Who we support in prayer ~ It is an adventure of Hope! Tim & Tracy in Southeast Asia Proemsey Family here in the area .

This week’s experience with wine was brought to us by Jason and Lisa, our two volunteers took us through their own wine tasting experience. Jason featured a Camus wine that was said to  be a Big Cab, but could be enjoyed without a need to decant. His wine did not display too much in the way of big flavors as advertised and in the end he would not purchase this wine again. He did a nice job going through the 4 steps with clarity and intention. Lisa tried a chardonnay that had the alcohol removed after the wine making process was complete. She found this libation to be too sweet, and upon swirling no legs were ever observed, which makes sense since there was no alcohol. She too provided us with a nice example of observation, smelling the aromas from the wine as well as picking up on its subtle flavors, like green apple.  Unfortunately for Lisa, this is not a wine to purchase again in the future. Each step taken on its own is not the determining factor for choosing to purchase a ...

Greetings to all.  I hope each one of you is well.  I know a few weeks back Pastor Paul shared about Driving with Hope.  And I tried to look at wine tasting from a similar perspective.  It actually provided a nice refresher to the art of wine tasting, so here is a quick summary of the principles of wine tasting and driving to Hope! Red Light : It is there on the road to get us to stop and look, make sure we do not crash, become aware of what is around us.  So to the first step of wine tasting is Look & Observe the wine. We look for the accepted hues for red wines as Purple, Ruby, Garnet and Tawny.  White wines express their hues as Straw, Yellow, Gold and Amber. And yes we can touch upon the Rose Wines which use Pink, Salmon and Copper. But we want to know more than just the hues, what is the intensity of the color, does it change as we observe the hue from the edge of the glass moving towards the center. I know if something has tinges of brick red, it...

I stumbled upon this 4 Step Wine Tasting Process presented by Madeline Puckette on the website WineFolly.com   Madeline Puckette is quite the card, capable of demystifying wine in sustainable sips, tastes and swallows. This is something anyone can learn with enough practice, and so I will take a moment to outline what we 'practiced' on Thursday night.    Overall you will discover, wine tasting is truly meant to be a thoughtful reflective process. For me, flavors are often attached to memories, and as we smell, or taste, memories of fruit, baking, herbs and earth may come to the forefront of our thoughts. But first before we get all philosophical about life let's start with ~ Step 1: Look (this takes about 5 seconds often confirms the information on the label, get good at this and 'who needs a label'....just kidding) Check for color & Intensity Is the hue blue/almost purple looking wine Does it have an underlying red/orange hue which indicates good acidity  What...

Week 2 Thursday Review:  The Value of the Wine Label.  If you missed the Thursday Evening Gathering, no worries, we have you covered, on the wine side that is.  We talked about wine labels and all the little parts that provide us interesting information about the wine. The label provides us hints of what the wine might taste like because we will know when it was made, the location of the grapes, the alcohol content and who actually made it. Roses R Red represents The Producer of the wine. Not all grape growers are producers, and not all producers grow their own grapes. The Vintage, represents the year the grapes were harvested. This is important information because the weather from that year will have a great affect on the harvest.  For instance, often times a drought will stress the vines in such a way, that the grapes produce a more intense flavor for that year. Of course we love to know The Variety , 'What kind of wine is this'. In the USA wine named after a ...

Week 1 Thursday Review: a few thoughts on Being Chosen & Wine Making If you missed the Thursday Evening Gathering, no worries, we have you covered, on the wine side that is.  Not everyone is a winemaker, we may know what we like, but in the end we may not have the skill and insight to know what grapes go well together. This week we discussed the idea of Being Chosen, in the wine world choosing the right grape and assemblage is the difference between a great wine and a daily table wine. There are all kinds of grape varietals around the world, each has its own characteristics based on the terroir (french word for earth but representing the location and its influence upon the grape/wine), micro climates which drive the sugar composition and ripeness, everything affects the flavor and utility of the grape for that specific year (vintage). Let's talk a little bit about the Bordeaux Varietals? Many times a great Bordeaux Style wine may be an assemblage of the following varietals (gra...