Winetasting, again…

By , October 31, 2006 12:06

I do live in Darmstadt, Germany, as mentioned before, and here we do have a renowned “provider” or “supplier” of mainly southern european good foods, including olive-oil, and wines: E. Molina in the Adelungstr. 3. They also do provide, twice a year, a customer winetasting event in the so-called Prinz-Emil-Schlösschen, which is an open event during two days. Last weekend was the fall re-occurence of this for this year. They charge 15,- EURO to try to cover costs, but looking at the amount of available stuff, I do doubt, that the money covers the costs. They even offer a refund, if you buy some of the stuff later on in their shops (you can do so for a month) for more than 60,- EUR. In total, there were about 220 wines, proseccos, oils, grappa, etc. available for tasting.

We went there with some friends, and started with a prosecco. As I’m more the dry wine drinker, I also choose a dry one, namely the Prosecco Spumante Brut from Nino Franco from Valdobbiadene. I’m not a great fan of proseccos, so I can’t really comment on this one. It was fine, is all, I can say.

We then went over to one of the spanish tables to grab a couple of spanish wines to go with the dinner-snacks: bread with cheese, salami, olives.

After the snack, we continued with some italian red wines, and then returned to spanish ones. After a long series, we finally decided to finish with Grappa and/or Brandy. I did not note the order, I only made short notes. And, we all knew quite well, what we wanted, so overall, we didn’t have many failures.

We had a nice long evening, with many wines tasted. The next day, we didn’t have headaches, so, we really enjoyed the evening!

Overall, I did taste (short comments in brackets):

  • Villa Pigna, Offida, Marken
    • Vergaio, Rosso Piceno Superiore DOC, 2001 (good!!)
    • Rosso Vellutato IGT marche, 2003 (good for meals!!)
    • Briccaio, Vellutato IGT Marche, 2001 (very good!)
    • Rozzano IGT Marche, 2003 (very good!!)
  • Azienda Agricola Pecchenino, Dogliani(CN), Piemont
    • Quass, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2004 (very good, but still needs to rest some time)
  • Fontanafredda, Serralunga D’Alba e Barolo, Piemont
    • Raimonda, Barbera D’Alba, DOC, 2003 (good, but still needs some time to rest)
    • Barolo Serralunga D’Alba, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
  • Alessandro De Conciliis e figli, Prignano, Kampanien
    • Donnaluna Aglianico, IGT Paestum, 2005 (good, but smells very good!)
  • Fattoria Villa Matilde, Cellole, Kampanien
    • Falerno del Massico Rosso DOC, 2003 (good with meals, light)
    • Aglianico, IGT, Rocca dei Leoni, 2005 (this was not my taste, and it was too new)
  • Azienda Agricola Maculan, Breganze, Venetien
    • Palazzotto, Cabernet Sauvignon Breganze DOC, 2004 (very good!!)
    • Torcolato, DOC, 2003 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
  • Cantina Cortegiara, Cortegiara, Venetien
    • Amarone della Valpolicella Classico, DOC, 2003 (very good!!)
    • Recioto della Valpolicella DOC, 2002 (very good, also as a desert-wine)
  • Tenimenti Angelini, Montepulciano, Toskana
    • Val di Suga, Brunello di Montalcino, DOCG, 2001 (very good!!)
  • Bodegas Castaño, Yecla, D.O. Yecla
    • Pozuelo Crianza D.O. Yecla, 2003 (well-known, this is the 2003, good!!)
  • Bodegas Sierra Salina, Villena, D.O. Alicante
    • Puerto Salinas, D.O. Alicante, 2003 (good!!)
  • Selección de la casa: Vinos Paco Molina
    • PACO MOLINA “Prestigio” D.O. Yecla, 2004 (good!)
    • PACO MOLINA “Expresión” D.O. Yecla, 2003 (very good, but only with meals)
  • Bodega Casa Juan, Laguardia, Rioja Alavesa
    • Cuarteto, Tinto Crianza, D.O.C. Rioja, 2002, Selección Molina (tastes similar like the next, but only costs half!)
    • Cuarteto, Tinto Reserva D.O.C. Rioja, 2001, Selección Molina (good!)
  • And we finished with: Rocca delle Macie, Castellina in Chianti, Toskana
    • Here we had a Grappa and a Brandy, very, very, very good. I didn’t note the names… ;-(
  • And we started with:
    • Prosecco Spumante Brut, Nino Franco, Valdobbiadene, DOC

Solaris and your random x86 hardware…

By , October 31, 2006 03:22

Folks,

there no longer is an excuse not to at least check out Solaris on your random x86 hardware.

Just check the availability of the drivers for your hardware by simply running a small Java Applet. It even lists non-Sun drivers and provides the links to the appropriate pages.

So, here it is: http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl/hcts/device_detect.html

And here’s, what it looks like on my old “Aldi”-PC:



And here’s, what it looks like on my Toshiba Tecra M2:



The thing, that makes my curious with the M2 is the fact, that the M2 does contain more devices, which are ignored here:

  • There is a PCIbased SD-Card slot (NO, it’s not USB based!)
  • There is an InfraRed Device

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