Wednesday, March 24, 2010

How Sweet It Is

The GrapeVine Tasting Club was back on Sunday! And what a beautiful day it was...the weather was around 70 and the sun was shining bright. Perfect for the deliciously sweet wines we would be tasting. People often ask me about sweet wines, or dessert style wines so I figured the only way to learn about them is to taste them. How Sweet It Is - a tasting of dessert, fortified, and just plain sweet wines - is recapped below.

I started the afternoon off with a cocktail. Dow's White Port with tonic and a twist of lime. Refreshingly perfect for the warm weather. A couple of ladies sat on the porch out front to sip this cocktail. Once we got the dessert bar all set up, it was time to really get into the tasting.

Up first, Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine.
Icewine is produced from grapes that have been frozen while still on the vine. The sugars and other dissolved solids do not freeze, but the water does, allowing a more concentrated grape 'juice' which lends to a more concentrated, very sweet wine. Unfortunately due to the process of making this wine and the amount produced, icewine comes in 375 mL bottles.

Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos
Hand picked Aszu berries are macerated with top quality base wines. The resultant Aszu wines mature at different sweetness levels, generally 4, 5 or 6 puttonyos.
A medium golden amber colour, on the nose showing orange peel, mint, figs and cinnamon. The palate is sweet and rich with cinnamon, apple, coupled to grapefruit aftertaste.

Keo St. John Commandaria
Harvested grapes are spread out in the sun to dry until they achieve a higher sugar density. Once achieved, the grapes are crushed and fermented until the process stops naturally due to the high sugar content. The must is then aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two years.
Reddish-amber in color, this sweet wine has a powerful bouquet filled with dried fruits, spices and oak. It is luscious and full-bodied. We tasted this one by itself in the glass, then I had a special treat for the guests. We poured this over ice cream...and the crowd went wild :-)! OK, maybe not wild, but it was delicious and they did love it.

Bodegas Gutierrez
Pedro Ximenez Sherry
PX as it's called for short is made by drying the grapes under the hot Spanish sun, concentrating the sweetness, which are then used to create a thick, black liquid with a strong taste of raisins and molasses thast is fortified and aged in a solera. This one we served over angel food cake, berries and ice cream. Another hit!

On the dessert bar we had angel food cake, lemon pound cake with and w/o glaze, chocolate chip cookies, 3 creamy cheeses, baguettes, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and apple tarts. The desserts, cheeses, and fruits offered the guests the opportunity to taste the differences in the sweetness levels of the wine when paired with different items and showed them that you don't just have to think of sweet wines as a drink for dessert. They can be used used in a cocktail, an aperitif, or mixed in with the dessert.

So glad I had some of the PX left, I can't wait to make an adult sundae later...


18 comments:

  1. beautiful girls there. I think it was a competition for everyone. shame that I took part in the dance.

    ReplyDelete
  2. At the moment, possible solutions for users who do not have 10k noah to buy a punishment stick are being discussed, but for the time being, you'll just have to sit tight and enjoy the jail's ambiance.

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  3. Athenrye can you give us any new updates on what is being released or worked on there or what mgames is working on?


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  4. slabit dormi linistitJanuary 8, 2012 at 3:43 PM

    So, as Ashet mentioned earlier (though now deleted, because I'm the only one who gets to answer things around here for better or worse) there is a hard-coded limit of how much gold players can carry based on an internal algorithm. Why? Blame math. In any case, that's just how it is.

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    ReplyDelete
  5. psd black flyer templateJanuary 9, 2012 at 3:31 PM

    Hey, two in one day!
    Check the first post of the thread and enjoy your temporary mute.

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    ReplyDelete
  6. I absolutely agree with you.
    Nova Towning in and of itself is a point of a lot of debate all around. While it hasn't yet been official labeled as bug abuse or interference with players, I certainly don't endorse its practice and I can't imagine any of the other GMs do either (though you'd have to ask them yourself, really). In any case, we have already sent two requests to the developers:

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    Replies
    1. http://skyrimbestrace.com/March 1, 2012 at 1:57 PM

      alot of speculation is happening about the anvil everyone has their own theory but can you answer what the approx anvil rates are

      another evil question

      seeing as item injecting through mail is back do you expect there will be pvp rewards receiving soon?

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      Delete
  7. All GMs have a few users they consider fairly trustworthy when it comes to reports, but no player can be absolutely trusted. Players in general are simply too close to the game to ever be considered an unbiased viewer to events that occur within it. Unfortunately, experience has taught me that I have to assume that every player is guilty until proven innocent and that every report is a lie until proven valid. No matter how trustworthy we may feel a player is, it would simply be irresponsible from a professional standpoint to trust a player's word at face value, as well as unfair to the reported player to take punitive action simply on an accusation alone.

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    ReplyDelete
  8. 1-Well and if I buy of re-seller ( playspan or shattered crystal ) I will be the re-seller of re-seller.
    A lot of people dont have a credit cart. I would be helping them.
    This way Can I sell for real money or golden bars (noah , money of game) ???

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  9. So last week on twitter i readed the overhaul is soon to be completed, thats means the NPT logs will also show up soon?
    in that case i can remember you was willing to make a 'wall of shame', is that still in considering?
    I would love to see it, will clear alot of things up.

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    ReplyDelete
  10. Are you planning to do any offical update about hacked characters and items? i mean restorations. because 3 weeks gone in this month too

    aici

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  11. First of all, we're understaffed. I've never made any attempt to say otherwise. We have more servers than we have GMs and, given that GMs operate in three different time zones, not all GMs are always available online at the exact same moment.

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  12. ook folks, when I say I don't know how long restorations will take, I'm not being coy. I literally don't know and, no, I can't even ballpark it for you. My personal queue of accounts is over 400 and I still haven't even gotten a chance to finish investigating most of them yet. We have as many GMs as we can spare working on restorations every working day and have been doing so for the last two weeks at the very least. It will be done when it's done. But until then, I don't know how long it's going to take, I don't know when your individual turn will come up, and no, you cannot speed up the process at all.

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  13. I have always bought Knight cash with my 2 credit cards, will the credit card numbers be enough to get my account unblocked? (and maybe the old ESN Codes from PlaySpan (between: Okt.26 2009 and Nov.28 2010), and i don't know the old Click and buy account ID number, becuz when i started to play KO again i just maked an new account.

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  14. No, this wouldn't really be a feasible request. Generating a new skill to work with a class would require not only a ton of work on its own, but it would also require other skills to be made for other classes, along with further game balancing. Alternatively, you can just use an Intelligence boosting scroll for a similar effect.
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  15. Has it ever bin discussed to delete some of the non-active old clans from the ladder ranks?

    I am not saying delete the clans or chars but knock them offer the ladder.

    Or possible putting in something for the NP ranking also, that if a person is not active for over a month he gives up his spot on the ladder?

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  16. Hello, I'm pretty new on this things of forums, buta couple days ago i kill the GM in GM war and I think that has a reward, besides the money(416/8ppl=52m) I think I should recieve an item as a prize, but I didn't recieve anything, can anybody help me pls?. Thanks for read, good bye.

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  17. http://dietmenuplans.net/April 1, 2012 at 12:56 PM

    Would you guys ever consider what EnTiTy does where they allow europeans to continue to play in USKO even though they own the license but instead you guys allow US Citizens to play in EUKO even though you guys hold the license?

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    ReplyDelete