So many events, so little time, friends. We have your events here! This past Saturday marked the beginning of October, and that means it is once again yes, Virginia, its Virginia Wine Month. This month vineyard crews, cellar rats, harvest interns, assistant winemakers, and winemakers themselves are spending long grueling hours harvesting their fruit, getting it fermented and turned into wine before it gets its rest over the winter. For the Virginia wine fans, there are lots of events including harvest festivals, wine dinners, bonfires, live music, food trucks, and even a few opportunities to stomp on grapes a la Lucy in Italy. (You know that you want to. Just admit it.)
Good Day, City Vino, fans! Your somewhat humble (sorta, kinda) blog writer, Kathy, is glad to be back writing after a several week health hiatus. Yes, it started with mild COVID, which I had managed to elude for two and a half years. Then on its heels, a severe sinus infection chaser. My sense of smell and taste were altered for a good three weeks, but it’s all coming back to me, so let’s get to it and talk wine! Woo!
Have you ever heard the phrase “money doesn’t grow on trees?” If you would have asked the Mayans and the Aztecs back in 250 A.D., they would have said. “Yes, it does!” The cocoa bean was their form of currency, and only the upper class could afford to drink their money. What they discovered is what we still love about chocolate today; its perceived ability to increase stamina, endurance, mood, romantic arousals… LUST!
There are actually a wide variety of fortified wines in the world, for which Port is just one kind. But it is a special one, and of the fortified wines, it is the oldest. Fortifying means that a grape spirit, or brandy, is added to the wine to help preserve it. The brandy is added during fermentation, which then kills the yeast as the yeast can only survive in an environment that is just so high in alcohol. This means that wine retains its sweetness. From here, the wine goes into a series of ageing containers. Depending on how long the ageing process is, the wine maker is making Ruby or Tawny port.
