Tricia Colianne's wine blog: Vin. Vini. Vino.

Mark it on the calendar

2006-11-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

Hmm. I wonder if anyone even bothers to stop by any more, even if it's just to note my conspicuous absence.

Lots going on, folks.

Thanks to all who wished the Chef and me well last month on the anniversary of our wedding.

On a similar note, best wishes to Scott and Jill on their nuptials last weekend. Such a beautiful party.

And, of course, there's the wine goings on. Much to do here in Northeast Ohio, especially this weekend. If you felt let down by the Tribe's oh-so-typical performance this year, you can return to Jacobs Field in Cleveland this weekend, Nov. 2-4, for a much happier occasion. It's the Heinen's/WVIZ World Series of Wine , a perennial joy for wine novices and aficionados alike. It really doesn't get much better than the grand tastings ($70-$75 a person; purchase tickets in advance). More than 400 wines, 100-plus producers, stellar munchies, unparalleled people watching. You'll find lots of opportunities to speak with winery and distributor representatives to get the real dirt on what you're tasting.

It's hard not to over imbibe with so many wines to try, so take a cab or a limo or book a hotel room. Some downtown Cleveland hotels are offering packages specifically for the occasion.

This is easily the biggest wine event of the year for Northeast Ohio. Oh, and it benefits public broadcasting, as if you needed another reason to go.

Short pours

2006-09-29T14:51:00.000-04:00

It's official. Millennials are a major force in wine. Why we needed a study to tell us this, I'm not sure. We millennials are hip, sophisticated and reliably swayed by marketing. Sigh. At least we have the good sense to like wine.

Who doesn't like SPAM with their greens? Vineyard Spam Salad.

Quotable: "Connoisseur, n. A specialist who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Caberiffic: Delectus 2001 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Stanton Vineyard Oakville ($50). Tobacco, mushroom, black cherry, plum. Decant, my friends, decant.

Splurge worthy: Philip Togni Vineyard 2003 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon (online prices vary widely, between $80 and $150). Blackberry, dusty chocolate, plum, great acid on the back end.

Tags: wine, marketing, quotes, cabernet sauvignon, recipes

Women's (wine) intuition

2006-09-27T12:17:00.000-04:00

I was just talking with a friend from Chicago about Alpana Singh.

At 26, she was named the youngest female master sommelier. Now, at 29, she's director of wine and spirits for Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises. Smart girl. And she champions the women-and-wine cause. I like that.

And there she is in today's Chicago Sun Times offering us a little taste of her wine savvy. I'm fond of this one in particular: Many good wines are meant to be drunk young. "Otherwise, while you're patiently waiting for 'Mr. Right,' you may inadvertently be letting 'Mr. Right Now' get away."

I'll throw in my own girly wisdom: Wine and shoes have a lot in common. You have the $300 Stuart Weitzmans stashed away in a cloth bag in an air-tight box in the back of your closet. And then there's the everyday, comfy-as-hell boots you throw on without a second thought, but can't imagine living without. Those dress-up wines you've got buried in your cellar, they're nice, but it's the week-night, lasagna-and-garlic-bread bottle that gets you through the week.

Tags: wine, sommeliers

Prosecco and Paris

2006-09-25T13:42:00.000-04:00

Looks like the popularity of my favorite hotel heiress and yours, Paris Hilton, has bubbled up - and over - once again.

Paris was unveiled this weekend as the new face of Rich, a prosecco product packaged in a gold-colored can. The novelty is already losing its sparkle. Italian winemakers are insulted that the producer of Rich would circumvent the law that says Italian wine must be sold in bottles. Rich is not being sold in Italy, but rather in countries like Britain and Switzerland.

Then, of course, there's the whole bit about Paris' pesky DUI. Road safety advocates in Italy are molto irritated that these ads feature the party girl despite her less-than-stellar driving record.

But it's all worth it, isn't it? I mean, when I think of a vacuous product in pretty packaging, I think of Paris, too.

Inspiration among the shelves

2006-09-18T11:48:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

OK, so this weekly feature hasn't been so weekly lately. Frankly, I haven't been all that snappy with the posts, either.

Like any passion (cross-stitch, anyone?), wine has a habit of getting lost in the shuffle when the stampede of daily life comes barreling through. We've been painting our office, landscaping, working, entertaining. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.

But how do you pick up with your passion once you find the time again?

How do you get inspired? How do you find the energy?

If wine is your cup of tea, er, juice, you go to the store. That's right, when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping. Even if you have a cellar full of drinkable bottles, shelf browsing can be quality time. There's nothing like a few hundred brand new, shiny bottles lined up like soldiers to remind you that there's a world of wine out there - and that what you've tasted wouldn't fill a bucket.

Something to try at every turn. Single-varietal gamay, beerenauslese, pinot blanc from Sonoma, muscat, ripasso, Douro, Kongsgaard, vernaccia.

I'm excited already.

New World vs. Old World Part Deux

2006-09-03T00:18:00.000-04:00

I played Risk as a kid. It's never a good idea to fight a war on two fronts.

But that's what winemakers are doing. They're fighting for our taste buds and our minds. And in the quest for our minds, New Worlders are winning. Why? In a word: marketing.

And that's where Old Worlders have fallen behind. For too long, they didn't play the game. They didn't embrace the global marketplace with a big, wide bear hug. They didn't think they needed to. They were wrong.

I get this.

People want at-a-glance labels, suggested pairings, critters, playful names and specified grapes. They don't want micro appellations, regular-size appellations or any appellation, for that matter. They want wine. Just wine. So many people don't really care where it comes from or about the traditions and geography behind it.

The German wine industry has taken this so much to heart that it's changing the name of one of its wine regions (they've done this before). The Mosel-Saar-Ruwer appellation will most likely become Mosel. Why? Because it's easier to say and remember. For who, you ask? Not the Germans, I'm guessing.

And this is where I get off the bus.

I fear this rush to make wine look the same on the outside will ultimately homogenize what's on the inside. And I don't think I'm far off this one. If wine drinkers have become so lazy that they can't be bothered to know that Chianti is made from the sangiovese grape, why should their taste buds be bothered to know the difference between quality and plonk or even red from white?

I know, I know. We're busy. We have far too many things floating around in our heads already. We shouldn't have to know that Sancerre is sauvignon blanc to be able to enjoy wine. But that's the thing. You don't need to know that. All you need to do is try it. Most people don't wonder what's in their beer or how their Jack Daniels was made. It's just something we drink; it's part of our culture - the way wine is a part of so many other cultures.

I'm all for demystifying wine, but for me, that's done in the mouth. The idea that generic labels will help the average consumer enjoy wine more is something that's being perpetuated by the very people who made it intimidating in the first place: marketers.

Categories: wine, marketing, wine labels

Meme: Five Things to Eat Before You Die

2006-09-01T15:15:00.000-04:00

Ann at A Chicken in Every Granny Cart has tagged me with my very first meme, started by Melissa at A Traveler's Lunchbox. She's calling all bloggers to share Five Things to Eat Before You Die.

It's a pretty sweet idea, and I never turn down dessert, so here goes:

1. Carne cruda. Preferably Piedmontese beef. Preferably eaten in Barolo. Preferably with shaved truffles on top. But what is it? Literally, it's finely chopped raw beef dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Principally, it's heaven.

2. Portillo's all-beef hot dog with everything (mustard, relish, onions, sliced tomato, kosher pickle and celery salt on a poppy seed bun). Mmmm. Sweet home, Chicago.

3. Rabbit rillette from Bouchon in Napa. Rillette is meat that's slow-cooked in fat until it's creamy and rich. It's served cold, often from a ramekin, and Bouchon pairs it with crostini and fig paste.

4. My husband's butternut-squash bisque. He gives the recipe out freely because he knows once someone takes a look at the list of ingredients, they'll never try it on their own. It's smooth and satisfying. A few crumbles of blue cheese on top cut the sweetness. My ultimate comfort food.

5. Kifli, the triangle-shaped cookies my mom makes about once every five years at Christmas if I beg. They're labor intensive, so I don't blame her for being so stingy, but the flaky crispness and almond-paste inside say holidays to me.

Now it's my turn to tag:
Edward at Wino Sapien
The good doctor at Doktor Weingolb
JD at Walk the Wine
Jeff at Good Grape
Genevelyn at Genevelyn Steeles Swallows

Go to it.

Categories: memes, food, restaurants

New World vs. Old World

2006-08-31T14:00:00.000-04:00

I'm in the mood for a throw-down. No more of this namby-pamby dancing around the ring.

A couple of weeks ago, I got slammed on the ropes for a comment I made about a post on Vinography. The winos over there are apparently pretty fond of their New World wines because, when I suggested that Old World wines might be suffering in the global marketplace because of what is simply an archaic (or nonexistent?) approach to marketing, damn. You'd have thought I said something about their mother.

"Absurd!" they said. "Wine that tastes like fruit, not boxes of cigars and pencil lead, appeals to US consumers," they proclaimed.

Hmmm.

I'm a U.S. consumer, and I'm a pretty even-handed gal. I like New World wines; I like Old World wines. I was trying to make a point about what I considered to be the glaring difference in the marketplace. I was trying to make that point independent of taste, because I tend to believe there's a place out there for both styles of wine.

But then I started to think about it, and I've decided, even-handed is for wusses.

I'm picking sides, and do you know why? It's not about technical quality. There are New World and Old World wines of technical brilliance. It's not about image. Image is surface; popularity comes and goes.

No, this is a matter of taste, and I'm coming down on the side of the Old World.

This is my battle cry for wines that taste like cigar boxes and dirt, seashells and truffles; for wines that taste like a location; for being able to tell the difference between chadonnays made 30 miles apart; for a wine that has structure without having an alcohol content of 15 percent; for a wine that isn't obvious; for a wine that doesn't cater to a soda-pop palate; for a wine that actually pairs well with food; for a wine that goes for elegance over brawn; for a wine that doesn't give it up on the first date - one that I've got to work for, one that tastes better the next day, one that could sit on the shelf and evolve for a couple of years, one with a little mystery.

Categories: wine, Old World, New World, flavor

I heart wine

2006-08-27T17:12:00.000-04:00

I don't heart gimmicks (and neither does the Chef), which is why we let the Il Cuore 2000 Rosso Classico (about $11) sit in our cellar for the last year without a second thought.

You see, there's a big heart on the label and a quote to go with it: "A heart can only be held by a heart the fairest setting of the loveliest jewel." Yeck.

The bottle was a present from a friend about the time of our wedding and it came with a disclaimer: "It was a cheapie; I got it for the heart." In other words, appreciate it for the sentiment, not the quality. And we intended to.

In fact, I'm not sure we ever planned to open it, but I'm glad we did. The blend of carignane, zinfandel, grenache, sangiovese and charbono from Mendocino County has an Old World sensibility, plum and cherry fruit, and a well-integrated (13.6 percent) alcohol.

It was a lovely discovery, and I heart surprises.

Categories: wine, Califonia wine

From the bowels of the cellar

2006-08-23T11:21:00.000-04:00

When you start building a cellar and amass any quantity of wine, you're bound to forget some of the bottles you've stashed away. Rediscovering them is like meeting up with an old friend.

So much to talk about, so many memories to rehash.

Last night, when the Chef brought up the Trapiche 2000 Malbec Oak Cask, it was a surprise. I'd forgotten about this bottle, which my friend Rachel gave to me years ago. Why I'd never thought to drink it, I don't know. The wine's not expensive - maybe $7-$10 - but I'm glad I held on to it. The aroma was powerful, with touches of violets, baked goods, cigar and cherries. The flavor itself was ripe with purple, stain-year-teeth fruit and spice. It started out weak in the middle of my mouth, but opened up beautifully and finished long. I'd put this wine up against any mid-priced, big California wine, and at the end of the day I'd have a few more dollars in my pocket.

It's been the case for me that these forgotten bottles tend to resurface at just the right time, for just the right meal, just the right occasion. This one - surprising, but still very promising - came as I'm preparing to make some job changes.

Some people have horoscopes, others magic eight balls. Me, I turn to my cellar. I'm taking this bottle as a good sign.

Categories: wine, Malbec

Blind drunk

2006-08-21T14:31:00.000-04:00

Many apologies for the dearth of posts.

I've been tending to life stuff. Work, guests, manicures, cleaning out the garage (not necessarily in that order).

Oh! And new blinds.

We celebrate the small things.

Categories: wine, sparkling wine

Bringing in the relief pitcher

2006-08-14T09:22:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

Being a baseball fan (go Cubs! go Tribe!), you'd think I'd be partial to a three-strikes policy. As it happens, I'm not that tolerant with wine.

I'll try two new things in a sitting. If neither one appeals and I'm dead set on something satisfying, I move to an old standby. Simple as that. Don't misunderstand: It's important to break out of the comfort zone every so often. It keeps the tastebuds alert. But it's also only fair to yourself to return to the wines that you love.

Last week, I took a chance on a Wild Horse 2003 Zinfandel (about $16) from Paso Robles. It was green, stemy, tart - not at all the juicy, fruity goodness I was expecting. Wild Horse claims to be going for something other than "monster" zinfandel, something that might actually complement a meal, but this just tasted underripe. We poured it out.

Strike one.

I shoved that aside and moved on to something new - something more sonorous. I don't solicit or generally accept samples either here or at my job, but people frequently send things anyway. If the goods look like something I might be interested in, I check it out. The rest goes to a charity auction at work. EnterMusic from the Winelands, a CD of various artists. Because I tend to like this sort of thing (the sort of CD you might find at the checkout at Starbucks), I gave it a listen. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Music and wine are one." Certainly, they were that night. Yeck. I found a couple of decent tracks, but the CD seems more interested in showcasing different regions than in being a soundtrack to my wine-drinking experience.

Strike two.

Rather than make a total waste of the evening, we ran down to the cellar and retrieved a cheapie favorite - Lyeth 2003 Sonoma Meritage and turned the iPod to Michael Hedges.

Evening saved.

Categories: wine, California wine, music

Vinous nostalgia

2006-08-10T11:58:00.000-04:00

After college (not all that long ago, really), I was a lowly intern, making $350 a week and living in what I'll generously describe as student housing. A visiting friend called it a hell hole. The floors would not come clean and my Russian roommate, who spoke no English, was considerably less friendly than the roaches.

Going to the grocery store was a morale killer. If it had nutritional value, I couldn't afford it. A steady intake of ramen noodles and frozen pizza managed, remarkably, to sustain me, and this wine from New York State kept me in good humor: Bully Hill Vineyards Sweet Walter Red.

I have no real memory of how it tasted or smelled. I imagine it was something akin to alcoholic fruit juice, but as I recall, the label wisely suggested chilling it a bit and pairing with pizza, which I did, often.

I was thinking about this the other day as I made pasta sauce and opened a bottle of wine, the contents of which I put in the pot, not in my mouth - an action that would have struck me as an utter waste five years ago. I've grown up a bit since then, and so have my tastes. My bank account has, thankfully, expanded some, too.

But, still, I could see revisiting that some time soon. The wine, of course, not the roaches.

Categories: wine, New York wine, cheap wine

Natalie McLean's new book

2006-08-09T11:24:00.000-04:00

Hot female wine authority of the moment Natalie McLean is about to birth her first book - Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.

She writes on her Web site: "A lot of wine books are either encyclopedias or how-to guides. Those are certainly helpful in their own right, but that's not what I wanted to do. I prefer to tell stories about wine - tales that I hope will both entertain my readers and also teach them a lot."

Thank God. This may be what I was looking for.

While I tend to think McLean's a little too slick with her e-mail newsletters and the frequently asked questions about her book (yes, I am just jealous), I love that a) she's from Canada (we have enough British wine authorities, thank you), b) she's a woman, and c) she puts the word "drunk" right there in the title.

In lots of vino veritas, right?

The book launches in Canada on Aug. 29 and in the United States on Sept. 19.

Categories: wine, books

Someone to share it with

2006-08-04T21:10:00.000-04:00

I'd like to drink alone.

Really, I would. Not the whole bottle, no, there are step programs for that. But a single glass with a solitary meal, yes, I'd like that.

Except that I wouldn't.

I tried several years ago to like it, shortly after I'd moved to this unfamiliar city. I knew not a soul. On nights off from work, I'd make a ritual of cooking for myself, indulgent food you might feel guilty preparing for just one person. And because I loved wine and what it did to food and what food did to it, I learned to pair. It was rewarding, very rewarding, and a wonderful chance to sit and see and smell and taste. But it wasn't enjoyable. It wasn't fun.

And wine is fun. It makes me giddy, just a glass, because I'm small. Where I'm usually reticent, it makes me chatty, and where I might be a bit sour-faced, I smile more easily. But I don't like to drink alone.

I was thinking today, with the Chef at work and me at home making dinner for myself, that a glass of wine might be nice. I was making pesto, with basil from our garden (a large clay pot, really) and some wonderful Parmesan. A simple meal. Thoughtless. It was a bowl of pasta that needed a glass of wine. If I'd thought ahead, I would have chosen a verdicchio, something crisp and green, but with a soft aroma to pick up the fruit in the olive oil. Even if I'd bought in advance, though, I couldn't have brought myself to drink it.

It's different with food. I've learned to be selfish with that, really relishing the chance to labor over something (or not) and devour it. But wine somehow seems too communal. It feels wrong to open wine without the pleasure of sharing, of musing, of toasting, of gesturing, of joking. And of just shutting up and drinking.

PESTO FOR ONE
1 large clove of garlic
1/8 cup pine nuts
three or four oil-cured black olives
3/4 cup basil leaves, lightly chopped
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley
1/4 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup grated Parmesan Reggiano
salt and pepper to taste

In a mini food processor (or mortar with pestle, if you're hard core), pulse the garlic and pine nuts and olives. Add the basil and parsley gradually, with oil as needed. Add the cheese and season. Toss with linguine and pair with wine if you can bear it.

**Adapted from Alice Waters' "Chez Panisse Vegetables."

***This is my 100th post on Vin Vini Vino, and I'd like to say, my wine journey's become richer and an even greater part of my life with all of you to share it with. Cheers.

Categories: wine, wine pairings, recipes

ISO cheap whites. Found.

2006-08-04T12:55:00.000-04:00

Chez Chef and Trish, we've been in desperate need of white wine to fill an embarassing void in our inventory. Last week, I took a couple of recommendations from Jamie, who runs the wine department at West Point Market and whose tastes run close to mine. I'm rarely unhappy with her suggestions, and the two bottles she pushed my way were anything but disappointing.

For a combined cost of $18.98, the Chef and I got utter (and surprising) bliss.

The first night, we sipped on the Simonsig 2005 Chenin Blanc, a South African wine of 100 percent chenin and a slightly unweildly alcohol level of 14.3 percent. Chalk the high alcohol up to a warm, dry 2005 that resulted in fewer, more concentrated grapes and even a little botrytis, that sought-after mold. The Simonsig is a fuller chenin that most, with definite flinty mineral notes but ripe, potent peach and melon flavors and clean citrus on the end. Oh, and it's just $9.99.

The other wine, Yasa 2005 Old Vines Macabeo, sat on the shelf for nearly a week. The Chef's not exactly sweet on Spanish whites, mostly, I think, because we've been burned before. Several times. They fall flat, short of expectations and are otherwise characterless. Not what I'm looking for in a wine, even a cheap one. But, with this wine, the high-elevation old vines of this widely planted grape again lead to small yields, which translate to greater intesnsity. The wine is true to varietal - highly aromatic, ripe with honeydew and a little banana and clean on the finish. It's an exuberant, young wine from mature vines, a delightful combination. Just $8.99.

Categories: wine, Spanish wine, white wine, chenin blanc

True, no?

2006-08-04T12:52:00.000-04:00

"Wines are like people. Some are perfect but boring, some are precocious but fail to live up to their promise, and some may be flawed, but the way they develop is endlessly fascinating." - Michael Broadbent

Categories: wine, quotes

Vintage, shmintage

2006-07-31T11:58:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

The stock phrase of advertisers and society reporters is "vintage wine." They pull it out of their word wardrobe when they need an adjective or haven't the faintest idea of what they're talking about.

"They dined on prime rib and truffled potatoes while sipping vintage wine at the 2006 Very Beneficial Ball." "Trish's Beverage Mart has vintage wine on sale!" Your average news reports pick up the cliche, too. "Fifteen staff bailed out water from the cellar and salvaged bottles of expensive vintage wine."

Hey, MOST WINE IS VINTAGE. OK, OK, it's not so much that the term's wrong as it is annoying.

A wine's vintage is the year the grapes (most of them, anyway) were harvested. Some wine, especially sparkling wine, can be nonvintage, meaning grapes from several years are combined to form a special house style, but the overwhelming majority of wines on your store shelves are vintage. And it's no guarantee of quality, which is what all this sloppy, pervasive vintage whining would have us believe.

In all fairness, my good friend Merriam-Webster says that vintage can mean "a usually superior wine all or most of which comes from a single year," but I've come to realize that good ol' M-W's got a thing or two to learn about wine. He hasn't quite figured out that Champagne should be uppercase, either.

More than anything, "vintage wine" is simply confusing. And snobby-sounding. There are good vintages (1997 for Brunello) and bad vintages (2002 in the southern Rhone), but even within these years, individual wines can be standouts or disappointments.

So while I may have a cellar full of "vintage wine," it's entirely possible that most of it's junk.

A little food with your wine blogging

2006-07-28T13:07:00.000-04:00

Wine and food are like high and heels - they just go together.

When the Chef and I were in Italy last year (it was, for both of us, our first trip), we were struck by how enotecas and cafes automatically brought customers tiny bites of food to go with their wine, even if they hadn't ordered any. Olives, crostini, salty crackers and, occasionally (happily), a cheese-and-meat board. These gorgeous little freebies were served like any basket of stale pretzels might be at a bar in the States.

It was charming. And affirming. Although I never explicitly asked (my Italian is painful), I took all this noshing to mean that wine really is meant to go with food. Always.

In that spirit, I'd like to recommend a few food blogs to go with your wine reading:

Chubby Hubby - Without a doubt the slickest, cleanest, best photographed food blog on the Web. CH writes from Singapore, where he covers the restaurant scene and shares some of his own creations, as well.
A Chicken in Every Granny Cart - Ann (who often comments on Vin Vini Vino) has 3 square feet of counter space in her itty bitty NYC apartment, but she doesn't let stand between her and culinary exploration. She also has a great occasional feature called Heirloom Modern that has her putting updated twists on classic recipes.
Orangette - To my mind some of the best food writing on the Web. Molly, who lives in Seattle, embraces food so warmly you can't help but feel instantly more passionate. Seriously, she's giving Ruth Reichel a run for her money.
The Food Whore - Gut-busting fun (pun intended). I've never not laughed aloud while reading this diary of a deliciously jaded restaurant and catering business owner.

Categories: wine, food, food blogs

New and improved!

2006-07-27T15:24:00.000-04:00

Vin Vini Vino is better than ever with comment word verification for your inconvenience. I've been inundated with comment spam, and my inbox is crying uncle. Thanks for understanding.

Intoxicating, indeed

2006-07-27T10:52:00.000-04:00

A San Francisco Chronicle reader has a real problem with Leslie Sbrocco's July 20 story, "Hot and sexy wines cool summer's heat."

"How is any liquid 'sexy?' " he wants to know.

Then he launches into a tirade about his "dirty white couch" and "naughty sexy panties." Way too much information, but I like the underlying question: Is wine sexy? I like the question not so much because it's provocative (wink, wink), but because it reminds me that there are people running around who haven't figured this out yet.

Wine is sexy. It's sensual and stimulating, emotional and quite literally intoxicating. If you don't know that, you, ahem, haven't met the right wine yet.

Categories: wine

No, you can't test drive wine

2006-07-26T12:28:00.000-04:00

Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune writes to a incredulous reader that, yes, it's just fine to return a bottle of wine at a restaurant for no other reason than you just simply don't like it.

I take issue.

He reasons that diners send back food all the time, so why not wine? Huh. I've always considered it bad form to ask for a new plate of food just because, eh, it turns out halibut's not really my thing. I have this vision of Daley ordering sweet breads and suddenly remembering he doesn't like thymus gland. "Sorry, waiter, this simply won't do."

By all means send food back if you ordered your New York strip well and the thing's still mooing, if there's a hair on your plate (not yours) or if the salad greens more closely resemble wilted spinach. Assert yourself, please, and do the same thing for wine. Wine CAN go bad. It can be corked, oxidized, maderized, past its peak. Lots can go wrong between the winery and your dining table.

But that's it. That's where it ends.

People do send back food because they've discovered trying shark for the first time was a bad idea, but no one wants to be THAT customer. And no one wants to be THAT wine drinker. Here's what you do. If the wine's on the glass-pour list, ask for a taste. Any restaurant worth a darn will give you one. If you're dead set on ordering a bottle that's not available as a glass pour, ask lots of questions. Make sure you know what you're getting. And know yourself. If your palate isn't especially open to new flavors, stick with what you know.

Ordering wine is a leap of faith, but the only way to shorten the gap is by trying new things. Part of that is learning what you don't like.

(And, between you and me, if you tell the server you don't like the wine but don't demand a different one, chances are they'll offer anyway or take it off your bill, especially if they recommended it. They don't have to do that, but it's good form.)

Categories: wine, restaurants, dining

Grape blends, our friends

2006-07-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

I bristle at the thought of being called elitist about wine. Sure, I'm particular (hell, these bottles aren't free), but snobby? No. Wine is, after all, just fruit that's gone bad in a good way.

It's hard to sit quietly, though, when I hear people toss out generalities about wine that aren't just stereotypical, but dead wrong. One that just absolutely makes me choke on my Vouvray is that "blends are lesser wines made from lesser fruit."

Oh, really? California wines tend to be single varietal, and California tends to be the reference point for most American wine drinkers. So I guess I understand where that thought comes from, but make no mistake: Blends don't incorporate multiple grapes to make up for poor quality.

Broaden your scope of reference and you'll find some of the world's most spectacular wines are made from more than one variety. Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Bordeaux, Meritage. These are reds that have incredible complexity, balance and character.

White blends do, too. Try on the Jermann 2001 Vintage Tunina (about $45) for size. From a wine estate in Friuli (Italy) that was started by an Austrian, this wine is one of the region's best and best known. It's an unoaked blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, ribolla, malvasia and perhaps a couple of other grapes.

The chardonnay is obvious on the distinctly appley nose. The sauvignon blanc comes through on the finish, which is crisp and tart. I'm not ashamed to say I'm not familiar with ribolla, so I couldn't quite pick it out, but the malvasia I'm a little better acquainted with. (Bonny Doon has a single varietal bottle.) The malvasia lends a heady, flowery perfume to the nose and a light creaminess to the palate.

I'd say "yum," but that wouldn't quite capture the complexity. A nuanced "ooooooooohhhhhhhhh" nails it, I think.

Categories: wine, Italian wine, white wine

The cupboard is bare

2006-07-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

Let's take stock, shall we?

We've got a bottle of Meeker Frozin, a half-full bottle of vin santo (which, by the way, was slammin'), a 2002 Broman Sauvignon Blanc, a bottle of Blackstone something or other we'll probably cook with, a beerenauslese (also damn good), a bottle of Ferrante (Ohio) riesling and two signed bottles that for some inexplicable reason are in the fridge.

Yes, our white wine supply is in a sorry state of affairs.

Here's what I want: 3 bottles of bubbles, half a case of something cheap and French, half a case of something cheap and Spanish, half a case of dry rose, a couple bottles of Sancerre and a couple of chenin blancs.

That's all. I'm easy.

Beating the heat, with a hint of gauche

2006-07-21T13:37:00.000-04:00

The Chef and I are friends with a couple who live here in town. He's a wine salesman, she's the sister of a very accomplished Napa winemaker. They're in the know. Wine people, if you will.

We enjoy spending time with them because, in addition to our shared interests and their very good company, they always have great wine on hand, and they always share. Ah, self-interest. But imagine my surprise when, weeks ago, a hot day as I recall, we were all hovering about the kitchen, chatting, glasses of white wine in hand, and he looks over at she and notices that she is not partaking. He knows what the problem is.

"Honey, would you like a spritzer?"

Huh?

A spritzer? I thought that went out with Bartles & Jaymes and '80s yacht attire.

"Would you?" she said.

I stood there, mouth agape, not beleiving what I was seeing. No! No! Don't put that club soda in there. Lemon? Gaw! However much I wanted to, I said nothing. I was a gracious guest. I didn't bang my head on the table or slap them both upside the head. But I did ask for a sip.

And you know what? It was good.

Spritzers for steamy days:
White wine spritzer
Lemon-mint spritzer
Rose spritzer

Categories: wine, drinks

A slacker's offering

2006-07-21T13:10:00.000-04:00

Boy, have I been a slacker. You'd think I'd be on the ball after a week off, but, no, it never works that way. I've been busy, busy trying to get back in the swing of things.

To be honest, I've only made time for one (ONE!) bottle of wine. It was a good one, though - a refreshing escape in all this damned heat. I bought it on my trip to North Carolina earlier this summer at a great little gourmet store called A Southern Season, which was having a killer wine sale. Of course, nothing I bought was on sale.

This Sancerre, though, was well worth full price.

The Domaine Alphonse Mellot "Les Romains" 2004 Sancerre ($24.99) is imported by Peter Weygandt, whose selections I almost always trust. (This is a good tip: Quality importers tend to leave their mark on the bottle somewhere. Find it. Know it. Use it.) Alphonse Mellot, Jr. is part of the 19th generation of Mellot winemakers in Sancerre. That lineage goes back to 1513.

The vines that produce the grapes for this bottle are pretty old, too - 45 years - and they're farmed biodynamically. The wine is unfiltered and wonderfully full flavored. It picks up the mineral of the marine-limestone soil and fully bursts with citrus and even some rounder melon flavors. It's acidic, but not nearly as unnerving as some sauvignon blancs. Just a very pretty example of Sancerre.

Categories: wine, French wine

Talk about jumping right back in the saddle

2006-07-18T13:22:00.000-04:00

...shameless plug alert...

The Chef has taken up new digs. No, a week on vacation with me hasn't prompted him to move out. He's set up shop at a new restaurant called Jac's in Cleveland's Warehouse District, where he's taking over in the middle of the restaurant's soft opening.

It's a sexy little spot in the heart of West Sixth. Look for a new menu with small, medium and large plates and a Mediterranean bent - perfect for grazing and soaking up the downtown vibe. No Web site yet, so you'll just have to check it out in person. Be sure to say hello when you stop in.

Update: Jac's Web site is up and running.

Categories: restaurants, chefs, Ohio

Home from the range

2006-07-18T13:20:00.000-04:00

Howdy there little doggies.

I'm a happy cowgirl after an amazing and, I must say, much-needed vacation. I can't thank Scott enough for donating his time and his wisdom to fill in for me on Vin Vini Vino. And many thanks to all of you who stopped by to keep him company. I'm sure you enjoyed the fresh perspective, so don't worry: I have a feeling he'll be back.

Speaking of back, I'm not sure I'm ready for this return to reality. I had a solid week of horseback riding, cocktailing, skeet shooting, cocktailing, picture-taking, dancing and, did I mention, cocktailing? I did? Well, rest assured we didn't imbibe while shooting, although it only could have improved my aim.

Time seemed to stop while we were in Wyoming. If only it had, my first day back wouldn't have been so frantic. The wine world kept turning, too. Here's what's been going on:

Boutique wine fans have a new place to indulge in a little retail therapy. RadCru.com seeks out and offers consumers access to one small-production wine a day.

The EU's still whining about reform.

The Italian wine industry is saying "no" to wood chips, which is good because I don't like splinters in my wine.

No surprise here: Spain's air travelers have the best red wine options.

Robert Mondavi marked 40 years of wine making in the Napa Valley. Love him or hate him, the man's a legend.

Ohio's wine and tourism industry get's a little national attention.

Categories: wine, wine news

Here you go...

2006-07-16T16:31:00.000-04:00

I am off to pick up Tricia and the Chef at the airport in just a little bit. I spoke with them earlier today and they both seem very inspired from their week away. Hopefully the trip home won't dampen their spirts (long plane rides always do for me).

I would like to thank Trica for this opportunity. I really enjoyed myself and hopefully you did as well. But for those of you who did not, then here you go...

...a little gem for you! Located in Chateauneuf-du-Papa, Domaine Paul Autard has been making wonderful wines for decades. A longtime darling for Robert Parker, one of their Chateaunuefs also broke into the Top 100 list for the Wine Spectator last year.

The real scope is their Cote du Rhone Rouge. They use grapes grown from their own vineyards as well as from sources just outside of the Chateauneuf AOC. The current release is the 2004 (a good vintage for those who care). This years blend is showing velvety fruit with a light tannic backbone and long soft finish. Perfectly weighted for a summer barbecue. The great part is the wine is available for around $12, so you won't mind when the label is all messed up by saucy fingers.

I bought over half of the local importers allocation for the store (sorry, most of it is gone). But if you can find a bottle, please grab it while you can. Maybe this will be able to make up for short comings as a writer.

Good luck and good drinking...

"Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever."
- Aristophones, Knights

Why does it have to be...

2006-07-14T16:16:00.000-04:00

So it's Friday and that means a busy day here at the store. Customers are rushing in last minue to grab food, wine and beer, trying to beat the weekend shopping crush. They are in a hurry and our solicitations to offer assistance in the wine department are usually met with a response similar to "just pick me out a nice Chardonnay" or "I'm looking for a good Cabernet".

This is where I start rocking and rolling. Take our first example, "a nice Chardonnay". I will usually start the inquiries: Do you like your Chardonnay to be oaky, creamy or more minerally? Do you like them with a heavy and long or soft and short finish? What type of fruit tones do you prefer, apple/pear, tropical fruit, rock fruit or some combination? And so on.

This plethora of question can lead to frazzled looks of confusion and even frustration from many of our customers. Many times I've heard, "I don't know, I just know I like Chardonnays". Inevitably, one of my associate or I will make a recommendation. Later on down the road, we are told, more often than I would like to admit, that the wine was "OK'" but they'll try something different the next time. Hopefully it won't be too long before they come back...I need to make my sales goal for the month.

So I ask then, why does it have to be (insert the varietal of choice)? Why can't people come in and ask for a fruity, full-bodied, dry white wine that isn't too oaky and would be refreshing to drink on the patio this weekend? I am always encouraging our patrons to keep a journal of the wines that they try. Not the types of wine they tried, but what are the characteristics about those wines that they like and dislike. I think people would be pleasantly surprised by the recommendations they would receive from the local wine merchant or the wine steward at their favorite restaurant if they were to share these findings.

I suppose that maybe I am just wasting cyberspace on this rant. Many of you have probably already learned this lesson. I would ask then that when you come across that neighbor or friend who is "just getting into wine", please share this information with them. Maybe together we can help speed them through the learning curve towards a more enjoyable wine (and shopping) experience.

Are They Worth the Money$

2006-07-11T09:28:00.000-04:00

This was the theme for a blind tasting I hosted at the store this past weekend. We tasted 6 chardonnays and 6 cabernet sauvignons ranging in price from $4 to $42. We used a 20 point scale with a focus on Appearance (2 pts), Bouquet (4 pts), Balance (3 pts), Body/Texture (2 pts), Taste/Flavor (4 pts), Finish (2 pts) and Overall Impression (3 pts). We also asked everyone to guess what they thought the retail price was for each of these wines.

Everyone's score for the individual wines were accumulated and an average was taken. Here are the results (in the order the wines were tasted):

Chardonnay
2004, Lockwood, Monterey, $11.99, 10.5 pts, Rank #5
2004, Anakena, Chile, $7.99, 10.1 pts, Rank #6
2004, Miner, Napa, $30.99, 13.5 pts, Rank #1
2004, Frog's Leap, Napa, $26.99, 11.8 pts, Rank #4
2004, Crane Lake, California, $3.99, 13.3 pts, Rank #2
2003, Clos du Val, Napa, $21.99, 13.0 pts, Rank #3

Cabernet Sauvignon
2003, Avalon, California, $7.99, 11.7 pts, Rank #6
2003, Mondavi, Napa, $26.99, 12.1 pts, Rank #4
2003, Moon Mountain, E.R., Sonoma, $31.99, 13.3 pts, Rank #2
2003, Crane Lake, California, $3.99, 12.0 pts, Rank #5
2002, Bell Cellars, Napa, $41.99, 16.3 pts, Rank #1
2002, Kenwood, Sonoma, $21.99, 12.9 pts, Rank #3

For many of those in attendance, this was the first time they had judged wine in this type of setting. Thus, I felt the results were slightly skewed because some people weren't as sure of their senses, I may have been unclear about the process and/or this whole process wasn't very interesting to them. I do feel that the group of 30 participants did feel more comfortable in evaluating the red wines. I have noted that the delicate flavors of whites wines are sometimes more difficult to recognize for the novice as compared to the bolder notes of the cabernets we were showing.

My associates at the store and I were surprised to see how well the Crane Lake Chardonnay showed. I had on my own card rated this wine tied for #4. I know that this tasting has helped to ease our concerns when this wine goes out for catering events (which obviously it does quite frequently for large events because of the price).

We were also surprised to see that that Avalon Cabernet Sauvignon didn't do better. We have had good success with this wine during the past holidays and I even ran it on our glass pour list in the cafe. In fact, my card again showed it ranked #4 beating the Mondavi and coming fairly close to the Kenwood.

So what does this tasting mean...That's a good question. For me it helps to solidify two notions that I commonly perceive about wine pricing. First, we are often paying more for a wine of the same quality because of its name, location or previous ratings. This concept is easy to grasp and I think most people in the food and wine industry would agree with me (I know...There are exceptions to this rule).

My second notion is a little more difficult to explain. Basically, when evaluating wines, I think that wine should be grouped into price ranges and not viewed at the individual price. What do I mean? Well, when evaluating wine for the store I usually compare wine in the following price categories: under $8, $8-$12, $12-$16, $16-$22, $22-$28, $28-$34 and so on. I do this because there are many factors that can go into the overall price of a bottle of wine at any time. For example, the fluctuating price of gasoline for shipping and delivery costs. If the wine is imported, then what is current value of the dollar to the foreign currency? Is the wine being direct imported by the distributor or are they going through an import company? Are we comparing different vintages that the vineyard production was limited or inflated due to weather influences? Thus, by grouping wines into prices ranges we can affectively account for some of the differences that can affect producers, importers and distributors.

I know I could just be making a big deal out of nothing (my fiance would agree that I do this more often than I would like to admit). But I hope that this tasting...and maybe this article...has helped to make people stop and think a little more about how they are spending money when it comes to their wines.

A couple of quick notes...one of the guests asked where she could find some scoring sheets similar to the ones we used at the tasting. Through a quick google I was able to find a virtual carbon copy to the one someone shared with me years ago at California Wine Hikes. Also, on my search for these sheets, it was also rumored that many of the wine magazines use a similar scoring system. In order to put the wine on a scale of 100, it was suggested that the score is multiplied by 2.5 and then has 50 added it. Let's see, the Bell Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon was 16.3, so that would translate to approximately a 91 pt rating (16.3 x 2.5 + 50 = 90.75)...sounds about right to me.

WARNING...

2006-07-10T09:22:00.000-04:00

WARNING...GUEST BLOGGER...WARNING

That's right folks, Tricia has left civilization for the rugged back country of Wyoming. She and the Chef left early Sunday morning after we wrestled her away from the keyboard. Tricia reluctantly traded control of this blog for some new controls...horse reins. Hopefully, after a week on the ranch "punching" cattle, she will be able to recommend some insightful parings for barbecued black beans and roasted rattlesnake.

So who is this mysterious blogger and what does he have to offer? Well, I have worked as a sales rep for a wine importer and distributor in the Midwest and traveled on their behalf to the wine producing regions of California, Oregon and Northern and Central Italy. I have owned and operated my own eclectic-Italian restaurant in downtown Cleveland. I currently work as a wine and beer buyer for a local organic and natural food market and cafe previously mentioned on this site, Mustard Seed Market & Cafe. But most importantly, I have been a close friend of the Chef for many years (in fact, he will be the best man for my upcoming nuptials later this year).

I may not have Tricia's innate ability for elegant and delightful prose, but I hope that this week I can share a few interesting bits of news or maybe a slightly different point of view. So excuse my meat and potato approach to writing and here we go...

Head West, young wine drinker

2006-07-09T00:16:00.000-04:00

All right, cowboys and girls.

I'm heading out West. The Chef promises we're not camping, but I'm not buying it. No TVs, no phones, no Internet - and no wine. OK, maybe we'll sneak in a little wine.

We're going to the HF Bar Ranch, a place the Chef's family has been staying since the early part of last century. I'm told it's beautiful out there. Wide open spaces, wide open days.

Relaxation's the plan, but I couldn't relax if I didn't think I'd left y'all in good hands. Check back this week for a little something different on Vin Vini Vino.

Later, parnters.

Categories: wine

On wine writing

2006-07-06T11:57:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes good wine writing and not simply because I'm devoted to the craft. You see, I'm going on vacation (more on this later). I need something to read, and I'm trying desperately not to indulge myself with the Da Vinci Code.

Why not feed (or quench?) my particular interest while replenishing my energy? Not a bad idea. I've been running my fingers over the spines of books about wine, though, and I've come to one conclusion: There's a lot of mediocre wine writing out there.

Actually, that's not fair. The content is almost always very good. Wine writers are a fastidious bunch, appropriately devoted to excellence, but, like their favorite wines, they tend to be a bit, well, on the dry side. Lots of bits about phylloxera and vine clones and fermentation yeasts and without the benefit of these handy-dandy little definition links.

But I like reading about wine. I like it when it's charming and doesn't take itself too seriously and either lets me know that I'm on the right track in my wine journey or gives me something new and useful to add to my knowledge base. That's all I want. That's probably why blogs are so appealing. Like a good food and wine pairing, they serve a little attitude along with their meat and potatoes.

Fun wine writers I've come across before - Lawrence Osborne and Jennifer Rosen - but there must be others.

This really is a round about way of saying,"I'm looking for a recommendation or two." Got any ideas?

Blog Watch at Food & Wine

2006-07-06T11:04:00.000-04:00

If you've ever wanted to be published nationally, now's your chance.

The folks at Food & Wine are watching the blogosphere and posting a weekly roundup of their top five food and wine blog posts. They haven't been entirely consistent on the weekly bit, but it looks like they're trying to keep up. On the wine side of things, they've been pretty enamored with Eric Asimov's writings on The Pour, but Alder over Vinography has gotten a mention or two, as well.

Time to trot out your best stuff.

I'll be the judge of that

2006-07-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

There comes a point, after years of tasting wine - when you've drunk enough, smelled enough, thought enough - when you learn to trust your palate. There also comes a point, I suppose, when you're comfortable changing your mind.

Not too long ago, the Chef and I drank a bottle of La Poule Blanche 2003 Vin de Pays d'Oc ($8.99) from Sacha Lichine, a wine negociant, exporter and general renaissance man. The bottle says it's 45 percent chardonnay, 30 percent sauvignon blanc and 25 percent viogner, although the Web site gives different percentages. It was a very pleasant, straightforward, inexpensive little white.

I purchased it second time on a shopping trip to Mustard Seed Market, a store that specializes in organics and natural products but that happens to have a wonderful selection of "sleeper wines" - inexpensive, incredibly delicious finds.

At the same time, we picked up a bottle of Chateau Mas Neuf 2005 Costieres de Nimes ($11.99), a rose of 15 percent syrah, 20 percent grenache, 20 percent mourvedre and 45 percent cinsault. Damn. We were smitten. We even called it our replacement for our baby, the Ortman 2004 Syrah Rose ($18.99). The Mas Neuf has stunning deep pink-lavender color with the smell and taste of strawberries - fresh-picked, so pungent earthiness lingers. The acid structure is solid and tart, but the flavor is round.

We were feeling good. We would have opened another bottle of the Mas Neuf, but alas, we bought only one. Of course, there was the Poule Blanche. We opened it.

On a second tasting, the White Chicken was flat, suffering from too much malolactic fermentation, a process that delivers softness and smoothness to wine. It tasted flabby and lacked distinction. Such a downer.

The judicious "malo" was obvious probably because we had come from such a different wine, one that did not flatter the Poule Blanche. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that that was the problem entirely, that the white really is a nice little $8.99 wine. I'm also comfortable coming to the conclusion that my first impression was off, that the Poule Blanche is indeed a bad egg.

I'll have to try it again to be sure. Sigh. It's a tough job.

From the mouth of a true patriot

2006-07-05T10:16:00.000-04:00

"We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy."
- Ben Franklin on the miracle of wine

Categories: wine, patriotism

But it's not really gooder for you

2006-07-03T11:20:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

Settling the age-old health question, beer or wine?, this headline:

Beer is more healthier than wine

Charles Bamforth, chairman of the food science department at the University of California-Davis and an Anheuser-Busch-endowed professor, said last week that beer has important B vitamins, soluble fiber, antioxidants and alcohol that may suppress hormones related to osteoporosis. All this, he says makes beer as beneficial, if not more so, than wine.

It's all about perception, Bamforth said, and more people perceive wine - particularly red wine - as the more healthful beverage.

And why is that? He offers no speculation, but I will.

Two reasons. First, one serving of wine has fewer calories than one serving of beer and marginally fewer than lite beer. (Wine has 90 calories, beer 150 and lite beer 110.) The word "serving" is key here. You'll see articles that ask the provocative question "Is beer less fattening than wine?" Sure, but only if you're drinking wine in a pint glass. Restaurant wine pours are growing larger, but the typical glass of wine should be about 5 to 6 1/3 ounces. That's about half the amount in a bottle of beer.

Second reason, wine drinkers tend to have healthier lifestyles. They consume less alcohol in one sitting, they eat fewer pre-packaged foods, eat less saturated fat and exercise more.

All of that may say more about people who drink wine than about wine itself, but then kudos to wine drinkers - you've no reason to change.

Categories: wine, beer, health

Toasts for any occasion

2006-06-29T12:47:00.000-04:00

People who toast their guests and hosts, their friends and enemies with ease and wit are lucky - and, let's face it, annoying. While they graciously or glibly raise a glass, the mumble and drone on, just hoping to get back to our seats without incident.

There's really no avoiding it. Eventually, everyone's turn to toast comes. Best to have a plan, a ready cache of cheery, cheeky and brief witticisms, even if one or two of them are likely to get you slapped. Here's to saying "cheers!" with style:

Among good (and tolerant) friends: "Here's to you and here's to me, friends may we always be. But, if by chance we disagree, up yours! Here's to me!"

With the bubbly at hand: "Champagne for my true friends! True pain for my sham friends!"

To knowing one's limits: "One martini, two at the most. Three I'm under the table, four I'm under the host."

For pubs and bachelor parties: "Here's to a long life and a merry one, a pretty girl and an honest one, a quick death and an easy one, a cold beer and another one!"

Fit for a feast: "Here's to the turkey, here's to the pie, here's to the scales that will make us cry."

For the couple: "A toast to love and laughter and happily ever after."

With friends: "There are good ships, and there are wood ships, the ships that sail the sea, but the best ships, are friendships, and may they always be."

With honesty: "Here's to a friend. He knows you well and likes you just the same."

Motivational: "May you get all your wishes but one so you will always have something to strive for."

To the future: "May the people who dance on your grave get cramps in their legs."

*Please note: I made up not one of these toasts, for I am terribly unoriginal. For others lacking inspiration:

http://cocktails.about.com/od/toastsjokes/tp/uni_toasts.htm
http://domainestemichelle.com/classic_toasts.cfm
http://www.instantweddingtoasts.com/

Categories: wine, entertaining, drinks

Celebrity wines (when star power fails)

2006-06-27T14:35:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, shortly after I first began writing about wine, I was invited to a luncheon interview opportunity with Bob James, the jazz pianist and man responsible for the theme to Taxi. He was making the rounds in Northeast Ohio, promoting his Art of the Wine Collection, so I went to meet him. I asked him some questions, tasted his wine, thanked him and was on my way.

I can say now with a great deal of embarrassment that the man's status as a musician - or even as a name - was lost on me.

It wasn't until I came home much later that night and shared my day with my now-husband that I realized Bob James was someone many people would actually very much like to meet. "You had lunch with Bob James?" the Chef said, running to his music collection. "And you didn't invite me?" He was brandishing CDs now.

Nope, I didn't. I had no idea. I mean, I knew James was someone of some celebrity, but for better or worse, I spoke with him as I would any member of the wine industry.

And I hope he appreciated that. I think he did.

Celebrities, for some reason, are drawn to the wine industry. You've got Lorraine Bracco of Sopranos and Goodfellas fame launching her own line of wine. You've got Brad Pitt looking at property in Barolo. KISS has a Celebrity Cellars bottle, although many would say that's not really wine, which I guess works out because Gene Simmons doesn't really drink.

They rarely get behind something that isn't mediocre, although porn star Savanna Samson's wine, Sogno Uno - or Dream One - which was launched in Feburary, got a 91 from Robert Parker. She's apparently got, um, quite a palate on her.

For the most part, though, celebrities are just like you and me, pursuing a hobby - except that they're stars so when they taste wine they enjoy, they like to slap their name on it. Production companies, wine, what's the difference? That's nice for them, but if they're going to sell it then they've got to believe in what's inside the bottle. And I think many of them do.

Whether they're right, well, that's something else entirely. But, again, they're celebrities. Even if the juice doesn't sell, they've got a ready stash of promotional gifts. Autographs, anyone?

Categories: wine, celebrities

Sniffing out cork taint

2006-06-26T12:56:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

I have my faults.

I'm less than charitable with forgiveness, I'm a terrible speller and, against my better judgment, I still think Luke Perry's a babe. On top of all that, I have a very difficult time discerning cork taint in a wine.

Correction: I used to have a tough time picking out cork taint.

Persistence and an intolerance for faulty products of any kind are among my better qualities, so I made a point of training my palate and my nose to identify that musty, noxious quality that makes good wine go bad.

What is cork taint? If a wine is corked, it's contaminated with the chemical compound TCA, which gives a wine the unmistakable smell of wet newspapers or an old basement. (Note to Blogger: A scratch-and-sniff function would come in handy here.) Corkiness is not the same as oxidation, which happens when wine is exposed to air. Oxidized wines tend to look a bit brown and old and smell a bit like sherry. Anywhere from 3 percent to 10 percent of wines are affected by the putrid mold of cork taint, though.

Sometimes the wine smells just faintly musty or even just a little flat. That's when it becomes more difficult to determine if a wine is simply "earthy" or if it really is corked. There may be no way to tell for sure, and indeed some people will be less sensitive to it than others. If you give a glass a moment and a swirl, sometimes the cork taint will blow off, and you can go about drinking the wine, even if it is less than perfect.

Still, wine is a food product and like all perishable items, it can go bad. And you needn't drink or even pay for a wine that's contaminated. Here's how to tell:

• Trust yourself. This is the big one because if you don't trust your own palate you'll tend to think it's you, not the wine, that has the problem. "Maybe I just don't like it." Tsk, tsk. If a wine smells or tastes funny in a way you wouldn't have expected, stop. It may be off.

• Smell. Take a moment to get well acquainted with your wine before it passes over your lips. If you jump right into a gulp, you're going to miss something.

• Know your wine. This one comes with time and practice, but it's wine, so practice is fun. Once you become more versed in varietals and regions and your flavor-recall bank begins to fill up, you can cash in on some of those memories. You start to remember that, "Hmm, Chianti doesn't usually taste this muddy."

• Get a good whiff of a corked wine and commit it to memory. Inevitably, eventually, you'll find yourself at dinner with someone who will declare, "This wine is corked!" If you tend to trust this person in flavor matters, ask to see, smell it and taste it. You'll be more likely to recognize it in the future.

Categories: wine

A "merlot-to-go" law for Ohio

2006-06-26T10:13:00.000-04:00

Last Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Bob Taft signed the state's own restaurant wine-to-go law. Beginning Sept. 20, restaurant patrons will be able to take home their unfinished wine in special doggie bags, so long as the wine has been properly resealed and is transported in a vehicle's trunk or in a spot "not easily accessible by the driver."

Sounds reasonable. And I take back what I said last week about Ohio not having the sense to pass a law like this. You're very sensible, Ohio.

Loyal reader Scott from Chicago pointed out that Rhode Island also passed a similar law Tuesday. Pretty soon wine drinkers everywhere will be liberated from their tables, free to go home without feeling they've wasted a dear glass of wine. Hey, those markups are no joke.

How to stock a liquor cabinet without really trying

2006-06-23T13:26:00.000-04:00

Ever get a new cookbook or even a new food mag with a section about how to stock your pantry? The list of essentials is longer and more daunting than the season premier of American Idol.

And you know what? If you're starting from scratch, that list is expensive.

A bare liquor cabinet can be just as defeating. Unlike oil and vinegar and salt and pepper, though, you don't need liquor to get by on a daily basis. (If you do, there are a few steps you should be following.) No, you can stock a liquor cabinet over time, spreading out the cost and commitment.

Got a favorite, low-effort drink? Let's start there. Say you, like my dad, are a sucker for a vodka gimlet. You get some vodka, Rose's Lime Juice, and a lime. Ta-da! You're done. The vodka needn't be the best. You wine drinkers know: pretty bottle doesn't mean much. Seriously, some good, old-fashioned Stoli will do it, but if you've got a favorite, by all means.

Now you're off and running. Pick up a few little additions on your next trip to the store, maybe some tonic water, some fruit juices or some bloody mary mix, and you can please just about anybody with that vodka.

A few key basics (no rush) will keep you in cocktail options for a long time. You can get much more fancy or skip some stuff entirely (we prefer Bourbon to whiskey), but here's what'll come in handy:

Bar stuff:
Rum (white or dark, it really doesn't matter)
Vodka
Gin
Whiskey
Vermouth (sweet and dry)
Rose's Lime Juice

Kitchen goodies:
Fruit juices (grapefruit, cranberry, orange)
Lemons
Limes
Coke
Soda water
Tonic water
Caster (or superfiine) sugar
Olives

Looking for drink recipes? Search Epicurious.com.

Categories: cocktails, liquor

Bad wine drinkers! Bad!

2006-06-23T11:33:00.000-04:00

We've been bad wine drinkers, the Chef and I. We've been falling down on the job, forgoing the wine and sucking up the cocktails.

Now, we did sit down to an extremely pleasant, extremely grand tasting of whites the other evening with a very generous wine salesman friend, who opened up his gazebo and his papasan chair to us (his wife calls it the mamasan chair). There wasn't a bad wine in the bunch, and the Jean Marc Brocard 2004 Chablis Vieilles Vignes (about $29) had me hoarding the bottle for myself. Produced from 60-year-old vines, this chardonnay picks up all the flinty, sea-salt qualities of the local Kimmeridgien soil. Intriguing and still familiar, it's such an easy wine to love. Aromas of tart apple are followed by a surprisingly smooth palate with flavors of apricot and lemon. The finish is long and crisp.

The Brocard Kimmeridgien Chardonnay, which I've had many times before, was also there and still drinking well.

But, like I said, for the most part, we've been cocktailing.

Not wanting to commit to a whole bottle of wine may be part of the problem. It's too late, we're too tired, the alarm's going to go off too early the next morning. That sort of thing. Well, that, and even if we did gas the bottle and recork it, white wine (which is what we've been wanting to drink) just never seems to fare as well the next day. We're picky.

But I won't make too many excuses because, frankly, at the end of the day, a cool, citrusy, bubbly gin and tonic is just heaven.

Categories: wine, chardonnay, French wine, cocktails

When winery trips are a bad idea

2006-06-22T11:09:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press reports two high school athletes lost some of their sports privileges after tasting what amounted to a "mouthful" of wine during a stop at a Washington state winery on a senior class trip.

The trip was chaperoned by the school board chairman and his wife, who are refusing to comment about what in the world they were doing at the winery in the first place.

The students (one has been signed to the University of Montana football team) lost their spots in a state all-star football game.

Clearly, something went wrong with this trip, but the taste of wine is the least of this Montana school district's problems. Can anyone say "lawsuit"?

10 reasons wine lists fail

2006-06-22T10:56:00.000-04:00

I'm still blown away by this. For the second year in a row, Food & Wine magazine says a restaurant in Hudson, Ohio, (population roughly 24,000) has one of the 10 best new wine lists in the country.

Meanwhile, the sea of slapdash-Opus-One-touting restaurant wine programs continues to swell. Here's why so many wine lists are just plain bad:

1. They're too expensive. Impressing a client and proposing - those are about the only justified reasons for spending what amounts to a rent payment on a bottle of a wine. Most people just want some wine with dinner, and they want to get out with the shirt on their back. Restaurants that too heavily favor uber expensive wines (and skimp on their mid- and low-range selections) or that mark up their wines too much will not entice customers to buy. People aren't stupid. They know.

2. They lack value. Cost and value are different. A bottle of cab can be inexpensive, but if it's insipid swill, it's not a value. Restaurants that seek out the sleeper wines - the insanely good, even-better-because-of-the-price wines - earn customers' trust.

3. Too much wine, not enough storage. If a restaurant can't properly store all of its wine in temperature-controlled facilities, the list is too big.

4. Too much reliance on name recognition. You've need a little for the customers who fear the unknown, who just love Kendal Jackson, who don't want to think about their selection. But if a restaurant lets the big names do all the selling for it, it's not a restaurant, it's a supermarket. And patrons will wonder why the same wine they buy at Kroger costs two or three times as much on your list.

5. The wines don't reflect the menu. You've got an Asian-fusion restaurant and an owner whose idea of real wine includes Napa cab, Australian cab and Bordeaux, so that's what he puts on the list. Real wine drinkers drink BIG. They drink RED. He throws in a few obligatory whites and sparklers, but the list is overwhelmingly steakhouse. Sorry, buddy, but the list needs to be white wine, riesling heavy if you're going to complement that food.

6. The list isn't user friendly. People don't want to learn a new language when they sit down to dinner; they just want to order a bottle of wine. Flemings has the right idea with its list, which is organized from, say, sweet and fruity to dry to give people a general descriptor to go on. You don't need to talk down to customers, just make it easy for them to find what they want.

7. Wines aren't kept in stock. Sometimes a selection's just taking a while to come in from the distributor, but if it's a chronic problem, the restaurant's clearly not managing its inventory.

8. The glass-pour list is too big. Unless the place does huge volume, a big glass-pour list almost guarantees those wines are going to sit open behind the bar for days. If a wine tastes flat, send it back.

9. The glass-pour list is static. Glass pours are an opportunity for customers to try new things without committing to a bottle. Change it up. Get people excited about something new. It's good for business.

10. Crap wine. Obvious, but true. If the guy behind the list has no palate or just doesn't know wine, none of the above really matters.

Categories: wine, restaurants, dining

New Cleveland wine festival

2006-06-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

Akron and Canton have held successful outdoor wine events for years, and now Cleveland's got the bug.

Northeast Ohio's biggest city is joining its smaller brothers to the south with the first Cleveland Wine Festival, scheduled for Sept. 29 and 30 at Voinovich Park downtown.

Organizers seem are keeping the event manageable with just about 20 wine producers and 150 wines. Local restaurants will offer food and cooking demonstrations, while area bands will provide the entertainment.

Adult admission is $20 and that buys you a souvenir wine glass, 10 tastings (which seems a bit skimpy, especially if you make a day of it), a festival program, food and wine seminars and the entertainment. Designated-driver tickets are $10 (should be free), and guests under 21 are free when accompanied by a paying adult.

In Akron, the annual wine tasting at Hardesty Park is set for July 21 where chef Brendan Meeker of Glenmoor Country Club will provide small bites of food and more than 60 wines will be available to taste.

Vintage Canton, always a nice event in a sadly under-rated downtown, is set for Sept. 21 at the central plaza. Food, entertainment and wine from more than 25 countries are planned.

Categories: wine, Ohio, Cleveland, Akron

I'll take my wine to go

2006-06-20T10:32:00.000-04:00

Effective July 1, restaurant patrons in Kansas can start taking their unfinished wine to go. Kansas joins about 33 other states and several countries with similar "doggie bag" laws.

These laws just make sense, which might explain why Ohio hasn't approved one. Say, for example, a couple orders a $60 bottle of wine with dinner but can only finish half of it before feeling tipsy. Their choice: finish it and drive home unsafely or effectively leave $30 on the table. There's really NO reason why every state shouldn't have a wine-to-go law.

But what about open container laws, you say? The Kansas law answers this with a "tamper-proof bag." The wine must be recorked and put in a transparent bag that can be sealed and unsealed only once. Customers must get a receipt and the wine must be transported in the trunk (or back away from the driver and passengers).

Now here's where we're getting a little silly. It seems unlikely, albeit not impossible, that patrons who do not want to consume all their wine at the table, ostensibly because they don't want to drive home drunk, would break open the bottle on the ride home. No one ever said lawmakers were a logical bunch.

Still, if we're not making strides, at least we're taking baby steps.

Categories: wine, wine laws, restaurants, dining

Clam bake and wine (or beer)

2006-06-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

The Chef and I had a craving for crustaceans yesterday, so we staged an early season clam bake for two. Mussels, cherry stone and top neck clams, and one lobster.

This is such a simple, fast and, believe it or not, affordable dinner (especially if you forgo the lobster). Just remember: Dead shellfish equals bad shellfish. Don't eat dead mussels or clams. You'll be sorry. How to tell? If they're partly open and don't close when you tap them, they're dead. Chuck 'em. If they don't open when you cook them, get rid of them. You're bound to a have few baddies in the bunch, so factor that in when you're figuring how much you'll need.

A shellfish medley pairs effortlessly with dry, light white wines. The first that comes to mind is muscadet, an inexpensive wine from the Loire. It's a favorite of my dad and a great summer white all around. Other no-fail picks: riesling, Vouvray, roussanne and sparkling.

So what did we choose? Beer.

Categories: wine, wine pairing, white wine, beer

Blogger rage

2006-06-19T12:39:00.000-04:00

May I just briefly mention how frustrated I am today with Blogger AND my computer? May I?

Thank you.

Appellations - what they mean and what they don't

2006-06-19T12:32:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

The words "appellation series" on a bottle of wine should send up a red flag. Bells should go off. Ding ding ding ding! Retreat! Retreat!

First, let's review. Appellation: [ap-puh-LAY-shuhn] In the wine world, a designated growing area governed by the rules and regulations established by its federal government and local governing body.

In the United States, we have American Viticultural Areas, which are considerably less controlled than, say, areas in the French Appellation d'Origine Controlee system. Wines need only source 85 percent of their grapes from an AVA to use it on their label.

Why are appellations a big deal? If you're Fred Franzia, who likens wine to Cheerios ("Does anybody complicate Cheerios by saying the wheat has to be grown on the side of a mountain and the terroir in North Dakota is better than Kansas and all this horse s---?"), appellations aren't a big deal. But if you believe wine, at any price, can be an expression of place, setting Napa chardonnay apart from Chablis and Meritage from Bordeaux, then appellations are significant.

They make wine interesting and agriculturally unique, though in Franzia's defense, not always better.

So back to this issue of an "appellation series," which would lead one to assume that a producer's other wines are not appellation specific. In the case of Turner Road wines, that assumption would be wrong. Turner Road, formerly Turner Road Vineyards, now goes by the name Turner Road Appellation Series. So it's not so much a series as it is a brand. The new name is supposed to highlight "the brand's quality message." And to be honest, the wines, which cost about $10.99 a bottle, are just fine and sort of vaguely familiar in the way that many high-production wines are. Very readily available everyday kind of stuff.

But appellation series? It's just another way to get consumers thinking certain wine-related words are synonymous with quality. It's the "vintage" ploy. Somehow, somewhere, the term "vintage wine" came to mean "good wine." How this happened, I don't know because a vintage is simply a year of grape production. There are good vintages and bad. And calling something a vintage wine is no more useful than calling something an appellation wine.

The Turner Road marketing effort really might be a response to Franzia's Bronco case, in which the California labeling law that says AVAs do indeed mean something was upheld. Franzia wanted to put the word Napa on wines that have as little relationship to Napa as Ashlee Simpson does to real singers. So you can see why producers in the same market as Bronco would want to distinguish themselves.

But wine consumers shouldn't be treated like fools. We're more sophisticated than that.

Categories: wine

Future Darwin Award candidate

2006-06-17T15:09:00.000-04:00

Ohio's been the common thread running through my posts this week, so it seems only appropriate that I close the week with this little nugget, courtesy of Erie County Democratic politics and The Daily Show, which brought it to my attention:

Jean Miller of Castalia, Ohio, who ran against William Crawford for his seat on the central committee of the Erie County Democratic Party, made drunk driving a part of her platform. Her plan? Make it legal.

Not totally legal, mind you. Just on weekends.

Miller reasons it'll mean fewer people in the county lockup, thereby saving the good people of the county a few cents in tax dollars - lives and insurance costs be damned.

Miller won. Crawford's two voting-age sons failed to make it to the polls, leaving the contest at 43-43 votes. Big turnout. A later coin flip decided the vote in Miller's favor.

*Watch The Daily Show video "Donkey Showdown."

Categories: drinking, Ohio, Daily Show

Judgment of ... Mayfield Heights?

2006-06-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

It wasn't the Judgment of Paris.

No media blitz, no inflated machismo to coddle, no egos to stroke - just an old-fashioned wine taste-off to see how Ohio fares next to its peers around the world. The verdict? Ohio can hold its own.

On Monday, Ohio Grape Industries put on the first Ohio Wine Challenge at Executive Caterers in Mayfield Heights. It was a blind tasting of 10 matchups that pitted an Ohio wine against a wine of different location, but of similar variety, age and growing conditions. Ohio wines won three of the contests and nearly tied five other matchups.

But how fairly matched were these contests? Were Ohio wines put up against plonk so that they might fare better? Michelle Widner, program manager for Ohio Grape Industries, said in an e-mail that four blind tastings took place before the event with four separate panels of judges and that after the tastings judges were asked for feedback about the matchups.

"We asked the judges whether the challenge wines were a good match and, in some cases where Ohio wines blew the challenger out of the water, we chose stronger challenges," Widner wrote. "The goal was to have a highly credible challenge" the day of the event.

The judges were a tough group that included, among others, a master sommelier, a restaurant sommelier and a winemaker from Canada. They were not privy to the specific wines they were drinking, although it is not clear whether they were given any other information, such as varietal, before the tasting. Each judge tasted all ten pairings, and no one knew how the others had scored until the end of the contest, Widner said.

In the end, the three wines that won their specific heats were the 2004 Kinkead Ridge Ohio River Valley Viognier Roussanne ($15), the 2005 Ferrante Golden Bunches Grand River Valley Dry Riesling ($15) and 2001 Busch-Harris Ohio Cabernet Sauvignon ($21). They were paired respectively against the 2003 Domaine du Vieux Lazaret Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc ($25), the 2004 Lietz Dragonstone Riesling Rheingau, Germany ($16) and the 2003 StagÂ's Leap Wine Cellars Artemis Napa Cabernet Sauvignon ($51).

"The competition pairings were right on the money in terms of varietals, topicity and vintage,"” Jerald O'’Kennard, director of the Beverage Tasting Institute in Chicago, said in a press release.

Contest organizers took pains to present a fair contest, and - with less at stake and fewer reputations to bruise - it was a good bit more satisfying all around than the Judgment of Paris re-enactment last month. Few of the pairings in the Ohio contest were blowouts - from either side. What they showed, mostly, was that when tasted next to some of the best-selling wines from around the world, Ohio wines compare.

"Ohio wines are so much better than many people think," Widner wrote. "The future of the industry is in the hands of very capable people who take quality very seriously."

Contests like these, though, when held only infrequently tend to be nothing more than a snapshot of a region and its wine - not a true standard of measure. The real test for Ohio will be revisit these tastings again and again, to see where Ohio stands and where it's going.

Still, if Monday's challenge is any indication, Ohio's certainly headed in the right direction.

Complete contest results:

Ohio Wines Other Wines

Ravenhurst La Terre Riche Grand Cuvee ($35) - 60 vs. Veuve Clicquot Champagne, France ($53) - 62.5

2005 Firelands Isle St. George Pinot Grigio ($10) - 52 vs. 2004 Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio, Italy ($25) - 53

2004 Kinkead Ridge Ohio River Valley Viognier Roussanne ($15) - 51 vs. 2003 Domaine du Vieux Lazaret Chateauneuf du-Pape Blanc, France ($25) - 49

2002 Markko Lake Erie Reserve Chardonnay ($36) - 59 vs. 2002 Vincent Girardin Chassagne Montrachet ($69) - 63

2005 Ferrante Golden Bunches Grand River Valley Dry Riesling ($15) - 65 vs. 2004 Lietz Dragonstone Riesling Rheingau, Germany ($16) - 38

2005 Ferrante Grand River Valley Riesling ($13) - 59 vs. 2003 Joh. Jos. Prum Sonnenuhr Spatlese, Germany ($44) - 59.5

2002 St. Joseph’s Grand River Valley Pinot Noir Reserve ($24) - 52 vs. 2002 Henri Gouges Nuits-St-Georges les Chenes Carteaux ($65) - 58

2001 Busch-Harris Ohio Cabernet Sauvignon ($21) - 67 vs. 2003 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Artemis Napa Cabernet Sauvignon ($51) - 65

2002 Valley Vineyards Ohio River Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($22) - 46 vs. 2002 Hess Collection Napa Valley, Mt. Veeder Cabernet Sauvignon ($39) - 70

2004 St. Joseph’s Grand River Valley Vidal Blanc Ice Wine ($28) - 66.5 vs. 2004 Inniskillin Vidal Blanc Ice Wine, Canada ($40) - 69.5

Categories: wine, Ohio wine, wine tasting

Wine Blog Wednesday No. 22: Lite reds

2006-06-15T10:10:00.000-04:00

Wine Blog Wednesday was a bust at Chez Pete and Trish.

I was too busy (read: too lazy) to really hit the stores and search for what I wanted - a California red at 12.5 percent alcohol or less. To be sure, it would have been a challenge - one I don't think I'm done with yet - but, this Wednesday, it was not to be.

We mined our cellar instead.

The Chef came up with a Chateau Castera Rouge 1994 Cru Bourgeois Medoc, a Bordeaux from a mediocre year.

It was corked.

It wasn't badly corked, but after being open for about 10 minutes, what little alcohol was left had burned off. All I could taste was the musty taint. Not a winner.

Luckily, we had a second bottle of the very same wine in the cellar. What the heck? No cork taint this time, but the wine wasn't especially good either. Moderate- to light-bodied. Soft cherry fruit on the nose, with background notes of dried dates. Some good dirt and dark chocolate in the palate, but then it just faded away. It was either past its peak or very near it. The approaching-brick color gave it away.

Sigh. But, wine, it is a living thing.

Categories: wine, wine blogs, Bordeaux

Ohio wines

2006-06-14T15:35:00.000-04:00

For the last few days, I was at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill speaking and teaching at an editing boot camp for future copy editors. There, Dow Jones Newspaper Fund interns spend two weeks, eight to nine hours a day honing their editing skills. It's tough work. There's a lot of "drop and fix that comma splice!" Don't laugh. Copy editors are tough. We'll kick your grammatically incorrect ass.

The drill sergeants in charge kept me busy while I was there, so I didn't have an opportunity to try any North Carolina wine during my stay. No matter. North Carolina always makes me think of Ohio anyway. "First in flight," my foot. The Wright brothers were Ohio boys. Still, Ohio's had its share of firsts, even wine firsts, starting in the 1800s with Cincinnati lawyer Nicholas Longworth, the father of American winemaking.

Sure, sure, that was a long time ago. It's "what have you done for me lately" that matters, right? Well, Ohio's still kicking - and pretty vigorously, too. Here's what we've got going on:

• A whole heck of a lot of wine blogging. There's Mark Fisher, the Dayton Daily News columnist, at Uncorked, Jim Eastman at Wine & Politics, Jens at Cincinnati Wine Warehouse (who's been on a bit of a hiatus), Kinkead Ridge Winery and Estate, Toledo columnist and wine salesman Adam Mahler at Untangled Vine and Michelle Lentz at My Wine Education. And there may be more.

• Award-winning wines. In May, Ferrante Winery, up near Lake Erie, took top honors in the white-wine category in the Riverside International Wine Competition, going up against top producers and wines that sell for $100-plus. Ferrante's 2005 Golden Bunches Dry Riesling ($14.99) beat 'em all.

• Killer wine lists. Food & Wine magazine, in its July 2006 issue, honors Vue Restaurant in Hudson, Ohio, for having one of the 10 best new wine lists in the country. Last year, another Hudson restaurant, Downtown 140, got the nod. Those are big props for such a small Ohio town.

• Conscientioustous marketing. Two really excellent organizations, The Ohio Wine Producers Association and Ohio Grape Industries, spend a great deal of time promoting and bettering the Ohio wine industry. They coordinate the annual Vintage Ohio extravaganza, wine trail tours and tastings. Ohio Grape Industries even has an ad on Tom Wark's blog, Fermentation.

Not too shabby for an unassuming Midwestern state. We've got a lot of history in wine and a bright future, so just remember, California: Respect your elders.

Categories: wine, Ohio wine, riesling, wine blogs, wine lists

Robert Parker in Business Week

2006-06-10T00:44:00.000-04:00

Robert Parker fans can now follow The Nose to Business Week, where he'll have a column, cleverly titled Wine of the Week, in the magazine's Executive Life section. Media Week reports the weekly item will include "Parker's recommendations, tasting notes and price information."

Forgive me if I'm underwhelmed. Another column for executive types to read up on what big, expensive California cab they should drink next? That's just what the world needs.

Now a U.S. News & World Report column with a punchy, educational, Gen-X bent? That I could get behind. That I'd love.

Categories: wine, wine reviews

Ma Gastronomie

2006-06-09T12:09:00.000-04:00

I've been eating a lot better than I've been drinking lately - probably not something I should brag about considering I have vacation coming up and swimsuits will be involved.

I blame the Chef, whose been baking tarts at home and packing things in my lunch like roasted redskin potatoes with shriracha and crumbles of Maytag blue cheese. I can hardly complain with my mouth full, though.

It's fitting that I finally read something the Chef's been talking about since, well, since I've known him: Fernand Point's Ma Gastronomie. The New York Times book section two weeks ago, which was all about food-related books, inspired me. In a feature that polled editors, chefs, writers and bon vivants about their favorite out-of-print book, the only repeat response was Ma Gastronomie.

It's not a cookbook, per se, unless you happen to know off hand how to make forcemeat. Point quite simply doesn't explain these things. His recipes are more narrative than instruction. Ma Gastronomie is part genius notebook and part gushing tribute to Point, a cuisiner who died in 1955 but who is still widely considered the father of modern French cuisine.

He offers little gems of wisdom, like: "When I stop in a restaurant I don't know, I always ask to shake hands with the cuisiner before the meal. I know if he is thin, I'll probably eat poorly. And if he is both thin and sad, the only hope is in flight."

And, oh, my, that man could drink. The Champagne (he had two magnums placed on ice every day) began flowing early, starting with his morning shave.

"I like to start off my day with a glass of Champagne," he said.
"I like to wind it up with Champagne, too. To be frank, I also like a glass or two in between."

A man after my own heart.

Categories: cookbooks, chefs, Champagne

Speaking of Portugal ...

2006-06-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

I love a bit of good gossip.

Aging British popster Sir Cliff Richards, whose Vida Nova wine is produced from grapes on his estate in Portugal, was foolish enough to engage in a blind tasting with the devil himself, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay (Hell's Kitchen's second season starts Monday).

On Ramsay's show The F-Word, Richards pronounced the wine before him "trash," unaware that it was, in fact, his own wine.

You just can't buy marketing like that.

Categories: wine, cooking shows, Portugal

Douro table wines

2006-06-08T23:47:00.000-04:00

Portuguese table wines are not new. The Portuguese people have always enjoyed them. What is new is that now they're beginning to share.

On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to try some myself when Dixie Gill met with me on trip through Ohio. Gill is the director of marketing and communications for a company that represents Symington Family Estates brands (Dow's, Graham's, Blandy's, etc.). Her goal on this trip was to meet with wine writers (of which she agreed Ohio has many) and introduce them to this little-enjoyed category of table wine.

The Symington family's involvement in Port companies began in 1905 when Andrew James Symington became a partner in Warre & Co., the country's oldest Port shipper. Later generations of Symingtons went on to acquire other family-owned Port houses. Gill told me that because of the beneficios system, which limits Port production, extra grape yield either went to waste or could be used for table wine, which they made for themselves. More recently the Symingtons have decided to invest in their wine-making facilities and sell this bounty.

The wines are not single-varietal, and the grapes are hardly recognizable. Port is a blend of numerous grapes, but Gill says the Symingtons are focusing on between three and five varietals for their table wines, to allow each grape to bring a particular characteristic to the wine. If that sounds like a Bordeaux philosophy, you're right. Winemaker Bruno Prats, who is responsible for some of these wines, is a fixture in Bordeaux.

On Tuesday, we tasted three table wines from Douro, the key region in Northeast Portugal.

The first example, the 2004 Vale do Bomfim Reserva (about $8 a bottle), was the most rustic of the three and comes from Dow's. It's a blend of 40 percent Tinta Roriz (Tempranillo), 40 percent Touriga Franca and 20 percent Tinta Barroca. The nose is spicy and hot, as you might imagine it would be from such a warm region. It's full with exceptionally ripe, dark fruit, but dry and highly tannic on the finish. The wine we drank had been open for 24 hours, and I imagine it could have withstood another day. Case production is at 4,000 cases, so availability is limited, but the company hopes to expand to about 10,000 cases.

The second wine in the flight was the Chryseia 2002 Post Scriptum (about $25). The 2002 is the first release from this label, but the 2004 is the current vintage. Post Scriptum grapes (60 percent Touriga Nacional, 25 percent Touriga Franca and 15 percent Tinto Cao) are sourced from top upper Douro vineyards. The wine sees nine months of new French oak. It has a warm nose, but alcohol on this red is only 12.5 percent. The flavors are more sophisticated: tobacco, ripe black cherry and plum and touch of rich earth. About 3,000 cases.

The top-line offering was the 2003 Chryseia (about $65), which in Greek means "golden." The blend is Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz and Tinto Cao. It has a spicy plum nose and a bit of tartness and strong tannins on the finish, but in between, it's dark cherry and cocoa flavors. It's a powerful wine, about 14.5 percent alcohol, and exhibits much more so than the others some of the elegant characteristics of Port. About 3,000 cases.

Categories: wine, Port

Taking the "screw this" out of opening wine

2006-06-05T11:42:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

I have tiny, birdlike hands and the strength of a small child. Watching me open bottle of wine is like watching my 17-year-old cat try to jump from the floor to the table. Painful.

What I've discovered is it all comes down to the corkscrew.

Opening a bottle of wine with the right tool is like pulling on the perfect pair of jeans. It just feels good. For me, the only acceptable species of corkscrew is the two-step wine knife, or waiter's corkscrew (pictured on the right). It has a built-in foil knife and levered construction. One side of the lever has an extra knob that allows for a first, short step to pull the cork halfway out; then, the second notch frees the cork fully and with ease. Now, the real men and women among us will find the one-stepper sufficient. We have a beautiful one-stepper (pictures on the left). It's a Laguiole, it has heft, it even has its own case. I hate it. For us weaklings, the two-stepper is essential.

Other slayers of the cork have tried and failed. A quick survey of our kitchen reveals:

The rabbit-style countertop mount (dirty minds, hush) - effective, but bulky.

The Cork Pop - fun, but when the pressure cartridge runs out, then where are you?

The "T" pull - classic, but weak hands need not apply.

Oh, yes, the list goes on. There's the butterfly, or double lever, my tormenter for several years, and the prong, a puzzle of the highest order. Others swear by these contraptions. Different strokes for different folks.

Screw caps, anyone?

Wine and video games

2006-06-01T19:48:00.000-04:00

Sony in Japan is launching "lifestyle" products for the older gamer - wine glasses and corkscrews, along with watches and T-shirts, all with PlayStation symbols.

I may be misreading the gaming world, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and call this a bad pairing.

Categories: wine, wine pairings, PlayStation

Wine Blogging Wednesday #22

2006-06-01T15:24:00.000-04:00

The next installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday, set for June 14, has been announced. Tim at Winecast wants us to get out our magnifying glasses and search our red wine labels for low alcohol content (12.5 percent or less). I sense a treasure hunt a-brewin'.

Until I dove into the blogosphere, I was mostly, maddeningly, unaware that the ever-increasing alcohol content of wine was such a hot (pun intended) topic. With the Robert Parkers of the world drowning out other voices with their cry of "the bigger the better!" you get the impression that the wine world is one big, sophisticated kegger.

Not so, and this is why I love wine bloggers - they tell the other story. Alcohol levels of 13.5 percent haven't always been the norm. Alcohol content started to rise, though, as Americans demanded greater fruit extraction for their soda-pop palates.

Moderate alcohol reds are out there, though. Somewhere. Think cooler climates. Look to New York state, the Loire Valley in France and some of the lighter-bodied reds of northern Italy. The real challenge, as I see it, will be to find a California red that comes in under the limit.

I've got some ideas, but I'm not telling.

Yard work + mojito = all better

2006-05-29T22:50:00.000-04:00

Grass clippings are picnics and sauvignon blanc and Frisbee and childhood chores. It's the smell, pungent and damp and somehow clean. But as the Chef, who was drafted into service, ran the mower over the lawn this weekend, he sliced into something possibly more fragrant - mint.

We had a good bit of it, it turns out, hiding on the edges of ill-defined flower beds. The scent carried from the side of the house to the back where I was weeding and contemplating the arrangement of our hostas. It was bright and fresh, everything that I was not after several hours in unusually warm May weather.

I wanted something cool and herbal and sweet to drink. Not tea. Mojitos.

We had already planned a dinner: a roasted chicken with lemon and fresh thyme tucked under the skin, a light lemon pan sauce with rice and grilled asparagus and endive. Mojitos, the literary, Cuban cousin of the mint julep, would be the perfect prelude.

To be honest, I'd never made a mojito and still haven't because I know the magic words: "Baby, will you make me a drink?" It works. It really works.

I did, however, dig out the recipe. Originally published in Gourmet in 1943, it comes from the famous Key West bar Sloppy Joe's. The original Sloppy Joe was Joe Russell, a fishing and drinking companion of Ernest Hemingway, whose favorite drink was the mojito.

The recipe calls for, per 12-ounce glass:
1 lime, halved
fresh mint sprigs
1 Tbsp. sugar (use superfine if you have it)
1 oz. of white rum (we used Goslings Black Seal rum instead because we prefer it and I think the layer of dark liquid is wonderfully sultry)
1/3 cup of club soda
crushed ice

Squeeze the juice from both lime halves into a glass, then add the halves themselves. Add the mint and sugar, and crush the mint with the back of a spoon (or a muddler) until the sugar is dissolved. Add rum and stir. Add ice, then top off drink with sparkling water and stir. Serves 1.

Categories: cocktails, herbs, recipes

Wine Spectator awards

2006-05-27T00:17:00.000-04:00

Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

There they sit atop the bar in all their framed glory. They're so impressive, so authoritative and so perfectly ridiculous.

They're the Wine Spectator wine list awards, coveted pieces of paper that say to the customer: We take wine seriously! We've been recognized! We're top notch!

What they should be saying is: We've got cash.

That's what it takes for a restaurant to snag such an honor. Diversity, breadth, logic, value, cohesiveness - none of this matters much. Wine Spectator just wants the money - 200 bucks, to be exact, payable by credit card or check in U.S. dollars to M. Shanken Communications.

It's not even a lot of money. The corner pizzeria could theoretically "win" one of these awards and tack it on the wall above the cash register, so long as its wine list breaks 80 bottles. There, beyond the $200, is what Wine Spectator's Restaurant Awards Program is all about - length.

A list of about 80 bottles or more earns the Award of Excellence; 400 bottles-plus wins the Best of Award of Excellence, and a whopping 1,250 bottles or more takes home the Grand Award. The Spectator does pay lip service to recognizing "a commitment to a fine wine list, with a sufficient selection of better producers." Vagaries. Wine lists without a decent bottle to be had have rested on these awards.

The Spectator is by no means alone. Wine Enthusiast has a similar program. The cost is less - $100 - and the application guidelines are described in a touch more detail. Such things as a restaurant's commitment to education and proper wine storage are taken into consideration. The effect is the same, though. An award from a high-circulation glossy gives a restaurant palpable credibility, warranted or not.

They're powerful things, these awards, like a 90-point rating for your restaurant. People see the generic, yellowish certificate and immediately they feel they can commit no ordering sins. They feel at ease. They feel safe. They shouldn't.

Categories: wine, wine magazines

Connoisseur? Moi?

2006-05-26T13:44:00.000-04:00

Aw, shucks.

The Gourmets of Wine (one of those aggregation sites) describes its offerings as "wine tasting sessions led by true connoisseurs." And there's one of my posts.

True connoisseur? Me? Accidental, maybe. To be honest, I have no precise concept of a connoisseur. Perhaps our good friend Merriam Webster can help:

con·nois·seur n. 1 : EXPERT; especially : one who understands the details, technique, or principles of an art and is competent to act as a critical judge;
2 : one who enjoys with discrimination and appreciation of subtleties (a connoisseur of fine wines)

Expert? Certainly not me. The more I learn, the more I taste, the more it becomes clear how very little I know.

Competent to act as a critical judge? Dear, God, that's a bit presumptuous, isn't it? My published remarks on wine here and in the paper really are just suggestions. It's so much better to give people the tools with which to make their own judgments.

One who enjoys with discrimination? Well, yes, but by that measure, I'm also a connoisseur of dish soap and lip balm.

I wonder if they have blogs for that sort of thing.

Categories: wine, wine blogs

1979 Chateau Margaux

2006-05-25T14:45:00.000-04:00

This little gem from my birth year came into our possession the other week.

I have no first-hand intel on this wine; I've never had a '79. I did some digging, though, for others' thoughts:

Fork and Bottle - "Slightly corked (IMHO). Very acidic and tannic which obscures the fruit."
Rogov's Ramblings - "One of the most straightforward and fruity Margaux wines ever produced. Medium to full bodied, with lots of black currant, black cherry and smoky wood aromas, the wine is perfectly ready for drinking now. Score 90."
Wine Journal - "A deep garnet core. A knock-out nose of ripe raspberry, burnt toast and roasted herbs. The palate was initially quite aggressive and tannic (just as Michael Broadbent comments) but with an hour in the glass, the wine smooths out, though loses its fruit intensity and finesse. Not as elegant as the 1978, but still a fine Margaux for the vintage, though not in the league of the 1980`s wine. A burly, masculine Margaux to be drunk before 2006."

I have no idea when we'll drink this or, when we do, how it will have weathered the years and multiple owners. Can't wait to find out.

Categories: wine, French wine

Wine Blog Wednesday

2006-05-25T13:23:00.000-04:00

I'm back after an unplanned hiatus here at Vin Vini Vino. It's amazing how life gets in the way of important things, like, you know, blogging.

I didn't completely ignore my first Wine Blog Wednesday, which this month was - maddeningly - on a Friday. I have to say, a wine-cooking event - especially on a Friday - was a bit of a struggle for me. It's not that we don't cook at Chez Pete and Trish. Believe me, we cook. But, because I'm also a copy editor at the newspaper, I get off work well after most of you have said your prayers and pulled up the covers. Still, the Chef and I are stalwart late-nighters. He prepared a plate of grouper cheeks with fiddlehead fern cream, sauteed ramps (a wild leek of sorts) and cremini, shitake and oyster mushrooms with roasted leek risotto. Fish cheeks, by the way, have the most amazing texture, almost like crab. Killer midnight snack, no?

We paired it with one of my favorite chardonnays, the Jean-Marc Brocard 2003 Bourgogne Kimmeridgien ($17.99). The kimmeridgien clay in the Chablis area is famous for its marine fossils, which give the wine flinty, mineral qualities that matched perfectly with the earthy mushrooms and leeks. The citrus fruit of the Kimmeridgien is reminiscent of a velvety lemon tart, and the finish is crisp and clean, a brilliant contrast to the creamy risotto and and fiddlehead fern sauce.

I know the assignment for WBW #21 and IMBB #26 was to choose a dish and then find a wine to a pair with it or find a wine and come up with the perfect complimentary dish, but I'm not sure what came first: the chicken or the egg. We thought of it more as perfectly formed meal, wine and food together. That's as it should be.

Categories: wine, wine blogs, chardonnay, French wine

Drink for thought

2006-05-22T11:10:00.000-04:00

Last week was hard.

It was the kind of week that, at the end of it, requires a good friend and the phrase "Let's sort this out over a glass of wine. Or a bottle." Last week was a bottle.

Wine's like that. Wine and coffee and tea. You never hear some say, "Let's sit down and hash this out over a six-pack." It's just not said. There's something about the ceremony of certain beverages that makes them more thoughtful. The accoutrements - the kettle, the cream, the sugar, the stemware, the corkscrew - add necessary pause to the process. Sometimes we need pause.

Some wines that have given me pause:

Mas de La Dame 1999 Coin Cache Rouge ($24.99) - From Les Baux de Provence. A blend of mostly grenache and a little syrah. Spicy red fruit on the nose, velvety texture with a glint of herb. Exceptional structure and moderate alcohol (12.5 percent). Refined. My notes say "I would buy this again and again."

Giampaolo Motta 2002 La Massa ($39.99) - A SuperTuscan blend of sangiovese, merlot and cab. Concentrated burgundy color. Mushroom, coffee and black cherry on the nose and a palate of fig, dark fruit and mineral. "Dirty, but sexy" was my note.

Louis Guntrum 2004 Niersteiner Oelberg Riesling Beerenauslese (about $59) - The first Beerenauslese I'd had. Rieslings come in levels: Kabinett, Spatelese, Auslese, Beerenauslese, and Trockenbeerenauslese. This wine has a honey color and viscous texture, a bouquet of honeysuckle and persimmon, a little cool flintiness and amazing acidity. Drink with a first course of foie gras (unless you live in Chicago) or after dinner with a shared bowl of almonds.

Categories: wine, Provence, Italian wine, riesling

Stelzner wine dinner

2006-05-18T10:09:00.000-04:00

The Chef didn't enjoy dinner nearly as much as I did. Of course, he didn't get to eat.

While he was preparing food for a restaurant full of people, about 60 of us were listening to Allison Stelzner of Stelzner Vineyards talk about her family, which has been making wine for more than 40 years in the Stags Leap district. Dinner last night was five courses, each paired with a Stelzner wine. Allison, who is young and vivacious, was by far the best speaker I've heard at a wine dinner. She's national sales director for the winery and has an uncanny ability to put a room at ease. Part of that might be because she used the word shit (twice), and at that point, we knew we had a live one.

One of my favorite things about wine dinners is listening to the room come to life. You begin with a group of people who enjoy wine and food and at least know enough about the former to come to a dinner like this. Everyone's quiet, though, and perhaps a little intimidated. Maybe they've not have had five paired courses before. Without fail, though, by the second course, the noise level in the room has elevated and people have stopped concentrating and started eating.

The food makes or breaks a wine dinner. The wines themselves can be mediocre (and in our case, some of them were), but if they're paired properly they'll show well (and these did). Full disclosure: I am completely and utterly biased because I love this restaurant and the man who runs the kitchen. There. Moving on.

Our first course, paired with the 2004 Oak Knoll Estate Sauvignon Blanc ($14.99), was herb-and-garlic rubbed flat bread with grilled ramps, fiddlehead ferns, goat cheese and ricotta salata. I wanted to pick this up and eat it, but I didn't. I was good. I used my knife and fork like everyone else. I won't bore you with the details of these pairings, but I will say that this SB has a slightly mushroomy nose, which was excellent with the goat cheese.

The second course, which I thought was the strongest pairing of the evening, was a frittata with a bit of angel hair pasta on the bottom, seasoned eggs, seared sea scallops, julienned red and yellow peppers and leeks. It was baked and topped with wilted spinach. The wine was the 2004 Oak Knoll Estate Chardonnay ($19.99). My notes say, simply, "yum."

The third course was a deconstructed clam chowder with a hollowed-out red-skin potato filled with whole clams, a square of bacon and fresh parsley surrounded by a clam-bacon-and-leek broth. Bacon and rose are perfect together, but the 2005 Allison Rose of Syrah ($14.99) was my least favorite wine of the evening. The wine bears Allison's name not because of a "daddy tribute," as she says, but because it was her project. She ran with it when dad said, "I don't make pink wine." Let me say without hesitation that I adore pink wine. I just didn't care for this one. I thought it smelled like watermelon Laffy Taffy and finished flat. I'll add that the Chef disagrees with me.

The fourth course was the 2003 Claret ($16.99), my favorite wine of the six and the only one I'd had before this dinner. It was paired with truffle risotto drizzled with lavender-infused honey. Oh, yes.

And the last course: cap steak flanked by chive crepes filled with mashed potatoes, asparagus and oil-cured tomatoes. It was served with both the 2002 Merlot ($27.99) and the 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon ($34.99), Stags Leap district, to give people an opportunity to taste both wines. The dish paired better with the cab, which was pleasantly restrained - good, spicy red fruit on the nose, strong tannins and a bit of blueberry on the palate.

At the end of the meal, everyone was well sated and happy to speak less formally with Allison, who obliged. Some of us slunk off to the bar to check up on the Cavs-Pistons game. LeBron and the boys won, by the way, which if you were at Vaccaro's last night (or any other restaurant in Ohio) you didn't have to be in front of the TV to guess. The general cheer was indication enough. And it had nothing to do with the wine.

Note: I apologize for the glaring lack of photographs. The lighting in the dining room wasn't working for me, and while the Chef had planned to take some in the kitchen with the better camera, he was understandably busy.

Categories: wine, wine pairings, restaurants

The dirt on wine

2006-05-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

Coolest thing a winemaker can do on a marketing trip: Bring soil samples.

Rob Fischer, assistant at Napa-based Ancien Wines, spoke with me last week while he was in town. (I'd have had a mug for you, but alas, the intricacies of my new camera phone were still eluding me.) Fischer brought, along with four wines from his portfolio, spice jars filled with dirt from Carneros, Napa and the Russian River Valley, where Ancien sources its grapes.

The dirt was a brilliant visual and sensory aid, especially for a collection of wines that included two completely different examples of pinot noir. It's stunning to see the difference in soil from plots located just miles from one another. I wanted to touch and smell the dirt. One guy, Fischer told me, tasted it. Smart man.

The wines we tasted were lovely, for the most part, and more modestly priced than many smaller-production offerings. The only one I didn't care for was the 2002 Chardonnay from Carneros ($32.99), which was thick with new oak. Fischer says the '02 is not representative of newer vintages in style (I did not have the opportunity to taste). The 2005 Pinot Gris from Carneros ($24.99) was the sleeper of the bunch with a vibrant nose and a slightly creamy palate balanced with stunning acidity on the finish.

Still, for me, the dirt was the biggest hit. So I'm making a plea to winemakers and marketers: If you value that land that produces your grapes, share that with the people to whom you're trying to sell wine. Make the connection. Display soil samples at tastings. Encourage people to examine, smell, feel, even to taste.

Then give them a glass of wine to wash it down.

Categories: wine, chardonnay, pinot noir, terroir

To-do list for a lazy, gloomy day off

2006-05-16T18:22:00.000-04:00

Spoon.

Catch up on reading.
The Accidental Connoisseur by Lawrence Osborne - I recommend. A hysterical collection of wine essays that, in the end, amount to a really rewarding journey.

Eat comfort food, drink comfort wine.
Wine just doesn't get much more satisfying than a simple Rhone. This Domaine Peysson Vinsobres 2003 Cotes du Rhone Villages (about $11) is what we're working through in our cellar. It's got great red cherry and plum fruit with that southern France earth and a bit of spice on the finish. It's imported by United Estates Wine Imports Ltd., a company I've come to trust immensely. It's run by a husband-and-wife team out of Columbus, Ohio, who focus on southern France. There's a great story there, but another time.

P.S. - That's not a coffee stain on the lable; that's how it looks.

Categories: wine, books, Cotes du Rhone

Monday Hangovers

2006-05-15T13:37:00.000-04:00

You've heard of the Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

They snickered at me, I just know it.

I was sitting at a restaurant a couple of years ago in Brooklyn, where a good friend lives. There were three of us girls sitting down to dinner after a long day of walking, chatting and gelato hunting. We were ravenous - and quite thirsty. Glasses of white were ordered to start, as well as a bottle of shiraz for our entrees.

When the shiraz arrived, the server poured and went on his way. We swirled, we sipped, we realized: This wine is far too warm. Amid the sea of people in this restaurant, we were able to flag down our server.

"This wine is too warm," I said.
"It's red wine," he said.
"I know. Could you chill it down just a bit?"
"It's red wine," he said again. "It's not supposed to be cold."
"Not cold," I said, "just not so warm." Not so bath-water temperature was what I was thinking.

He whisked it away and had it placed in the cooler. Some exchange took place with the bartender that I couldn't quite make out. I imagine it was something along the lines of "stupid girls want their red wine chilled" and "morons! Why not order white?"

So few restaurants (or people, for that matter) store or serve their wine at the proper temperature. Whites are often too cold and reds too warm. It's not hard to understand, really. Temperature-controlled storage is expensive and requires precious space. It also requires education. Wine should be stored at a certain temperature, about 50 degrees Fahrenheit for long-term storage. White should be served between 45-55 degrees and reds 55-65. Click here and here for detailed temperature charts.

Our evening in Brooklyn wasn't spoiled. Our wine came back some time later that evening, colder than it needed to be, which was OK. We knew it would warm up in minutes. We also knew we were right.

Categories: wine, wine storage, restaurants

A Mother's Day bouquet

2006-05-14T18:31:00.000-04:00

My mom, who sadly lives too far away to visit this Mother's Day, has a pet name for wine and cocktails. She calls them "serenes" because they soothe her. "I'll take a serene, please," she'll say. It's adorable.

Moms deserve a bit of relaxation now and again, so here's a bouquet of serenes, freshly picked and guaranteed good even after Mother's Day:

Something good for her health. A portion of the proceeds from Chatom Vineyards She Wines Red and She Wines Semillon (both $12) goes to heart disease research and to breast cancer research, from the red and white respectively.

Something sweet, maybe with a hint of chocolate, like Stuart Cellars 2000 Zinfandel Port ($46).

A spa treatment, perhaps an exfoliating red-wine bath or a red-wine facial, offered at some Ritz Carltons.

Something pink and bubbly.

A night out. Check LocalWineEvents.com for ideas in your area.

Or how about a night in with her choice of serenes? My mom's pick: margaritas.

Cheers, Mom!

Categories: wine, Mother's Day, holidays, gifts

The "new" Italian wine

2006-05-13T14:12:00.000-04:00

I love meeting Italian wine people. I get to say things like ciao! and grazie mille! - the only Italian words I store in my immediate memory. Italian wine people talk with their hands, which lets me know I'm not the only person in the world who needs both upper limbs to make a point. And I love the way Italians think about wine, even as they're busy formulating a "New World Approach to an Old World Classic."

That phrase makes me squirm. It's a roundabout way of saying, "We're approachable! We want to sell and, yes, we're pandering!" It's marketing. And while the PR materials may say one thing, if you watch and listen to an Italian wine person, you get the real story.

Yesterday, I was tasted on a series of Italian wines, mostly Chiantis, from Da Vinci Winery (how timely), which is based in the town of Vinci and has vineyards throughout Chianti. A very dapper man, Giovanni Nencini, vice president of sales and marketing, spoke to us about dry farming, the hot '03 vintage and his affinity for The Sopranos. After we'd tasted through the flight and people started revisiting the wines they liked best, Giovanni went back to the first wine, the $13 wine. So I asked the question wine people (including me) hate: "Which is your favorite?" He looked annoyed, thought a bit and said something about the riserva, but when it came down to it, what Giovanni opens at home, when he's not entertaining, is a table wine. Simple, rustic, not much to think about, just wine.

So while I, too, enjoyed the '02 riserva - which is culled from what they consider the best vineyards in Vinci, not Classico - the Da Vinci 2004 Chianti seemed like the best expression of everyday Italian wine. It has an aromatic cherry nose, juicy (not jammy) fruit with firm, young tannins and a peppery finish that brings out the wine's 5 percent of syrah. It also has just a little bit of dirt.

The other wines in the flight seemed too clean, too big, too "fruit-forward," too...American. That, in itself, is not a bad thing; it's just not Italian. For me, for my money, I'll skip the "New World Approach" and drink what the Italian's having.

Categories: wine, Chianti, red wine

1985 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Rose

2006-05-11T15:00:00.000-04:00

Our wedding album arrived yesterday, about seven months after our wedding. There's something about a day like that that just can't be captured on film, so we were less than eager to make decisions about the one tangible thing we'd be able to take away.

Still, now that it was here, we rushed home from work late last night to open it, together. It came in a black box, wrapped in cloth and weighed about 20 pounds. "It had better be wrapped in cashmere for how much it cost" was what I said, still bitter about bill. Silly girl. The prints were rich, the joy was evident, the details were captured. I cried.

Crying, to the Chef, must equal Champagne because that's what we opened. It seemed like the thing to do, even in the wee hours of the morning. We used the good Champagne flutes, the two I haven't managed to break. The 1985 Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Rose Reserve was perfect. Put in a bottle long before I came of legal drinking age, its bubbles were fine, like pinpoints, better than the one bottle of Krug I had a couple of years ago. The color was not quite pink, but salmon, and while the nose was strawberries, not a hint of yeast, the flavor I couldn't quite put my finger on. It was more tart, almost like dried apple rings. Delicate and emotional.

Like memories.

Categories: wine, Champagne

Mixology, my a**

2006-05-10T14:10:00.000-04:00

Peter Thompson for The New York Times
At Moto in Chicago, Mike Ryan uses a laser to tease smoke out of a vanilla bean; it will flavor the red wine that will be poured into the glass.

This photo, companion to a NYT story in today's Dining & Wine section, affects me on a visceral level. How is this even remotely OK?

Winemakers produce their wines with a specific ideal in mind, and this amateur scientist is taking it upon himself to alter the experience. It's anathema to how we think about wine and wine service. From a business standpoint, you've got to wonder why the restaurant buys wine it plans to change anyway. Do they put that little care into their wine selections? Or do they buy low-end wine especially for this "drink." I have to call it a drink because it much more resemebles a cocktail than a proper glass of wine.

To be fair, the NYT article does focus on the art of mixed drinks. Yay, great, I'm all for that. But how utterly bizarre to infuse a flavor into a glass of wine.

Now, if it's homemade sangria we're talking about, I have to take a different position and say, "Please pass the pitcher."

Categories: wine, cocktails, wine news

Harmony

2006-05-10T13:24:00.000-04:00

Room for both.

Categories: wine, photos

Hangovers

2006-05-08T12:13:00.000-04:00

You've heard of the Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

High heels? Love 'em. Handbags too small to hold anything? Got several. Pocket dogs too small to fetch? I covet. Function over form? Pshaw. I've never been guilty of that - except when it comes to stemware.

As if the catalogue of wine glasses wasn't elaborate enough, people insist on making (and buying) glasses that are colored, oddly shaped and just plain wrong for wine. The worst offense comes from Riedel, which has no excuse because in general it makes perfect stemware, stemware I'd like to own if I didn't have the uncanny ability to break glasses while washing them.

The Riedel O tumblers are just not the way to drink wine. Beautiful, yes, these glasses are stunning, and if I were drinking a cocktail, they might be very comfortable. We're not talking about cocktails, though. We're talking about wine, and you don't hold wine by the bowl of the glass. It's bad news for the temperature of whites and reds. Hold it from the top, you say? Usually, that's what I do at restaurants when I'm held hostage to these things. The problem then is the oil from your hands. If your fingertips are up near the rim of the glass, the natural oils interfere with the taste of the wine. Trivial concern? Maybe. If you're spending upwards of $60, $70 or more on a restaurant bottle? Maybe not.

Categories: wine, stemware

A kinder sauvignon blanc

2006-05-07T14:27:00.000-04:00

I worry about sauvignon blanc. I hold no delusions that it cares about me, but really, I do worry about it.

It's the sidekick wine that's suddenly found itself holding court. After its good friend chardonnay took a bit of a tumble in the popularity contest, sauvignon blanc slid right in there, and good for it. It showed Americans you don't have to be all butter and oak to win hearts and taste buds.

Like all sudden stars, though, it's in danger of letting this attention pigeonhole it - typecast it, if you will. It's the tendency of handlers and packagers to find the quality that makes their subject a standout and then to play it up, maybe even exaggerate it. In sauvignon blanc's case, we're looking at brightness, acidity. It's such a beautiful part of sauvignon blanc, but now everything's uber acidic.

I'm just giddy when I find an SB that's pretty and bright without giving everyone around the table instant heartburn. This Mount Nelson 2004 Sauvignon Blanc, produced by the Antinori family's Tenuta Campo Di Sasso in New Zealand's Marlborough region, is one with exceptional balance. It's 100 percent SB with a light, sunny color and a nose of lemon grass (and a touch of petrol, which benefits from letting it open up a bit). It has a bit of roundness, but vibrant grapefruit flavors.

No antacid required.

Categories: wine, white wine, sauvignon blanc

Spinach and bacon salad

2006-05-06T15:06:00.000-04:00

Salads.

I love them when I'm cooking for just me. They're so simple - so easy to make just the right amount, so easy to modify to taste. A couple of caveats, though. First, I have an appetite; salads tend to leave me hungry. Second, they're a devil to pair with wine, and that's because of so many vinegar-based dressings.

None of those problems here, though, not with this spinach and bacon salad. Nope, no such issues. Hard-boiled egg and crumbled bacon fill the stomach void and a sour cream-based dressing answers the wine question. Well, sort of. There's still the question of what pairs well. My vote's for syrah, just not for some big, peppery monster.

The Waterbook Winery 2004 Syrah was a nice match. From Washington's Columbia Valley, it's a blend of mostly syrah, with grenache and viognier. It has an elegant texture, perhaps a little light, with flavors of smoke, black cherry and earthy spice. A surprisingly long finish. About $21.

Spinach and Bacon Salad

Two handfuls of washed, dried spinach
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
1 strip of peppered, thick-cut bacon, crumbled
4 shitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced thinly
1/2 garlic clove
kosher salt
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of sour cream
1 tablespoon of lemon juice
1 teaspoon of superfine sugar
Ground pepper to taste
Grated Parmesan Reggiano

Combine spinach, chopped hard-boiled egg, crumbled bacon and shitakes in a salad bowl. For the dressing, mince the garlic and then sprinkle over with kosher salt. Using the flat of a chef's knife, cut into the garlic with the salt until a paste forms. Pour olive oil into a small bowl. Add garlic paste, sour cream, lemon juice and sugar. Wisk until completely smooth. Toss with salad. Finish off with grated cheese. A slice or two of buttered, crusty bread, and you're done. Serves 1.

Categories: syrah, recipes, wine pairings, salads

From the wires

2006-05-05T15:23:00.000-04:00

* Of money spent on alcohol, 17.5 percent of it comes from underage drinkers. Since I still get carded - and 10 years ago, forget about it - I'm not really sure how this happens. Still, it seems the bigger problem is one-quarter of underage drinkers meet criteria for alcohol abuse and dependence, compared to less than 10 percent of those 21 and older. Think law enforcement's going to fix this? Nope. This is a cultural problem, and fixing it starts with parents. Demystify, teach, give kids tiny amounts of wine with dinner.

* USA Today is toasting a new wine blog, called Cheers, set to start May 12. Writer Jerry Shriver is focusing on wines $15 and under - a smart move. Let's just hope he doesn't come to the end of the barrel too quickly.

* The Missouri Senate recently passed a law allowing culinay students younger than 21 to taste wine. Is anyone else appalled that this even needed to be a laBureaucracyacy at its finest.

* Australian export prices are down a third since 2002. Some are blaming the grape glut, while others say it's just bad marketing. I blame Yellow Tail.

* It's now easier to give a wine a vintage, thanks to reworked regulations that say just 85 percent of grapes used must come from a given year. Only wines from very general appellations, like simply "California," get the break. It's a slippery slope, though, and it's just one more way the wine industry is confusing the consumer, ostensibly by making things less bound to tradition.

Categories: wine news, wine laws

Cinco de Mayo and margaritas

2006-05-05T12:46:00.000-04:00

Americans have more than a casual affection for margaritas. Chain restaurants devote pages of their menus to them, college bars dispense them from machines, backyard mixologists have perfected them. According to some sources, it's the most popular mixed drink in the country. The margarita, apparently, was first conceived as a sidecar with tequila. Where this fit of ingenuity first happened is a question of some controversy. It could have been London, Texas, Mexico, anywhere really.

What is certain is margaritas are almost always associated with Mexico and its food. With Cinco de Mayo this year coming on the heels of intense national immigrant debate, this story of this import-turned-American staple is just a little sweeter. Sweet or tart, though, frozen or on the rocks, everyone's got a different idea of what makes the perfect margarita, including me. Here's my list of margarita bests. Chime in if you disagree.

Best from-scratch margarita, a papa Colianne special - 1 lime wedge, coarse salt, 2 ounces Cuervo Gold tequila, 1 ounce Cointreau, 1 ounce lime juice. Mix in a shaker with ice, strain into a salt-rimmed glass. So clean and refreshing. Serves 1.

Best mix - Williams Sonoma Meyer Lemon and Key Lime Margarita Mix. It's the prefect balance of sweet and tart.

Best tequila - You don't need top-shelf tequila for margaritas, but if you're going to go all out, Reserva del Dueno. Such smooth tequila. And just FYI, shots of this with grapefruit chasers is nothin' but trouble.

Best restaurant margartia - TGI Friday's Ultimate Margarita. I'm not normally a fan of chain restaurants in any capacity, but this margarita nails it. Cuervo Gold, triple-citrus mix (with lemon, lime and orange). Yum.

Categories: Cinco de Mayo, margaritas, liquor, tequila

Wedding guest book

2006-05-03T15:32:00.000-04:00

Wedding season is upon us, which means brides, bubbly and, well, boredom.

Let's face it, weddings can be dull. Same old favors, same old music, same old guest book. (Look! It's the same one Aunt Milly had at her wedding!) Ugh. It doesn't have to be that way, especially if you enjoy wine. Instead of a guest book table, have a wine bottle guest book table. The idea is to create a "guest book" you won't toss in a drawer, but that you'll look at and enjoy over the years. Open a bottle on special anniversaries (say, every five) or events (the birth of a child). The details - how many bottles you'll have to sign, what kind of wine you want and how you'll present it - are entirely up to you.

I've got some tips from my wedding:

1. Use gold or silver paint pens.
2. Have an attendant at the table to remind people that others' signatures might not be dry.
3. Choose wines that have the potential to age. Champagne and big reds, like cabernet, work well.
4. Figure about 15-20 signatures per 750 ML bottle. If you want to cut back on the number of bottles, choose large-format vessels, which age better anyway.
5. Let people know what's up. Chances are guests have never seen this before, so place a card prominently on the table explaining what you've done.
6. Contact a winery and ask if they'll send you an empty bottle, which you'll have people sign and then send back to be filled with wine from the year of your wedding. Share it ten or twenty years later with family and friends.
7. Designate someone to bring the bottles to a room at some point during the reception. You don't want someone thinking they're part of the bar.

Categories: weddings, wine

Viticulture vocabulary

2006-05-03T13:47:00.000-04:00

OK, this is a little wine-geeky, but if you spend enough time around wine, you're bound to hear these terms bandied about: biodynamic, organic, sustainable. We hear these words because wine comes from grapes which comes from growers. Biodynamic farming in particular is drawing lots of attention - and opinions. Here's a quick primer for the rest of us (and by "quick," I mean thoroughly incomplete, so Google these terms for more detail).

Viticulture: The cultivation of grapevines or the study or science of grapes.

Organic: U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations require organically grown wines to free of radiation, pesticides, herbicides, bio-engineering and synthetic fertilizers. For a wine to be labeled organic, it must be certified by a state or federal agency in a three-year application process. Here's where the labels get tricky. Wines that are 100 percent organic come from grapes that entirely organically grown and do not have added sulfites. Wines that are simply organic get at least 95 percent of their ingredients from certified organic sources and may have some sulfites. Some wines are labeled made with organic grapes, meaning at least 70 percent of the grapes come from organic sources and sulfites may be added.

Biodynamic: Some people look at biodynamic farming as organics on steroids. Perhaps the biggest difference, though, is the philosophy behind it. This philosophy, put forth by Rudolf Steiner, predates organics and incorporates a spiritual and/or mystical component. The farm is seen as a living organism, and pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, etc. are a no-go. In biodynamics, however, special preparations (manure fermented in a cow horn) are applied to the crops with consideration given to lunar and cosmic phases. Sound a little out of the mainstream? Some very mainstream wineries have adopted this method of grape growing, including Fetzer Vineyards. Biodynamic wines are certified by the Demeter Association.

Sustainable: This definition is a little more elusive. Sustainable agriculture grew out of organics, and it is an integrated system of plant and animal production practices. This integration includes composting, pest management (see what ladybugs can do) and use of livestock. Put generally, "sustainable agriculture is economically viable, socially supportive and ecologically sound."

Categories: wine, vitculture, biodynamics, organic, sustainable growing

Election Day

2006-05-02T11:54:00.000-04:00

It's Election Day in Ohio, primary Election Day, that is. None of the races have much in the way of drama, save the GOP slugfest between gubernatorial candidates Kenneth Blackwell and Jim Petro. Since the returns aren't going to be much to watch, I'm casting my ballot for the best way to spend a rainy Election Day - after you vote, of course.

My vote: Celebrate the red, white and blues.

Red: Worthy 2003 Sophie's Cuvee, $25 ($35 in Ohio). Region: Napa Valley. Blend: 77 percent cab, merlot, petit verdot, cab franc. This wine smells like California, with a healthy dose of Rutherford dust. Yes, it's deep, jammy blackberry fruit, but it's also elegant. Subtly unfolds in the mouth - plum, vanilla, white pepper.

White: Jean-Marc Brocard 2003 Bourgogne Kimmeridgien, $17.99. Region: Burgundy, just south of Chablis. Varietal: Chardonnay. No, it's not American, but in this country we get freedom of choice - something to celebrate. Kimmeridgien clay in the Chablis area is famous for its marine fossils, which make the wine flinty, mineraly. The fruit is reminiscent of a creamy lemon tart, and the finish is crisp and clean. Drink: As an aperitif or with seafood dishes, like steamed mussels with lemongrass.

Blues: Me and Bobby McGee, Janis Joplin, 1971. "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. And it's nothin' baby if it ain't free."

Write-in votes welcome.

Categories: wine, Ohio, wine reviews, chardonnay, red wine

Rose - a dirty little secret?

2006-05-01T12:46:00.000-04:00

I'm coming clean with this right now: I like rosé. A lot.

I like it from Provence, I like it from California. I've liked it with Thai food, I've liked it with Mexican; in the winter and in the summer; at $7 and at $17. And I'm not alone. There's a whole organization dedicated to celebrating and clearing the good name of pink wine - dry pink wine.

So there. So lots of people like pink wine. But does anyone really take it seriously? Tasting wine the other day with a group of people whose knowledge of wine I give far greater credence to than my own, someone said that rosé (roh-ZAY) should never cost more than $12 a bottle. Why? Because the production process is so uninvolved? OK, I can sort of buy that, but not really. It's not sitting around aging in tanks and barrels, but not all wines do. Besides, you've still got the product cost, and with rose, it's all about the fruit. You can't disguise a bad vintage in rosé.

Rosé's still a dirty little secret, like the homely girl you get along with so well but don't want to introduce to your friends. You'll take her out, but you won't buy her dinner. So sad. But if you like rosé (even if you don't want to commit to it), there's a place you can go. Next Monday, May 8, is Pink Out! in New York City, and on July 17 the event returns to San Francisco, where last year over 400 people shared the joy of pink wine. Think of it as Rosé Wine Lovers Anonymous. Hello, I'm Tricia, and I drink pink wine.

Categories: rosé, wine events

Hangovers

2006-05-01T10:58:00.000-04:00

You've heard of the Monday blues? Here at Vin Vini Vino, we've got Monday Hangovers, a weekly dose of headaches, hangups and how-not-to's. Consider it your worst-case-scenario guide to wine. Grab an aspirin - we'll try not to yell.

It's our first installment of Monday Hangovers, so let's talk about how not to wake up feeling like a train wreck.

First, the obvious: Don't tip the bottle too much. Sure, that first bottle might be drinking really well, but the second one might not leave you feeling so hot. We're not all models of self-restraint, and if you do suck down more than your fair share, you've got options.

- Hydrate - glass of water for every glass of wine ought to do it and not just because you're too busy downing water to over-do the vino. Askmen.com suggests adding lemon to soothe the tummy. A glass of water by the bed helps, too, especially when you wake up with that lovely cotton-ball feeling in your mouth. Pretty.

- Bananas - Alcohol depletes the body of potassium and electrolytes. A banana in the morning does wonders, and lots of seasoned veterans swear by banana milkshakes sweetened with honey to boost blood-sugar levels.
aspirinsprin - Pop a couple right before bed. Do it again in the morning.

- Red wine - If you know it gives you a headache, don't poke the bear.

- Over-the-counter remedies - Alka Seltzer Morning Relief has saved my life once or twice.

- Sleep - Seriously, people, sleep it off. Just don't miss work.

Got other suggestions? Share!

Categories: wine, hangovers

New Orleans cellars lost

2006-04-29T12:02:00.000-04:00

Researching a story I'm writing on home wine cellars, I came across this Bloomberg article about the blows New Orleans restaurant cellars suffered post-Hurricane Katrina. Suffered really isn't the right word. People suffered. Lives and homes and history were lost, but surely there was history in the 30,000-bottle cellar Brennan's Restaurant lost.

What's truly depressing is many of these restaurants were in the French Quarter, which was spared serious flooding. At Brennan's they sat with shotguns to ward off looters, thinking if they could do that the cellar could be spared. At Antoine's, the city's oldest restaurant, they spent $15,000 a day to dry out its 16,000-bottle cellar. In the end, it wasn't the water that spoiled the bottles. It was the heat. No power, no air conditioning. An 1857 Lafite-Rothschild cooked.

Insurance payouts covered some of the monetary loss, although the corporate thieves then turned around and sold the damaged bottles to salvage companies. You can read about that consumer scam over at Cincinnati Wine Warehouse.

Many of these restaurants have reopened and are being well supported. Antoine's Web site urges patrons to make reservations early "due to overwhelming response." Brennan's is reopening next month. The dining community is resurrecting itself, as is the rest of the city. New memories will be made. How sad, though, that the one of the last memories these places will have of their legendary cellars will be the taste of "burnt sherry."

Categories: wine, wine news, wine cellars, New Orleans

Courts buck the Bronco

2006-04-29T00:56:00.000-04:00

Finally, the saga's complete.

Bronco Wine Co., which produces the illustrious Charles Shaw wines (aka Two Buck Chuck), has agreed to play by the rules of the appellation game. The company, which also produces the labels Napa Ridge, Napa Creek Winery and Rutherford Vintners, has until the end of September to fall in line, and by in line, the courts mean 75 percent of the grapes used must come from where the label suggests they come.

The French would never have this problem. See story.

Categories: wine, wine news, Two Buck Chuck

The cad

2006-04-28T10:52:00.000-04:00

Nice stems.

Categories: wine, photos

Red wine remover

2006-04-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

I've seen a lot of red wine spilled. It's been spilled on me, near me, on those whose laundry I do...sigh. There's nothing to do but suck it up and pre-treat.

On clothes, napkins and tablecloths, nothing's worked better for me than the Carbona Stain Devil No. 8 for Fruit and Red Wine. It has made like new a white Oxford shirt that had been doused with a glass of red. The other day, it cleaned stained napkins that had been sitting in the laundry chute for days. I'm a fan.

On carpets and upholstered furniture, the foamy Kaboom Instant Spot Remover is a miracle-worker if you use it immediately, although I don't think it's being made anymore. The same company makes OxiClean products, which has a carpet cleaner and spot remover. I imagine they work the same. Foam, blot, repeat. And pray.

Finally, on clothes when you're out and about and someone gestures wildly, knocking their glass of cab into you, Wine Away. Spray it on and the stain very nearly disappears. It's gone enough that you can continue your evening without a complete self-conscious meltdown. Purse-sized spray tubes are available, although it should be a rule that every restaurant keep this on hand. My favorite suggestion, though, is from the Wine Away Web site: Makes a great hostess gift. That's more of a bad omen, isn't it?

Update: Alert reader Scott from Illinois had this helpful home-brew tip to add:

"I spilled red wine on an off white carpet and tried the usual commercial products to remove the stain. Needless to say, none worked. A little additional research uncovered an amazing discovery that obliterated the red wine stain. A one to four ratio, hydrogen peroxide to water solution sprinkled or sprayed on the stain. Stain gone for good. I imagine the amount of hydrogen peroxide could be increased if the stain is not fully removed. Worked on the off white carpet but not sure how darker fabrics would react to this solution."

Thanks, Scott!

Categories: wine

Tastings

2006-04-27T11:12:00.000-04:00

Notes on a red and a white I ordinarily wouldn't try:

• Mouton Cadet 2004 Bordeaux ($7.99) - Sunshine yellow in the glass. A traditional blend of sauvignon blanc, semillon and muscadelle. Wildflower aromas with a mushroomy funk on the end. Uncharacteristic oaky roundness on the palate with a touch of citrus. Very little finish. A Business Week article from Monday looks at this brand's remaking and its hope that a new label and a more American flavor profile will position it as an entry-level star of the 2005 vintage. Interesting read, not interesting wine.

• Wild Horse 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon ($20) - Shocking red-plum color. This is stain-your-teeth-purple wine. Trust me, it wasn't pretty. Black fruit and licorice aromas. Highly extracted fruit on the palate, cocoa powder, allspice. Reminds me of baked goods. Somewhat flabby tannins for a cab, but overall a solidly enjoyable, if not terribly multdimensionalal, wine. Have it with equally juicy beef, ribs or lamb pasta.

Categories: wine, wine reviews, Bordeaux, cabernet sauvigon

An intelligent slice of vice, indeed

2006-04-26T10:18:00.000-04:00

I got my e-mail blast yesterday from Wine X magazine, but as usual, I trashed it without opening. I've been a disillusioned with the oh-so-hip glossy (mostly because I never seem to get my subscription), but Tom Wark at Fermentation posts today that they've revamped their Web site.

Aaiiiieeee! You know that feeling you get when you're standing in line at the grocery checkout with the new copy of US Weekly and it's all you can do to stop yourself from finding out right then and there why Brad and Angelina are fighting? No? Um, OK, maybe that's just me, but that's what Wine X does to me.

It's the trashy mag you don't want anyone to know you read, but damn if it isn't a brilliant idea. Say what you will about tasting notes that don't communicate anything, but this is just fun:

Jekel
2004 Riesling
Monterey $10
A Denny's counter waitress after a long, hard day - floral, crisp and only a hint of sweetness.

And you've got to love a teaser like this:

Go Shuck Yourself
There'’s nothin'’ better than fresh oysters, great wine, good friends and a bright sunny day.

So if you'll excuse me now, I have some X-rated reading to catch up on.

Categories: wine, wine news

Three-tier ambivalence

2006-04-25T15:19:00.000-04:00

Megaretailer Costco has won a lawsuit against the Washington State Liquor Control Board, with a federal judge ruling the state's three-tier system for distributing beer and wine violates antitrust laws. Let's pause for just a moment and think about the irony. A MEGARETAILER is fighting unfair pricing. Yikes.

Anyway, this could be big news for Ohio if the case, which could - and likely will - be appealed, makes its way to the Supreme Court. The Buckeye state has a distribution system remarkably similar to Washington's. Consumer advocates argue dismantling the system will bring lower prices and greater selection, while small distributors say they'll be undercut and run out by bulk pricing and larger operations. I've got to say, I'm pretty ambivalent about the whole system. I don't find I'm gouged price-wise by the mandatory Ohio markups. In fact, I find on some bottles I pay less than my family does in the Chicago area. With such stellar state distributorships - Langdon Shiverick and Vanguard are standouts - I don't find my selection curbed. Of course, how would I know? And I guess that's the point.

Still, I'd love it if someone tried to convince me to get passionate about this. In the meantime, pop over to Uncorked and check out the conversation over there.

Categories: wine, wine news, wine blogs, wine laws, Ohio

Snacky bites

2006-04-25T13:52:00.000-04:00

At Chez Chef and Trish, we've been quite the little entertainers lately, dishing up some seriously good snacks for our wine-loving friends. The art of the late-night wine smorgasbord isn't something just anyone can master. It takes spontaneity, creativity and - most importantly - the willingness to go to the grocery store at the last minute.

I'll be honest here: If it were up to me, we'd be having cheese and crackers. Good cheese and crackers, mind you, but cheese and crackers none the less. The chef would have none of that. Here's what we've been noshing on:

Olive-oil fried crostini topped with cranberry cheddar
Slices of peppery Tuscan salami
Brie (I can't not have it.)
Spanish fried almonds (You can make them yourself or buy them.)
Tiny wedges of fig-and-almond cake
Grilled speck and havarti sandwiches sliced out for individual nibbling

And what, you ask, have we been drinking with these bits of yum?

Good friend Scott brought over a bottle of the Paul Cheneau Artist Series Brut NV ($10.99), always a favorite and a champ with the salty almonds and spicy sausage. It's a straight-forward sparkler with notes of crisp apple, orange blossom honey and a little bit of yeast, although it's not at all bready.

I got to test-drive the Bastianich 2004 Tocai Colli Orientali del Friuli ($17.99), which will undoubtedly be a summer staple. From Italy's Friuli region, this wine comes from Joe Bastianich, son of restauranteur and queen of Italian cuisine Lidia. I'm usually skeptical of these kinds of ventures, but it's marvelous. Clean and fresh, but with the complexity of mineral, pronounced almond and soft peach flavors.

We've also been sipping on the Lyeth 2003 Sonoma County Meritage ($15.99), which we keep a stash of in our cellar for just these sorts of impromptu occasions. It's a blend of 48 percent cab, 30 percent merlot, 13 percent cab franc and 9 percent petit verdot. Deep crimson, blackberry, ripe plum and dusty leather aromas, with notes of dried cherries, bitter cocoa powder and smooth oak on the palate.

And, to think, I just wanted cheese and crackers.

Categories: wine, wine pairings, entertaining

Dandelion wine

2006-04-24T12:05:00.000-04:00

Dandelion wine used to make me think of Ray Bradbury and high school English class. Colorful, prickly, highly sentimental and a bit of a chore to get down.

I had never had dandelion wine, but I guessed it had more than a little in common with my classroom experience. When I finally did taste the wine covering a story on Ohio wineries, I decided my initial impression wasn't far off. What I didn't realize, though, was that plenty of people would disagree with me.

In Ohio's Amish country, people pop up like weeds at Breitenbach Winery's annual dandelion fest, which this year is May 5 and 6. It's a family event, where adults sample wine and children compete at dandelion picking and make dandelion jelly (another creation I'm not sure I'd want to taste). The festival's a tradition, and apparently so is cooking and making wine with the infernal lawn invader. I'm not a home winemaker, so I searched the Web looking for dandelion recipes that looked appealing Â– dandelion gravy, dandelion fritters, dandelion schnapps. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. If you've got a hankering, though, or maybe just a yard full of weeds, here are a few recipe sites to try. Enjoy!

Sunrise Herb Farm
Cooks.com
Delicious Living
Food & Wine dandelion salad with bacon and mushrooms

Categories: wine, Ohio, recipes

Frankenvines

2006-04-20T12:10:00.000-04:00

An article on SFGate.com today takes on the volatile issue of higher alcohol wines. Vine rootstocks may very well be the root cause of the phenomenon. These vines - Frankenvines, the reporter calls them - became prevalent after California grape growers realized too late in the 1980s that their rootstocks weren't resistant to the bug phylloxera. They started planting these Frankenvines in a mad frenzy and researchers are only now learning the implications.

"What we've done is we've uncoupled sugar ripeness from flavor ripeness," UC Davis enologist Linda Bisson says. "The sugars are getting too high too fast."

Bisson, however, seems to feel some nose-to-the-grindstone research and diligent watering will bring down those alcohol levels. The reporter ends with this thought:

Perhaps our grandchildren will enjoy fruit-forward, balanced wines of moderate alcohol like our great-great-great grandparents did.

Personally, I'm not so sure.

Beau at Basic Juice yesterday had an interesting post about the narrowing flavor profile of wine aimed at the American consumer. It seems, to me at least, big alcohol has become a part of the palate preference. I'm just guessing here, but mass producers doing well with higher alcohol wines probably aren't going to jump at the chance to get back, well, to their roots.

Categories: wine, wine news, alcohol

All dressed up and too chicken to go all out

2006-04-19T11:04:00.000-04:00

Most of us don't have money to burn.

We haven't won the Mega Millions lately, and we're fresh out of rich relatives. We're working stiffs, which means our pennies flow in moderation, and for many of us, it means our wine falls into two distinct categories: everyday and special occasion.

Where everyday wine ends and special occasion begins is different for everyone. For some of us, sentimentality comes into play. Did we buy it on a trip or did a close friend give it to us? Usually, though, it has to do with pricing. No matter where you draw that line, one problem remains fairly constant, and that, my friends, is knowing when to actually break down and drink that special occasion wine.

It isn't easy. Maybe someone's just won a promotion at work or you've finally managed to solve a Sunday crossword. You're ready to celebrate with that special bottle when a small but reasonable sounding voice weighs in with "wait! Tomorrow may bring an even more special occasion and then where will you be?" You put the bottle back. Before you know it, you've got a cellar full of special occasion wines and still can't come up with a reason to drink them.

I wish I had the right answer, a guide to knowing a special occasion when you see one. I'd sell it and make scads of money. I'd never again worry about drinking a prize bottle. As it is, I'm as bad as the next person when it comes to hoarding my treasures. For my birthday dinner, the chef brought to drink a 1997 Cerbaiona Brunello di Montalcino that we had bought on our honeymoon last year in Italy. My reaction? "No, no, we don't want to drink that." He, very sensibly, said, "Yes, we do."

So we did, and as one of our friends and dinner companions pointed out, few things are more enjoyable than good wine and good company. In fact, every time we've opened a "good" bottle, it's been with special people. And I haven't regretted a single one.

Categories: wine, Brunello

Bring out the barbarian

2006-04-18T12:44:00.000-04:00

A couple of wine-loving historians from northern Italy have traced the region's wine to Celtic beginnings, and they've started making wine according to ancient traditions. The Reuters story says the wine has "a strong herbal note and an unusually sandy aftertaste." That's some terroir.

Celtic tribes from farther north — known to the Romans as "Barbari" — conquered northern parts of Italy about 2,500 years ago, settled there and started draining marshes, cultivating land and growing vines.

"There is a bit of the barbarian in us," said Fulvio Pescarolo, 51, who is the ninth generation of farmers from the rice-growing western part of Lombardy. "We feel we are part of this nature."

I'm not sure how I feel about that "unusually sandy aftertaste," but talk of barbarians and Italian wine reminds me of the Meeker Barbarian, about $32. From Sonoma, it's a blend of Barbera and zin. Sound like a mistake? It was. The two wines were accidentally combined one year, and by the time anyone noticed, it was too late. Winemaker Charlie Meeker said that rather than toss out all that juice, they decided to see what might come of it. What they got, at least in the 2002 I tasted, was a wine that that has all the strength of Barbera – dried fruit and cigar smoke - tempered by aromatic, ripe, peppery zin.

It's not exactly a wine rooted in history, but it's a whole lot better than a mouthful of sand.

Categories: wine, wine news, Sonoma

Sew clumsy

2006-04-17T13:17:00.000-04:00

I love my cat. Really, I do. She's just lucky I have a sense of humor.

I cut open my hand Saturday night opening a can of her food, and was at the hospital until 4 a.m. With far-flung families, we didn't really have any plans for Easter, which turned out to be a good thing because I didn't feel much like doing anything besides whining. And wine-ing.

Today just happens to be my birthday, so shortly after midnight last night, we opened a bottle of bubbly with friends. Schramsberg 1998 J. Schram.

It's a chardonnay-based sparker from a great California producer. I hadn't had the 1998 before, and it was such a joy. Wonderful firm bubble texture, a bright nose of citrus, nuts and Bartlett pear, and great creaminess on the palate.

We have a cache of Schramsberg sparkling in our collection because we belong to their cellar club, which is really reasonably priced. It's roughly $90 quarterly, and for that you get a current release and a library wine. You also get to have a ready supply of sparkling on hand – sew essential.

Categories: wine, sparkling wine