The August 2005 Issue of Connect With Wine

Atlanta Wine School's Connect With Wine Monthly Issue

I'm writing you from beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia where the Society of Wine Educators is meeting this week. The last three weeks have really tested my liver, as we conducted a private tasting for the Tulsa Country Club in Oklahoma, raced back to Atlanta for friend Steve Saenz's 50th blow-out, and then flew to Seattle to begin touring & tasting the Pacific Northwest, starting with the Puget Sound wine region.

Wine & Cheese presentation during Steve Saenz's 50th B-day blowout. Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc & Merlot, Chimney Rock Elevage & Cab, Gloria Ferrar Black Muscat along with yumilicious cheeses. Julio Franco of Atlanta's Braves, the oldest non-pitching professional baseball player, is also a wine enthusiast, and dropped by an Introduction to Wine course to pop some corks with us.

Meeting Ron Irvine of Vashon Winery was just good luck--he makes fantastic wines AND is the author of The Wine Project: Washington State's Winemaking History, co-written with Washington's "father of viticulture" Walter Clore. Our September newsletter will have a complete photo-journal of touring & tasting in a beautiful emerging wine region, British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. Wine Spectator has called it Canada's Napa Valley.

Arnie Millan & I met up for lunch while in Seattle, and his article this month on Tuscany is timely as we are taking a small group there in October--artisanal cheese & salami producers, olive oil, eight wineries, and breathtaking views & sites. It is all inclusive (except air) and there are still openings. More information here.

Atlanta Wine School's Fall Schedule is Posted Here

August 9th, Wines of South Africa
September 10th, Wine Harvest Day Trip
September 12th, Mastering Wine: Intermediate Level
September 13th, Introduction to Wine
September 15th, Introduction to Wine
September 21st, Wines & Cheeses with Matt Bonano
October 26th, World of Reds
October 23rd, Olde World Wines
October 31st, Introduction to Wine
November 2nd, Introduction to Wine
December 8th, Wines & Cheeses with Matt Bonano

From Super Tuscans to Holy Wines and Brunello's this is a short but thorough overview on the most well-known wine region in Italy.

The full article is here.

The Dump Bucket (formerly Tips, Tricks & Trivia)

Website Dedicated to Port Launched
Roy Hersh is a subject matter expert on Port & Madeira. His newsletters have posted numerous tasting notes, often on wines that are more than a century old. He finally has a website to warehouse all of this data, and it looks good! Congratulations Roy. Visit his website
Local Atlanta Wine Artist's Gallery Grand Opening
Eric Boswell sooths the savage beast with his artful strokes depicting wine images. The grand opening of his gallery is this Friday, August 5th. More information
All The Info You Need on Appellations
Subscriber Jim Morris has tipped me off about an information-filled site on "appellations", a loose description of delimited grape-growing areas. Appellation America
Texas Wine Recognized
Riding high in his saddle, Texan winemaker Rick Naber of Flat Creek Estate snares Double Gold at a San Francisco wine competition. More here
Feds Interested in "Finger-Printing" Wine Labelling
The federal government is developing tests to chemically "fingerprint" wine to make sure what's inside the bottle is what's advertised on the label. Read on
Wine & Food Writer Peter Mayle Getting Movie
One of my favorite authors is Peter Mayle of French Lessons and A Year in Provence. The director of Gladiator, Ridley Scott, is making a movie about Peter's book, A Good Year. More Info
Terroir Conference Seeks to Explore Science from Simply Philosophy
The quality of a fine wine is not just about the delicate balance of sugars and acids, but reflects the climate, soils and even geology of the vineyard that produced the wine, according to a popular and much discussed concept known as "terroir."More
Wine Surpasses Beer in Gallup Poll
For the first time since Gallup began measuring Americans' drinking preferences in 1992, wine has passed beer as the alcoholic beverage adult drinkers consume most often. Read on

The August / September issue of The Wine Report
features Veronique Drouhin-Boss, winemaker at Oregon's Domaine Drouhin.