Vacationing Around the Island

A Spooky Manhattan for 2021!

Hello friends, far and near. Here's hoping your 2021 is off to a decent start. I mean, 2020 set a pretty low bar, but what can you do.

Since we couldn't travel this year, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I tried our best to recreate a version of a culinary-themed vacation here at home. Our "Island vacation" was around our stove, but we still managed to have a pretty good go at it.

If you'd like to follow along, I've got a Twitter thread of our various meals and recipes going here.  

If Twitter isn't your thing, you can read all the tweets in a single page at this link. 

I think we've done pretty well for ourselves. We are so very fortunate!

Cheers! Happy New Year!

The Naked Vine Guide to Ordering Wine in a Restaurant

Dinner for One. Wine for Six. Lovely.

You’re out on the town at a nice dinner with your besties. You’ve been to the bar, had a cocktail or two, and the maître’ d has escorted your happy gaggle to the table. Menus are distributed, and your server utters that fateful question: “Who would like the wine list?”

An uncomfortable silence settles over your tableful of playful banter like someone just asked for volunteers at a business meeting. Everyone nervously looks around, hoping someone…anyone will step up to the plate.

You’re a Naked Vine reader, by gum! You’ve accumulated enough wine knowledge to be dangerous! I know you’re good pairing for dinner in the privacy of your own home, but are you ready for the big stage? Are you brave enough to look that server in the eye and say, “Bring that list right here! Allow me!”

Hell yes, you are! And I’ll be right there at your side with these few basic tips to help you win the evening.

First and foremost, Take your Time. Once you’ve got the wine list in hand, this is the perfect opportunity to ask your server to get a round of waters for everyone – or just say that you need a few minutes while you make some decisions. (This little stall has the added benefit of letting people peek at their menus without feeling pressured.)

Once the server departs, Survey the Scene. “Does everyone want to go in on a bottle or two?” Some of your friends might want beer, cocktails, or a specific glass of wine. Get a quick sense of how many people you’re ordering for. A standard 750ml bottle equates to five 5-ounce glasses of wine. I usually assume 2-3 glasses per person during a leisurely meal for an ordering standard. Do appropriate multiplications and divisions to come up with a rough estimate of how many bottles you’ll need. Also, ask what folks are thinking of ordering, foodwise, to get a general idea on the pairing spectrum. For instance, if everyone’s getting fish, you’re probably leaning white. If you can’t determine whether a white or red will be best, order one of each and let people choose. And don’t let the server take the wine list away.

Don’t Get Fancy. Remember, you’re not leading a wine tasting. While you may absolutely love the deep, barnyard funk of a particular French wine region, this isn’t the venue to wow the table with your in-depth knowledge. The pecking order is friends -> food -> wine. Think about middle-of-the-road, crowd-pleasing wines when you’re making your choice, since palates and entrees can be all over the map. Also, good restaurants often offer many of their most food-friendly wines by the glass, so file these away for reference as you’re perusing the list.

Go Deep. There’s a reason that Cabernet Sauvignon from California, French Bordeaux and Burgundy, and Italian reds like Chianti show up so often on wine lists. People are familiar with them – at least by name – so they make for an easy order. Since they’re an easy order, many restaurants tend to increase the markups on these bottles. Every country has lesser-known wine regions and grape varietals, many of which you’ve explored with me here. Instead of Chianti, for instance, drop a Barbera on folks. If you’re thinking French Burgundy, maybe think about a red from Loire or Languedoc instead.

Also, great values can be hidden on wine lists from somewhat obscure countries. Lesser-known varietals and wine regions are often priced to move. We know that South America makes fabulous, relatively inexpensive wine, for instance – and if you’re choosing between a California Cabernet and a Malbec from Argentina at a steakhouse, I can guarantee you the Malbec will give you a better bang for your buck.

Go Cheap. (Or at least don’t be afraid to.) Do you think, outside of a Guy Fieri joint, a chef’s going to put something on a menu that they know tastes terrible? Of course not! In any decent restaurant, you should be able to order the least expensive item on a menu and still have a quality meal. A wine list is nothing more than a menu. A restaurant should vouch for every bottle on their list. Order what you think will be best.

[Also, in my opinion, it's easy for high-end wines to be wasted in a restaurant setting. Many of the more expensive wines – top-end Bordeaux, Italian Barolo, and high-end Napa cabernets, for example – need to be decanted, sometimes for hours, for their flavors to really shine. That doesn’t happen in many restaurant settings, as server will often just go through the wine service and pour. There are some establishments who do a good job presenting these wines -- but you need to do your research...]

Don’t be Afraid to Ask. It’s perfectly OK to ask the server or the sommelier for advice. (After all, that is what they’re there for.) Rather than just asking, “What would you recommend?” give them a little guidance. If you’ve narrowed it down to 2-3 choices, say “I’m thinking about these. Which would you say is drinking best?” If you’re really stumped, maybe go to: “Can you give me a couple of options for a medium-bodied, food-friendly red?” or “What are a couple of mellow, somewhat fruity, dry whites?” They’ll suggest something workable.

Be the Boss. Here come those bottles! Time for the wine service. The server or sommelier will first present you with the bottle to verify they’ve brought the correct selection. They’ll then open the bottle and usually hand you the cork. Look for any signs that the cork might have been damaged. If there are wine stains running down the sides of the cork, or if it’s crumbly or brittle, this can be a warning sign that the bottle is flawed. File this away mentally for the next step. Don’t sniff the cork – I mean, unless you've got a particular fetish for that sort of thing.

Making this face at first sniff? Send it back. Please.

The server will then pour a little wine into your glass. This is a quality test. You want to give the wine a vigorous swirl, sniff, and sip to see if the wine is defective. Does it taste slightly carbonated if it’s a still wine? Does it have an odd odor or flavor? Flawed wine can smell/taste like wet newspaper, damp dog, a moldy basement, strong vinegar, or rotten egg. Trust me, you’ll know it if you encounter it.
 
Get any of these smells, sensations, or flavors? Simply turn to the server and say, “I’m sorry. I think this bottle is off.” Be firm. Don’t be intimidated. Trust your instincts. Use the Force. Whatever you need. They’ll bring you a new one, trust me. It’s your damned bottle. Get a good one.

Chances are, though, the wine will be just fine. If you sniff and everything’s cool, then lean back in your chair with a self-satisfied smile and say, “This will do nicely,” and relax as the server makes the rounds.

Finally, always remember that You Can’t Screw Up. There’s no “universal donor” in the world of wine. You’ll never find a bottle that’s perfect for a group of people with varied palates all ordering different meals. Your goal was to find a “good enough” wine, and you’ve done that! Once everyone has a full glass, raise your glass, give a hearty “Cheers,” smile, and bask in the admiring gazes of your friends.

The Seven Vectors of an Evolving Palate

I was poring over The Naked Vine Index while working on a review of a South African wine. I swore that I’d written about this particular wine – Mulderbosch Chenin Blanc – in the recent past. I went back to the archives to see if my new notes paralleled my previous review. There were some parallels with the previous review...that I’d written almost six years before.

I sometimes lose track of how long I’ve been at this. I first clicked “Publish” on The Naked Vine on August 1, 2006 and I first appeared in print in the Dayton City Paper on January 3, 2007.  A lot of bottles have gone into the recycling bin since then. When I look at some of those early columns and reviews, it’s blatantly obvious that my tastes, my palate, and my outlook on wine in general have changed a lot over the years.

Everything evolves in stages -- whether biological organisms, psychological states, or a wine taster’s palate. One doesn’t leap from Manichewitz to Chateau Petrus in a day. When we’re going through an educational experience --and my last decade of wine tasting has most certainly been that – we gain a little knowledge through experience, try to figure out What It All Means, and then apply it to the next situation. Through fits and starts, we gradually get a clearer picture.

Tucked away among dusty remembrances of my University of Arizona grad school seminars in higher education two decades ago is an identity development theory by a school psychologist named Arthur Chickering. His “seven vectors” of the psychological growth of college students are commonly cited in the higher education literature. Working on my doctoral qualifying exams last November (which I passed, by the way!) I revisited Chickering’s work.

Since this theoretical stuff has been on my mind so much recently, I thought it might be fun to apply the vectors to the “higher education” of learning about wine. Sure, developmental psychology might seem an odd framework to think about wine appreciation – but we taste as much with our brains as we do our tongues and noses. And while I don’t claim to be fully developed as a wine connoisseur, I think this process holds up pretty well. Here’s my wine-related application of Chickering’s seven vectors:

#1 -- Developing Competence: You’re just getting started. You’ve had some wines you liked. Maybe you’ve gone to a wine tasting or six and even figured out that you prefer reds to whites, but you really don’t know merlot from your elbow. You need the basics here. The fundamentals. If you’re in this stage – a good place to start is with The Big Six, my term for the six grapes everyone should know: Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and Riesling on the white side; Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Syrah on the red. Also, peek back through the archives to my old Wine School articles to get an idea.

#2 -- Managing Emotions – This stage refers to the challenge of handling one’s feelings and acting appropriately – whether to positive or negative stimuli. As a wine student, you’re going to find yourself overwhelmed once you start trying new types of wines. You’ll find one you like and you’ll feel the urge to buy two cases. I was firmly in this phase on our first trip to Sonoma in 2005, as you could see from our credit card receipts. While you undoubtedly will burn out on a type of wine you like in this stage, it’ll be fun getting there. If you’re ready to branch out, go with flavorful wines: Zinfandel, Gewurztraminer, and maybe a rosé or two.

#3 -- Moving through Autonomy toward Interdependence – Oh, this is the fun phase…learning how everything is connected and how to state preferences for what you want. By this point, you have a basic idea of what flavors you enjoy. Now you get to apply the Naked Vine First Law of Wine Pairings – people make wine to go with the food they like. As you start to understand the lovely interdependence between food and wine, you start to pick certain wines for certain meals (or pick certain meals for certain wines!) and you start to gain a greater appreciation for why certain wines are made certain ways. If you’ve made it this far, now’s the time to start playing with Italian and French wines, especially Chianti, Barbera, Cotes-du-Rhone and Bordeaux.

#4 -- Developing Mature Interpersonal Relationships – One of the terms that comes up in this stage is “cross-cultural tolerance” – being able to negotiate relationships with individuals that you may not have been comfortable around previously. With wine, this is the time when you get over the biases that you developed in the managing emotions stage. You get a glass of that Muscadet next to some peel-and-eat shrimp or some oysters on the half shell and go, “Oh…*now* I get it.” Context plays such a strong role in understanding wine. So, try that Muscadet here while at a raw bar – or crack open (and decant! decant! decant!) some barnyard-laden French wines – earthy selections from Burgundy and Chateauneauf-de-Pape (preferably with some rich French foods and cheeses) to gather some knowledge.

#5 -- Establishing Identity – This phase is about becoming comfortable with one’s self and gaining self-esteem. By this point in the process, you’ve tried scads and scads of wine. You’ve got a good idea of what’s what. You know what you like and what you don’t. This is the point when people start handing you restaurant wine lists because they figure you know what you’re talking about. At this point, you’re ready to hone in on a grape or region and really explore. For me, this was about the time when I started to love pinot noir, which can be a challenging grape. I know that my favorites come from Burgundy and from Oregon. You’ll find your favorites, too.

#6 & #7 -- Developing Purpose & Developing Integrity – I take these two stages together, because this is the developmental point where you start setting goals, deciding on your core values, and living them. In the wine development process, this is when you make the important live decisions like whether to build a wine cellar, how much you wine you have around the house, how special an occasion has to be to crack that particular bottle you’ve been saving, and so on. This is the most dangerous stage for your wallet, as you might find yourself tracking down 80 year old dessert wines as I once did. Wine is now as much a part of your life as anything else you have around the house. You are now fully integrated in the oenological sense. Congratulations. This process never ends, but the journey is most of the fun. Thanks for hanging in there with my journey over the last seven-plus years, and let’s raise a glass to more good times ahead.

A Pause from the Glass -- The Naked Vine's Quinoa Chili

My happy cooking accident led to a new vegetarian favorite.

This little bit of deliciousness started out as a humble side dish. Between not having a couple of the original recipe's ingredients, a misread of a couple of amounts, and several "You know, I bet adding this would taste gooood" inspirational flashes, I ended up with a big potful of vegetarian-friendly chili that I'll happily recreate.

Since we're in the low 60's in the beginning of frickin' August, I didn't even have to wait for football to crank this up:

The Naked Vine's Quinoa Chili

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
6-8 garlic cloves, diced
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. coriander
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 c. quinoa, rinsed and drained
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 large sweet potato, cut into 1/2 cubes
1 can diced fire-roasted tomatoes, undrained
3 chipotle chilis from a can in adobo, diced, plus 1 tsp. adobo sauce
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano or 1 tbsp. fresh, diced
1 roasted red pepper (jarred is fine), diced
4 c. vegetable stock or chicken stock
1 bottle stout beer
salt to taste (I start with 1 tbsp, but YMMV)
1 tsp. sugar

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium  heat. Add the onion and celery and saute until the onion starts to brown, 5-6 minutes. Add the garlic and stir. Cook 1 minute. Add chili powder, coriander, and cloves. Stir and cook 1 minute.

Add everything else. Bring to a boil. Cover and cut the heat back back to a simmer. Cook for a couple of hours, until quinoa is done and the sweet potato and beans are very soft. Add additional liquid if your quinoa is extra-thirsty.

Top with sour cream, chopped cilantro, and some diced chives or scallions around. If you've got a bottle of something Bordeaux-ish with a slight chill on it around, crack it. You'll thank me.

Red Roost Tavern -- The Cincinnati Hyatt's new concept

The Cincinnati Hyatt Regency hotel is in the process of a $20 million makeover. Like many of Hyatt’s other properties, the upscale hotel at 5th and Elm is going for sleeker, more modern décor. That momentum includes the former Champs sports bar space, now converted into the Red Roost Tavern, a modern-themed “farm to table” style restaurant. Earlier this week, the Hyatt hosted a “blogger dinner” for several members of the Queen City’s online writing community.

First impressions walking into Red Roost? Gone are the neon signs, bright colors and pub grub from the old Champs. In its place are cleaner lines in greys and earth tones. Some of the accents and tabletops are repurposed from the local area. For instance, the paneling wrapping the entranceway columns are from a nearby old barn. The space is split roughly in half between the bar and restaurant sections. The bar section is still, in their words, “media friendly” with plenty of TVs, but the vibe is considerably more low-key. The dining area features an open kitchen line at all three meals and comfortable seating. The private dining area is still currently without its walls (perhaps an unintentional tribute to Les Nessmann?).

Reclaimed wood tabletop. (Photo courtesy Hyatt Regency Cincinnati)

According to Meghann Naveau, account exec at Fahlgren-Mortine -- the public relations firm handling the opening of the restaurant, “More than two dozen farms, distilleries and purveyors throughout Ohio and Northern Kentucky supply the restaurant with hormone-free meats, organic produce and high-quality beer and spirits.”

The restaurant incorporates some local flair into its offerings. Produce comes from Carriage House Farm in North Bend, OH; cheeses from Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese in Austin, KY, Boone Creek Creamery in Lexington, KY, Trader’s Point Creamery in Zionsville, Indiana, Swiss Connection Cheese in Clay City, IN, Capriole Cheese in Greenville, IN, Lake Erie Creamery in Cleveland; charcuterie meats from Smoking Goose in Indianapolis; and gelato & ice cream from Madisono’s in Cincinnati. The beverage list gives a nod to local breweries. Beers from Cincinnati’s Mad Tree, Mt. Carmel, Rivertown, and Christian Moerlein breweries, Lexington Brewery (makers of Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale), and Cleveland’s Great Lakes and Fat Head breweries all make the beer list. Not all of the ingredients and produce are sourced locally. (I don’t think we have a local source for halibut and quinoa!)

On the dinner menu, soups and salads are $6-7. Flatbreads, appetizers, and vegetarian entrees range from $5-15. Meat-centric entrees go from a free-range chicken at $22 to the grass-fed ribeye at $38.

(Photo courtesy Hyatt Regency Cincinnati)

The restaurant’s tagline is “Thoughtfully sourced, carefully served,” so I was interested to discover the concoctions they chose for this preview. In what I assume was an attempt to stick with the “local flavor” theme, our six small-plate courses were paired with the local draft beers instead of wines. I’ve got nothing against a beer-pairing dinner. Done properly, well-paired beer can be just as good with food. It does, however, take a certain amount of care – and a fairly extensive beer selection – to get everything right. There are 10 beers on tap (six were the local drafts we had with dinner) and 25 bottled beers. The wine list includes 28 selections available by the glass or bottle, none of which are from local wineries.

Our first course was a crab cake served with a slaw and honey-chili mayo, paired with Rivertown Jenneke Belgian Blonde Ale. The crab cake was quite flavorful and was mostly crab meat, in stark opposition to the bready mess many “crab cakes” become. The blonde ale was a good pairing – since the honey flavors in the blonde ale played off the honey in the mayo. This pairing was, for me, the highlight.

Dining room at Red Roost (Photo courtesy Hyatt Regency Cincinnati)

Next up was a sweet corn soup finished with a smoked tomato jam paired with a Mt. Carmel nut brown ale. The soup was sweet and straightforward. The tomato jam gave the soup some depth. The beer pairing didn’t work as well as I expected. The sweetness of the soup turned what would have been a slightly sweet beer quite bitter.

[Side note: At this point, I asked the sous chef -- who had been coming out to describe each course – how he arrived at the various food and beer pairings. He stated that he hadn’t been involved in the selections and that the managers had made the decisions. I asked one of the managers who was there, and he gave an answer about “the flavor profile meshing with the food” without giving many specifics.]

The third course was a quinoa salad with summer squash, walnuts, and an herb vinaigrette with a Rivertown Helles Lager. The salad was subtly flavored – and the vinaigrette didn’t really do anything to help with the beer’s flavor, which turned very sharp together. Salad courses are always the toughest to pair.

At this point, we got a “palate cleanser” of limóncello made in Columbus. While I like Limóncello as an after dinner drink sometimes, it seemed a bit odd here. Rather than cleansing my palate, it coated it in cream and alcohol. Again, I understand the “local” angle – but forcing an after-dinner drink in the middle of a meal felt a bit odd.

The fourth course was a take on “fish and chips” – with a piece of halibut filet and fried elephant garlic chips, served with a malt vinegar reduction. This was paired with the Mad Tree Psychopathy IPA. Disappointing. My fish was over-seared and extremely dry. The chips were basically burnt. The IPA, solid enough on its own, was done no favors by those flavors.

Fifth was a slow-roasted pork tenderloin with a port cherry reduction paired with a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. The cherry reduction connected nicely with what is usually not one of my favorite beers. The pork, on the other hand, was fairly tough and dry. Not so dry as the halibut, but still overdone. The beer at least made the pork palatable. (Also, one of the managers made sure we knew that they’d swapped the beers for courses 4 and 5 right before the meal after “going back and forth on that all day.” The pairing they went does make more sense, but I wish they'd been a little more thoughtful with the pairings instead of just shoehorning the local selections.)

Finally, we had an organic corn ice cream with salted caramel sauce from Madisono’s with a Rivertown blueberry lager. The ice cream was delicious. The blueberry lager was good. Together? It just didn’t click.

I will give high marks to the service. The wait staff was extremely pleasant and efficient, and they provided a good team approach to the meal. The presentation was attractive and the atmosphere was good. I can’t, however, recommend this place for spending your “going out” money – at least not as the menu currently stands. (Since the menu is seasonal, perhaps they’ll change it up soon.) The current concept – from meal selections to décor – felt like an easily duplicated frame with a few accents thrown in to get a “locally sourced” tag -- something that I could see conceivably ending up at other Hyatt locations. I imagine, at this stage, they’re still getting the kinks worked out in the kitchen and making more connections with local vendors. There’s room for really positive evolution in those areas.

#NakedVineNewYear

Happy New Year, everyone!

We've stretched our New Year's celebration over a few days, so follow the feast on Twitter at #NakedVineNewYear...

Celebrity

Hello everyone. The Sweet Partner in Crime and I are back from our little sojourn in the Caribbean on the Celebrity Millennium. Yes, I know – rough life. It’s been a heck of a year, and it was a much-needed trip.
But yes, there is a point to this entry. I never thought I’d be a cruise person. Lots of stereotypes about what a cruise “is” lingered – until we did some research and ended up on a Celebrity cruise a few years back. I’m sold.
I’m not a big “shipboard activities” person. I could care less about shows or the “Hairy Leg Contest on the Lido Deck.” When I’m on vacation, I want to unplug – and if I can get good food and wine, so much the better.
Celebrity seems to have carved out its niche with “great service, foodies welcome.” The main dining room had good-to-excellent meal selections every night and the service was sparkling. The SPinC and I especially enjoyed our conversations with our sommelier, May Casapao:
She was very helpful with wine selections and she was one of the most pleasant people (even on the run, which she often was) that I ran into on the ship. She made good suggestions and that smile never left her face.
Our other dining room staff members were solid, as well. Our waiter Melvino (his glove was actually on fire when I took the picture) and assistant waiter Juan provided top-notch service:

I can’t claim encyclopedic knowledge of cruise lines. Celebrity is a little more expensive than lines like Carnival, but it’s so very worth it if you’re looking for an experience like the one we wanted – pampering, limited numbers of “family friendly” attractions, good itinerary, and exceptional food choice. You get to see plenty and you only have to unpack once. Good times.
Hope everyone’s had a good holiday thus far! See you in 2011!