Jobs for those Passionate about Wine

There are people who enjoy wine and are content to merely consume it. There also those who are more proactive such as the regulars in wine tasting events or those who go out of their way to learn more about wine. If you are content with receiving wine gifts or purchasing from a wine box subscription service, then you lean towards the more passive lot. But there are people who are truly passionate about wine that their interest goes beyond consumption. Rather, they choose to make wine the basis of their career. If you are one of these people, you might want to take a look at these jobs, the ones that – one way or another – are related to wine.

 

Vintner

This is the most recognizable job in the wine industry. It is also quite important and the pay is exorbitant as well. This is the person who makes the wine, the genius behind the flavor. The vintner is involved in almost all of the stages in the wine making process.

Tasting Room Host

If you think about, the wine tasting host is analogous to a bartender, only more involved, requiring expertise and knowledge. This person is in charge of the tasting room, which is a requirement for vineyards. Visitors and buyers are billeted in this area where they get to sample the vineyard’s produce. The host must know something about wine and everything involved in its production. Of course, the host must be quite a character or, at least, personable since he is interacting with guests.

Sommelier

Sommeliers are like the tasting room host except that they do their work outside of the vineyard. Wine shops, restaurants, wine bars and hotels employ sommeliers. These establishments require additional finesse, which is why most sommelier are demanding, snobbish and quite meticulous especially with regards to details. Consumers turn to these personnel for wine information, advice and recommendations.

Cellar Manager

The cellar manager is in charge of the cellar where the wine is being aged. If you think this is a boring work, with the endless checking and maintenance of temperature involved, you are mistaken. He gets to drink wine everyday since he needs to ensure that everything is in order and is where and how they should be.

Wine Tour Guide

Vineyards often become tourist attractions. The guide need not necessarily be an employee of the vineyard. He only needs a car and a license and he could offer visitors a tour of the wine estates within a region.

Cooper

This is the artisan who makes the barrel in which wines are aged. This person is not a mere carpenter or woodworker. He must have deep understanding about wood and how it interacts with wine.

 

There are other obvious job choices in the wine industry such as wine shop owner, online wine merchant, vineyard owners and vineyard laborers. Not all of those listed here are lucrative. But the financial variable becomes more agreeaable if the worker loves what he does.

Wine for Delectable Dessert

Some hard liquors such as rhum and brandy are mainstream ingredients when it comes to desserts. But how about wine? A friend of mine, who loved the wine gift I sent last Valentines (If you want to know by the way how I got her one, you might want to look at this box subscription service), quipped to let it just rest. Wine is excellent on its own, thank you very much. But the idea persisted and I found myself ruminating about the possibilities. For instance, the flavor leans towards the fruity and sour characteristics; hence, it should make an excellent addition to those needing contrasts such as rich desserts like cheesecakes.

I rounded up five easy but super good desserts that should give you an idea where I am coming from. Enjoy!

Dessert Wine Gelees

This beauty was concocted by Martha Stewart and a six ingredient affair excluding water. It requires sugar, grapefruit (and lemon if you want variety), gelatine of course, and two kinds of wine: orange muscat and sauternes. Just mix everything provided you know how to prepare the gelatin beforehand. This is perfect alternative to wine gift.

Red Wine Sorbet

For this dessert, you would need ripe plums, Chinese five-spice powder, cinnamon, sugar and lemon zest. This is excellent if you want to surprise wine enthusiasts visiting on summertime. If you want to know the specifics how to make this dessert, head to this corner please.

 

 

Chocolate Mousse with a Twist

This is a classic demonstration of wine food pairing: rich flavor + red wine. So if you have chocolate, vanilla, milk, cream, salt, pepper and a bit oil in your cupboard, then you should be able to whip a delicious version. Just a word of advice: if you would like to try this, make sure to learn how to melt chocolates properly because everything depends on it.

Cabernet Chocolate Truffles

I know for a fact that there are seemingly endless possibilities with chocolate truffles. Add something to the basic ingredient and you would have an entirely new version of the thing. So for this chocolate truffle, you would just need to add a gentle dose of your favorite Cabernet Sauvignon.

Tiramisu and a Bit of Venice

The marsala wine is an imperative in this dessert. Go find some eggs, mascarpone cheese, cream, the rudimentary lady finger, cocoa and pile them over each other. Just joking. Prepare it according to how you’d do a traditional tiramisu and it’s good to go.

Strangest Wine Ingredients

Essentially, wine is just crushed grape, fermented and aged. The differences that distinguish a bottle or a label from another is only attributed to the divergence in the wine making process, the grape variety used and other small details such as the barrel the barrel where it is stored, which adds flavors and identity. The red and white wine, for instance are produced through the inclusion or elimination of the grape skin. The wine folks at wiine.me would surely agree. But did you know that there are vintners who are willing to go to the extreme by adding truly weird ingredient(s) in an effort to produce a wine that is unique and remarkable?

Blood Powder

This notorious ingredient should be right at home in some nefarious activities such as a witch’s ritual or some form of snuff for a cabal of vampires. But, no. Some enterprising vintners found utility for the compound in their wine making. Blood powder turned out to be particularly effective as a fining agent. Like egg whites and the equally strange isinglass, which came from fish swim bladders, the powder could bond particles that could not be removed by conventional wine filtration methods.

Chocolate

Now, it most certainly is normal to hear about “hints” or “notes” of chocolate in wine descriptions. As a matter of fact, this characteristic gives certain wines their identity. There is, however, the case of the Chocolate Shop, which is a wine that is made with chocolate. This bottle is made by Precept Wine and was launched in 2011. The favorable reception garnered in UK and Spain prompted this vintner to experiment further with wine infused with other varieties of chocolate.

Snake

There are many Asian countries that use snakes as a wine ingredient. A 2013 event in London exhibited an array of these bottled curiosities with coils upon coils of snakes submerged (and perhaps pickled?) in the liquor. If the vintner is trying to get the idea of potency across then his point is most assuredly articulated successfully.

Cannabis

This one is quite expected I think. There are vintners who have successfully infused wine with pot and these vintners are concentrated in California (again why am I not surprised?). This is supposedly quite good with Cabernet Sauvignon, creating “a little buzz”. Well, I would most assuredly would not call it that especially when a bottle could reportedly get one high quicker than smoking good old pot.

Meteorite

Ever wondered how a meteorite tastes like? How about a meteorite wine? A vintner in Chile fermented some wine with pieces of meteorite found in the Atacama Desert believed to be at least 4.5 billion years old. If you can believe it, the affair supposedly ended in a livelier taste. Purchase the Cabernet Sauvignon called Meteorito Wine and see for yourself.

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Five Weird Wine Glasses for a Fun Party

If you have exhausted your brain in trying to come up with an interesting idea for your wine party, you might want to ask some help from wine experts or get some idea from some helpful online wine courses. The latter, for instance, helped me come up with this concept of serving wine in strange, cool and cute wine glasses. I have just the top candidates for this affair.

Starfrit Gourmet 8-Ounce Double Wall Wine Glass

The name is quite a mouthful but it is quite an apt description. The contraption has double walls, indeed, which makes it useful as much as surprising as a wine implement. Based on the picture, you – of course – should be able to recognize its strangeness. In addition, it is supposedly quite effective in maintaining correct temperature. And, if you were finicky with your setup, you would be pleased to know that the double wall also produces no condensation. It would mean no wet rings left on your table cloth.

Inclined Wine Glasses

Note to self: place an order for a set of these wine glasses. Why, this most definitely reminded me of Kafka! It is very very whimsical and it would suit some of my parties best because I do entertain a bevy of eccentric friends often.

Happy People Reversible Crystal Stemware

I have devoted a significant period of time pondering the issue about the utility of a reversible wine glass. In clothes, it is perfectly sensible because variety is essential in fashionable people. But with the Happy People line of wine glasses, with its array of two glasses molded opposite each other, I could only wonder. Perhaps if there are two different wines being served at the same time and you are a purist, never wanting to pollute a wine with a drop of another so one uses the contraption alternately? Or if one ingests different wines on a daily basis, it may serve its purpose well enough.

Silhouette Wine Glasses

It might be interesting to do a little research about the impact of this wine glass on consumption and how wine is enjoyed. The design was developed so that you no longer need to tilt your head backwards. The hollowed rim was also designed so that you could sniff away happily when your nose easily dips into the glass with the aroma effectively contained in the process.

This is [not] a glass

This wine glass is definitely NOT functional. It is shaped like a pipe and makes you hold it like so when drinking your wine. A bit awkward if you ask me. However, it has its awesome shock value. Jeremy Brown, the designer, was supposedly inspired by the concept of “the treachery of images” explored in most of Magritte’s work.

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10 Cool Wine Pictures

1.

If I am to hazard a guess, this boy must be French, if only for his enthusiasm and pride in the two precious bottles tucked under his arms.

2.

If you will play, Caption This, what will you say?

3.

I should like to call this the Immaculate Conception: Wine Version.

4.

Very very rustic and appetizing. This should incite some cravings for warm and famished Spanish mornings.

5.

Why is this wine image included? Well, need I say more?

6.

After reading the label and the content, the only word I could manage is, “Indeed.”

7.

This is what wine looks like under the microscope.

8.

An ultra modern (and ultra expensive) private wine cellar.

9.

This is how a bottle heaven is made.

10.

For a wine connoisseur, this image would be beyond cool.

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Interesting Wine Drinking Rituals

Sometimes you could not help but drink like a fish. In my case, good conversation induces that quite effectively. But wine always keeps me in check, regardless of the existence of good conversation or a need to drown myself to a stupor. The thing is that wine imposes at least a basic degree of refinement. Not unlike beer or whisky. It is simply scandalous to chug the spirit since the appropriate way is to sip. I have found this issue interesting and led me to take note about the interesting rituals we have in drinking wine.

For the Gods

As you probably know, wine is considered a gift from the gods not unlike fire, though less of a necessity. The ancient Greeks had a specific deity for it and festivals were held in dedication as well. Some remnant of such reverence still persists to this day. There are societies, for example, that require pouring a bit of wine upon uncorking. It is clearly a form of libation, or a salute to the gods before drinking.

Practical Rituals

There are also ceremonies required for practical purposes. For example, there is the need to let the bottle stand for about an hour after opening. The goal is to allow wine to breathe. People also use different wine glasses for red and white wine: big for red and a smaller glass for white wine. This practice persists because the glass size affects the wine temperature, the aroma and the alcohol dynamics. Recently Baccarat made an edition of glasses for red wine: a tulip-like affair, with its sloping sides and narrow lid. The idea was to keep alcohol from drowning the aroma.

Swirling

Chances are, you have seen people swirl wine around before drinking. It is likely that a lot of sniffing is also involved in the process. But the swirling seemed like a ritual that most people caught or imitate for reasons unknown. This is not some useless ceremony, however. The act aerates wine or infuse it with oxygen and contributes to its flavor in addition to the fact that it releases the aroma, hence, the sniffing mentioned earlier. This is the very same rationale why some people would gargle the liquor or sip it in such a way that the liquid passes in-between teeth.

Corky Quibble

If you have been to a wine bar such as the super fancy Le Dauphin in Paris, then you probably know that the server would usually give you the cork after opening. The first time I experienced this, I was at a loss. What am I supposed to do with it, eat it, put it in my pocket? It was like, « Hey, congratulations. You had your first wine with us. May I present you the cork? » as if it is some trophy or certificate. To my initial dismay the practice is quite widespread and hapless people are bound to question the utility of such ceremony. Well, it turned out this cork business is not without its use. Servers would hand you that implement because it will help you determine if the wine has a problem. You will have to sniff it and determine if the wine needs to be replaced. Also, there are establishments that do the deed to reassure patrons that the wine is authentic. The cork usually bears the marking of the wine producer.

Sometimes a little ceremony is called for. It is a little ostentatious, yes. However, these rituals help us enjoy our wines to the fullest. In addition, the ceremonies are not entirely useless as they help in bringing out the wine’s character. So try to understand when someone asks for a wine glass when you hand him or her a tumbler. It is not for the sake of being a snob, picky or difficult.

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Three Ways to Open Champagne

Chances are most of you would have their Christmases and New Years opened with bottles of champagne. A little bit cliche but memorable nonetheless. These holidays are big celebrations so why not, no? In this post, I will explain three ways of opening Champagne (By the way, you might want to head to your favorite wine store because Champagne prices are supposedly going up any time now).

Sober and Practical

Contrary to what one expects, champagne is actually opened carefully lest the precious content are spilled. Sure a Champagne bursting asunder is what you often see in the movies but are you actually willing to have a good amount of it go to waste? If you could afford crates upon crates of champagne, fine. But for most of us mere mortals who could only spend for a bottle or two, then the approach must be pretty cautious and unspectacular. It involves prying the cork slowly, while twisting and rocking it in the process until the bottle emits a small sigh. This method deals with the pressure within the bottle, allowing for a safer and more practical way of opening a champagne bottle.

The Champagne Ninja

Okay, so if you belong to the more excitable bunch and would want to make a show of splashing champagne like it is, well… yeah, Christmas, you need a saber for the deed. In French, this is called sabrage, the method of swinging a sword over the lip of the bottle, which effectively removes the glass tip and the cork. It results in a spectacular spray of champagne because of the sudden release of bottled up pressure. This reminds me that Champagne saber is an excellent wine gift for wine lovers and sommelier friends.

Handy Alternative

The third method involves a spoon. It is actually pretty straightforward because you will be using it instead of the saber. You would need to cut the glass tip. The absence of a sharp edge would necessitate a stronger force. But the effect should be the same, the cork flies in the air and the liquor bursts in a magnificent spray of champagne goodness.

There are other unconventional ways to open Champagne. You could smash it, for instance. But then again, you need a new ship to smash it with.

It is important to note that uncorking a Champagne bottle could entail some risks. I would like to point out the fact that amount of pressure therein is said to be significantly higher than the pressure in a car tire. So, one must proceed with caution. For safety purposes, avoid pointing the cork at people when opening. If you would be using a wine cork, be forewarned. The sudden force of opened Champagne could hurt your hand as well.

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Ten Things to Know About Italian Wines

1. Italy is the world’s second largest wine producer, trailing only France in annual production. In the old days, it used to be the global wine-trading center. It was even called enotria, which means “land of wine”. This is not surprising because the entire Italian peninsula has excellent soil and climate, satisfying the most stringent of French terroir requirements.

2. Like France, Italy also follows a tightly controlled appellation system that enforces rules and regulations that guarantee vineyard quality, yields and winemaking standards. If you know about French wine, then, rejoice. You are in familiar territory.

3. Based from the Italian appellation system, there are more than three hundred wine labels under the Denominazioni di Origine Controllata (DOC) and Denominazioni di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG), produced by at least fifty thousand wineries.

4. There are twenty wine regions in Italy. Each produces different type of wine and grape varieties. For example, Nebbiolo and Barbera grape varieties are primarily used in the Piemonte region. Perhaps you are acquainted with the former because it gave the world the spectacular Barolo and Barbaresco wines.

5. Italy prides itself with producing high quality wines from Italian indigenous grapes or traditional varieties such as Nero d’Avola, Fiano, Sagrantino and Teroldego. These varieties is said to set Italian wines apart from international grape varieties like Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. Tuscan vintners such as Piero Antinori are credited to have made this possible when they led the local wine industry towards the recent Italian wine revival through their innovations in winemaking process.

6. Sangiovese is the most popular grape variety for red wine in Italy, serving as the main grape of popular Italian exports such as Chianti Classico and Brunello di Montalcino.

7. Amarone wine is the most distinctive and symbolic of all the Italian wines.

8. The best Italian sparkling wines are produced in the north, at the foot of the Italian Alps. Particularly, the regions, Trentino and Franciacorta are famous for it, with established regulations that strictly control the cultivation of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grape varieties.

9. Wine producers in Italy are classified into three: single producers, cooperatives and large wineries. This information is important in finding rare wines.

10. Tuscan Wines made from or with international grapes such as Syrah, Merlot and Cabernet-Sauvignon used to be classified as Vino da Tavola, a low quality category. However, modern Italian vintners have successfully created quality wines using these unsanctioned varieties, blending them with indigenous varieties. These bottles are now called Super Tuscan, wines that rival the best in Bordeaux and Napa Valley. Interestingly, these wines were produced by superseding Italian wine law. There, that is where the titular “super” came from.

How Wine Changed the World

Sure, a world without wine, might just trudge on, with nary a wine merchant or fancy wine selections during the special occassions, one could not begrudge this potent potable with nudging the course of history here and there along its course, perhaps changing it in the process. Here are some notable incidences where the spirit of wine has altered the unraveling of history.

Wine and the Taming of the Humans

No less than Thucydides declared that man emerged from barbarism because he learned to cultivate olive and the vine. Indeed, if on takes a closer look at the development of great ancient civilizations such as those in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia, wine was integral in rituals, practices, ceremonies and values associated with refinement, royalty, the elite, creative undertakings and culture.

Religion

This list would never be complete without the wine immortalized in the Last Supper, the final meal in Christian belief that transpired before Jesus’ crucifixion. There are those who believe that it must be Passum, a sweet, raisin wine, which maybe the same as the moder Italian passito (see for instance the 1999 Riecine Sangiovese Passito). Together with the bread, Jesus alluded to wine as his blood sacrifice. Eventually, Christianity would consider wine as one of its sacraments. It has been said that the use of wine in the sacraments was the reason why wine consumption spread through France in the first place.

Auld Alliance

In 1295, Auld Alliance was signed between France and Scotland. It was a military alliance between the two nations that – for most part – effectively curtailed the English expansionist ambition in Europe. Unbeknownst to many, wine was critical in sealing the deal. In order to persuade the Scots, the clever French threw in wine in the negotiation knowing fully well the former’s love for the liquor. The Alliance involved a specific condition that allowed the Scots to have the first pick of Bordeaux’s finest wines. Back then it was considered a great honor to do so.  A subplot to this affair was the English grumblings because the offshoot was that they were left with inferior bottles. So the French and the Scots partnered happily after, coming at the English target united if a little intoxicated in the process.

Social Systems

Wine is also responsible for the development of social, political and even economic systems in Europe. During the Carolingian era, for instance, the new system of land development – which had far reaching impact on European society – was considered an outcome of the spread of viticulture.

Way of Life

A study conducted in November 2011 found that the consumption of wine reduces energy usage in households, particularly electricity use and lounge temperatures. The report concluded that wine facilitate small-scale household events that significantly affect energy use behaviors. If this is true, then wine is contributing meaningfully to the world’s reduction of energy footprint, which means less use of fuel that harms the environment. My counterpart wine blogger in the future would probably look back to this day as a pivotal period when wine was recognized as one of those responsible for cleaner and healthier world.

Seven Best Wine Apps

To say that mobile phones today are ubiquitous is already a cliche. I myself could not leave my phone back home and tend to suffer panic attacks during such unlikely events. I am joking, of course. But, seriously, eve I seem to be developing that smartphone tic, where my eyes constantly drifting down my hands every minute or so to check messages, mails and whatever inane notifications Facebook, a bunch of my games and social media apps choose to throw my way. In such a world, one is hard-pressed to not find apps for just about anything. And I would, of course, be talking about apps for wine. Suppose you are an Android user, a quick search in Google Play would yield at 56 applications dedicated to wines. Apple’s App Store, with its more developed app ecosystem, offer significantly more. When I searched wine apps for my iPad, for example, I have already counted 140 apps and gave up because the search results still kept on coming. So, anyway, here is a list of the best applications for you vinophiles out there.

Hello Vino

Dubbed as the personal wine assistant, this app is top rated and widely downloaded in App Store and Google Play. It is also critically acclaimed with no less than the snobs at the New York Times nodding in grudging agreement, citing it a helpful app for everyone especially when navigating a wine list. That actually makes sense because this app could come in handy if you are in a restaurant while a date patiently awaits to be impressed. A quick flick of your fingers and, voila! You are an instant wine expert, dazzling even the most jaded of sommeliers in the establishment. This app is free.

My Wine Cellar

MyCellar is exactly what its name indicates. It lets you take photograph of your wine back home and store in the app cellar for quick access. This can also serve as an Evernote-type of app where you take note of wines you chanced upon either in a wine store or over the net. You store the info and get back to them when the occasion requires it. It has beautiful interface, capturing the essence of what wine is about. This app, however, will cost you $0.99 dollars.

The Wine Ratings Guide

For $3.99, you can have this app, which functions as a personal sommelier on your pocket – accessible anytime and anywhere. What sets this app apart is its 1 million-strong wine database, which serves as the foundation of excellent app services like flavor profiles, wine-food pairing suggestions and the power to rate bottles as well. This is app is available in Android and iOS platforms.

Snooth Wine Pro

I have an app called SoundHound in my phone and what it does is listen to a snippet of a song being played in a radio or even as it is being sung and it can scour the web for related information such as the title, the lyrics and where it can be downloaded. This is what exactly Snooth Wine Pro is all about. You can take a picture of a wine and it will search the web for important information, reviews, where it can be purchased, where you can buy the cheapest or the best deals, and so forth. There is a free version but the paid app has the best functionality.

AG Wine

The app AG Wine, short for Approach Guide Wine is a repository of wine information and is designed for those amateurs seeking to become wine geeks and wine experts. It will help you understand wine styles, varieties, appellations and pairings, among others.

Drync Wine Pro

If you like to buy wine from online merchants, this app will be very helpful. It collects thousands upon thousands of reviews for numerous wines. It does not only collect reviews from critics such as WineSpectator and Wine Enthusiast but also actual wine consumers who have tried and tested every bottle in the wine list.

Berry Bros. & Rudd

If you want an app with an equally badass pedigree as your wine, buy a Vertu, that super exclusive and expensive phone that only the British could produce. It has an exclusive wine app called Berry Bros. & Rudd, which is almost like Snooth Wine Pro in the way it lets users identify wine label based on a photo. But it directs the query straight to Berry Bros. & Rudd, the UK-based wine merchant, which promptly provides tasting notes, buying tips and interesting wine alternatives.