Grapes & Capes Episode #2: Two Hands & Two-Face

Joey and Michael spend Episode Two tasting wines by Australia's Two Hands winery and talking about Two Face and DC Fandome Part Two.

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Prologue: Thank you to Brad, more about Comically Speaking

Wine #1: Two Hands Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018, thank you to Donna White Communications, McClaren Vale vs Barossa Valley, Shiraz vs Syrah

Comics #1: Two-Face

Harvey's comic debut, Batman Forever, The Dark Knight, (Infinity War, Chadwick Boseman, Black Panther), Batman vs Two-Face animated movie, Batman: The Animated Series, Eye of the Beholder, The Long Halloween, Hush, Tomasi's Detective Comics

Wine #2: Two Hands Angel's Share Shiraz 2018, Australian wine laws, misleading wine lables, wine ratings

Comics #2: DC Fandome 2, part 1

Black Adam, Man of Steel, Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn Q&A, Magic Wheelchair, Immortal Vigilante: Hooded Justice, CW'S Batwoman & The Flash

Wine #3: Two Hands Gnarly Dudes 2018

Comics #3: DC Fandome 2, part 2
Three Jokers, Geoff Johns controversy, Joker War, confusing Tomasi with Tynion, (Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man), DCeased, Good Day to Die, Unkillables, Hope at World's End, DCeased: Dead Planet, Superman panel, Brian Michael Bendis, Death of Superman, Reign of Superman, Death and Reign animated movies, The Killing Joke

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Penfold's Club Tawny, February Wine Pick of the Month

It's February again so it's time to pull out a fortified wine and keep yourselves warm! This year I've picked a staple of mine for when things get cold: Penfold's Club Tawny. It's made with Mataro (AKA Mourvédre), Shiraz (AKA Syrah), and Grenache (AKA Garnacha) from South Australia, and then produced in the Tawny style of Port. They've been making this stuff for almost 60 years and it's always one of the best deals out there for fortified wine, and it's got an 18% ABV so be careful!

The color of the wine is cherry red turning into brick, and on the nose there'e aromas stewed plums, cherry sauce, dried apricots, caramel, and mint. It's got a full body with a wonderful lipsmacking sweetness that doesn't get out of hand and a nice acidity to compliment it. There's flavors of stewed plums, raisins, cherry sauce, dark chocolate, walnuts, and brown sugar. I just love everything about this.

The snow is coming, and sipping some Club Tawny in between shovelings will keep you warm and happy. Cheers, guys!

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $15

Rating: 4.5/5 = Recommended / Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

The bottle used was purchased by myself with my own money for the purpose of this unpaid review. To have your wine reviewed follow this link.

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Best of Fall 2019!

Today is the first day of Winter so here are the Top 5 wines that I reviewed and rated this Fall!
Deciding on 5 through 3 was not an easy task because I had to choose between six wines that I rated 4.5 in price vs quality!

#5. Masottina Prosecco Treviso Brut

Region: Prosecco, Veneto, Italy
Review Release: September 26th, 2019

man, this is some awesome Prosecco for $14. It's got a rather floral nose with white flowers, fruit aromas of  lemon and apples, and a little bit of honey. There's flavors of pears, apple, lemon, and herbs. On the midpalate it's light and crisp and fluttery, but then it goes ahead and finishes creamy as the carbonation froths up in your mouth.

This is probably the best deal for a Prosecco in this price range that I've had in a long time. Elegant yet still fun, bright and happy, and just good quality for the price.

READ THE FULL REVIEW / WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $14

Rating: 4.5/5 = Recommended / Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

#4. Yalumba "The Y Series" Viognier 2018

Region: South Australia, Australia
Review Release: November 1st, 2019

The color of the wine is a pale yellow with a greenish hue. There's a lot of honeysuckle and vanilla on the nose, but there's also aromas of apricots, lychee, lemon zest, and menthol. On the palate it's light bodied with a sharp acidity and a bit of an oily mouthfeel. There's flavors of apricot, tart lime, and banana. Then it finishes with a mixed bowl of tropical fruits and a drop of sweetness.

This is fantastic, just a happy wine, and an outstanding deal for $12. And it's even better with food; lobster, baked scallops, chicken piccata, ham, or even hot dogs! You know what? I really think this wine would make an outstanding pair with hot dogs! Let's try it!

READ THE FULL REVIEW / WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $12

Rating: 4.5/5 = Recommended / Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

#3. Bogle Phantom Red 2015

Region: California
Review Release: November 24th, 2019

So the color of the wine is freakin' purple. And man, I loooove the nose! There's black cherries, blueberries, chocolate, black licorice, toasty oak, and like a drop of black olive juice. I need to go change my underwear. It's medium bodied with a semi-rich mouthfeel with dusty tannins and moderate acidity. On the midpalate there's flavors of blackberries, black cherries, vanilla, mocha, maple, and a little bit of dirt. There's a savoriness and heat to the long lasting finish, with flavors of blackberries, mocha, and zippy raspberries.

The Phantom Red is one of those popular $20 wines that sells extremely well, especially among casual wine consumers who really don't know know all that much about wine. So it's easy to think that it's just overrated, overpriced, and overproduced. To that thought I say this: There's a lot of Zinfandel characteristics in this wine. I hate Zinfandel. And I think this is killer. 

READ THE FULL REVIEW

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $20

Rating: 4.5/5 = Recommended / Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

#2. Panthera Russian River Chardonnay 2017

Region: Russian River, Sonoma, California
Review Release: December 1st, 2019

It's light gold in color. The nose is dominated by vanilla, followed by pineapple, apple, butter, honey, and ginger. Damn I love the smell of oaky Chardonnay. On the palate it's full bodied with a rich mouthfeel and a bright acidity that lifts up the weight of the wine. There's flavors of vanilla, pineapple, apple, banana, and butter. Then it finishes with a thick coating in your mouth of apples and banana.

I'm still in love with this wine. It's oaky and buttery and hedonistic and gorgeous. And it's my wine pick of the month, so go get it!

READ THE FULL REVIEW

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $45

Rating: 5/5 = Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

#1. Two Hands Angels' Share Shiraz 2018

Region: McLaren Vale, Australia
Review Release: November 3rd, 2019

This is 100% Shiraz from McLaren Vale, Australia, and oh that color is straight up purple and it's beautiful! And what a wonderful jamminess this wine has! There's aromas of big juicy plums, grape jelly, lavender, vanilla bean, and black table pepper. And there's nothing subtle about any of those. On the palate it's medium bodied with a silky mouthfeel yet a grainy tannin and low acidity. The flavors imitate the nose and are just as big and juicy and expressive, and then it finishes lengthy and boozy and lustly.

Hell friggin yeah. Hell. Friggin. Yeah. I was expecting something with a bit more intricate, something a bit more French Syrahish in style, but this does not hold back from all the Australian Shiraz that it is and was really meant to be... and it's so goddamn good. It punches you right in the face and I love it.

READ THE FULL REVIEW / WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO

QUALITY VS PRICE RATING

Price: $33

Rating: 5/5 = Highly Recommended (what does that mean?)

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Wine Review: Two Hands Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018

The idea for Two Hands was born in September 1999 when founders Michael Twelftree and Richard Mintz sat at a friend’s engagement party and decided it was time to make their own wine and market it on the world stage. The original aim was, and still is, to make the best possible Shiraz-based wines from prized growing regions throughout Australia.  With so much Australian wine being sold around the globe under multi-region labels in a formulaic style, the intention was to break the mould and showcase the diversity of Australian Shiraz by highlighting regional and vineyard characteristics by allowing the fruit to be the primary feature of the wines.

I've got three reviews for Two Hands this week and it all started with Angels' Share Shiraz 2018, then I reviewed Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2018, and now I'm finishing with Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018.

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Wine Review: Two Hands Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2018

The idea for Two Hands was born in September 1999 when founders Michael Twelftree and Richard Mintz sat at a friend’s engagement party and decided it was time to make their own wine and market it on the world stage. The original aim was, and still is, to make the best possible Shiraz-based wines from prized growing regions throughout Australia.  With so much Australian wine being sold around the globe under multi-region labels in a formulaic style, the intention was to break the mould and showcase the diversity of Australian Shiraz by highlighting regional and vineyard characteristics by allowing the fruit to be the primary feature of the wines.

I've got three reviews for Two Hands this week and it all started with Angels' Share Shiraz 2018, now I'm reviewing Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2018, and then I'll be finishing with Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018.

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Wine Review: Two Hands Angels' Share Shiraz 2018

The idea for Two Hands was born in September 1999 when founders Michael Twelftree and Richard Mintz sat at a friend’s engagement party and decided it was time to make their own wine and market it on the world stage. The original aim was, and still is, to make the best possible Shiraz-based wines from prized growing regions throughout Australia.  With so much Australian wine being sold around the globe under multi-region labels in a formulaic style, the intention was to break the mould and showcase the diversity of Australian Shiraz by highlighting regional and vineyard characteristics by allowing the fruit to be the primary feature of the wines.

I've got three reviews for Two Hands this week and it all starts here with Angels' Share Shiraz 2018, then I'll be reviewing Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2018, and finishing with Sexy Beast Cabernet Sauvignon 2018.

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November Wine Pick: Yalumba "The Y Series" Viognier 2018

November is looking like another busy month! For full reviews I've got three wines by Two Hands out of Australia, a Chianti Classico, and two wines by Bogle's Phantom line. Scheduled for quickies are two white wines by Italy's Terra Alpina and five reds by California's Federalist. Oh, and I've got a raspberry mead for Thanksgiving! RASPBERRY MEAD! Pretty cool!

With a lot going on last month, including the passing of a friend and a stretch where I was not feeling well at all, I was unable to write an article or pull off Wine Bloggers Off-Topic for October but I'm going to try my damndest to get that out this month.

Yalumba is a winery in South Australia that is constantly winning awards for a wide variety of its wines, and my Wine Pick of the Month is the next vintage of their Viognier coming off of an impressive Wine Spectator Top 100 performance. What is Viognier? Well, it's a white varietal believed to have originated in Greece (although it's not there anymore) and barely hung on to survival in Rhone Valley, France, for most of its existence. Recently it's found a surge of success in Australia and California, and I swear it's absolutely the best wine with lobster.

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Darth Vader just won't quit.

Just driving the point home. What a jerk.

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Wine Subscription Review: Wineist Wine Carte, Part 2

"Small in size, big in wines" is the Wineist motto. They're I guess what you could call a wine club but they call themselves a "wine carte". Carte is actually a good choice of wordage because it can mean menu or map. You're getting a taste of the wines they sell and their wines are from all over the world!

This is how it works: you go to WINEIST.COM and see what plan works for you. You can get a monthly subscription, six month subscription or a yearly subscription. Let's just say you get a monthly subscription, which is $29 a month at the time of this review. Every month you'll receive six 50 ml sample bottles in a neat little box. There's also a pamphlet telling you what each bottle is, all the tech information you could possibly need, winery information, food pairings, etc, and space for your notes. If you like any of the wines then you can buy them in normal bottle size.

Just by seeing what they do, having this package in my hands, I can tell you this is a very cool product. But how are the wines in the package that I got?

I'm breaking it down into two reviews: In Part 1 I had a Riesling from Germany, a Pinotage Rosé from South Africa, and a Tempranillo blend from Spain. In Part 2 I've got a Chianti Rufina Cru Basciano, a Shiraz blend from South Africa, and another Tempranillo blend from Spain.

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Wine Review: Robert Oatley McLaren Vale 2014 GSM (Grenache Shiraz Mourvédre)

For reasons I'm sure you'd understand, the wine reviews released this month were written in November and had to be done rather quickly. So you can still expect some shenanigans but not to the extent that you may be used to from me. This'll be quick and painless. Okay, maybe not painless. All of January WAS White Wine Month but that's over now. I've got one last wine for ya this month and it's a red one.

Bob Oatley sadly just died on the 11th of January. He founded Rosemount in the 1970's and since then has made many different labels all over Australia. This one is from the Robert Oatley Signature Series and it's out of McLaren Vale, South Australia.

GSM stands for one of the most classic red blends ever. Blending Grenache, Syrah and Mourvédre came out of Rhone Valley and has been replicated all over the wine world, but it's been in California and Australia where it's done best outside of Rhone itself. However, in Australia they call their Syrah by another name: Shiraz.

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Wine Review: Robert Oatley Margaret River 2013 Chardonnay

January is White Wine Month on TheWineStalker.net!

For reasons I'm sure you'd understand, the wine reviews released this month were written in November and had to be done rather quickly. So you can still expect some shenanigans but not to the extent that you may be used to from me. This'll be quick and painless. Okay, maybe not painless. But January is jam packed with white wine (except for one lonely red at the very end) so HAPPY WHITE WINE MONTH! (PS: most of them are Italian)

Bob Oatley sadly just died on the 11th of January. He founded Rosemount in the 1970's and since then has made many different labels all over Australia. This one is from the Robert Oatley Signature Series and it's out of Margaret River.

Margaret River is the hot wine region in Australia right now. Rather than being in the southeast of the continent, it's way over on the other side by the western coast. Their Chardonnays are especially exploding in popularity and deservedly so. They're awesome. Sales for the country's wine industry has been rough the past few years, but hopefully Margaret River can lead the way for Australia to get back into people's wine glasses.

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A Bubbly Biography - The Story of Sparkling Wine - Part 3: Sekt and the Future

January is Sparkling Wine Month on TheWineStalker.net!

My trilogy on the history of sparkling wine concludes here. Part One: France and Spain was about the emergence of intentional carbonation, the creation of methode champenoise, and the people who made it happen. Part Two: Italy and The New World was about the charmat method, partial fermentation, and the people who spread sparkling wine to new places. Part Three: Sekt and the Future is about what lies ahead.

THE CELLARS OF KESSLER

France produces the most sparkling wine in the world but what country comes in second? Spain? Italy? America? Nope, nope, and nope. It's Germany and they call their sparkling wine Sekt. The Germans also consume the most sparkling wine in the world per capita, whether it be champagne or prosecco or sekt or what have you.

The Romans brought vitis vinifera vines to Germany in the first 200 or 300 years of the Common Era and it's been a wine wonder ever since. Never mind that it takes a special grape to work in Germany; we're lucky that wine can be made there at all. It's so far north and the climate is so cold that it's a friggin miracle. But the German's were blessed with the right soil, topography, and vines to make some of the best wines in the world. Riesling, for example, is a high acid and high sugar producing grape. It was a match made in heaven with their cold climate and longer growing season.

Vineyards are grown on dangerously steep slopes leading down to the rivers. You know in The Princess Bride when Wesley is tumbling and screaming AS YOU WISH? Yeah, it's like that but you'd probably die or have to go to a Krankehaus to have yourself put back together. These vineyards are almost always on the north-ish side of the river so the slopes face south, giving the vines the best sunlight possible. The rivers are important too because they moderate the climate and reflect sunlight and heat up to the vines. The blue slate of the Mosel river/region and the red slate of the Rheingau river/region absorb heat during the day and release it at night.

It's like Jack Frost wanted wine so he moved to a place he knew could handle his antics.

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A Bubbly Biography - The Story of Sparkling Wine - Part 2: Italy and The New World

Welcome back to the history of sparkling wine! Part One: France and Spain was about the emergence of intentional carbonation, the creation of methode champenoise, and the people who made it happen. Part Two: Italy and The New World is about the charmat method, partial fermentation, and the people who spread sparkling wine to new places. Part Three: Sekt and the Future will be about about what lies ahead.

"BACCHUS" BY THOMAS DODD

As stated in Part One, sparkling wine can be naturally occurring. Hell, I'm having an issue with Big Fire Pinot Gris going through a secondary fermentation at work right now. The pressure being created is loosening the caps and it's dripping! Give it a little help and it starts spraying out like I just won the Stanley Cup! WTF! But I digress...

It's been happening since wine has been made with no real explanation of why other than the gods made it happen, or it was the alignment of the moon, or there were jerk-face spirits messing with us. The Greeks ran into bubbles in their wine often. The Etruscans, Romans and other ancient civilizations of Italy, being the land of vines, experienced it often as well. Then in the Limoux and Champagne regions of France. It took some time for the reason behind the carbonation to be realized and created purposely. And when it was, Italy embraced it like no other.

The first sparkling wine on the list is actually red! It calls the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna its home and it was first cultivated by the Etruscans. I'm talking about Lambrusco. The name of the grape family is called Lambrusco as well as the wine and there's various varieties in that family, the most famous being Grasparossa di Castelvetro.

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