The Wine Rocket Experience

 Good morning everyone! I am starting a weekly column: Wine of the Week. Every week I am going to choose a wine I have tried an liked and then I am going to write a quick review about it. This way you will all have the chance of getting to know new wines. The lucky first is Frank John's 2017 Pfalz Riesling. Riesling is one of my favourite varietals and this wine is an excellent example. The grapes have been grown biodynamically and are harvested through several passes in the vineyard to ensure perfectly ripe grapes.  The fermentation is spontaneous in big wooden casks (1200L and 2400L), it gifts incredible complexity to this wine. It then ages for 1 year on the fine lees after it has carried out Malolactic Conversion fully, this allows for a full body and creamy mouthfeel. The bouquet is enticing with green apple, apricot, ripe peach, grapefruit and honey all being sorrounded by spicy and flinty notes of sage smoke and toast. I bought it at my local wine shop fro 24,90 Euros w...

 Hi everybody, The dreaded D3 exam dates: the 26th and 27th of October have come and now passed. After 5 months of dedicating basically every waking hour to studying I sat the WSET Diploma D3 Exam; probably one of the most difficult exams I have ever had to take. The D3 Exam of the Diploma is a two day examination based on 'The Wines of the World', basically its enography and ampelography of the most important grape varities, wine styles and GIs from all over the world regarding only still, unfortified wines (the D4 and D5 exams are dedicated to the Sparkling and Fortified Wines of the World).  The book spans some 600 pages of just bulk information on the wine regions in the world, starting of course from Bordeaux, France, through the USA, Australia, Argentina and ending in China. As I have already told you the spectrum of information given is huge and honestly 5 months to prepare were barely enough I thought. But let's talk about what you're here for: the actual exam. ...

 Hello everyone, It has been a while since I posted and I am sorry, the D3 exam preparation is taking up ALL of my time! Anyways... What regions spring to mind when you think about Sauvignon Blanc? The Loire Valley? Marlborough, New Zealand? Maybe Bordeaux's Pessac Leognan Blanc or California's Fumé Blanc? Well you have to know that in South-East Austria, on the border with Slovenia, there is a region called Steiermark which is now famous for producing excellent wines from Sauvignon Blanc. Glass of wine with a view Maybe this wasn't a surprise for some of you, most probably people living in countries such as the Netherlands or UK, but you have to know that in Italy we really don't get Austrian wines so this was a pleasant discovery! View from a hill of Styria's landscape As I said Steiermark, or Styria, is in the South-East of Austria, bordering Slovenia. It is a region of rolling hills, steep vineyards, breathtaking views and has made a name for itself for Sauvigno...

 Hi Everybody! Last week I headed to Alto Adige with Eno Club, a wine shop in Milan, to visit Girlan and the Kaltern cooperative winery.  Alto Adige has many cooperatives and almost all fo them focus on high quality wines, opposed to the rest of coops in Italy which focus on high volume, moslty inexpensive wines; of course there are exceptions. Girlan Kellerei is in Cornaiano, it works the grapes of 200 growers with 220 hectares overall making 1.3 million bottles a year. Their main focuses are Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Vernatsch. To incentivize quality they pay quite a lot of the grapes (up to 2.5 Euros per Kilogram!) and the winemaker also visits every vineyard, offering counsel and advising the growers to reach the perfect level of ripeness and technical characteristics needed to make each wine. The winery has grown quite a lot since its inception in 1923, the expansion has been built around the old underground cellar dating to the 16th century...

 Hi Everybody, this is a bit of a self-conscious (and self-pitying) moment. As you know I am enrolled in the WSET Level 4 Diploma in Wines; when I started I knew it was going to be tough, but boy was I underestimating this! As you've read in my second post I have already been to Austria for the first part of the Diploma and I have already sat my D1 Exam (for which I still have not recieved my results...). Right now I am preparing for the D3 Exam -Still Wines of the World that I will sit the 26th and 27th of October, I know it sounds like a long way to go but trust me, the sheer quantity of knowledge you have to memorize is disheartening. Let me walk you through the exam, the first daythere is going to be a  written theory exam divided into two parts: one 2 hours paper and then another 80 minutes paper. The written exam is open questions, no multiple choice, and you get to choose the questions from a list - so there is a bit of wiggle room but  you really need to know your...

Hello everybody, Saturday I had the chance to go to Tenuta Borgo Conventi in Friuli Venezia Giulia. It was a beautiful day, sunny, clear skies, lovely wind cooling us down and friends to share this experience with. The new entrance to Tenuta Borgo Conventi Tenuta Borgo Conventi was founded in 1975 by Gianni Vescovo, an entrepreneur with a passion for Collio wines who brought this small winery up to fame in the Italian market but also world wide. Then in 2001 the Folonari family (owners of Ruffino) came forward and bought the estate, bringing further expansion into new, overseas markets. The wines produced are cornerstones of Friuli, Ribolla Gialla, Friulano, Malvasia but also international varities are planted suchs as Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. The "Linea Fiori" (flowers lineup literally) is what brought this small winery into the spotligth, fresh, fruity, Friuli terroir expressing wines that bring the drinker on these gentle rolling hills, standing on the Ponca soil (a...

Hi everyone, I am very excited to share with you my first hands-on experience in a winery. Wednesday I had the chance to go help in the bottling process in a winery in Monfumo, Tenuta Amadio. A friend of mine works there and last week he asked me if I could come over to help with the bottling, I was thrilled about the idea and jumped on it immediately. Tenuta Amadio's vineyards I got there early, at 7.15 am; the truck with the bottling machine was already there and after 20 minutes the three technicians came in and started opening up the container and setting up the machine. We started setting up the pallets with the empty bottles near the front end of the machine, ready to be loaded into it; we moved the boxes at the end of the machine where the bottles would come out; most importantly we set up some gazebos to have some shade when we worked! The bottling machine on a trailer We had to bottle about 6800 bottles of Prosecco DOC "Monfumino", 1450 bottles of Prosecco Asolo ...