Witnessing Taste Components: Flavor and Finish I started this saga on Sparkling wine but I realized early on that before one can fully appreciate the subtleties of sparkling wine I had to first cover the basics of appreciating regular wine be it still, sparkling or even fortified.  The word “appreciate” is a bit loaded  in […]

The Continuing Saga of Understanding Sparkling Wine Part 5 Witnessing wine – The Body of the wine The properties we consider when we taste wine come under the following categories, Sweetness  Acid Tannins Alcohol BODY Flavor intensity Flavor identity Finish Getting back to witnessing wine, one of the most difficult qualities to describe is what […]

I thought I would give “ witnessing wine” a break for a week because I recently had the delight to try our latest 2019 release of Viognier as well as experiencing a recent Viognier with Jennie Mcloud of Chrysalis vineyard. I was stoked to witness two superb wines that really are unique to Virginia.The thing […]

By Andrew Hodson, Veritas Vineyard and Winery Brief recap, to witness the properties of a wine we go through the same framework each time. We have covered the appearances of wine and how to adequately smell the wine and in our last few segments we have been talking about describing the tasting of wine in […]

Summer 2020 Retrospective It’s the autumn equinox time to think back on the summer of 2020. Remember at the beginning of 2020 we came out with quips like I hope the year 2020 will bring us 2020 vision, a clear insight into what lies ahead. Well we all know that what we have seen thus […]

By Andrew Hodson and Veritas Vineyard and Winery Tasting:  Acid/Sugar Balance I’ve spent time in the series describing how best to analyse wine as part of our understanding and evaluation of any wine be it sparkling or still.  We have to, as a first step, witness the properties of the wine we are tasting and […]

How to understand Sparkling Wine – the continuing  saga. By Andrew Hodson of Veritas Vineyard and Winery We saw last week that when you actually taste something, say for example a Veritas Mousseux the smell and taste combine to create what we call-”flavor.” The problem is there is no way that we can measure what […]

With Andrew Hodson, Veritas Vineyard and Winery I want to continue my saga in praise of traditional method sparkling wine to encourage you all to enjoy with me the delights of our latest release of 2015 Scintilla.  The very essence of Scintilla as a sparkling wine and what distinguishes it from all the competition is […]

by Andrew Hodson | Veritas Vineyard & Winery – Charlottesville, VA What’s a Pet Nat got to do with Sparkling Wine? I talked last week of how the British were formative in what was to become  the product we now know as “Champagne” but before Champagne became Champagne there existed a way of making wine […]

By Andrew Hodson, Veritas Winery in Charlottesville, VA “You must be kidding – we all know that sparkling wine originated in and around the Champagne region of France -that’s why it is called Champagne because that’s where the grapes are grown and the wine is made.” Only sparkling wine that comes from that specific region […]