Proof of Life -- And a Big Box of Rosé

Hello, friends. It’s been awhile.

Honestly, I’m not sure how to restart here, so I’m just going to ramble for a bit.

I intended to have a lot to say this year – was going to revamp things a bit and try to reboot the ol’ blog – but I started a new job at Penn State in October, which drew a lot of my energy, as did the day to day grind of surviving the reign of Der Gropenfűhrer.

2020 rolled around. The Sweet Partner in Crime and I decided to try to reset our respective livers. We more or less successfully completed a Dry January. Admittedly, we cheated a couple of times for special occasions (hey, Holly!) – but we managed to keep to the spirit of things.

Honestly, Dry January wasn’t as tough as I feared…at least for the first two weeks. We whipped up a supply of mocktails that kept us going, but I’ll tell you – the last week or so, until we staggered soberly across the finish line, were a real slog, because there were just some times that a glass of wine would have been perfect. We made it.

I lost some weight. I gained it back. I lost more. I weigh the same now as I did when I was half my current age. I started meditating regularly, which has been revelatory. Charlie and Rosie are still wonderful pups. The Sweet Partner in Crime was named a Fellow by the leading national organization in her field.

Then came COVID.

We went into our homes and, by all indications, started drinking our collective faces off.

Well, except here in Pennsylvania. Because of the crazy liquor laws – beer stores stayed open, but wine & liquor stores were all shuttered. Wine started getting in short supply around these parts. The grocery stores ran out quickly.

Thank goodness for our friends who drive the delivery trucks. Scott, our UPS guy, has been a godsend. Pennsylvania is a much easier place to ship to than our former address.

Which brings us to the actual wine content you’ve come here for, right?

As we were getting hard up for any kind of juice, particularly rosé -- I decided to venture onto Groupon and pull the trigger on a deal I saw for an inexpensive 15 bottle case. I’m happy to report that my experience with Splash Wines was highly positive. My order came with three bottles each of a selection of five rosé:

• Midnight Black Rose (Italy -- Trentino)
  
• “Rosé All Day” Beaujolais Rosé (France – Beaujolais)
• Maison Williams Chase Rosé (France – Provence)
• Domaine Jacourette Rosé (France – Provence)
• Mazzei Belguardo Rosé (Italy – Tuscany)

Ah...good to have you back at the homestead...

Seeing a raft of Italian and French pinkness looking back at me from the box filled me with hope. My major worry when I ordered this grab bag was that these inexpensive wines wouldn’t really be “rosé-ish” – meaning that they’d be overly fruity, slightly sweet, and somewhat heavier in body.

Not the case here at all. I’m not going to do detailed tasting notes on these selections. All of them are fine. Do any of them have flavors that leap from the glass to choirs of angels and transcendent goodness? Of course not. But are they, as a whole, light and crisp with enough flavor to be interesting, perfect for sipping while contemplating (or trying to avoid contemplating) both the excitement of a real social change in this country and the terror of the inevitable pain that will follow as the dying mule of racism kicks back hard? You betcha.

We’ve tried all five of these by now in various contexts. They’re perfectly food-friendly, pull and pop wines that aren’t just plonk. After shipping, the price was about $5/per bottle. At that price point, who’s to complain?

My friends, we’re a long way from the end of our various national turmoils. The levels of dumbassery we keep seeing are only going to increase as people demand that lockdown be lifted so other people can be forced to wait on them. Political ideology is no match for epidemiology, so no matter where you are – be safe, listen to and embrace the experiences of people who don’t look like you, and wear your damned masks.

And, of course, vote against anyone running for office, incumbent or challenger, who won’t do those things. Because not to put too fine a point on it -- they don’t care if you die.

The Wine Headache Hazard

No one can work with wine without tipping back too much from time to time. The morning after. The headache, the nausea, and the sun, as Nicholas Klar once wrote, "is like God's flashlight." Nobody to blame but yourself.

But what if the pain isn't your fault? What if you only had a glass or two and your head feels like Zeus on Athena’s birthday? At a wine tasting I led, two different people shared versions of, "I like wine -- but I can't drink it. If I even sip the stuff, I get a massive headache." Is there a code we can crack to avoid this malady?

One explanation I hear often: "It's the sulfites in the wine! Red wine has all these sulfites in the U.S. I've gone to [insert European country of your choice here] and the wine doesn't have sulfites in it, so I can drink it just fine. And I can drink white wine until the cows come home, but red wines just lay me out." I do enjoy Italian whites, so I sampled Palazzone 2015 “Terre Vineate” Orvieto Classico Superiore. ($13-15) This wine has a nose of flowers and licorice. It's medium bodied with some soft citrusy flavors and a little bit of oak. It has a very easy finish. Tasty to drink on its own, but with shellfish or a light fish dish, it's very nice.

After a little digging into the sulfite question, I discovered there is such a thing as a sulfite allergy. So, find unsulfited wines and you're fine, right? Well, not exactly. Sulfite allergies are  pretty rare. People with sulfite allergies generally can't eat dried fruit and the like, and if their allergies kick in, they tend to end up with breathing problems, not headaches.

Still, if you want to avoid sulfites, stick to whites, right? Wrong. White wines almost always have more sulfites than red wines. Sulfites are preservatives. Whites, in general, need more protection from spoilage as the wine gets older. Red wine has a natural preservative built in to the mix: tannin, which comes from the skins of grapes as well as from barrel aging. Wines built to age well are usually tannic, so…maybe tannin is our headache culprit.

For a low tannin wine example, think something along the lines of DuBoeuf 2015 Brouilly Beaujolais ($15-17). Gamay grapes, from which Beaujolais is made, are naturally low in tannin. This wine sports a fairly strong nose of cherries and blackberries. There's plenty of cherry and cola flavors balanced nicely with a solid acidity. Nice crisp finish, too. It cuts nicely through spices, like in the Thai beef noodle soup I made to go with it.

Drinking tannic beverages – drinks like red wine, black tea, and coffee -- can cause a release of serotonin in the brain, and studies have shown that high levels of serotonin can trigger a migraine. However, wine's not the only source of tannin in one’s diet, and no one I know has ever complained of a coffee or chocolate headache.

A third possibility is histamines. Histamines occur in many fermented foods and high exposure levels can trigger an allergic reaction brought on by a lack of a certain enzyme in the bloodstream. This reaction can cause headaches, skin flushing, or runny nose. The levels of histamines in red wines are between 20-200% higher than in whites. Spanish reds are often lower in histamines, so I tried the Martin Codax 2014 "Ergo" Rioja Tempranillo. ($13-15) The nose contains dark fruit and spices, almost like cherry cobbler. The wine's lighter than it smells. Some nice berry flavors and well-balanced light tannins lead to a finish which is easy and somewhat dry.

Histamines seem a somewhat more likely culprit for the headaches, although there hasn't been conclusive research on the effects of low vs. high histamine wines. Even so, if a person is susceptible to the reaction, there are natural defenses against histamines. Compounds exist in tea, especially black or oolong tea, which suppress the histamine response. Drinking a cup of strong tea before consuming red wine might help, as could taking an aspirin before drinking. An antihistamine might also stop the headache if the headache has already kicked in, but you might be in for a very short night if you pop a Benadryl after a couple of glasses of wine.

If you are one of those unfortunate souls who thinks they suffer from "red wine headaches," there's a simple (potentially painful) test. Drink half a glass of red wine on an empty stomach. If the wine is truly the cause of your headache, you'll get one within 15 minutes. Otherwise, it's not the wine itself that buried a hatchet in your forehead.

More likely, your fear of headaches likely stems from a good old fashioned hangover. The sheer amount of wine, and the memory of the pain the next morning, probably has more to do with it. B-12, Gatorade, ginger ale, and a sub from Penn Station the next morning are better bets, in that case.

The Naked Vine’s 4 B’s of Holiday Wine Buying

Congratulations, you social animal, you! You scored an invite to a holiday party. People like you…they really like you! I mean, that is, as long as you walk in the door with a bottle or two.

Sometimes a host or hostess will make your job easy. They might say, “Here’s what we’re having for dinner, so can you bring X, Y, and Z?” Chances are, though, you’re going to be on your own in the wine store, and, lucky for you, the Vine’s your trusty wingman.

Over the years, I’ve been asked to lug in a lot of wine. Unless something in particular gets specified, I’ve learned through experience that you can make holiday partygoers oenologically happy about 90% of the time with wine from one of four categories, and you shouldn’t have to spend more than $15 on a bottle. Think of them as our “Four B’s” of holiday wine buying: 

1. Bubbles
2. Blush
3. Beaujolais
4. Big

First off, Bubbles. This one’s pretty self-explanatory. Sparkling wine’s going to be a good choice for any number of reasons. A quick aside – you might notice that I didn’t say “Champagne.” While northerners may call all carbonated beverages “Pop,” not all sparkling wine is Champagne. Only wine from the specific region of France is Champagne. And, unless your friends are a lot swankier than mine, you’re not going to need to drop the kind of coin on actual grower Champagne for most occasions.

I have two go-to sparklers for parties. First is Prosecco, a sparkling wine made largely from the Glera grape made in the Prosecco region of Italy. Prosecco tends to taste of lemons and pears and has a fairly high level of carbonation. Prosecco has had a popularity boom over the last few years -- it globally outsold Champagne for the first time in 2013.

Next is Cava – Spain’s national sparkling wine. Made largely from the grapes Macabeau, Xarel-lo, and Parelleda, Cava’s flavors run towards the peach and pear with more and more of a toasty finish, similar to what you’ll find in Champagne.

Which to get? I prefer Prosecco with antipasti and light appetizers, while Cava is a traditional accompaniment for any sort of tapas or spread of various sorts of food. Also, most of the Prosecco and Cava you’ll find will be labeled either “Brut” or “Extra Dry.” Believe it or not, Extra Dry is sweeter than Brut. With food, I generally prefer Extra Dry. On its own, refresh with Brut.

Our second B, Blush, refers to the wine I’ve championed in this space for a decade – dry rosé. Now, I love the stuff no matter where it’s from. For my money, it’s the most flexible of the still wines, and the stigma of looking like you’re carrying white zinfandel into a party has largely gone by the wayside.

Rosé is made all over the world. French rosé, especially rosé from Provence, tends to be lighter-bodied, delicate, and acidic. Spanish and South American rosé tend to be somewhat bigger and fruitier. Italy generates what might be called “red wine drinker’s rosé.” Many of those rosato are full and rich, and could pass as light red wines. American rosé is steadily improving and is made in a variety of styles – depending on the wine region. Warmer climates, like central California, will produce fruitier wines, while cooler or higher altitude regions like Oregon offer wines which are more delicate. Choose according to your preferences.

Third, to make up for my Champagne slight, I’ll tip my hat to one of my favorite party reds, Beaujolais, the wine with something for everyone. Beaujolais, a French wine made from the Gamay grape, is a red that I find is best served slightly chilled. Beaujolais is another super-flexible food wine, pairing nicely with everything from salmon to steak. I think it’s the perfect wine for a Thanksgiving dinner, but it’s very enjoyable on its own.

The $15 price-range Beaujolais you’ll see most often is “Beaujolais-Villages” – meaning the grapes were grown anywhere within that particular region. You’ll likely get flavors of red berries, cherries, and cola therein. If you want to splurge, there are ten municipalities within Beaujolais which make more complex versions of the wine. These wines will cost $20-30 and will have the name of the town (like “Fleurie,” “Morgon,” or “Julienas”) on the label.

Also, don’t get suckered by Beaujolais Nouveau, the “early release” Beaujolais. In the States, the Beaujolais Nouveau release is little more than a marketing ploy. The wine’s of lower quality than other Beaujolais, and it’ll cost you more. Skip it.

Finally, when in doubt, go BIG. There will always be rosy-cheeked folks at a party who want super-fruity, high-alcohol red wine. Indulge them with a California Zinfandel. While there are many expensive California Zins that are rich, complex wines – we’re at a party (or maybe a barbecue) here, so we don’t want complicated and expensive. Zins are typically big and jammy. You won’t be hurting for flavor here. They’re the best wine pairing for ribs that you’ll come across.

I recently had Zinzilla, the “California Monster Zin” from McNab Ridge with a Groot-like creature on the label. While not for the faint of heart, it is well-balanced for a $12 wine that could easily have lurched into plonk territory. You can find this wine, and others with “Zimmilarly” fun names at wine stores everywhere.

Hope this helps you get your party on this holiday season. Cheers!

The Naked Vine Guide to Buying Wine for Thanksgiving

We’re three weeks away from The Big Feed and you need to start thinking about buying wine. Since you’re the classy, thoughtful individual that you are, you actually give a rip about how the wine goes with food and you don’t want anyone to take a sip, and go “um…ew.”

Thanksgiving wine-buying can be challenging. At a standard dinner party, there’s usually a general theme or national cuisine you can pull ideas from. A traditional Thanksgiving meal presents you with bunch of flavors beyond turkey that usually don’t play well with grapes. Cheesy casseroles, sweet potatoes, various beans and legumes, yeasty rolls, and other homestyle favorites create a riot of flavors that simply aren’t conducive to a pause and savor pairing.

Your goal instead is to treat Thanksgiving like the gluttonous feast it is. We’re shooting for a selection of “good enough” wines to please a range of palates, yet give people enough options so they’re not making wine runs after the salad course. Here, for your grape-purchasing pleasure, are the Naked Vine’s steps to success:

First – How many wine drinkers at the table?

Get a rough count. Even if you have guests who have expressed that they don’t like wine, budget for them anyway. Assuming it’s too late to uninvite them, they’ll probably end up sneaking a glass or two anyway because they “just want to try it with food.” Worst case scenario: a couple of extra bottles get left over for slugging during cleanup.

I subscribe to the 80% rule. Let’s say you’ve got 10 guests. Eighty percent puts you at 8 bottles. Each bottle holds 5 glasses of wine, so you’ve got 40 glasses total to go around. In my experience, heavy and light imbibers tend to balance each other out. Adjust accordingly if you are cooking for a number of true teetotalers or if you know that you’ve got some professional lushes like your narrator at the table. Also, since most people bring at least one bottle with them, you should have a comfortable cushion.

Second – Start with bubbly.

My one hard-and-fast rule for Thanksgiving beyond the above calculation – start everyone off with bubbly. Toasting the start of the meal with a glass of bubbles wakes up everyone’s palates and appetites and gets everyone in a good mood. Also, since you generally don’t pour full glasses of sparkling wine, you’ll likely only need an extra bottle or two, max.

I’d recommend something like the Gruet Blanc de Noirs from New Mexico or my old Spanish standby Freixienet Extra Dry. Again, nothing complex -- think crisp, refreshing, and food friendly. Some of your guests might also prefer bubbles with your first course, whether it’s soup, salad, or something else.

Third – Taste the Rainbow

Now we get to the actual wines for dinner. We’re not going to mess with course-by-course pairings. That takes too much energy and besides, you might have to make a mad dash to the kitchen, frantically searching for your copy of your local newspaper to fan the smoke detector, which is still sounding incessantly after you left your oven mitt on the burner.

In most cases, I’d suggest getting three different types of wine. Why three? Like I said – we’re doing wine in broad brushstrokes here and people like to sample. Think about basic flavor profiles. We can immediately rule out super light whites like pinot grigio. They’ll get run over by the feast’s flavors. On the other end of the spectrum, avoid highly-tannic or oaky wines like most American cabernets or Chardonnays or big rustic French and Italian wines. We don’t need complexity to get in the way of the stuffing. The three profiles I use are:

Fruity and Flavorful Whites – For the white wine drinkers, I’d suggest whites with a lot of fruit flavor and usually a little sweetness. I’m a big fan of Thanksgiving Riesling. Chateau St. Michelle Dry Riesling  and Kung Fu Girl Riesling are a couple of easy to find choices. If you’d like to go German with your Riesling, look for bottles that are labeled “Trocken,” which means dry.

Light, Comfortable Reds and Rosé – Good middle of the road, “keep on pourin’” wines that pair up with almost any sorts of food, be it meat or fowl. I love my rosé, but for this occasion, avoid those beautiful, delicate flowers from Provence. Go with a fuller, more fruit-forward bottle – perhaps something from Italy like Villa Gemma Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo or a South American version like Montes Cherub Rose of Syrah from Chile.

If you can’t bring yourself to buy pink wine, then another quality option here is Beaujolais, specifically, Beaujolais-Villages. Thanksgiving is also the one time of year that I find it OK to buy Beaujolais Nouveau, which is usually released around then. Don’t get suckered by a sale and buy last year’s vintage, though.

Big, Boomin’ Reds – Because every table will have at least one person who likes to drink big ol’ reds, don’t leave them out. My go-to wine when I need something big, fruity, and rich is good old California Zinfandel. Seven Deadly Zins, Ravenswood Vintner’s Blend, and their other $10 cousins should do nicely. If you want to look beyond California, a Garnacha (Grenache) like Los Rocas from Spain or a Cotes-du-Rhone like M. Chapoutier will certainly fill the bill without giving folks big mouthfuls of tannin.

In my previous eight-bottle example, I’d probably get two bottles of the whites and three bottles of

each of the other two categories to start with. I find that folks tend to lean red as the night goes on. Obviously, you know your dinner guests better than I, so jigger as necessary. And remember – while you can send leftovers home, all remaining wine stays with the house!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Adventure Mom Mailbag

A few weeks ago, I wrote a review of Seasons 52, one of Cincinnati’s newest restaurants. I had the good fortune that evening to be sitting next to the lovely and talented Nedra McDaniel, better known around the Internets as Adventure Mom. Nedra says that her blog, where she documents her love of “living like a tourist” – is her attempt to inspire people to step outside their comfort zones. From Broadway shows to trapeze classes to underwater hockey, Adventure Mom’s got ideas for new and interesting experiences in spades.

Nedra asked me if I’d be willing to take some questions from she and her readers about wine and wine related stuff. I realized it had been quite a while (a couple of years, actually!) since I’d done a proper mailbag, so without further ado – here’s a sampling of what folks wanted to know:

Adventure Mom: I would like to know the best way to store wine once it's open.

The Naked Vine: The best way to store wine once it's open, honestly, is in the fridge. Wine turns to vinegar through oxidation, and cold slows that process down. Now, if you don't like your red wine cold -- you can just pour it and then patiently stare at it until it gets to where you like it...or (just don't let anyone see you), pop your glass in the microwave for5 seconds and swirl. No kidding. Those VacuVin sealers can work as well -- but not as well as refrigeration.

Raising2tweens: What wine do you suggest for a mom who has had a rough day with a 13 year old girl and an 11 yr old boy? LOL Seriously though... I only like red wine. Can it really go with all meals?

The Naked Vine: There are red wines that go with almost any sort of food -- you just have to be aware of styles. If you're making baked chicken, you probably don't want a big honkin' glass of Australian Shiraz. But a glass of a light red (especially with a little chill on it) would work just fine. In a case like that, an Italian Valpolicella or Chianti -- or a French Beaujolais would be good choices...

Khrys C.: I am really dumb regarding wines. Is there a class I can take that will smarten me up a bit so I can at least have an intelligent wine conversation and know how to choose one I'd like from the vast amount of different wines out there?

The Naked Vine: There are lots of wine appreciation classes out there if you want to get out and about. My personal suggestion (no surprise) is working your way through the Wine School series of articles that I wrote (http://www.thenakedvine.net/2006/04/wine-school-index.html)  as a way to get yourself started.

Daniel V: My wife and I just had our first child and I wanted to order some bottles of wine that I can age and give to her when she turns 21.  So my question is, what kind of bottle of wine would you recommend that will age 20 years and still be good? I was thinking a French Bordeaux like a 2009 Chateau Gruaud-Larose or Chateau Grand Puy-Lacoste. Would you recommend either one of those for this idea or should I consider something else?

The Naked Vine: Now that sounds like a heck of a gift! I think there are a number of ways that you can go with that. Your idea about the Bordeaux is a very good one. A quality Bordeaux should easily age for 20 years, and if that's the sort of wine that you like, then you can definitely go that route.

Some other ideas -- Sauternes and Riesling can age practicially indefinitely. Amarone and Barolo practically need 20 years just to make it to their prime drinkability window. There are, of course, other late harvest style wines that will also last awhile. California cabernet also has a lot of aging potential.

Bottom line -- what sort of wine is your favorite? What will you likely be letting your daughter sip at dinner over the next 20 years, so when she gets to have this little cornucopia for her own -- it's not going to be a total shock to her system. I would think of it more as a time capsule of your current palate that you get to share. I think it's a great thing you're doing!

Daniel V (followup): I live in South Texas (San Antonio) and like most houses here, we do not have basements or cellars. How do I properly store wine (like the present for my daughter) so it doesn’t get ruined over time?

The Naked Vine: Hmm...now this is where it gets a little bit complicated. There's a difference in storage for a couple of years and 20. The enemies of wine are heat and light -- so obviously you want somewhere dark and relatively cool -- and also relatively stable, temperature wise. It's big swings in temperature that really kill wine, so you want somewhere stable. Now, if you're keeping wine for a relatively short period of time (say 5 years or less), an interior closet that has a stable temperature and is dark will work just fine. Fridges will work, too -- but they are notoriously expensive and can be unreliable. I went through three of them before I put my cellar in.

Since what you're planning for your daughter will require decades of storage -- you might be better off investing in an underground cellar. It doesn't have to be fancy, big, or, honestly, even climate-controlled as long as it's not below a place that will be in the sun. The natural insulation from the earth will be enough. You just need a small underground space that you can access easily.

Failing that, there are self-storage places that have climate controlled wine storage. Just depends on how much you want to spend.

Got questions of your own? Send them to Mike at thenakedvine@gmail.com or at http://www.facebook.com/wineadvicefortherestofus

A Super Basic Primer on French Red Wine

I had the good fortune of leading another wine tasting last week focusing on French reds. While it’s pretty impractical (and nearly impossible) to run the gamut of French wine in a single tasting, a “’round the country” on the basics is possible. I didn’t have a map of France handy at the tasting as a visual aid in this circumnavigation, so I went with a geometric example.

France looks roughly like a pentagon pointed upwards. (Work with me here.) Almost all the French red wine you’ll commonly see comes from one of five regions. To get a sense of where these regions are, if you travel clockwise around this shape with the tip of the pentagon at 12:00, Burgundy is at 3 o’clock. Almost in a straight line south from 4-5 are Beaujolais and the Rhone Valley. Continuing around, Bordeaux is at around 8 o’clock and the Loire Valley runs inward from the coast at around 10.

[In case you’re interested, Paris is straight south of high noon, Champagne is at around 1 o’clock, Alsace is at 2, and Provence and the Languedoc run along the south coast from 5-6. Armagnac clocks in at 7 and Cognac is at 9. Put all this together and you have what sounds like a perfectly reasonable drinking schedule.]

Let’s rock around the clock, shall we?

Burgundy – We’ll start with my favorite of the five. Burgundy is easy to understand. If you see a bottle of red Burgundy, there’s a 99% chance that you’re looking at a bottle of Pinot Noir. Yes, there are a couple of other types of red grapes grown in Burgundy. Much like Jerry Lewis movie marathons, you usually won’t see wines made from them outside France’s borders. Good Burgundy curls sensually around your palate. Sipping away a bottle of this light bodied deliciousness is an evening’s pleasure. In my experience, no wine changes and develops more once the bottle opens. With well-prepared food ranging from meaty fish to almost any kind of beef or pork, Burgundy is an absolute champ. When a special occasion meal rolls around, you’ll almost always find Burgundy on my table.

The only downside to this fabulous wine? It’s pricey. It is very rare to find a decent bottle of Burgundy for under $20, honestly. The one for the tasting, the Domaine Jean-Luc Dubois 2008 Chorey-Les-Beaune, checked in at around $24. As an entry to the world of good Burgundy, though, it’s worth every penny. Deliciously balanced and soft cherry, pepper, earth, and smoke in every sip. If you can’t find that particular bottle, try almost any in your price range from anywhere near the town of Beaune. (as in Chorey-Les-Beaune, above.)

Beaujolais – If Burgundy is slow, languorous, and sensual, Beaujolais is a quickie on the kitchen floor. Maybe it’s not quite as romantic, but there is joy in being straightforward, fun, and a little sloppy. Beaujolais is made from the Gamay grape, which yields light-bodied, food-friendly wines that tend to lack the delicacy of Burgundy. These wines tend to be more acidic and “fruit forward.” Beaujolais are produced in a slightly different style. Rather than picking grapes, crushing them, and fermenting the juice, winemakers put the grapes in a tank, add yeast, and allow the grapes to crush themselves as they ferment. This process is called carbonic maceration. Also, while Burgundy can age for decades, you’re not going to impress anyone by pulling out 1999 Beaujolais. These are wines to enjoy within 3-4 years of bottling. You can pair Beaujolais with just about anything short of a big steak or a rich stew, and you can guiltlessly open one and knock it back, as it’s relatively low in alcohol.  You can usually find higher-end Beaujolais, called Beaujolais cru (the name of its town will be on the label) for $12-20. A good starter Beaujolais is the Louis Jadot 2010 Beaujolais-Villages, which is a small step down in quality and is usually around $10.

Rhone Valley – The wines get a little heavier as we move south into the Rhone Valley. As you learn wines, you might see a wine referred to as “masculine” or “feminine.” Preferences for human gender pressed against your lips notwithstanding, this phrase usually refers to the general style of flavor. Feminine wines are usually lighter bodied and delicate. (Burgundy is the quintessential example.) Rhone wines are more “masculine.” Masculine wines have more “in your face” flavors, be it the fruit, the tannin, the bouquet, etc. Rhone wines are almost universally blends. Some 21 different grapes end up in Rhone wines – but the majority of the ones you’ll usually find will be largely comprised of Grenache and Syrah.

Rhone wine flavors are all over the map, but there’s usually a plummy or dark berry fruit, some fairly strong earthy scents, and medium tannin. The most famous Rhone wines are from the area called Chateauneuf-de-Pape. They command fairly high prices (like the one we poured – the Cuvee Papale 2009 C-d-P at $36). I normally stick to the ones labeled “Cotes-du-Rhone,” which can be similar blends – but just aren’t from that particular locale. I use Cotes-du-Rhone as a pairing for earthy dishes, stews, and dark chocolate. You can find very decent Cotes-du-Rhone (similar wines are Cotes-du-Luberon, Cotes-du-Ventoux, and Gigondas) for $12-15.

Bordeaux – Returning to our masculine/feminine comparison – Bordeaux is the masculine yang to Burgundy’s feminine yin. Bordeaux alone produces almost as much wine each year as the entire state of California. Known as claret in Great Britain, Bordeaux is a blended wine usually comprised largely of cabernet sauvignon and merlot. (Other grapes allowed are cabernet franc, petit verdot, and malbec -- the latter two usually in very small quantities.) If you’re looking at Bordeaux in your wine store, ask whether a bottle is “left bank” or “right bank.” This refers to the side of the Garonne river on which the vines are planted. Left bank wines are predominantly cabernet sauvignon, while the right bank wines are majority merlot.

The flavor profile of Bordeaux usually centers on currants and blackberries. There’s usually a floral or “vegetal” scent in the bouquet as well as leather and earth. Bordeaux is a classic pairing with beef, pork, and lamb roasts as well as strong cheeses. Bordeaux does have a pricing issue. There’s a classification system for Bordeaux set up in 1865 that rewarded certain producers, thus cranking up the price for “” Bordeaux, such as Chateau Latour or Chateau Lafite Rothschild. However, wines grown less than a quarter mile from the vineyards producing the most expensive bottles in the world can sometimes be had for a tenth the price. The one we poured was the Chateau Briot 2009, which you can get for $10.

Loire Valley – Finally, we work our way around to the Loire, home of some of the more interesting reds in France. The Loire is best known for whites such as Muscadet and Sancerre. The Loire has one of the coolest climates for wine growing in France. In many vintages, the grapes don’t ripen fully. To combat this, winemakers in Loire can add sugar to their fermenters (a practice called chapitalization, which is illegal in most of the rest of the country) to “make up” for some of the unripeness. Loire reds are exclusively cabernet franc. You may have to hunt for  them a bit, as they’re relatively uncommon. If you see “Chinon” on a bottle, that’s a Loire red. These reds tend to be medium bodied and almost always have an undertone of minerals – described as a “graphite” flavor. Raspberry is the fruit flavor most commonly associated here.

Loire reds also often have what wine critics refer to as “brett.” Brett is short for Brettanomyces, a strain of yeast that, unchecked, will give a wine a horrid odor. A little bit, however, adds a scent of smoke (or sometimes bacon) to the bouquet. The one we poured – the Catherine & Pierre Breton 2009 “Trinch!” (French for the sound of two wine glasses clinking) certainly had a bacony nose, and the flavor was quite nice. ($19) Loire reds are polarizing. People usually either really like them or can’t stand them. I’m in the former category, thankfully.

Belt Tightening, Celebration & Last Minute Gifts

As we prepare to bid adieu to 2011, we find ourselves in the last throes of the holiday season. The last two weeks of the year become a multicolored haze of festive dinners, office parties, and gift exchanges all wrapped up in a nice pretty bow of the holiday shopping orgy. You can’t really go wrong this time of year with the Swiss Army knife of presents – a good bottle of wine.

For most events, an inexpensive bottle (such as most of the ones we normally discuss around here) will suffice. Anyone who wends the way through this social maze knows that people are usually looking for something palatable to quaff so that making small talk becomes more bearable.

That’s not always the case, though. Sometimes you need a special bottle – something with a little more flavor and complexity for a more meaningful occasion. As we’ve discussed in this space before, the end of the year is the best time to snag major bargains for your cellar or gift bag since wine stores are trying to clear inventory to make room for “next year’s model.”

This opportunity is further amplified by the continued economic doldrums. The super high end stuff that can cost hundreds – wines like classified growth Bordeaux, Screaming Eagle cabernet from Napa, rare Barolo and the like – they’re always going to sell. There will always be collectors who can afford them. On the other end of the scale, the demand for the $15 and under bottle increases as wine drinkers are more judicious about discretionary income. The market slice getting hammered are the wines with “in-between expensive” price points – say $20-100. Ask almost any wine buyer. These wines just aren’t moving very well.

Here’s where you can score big if you look closely. There are “in-between expensive” bottles just sitting out there. If you’ve read those descriptions on shelves in wine stores, you’ll see many lines like “Drink between 2005-2011.” Odds that these wines will sell briskly after that window closes? Small. Wine stores need to clear these puppies off the shelves, so many of them get offered at enormous discounts. You can also find good values looking for wines that are from neighboring regions to super-expensive wines, especially if you’re thinking about French wines. For instance, a wine from a classified growth chateau may be hundreds of dollars a bottle, but a wine produced a few hundred yards away from similar grapes can go for a fraction of that cost.

Feel free to use these ideas as a great way to either score cool gifts or try some higher-end stuff that you might not have had the opportunity to crack on your normal travels. Take advantage of this. Go to your wine store and ask your friendly neighborhood wine guide to show you some “special occasion” wines that they have on end-of-vintage sale and see what happens.

Great example – the Sweet Partner in Crime and I got hitched a couple of years ago on Dec. 10^th. As readers of this space know, we’ve been together awhile. Prior to our actual wedding, we’d used Dec. 18^th, the date of our first date, as our anniversary. So we wouldn’t have to choose, we deemed these eight days our “Channiversary.” For our celebration this year, The SPinC went looking for three bottles – one from 2001 (the year we met), one from 2009 (the year we tied the knot), and another bottle, because things work better in threes. Here’s what she came up with:

La Croix de Rameaux 2009 Brouilly – The SPinC is a sucker for Burgundy, so that’s what she asked about first. Burgundy from 2009 would be too young to drink now, but she was pointed in the direction of Beaujolais (which is, after all, in Burgundy). 2009 is, by all accounts, one of the best years in Beaujolais in history, and the cru Beaujolais are not only exceptional – they’re ready to drink right now! (A Beaujolais cru will have the name of its city instead of “Beaujolais” or “Beaujolais-Villages” on the label.) Many Beaujolais, including cru,  can be a little thin, but not this Brouilly. For a light red, this had an exceptionally friendly and layered fruit and acid balance. Lots of full cherry flavors and a smokiness that was more reminiscent of a Burgundy than a Beaujolais. It was good on its own, but it truly shined as a charcuterie wine. (Which was good, because we didn’t feel like cooking the night we opened it.) With the serrano ham (oh yes!), salami, and chorizo we’d laid out...all delicious. We found it was also especially good with goat cheese, a usually-challenging pairing. Just a lovely wine to munch with. Ordinarily $32, we got this one for about $24.

Il Bosco 2001 Cortona Syrah – Italian syrah? I think I’ve seen some of it blended into Super Tuscan wines, but I don’t remember it as a single varietal. Apparently more and more Italian winemakers are giving it a go but, until recently, these wines were much more a boutique purchase. This was the wine with the “Drink between” dates I mentioned above. Strike while the iron is still hot! Goodness, was this some tasty wine. My initial comment was “it smells more Italian than it tastes.” (Although I didn’t have much of a basis for comparison with syrah.)  The nose is lovely. Plums, flowers, and smoke. Lots of earthy blackberries and cherries on the palate with a hint of that underlying Italian chalkiness. There’s also some smoke that got amplified towards the end as the tannins kicked in, leaving coffee behind. Wonderfully complex. I’d certainly be interested in trying more straight syrah from Italy. For dinner, we had salt-crusted roasted leg of lamb. Heavenly pairing. Cut straight through the lamb’s fattiness, enhancing the rich flavors. Super. A $80-ish wine that ended up at around $35.

Chateau de Bellevue 2000 Lussac-St. Emilion – I readily admit that I don’t usually get Bordeaux. It’s just not one of those Old World wines that I generally crave the way that I do Burgundy or various Italian bottles. Just the same, a nearly 12-year old bottle has an appeal, and I’ve since learned that 2000 in St. Emilion was a historically good vintage. In retrospect, that little factoid makes perfect sense. We decided to open this with an attempt at making a more-or-less true cassoulet. (Mmm…rendered duck fat!) We got to cooking and I poured the wine into a decanter. Bordeaux are notoriously slow-breathing wines. After about an hour and a half, we decided to try a glass. Oy! Tannin bomb, coming in! This wine gave both of us lockjaw. We couldn’t speak. Heavy charcoal and graphite. We decided that it needed a little more time to open, and we had an hour or so before the cassoulet came out of the oven. In the interim, I swirled the hell out of what was left in my glass for awhile, and hooboy -- was I ever rewarded. The wine started to open beautifully. The nose exploded into herbs and chocolate covered cherries. The charcoal and graphite powered flavor mellowed into a much more pleasant balance of cherry and smoke. The finish went on and on and on. The wine continued to change over the course of the evening, yielding more and more complex flavors. This was the big deal about Bordeaux. 

With food? Ye gods. While waiting for the cassoulet to finish, we tried it with some “drunken” goat cheese. Absolutely outstanding. A true “eyes rolling back in your head” combination…at least until we finally got to the cassoulet. Heaven. There really aren’t words for how good this pairing was. We did a version of cassoulet with ham instead of sausage and smoked duck. The smokiness of the wine complemented the rich duck perfectly, while the tannins tamed the salt from the ham while cutting through the fat. We lingered over this meal and the last drops of wine in the decanter for a long, long time, savoring. Perfect pairings come along rarely – those French know what they’re doing with wine and casseroles, to be sure. Many 2000’s from St. Emilion currently run well over $100. This wine from the surrounding region? $30.

So go forth, find bargains, and enjoy your holidays! We’ll see you in 2012!

Wine and Dinner of the Month Club – June 2011

We decided to do the June wine dinner on the first night of Italianfest here in Newport, Kentucky, so of course we had…Thai beef salad! Okay, so there’s really no connection there. However, you may recall this meal from last year because Christine liked it so much that she requested a repeat.

Wine

• 2009 Cote de Brouilly Beaujolais

Dinner

• No Cook Spring Rolls with Peanut Dipping Sauce (recipe for sauce from The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook Third Edition)
• Thai Grilled Beef Salad
• Mango and Melon Dessert

The spring rolls were easy to make and I whipped up a spicy peanut dipping sauce to go with them. For filling I used lettuce and a little mint and parsley from our garden along with some shredded carrots, peanuts and shrimp. The shrimp were frozen and only took about three minutes to cook in boiling water. The most challenging part was rolling them up in the spring roll wrappers, but after the first couple I got the hang of it.

After I had the appetizer ready I made the mango puree for the dessert and put it in the freezer. It is supposed to be refrigerated for 3 to 4 hours before serving, but I got a late start so I put in the freezer to cool more quickly.

I cleaned up the kitchen a bit, as cleaning is really my specialty, and then prepared the sauce and all of the cold ingredients for the beef salad. You may be asking yourself, “Where is Christine all this time?” Christine had gone to see a movie with our friend Susanna, who was joining for dinner later. In addition to being the first night of Italianfest, it was also the night we had one of the worst and longest lasting rain and thunderstorms of the year. Christine and Susanna had walked to the theater and since it was too rainy to walk home, holed up in a bar to have a martini…and then another. Oh, the humanity!!! Finally they called me and I went to pick them up in the car and return them to the house for dinner.

Once we got home we had the appetizers and then I cooked the meat under the broiler in the oven (Rain, remember?) I mixed the cooked meat with the cold ingredients and the sauce and we had the main course. Everyone loved the salad and the mélange of flavors. [Ed. note – nice word choice there, Jeffrey...you’re getting the hang of this food blogging thing!]

After the main course, I prepared the dessert, adding some watermelon balls to the pureed mango in stemmed glasses for a cool and refreshing treat.

As for the wine, we all liked it and thought it complemented the meal nicely. The label said that the wine was best served slightly chilled so I had put it in the refrigerator for a while. However, we all thought it was actually better when it warmed up and also when it had been sitting out for a while with a chance to breathe.

For a finale we had a little tasting. I opened up a bottle of my special homemade ice apple dessert wine along with some similar wine sent to us by our friends Sue and Mark, owners of Maple Leaf Orchard in Wisconsin (http://www.mapleleaforchard.com/). Both made for a sweet digestif to end the meal.

Starting up the Summer

I had the good fortune last week to co-lead a tasting with my pal Danny Gold from Party Source. The theme of the tasting changed quite a bit during our planning stages. We thought about doing wines from every continent or just sticking to cabernet blends from all over – but neither of those really rang true.

We each ended up picking three wines that were relatively inexpensive and we “just liked.” To our sold-out crowd, this seemed to work just fine. Only after everything was over and done did I realize that we’d unknowingly cobbled together a pretty decent slate of beginning-of-summer bottles: two easy drinking and interesting whites, a couple of light and flexible reds, and a couple of bigger red wines suitable for grilling. So, Since Memorial Day and the “official start of summer” are upon us, without further ado:

Cucao 2009 Pedro Ximenez – This light white caught my eye because of the grape. “Pedro Ximenez” (or “PX”) is the name of a Spanish grape used largely in the production of Sherry. (If you recall, I haven’t had the greatest experiences with that particular tipple.) Certain grapes do interesting things when planted outside their native home. I’m a huge fan of Malbec, which was largely a minor French blending grape until it was planted in Argentina. I thought I’d take a chance and see what the soils of Chile might have contributed here.

Turns out that the Chilean terroir is very kind to PX. The nose is quite lovely, full of flowers and spice. It’s light bodied and quite acidic like a citrusy pinot grigio, but with an interesting melony flavor and a slight “briny” taste that echoed the not-unpleasant parts of Sherry. The finish is light and crisp. This would be a perfect summer porch day wine and the high acid content makes it a match with many summer cuisines – fish or shellfish, chicken, salads, light pastas. At around nine bucks, it’s a pretty complex, intriguing wine. Certainly worth a try. Vote for Pedro!

Terra di Briganti 2009 Sannio Falanghina – Danny’s selection was another “unfamiliar” grape – this time from Italy. I admitted being somewhat skeptical. My first experience with Falanghina was the wine sent by Savannah Samson a few years ago. It wasn’t, shall we say, the tastiest of whites. Danny knows his stuff, though. This one won me over. Another light bodied white, although with a somewhat creamier feel. The flavor brought more tropical fruits – peaches and pineapples – to the table. The finish was soft and pleasant with a nice little acidic zing. Goat cheeses would go nicely, as would richer fishes like trout or salmon. Lobster would be divine here. I also found it very drinkable on its own. If you’re a fan of Italian whites, give this a run at around $15.

Domaine Dupeuble 2009 Beaujolais – I make no secret of my love of Beaujolais in the summer. I ask you, what’s more perfect for a warm weather bottle than a light, easy-drinking red wines that pair with almost anything foodwise and taste best with a slight chill? Sign me up! The 2009 vintage in Beaujolais was, by all accounts, a year for the ages. Some of the best Beaujolais are being compared favorably to higher end Burgundy. The 2009’s are now readily available and you should snap them up if you’re into this sort of thing.

Off the bat, lovely waves of rich cherry flavor and a bit of smokiness greet you here. Most straight Beaujolais are nowhere near this “full” tasting. Great fruit, nice acid, and just an overall sense of well-balanced yumminess follows. There’s a lot to pull apart in this wine, but don’t work too hard on it. I think it’s best enjoyed as a whole, non-thinking “experience.”

French wine can be confusing, as I’ve mentioned on numerous occasions. One thing you can do is to check the bottle of a French (or Italian or anywhere, really) wine that you liked and check the name of the importer. This particular Beaujolais is a Kermit Lynch selection. I’ve had very good luck with almost anything that has his name on it. Around $13.

Tenuta delle Terre Nere 2009 Etna Rosso – Danny was stoked about pouring this. The Rosso is from vineyards on the side of Mount Etna in Sicily which were left fallow for decades. Winemaker Mark DeGrazia opened these vineyards and made this red from the indigenous Nerello grape. The grapes are grown at the highest elevation in Europe for growing red grapes in soil that’s basically volcanic ash. The method of production is almost identical to that used in Burgundy. The result is a light-bodied, fragrant, exceptionally tasty wine that strongly echoes the flavors of French pinot noir. It’s very well balanced, has a light earthiness to the flavor that I really enjoyed, along with layers of raspberry and minerals. I’d nestle it up nicely next to light red-sauced pastas, grilled fish, or something like a chicken/veal picatta. $15-18.

Charles Smith “The Velvet Devil” 2009 Washington State Merlot – I like throwing Charles Smith’s wines in tastings when I can, since they’re just fun wines. Smith, self-taught winemaker and former manager of Scandinavian death metal bands, has a number of wines in his “Modernist Project” set of offerings. Modernist Project wines (easily locatable in your store by the black and white labels and interesting names) are designed to be wines you can crack, pour, and drink – but that aren’t one-note, unbalanced wines. I think that this merlot is absolutely killer. Blackberry, cinnamon, dark chocolate – all blended and balanced. For a wine this sumptuous, it’s very easy to drink. Grill some meat. Pour this wine. Eat. Drink. You’ll be happy. You’ll also be happy if you want something with a chocolate-based dessert later on and you have a bottle of this on hand. And at around $10, you can afford a couple of bottles.

Thorn-Clarke 2009 “Shotfire” Shiraz – Danny wanted to finish up with a bang, so he dug into the Australian aisle and pulled out this monster of a red. The Shotfire is a jammy, high-alcohol shiraz. It checks in at around 16% alcohol, so make sure you give it a few minutes to catch its breath after you open it before you dip your nose in. You’re hit with big, plummy shiraz flavor backed with a white peppery finish. While you get some enormous flavors, I didn’t find them overwhelming. You just have to know what you’re in for and plan accordingly. If you’ve got yourself a slab of barbecue ribs or almost anything else with a rub or a sauce that you want outside, this is your wine. Like many Aussie Shiraz, it’s also a winner with chocolate, especially dark chocolate. Right around $15.

Drink up and enjoy!

 

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