rrawhide
Senior Member
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- Jun 2, 2007
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Went on a Mexican Riveria Cruise last week and thought I would share some wine stuff with you.
back safely - the ship missed the whales but lost a lot of wine and booze from the bottles falling off shelves and breaking. Hummmm - actually what happened is that a pod of whales surfaced right in front of the ship and the pilot spun the wheel to miss them and we healed over and back. Bottles and yells were everywhere and some of the pool water soaked several of the passageway carpets. once in a while something like this happens but not very ofter. balance of cruise was wonderful but you gain about a pound a day!!!! gotta lay off everything including wine until I get this off!!!! bah humbug.
drank a few margaritas - no water except bottled - and took some wine with me. my luggage (with the wine) did not arrive with our other bags and I inquired why. THEN there was a letter stuffed under my door. Please come to the reading room to pick up my suitcase as there was some contraband inside in the form of bottles. hummmmmmm!!! Well, went up there and found a line of 30-40 people that had received the same letter. So, you could either release your wine there (to be returned at debarking) or pay corkage. It's all about the money - anyway, they charged $15 per bottle for corkage and they gave your wine back to you with a 'corkage paid' label attached. You then could take your wines to dinner or whatever. To give you a idea of the wine prices on board - a bottle of Berringer White Zin (normally 4.99 to 7.99 retail) is $22. I took 4 bottles of nice commercial wine with us and what I paid plus the corkage - was still quite a bit less that the ship's price for the same.
Did attend a wine tasting on board - $15 charge to taste 6 wines - 4 white and 2 reds. There was French, German, Australian, Chileian, Italian and American. Wow. The wine officer gave a wonderful presentation as well. Went to see him afterwards and told him I was a newbie winemaker and he was really interested. While we were talking he opened another bottle and gave me a taste. Asked me what I thought and I told him as much as I could - then he told me that this was a several year old Italian SuperTuscan - and was over $150 a bottle. Needless to say I only had about 1" in a glass but WOW is the only word I can come up with to describe this. This will be the target for my wines!!! Yeah, right!!!
Anyway, the conversation with this wine officer was amazing. He also said that next port he would go off the ship and make me a copy of a high level professional wine course from around the world. I said sure and promptly forgot about it. Two days later he called and said he had something for me. It was a copy of the course - 6 hours - from and about wines all over the world. I was really amazed that he really did this for me and it turned out to be a wonderful DVD wine course.
Enough rambling for now - hope all is well and your wines are all happy!!! you too!!!
rick
rrawhide
back safely - the ship missed the whales but lost a lot of wine and booze from the bottles falling off shelves and breaking. Hummmm - actually what happened is that a pod of whales surfaced right in front of the ship and the pilot spun the wheel to miss them and we healed over and back. Bottles and yells were everywhere and some of the pool water soaked several of the passageway carpets. once in a while something like this happens but not very ofter. balance of cruise was wonderful but you gain about a pound a day!!!! gotta lay off everything including wine until I get this off!!!! bah humbug.
drank a few margaritas - no water except bottled - and took some wine with me. my luggage (with the wine) did not arrive with our other bags and I inquired why. THEN there was a letter stuffed under my door. Please come to the reading room to pick up my suitcase as there was some contraband inside in the form of bottles. hummmmmmm!!! Well, went up there and found a line of 30-40 people that had received the same letter. So, you could either release your wine there (to be returned at debarking) or pay corkage. It's all about the money - anyway, they charged $15 per bottle for corkage and they gave your wine back to you with a 'corkage paid' label attached. You then could take your wines to dinner or whatever. To give you a idea of the wine prices on board - a bottle of Berringer White Zin (normally 4.99 to 7.99 retail) is $22. I took 4 bottles of nice commercial wine with us and what I paid plus the corkage - was still quite a bit less that the ship's price for the same.
Did attend a wine tasting on board - $15 charge to taste 6 wines - 4 white and 2 reds. There was French, German, Australian, Chileian, Italian and American. Wow. The wine officer gave a wonderful presentation as well. Went to see him afterwards and told him I was a newbie winemaker and he was really interested. While we were talking he opened another bottle and gave me a taste. Asked me what I thought and I told him as much as I could - then he told me that this was a several year old Italian SuperTuscan - and was over $150 a bottle. Needless to say I only had about 1" in a glass but WOW is the only word I can come up with to describe this. This will be the target for my wines!!! Yeah, right!!!
Anyway, the conversation with this wine officer was amazing. He also said that next port he would go off the ship and make me a copy of a high level professional wine course from around the world. I said sure and promptly forgot about it. Two days later he called and said he had something for me. It was a copy of the course - 6 hours - from and about wines all over the world. I was really amazed that he really did this for me and it turned out to be a wonderful DVD wine course.
Enough rambling for now - hope all is well and your wines are all happy!!! you too!!!
rick
rrawhide