He seems to be finding the time to keep Grapes of Sloth alive too, which is great. Keep it up Paul, who needs sleep?*

* or maybe you’d be less absent minded if you did get more sleep …..

It says on the bottle to decant, so I decided it was the perfect time to give my Vin-Aire a real try out. And I just got my hair cut, so I made some videos
Here’s the vin-Aire in action:

and the verdict on the Vin-Aire:

On the wine – it’s a really nice punchy red wine. I brought it out for Sunday lunch the next day and it went down a treat
with the family. I’m looking forward to trying the white in the range next!

With about 150 wines on offer, I just scanned the portfolio and then asked for recommendations.
I started with 2 from Barry & Fitzwilliam. They were both excellent, and the spiel and the rep was very friendly and informative.
I moved around and tried a couple from Bubble Brothers, Cassidy Wines, Classic Drinks and Searsons.

My three top picks from the evening were (in no particular order):

• CAMPO DA BORJA, ‘TRES PICOS’, BORSAO (Searsons)
• Zuazo Gaston Crianza 2007 (Classic Drinks)
• Marques de Caceres Gran Reserva 2001(Cassidy Wines)

If you’ve never been to a wine tasting, Blake Creedon had a great guide to making the most of one. It’s a great evening, and you get to try out a range of wines you might not otherwise try. You can really go out of your comfort zone – if you get something you don’t like, just smile at the vendor, gently pour it away and go find something nice
In fact, tell them you didn’t like it. They won’t be offended, and they will know what they have that’s different and be able to find you something you’ll like.

From Curious Wines, Mont Marçal Blanco 2009. retails at a mere €7.99.

From Bubble Brothers, Mas Codina, DO Penedès 2010. Slightly more at €11.99 but worth every penny.

And from Wine Alliance, Beso De Vino Macabeo 2010. Available around the country and in Bradley’s Off licence on North Main St. I can’t remember the exact price but it’s around a tenner.

You might spot a bit of a trend there with the whites I’m drinking at the moment. I’m also enjoying a lovely white from France, but that’s not available here so I’ll leave it out. Enjoy!

We’re running a brand new twitter event, a blind wine tasting on the 27th March at 8p.m.
The suppliers of the mystery bottle are Paul, Colm and Chris from the The Corkscrew, near Stephens Green in Dublin.

All you need to do to take part is buy the mystery wine online or in the shop, follow me, Kevin and the Corkscrew and then join us on twitter on the 27th at 9pm.

You don’t need to know much about wine or wine tasting. Kev and I will MC the event, and bring you through the process.
We’ll talk about the wine online and then guess

• grape varietal ->
• old v new ->
• country ->
• region ->
• year

Full details on the history of #twebt are here.

Hope to see you on the 27th!

I also read some more local blogs for suggestions for wines to try. Blake Creedon’s blog, as well as his column in the Examiner on Saturdays, or Lar Veale’s blog and column in the Tribune both have recommendations that you can get around the country.

Paul Kiernan writes the Grapes of Sloth, and recently he published a post with a breakdown of his new scoring system. He also reviewed a brace of five star wines, both of which are readily available in Cork City. I decided I’d try one, and when Michael from Bradleys off-licence on North Main st. in Cork mentioned on twitter that he had the Concannon Petite Sirah in stock, my mind was made up. I picked up a bottle on Saturday morning and tasted it that evening.
The wine was lovely and really lived up to the billing. You can read Paul’s notes for a full dicsussion of the wine.
One of the things I most enjoy about wine and the social media scene surrounding wine is recommendations from local bloggers and local retailers. You can’t beat a recommendation from someone local to you, followed by a short trip to a local shop to pick something up.

Down the back they have a range of interesting ports and champagnes. They’re the only place I know of to get Royal Oporto port – my favourite port to date.

I picked up a bottle of Rioja, mainly because it was on offer on the website. They honoured the website price too, even though it wasn’t marked on the shelf in the shop.
I drank it a couple of days later and it went down very well with the clan here.

the corkscrew

The lads only recently launched their new website, and they’ve also arrived on the twitter. You can follow them at @corkscrewnation. They’re being very involved to date – I hope they’ll stick it out. One classy move they’ve made so far – they saw a tweet on twitter from @curlydena and they sent her a bottle of malbec to brighten up her day!

tweet from @curlydena

We tasted 8 wines from their range, 2 Spanish, 2 French and 4 Portuguese. All were priced below the €10 euro mark and came in a mix of old school and funky labels.

• Pegoes Branco 2009 Portugal
• Stella Blanco 2009 Portugal
• Mas De Vigneron Blanc 2009 France
• Pegoes Tinto 2009 Portugal
• Mas De Vigneron Rouge 2009 France
• Stella Rosso 2008 Portugal
• Rojo Mojo Tempranillo 2009 Spain
• Rojo Mojo Shiraz 2009 Spain

They were all very nice, with the Stella Rosso being my favourite on the night. You wouldn’t go wrong with any of them though.

I’m delighted to see plenty of Portuguese wines on offer. I’ve never even heard of most of the grapes in these wines, but lately I’ve been hearing more positive things about wine from Portugal, so I was very happy to try them. The main characteristic of all the wines from the tasting was smoothness.
There was a range of tastes, but all the wines were accessible and smooth, “easy to drink” was mentioned several times on the night.

Maurice is a great MC for a tasting. He really knows the wines, and the interest and belief that he has in them shines through.

You can follow Wine Alliance and Maurice on Twitter. Have a chat to the lads, they’re very friendly and
maybe you can wangle an invite for yourself!

as usual, my tasting notes. enjoy!

I hope you’re ready for tonight’s twitter blind wine tasting.

To get ready for the tasting – there’s no need to chill the bottle. Just open it about an hour before we start, so at about 8pm tonight. Don’t look at the cork when you take it out of the bottle or you’ll give the game away.

make sure you’re following me, @kevatfennsquay and rednosewine.Kevin and I will be loosely mc’ing the show and Gary (rednosewine) will be giving us the answers when prompted.

We’ll follow the usual sequence,
* old/new – is the wine from the old world or the new world?
* the year – what year was the wine made?
* percentage of alcohol
* country of origin – what country does the wine come from?
* the grape – what grape or grapes is the wine made from?
* region – what region does the wine come from?

We’ll start around 9 and the whole thing should take about 90 minutes. See you later!

with twitter being swamped and running into technical difficulties due to the World Cup we’ve decided to move #twebt 5 back a week, to Sunday the 4th of July. There’s no soccer that day so hopefully Twitter will be working properly. I hope this won’t inconvenience anyone!
Gary from Red Nose Wine, our supplier will extend his offer for a half case including the mystery wine and the mystery bottle too.
The half case including mystery bottle will set you back a mere €80 and the bottle on its own is €14. Shipping is a fiver in both cases.
Use the coupon ‘Twebt’ at checkout to get the delivery back to €5.

My original post is here and Gary’s post is here