Category: Writing

Posted on

100 Wines – Winter of Wine

In the spirit of my post on wanting to write more, I’ve decided to open up this blog to my general musings. I’m here to write about topics that, at the very least, I currently think are interesting. All that being said I would like to talk about the winter of 2015-2016, specifically my ‘Winter of Wine.’ I’ll start with my strategy on tasting, a couple notes on the experience, my broad conclusions, and then give recommendations of bottles by price point. I actively stay away from trying to teach anything about wine.

For most of my life I have drank boxed wine, and bottles that cost between $10-$20. Occasionally at a work dinner, or a fancy occasion I drink more expensive wine. I agree pricier wine can taste a little better. I also acknowledge some people would find that last sentence blasphemous.
I generally like wine. I find too much beer makes me gassy, and I find hard liquor (or cocktails) are either inconvenient or don’t necessarily fit the occasion. So I set out to attempt to drink (try) 100 bottles of wine. I have done something similar in the past, using Beer Advocate to do a ‘Winter of Beer’ back in 2012-2013. I learned that I generally like higher alcoholic beers, that are fairly well balanced, explicitly not sweet, and sometimes on the hoppier side. If you care to know more than that, you can visit my reviews here.

Strategy 

I use Vivino to track my wines, implementing the same strategy for tasting as I did beer: What does it look like? (Look) What does it smell like? (Nose) What does it feel like? (Mouth Feel) and What does it taste like? (Taste) I then gave wines an overall rating. I specifically targeted bottles in the $15-$35 range, though occasionally found myself outside. My top goal was finding styles of wine that I prefer, which would help me in the long term pick out bottles that I had a strong chance of enjoying regardless of price range. I implemented a full out Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It strategy when reviewing the wine, which should be obvious if you peruse the actual reviews.
To qualify as a proper review I required an entire glass. I have officially reviewed  more than 120 wines and in this post will share my results. Full disclosure, this blog is definitely not sponsored, and these are simply my preferences. I make no promises about whether or not anyone else will like the wine that I do, and I loosely apologize for to the winemakers who’s wine I trash.

Wine Sample

In terms of sourcing what I drank, I mixed it up between a couple different distributors for my bottles (mostly east coast) and was not shy about getting involved with wine by the glass in the New York and Philadelphia regions.

I drank Cabernet’s more than anything else, followed by Pinot Noirs and some red blends. California dominance not surprising given my geography.
This is the list of wines where I had more than one bottle of a specific varietal located in a region. This is how Vivino splits up the wine, so no reason to fight against that for now.

Ratings
I rarely gave a wine 1 star. I like wine. Rating the consumption of alcoholic grape juice a 1-star experience did not happen. Even if the bottle was bad, something I rarely experienced, it would be unjustified to give those a poor rating without tasting a non-spoiled version. All that being said, I never gave a wine 5 stars. At my extremes, I rated six wines 4.5 stars, five wines 2 stars, and one wine 1.5 stars.

Note this review:

Teetering on undrinkable yet I still gave it 2 stars?!? I should be more harsh. 
My worst wine?
Definitely a style issue – but I would consider recommending the worst wine of 120+ I drank?!?!?
In general seems that I was too forgiving, or I lack differentiation abilities, or I just live in a world where on a 1-5 scale for anything 95% of my reviews will fall between 2 and 4.5. There are all sorts of interesting implications if that is true, but for better or worse that lies outside the scope of this post.
Price of Wine
Three of my six 4.5 star ratings were under $30, as was the majority of the wine I tried during this period. While I did rate some nicer wine worse, on average if I knew the price of the wine, I believe I was skewed a bit higher (though also could be more critical of bad ‘expensive’ wine.) This is partly correlated to environment as well. 
Environment
Not surprising, but it is strictly true that I would often enjoy wine better out of wine glasses than Solo cups, and at a white table clothed dinner table over standing at a bar. The thinner the wine glass, the better. Decanting probably does more for me in presentation than it does in a changing of flavor profile. Candles always help. 
Random Thoughts and Tips

My experience with decanting has been mixed, with wines definitely changing, but differing opinions on getting better or worse. On average I would say they evolved better, but as I mentioned before, wine presented in a decanter will probably taste better because of presentation alone. Either way the conclusion is the same, buy a decanter, use it.
If I had to recommend one tip to a casual wine drinker (especially if drinking mostly at home) it would be to rinse your glass with a little wine before starting to drink. This sounds silly, but after numerous tests, my wine always tastes better if I take an ounce or so and rinse out my glass before pouring a full glass (some others might notice that the second glass of the same wine often tastes better.) Maybe it is because I don’t wash my glasses well, maybe it is because soap gets stuck in there, or maybe because there is always some sort of water residue left over, but a quick rinse keeps my wine tasting better. This naturally applies to decanters as well. For what it’s worth, I drink the rinse, I’m not that big of a fan of wasting wine, but if you prime the decanter and a couple glasses with that same ounce or two, you will notice it tastes disgusting.
Conclusions
I like higher alcohol reds, medium to full bodied, exhibiting dark over red fruits. Additionally I had a slight preference for more earth than not, and wood barrel aging over stainless steel. By style, I started looking more proactively for the Grenache, Syrah, Petite Syrah, Priorat, Rioja etc. They continue to be higher overall on my ratings list. They are currently the majority of my wine in storage, along with Brunello’s from a trip last year to Montalcino. Expect further reviews on these styles in the future.
Top Picks by Price Range
Note I am sorting by Vivino’s price ranges, so these are likely a blend of retail and restaurant price points. I would guess all of these skew a little cheaper.
Under $15 

Since Californian Cabernet’s are local, you can get some decent wines cheap, hence most of these being Cabs. The Rhiannon Red is notably an incredible Syrah blend for the price point.

$15-$25

Entering this price range, you can start to get some good imports, and this is where I was able to isolate what styles I like the best. All of these are pretty big reds, including The Criminal, which despite the odd label is a delightful Petite-Syrah/Syrah blend.

$25-$50
Even I’m surprised a Pinot Noir snuck in here.

The Pricey Stuff

Other Wines
Loxton: located in Sonoma – really love this port. Heavy flavors of blueberry, but not too sweet overall fantastic.
I generally knew what I like in white wines. Most of this experience has been in reds, and maybe sometime in the future I could be open to doing a more rigourous tasting of whites. Below is a few go-to options.
Petroni is a winery visited a while back, that is at the very least super beautiful. A lot of their wines are very good, their Chardonnay is great. Cloudy Bay is a favorite for a higher end Sauvignon Blanc, with Oyster Bay being a more every day choice.

Now the Winter of Wine is over, as is the first non-travel related post on this site. Assuming all goes well, expect more coverage on the Spring of Something.

Cheers.

Posted on

A Gelato Story

To be clear, Katherine and I made a few joking references to this comment throughout our trip in Rome:
 [9/17/16 1:15:57 PM] Friend: if you don’t go to Gelateria del Teatro I’ll consider it a personal insult
On our last night in Rome, we had been unsuccessful in getting there and did really want to try it before we left; to the point where we actually moved our dinner up by 30 minutes from 9:30 to 9pm so that we would guarantee making the midnight closing time.
We managed to successfully arrive at 11:30pm where the place was clearly closed and left us demoralized. Somehow the guy inside was waiting for his girlfriend. We basically begged for gelato in whatever mediocre Italian (but mostly English) we could muster He explained the place is only open until midnight during the summer, which was technically over.
He let us in the store to take this sad picture, note the lack of gelato, and his annoyingly happy face.

All he gave us were the options of some pops which weren’t put away and we went with the chocolate wine, and the banana rosemary – which we would later find out was a mis-translation and was actually banana raspberry – we probably could have figured that out with our eyes had we not been so flustered. Fail on getting anything herb related.


At this point I start looking to see if there are other locations (which there are) but all of them are listed at a midnight closing as well. We had zero chance getting there before midnight if we walked, and probably a 10 % chance if somehow we could find a cab but figured these places also likely closed at 11 now anyway so it wasn’t worth the effort. We gave up.
It is worth noting that we had this ugly looking gelato (egg nog, with a shot of whiskey poured on top) which tastes way better than it looks at a mediocre restaurant in Rome. It was by far the best thing we ate there.
Additionally, we had this gelato in Cinque Terre which was simply incredible. Basil gelato finished with olive oil and a crostini:
That is how the story was supposed to end, but as we walked along the river home we passed another Gelateria del Teatro where the doors were open….
A miracle oasis, but we (read: I) were still extremely skeptical.
Turns out it was somehow still open. 
We got in and got the following;
       
       Pineapple Mint
       Rosemary Honey and Lemon
       Garden Sage and Raspberry
       Lavender and White Peach
All were incredible. We thanked our friend for a great recommendation, and the universe for aligning in such a way that got us both delicious gelato, and a great story.
Posted on

Reflections on This Blog (A Post On Not Posting)

This blog started with an excitement and passion for travel. I am not a huge Facebook user, and I felt this medium gave me a bit more freedom for sharing stories and photos. Originally there was some live blogging, which felt perfect later in the evenings when on vacation as a productive wind down activity. Never mind the reality that I enjoy writing.
Regardless, a lot of the documenting process was inevitably pushed into the future. I kept some notes here and there, and there are thousands of pictures archived from a couple different trips, waiting to be filtered through and posted. As vacations became busier, I would lose focus on daily updates. This could arguably be reflective of packing too much into a vacation, or it could be the reality that sitting in front of a glowing screen typing when in magical locations is plain silly.
Ultimately I wanted this to be a place to share experiences, because sharing is caring. Seriously though, it was both a combined way of having a centralized place to communicate my travels, and a way to outsource some memories for personal reflection. The former prefers quality, where the latter prefers quantity.  I want to write more, and I want to create good content, but that desire for ‘good’ is holding back quantity. Quality vs Quantity is always a delicate balance, and particularly difficult when there are two goals at odds.
Of course life has gotten in the way and I am a bit ‘behind.’ The second half of the Thailand trip hasn’t been covered, Turkey has only a few posts, and the blog doesn’t even know about Italy. From here on out I will try to push a little harder, maybe post things that might resemble photo dumps, but if that is all I can muster it will still be better than nothing.
Thanks for reading.
Posted on

Why I Always Fly Nonstop and Quantifying the Cost of Time

Let’s be honest here, flying nonstop is just way better than flying anywhere with stops. There are a few major reasons. Time – generally stops take more time – not only do you have to take two planes you also have to wait in a different airport for your next plane. Waiting is not fun.
The other big issue is risk. When you take a nonstop flight you risk missing the plane once, and you risk weather, mechanical issues, etc only once. When you have a stop you have at least double the risk. Your second plane has all the risk of a normal nonstop flight – but if your first plane has a problem, even a small delay, and you miss your connection now you are in a host of trouble.
The problem of course is that in general nonstop flights can be more expensive than stops – sometimes which doesn’t make a ton of sense given often you’ll fly further for less money – supply demand at work. So how do you quantify if the extra money or miles spend on a non-stop flight is worth it?
Quantifying Vacation Time
There are a couple of nerdy ways to figure this out. One would be – what is your vacation time worth?
Let’s say you work full time and get 15 vacation days per year. The 360 hours of paid vacation time you get are worth a lot because you’re working the majority of the rest of the time. The first question you can ask yourself is how much you would pay for one more vacation day? If you know the answer to that, all you have to do is divide that number by 12 (I’m assuming a stopover adds about 2 hours of travel time on average) and you’re done – but let’s try and value your vacation days.
Work Hours Framing
Let’s assume the average traveler who is having this debate works 5 days per week all year round. There are about 10 holidays that most people get off, and then three weeks of vacation. That leaves about 47 weeks of full work, or 235 days. If you work 10 hours per day, and make $100k per year – you actually are looking at around $42 per hour (we’re ignoring taxes here, forgive me) over that time period. It seems true, that if you could work for the extra amount of time the stop over takes, you would at least pay $84 for the nonstop flight, again assuming a 2hour average time addition (don’t forget about all the extra risk!) Naturally if you make 50k, you can cut this number in half, or 200k you can double this number. Time is money after all.
Some companies even let you store your vacation time or redeem it at your salary level, so the equation becomes even more clear cut if you have more vacation than you can use and want to redeem the rest.
Vacation Cost Framing
What about looking at the value in terms of the cost of the vacation? Let’s say you book tickets somewhere that cost $500 round trip, and you are staying for a 3-day weekend. The hotel you are at costs $250 per night. The trip fixed costs are around $1250 for flights and hotel. During that time you have 72 hours. On vacation, I like to sleep a lot – but let’s assume you only sleep 8 hours per night, that leaves you with 48 hours of non-sleeping vacation time. You’re basically paying $26 per hour for that time (between the flights and the hotel, $1250/48= ~$26,) so you’d definitely be willing to pay $52 to avoid two hours of extra travel time!

Posted on

American Airlines Miles Worth More Than A Nickel!

I’ve always been a big fan of thepointsguy, and bloggers similar to him who are always trying to arbitrage frequent flyer points and credit cards. I’ve played along for a while and the sad part is all I’ve really had to show for it is a massive pile of points. The problem for me has been that some of the best award travel bonuses happen on off days – getting one and a half to two cents per point if you are not into flying first class flights Wednesday to Wednesday is a bit tricky. Flying Wednesday to Wednesday is for people who have lots of time, or don’t need to maximize their vacation days.
What did I learn today? I learned that last minute travel is where there is some serious edge! On Tuesday may 26th, I was debating flying Philadelphia to San Francisco for the weekend. Round trip non-stop tickets Friday to Sunday, or Friday to Monday are pricing around $1500-$1600. One stops around $900 – but I hate stopovers. In fact, I’ve pretty much vowed never to fly connecting flights if I don’t have to.
In comes the American Airlines advantage points, who recently merged with US Airways so the points are all the same now. You can acquire points a number of ways for these programs including the American Airlines credit card, the US Airways credit card, or one of my favorites, the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Booking award travel, the same flights for this weekend are 12.5 thousand points each way, plus the ~$80 or so in taxes and last minute booking fees, which is basically the same points price for a flight I would book 3 months away! (Note if you have higher status on American $75 worth of fees are waived!)

If you value these points vs what I would have spent buying a ticket the normal way, I’m using AA Advantage points at more than six cents per point! That would make the chase sapphire preferred 40,000 bonus worth $2,400 which is no chump change! Hands down the most lucrative use of points and airline miles I’ve ever found!

If you liked this post, and want to support more like it – use the below priceline link to book last minute hotels!

Posted on

Day 9 – Rafting

When deciding what we wanted to do we knew we had to do some rafting in costa rica.  We debated between the class 2/3 rapids which were closer by (only around 20 minutes away so we could do a half day excursion) or going all the way out to the Serepique river near the coast of Nicaragua where there were some class 4 rapids. We decided we wanted the experience so would schedule a whole day just for rafting. The tour guide said the rapids should be awesome since it had been raining for a couple of months, so we were excited.

When we first hopped in the van that picked us up there were three other guys with us – it was nice that I’d be in a boat with at least a little bit of strength behind the paddling. We picked up another three girls from Boston on the way from another hotel, and would later learn that the three guys would go in their own raft and I’d go with the other four girls – I was a little sad but I made the joke that at least with that many we’d be less likely of flip.
They needed two of us to take the front – usually you get the most wet, and are the most likely to fall out, so I decided to sit there along with one of the Boston girls.
We went through the standard safety procedures, a couple explanations, etc and then we started down the rapid. We were the first boat out that morning with a bunch behind us.  On the first rapid of the trip, I am in the front – paddling hard. Right before we hit the rapid the guide with us reminded us if he says “get in” – get in and hold the rope tight. It was a large rapid and looked exciting.
“GET IN!!”
We hit the rapid hard, bodies flew. One of the girls crashed on top me, and I lost the rope. Eventually I came up from being tossed around underwater. Fairly optimistic – not my first time getting tossed out of a raft I tried to catch my breath, point my feet forward. Standard procedures, I waited to be rescued.
Water was moving fast – I could hear many whistles – but I was doing the usual feet forward – keeping calm. I see a paddle nearby so I grab it. I hold it in the air a little bit so someone could see me.
The whistles started to fade and I was moving very fast. Another large rapid was approaching and I was heading right for it so I braced myself. It was a bit worse than expected; I dropped a couple feet down and then was crushed by a very large wave. I was thrown around a bit, underwater for an eternity of probably around 5-6 seconds. 
I swallowed a decent amount of water but came up looking for air – quickly another rapid washed me under – this time filling my lungs half way with water. I came up from the water again but could not breathe since I was choking – then swept under again. Twirled around, without having taken a breath in a while my feet were no longer facing forward – I was under water. As my knees smashed into some rocks and I was thrown backward again, it was at that point that I first really accepted that this could be how I was going to die. Shitty luck.
I came up again – the water and myself moving quickly but at least no major rapids for another 100 meters or so. I decided no one was around to help anymore so it was all up to me. 
I started looking around and I noticed Katherine a bit behind me!
The whole time no one had been in front of me and the experience painfully lonesome, though her sight only made it worse as I felt terrible knowing her bad swimming water phobia self had likely experienced something similar to what I just had. 
I looked forward and could see another major rapid approaching and knew while still choking it was unlikely I’d be able to handle being tossed around again. 
Katherine was too far to help and I was helpless myself. 
I decided to try to swim towards shore. My knees smashed on some more rocks as I tried to swim perpendicular to the strong downstream current. 
I got close to the shore moving quickly – I used what felt like my last energy to grab a branch. I had hold of it! It broke immediately. I grabbed a vine that slipped through my hands. Eventually I managed to left hook a tree stump with a good amount of whiplash. I clung to it literally for dear life – wheezing – coughing up water. I sounded a bit like a choking donkey. Instantly my own relative safety made me feel terrible about letting Katherine literally continue to float downstream without a paddle. I eventually saw the second raft, all four guys paddling hard to try and get close to me on shore, missing by about 200 feet, but hitting land somewhere nearby. They called for me to come over. 
I needed a minute to get the rest of the water out of my lungs. 
Eventually I walked over and sat down on the ground nearby, explaining my girlfriend is not a good swimmer, she would need help. She was downstream, floating towards Nicaragua.
I felt terrible. 
My legs were bleeding – people kept asking if I was OK. Did I need to go to the hospital? I was too busy puking up the water from my belly at that point to answer. 
I actually felt a bit bad for the social awkwardness of the three guys who were friends sort of forced to hang out with me there while the guides accounted for the rest of the flipped boat. Occasionally they asked me if I was ok. Told them I had a lot of water in the belly. I found out one of them had been tossed out of the boat on the rapid, they got him back in the boat quickly and managed to not flip.
Eventually a boat showed up with the three other girls. I asked if they had seen Katherine. They had not but she was ok just upstream a bit – surprisingly chipper having had a bit more comfortable of an experience than I did. I later learned that we had flipped. The front two – myself included launched forward out of the boat but the 3 girls not including Katherine had gotten to shore about 250m before we did – avoiding the next major rapid area. 
Our guide had flipped the boat right side up and was trying to catch us but simply could not because the raft would not go as fast as our life-jacketed bodies. The lone kayaker evidently caught up with Katherine just after I swam to shore screaming at her to “Swim hard left!” where he was able to catch up and have her grab on – paddling her to shore. 
We were only about a half mile into our nine-mile trip. I had no desire to get back into the boat but did anyway. We had lost half our paddles – I no longer sat in the front but I did paddle the rest of the way. I was a bit timid of the rapids, but happy to have a paddling purpose as opposed to just sitting there. It was cold. I was quiet. It took me a bit to consciously accept all that had happened.  
The casado that I would limp towards afterwards with ice on my knee was a solemn, robotic, but delicious meal. 
We tipped the kayaker who caught up with Katherine $20 which felt valid given he may have saved her life. 
We decided not to buy the photo cd.