Understanding Wine - Sparkling Wine

I didn't get around to doing my homework (drink some sparkling wine) from last week.  No matter, there was plenty to drink tonight!  *clink clink champagne flutes*  I've kinda avoided sparkling wine for some time now mainly because I've never had a glass which totally blew me away.  Tonight's tasting has changed that and I'm ready to embrace bubbly once more!

Sparkling wine is just that - wine with sparkles.  Sparkles come in the form of bubbles, hence the term 'bubbly'.  However, don't confuse all sparkling wine to be champagne.  That term can only be applied to sparkling wines which come from the Champagne region in France.

This course specialises in Australian wines and nothing foreign will pass our lips.   According to Chas, this is not a bad thing.  He suspects that most of the French champagne sold in Australia is ruined by oxidation during the importation process.  He's never had such an experience when drinking them in France/Europe.

We learnt about production differences, how bubbles are achieved and the differences between champagne (more yeasty) and Australian sparkling wine (more fruity).  Then we got onto the best bit - tasting.  It's not a myth that you get drunk faster on champagne - the bubbles assist alcohol absorption and our dunce table got quite happy indeed, polishing off the leftover bottles.  We even clinked flutes!

The last time I had a sparkling red I was left a bit 'meh' about the whole deal.  Not expecting much, I was pleasantly surprised to actually like all three sparkling reds served tonight.  They would definitely go well with chocolate and chocolate cake.  Num nums.

So suffice to say, I left tonight's lesson a bit drunk.  Wheeeeeeeee!!!!

Understanding Wine - White Wine

Tonight was white wine night.  Our presenter tonight had a pretty cool name - 'Chas' - and he was much more enthusiastic than last week's substitute.  His absence was explained by a bout of bronchitis last week.  The first thing Chas did was make us all wear name tags and forced us to interact.  He reasoned 'What's the point of drinking wine if you can't talk about it with your classmates?'  Hear, hear.

We tasted eight white wines tonight and pretended to be wine judges.  We assessed each wine by their appearance (colour), their nose (smell, bouquet) and it's palate (taste).  By the end of the night my table had decided we were the class rejects.  Could we detect the citrus-y smell?  Err, no it smelled like banana.  How about the meaty, earthy smell?  No, it smelled like a dusty bookshelf.  Despite Chas telling us 'everyone will smell it differently and there is no right or wrong', he still gave one of my table-mates a resounding 'No' when she thought her wine smelled like foie gras.

All that smelling became a bit too confusing for my nose but if I only learned one thing, I am quite confident I can identify the smell of an oaked chardonnay versus 'any other white wine'.  That tuna and melted cheese smell is quite distinctive.  I might be able to pick a riesling and a sauvignon blanc... I might.  I don't know.  One of the whites (a semillon) was actually deemed by Chas to have excess sulphur dioxide and a bit disappointing.  I had no clue!  The girl next to me judged that particular wine to be her favourite!  Hohohohohohohoho..

In regards to taste, again I'm pretty sure I can pick out the chardonnay but the other seven wines just tasted like 'white wine' to me.  My next door neighbour thought that same.  Hehehehehehehehehe.

Yes indeed, we are the table who needs remedial wine tasting lessons.  We've been given some homework in preparation for next week's lesson - drink some sparkling wine!  Will do!

Learning How to Drink - Understanding Wine

Prior to my first visit to the Barossa Valley in 2006 I was a casual wine drinker and certainly not someone who knew the difference between a shiraz or a riesling.  My run-ins with wine were mainly at university balls (where I'm sure we were given crap), random glasses at weddings and the occasional stab-in-the-dark-I'll-drink-that-one in a bar or restaurant.  Cocktails and mixers were my thing.

Well since that first fateful wine tour to the Barossa, I've become much more interested in drinking the fermented grape juice.  Having enjoyed many wines on three separate trips (and counting) to the Barossa, I've learnt to distinguish what I did and didn't like but I was yearning for more.  I was yearning for the ability to tell why I preferred some wines over others - to identify flavours and other characteristics in the wine.  I always thought it was a bit wanky when wine tasters would use terms like marshmallow, tobacco, chocolate to describe wine.  I'm now going to become one of those wankers!  

When Spu and I went to the National Wine Centre, I had picked up a pamphlet which listed several appreciation courses.  I actually had come across these courses in the middle of last year when I had another long stint in Rad-City but was unable to make the cut off date.  I totally forgot about them!  So happy to have collected the pamphlet, I promptly enrolled myself in their 'Understanding Wine' course.  I'll have a weekly two hour session over the next six weeks and even if I don't end up learn anything, I'll at least have sampled many, many wines :D  

Tonight was the first lesson and we were given some purposely doctored wines so we could taste the difference between sweet, acidic, bitter and tannin flavours.  Bitter was seriously gross and like drinking tonic water (or in my case, I also thought it tasted kinda like a bitter grapefruit).

We also got to smell some purposely doctored 'faulty' wines.  I'll be honest, out of the five faulty wines, my inexperienced nose would have accepted three of them fit for consumption.  Eeek.  It kinda reinforces my suspicion that I killed a few olfactory receptors doing chemistry experiments in uni.  I could definitely smell the burnt matchstick smell of excess sulphur dioxide, a commonly used preservative.  It was like someone lit a match, blew it out and immediately threw it into the back of my throat.  I could also smell the 'Bret' spoiled wine.  It smelled like someone's old Band-Aid.  Disgusting.

At the end of the night, we also got to sample two reds and two whites and put our tutorial to good use.  Looking forward to next week's lesson!  

Professor Layton and the Unwound Future

Another year, another Professor Layton game.  Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is the latest installment in the series and it has kept me busy over the past two months of sporadic play.

Professor Layton is main reason for dusting off my Ninny and giving the battery a bit of a workout.  Gameplay is the same - work your way through the story and run into puzzles galore.  A good brain workout I must say.

In this game, the Professor and his assistant Luke travel to the future after the Prime Minister goes missing - exciting stuff!  I won't tell you how it all pans out but I must warn you, it's quite an emotional conclusion and the Professor cries at the end.  He cries!!!  His little beady cartoon eyes cry!  Poor Professor :`(

Anyway, I can't wait for the next one.  Fanks Smee!

Brandy Snaps (update)

They're better today without the icing sugar overload.  Think of it as a very thin Anzac biscuit.  I still probably won't buy another bag again though.

Brandy Snaps

I remember when I ate my first Cookie Man Brandy Snap.  I can't pinpoint the exact date but it was significant enough for me to recall the event.  I was still a student and doing my thing at my part time job in Chatswood.  The boss asked one of us to buy her a bag of brandy snaps and then treated us to a few.  It was crispy, brandy-ish, anzac biscuit-tasting and yum!

That was about 7-8 years ago.  I haven't managed to eat anymore brandy snaps since then despite walking past many Cookie Man stores.  However, each time I did go past I would always think, 'I should get a bag of brandy snaps.'  That day has finally come and after eating a healthy grilled chicken salad tonight, I decided I needed a sugar fix and that Cookie Man was going to fix it.  (Actually I lie.  I went with the intention of buying more ice cream but then also made a detour to Cookie Man).

I got a bit carried away and decided to buy a bag of 10 and also a brandy snap cream.

Cream sandwiched between two brandy snaps, hence the name.  Original!  With the cream content in mind it was wise that I eat it first.  

So errrr.... after my first bite I realised the 'cream' was cupcake icing.  With eat bite, I felt myself inching towards diabetes.  On top of that, the brandy snap wasn't as nice as what I recall!  :(

I ate a plain brandy snap afterwards just in case the cupcake 'cream' ruined the biscuit.  It still didn't bring back a flood of good memories.  It wasn't bad, it just didn't make me want to buy another bag.  Maybe my tastebuds were burnt out with the sweet stuff overload.  Now I gotta eat the rest of the bag.  Let's see if they taste better tomorrow.

GÜ Puddings

I thought I'd seen Gü puddings in Australia before I left for London back in 2006.  I definitely saw them in most Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsburys and other supermarkets while I was living in the UK but it was only upon seeing Gü today in Woolies that I'm doubting my memory.  Hmmmm.....

I've eaten some of their puddings before but that was ages ago, so I treated myself today with the 'healthy' fruit option of key lime pies.

It's all a bit fancy for packaged desserts (but I like it fancy) and these pies 'throw caution to the wind'.

Some Gü puddings are served in reusable (but not baking proof) ramekins.  Handy!  I shall find a use for them while I'm in Rad-City.  Like Häagen-Dazs, Gü has no true claim to being a German/Scandinavian product.  Those umlauts are fake!

Each ramekin is covered with a foil seal.  I do like how the umlauts and the 'u' make a smiley face though.  It says 'Eat and enjoy me!'  Peeling away the seal - it looks edible enough.  My spoon doing it's job.  

The pies were nice enough.  It was really just a cheesecake.  Would I buy this particular Gü pudding again?  Very unlikely.  At $6 for the two 85g desserts and the fact that they are MADE in the UK (wtf, this cheesecake has travelled the globe!) kinda puts me off a little.  Though, I might just refresh myself with some their other products first.  I do remember the chocolate puddings being quite nice.