Dr Vino's wine blog

Major League Baseball seeks to make the absurd ritual of victors spraying each other with drinks a non-alcoholic one. Korbel weeps. Catawba producers may break out the bubbly.

The NYT reported on the new guidelines over the weekend: “Teams must limit Champagne; offer a non-alcoholic version; beer and other types of alcoholic drinks are banned; and teams are not allowed to bring the drinks on the field.”

Sadly, the Times echoes most other sports reporting, calling the bubbly uncorked and sprayed all over the players “Champagne” when, as you know, the Dr. Vino spy cam has yet to see an actual bottle of champagne in a plastic-draped locker room this post season.

While I am generally all for defending wine consumption in the public eye, I find it difficult to get too worked up about this latest MLB ruling. Clubs decided to forego champagne in favor of cheaper sparkling wine long ago. And while wine producers might want to bask in the aura of victory, what vintner would want to have their wine consumed out of an athletic cup while wearing ski goggles? I mean really, that would make even more people shudder than just Max Riedel!

The victors certainly deserve a celebration. But they have all off-season to savor the Champagne, with food and friends, without having to wear goggles.

Baseball season is winding down and we all know what that means–time for plastic tarps to adorn locker rooms, wine goggles to come out, and grown men to spray themselves with Champagne. Or, getting technical, is it instead sparkling wine?

Thanks to the Dr. Vino spy cam, we have locker room footage! (No, not of Brett Favre).

After clinching their wild card birth, the Yankees sprayed themselves with Hankell Sekt, a sparkling wine from Germany. (The Dr. Vino cam was too shrouded in bubbles to tell what went down after the Twins series, but we do get one look here.)

The Rangers, so as to include their star player Josh Hamilton who has fought alcohol and drug addiction, sprayed themselves with ginger ale after beating the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Rays had used Chateau Ste. Michelle’s sparkling wine from Washington state to douse their AL East victory. The Phillies sprayed Korbel from California for their NLDS win.

While the bubbles are flowing, the wine fans are still waiting for a team to pop the cork on actual champagne from Champagne (assuming they aren’t into ginger ale). Perhaps they will wait for the World Series for that.

When Fabian Cancellara crossed the line first in the short prologue of the Tour de France, his bike was impounded and put through an X-ray machine. So were 13 others. Apparently authorities are suspicious of tiny motors assisting riders in the Tour. None were found.

An article detailing the day’s events appeared in the NYT. In it, they also looked back at other ways riders have been suspected (or found guilty) of cheating in the Tour. This one caught my eye:

Some riders have been accused of guzzling alcohol along the way — including carrying wine bottles on their bikes — to dull the physical pain of the race.

Okay, then! Which wine do you think figured in the strategy there–something refreshing and low alcohol or a high-octane fruit bomb?

Image: reduced sized crop of an image attributed to Reuters

Last year, supermodel Gisele Bundchen caused a stir by sipping wine during the Super Bowl. Some even thought this act caused the Patriots’ star quarterback Tom Brady, her beau, to crumble, bring the team down with him.

Fans of the Steelers and the Cardinals who make it to Tampa for this year’s Super Bowl on February 1 are, given the scant attention paid to wine at stadiums, likely to have few such vinuous distractions. But Tampa does have one wine destination worth flagging: Bern’s Steakhouse.

The restaurant has a legendary wine list with about 600,000 bottles that have been accumulated constantly since the restaurant opened in the 1950s. Some are housed in the 3,000+ square foot wine cellar in the restaurant but the bulk of the collection is stored in two temperature controlled warehouses off premises. Stars of the collection include an 1851 bottle of Gruaud Larose, some Madeiras from the 18th century, and large verticals of Bordeaux.

I’ve never been to the restaurant but I was talking with an NYC wine collector last year and he told me about weekends that he and his wife like to take in Tampa to visit Bern’s. They go with four to eight friends and make reservations for Friday and Saturday night. They have a lengthy meal on Friday, sleep in on Saturday, get manicures or play golf (they said there’s not a lot to do), then go back for a huge, long dinner on Saturday that can last ten hours at the table as they plunder the cellar. Whoa! Who knows if they are keeping this up hedonism in recessionary 2009 but it shows what damage wine lovers could do at the restaurant. A lot more than in the stadium, that’s for sure!

Related: “Eric Renaud Senior Sommelier” [WSJ.com]

In the Final Four, the sleek and stylish Rieslings of JJ Prum got out to an early lead but Mollydooker came roaring back to take the crown in the first ever Wine Madness! The Maitre D’ set up shots, the Two Left Feet ran hard, and The Boxer played a tough inside game. The Violinist annoyed the crowd at first but then got drowned out by the cheers for the action from the court. During the chilling moments in the first half, they all had Goosebumps but by the end they were walking down the Enchanted Path, drinking Gigglepots, and wondering if they might be heading to a Carnival of Love.

And Mollydooker gets the grand prize: a link back to their website! Catch all those references in the preceding paragraph by checking out the whole line of wines over at Mollydooker.com.au.

I hope you enjoyed the tournament. Thanks again to wine blogger and journalist Mark Fisher for the idea. If you have suggestions on how to better run it for next year, hit the comments! Perhaps we will have to do a pool after all. If only this blog were hosted in Las Vegas…

Wine Madness continues to the Final Four! Thanks to your comments, we now have the finalists! Vote here and now to decide the winner! (We are dispensing with the semifinals and the final four will be ranked in their vote order here.)

UPDATE: poll closed: The wine with the most votes as of Monday April 7, 11:59 PM will be declared the winner!

See previous rounds

Wine Madness, the tournament that has captivated the dozen people who like both wine and sports, now moves to the quarterfinals thanks entirely to your votes and hilarious comments!

For this round, you need to vote the wines you want to see in the next round by commenting on this post. After the jump, see the remaining eight teams and post a comment to decide the Final Four! Read more…

It all started last week on a lark, but now we move on to the second round. Over the weekend, play occurred in far-flung arenas and I report the results here. Now it is up to you and vote the teams/wines through that you want to see in the next round. It is all in your hands! Hit the comments of this post for the Parkerized wines and Natural wines brackets; the previous post for the Riesling and Supermarket wine brackets. Read more…