2012 Kenridge Showcase Collection Series

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 20:54:22 +0000

These limited edition 6 week kits released monthly from January 2012 through April 2012 offer our customers Award Winning quality at a fraction of the cost of commercial wines. These Gold+ wines are in high demand and are made from the highest quality juice and juice concentrates from around the globe. At a cost of $195.00 for 30 bottles of wine the unparalleled value will have you waiting in anticipation as they age to fruition in the coming months once they have been bottled and stored.

With the scarcity of these kits we highly recommend pre-ordering your choices as early as possible!

Here is a synopsis of this years Collection Series:

Release date January 4, 2012
Australia Shiraz/Viognier alcohol 14 %

This classic blend has excellent structure and depth of flavors including blackberry, spice, chocolate and violets. Will work well with red meats and fall off the bone ribs.

Release date February 2, 2012
Argentina Chardonnay alcohol 13.5%
This well structured wine has the ability to be oaked or not providing you with either a full bodied white wine or a wine that has excellent citrus notes complimented by that wonderful taste of pear on the finish. Works well with pork, chicken or seafood dishes.

Release date March 3, 2012
Spain Cabernet Sauvignon alcohol 14%
One of the world’s most popular varietal this full bodied wine has notes of black currant, cocoa, mineral and sweet spice. This wine will work well with the family roast or a medium rare steak.

Release date April 2, 2012
Italy Nebbiolo alcohol 13.5%
Many people have heard of or tasted the rich and expensive Italian Barolo wine. What most people do not know is that this wine is a blend made up of 70-80% Nebbiolo. Here is a chance to make a high quality wine that is sure to please the most discerning palate with its rich flavors of cherry, plum, chocolate and licorice. This wine will work well with lamb, rare beef and strong cheeses.

For more details or to start your Kenridge Showcase Collection Series wine contact us at 519-823-7879 or info@brisafinewineandgifts.com.

Aging Your Wine

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:17:41 +0000

In our final segment of “Working with your Winemaker” we will look at the process of aging your wine. The old expression, “Good Wine takes Time” is true for wines made at a winery or at a Ferment on Premise facility such as Brisa.

Your wine will be enhanced by letting it mature in the bottle. By enhanced we mean your wine will have 5 things change: Body, Acidity, Flavour, Colour and Alcohol.

Let’s look at these individually:

Alcohol: Your wine will go up in alcohol by about .25% per year in the bottle which helps balance some of the other chemical changes that will be occurring.

Colour: White wines will get darker (more yellow) while Red wines will get lighter ( taking on a brownish colour )

Acidity: Any wine will lose acidity over time but especially our industry wines as the residual CO2 gets absorbed into the wine. Excessive CO2 = BITTER!

Body: As wine ages it will gain more depth and mouth feel. The wine will “stick” to the glass more as it ages and develops

Flavour: Over time small nuances in your wine will develop. Flavours such as licorice, tar, blackberry and other fruits will magically appear. Oak flavour will diminish.

So drinking that beautiful oaked chardonnay may taste like Chateau Plywood in 3 months but wait a year and you have a mouth popping, full bodied rich wine of butter, oak and pear flavours….the choice is yours.

Cheers,
Brooks & Lisa…………….Brisa

Wine Storage

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:40:28 +0000

One of the most under appreciated aspects of enjoying a good quality product is the way the wine is stored. Having your wine susceptible to changes in humidity and temperature is a sure fire way to opening up a bottle of Chateau Vinegar!

Constant temperature and relatively constant humidity will ensure that you are enjoying a wonderful wine even after years of storage. By constant we do not want wine stored in a place like a garage or even a vented cold cellar where the fall nights of 3 or 4 degrees are followed by warm days of 18-20 degrees. That is a recipe for disaster.

Keeping your wine under a basement staircase or in a closet where the temperature will be fairly constant and away from any direct heating or cooling unit will allow your wine to mature and be enjoyed for years to come.

Cheers………

Bottle Cleaning

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:17:33 +0000

Helping your winemaker make a great wine should be the goal of every brew on premise customer. Yes, you all have to pitch the yeast to follow the AGCO rules and regulations but I am talking about things like storage, cleanliness and aging of your wines.

Let’s this week start with keeping your bottles as clean as possible. When you are done drinking a bottle of wine rinse your bottle 2-3 times with cold water and store the bottle upside down in your wine box. Lining your wine box with an old tea towel will keep the integrity of the box longer.

Not allowing bacteria and mold to grow in your bottles is one of the best ways to make our job easier and to make sure our customers are enjoying a great product.

Next blog: Storage

Have a great couple of weeks!

Brooks

2011 International Amateur Wine Competition

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:34:25 +0000

Once again Brisa has won 3 medals at the International Amateur Wine Competition. Brisa has won 3 bronze medals competing against more than 4500 entries from 16 countries. These wines were made at Brisa Fine Wines and Gifts by our co-owner and head winemaker Brooks Hipgrave.

Our medal winning wines are as follows:

2007 Vintage Port

2009 Australian Shiraz

2010 Blue Berry/Pomegranate White Merlot

This brings our medal total 20 in the past 5 years!

Creating a Wine Cellar

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Thu, 05 May 2011 21:13:43 +0000

One of the most common comments that we get here at Brisa is, “How am I supposed to know how much wine to make so I am always drinking my wine when it is ready to drink?”

Ah yes, the idea of letting your wine age so it can be enjoyed when it has matured and not when it is a combination of alcohol, fruit and carbon dioxide. What a novel approach to maximizing your savings by making Award Winning Wine here at Brisa. Let me give you a great guideline for creating enough wine so you are ALWAYS drinking great wine:

If you drink 5 bottles of wine a week then that is 5 x 52 = 250 bottles a year.
You should add 10% for guests, entertaining and giveaways = 250 + 25 bottles = 275 bottles

That is 9 batches of wine!!

If you like your wine in 6 months of aging then you need to make 4 batches of wine immediately. That will give you a base of 120 bottles.

Then when you come back in 5 weeks to bottle those 4 batches you need to make two more batches and repeat that until you have made 10 batches. At that time you can reduce your wine making to just replacing what you are bottling.

In no time you will have wine that is 6 months old in your cellar and ALWAYS at least 6 months old.

Cheers, Brooks!!

Aging Your Wine

Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 21:15:07 +0000

No single topic in our industry gets debated more than this. Here at Brisa Fine Wine & Gifts we want you to enjoy your wine when it is at its peak and that is based on the kit you make and the storage facility you have.

All wine kits contain some percentage of concentrate; yes even pure juice contains 1-2% concentrate because that is where the acids and tannins that make your wine drinkable are placed.

To keep it simple the more juice in the wine the longer the wine needs to sit before reaching its potential. Red wine because of both higher alcohol content and higher tannin level needs more time to age than white wine does. So here is an example:

Our Cheeky Monkey Kits which is our number one seller here at the store is a 10L kit which makes 23L of wine. So you have 13L of triple filtered water (in our case) or the kit is 44% juice concentrate. The red wine needs to sit for a MINIMUM of 3 months and should be drunk in 2 YEARS. The white wine needs to sit a MINIMUM of 1 month and should be drunk in 18 months.

Now, does this mean people can drink and enjoy Cheeky Monkey red in 2 months….ABSOLOUTLY and it can last for 4-5 years…DEFINITELY? (That’s another article. proper storage).

Finally, everyone has a different pallet so I may like my Cheeky Monkey white in 9 months but Sally may enjoy hers in 2 months. That can be a factor of tasting ability, storage capacity and storage ability.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!!!!