TRAVESSIA Winery Blog

Wine Label: Request for Opinion

I'm preparing the label for my new red wine which we plan to release at the end of September. As I usually do with all my wines, I shipped a sample to a wine laboratory for final chemistry analysis.  This time I also sent a sample to a sensory panel that evaluates the wine for a series of color, aroma, and taste/flavor attributes. I don't think that this type of evaluation is critical but it's interesting to learn what an objective panel constituted by a number of professional tasters thinks about your wine.

One of the comments I received as part of this sensory evaluation was:

<Perfect for poker night with the guys or as a companion at an elegant dinner>

Honestly, I could have never come up with something like this. I don't play poker and elegant dinners are few and far between for me. It''s an accomplishment that my family is able to sit down at the end of each day for dinner, most often cooked by ourselves, never mind elegant dinners.  But I digress...

The description fits the wine quite well.  So I'm contemplating using it on the back label description. But this sort of "communication" is uncharted territory for me.  As I often do when in doubt, I turned to my twitter friends and asked for an opinion:

 

Feedback came in quickly and swiftly. Following are two of the several responses I received:

My friend Sally from across the pond who has one of the funniest twitter pages I've seen, says...

 

Fellow winemaker Ian who is launching his own winery here in MA says...

 

So there you have it!  Would you care to share your opinion as well?  Leave me a comment.  You may just find yourself on the receiving end of one of these bottles....

Coconut Curry Sea Scallops by Meghan Malloy

Meghan Malloy writes one of my favorite wine/food blogs. She's also a Travessia Wine Club member. So a few months ago I naturally asked Meghan if she could create a pairing recipe for our 2008 Vidal Blanc.  The result came early this Summer:

 

I'm very happy that Meghan accepted the challenge because I think the pairing works really well.  You can read a bit more about how she created this recipe by reading her blog post on the topic.  If you visit Travessia Winery, feel free to pick up one of the actual printed recipe cards... word on the "street" is that people are collecting them (though this is only our second one).

Follow Meghan on Twitter: @TraveleatloveMM to stay up to date on all her food wine travels.

Wine Sensory Evaluation with Stacy Woods

We are finally hosting our first "real" wine education event at Travessia Winery.  It took some time to plan this event but we know it will be worth it.  Here are the details:

What: Sensory Evaluation Seminar with Stacy Woods, Certified Specialist in Wine
Where: Travessia Winery - 760 Purchase St., New Bedford, MA 02740
When: This Sunday, June 27th, 2010 ~ 11A.M. - Noon

Stacy Woods, wine educator at Boston University's Elizabeth Bishop School of Wine Studies and Certified Specialist in Wine, will be leading an one-hour seminar on "Wine Sensory Evaluation" at Travessia Winery. The seminar takes place June 27th between 11AM and Noon. Tickets must be purchased in advance by calling the winery during normal business hours at 774-929-6534.

Come taste several wines and enrich your wine experience in an educational but fun and relaxing setting. $15 for Travessia Wine Club Members, $20 for non-members. Only 20 seats available, so please call soon if you want to attend.

Seats still available, please call the winery to reserve your spot.

World Cup 2010 - Truly... a World Championship

When I moved to the USA in 1990 one of the things that made me "crazy" at first was American sports calling their respective winners, the World Champions.  If teams from no other than the USA (and add Canada to some cases) compete in the sport, how can the winner be called World Champion?  Arrogance was the only explanation.  With the passing of the years I've become more comfortable with this and even found a pretty good explanation/excuse for it.  At the end of the day, the most skilled and fastest group of basketball players in the world are competing in the NBA, so why not call the NBA title winner the Basketball World Champion?  Same goes for American Football, Baseball, etc.  Yeah, that makes sense now. With that said...

If there is truly a World Champion of any sport, it is in Football (the kind that is called Soccer in the USA).  Here's why Football's World Cup winner is indeed a World Champion...

Some of you may know that the World Cup being played in South Africa starting this Friday, includes 32 teams who will compete for about a month. However, to be playing in South Africa, 31 out of the 32 teams (the exception being the host nation team) had to pre-qualify.  The pre-qualification period lasted two full years and included a total of 204 countries (there are 227 countries in the world).  So, think of the World Cup as the "Finals", and the Champion will be the best from over 200 countries, not just 32.  No doubt, a true World Champion.

Some interesting things about the World Cup that I guarantee you'll not read about anywhere else:

• I remember vividly, the day that I cried non-stop for an hour when Italy beat Brazil 3-2 in the 1982 World Cup played in Spain.  I was 9 years old and lived in Portugal at the time.  That Brazilian team played the most beautiful Soccer I've ever seen to this day and it broke my heart to see them exit without even making it to the championship game.

• Edson, my cousin who runs Travessia's tasting room, is "sort of" named after the only player to ever win three world cup titles, Péle... real name Edison Arantes do Nascimento.

• I was a ball boy for the Bolivian national team at their practice sessions during the 1994 World Cup which was hosted by the USA.  Bolivia wasn't that good of a team, but regardless, I was part of the World Cup staff. Yeap, I'm pretty cool.

This Friday, I will be watching the World Cup kick-off.  My friend pictured here on the right gives you a clue as to which is my favorite team.  And oh, yes, I'll be buying a good bottle of South African wine to celebrate.

Summer 2010 Newsletter

Our mailing list subscribers just received the Travessia Quarterly Newsletter.  Well, it's supposed to be quarterly, but thus far it has been more like biannual.  But no one is complaining.  I'm sure most of our mailing list subscribers get enough "junk" email as is :-)  Hopefully, the Travessia newsletter does not qualify has junk email and that's really what we strive for... make it newsworthy and interesting.

This Summer 2010 newsletter includes information on the latest at Travessia, wine releases, a schedule of events for June and even a part-time job opportunity announcement.  It also includes the announcement of a tasting seminar with wine educator and Certified Specialist in Wine, Stacy Woods.  Stacy will be leading a one-hour seminar at Travessia on "Wine Sensory Evaluation" this June 27th.  It's a first of this type of event at Travessia Winery and we are very excited about it.  Calls for tickets have already started coming in.

Click here to read this newsletter (pdf file)

Consider joining our mailing list if you want to receive our newsletter in the future.  Just go to www.travessiawine.com... the mailing list sign up form is right on the first page, all you need to provide is your name and email address.