Good Morning….Welcome to what is happening in my head or the TJR Select blog!

I started journaling years ago and about a year ago someone said, why don’t you post a blog? I didn’t really think I had anything that relevant to say and I honestly thought I would not be consistent and I know how much I hate it when I get hooked on a blog and then the writer just falls off the face of the earth, so I thought no, I will just write to entertain myself.

After an entire year of writing everyday I thought why not go for it. I am launching a new business, I am constantly finding interesting topics and I amuse myself, so if I touch others great, if not I will at least have captured my thoughts and someday write an awesome novel to be made into a Lifetime movie and I will be played by Demi Moore….WHAT? Ok, maybe not Demi, I think I might be played by Kathy Bates, we are kinda shaped the same.

I will not write about the same issues daily. This blog will be about whatever is on my mind. I love wine and I am a winemaker and launching my own wine brand. I am a business person and was an executive recruiter before leaving corporate America to make wine for a living. I was cast on the reality show PBS’s The Winemakers. I am a constant traveler and a HUGE foodie. I am an avid reader of mostly business books and the classics. I am a design engineer by education. I am a sports fan and love pro football and both men and women’s college basketball (my two favorite teams are the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Lady Vols). I am a person who asks questions all the time and find something to laugh about nearly everyday.

Mostly I will report on wines I find and share my opinions or how launching the new business is coming along, but I will warn you that there could be times when I have subjects that are about family, friends, travel, money and politics. Whatever is on my mind, I will be posting Monday-Friday missing only if nothing interesting comes to mind. I invite you to come back often and tell your friends about my blog and if you want to respond at anytime, I’d love your feed back.

The one thing I want you to keep in mind is I will try to keep it under 3-4 paragraphs so not to be writing novel and boring you to pieces!
Have a great day!

Much Love and lots of wine, Tammi

I found a book on Amazon.com about Champagne and it had excellent reviews, so I bought it. The book is called The Finest Wines of Champagne, A Guide to the Best Cuv’ees, Houses and Growers. By Michael Edwards. As soon as I opened it I was intimidated. It is 300 plus pages and I have the attention span of a small child and also the size of text is really tiny.

But none the less I started reading it on Friday and have learned about some of the most interesting facts and the rest of the book is about some of the famous producers and vineyards.

The easiest facts are as follows, Champagne can only be called Champagne if it is made in Champagne, France.

Real Champagne is made only with three types of grapes, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Pinto Noir is tricky to grow well, it is a very temperamental grape, conditions have to be just right to make a great Pinot Noir.

Next the Champagne must be made in the Methode Champenoise traditional way to make it. The process is like this. They pick the grapes (a little under ripe for regular still wines), then they make the wine after it is finished fermenting, they blend the different wines together then it is called cuvee’. Then the wines are bottled and a small amount of dosage is added. Dosage is a kinda syrup mixture of sugar, wine and yeast to top off the bottle and then they cap it with what looks like a pop bottle top called a crown cap.

The sugar and yeast create a secondary fermentation in the bottle and that creates carbon dioxide. During the time of the secondary fermentation they bottles are stored on racks that hold the neck at a downward angle and the bottles are riddled, which means they are “jarred” and then rotated every few weeks. Once the yeast all settles in the neck of the bottle and it has finished it’s work of the secondary fermentation. It is time to remove the yeast plug ( I know the term yeast plug is not pretty!

So to remove the yeast plug without losing carbon dioxide, they do the coolest thing, literally. They submerge the neck of the bottle into a mixture that freezes the neck and then they take off the cap and disgorge the yeast plug. Then they top off the bottle with a touch of the base wine and put in the famous mushroom cork and cage and then you have champagne!

As I was reading about this I found out there are 4 different ways a winemaker will prune the vines and it is a labor of love. Tedious hands-on work and many of the great champagne makers have very small lots of land. So the next time I pick up a true bottle of Champagne I will appreciate all the effort that went into it.
Currently my favorites are Taittingger, Henriot, Veuve Clicquot and Mumm. I have bottles of Pommery and Ayala to try soon, so I will keep you posted.

Back when I first started drinking wine I had the vision every other person had, Lucy stomping grapes. As a kid, I though how nasty can that be, all the stuff on your feet in the wine? But by the time I was old enough to start trying wine I had been told the whole wine making process that creates alcohol will kill the germs, and that is called fermentation.

I also had been told wine and urine are the two things that are safe to drink if water was not available and I was stranded on an island. I was not thrilled with the prospects of the second choice so I was interested knowing more about these process of wine making.

My best friend Sara gave me a wine making kit for Christmas years ago. I quickly understood she gave me this gift for her. She loves wine and I had not drank any wine since the TJ Swan Easy Nights on a Senior trip to Daytona Beach Florida. She bought the kit through Wine Art. It came with all the gadgets and equipment and in a box came a bag with concentrated juice and some packets of “stuff” to add when the time was right.

First batch ever was Merlot. I got all the stuff sanitized, from the fermentation tank (trash can looking thing) a big 6 gallon carboy, all the hoses and the big spoon (Mixing device, hahaha). And then I poured in the concentrate, next came the water and they said stir until they are blended together and add the yeast. The yeast looks really similar to what you bake bread with. Then it says to cover the tank. No cover came with the kit so I took a garbage bag and covered the little pail and then I ran to the garage and got a bungee cord to keep it in place so I wrapped the bungee around the pail to keep the bag from falling into the wine.

Next It said wait a day or two and you will begin to witness the fermentation. It was making a hissing sound the next day and I could see bubbles and I was thrilled but confused. What the heck was causing this reaction.

Well after a few minutes of research I found out the yeast is eating the sugar and when it eats the sugar that turns in to alcohol. Ta Da!

Well, I have learned a lot since the first batch but since I had no real science or biology glasses in college (totally different degree). I made the connection and had my AH HA moment.

This weekend I tried 12 different sparkling wines. I know it sounds like I am what my friend would call a booze hound, But I am working to expand my palette and I was told by a sommelier that the only way to have a broader palette is to try more wine and then talk through all the sensations and get really comfortable with each trait and so that is my mission.

I never want to be the person who sits around spewing out crazy amounts of info (kinda like Cliff Claven, on the show Cheers). But I would like to take a sip and say, wow, this Pinot is from Willamette Valley or this Cab is from Rutherford. That might be kinda cool.
So I had 2 Champagnes, 4 Cava’s, 3 Prosecco’s, 2 Sparklings from US and 1 Sekt.

So as I tasted I learned a ton. Champagne has to be made in Champagne France and can be a blend of up to three grapes, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meiuner. Prosecco is from Italy and is made from Prosecco grapes. Cava is from Spain and is made of 3 grapes also, Macabeo, Parellada and Xarel-Lo. And the US sparklings I tried where from early harvest Chardonnay (They pick the grapes for Sparkling a little underripe to get the acid levels they want in the finished product). The Sekt from German is short for a massively long word meaning quality sparkling wine. The Sekt I had was made of Riesling.

To break it down on how I tried them, I started with the driest first. Brut is the driest, Extra Brut in a little less dry then, Sec, Demi-Sec and the Deux being the one with the most perceived sweetness. I am not sure I could actually taste any sweetness in any of the wines until I tried the Sekt and really it was not really sweet. But that is the scale from dry to sweet.

I was tasting with 4 friends so each one of us has a different threshold when it comes to dry and sweet and after just taking a first look at the champagne I was drawn to the millions of bubbles and the almost clear slightly golden color. It just looked so perfect, so I tried Henriot’ first. Beautiful mouth feel and the bubbles were like pop rocks in my mouth. That was going to be hard to beat for me! Next was the familiar label of Veuve Clicqout, I but this stuff all the time. It works so well with food and it is just says Let’s celebrate! Of the two champagnes, I liked the Henriot’ but my pals liked the Vevue!

I will not bore you with my tasting notes on everything, but we had a ball trying the wines and trying different foods with them. Biggest surprise for me was the Sekt was not sweet like I expected and it paired beautifully with BBQ ribs. I had the grill going doing this whole process so we were trying everything with anything. Nothing worked with potato salad FYI. Anyway, I learned a little and had some fun, that is all I am about right now. Happy Monday everyone!

A few weeks back in Napa, CA I had the opportunity to meet Marimar Torres. She is the “Winegrower” and Proprietor for her wine Marimar Estate. Her vineyard is in Russian River in Sonoma County. She comes from a family of Spanish winemakers. She also has a fully organic vineyard and I learned they hand pick all the grapes at the estate. She grows Chardonnay and Pinot Noir she said she has about 80 acres planted and she also has a horse stable and Equestrian center. I checked the place out on-line when I got home, AWESOME! I am planning on going up to her place closer to crush time and really get a closer look.

She has a rich family story of wine making and she has a wonderful accent, very positive energy and I just feel that anytime a successful winemaker takes the time to chat it up with a wanna be winemaker, I am always impressed. She started making wine in CA in the mid 1970’s and her pride of her terrior and land just beams from her.

I had the good fortune to try 3 of her wines, in one word elegant. I have to admit, Chardonnay had lost my attention many years ago when Chard was so over oaked and for me it was bitter and they really bothered my throat. I have tasted many since then were I could see being drawn back to the love of Chardonnay and the two Chardonnay’s I tried were totally different.

Acero Chardonnay is fermented in stainless steel and then goes through a second fermentation (malolactic fermentation) and this wine is pretty, you totally get the fruit and nothing else. This is a beautiful and to me a very womanly wine. Not that only girls will like it but it is very delicate and sexy.
Estate Chardonnay from Don Miguel vineyard is whole cluster pressed and french barrels after fermentation. It was a young, crisp and creamy wine with great structure and long finish and mouth feel like velvet.

Marimar Estate Pinot Noir, ok this is a steel fist in a velvet glove. Smooth and sensual and it tastes wealthy, if that makes sense. It tastes expensive and indulgent while being easy to drink and to break down the aromas, like cedar, spices, leather and blackberries (really ripe ones). I love Pinot, I am really drawn to Willamette Valley Pinot, but between Merry Edwards and Marimar Torres, I may only drink Russian River Pinot from this point on!