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How you Can Identify Cheap, Fake Wine?

The problem of cheap wine-fake wine- either decanted into an empty bottle of the real one or into the product of some complex counterfeit packaging factory-doesn’t provoke extensive sympathy.

There’s the prospect of people at a ballroom party sipping devoutly expensive wine without realizing its a fake one. Wine scam, however, is not limited to the world of the wealthy connoisseur.

Note that the frauds used in ensnaring the general drinker may not be the same; centring on “investment apart from faking rare bottles. However, they’re no less prevalent. So, how do you avoid cheap wine?

Imaginary Discounts

It’s quite common for commercial winemakers to have exaggerated indicated wine retail prices and they mark it down always.

As a buyer, this may look quite fantastic because you see a wine which you imagine usually retails for about $20 going for $10.

However, what you may not be aware of is that the non-discounted wine lying next to it for similar cost actually may be exactly of the same quality.

You should try not to be easily convinced by big markdowns but focus instead on other pertinent information on the bottle...

Then there are wines that pretend to be something they are not

You may, for instance, stumble across some bottles in the Californian section of wine and think they are produced in California, only to realize after buying it that actually they are produced even in other countries.

Always check the bottle back label!

According to TTB requirement, wines should list its origin and you are going to find all those important information on the back, when not displayed on the front. Also, you may check the city the particular wine was produced.

Advertising Gimmick

Perhaps you have heard or read such sweet words like “our bottle of wine is produced from the highest-quality grapes from among the finest vineyards you can find in California”.

There are others that claim their family has for generations been producing the finest wines in Italy.

The above statements are very beautiful and can be convincing. However, they may be a little bit misleading... Do you know that world’s biggest winemaker happens to be family business?

You should, therefore, be cautious of flowery language and it also helps when you are realistic.

Closeouts

There exists real closeout bottle of wines. These wines, more often than not, are going to be older vintages if a winery happens to liquidate its old, unwanted stock.

You will sometimes find closeouts for wines which are out of season, like Rosé when it comes to winter. Closeouts also sometimes happen with those esoteric varieties of wine which do not sell well, like Charbono, Lemberger, or St. Laurent.

When it comes to these kinds of wines, it a perfect idea to know how long some wines cellar. This will caution you from purchasing some wine that is past its prime.

Fake wines are costing customers a lot of money. It’s therefore good to know strategies through which you may differentiate a fake wine from a genuine one.

The above guidelines may be helpful when you don’t want to fall a victim to wine fraud and buy a cheap wine expensively.

I’ll be glad if you let me know if this article was helpful to you :-)

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Haha :-)

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Amazing video! Just watched it before going to bed. Great stuff! :-)

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Drinking Wine Helps You Get to Age 90?!

Even for the generations before us, life has always had its ups and downs. Funny enough, it is the old people of today that make it past the almost imaginary 90year mark.

As more and more people resorted to the bottle to keep sane and better deal with their frustrations, both naysayers and the concerned had one thing to say: Alcohol is bad for you, they said.

Keep up that habit and you won’t live long enough to see your future generations, they said.

Plot twist: turns out they were wrong! Well, partly anyway...

In a study regarded as an addition to the human race long list of groundbreaking medical advancements, researchers sought to get to the bottom of this common misconception.

The LWCS

The main agenda of the LWCS (Leisure World Cohort Study) of 2003 was to find out how and why the 90+ age group was beating all odds to become the fastest growing globally.

They reached out to participants from the initial 1981 study, from the Californian Leisure World community of Orange County by mailing surveys to 14,000 of them.

These surveys focused on their medical histories, daily routines, diet, and their overall lifestyles. Additionally, they had neurophysiological and neurological tests carried out on them twice a year.

They sought to find out:

The factors that seemed to keep them going way past the average age of life expectancy

The prevalence and incidence of dementia-causing disorders within that particular age group

The rates at which their functional and cognitive abilities were declining

The reducible risks of dementia.

Findings

Surprisingly, the moderate drinkers of both alcohol and coffee lived significantly longer than those that stayed off both of them.

Mayo Clinic states that the rule of thumb, as recommended by specialists, should be a drink for healthy men and women over 65, and two for those under 65, where one drink is approximately 1.5 fl oz of spirits, 5 fl oz wine, and 12 fl oz beer.

While it is definitely true that overindulgence in alcohol results to serious health problems among them cancer of the liver and even death, sticking to the above recommendations makes one enjoy the benefits its benefits, such as reduced chances of heart disease, stroke, and/or diabetes.

Note that the key word here is moderation, and exercise added to the mix.

Another England study shows that exercise counters the negative effects of poor drinking habits. 36,370 participants over the age of 40 were classed into 3 groups, based on how often they exercised: inactive, moderate and active, and their drinking habits.

Dr. Emmanuel Stamatakis and his team found that there is a significant relationship between alcohol consumption and exercise. He also found that every 10 years, the average number of deaths was 5.735.

Irresponsible drinking greatly increased the risk of all possible causes of death, while weekly drinking exposes one to the risk of cancer. Teetotalers and abstainers of alcohol were the lucky ones here.

Stamatakis also found out that 150 minutes of weekly aerobic activity seemed to erase all risks of cancer and/or death.

Simply put, the seemingly elusive 90+ age marker can be achieved. Take alcohol in moderation whether stressed or celebrating and exercise.

If you choose to play it safe and avoid alcohol altogether, exercise still, for your benefit and that of your loved ones.

That way, the number of 90-year-olds will keep growing and growing.

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How to Taste Wine and Develop Your Palate

The assessment of wine alerts and stimulates all of our senses.

Tasting wine incorporates: sight, the way wine looks in the glass, with regard to color, transparency or opaqueness;

Smell, the fragrance released in the glass;

Taste, the sensations in the mouth;

Feel of its body or weight on our palate, which brings us to the finish, better understood as the aftertaste; all combine together to reduce the wine's complexity, character, and overall quality.

Touch and even hearing, by the sound of a popping cork, awaken our expectations of the yet to be sampled wine.

The taste of wine comes in a variety which includes bitter (tannin, (grape sugar), sour (acidity), salt, or astringency causing dry, puckery mouth feeling), and umami. Umami is a Japanese word meaning "savory" -- it applies to the sensation of "savoriness", and is one of the five basic tastes sensed by the tongue in how we taste wine.

The result is you smell as well as taste wine.

The taste perception of spice, cherry, and red currant is actually our sense of smell. Taste and smell are often confused.

The swallowing process aides the retro-nasal olfaction by carrying the residual wine vapors in the mouth - retro-nasally - to the smell center because of the connection of the mouth to the nose via the retro-nasal passage. This is why wine tasters gargle wine in their mouths.

The best objective assessment of wine is a comparison performed among several wines, referred to as tasting "flights".

They can be ultimately chosen for their vintage, known as horizontal assessment, or multiple vintages from a particular winery referred to a vertical tasting.

To further support an unbiased analysis, bottles may be disguised in a "blind" tasting, to rule out any prejudice regarding vintage, geographic origin, winery, price, reputation, color, or other considerations.

To chill or not to chill, that is the question.

Champagnes and other sparkling wines are best chilled to 43-50F. White wines should be between 55 and 60F; temperatures below this range can suppress the wine's bouquet (the smells that develop with age in the wine bottle associated with the fruit).

New younger, lighter-bodied wine is more easily overpowered by the alcohol content and should be served cooler. One of the youngest wines, Beaujolais, can be served chilled at 50-54F so the fruity, refreshing flavor will come through.

The full-bodied wines such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon are best enjoyed with a touch warmer than a wine cellar at 59-64F. Sweet Madeira or vintage Port at 50-60F.

The shape of the tasting glass affects how we taste wine and bouquet perception.

A glass that is wider at the bottom with a narrower opening at the top is preferred; a tulip shaped glass that is wider at the top is the least preferable.

The international standard wine tasting glass is the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) XL5, which has a low center of gravity to make swirling easier. Swirling releases the esters, ethers, and aldehydes that combine with oxygen to yield the wine's bouquet.

The order of tasting wine

The order in how to taste the wine is important if you do not want your assessment to be improperly influenced or skewed. The heavier, sweet wines can dominate the lighter wines.

Sparkling wines should be tasted first, followed by light wines, then by heavier whites, roses, light reds, heavy reds, and sweet wines last. To know before tasting which is to be the heavier from the lighter you can utilize the appearance and nose (its bouquet or aroma ) as a guide.

Heavier wines will be deeper in color with a likely more intense aroma to the nose.

The basic steps in how to tasting wine

Judging the poured wine's color in the glass is the first step in how to taste the wine to the oenophile (someone who enjoys wine) and best done against a white background or in natural daylight, with the glass held at an angle for the best perception of color and clarity.

All wines should be bright and clean, free of particles or sediment. White wines have a range of color from water white to deep golden depending on grape variety, sugar content, and maturity. Red wines are a dense purple to pale cherry depending on age and grape variety. In this way, the knowledgeable wine taster can receive clues as to the grape variety, and whether the wine was aged in wood.

The procedure in tasting wine continues with the swirling of the wine in the appropriately shaped glass, followed by the smell or the sniff. Are there any off odors, the smell of mustiness or a vinegary scent?

If you sense the bouquet is clean, then sip and taste to assess the quality. Is the wine concentrated or light? Does it smell of fresh fruit, berries, or dried fruit, maybe flowers, nuts, spices, herbs, or vegetation? Is there a presence of vanilla, cedar, or can you perceive a scent from oak barrels? Do the wine show age and maturity with the smell of leather, coffee beans, chocolate, or truffles?

First, isolate the predominant smell and then identify the others. The nose is like a muscle, the more you use it, the more refined it will become.

This process facilitates the taster's observations to determine the wine's clarity, varietal character (appreciation for the achieved flavor and aroma of the varietal), integration (resulting sensory mouth feel involving astringency, the combination of textures, flavors, and overall "structure"), expressiveness (the wine's ability to exhibit its true character), complexity (describes the level of richness, bouquet and flavor from the fermentation and aging process), and connectedness (the evidence of taste between the wine and the soil from which its grapes grew).

Wine can alter the taster's judgment.

There can be formal tastings, where dozens of wines may be judged, is different from social drinking in that tasters do not actually have to swallow it after each assessment.

Assessments, descriptions, and comparisons use recognized standards with respect to factors such as price range, the wine's region and vintage, any remarkable or unusual characteristics, and if it is typical of the region or diverges in style.

There is a lot more to how to taste the wine to judge quality than just tasting and swallowing.

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About Me

Hello everyone!

Wine is life. This is the mantra that I, Stacy Tomkins, have lived by throughout my late twenties and early thirties. Despite a short stint in college where I preferred to indulge in the occasional vodka tonic, I have always been a closet wine lover.

This blog is intended to sway all of you to join me on the incredible journey that is demystifying the wine industry. Here, you will learn about all types of wine from the cheap Target box wine all the way to the $1000 delights that could leave you forsaking your rent for a single glass.

It is blog about wine industry and non-alcoholic wines. As a long-time abstinent, one of the things that was harder for me was to give up my passion for wine. It wasn’t until later when I realized that there’s actually another choice - free wines that taste just as lovely as their alcoholic counterparts!

Join me on this adventure and let me share my self proclaimed wise words with you.