Wine Blog Awards and Slow updates

If you are a regular reader of Tinto y Blanco, you will notice that it’s a bit quiet around here. Full time work, part time Masters level study, life and ,well lets face it, Sundy morning hangovers, have gotten the better of me over the past little while. I have been tasting quite a lot of late, just haven’t had the time to write things up and do the photos etc. End of semester is at the end of June, so I’ll try to get some of the tasting up as bulk notes with odd photo. Full service will return later in the year with a bit of a revamp of the site too.

In other news, I’ve been nominated (or the site really) in the Best Single Subject category in the Wine Blog Awards…if you’re inclined to vote you can do so here: http://bit.ly/aVCpdd or just click on the icon

Back in the saddle….

coit towerAfter a month or so break, I’m back with more tasting notes. I’ve spent the last month or so traveling around lesser known parts of Idaho and Utah (with a quick stop in San Francisco) and recovering from a bout of swine flu, but there has been a few Spanish and Portuguese wine moments along the way. A few high lights: Tasting most of the big name 2007 vintage ports (do believe the hype in most cases, its a great vintage), drinking MartinCodax Albarino while my Mormon hosts look on in horror and disdain, and eating Mexican food in California.

Tinto y Blanco is 2

Doesn’t time fly? 2 years on and the site is still expanding and gaining new readers all the time. I must say I’m chuffed with the response to the site, the level of support from the importers,the industry and everyone interested in Spanish and Portugese wine. So a big thanks to everyone. As a way of saying thanks I’ve arranged a bit of a give away over here. Make sure you click on this link to enter.

Have a guess and win some wine

So all you have to do is guess the number of corks in the box, you can click on the image to get a bigger image if you think that will help. Put your guess in a comment on this post and you’re in with a chance of winning a nice little six pack of wines.

Iberian wine in Australia, Two years on.

Is it just me or is Spanish wine starting to take off all over again? Or perhaps its a second wind. Whatever it is, there are plenty of new wines in the market this year from both Spain and Portugal. The good thing for buyers of Spanish wine is the broad range of wines that are now available and there is some competition at the lower end of the market.

The joy of closure

I’d heard a bit about this wine before it was released: a $15 Albarino in screwcap from Vintage Cellars. It will sell by the truckload if it’s any good, I thought. Then Larry posted a comment after tasting a bottle, and it sounds quite good indeed. So I made a rare trip to my [...]

Wordpress upgrade Completed

I upgraded to Wordpress 2.5.1 today. So if you find something weird on the site, let me know…

Back from NZ

New Zealand is such a hard place to leave, great weather, food, views and a big range of Spanish wines at much lower prices than Australia thanks to a much more reasonable tax structure. Oh well, back to work. I should have a bunch of new stuff in to look at later in the week, [...]

Feliz Semana Santa

I'm off to New Zealand over Easter, hopefully without Internet or a phone. So their will be no posts on Tinto y Blanco until next week. Anyway have a safe and happy Easter.
 

Yarra Valley Tempranillo

I took a short drive out to the Yarra Valley today, mainly to take a few photos but ended up tasting a few local Tempranillos after it started to rain about 30 minutes after I got there.  I got some ok cloud shots though. I'll give a free subscription to Tinto y Blanco to anyone [...]