Wine TweetUp: LA

Reposted from Napa Valley Vintners...

Napa Valley Vintners are headed to LA in September in celebration of California Wine Month! Looking for something fun to do on a Tuesday night? Kick off your week early by joining us at our *free* LA TweetUp at BottleRock in downtown LA from 6:00-8:00pm on Tuesday, September 21st to learn more about Napa Valley wines, meet the vintners behind them. Check out your tasting notes and follow those of your friends on our Twitterwall using the hashtag #NVV (Napa Valley Vintners).

In the spirit of a TweetUp, help us get the word out event by informing your 'Tweeps,' posting on Facebook, mySpace, LinkedIn, Buzz...you get the idea.

Sign up here

Dora the Imbiber

Salon Online's Kitchen Challenge blog brings a new dimension in motherhood drinking, compliments of Dora the Explorer. Writer, mom, imbiber and Dora fan, Mallory S. Langston, offers up a recipe that can be made from a family friendly kitchen, but is pleasingly adult. I don't watch Dora, but who's to say her explorations aren't just as affective if they're alcohol related.

Check out her recipe below:

• 1 standard shot glass of spiced rum
• ¼ cup apple juice
• ½ cup orange juice
• 1 tablespoon Grenadine cocktail syrup
• ¼ cup canned pineapple chunks and ½ cup of the leftover pineapple juice
• ¼ small apple, cubed
• ½ small orange, cubed, plus one thin slice
• ½ banana, cut in thick chunks
• Ice

Directions

1. To begin, place the apple chunks, orange chunks, pineapple chunks and banana chunks into the coffee press. Next, pour the Grenadine syrup over the fruit followed by the shot of spiced rum and ½ cup pineapple juice from the can. Stir the contents of the coffee press and let stand for 10 minutes or longer. The longer you wait the fruitier the drink will be.
2. Press down the plunger into the carafe as far as it will go. The reason a coffee press works well for this recipe is that when it presses down on the fruit chunks the juice and small amounts of pulp are allowed to combine with the rum and create bountiful flavor.
3. At the bottom of your glass place a thin slice of orange and then cover with ice, as much as you prefer. Pour the juice contents out of the coffee press onto the ice. Add the ¼ cup apple juice and ½ cup orange juice, stir the contents of the glass, and you're finished! Lo Hicimos! We did it!

App Review: Vino for Dinner

The Vino for Dinner app gives users a selection of wines for under $30.This is a great app if you're on the go and scratching your head for what to bring to a party or your own table. You can easily navigate this app based on your dinner selection, show the wine merchant and be on your way with a solid and reasonably-priced choice. 

However, the $2.99 price may be a deterrent, but ultimately you'll eliminate a panic purchase on overpriced wines.

Check out the demo video.

New Yorkers: Drink for Free

New York is expensive enough without having a separate line item in your budget for drinking. Drink for Free is a daily email and/or text that alerts you to tastings, events and more for, you guessed it, free.

These events fill up quickly, so get there early and start making money on the deal.

Wine Legend Thierry Manoncourt Dies

by Stephen Brook
Decanter Magazine


Thierry Manoncourt, the owner of Château Figeac in St Emilion, has died aged 92.

Manoncourt died peacefully at home on Friday (27 August). He had run the family property for 63 years.

After serving in the French army during World War II, he studied agriculture and took control of the estate in 1947.

Although he delegated the running of Figeac to his son-in-law Comte Eric d'Aramon over 20 years ago, he and his wife Marie-France remained highly visible at Figeac itself and at dinners and other events during Vinexpo and the en primeur tastings.

To many, Manoncourt personified all that is best about Bordeaux: acting as a steward of the historic estate, opening its doors to interested visitors, and participating in the communal life of the region. At a dinner in St Emilion in 2007, the oldest wine poured was the 1950 Figeac. The wine prompted the guests to give the Manoncourts a spontaneous ovation.

It was a disappointment to him in recent years that he failed to win promotion of Figeac to Premier Grand Cru Classé (A), alongside Ausone and Cheval Blanc.

His petition was rejected not on grounds of quality but of price, and he felt acutely the irony that Figeac was penalized for its lack of greed.

Tim Hartley, one of the British chancellors of the Jurade de St Emilion, said, 'I know that everybody who loves Saint-Émilion is going to miss him. He was in many ways the embodiment of all that is best there: the warmth of welcome, and the combination of tradition and pride in history, with the modern world.'