Princess Plus question

[brisalta]

4 hours ago, wowzz said:

It seems that Vines does go overboard (sic) on US wines. A shame that there is not more diversity in the wine list. 

Is it because Americans do not have the opportunity to drink Chilean, South African, Argentinian, Portuguese, Sicilian etc wines in the US, and therefore do not want to try anything new when on holiday ?

 

Many different Chilean, South African, Argentinian, Portuguese, Sicilian, Australian, ,etc wines are available in the USA.

I suspect you may never had a decent Californian wine in the UK. For some reason the main wine importer in the UK imports poor quality wines from the USA and charges premium prices for them.

 

[brisalta]

3 hours ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

This is a fun link. It’s like living in the middle of a candy store but better. Going to wineries for an afternoon or evening picnic with live music is an easy & common pastime.  You could go everyday and never go to the same winery twice. The wine is excellent.  This is why I have a hard drinking wine that is less than. 

https://discovercaliforniawines.com/wine-map-winery-directory/

 

 

Interesting that some of the best wineries are not marked in that directory with a listing. That is probably because they manage to sell all they produce direct to the public with no need of publicity other than word of mouth.

Edited July 16, 2022 by brisalta

[HaveDogWillTravel]

1 hour ago, brisalta said:

 

Interesting that some of the best wineries are not marked in that directory with a listing. That is probably because they manage to sell all they produce direct to the public with no need of publicity other than word of mouth.

I just thought it might illustrate just how rich we are in terms of wineries. I’m sure it is not a complete list. 

[brisalta]

25 minutes ago, HaveDogWillTravel said:

I just thought it might illustrate just how rich we are in terms of wineries. I’m sure it is not a complete list. 

 

I just wanted to point out that the list does not necessarily include the best wineries. This is because they do not need to advertise, as people hear of them by word of mouth, and they sell all the wine they can produce direct to customers. None of these wines get exported nor are found in markets.

[wowzz]

5 hours ago, brisalta said:

 

Many different Chilean, South African, Argentinian, Portuguese, Sicilian, Australian, ,etc wines are available in the USA.

I suspect you may never had a decent Californian wine in the UK. For some reason the main wine importer in the UK imports poor quality wines from the USA and charges premium prices for them.

 

That may well be the case. 

I am sure that specialist wine shops may sell some excellent US wines,  at a price, but for the average wine drinker, such as myself, there is little decent US wine available around the £8 to £10 mark (say $10 to $12).  

[brisalta]

13 hours ago, wowzz said:

That may well be the case. 

I am sure that specialist wine shops may sell some excellent US wines,  at a price, but for the average wine drinker, such as myself, there is little decent US wine available around the £8 to £10 mark (say $10 to $12).  

 

Last time I was back in the UK the specialist wine shops had no good quality wines from the USA but what would be considered in the USA poor quality wines that would be cheap in the USA. I have made inquiries  regarding this and it appears that  there is only one main importer that imports wine from the USA into the UK. They appear to deal with what is considered to be one of the industrial scale wine producers that bottle under a number of labels.

[wowzz]

11 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

Last time I was back in the UK the specialist wine shops had no good quality wines from the USA but what would be considered in the USA poor quality wines that would be cheap in the USA. I have made inquiries  regarding this and it appears that  there is only one main importer that imports wine from the USA into the UK. They appear to deal with what is considered to be one of the industrial scale wine producers that bottle under a number of labels.

Interesting.

Next time I'm on Princess i will try some of the US wines and see what I am missing.

[brisalta]

2 minutes ago, wowzz said:

Interesting.

Next time I'm on Princess i will try some of the US wines and see what I am missing.

 

I am not sure what Princess has on board as far as wines go. The best California wines will never make it on to a Princess ship as they are not sold wholesale and tend to produce less than 10,000 cases of wine a year. (Note that may be a mix of wines from different plots of vines on the producers plots of land).

 

As a side note there used to be two vineyards in California that had root stock from before the world wide Grape phylloxera infestation hit in the 19th century.  Sadly one of the wineries succumbed to  phylloxera  in the early 2000s.  Fortunately I had purchased some wine prior to that event and it is some of the best wine I have ever drunk. (The producer is now just a label). 

The vineyard with the other set of vines was involved in the inferno that hit the Alexander Valley several years back. I am not sure if the vines from the 19th century survived that fire.

It is my understanding all other vineyards world wide now use a different root stock that is considered Grape phylloxera resistant. It does make a difference in the taste of the wine and the flavours that develop with aging.

[JimmyVWine]

20 minutes ago, brisalta said:

 

I am not sure what Princess has on board as far as wines go. The best California wines will never make it on to a Princess ship as they are not sold wholesale and tend to produce less than 10,000 cases of wine a year. (Note that may be a mix of wines from different plots of vines on the producers plots of land).

 

As a side note there used to be two vineyards in California that had root stock from before the world wide Grape phylloxera infestation hit in the 19th century.  Sadly one of the wineries succumbed to  phylloxera  in the early 2000s.  Fortunately I had purchased some wine prior to that event and it is some of the best wine I have ever drunk. (The producer is now just a label). 

The vineyard with the other set of vines was involved in the inferno that hit the Alexander Valley several years back. I am not sure if the vines from the 19th century survived that fire.

It is my understanding all other vineyards world wide now use a different root stock that is considered Grape phylloxera resistant. It does make a difference in the taste of the wine and the flavours that develop with aging.

But turnaround is fair play. In the 19th century native rootstock all throughout Europe was ripped out and vines were grafted onto American rootstock which was found to be far more resistant to phylloxera. So those magnificent First Growth Bordeaux are the product of grafting onto New World rootstock and have been for over 150 years!

Further reading:

https://daily.jstor.org/the-great-grape-graft-that-saved-the-wine-industry/

Edited July 16, 2022 by JimmyVWine