And so is CorkPopper!!! Weeks 44 through 46 of the CorkPopper Project will explore the exciting world of South African wine, so if you have a favorite South African sparkling wine, Sauvignon Blanc or Pinotage, PLEASE send an email to corkpopper.blog@gmail.com or post a comment below!!
Cheers!
It’s that time again…. time to start thinking about the next stop on the grand CorkPopper Project tour! I’m still working my way through Australia’s great wines, but the time to move north to Germany is almost here!
So, dear readers, I need your help! Send me your recommendations for German dry Riesling, Spatburgunder (aka Pinot Noir), or other whites or reds. And remember, the wines must be available for purchase on the Internets (the series of tubes) and must be under $25/bottle.
I can’t wait to see/sniff/taste your recommendations!
Cheers!
The wine for next month’s “trip” to Australia is here! Check out the CorkPopper Calendar to see what’s being poured!!
Cheers!
I just ordered 12 great Portuguese wines for the next month on the CorkPopper Calendar! It promises to be a fantastic month and one you won’t want to miss!!
Cheers!
As my regular readers know, March was supposed to be Canada’s month in the CorkPopper Project. With all the great things I’ve read and heard about Canada’s wines these days, I assumed I’d have no problem finding twelve Canadian wines to enjoy and review this month. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Sadly, despite quite a bit of recent good press about the quality wines being produced in British Columbia and Southern Ontario, it is still extremely difficult for an American consumer to purchase anything but icewine from Canada without actually making a trip across the border. And although Canadian icewine has its fans, it is neither my cup of tea (or wine) nor within the CorkPopper budget.
I did manage to find one website that sells and ships Canadian wines to the United States, but I was not willing to randomly select twelve wines and just hope that they were decent. As a compromise, I ordered four – a Semillon, a Pinot Gris, a Pinot Noir and a red blend – produced by four different wineries that were recently honored at the Canadian Wine Awards. As Murphy’s Law would have it, however, the retailer apparently has some inventory issues, and I have neither received my wines yet nor been informed as to which wines they will even be able to ship to me.
Depending on how this all plays out, then, Canada may not make it into the CorkPopper project at all. Of course, in many ways it is pretty amazing that this is the first real speed bump the CorkPopper Project has encountered. In the meantime, I will be doing my best to post on things other than the CorkPopper Project this month (e.g., I’ve been promising a post about wine tasting in Buenos Aires ever since January, and have been to a few wine/food events recently that are definitely worth writing about). And on an even more exciting note, CorkPopper has been getting a behind-the-scenes face lift. Stay tuned for the big reveal, which should happen in the next week or so!
Cheers!!
From September 2009 through August 2010, CorkPopper will be taking a virtual wine trip around the world, tasting some of the world’s greatest affordable wines and creating unique and delicious dishes to pair with the best of them.
Each month will be dedicated to a different country, with each week focusing on a particular region in or typical varietal from that country. Ideally, I will taste and review three wines each week, pick my favorite, and then develop a tantalizing recipe to pair with the winner for that week’s CorkPopper dinner.
To be part of the CorkPopper Project, wines must satisfy three criteria. They must be (1) available on the Internet (so that anyone can find them); (2) under $25/bottle (and preferably even lower); and (3) either rated highly by the usual critics or recommended highly by a friend/relative/reader.
Recommendations, of course, are always welcome. Just be sure to send them as far in advance as possible so that I have time to order your recommended wines over the Internets (you know, the series of tubes…)
As the final countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver begins (set your DVRs and hope for snow in B.C.!!), so, too, does the countdown to CorkPopper’s month-long odyssey through the world of Canadian wines. And CorkPopper needs YOU, dear readers, to help it put Canada on the proverbial wine map!!I love “the Internets” – that magical “series of tubes”* that delivers information almost instantaneously from one part of the world to another, bringing us together in ways once unimaginable. Take this blog, for example, my humble attempt to share my thoughts and stories on wine (and related matters) with a few friends and family spread mostly across California.
Well, CorkPopper’s readership continues to grow, and although most of my readers continue to come from California (and especially the San Francisco Bay Area!), in the past month alone I’ve had visitors from all over the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Spain, France, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Turkey, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Pakistan, India, China, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Wow! *** For those of you not familiar with former U.S. Senator Ted Stevens’ (Republican, Alaska) hilarious explanation of what the Internet is, check it out here…
** This image of the world map is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
*** Check out the CorkPopper Calendar to see where I’ve been and where I’m headed.
Hola, dear readers! It’s time for me to start the process of researching and purchasing the wine’s for next month, during which I’ll be exploring the wide world of Spanish wines. So, if you have any Spanish wine recommendations please, please, please, post a comment below or send an email to corkpopper.blog@gmail.com. And remember, all wines must be available on the internet and be under $25/bottle (preferably even lower).
December is almost here (yikes!), and you know what that means… It’s time for me to start researching/ordering next month’s wines!!
So, for all you French wine geeks and fans out there, please let me know if you have any special suggestions for white wines from Burgundy; red wines from Burgundy, Bordeaux and Rhone; or sparkling wines from whatever region still has reasonably-priced yet high-quality bubbly. And remember, to be eligible for the CorkPopper Project, all wines must be available on the Internet and under $25/bottle.
I can’t wait to hear from you!
