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Corti Brothers Newsletter for Spring 2006 Page 5 Winewise, a consumer newsletter magazine of Australian wine edited by Lester Jesberg is, like Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate and several other wine newsletters, available only from the source. This is how you can subscribe: editor@winewise.net.au or fax 61-02-62590302; US $ 74.00. A very good guide to what is happening in Australia (and New Zealand,) Winewise is responsible also for putting on the Small Vigneron Tasting in Australia, where new, small wineries compete. It is a very good source of information if you want to be the first on your block to have info on a new/small winery in Australia. There are no numerical scores, but classes: Outstanding, Highly Recommended, Recommended, and Agreeable. The judges are senior Australian wine judges, winemakers, writers, merchants and a few restaurateurs In the summer of 2005, Winewise put on a comparative tasting of 18 syrah, six each from Australia, New Zealand and California. All had to be from cool climate areas. I was asked to select the California wines. We did a tasting of 40 wines from cool climates, selecting six. Sent to Australia, five came out very well (one was corked) beating the Australians at their own game. California came in top spot with 17.86/20 to Australia’s 17.73 and New Zealand 17.45. With one less wine, California equaled Australia’s tally of 29 gold medal scores. This is not overwhelming, but California won! Way to go guys!! If you want to know who wins in 2006, subscribe to Winewise. They want to do the tasting again. We are now approaching warmer weather and changing drinking habits. Last May, Rick Mindermann, one of our longtime employees, who many of you have spoken to about your orders, brought back from Washington D.C. a sample of a delicious soft drink called Ting originally sourced from Jamaica. Produced from Jamaican grapefruit, Ting has a clean, fresh, refreshing flavor with an intriguing scent and is sweetened with real sugar. Tasty by itself, Ting can be mixed with rum, vodka, or gin to produce a wonderful long drink for those sunny afternoons. With a couple of dashes of your favorite bitters, it makes a sophisticated non alcoholic drink. Made with Jamaican grapefruit concentrate, sugar, and water, Ting was first manufactured in 1976 on Jamaica by Desnoes & Geddes, also producers of Red Stripe beer. Local farmers benefit because all of the grapefruit concentrate is sourced from the Jamaica Citrus Growers Association. An apocryphal story of the origin of the name is that after the soft drink was made, someone in the office asked: “What are we gonna do wit ‘tis ‘ting?”
In 1921, Andrea Paternoster, in the province of Trento, created a small business out of his hobby, bee keeping. In 1992 his grandson, also Andrea, even more passionate about bee keeping than his grandfather, decided that the best honey is made where the best flowers are. For this he decided to travel outside of Trento province and look at all of Italy. Thus Mieli Thun or Via Castel Thun is able to produce with its own hives, timing, and sensitivity, more than 15 different honeys from growing areas as different as the plains of Calabria to the high valleys of the Dolomites. Since these honeys are not heated or manipulated, they will crystalize. Just warm in hot water to return the honey to its original state. Honey is very stable and rarely, if ever, spoils. No matter where the honey is produced, it is extracted from combs and bottled only at the Paternoster agricultural estate in the Trento mountains. I have selected 11 different honeys. There are both honeys from flower nectar and the less often seen honey from honeydew, the exudate from trees attacked by borers. Honeys packed in 250g jars:
Honeys packed in 500g jars, limited production of only 5,000 jars per year.
More Honeys from Mieli Thun >> << Back to Top |
Corti Brothers
Sacramento CA
