Aaron A. Wallace

I went on a walk on the Fourth of July, along the old creek road which I got to from the Rocky Run gate to Brandywine State park. This a good gate since it drops you off at the top of the valley and if you follow the path to the brandywine river you are roughly in the middle of the path along the river. if you turn right you have about a mile walk to the smith bridge parking lot and a walkway under Smith bridge road and onto the woodlawn property. As this all gets absorbed into the First State National Park hopefully there will be more money for trail development. You can easily put together walks of three miles to a dozen miles on the combined trails that make up Brandywine creek and Woodlawn. We got out early enough in the day that it wasn't oppressively hot but the grade at the beginning and end made it a bit of a slog.

Bordeaux is the classic French homeland of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Some of the most expensive and longest lasting wines in the world exist here. Many perfect scores from wine reviewers as well, Robert Parker's championing of the 1982 left bank vintage made his career. In this video I give an overview of the three major regions of Bordeaux. Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc, are the principal grapes of the Graves and Pessac-Leognan regions. Saturens makes a famous dessert wine with Semillon and the process of noble rot.

The Loire Valley is a diverse and giant french wine growing region. Consisting of four major zones: Central Vineyards, Tours, Anjou, Pays Nantais, each producing their own wines of note. From continental to maritime climate and a multitude of soil types the Loire valley produces an immense diversity of wine.

On a Rare Friday off, August fifth, 2016, Christine and I went on a road trip to Turkey Point Lighthouse at the end of Elk Neck in Maryland. To access the lighthouse you have to drive to the end of state route 272 in Maryland which is about an hour drive (forty miles) away from Wilmington, Delaware. This is a great location to do drone filming and the walk is pretty easy and just under a mile, they even have two chemical toilets out by the lighthouse. We had to hustle to get to the lighthouse with usable sun, I am looking forward to going back in the fall, hopefully by then I will take some video and also not have to rush so much. There is a small path that leads off the western end of the lighthouse's meadow this leads down to the waters edge and back to the main trail, there are maybe three or four well secluded spots that were occupied by couples as Christine and I walked back to the car having lost the light for Cell Phone photography. When I get more video equipment I thin

The lush rolling limestone hills of the Macon form a natural interlude between the Cote d’Or and its satellite the Cote Chalonnaise. As in the Cote d’Or the white grape is Chardonnay, while the Red grape can be either Gamay, or Pinot Noir. The more serious wines are produced to the south of the region under the appellation Pouilly-Fuisse and its satellites.The wine is classified in three broad tiers: Macon, Macon-Villages, and Pouilly-Fuisse and its satellites.

In a store like mine that does pretty significant volume you are going to see some pretty strange behaviors by customers in the process of buying their beer, wine, and spirits. One of my pet peeves (of which I honestly have too many) is customers who would rather not ask a member of staff but would rather search around the interior of the beer cooler (or even the back of the store) looking for their product. I also often get asked; will this beer go bad if I let it get warm? I tell people that unless they are going to get the beer very hot they won't change the flavor of the beer. Light is a bigger source of off flavors than heat you would find comfortable. This blog post has given me an idea I can't do too many of these, since I am sure to offend a customer eventfully, and no amount of youtube fun is worth that drama. Post your opinion should I do wine and spirit strangeness or should I private these videos and only link to them here to spare the sensibilities of my c

In this six hundred page tome you encounter an encyclopedic examination of the entirety of french winemaking in the year 2000. One might think that that wouldn't be enough room to cover all of france but Mr. Coates does a great job. The book is divided into eleven sections with forty maps The maps are some of the best I have seen covering the wine regions of france and they also show the locations of famous estates. One of the ways I like to solidify my knowledge of wine regions is to trace maps so that I can really spend some time getting immersed in the geography of the region.

So far I have made two videos about Chianti The first one talks about Sangiovese the principal grape of Chianti and that it can be found in a multitude of named regions in Italy. Sangiovese is the main grape in: Chianti, Brunello, Morellino di Scansano, and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Each of these regions has its own typical style and the geography of each region plays a part in the resulting wine.

In this video, I state a portion of the legal definition of Scotch. Scotch is a whiskey made in Scotland that has been aged in cask for at least three years. Single Malt Scotch is made exclusively from malted barley at a single distillery. I also give an overview of the four broadest scotch regions: Lowland, Highland, Speyside, and Island.

German Riesling is my favorite white wine, I will always have a spot in my heart for white burgundy but I can afford to drink much more prestigious vineyard sites from more prestigious winemakers. That and that an off dry lower alcohol wine is conducive to getting up earlier in the morning and having a life outside of work (I close the liquor store I work at). In this video I talk about the german ripeness classifications that appear on wine bottles. There are two broad categories (qualitatswein, and pradikatswein) qualitatswein is wine where sugar can be added to the unfermented grape juice to increase potential alcohol, and pradikatswein cannot have added sugar. There are great examples from both categories of wine.

In this video I talk about Red Burgundy for cooking. Often people are looking at (older) recipes that call for red burgundy in the ingredients, and then when I show them the red burgundy in the store the sticker shock is palpable. If the customer never asks for help they often end up buying a bottle of Carlo Rossi Burgundy which is about as far away from Pinot Noir as you can get in the wine shop. This video tries to help explain what red burgundy means and your options for finding a suitable wine for cooking.

I have been making youtube videos for the last few months. These are simple short information packed videos about topics in wine beer and spirits. I don't have any fancy equipment most of these have been shot on a ten dollar Joby smart phone clip attached to my six foot tall cat tree, others filmed by my long suffering wife standing on a coffee table. I occasionally try to do more traditional vlogs where I talk about something in my life but I am still just barely getting comfortable in front of the camera, and I haven't figured out how to frame my daily life in an interesting enough manner. Though as I have time and my health permits I am going to continue this creative outlet. I really enjoy writing the scripts and talking about the products I sell at work. Here is a link to my youtube channel. https://www.youtube.com/user/awallace230

This is going to be my personal blog that is going to serve as a place where I can post all of my digital content that I have created, even if that content appears elsewhere. I have spent the last few years becoming credentialed in the Wine and Spirit industry most recently passing the WSET Level Three Award. I believe I am the only person in the state of Delaware that works with the public that has that distinction. I have a multitude of interests, I try to closely follow world current events, domestic politics, I love long walks on the beach at sunset, but who doesn't.