Welcome to "Grape Extract", my blog about anything and everything having to do with wine. What makes this blog different from the thousands of other wine blogs in cyberspace? I don't really know yet, but I promise never to use the word "quaffable." It's pretentious. And annoying.
Here's my mission: make what is an otherwise "dry" area of conversation to many, interesting. In most posts, I will showcase an affordable, approachable bottle of wine. I'll even, to the best of my abilities, talk about it. By affordable, I mean $12-$13 or less. By approachable -- I don't know, it's grape juice. With alcohol. How much more approachable can you get? (read: girl at bar who DRANK the whole bottle that I'm talking about. Purple teeth, wild-eyed, THAT'S approachable.)
Now, what makes me even qualified to talk about a subject as elitist as wine? I did not grow up on a vineyard drinking wine. But I DID for the better part of a decade, toil countless hours in restaurants where I was subjected to (among other things) more wine tastings than you could shake a drunken stick at.
Those tastings sparked a curiosity strong enough to propel me from Napa Valley in California to Bordeaux, France, just to try a few sips of the local juice. This blog is a byproduct of that curiosity (and part of the JR608 syllabus). I hope you enjoy reading (drinking) along to my blog!
Adventures from down undah: Shiraz
Shiraz. For starters, shiraz is the same thing as syrah. The aussies just want to confuse everybody.
"Shiraz" is syrah that's simply grown in Australia (this name-changing nonsense happens everywhere, the biggest offender being France). It's an I'm-served-at-every-bar-in-Boston kind of varietal, so I'd say that classifies it as "approachable."
People like shiraz because it's (usually) cheap, reliably fruity, and incredibly easy to find. However, there is A LOT of bad shiraz out there. One needs only to walk into their local wine store..
BUT, the grape is gaining speed. Growers from "down undah" are at long-last making some great stuff. Here's an example, and today's featured wine:
Mount Langi Ghiran Vineyard, 2004 Billie Billie Shiraz. It's great, fruity, hints of cherries. Locally, the Wine Emporium, with two locations in the South End, is selling it for $9.99 a pop.
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