gathering into a fun-filled wine tasting party.

The market is loaded with inexpensive, fine wines, so take a ride to your nearest wine store and buy some wines you’d like to try. Purchase a SWILL wine tasting kit and now you’re ready to invite friends. It’s that simple! A few inexpensive ideas for big reds perfect for chilly weather…2008 Lexicon Cabernet Sauvignon list priced at $11.99 or 2006 Bogle Vineyards Merlot listing for $9.99.

For details on the SWILL® Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit as well as other SWILL® wine tasting kits and supplies, visit www.swillparty.com. Choose to surround yourself with the essential things in life - friends, wine, food and SWILL® wine fun.

SWILL®…pairing people with wine!

Amazon Pulls Cork on Wine Delivery

By Geoffrey A. Fowler
and David Kesmodel
from http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/10/23/amazon-pulls-cork-on-wine-delivery/
Associated Press

Amazon.com has ended a trial program to sell wine online, the company confirmed.

The wine sales pilot, which the e-commerce giant launched last year, was intended to sell wine from California’s Napa Valley and other U.S. regions.

An Amazon spokesman declined to give details about why the company ended the program.

The end of the program may have been related to financial troubles at partner New Vine Logistics, which had been tapped to handle shipments for Amazon. Over the summer, that company suspended operations amid financial problems, but then later got new investment from Inertia Beverage Group.

Amazon faced an onerous task to comply with a patchwork of state laws governing the direct shipping of wine to consumers. More than 35 states permit some form of direct shipping, but laws often vary. Some states, for instance, restrict how many wine bottles a person can order, or require that consumers pick up wine shipments at a retail outlet.

“This was a very tough choice for us,” an Amazon account manager said in an email to wineries Friday, according to a copy reviewed by this blog. “I am sorry that we won’t get to realize the vision on which we have collaborated.”

The closure of Amazon’s wine program was first reported by WineBusiness.com, which unearthed communication from Amazon to wineries saying the company decided “not to resume shipping.”

Why Fish and Red Wine Don’t Mix

By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
October 22, 2009

For ages, diners have been told that drinking red wine while eating seafood can produce an unpleasant fishy aftertaste. The rule of thumb has been red wine with meat, white wine with fish. But the rule is not hard and fast. Seafood can taste fine with some reds, whereas some whites can ruin the meal. What’s the common factor?

Researchers at Mercian Corp. in Fujisawa, Japan, a division of which produces wine and spirits, decided to find out. They conducted an experiment with seven experienced wine tasters who were offered 38 varieties of red and 26 types of white. Over four sessions, the volunteers tasted the samples, along with pieces of scallops, the seafood most likely to produce the fishy effect. Then the researchers chemically analyzed the wines for a possible link to the aftertaste.

The culprit appears to be iron, the team reports in a recent issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. When the element’s content rose above 2 milligrams per liter or so, the seafood-dining experience turned sour. The team double-checked their results by soaking pieces of dried scallops in samples of wine. Scallops dunked in vino with low iron content smelled normal, but pieces soaked in samples with high iron content reeked of fish.

The researchers report that they haven’t yet isolated the compound in the scallops that reacts with the wine, but they suspect it’s an unsaturated fatty acid, which could be breaking down rapidly and releasing the decaying fish smell when exposed to iron. How much iron a wine contains depends on the amount in the soil where the grapes were grown, as well as other factors such as how the grapes are harvested and processed. Red wine tends to have a higher iron content, hence the admonition against mixing it with seafood.

“We were surprised in our finding,” says research chemist and lead author Takayuki Tamura, “because we thought that polyphenols or sulfur dioxide [produced] the unpleasant sensation.” These components represent a larger percentage of wine content than does iron. He explains that because iron does not “induce color change, accelerated oxidation, or cloudiness,” vintners tend to ignore its potential role as a meal-spoiler. But the new findings, he says, offer winemakers the opportunity to reconsider the downside of iron contamination.

The paper’s science is sound, says enologist Gordon Burns of ETS Laboratories in St. Helena, California. Still, he says, there are better reasons to avoid red wine with fish: Any robust red wine, regardless of iron content, would likely overwhelm the delicate, subtle flavor of many seafood dishes. Red wine, he says, often pairs better “with a big stew or a hearty chunk of meat.”

From http://www.democratandchronicle.com

Momentum building for Finger Lakes museum

Leo Roth • October 15, 2009

John Adamski’s idea for a museum dedicated to the history and ecology of the Finger Lakes has been so well received, it’s not a question of “if” the project will become a reality. It’s just a matter of “where” and “when.”

“So much excitement is building it’s truly unbelievable,” says Adamski, an outdoor writer and photographer from Dansville who first proposed his idea in an article that appeared in the spring 2008 edition of Life in the Finger Lakes magazine.

Adamski was flooded with calls and e-mails from people that share his passion for the Finger Lakes Region, those who saw the importance of his vision and were eager to help.

With that kind of support, Adamski has been able to accomplish in 17 months what can take years in the museum business: establishing a board of trustees and numerous committees, and securing a charter from the state Education Department’s Board of Regents for what will be called the Finger Lakes Cultural & Natural History Museum.

Next up, picking a site and kicking into overdrive a $50 million fundraising campaign. After receiving 19 proposals from eight counties and the city of Geneva, the site selection committee narrowed the list to six locations in Seneca, Cayuga and Yates counties. Earlier this week, one site was withdrawn, narrowing it to five.

Three sites are located within state parks that would come with a $1 a year lease. They are: 100 acres at Sampson State Park and 50 acres at Seneca Lake State Park, both on Seneca Lake, and 60 acres at Keuka Lake State Park near Branchport.

The two other sites are privately owned and are situated on or near Cayuga Lake in Aurora: 80 acres at Wells College, a land-lease situation, and 237 acres known as The Bush Farm that would be donated by American Girl doll tycoon Pleasant Rowland.

A third Cayuga Lake site, a 60-acre tract of Barry Van Riper and sponsored by the Finger Lakes Land Trust, was one of the six finalists. However Van Riper withdrew the Romulus property from consideration earlier this week because he wanted to preserve the natural setting of the land, Adamski says.

Representatives for the five site semifinalists have been asked to submit final proposals, detailing land terms and any inducements. The goal is to pick a site before the year is out, Adamski says.
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Design of the 40,000-square foot-museum building will take into account topography. Conceptual ideas call for depicting how glaciers formed the 11 Finger Lakes, an immense freshwater aquarium containing native species of fish, live wildlife exhibits and exhibits on Native American culture, early colonization, agriculture, viniculture and commerce.

Bill Banaszewski and Henry Maus, two history and science professors at Finger Lakes Community College who share Adamski’s enthusiasm, have been instrumental in pushing the project forward.

So have the folks at two museums in the Adirondacks that provided Adamski his inspiration — the Adirondack Museum at Blue Mountain Lake and the Wild Center at Tupper Lake.

“I’m almost intimidated by the talent pool of those who see the importance of our mission and are so willing to help,” Adamski says.

News Headline July 16, 2009, Wines and Vines

J Vineyards Expanding in Russian River
Two of three new vineyards planted to Pinot Noir and Chardonnay
by Kate Lavin

All 10 of J Vineyards’ properties are located in the Russian River Valley.

Russian River Valley, Calif.–After joining J Vineyards in 2006, winemaker George Bursick immediately began cultivating the winery’s vision of achieving the highest quality, a goal that required sacrificing yields to get the most concentrated and flavorful fruit. So as other wineries and vineyards were looking for ways to trim costs in late 2008, J Vineyards was closing on deals to acquire three new vineyard sites, a move that promises to keep production on the uptick. (The winery is on track to bottle 55,000 cases this year.)

Kathryn Lindstrom, general manager and CFO at J Vineyards, told Wines & Vines that Bursick combined his knowledge of terroir with the expertise of owner Judy Jordan, a specialist in the areas of geology and business, to create a wish list of attributes for the new vineyard properties. Then they started shopping.

New sites
The winery consulted with Paul Skinner of Terra Spase about soil analysis to identify which soil elements already were working in J Vineyards’ favor. “We were able to evaluate our vineyard internally,” Lindstrom said. “We also had the opportunity to explore soil types we thought were of interest to the Russian River Valley Appellation.”

DETAILS

* BOW TIE VINEYARD
Size: 37.8 acres
Soils: Arbuckle sandy loam, Zamora silty clay loam, Yolo sandy loam and Cortina silty clay loam
Clones: Pinot Noir: Dijon 667, Dijon 777, Dijon 828, Dijon 943, Dijon 115, Swan, Rochioli, Pommard and 2A;
Chardonnay: 76, Rued, Wente and Robert Young.

* DOTTY STAN VINEYARD
Size: 14.5 acres
Soils: Goldridge loam
Clones: Planting in 2010

* SALLY ANN’S VINEYARD
Size: 16.5 acres
Soil: Steinbeck soil, Goldridge loam
Clones: Pinot Noir: Dijon 667, Dijon 777, Dijon 828, Pommard and Dijon 943.

Staff at J Vineyards ultimately chose the new sites because of their suitability for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, J Vineyards’ focus. The first site, Sally Ann’s Vineyard, will provide the coolest temperatures in J Vineyards’ 10-vineyard profile, making it ideal as a Pinot Noir site. Soil at Sally Ann is predominantly Goldridge loam, as is the soil at Dotty Stan, a relatively small plot where apples currently are grown. The third vineyard, Bow Tie, is home to various types of silty clay loam and sandy loam; vineyard crew already have planted half the site to Pinot Noir, and the other half to Chardonnay.

At the time of purchase, only one of the new vineyard sites was planted to winegrapes, and J is redeveloping the vineyard to bring the varieties in line with its program, as well as tailoring rootstocks and clones for site specificity.

With the new additions, the winery now owns 257 acres of vineyard land. All in the Russian River Valley, they are planted with a mix of nine different rootstocks and 27 clones (14 Pinot Noir, 10 Chardonnay and three Pinot Gris). Lindstrom said that Dotty Stan Vineyard will be planted to winegrapes in 2010, with that acreage likely devoted to a mix of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones, rather than one variety.

From vine to wine
Though winegrapes won’t be harvested until 2011 or 2012 at the earliest, Lindstrom said J Vineyards plans to operate the three newest vineyards in the same way it does its others, including carving out separate sub-lots to receive individual consideration about factors such as moisture levels, and bottling vineyard-designate wines from the new sites. (Among the six Pinot Noir wines currently being released by J Vineyards are vineyard-designates from Nicole’s Vineyard, Nonny’s Vineyard and Robert Thomas Vineyard.)

Kick off the summer party season with a SWILL wine tasting party. Appealing to novices and experts with its easy, humorous approach, the SWILL® Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit provides instant party pizzazz. Invite your guests, buy some wine and you’re good to go. There’s no better time to buy than now, as SWILLparty is having its semi-annual wine party sale with wine tasting kits only $15.99 including a free SWILL Wine Reminder Journal. Buy two kits and automatically receive a SWILL Wine-To-Go Kit (and two wine journals). Find special summer pricing on T-shirts, corkscrews, watercolor art, and many other fun wine gifts starting at $.099 at www.swillparty.com. Just visit the SWILL store.

Stay local and visit your neighborhood wine shop for cool summer wines. Rieslings are making a strong comeback, so don’t miss out on the 2003 Schmitt Sohne Relax Riesling. Critics have praised it saying, “Relax Riesling was designed to be simple, uncomplicated, yet sleek and alluring. The tagline, ‘Chill and Unwind,’ conveys what this wine is all about. It’s a wine that goes well with anything, anytime with anybody. Relax has a wonderful fruity bouquet, with the flavors of apples, peaches and a hint of citrus. It is a touch sweet and will compliment any meal. Serve chilled and enjoy.”

If the heat doesn’t scare you off reds, try the 2006 Finnegan’s Lake Fin, proclaimed by Prestige as: “A soft, full-bodied California Cabernet especially designed for those who prefer a fruity, smooth style. Excellent choice for the wine newbie or for large groups with diverse tastes — this is a crowd pleaser. Finnegan’s is a quality red that shows the gentle side of Cabernet Sauvignon.”

FineLiving.com says, “The SWILL wine-tasting kit pours out an instant party for eight. The kit is ideal for people who enjoy wine but want to learn more about it in a lighthearted atmosphere.” Stock up your gift closet now. You can’t go wrong with these great summer deals. Order your wine tasting party supplies at the SWILL Store at www.swillparty.com

SWILL®…pairing people with wine!

Grape extract “kills leukaemia”
Friday 2nd January 2009
www.nursingpractice.com
www.winebusiness.com

Scientists have discovered a grapeseed extract can force leukaemia cells to die.

Laboratory experiments show the commercially available extract caused 76% of the blood cancer cells to be destroyed within 24 hours in a process of natural self-destruction called apoptosis. All healthy cells remained unharmed.

Although the research is in its early stages and it has not been recommended people eat grapes to stave off cancer, US scientists believe the results could mark the start of promising new treatments.

It is the antioxidants in grapeseed, including resveratrol, which is known to have anti-cancer properties, that are believed to cause the cells to die.

Previous tests found that the extract was effective on skin, breast, bowel, lung, stomach and prostate cancer cells, but it this is the first time it has been tested on leukaemia.

Professor Xianglin Shi, from the University of Kentucky in Philadelphia, who led the research, said: “These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of haematological (blood) malignancies and possibly other cancers.

“What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category.”

Now that’s exciting news!!! Gotta love those grapes.

Let’s just put it right out there- we’re shameless at promoting our stuff. Why? Cuz it’s great - you know it and we know it. It makes awesome gifts and it’s bargain priced.

Where else can you get a FREE SWILL Wine-To-Go Kit ($15.99 value)???? All you have to do is buy 2 SWILL Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kits. AND you get FREE ground shipping until December 18. How can you beat that? That’s 3 gifts for the price of 2, with FREE shipping and probably no sales tax (if you don’t live in NY). **

Come on, you all know a few winey people who would love this stuff. We’ll even ship it wherever you want. It can’t possibly get any easier. Just go to www.swillparty.com, order 2 kits and we’ll automatically send you the Wine-To-Go Kit. And while you’re at it, shop for accessories and other gifts like t-shirts, watercolor art, corkscrews, and other fun stuff. It’s all under $24.99 and a lot of it’s even under $14.99, and everything ships FREE.

**Oh, one more thing…if you order before December 18, we’ll even throw in another free gift. You’ll automatically get a FREE SWILL Wine Reminder Journal ($3.99 value) with each and every SWILL Wine Tasting Kit you order. So now, you’re getting 2 Wine Tasting Kits, 1 Wine-To-Go Kit and 2 Wine Reminder Journals.

We’re waiting and ready to fill your order whenever you are. All special offers above expire December 18, 2008.

Happy holidays!!

Eva and Anne

Ken from WineExperience.com mails out a great Wine of the Week newsletter. Today’s tip describes what really is meant when one tries to describe fruity wines.

Quick Tip: Fruity

“Now you would think that if wine is fruity it would taste like grape juice, right? Not so. The fruit smells and flavors come from the type of grape, its growing conditions, and the winemaking itself.

So if someone says “fruity” just what do they mean? There are several broad areas of fruitiness to consider - Does the wine have a berry quality like strawberry or blackberry… or is it more like a tree fruit, sort of cherry, peach or apple?

Sometimes the wine is tropical like pineapple or melon or even exotic mango. And other wine may have the aroma and taste of dried fruits such as raisins or prunes or even the cooked density of jams. So “fruity” is really just the start before you hone in on just what kind you’re smelling or tasting in the wine.

Try tasting “fruity” next time you take a sip.”

Help your friends host the hippest wine tasting parties of the year by giving the SWILL® Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit. SWILL wine tasting parties have a magical way of building fellowship among friends and connecting total strangers by sharing the experience of wine tasting, bringing together novices and experts alike. The SWILL® Wine Tasting and Wine Club Starter Kit is designed to make hosting a wine tasting party or starting your own social wine tasting club easy, affordable and fun. No wine tasting experience required and SWILLparty is offering FREE Priority ground shipping on all orders from November 1 through December 18, 2008.

With lifestyle trends shifting heavily toward gourmet kitchens, custom wine cellars and dual-zone wine coolers as standard fixtures in many homes, this can mean only one thing…we’re staying home to entertain! Jim Donald, president of Tuscan Wine Cellars, says, “It’s becoming more common to have a couple glasses of wine with family or friends…” And that’s exactly what SWILL wine tasting kits encourage…indulging in the good things in life: friendship, family, food, fun, and of course wine! Marthastewart.com declares, “Whether you are a wine novice or aficionado, a wine-tasting party is an elegant, and fun way to entertain and educate.”

Featured on Canada’s www.Wish.ca shopping network, The Wine Buzz and in Baltimore Woman Magazine, and reviewed by Marisa D’Vari as well as many wine blog sites, the SWILL Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit sells for $24.99. It contains everything needed to host a wine tasting party for eight. The kits feature wine rating cards, stylish invitations, the exclusive SWILL® Hosting 101 Guide, wine glass markers, stamped paper wine bags with elegant ribbons for blind wine tastings, pens, and a corkscrew. These kits can also be expanded to host an unlimited number of tasters by ordering Individual Taster Packets.

SWILL® wine tasting clubs are popping up all over the country in places like Portland, OR; Allegany, NY; and Charlotte, NC. So, host a party or build a larger social network with your free SWILL® wine club. Clubs use the online resources at www.swillparty.com to choose ready-to-use wine lists, gourmet recipes, professional wine reviews, and to order bulk wine tasting club and party supplies.

SWILL®…pairing people with wine!

Company Background:
SWILL® (Several Wine Imbibers Liking Libations) was founded in 2003 on a cold winter night by Anne Conroy-Baiter as a means to make new friends and learn about wine. The first gathering had only 12 tasters, none of whom were serious wine aficionados. With the club’s “invite a friend” policy, the invitation list has since grown from the 12 to 160+. In 2005, Conroy-Baiter and business partner, Eva Potter, founded SWILLparty, LLC. The partners used their many years of event planning and marketing experience to develop the SWILL® Wine Tasting and Club Starter Kit. It’s the only kit on the market you can customize with your business private label for effortless branding (contact us for wholesale pricing).