Although my writing about wine veers increasingly towards the tasting note aimed at informing future orders, the format at The Little House of Concrete Wine Rack blog involves an introductory paragraph or two (yes, and sometimes it's a bit more than or two, but we're talking generalities here) so it's handy to have reference material close at hand.
While I realise there's plenty of detailed information out there, I want something that doesn't involve much research leg work, something in click and you're there mode.
While I could set up a shelf full of reference volumes and an array of hyperlinks (which I have, but there's still that leg work bit isn't there?) I'd prefer to have something that's copy and paste-friendly for that introductory remark prefacing today's tasting note if there's something in the glass or on the bottle that has attracted my attention.
I also want somewhere I can insert those handy little tidbits of information you tend to pick up along the way.
So, from time to time I've headed out, gathered all the information I can find about a particular grape variety or wine-associated term, bunged the lot into a text file and then set about removing anything that's not relevant to my purposes.
When I’m looking at a Pfeiffer Gamay, for example, I’m not interested in the need for carbonic maceration if you’re looking to produce reasonably drinkable Beaujolais Nouveau. There are a number of wines where that technique comes into play, but for a look at such matters we’re better off with a separate entry in the Wine Terms section of the site, n’est ce pas?
Similarly, given the fact that samples of overseas wines aren’t exactly thick on the shelves of Bowen’s bottle shops I’m not going to need a detailed discussion of the stylistic variations in Pinot Noir in Oregon and California, am I?
Having consolidated all the info into a relatively short and reasonably integrated parcel I might as well place it somewhere I can find it easily, and if anyone else is inclined to use the same material, fine.
So that's what you'll find over in the side bar - Hughesy's notes on a number of red wine varieties. There are, predictably, some notable absences. In those cases it’s safe to assume there’s a large data file on Hughesy’s hard drive that’s still in the process of being whipped into Hughesy-friendly shape.