This week, our intrepid Niagara correspondent chimes in with her first contribution from South Africa, so she gets top billing. But, this is one of our better editions of WWD with some old wines, some poorly-rated-but-tasty wines and (of course) a couple beers.

Julia Burke: Blaauwklippen 1993 Cabernet Sauvignon, 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon and 1999 Pinotage

We don’t see a lot of aged South African wine in western New York – I think the oldest I’ve tried was a 2006 Cape blend. So when our assistant winemaker whipped out five aged Blaauwklippen wines on Thursday afternoon and asked us to try them and see if they were fit for sale, I felt as if both Christmas and my birthday had both come early.

For brevity’s sake I’ll just mention the highlights: a 1993 and 1999 cabernet sauvignon and a 1999 pinotage. The best part of this job is that I’m surrounded 24/7 by people who will drop everything to taste wine, and sure enough when I raced home with all three bottles to my wine geek roommates, they put down their weinwurst and beer to sample.

 By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief

It's been a while since we've compiled a "News & Notes" post, but as the busy season approaches in New York's wine regions, we'll probably be doing them more and more.

 Jazz Returns to the Vines on Long Island
The extremely popular Long Island Winterfest Jazz On The Vine is coming back this week and this year it's even bigger and runs longer than last year's successful program. This, the 3rd annual Long Island Winterfest, runs from February 13 to March 21 across the East End and features renowned jazz musicians performing free-admission concerts at winery tasting rooms and other venues every weekend afternoon over those six weeks. Wine country can be quiet and dreary this time of year -- both for visitors and for the wineries themselves -- so this is a great reason to visit. Enjoy some music. Taste some great local wines. And get in from out of the cold winter weather.

For a full concert schedule and access to all festival promotions, visit www.liwinterfest.com.

It's snowing on the east coast, raining on the west coast, and wintery everywhere in between. Nothing suits this kind of weather better than Cabernet Sauvignon, and I've been tasting my way through a nice selection of Cabernets and Cabernet blends in pursuit of the perfect wines to complement soups, stews, and braises.

If you're looking for a red wine to warm up your winter evenings, look for one of these in a store near you, and try out some of these great recipes while you're at it!

2008 Bodegas Osborne Cabernet-Tempranillo Tempra Tantrum. ($11.99) Tempra Tantrum is a new line of Tempranillo-based from the people at one of Spain's oldest and most venerable wineries. This blend is hip, young, and cheerful (just like its maker!) Made in a modern style, the cherry and leather aromas are a nice prelude to a bright, cherry core with some blackberry depth in the midpalate. Made from 60% Tempranillo and 40% Cabernet, this juicy, fruit-forward wine would be great with grilled lamb dishes or paella--or with a zesty chicken chili. Very good QPR.

My real reason for attending the Vino2010 conference in New York this week was that I was asked (and paid) to be on a panel discussion about the impact and meaning of social media for the wine industry.

A number of you have asked about it, and I'm happy to offer the (somewhat low quality) video that captures our session. Unfortunately you can't see (or hear at various points) some of the questions that were asked, but you can certainly get the idea of what we discussed.

Please note that it takes a few minutes for the session to get started, so skip ahead until it looks like stuff is happening.

What do you think?

By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor

Admit it: On more than one occasion, you've said to yourself, I'm going to quit work and start my own bed and breakfast/wine bar/restaurant. Danielle Lewis and Michael Goldberg got sick of saying it, so they decided to finally do it.

The result is Rochester's newest foodie attraction: Chocolate & Vines, located in a renovated house in the Neighborhood of the Arts. Lewis and Goldberg bought the house nearly two years ago and spent 18 months renovating it. They live upstairs, with the downstairs converted into a chic mini-restaurant with seating for roughly two dozen customers.

The menu features wine, cheese, artisan chocolates, desserts, craft beers and French-press coffee. We noticed that the top of each wine section features a New York state selection. It turns out that's not an accident.

I spent the latter part of this week at the Vino2010 conference in New York. The largest Italian wine event held outside of Italy, the conference was a combination of major trade-show-style tastings, smaller focused tastings, and panel discussions. One of the panels I attended was entitled "The Future of Luxury Wine" and involved a good panel discussion on the outlook for wines priced over $30 in the next few years.

Moderated by Karen MacNeil, wine educator and author of The Wine Bible, America's best-selling wine book, the panel included the following speakers:

Barbara Insel, President and CEO of Stonebridge Research Group, and one of the most respected business advisors and researchers in the wine industry. Her company offers research services and reports on the underlying economics and trends in the wine industry.

Well, it was bound to happen. After blogging 4-7 days a week for nearly three years without a hiccup or a hitch, something called LIFE intervened in early December and it's been almost two months since my last post. ("Interrupted" by Sebastiano Pitruzzello aka gorillaradio)

Since that time I've heard from some of you who asked if I was ok (I am--just inconceivably busy), and others who wanted to know what's up (a lot, actually, but nothing that I wish to disclose here and now!). While I was away, the comments sections for various posts were filled by interesting contributions from people selling all nature of things (I deleted the ones I found). All over the 'net, other wine bloggers wrote thought-provoking posts that I never managed to comment upon, though I did read them. And I was gratified and amazed that people actually bought the Pinot Noir I recommended in my last post and took the time to actually tell me that they were pleased with the purchase.

Patterns
Vineyards aren't easy things to photograph. They sprawl and spread all over everywhere, and don't exactly stay confined in the frame of a photograph well, not to mention their tendency to seem monotonous in their rows. I like this image not only for the compression of space that turns the vines into patterns, but also because in the midst of the regular geometry, you can see each individual vine has its own personality -- Alder Yarrow

INSTRUCTIONS:
Download this image by right-clicking on the image and selecting "save link as" or "save target as" and then select the desired location on your computer to save the image. Mac users can also just click the image to open the full size view and drag that to their desktops.

To set the image as your desktop wallpaper, Mac users should follow these instructions, while PC users should follow these.

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief

This week, the tasting table post is a little shorter than usual, but I've got a big tasting planned for Super Bowl Sunday. In the meantime:

Fox Run Vineyards 2007 Merlot ($20): Ripe blackberry and plum with vanilla and smokey (American?) oak. Even smokier on the palate with vanilla covering up what is a nice core of ripe, concentrated fruit. Blueberry pie peeks through with time in the glass. Medium body, ripe, medium-low tannins. Great fruit, with a little too much oak.  (3 out of 5 | Recommended)

Ravines Wine Cellars 2007 Chardonnay ($19): Toasty oak, fig, roasted nuts and apples greet the nose. Not timid or fruit-forward, roasted nuts, oak and fig lead here with apple and dried apricot fruit. Vanilla cream on super-long finish. Good balance, but a lot of oak right now.  (2.5 out of 5 | Average-to-Very Good)