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.

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.

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

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]

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…

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

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!

See the whole bracket here.

Two Buck Chuck advances, defeating Franzia in an intra-family grudge match. Beringer White Zinfandel cruises past Wine Sight For Women. Now it is a supermarket store showdown as much as it is a wine brand showdown – Trader Joe’s vs Safeway. Have your say in calling this game!

JJ Prum edges out Trimbach in a close matchup in the Riesling division. An all-German Riesling game ensues as Cinderella Weingut Keller advances in a narrow victory over #1 seed, Dr. Loosen! How will Klaus-Peter Keller do against JJ Prum? You make the call in the comments!

In the Parkerized wine bracket, MollyDooker from Australia and Ornellaia from Italy rolled to easy victories over their Spanish and French rivals. Quite a contrast of styles and price points here – hit the comments with how you see it playing out.

And in the natural wine bracket, both the games were hard-fought. Cappellano from Piedmont beat the Beaujolais bad boy Thivin to advance. But at the end of regulation, Coulee de Serrant and Puzelat were TIED with the same number of votes! So the judges had to turn to the comments and, in the final analysis of the tape, the reasons for Puzelat advancing were funnier! So it’s Puzelat who gets through to face Cappellano in an all Louis/Dressner quarterfinal. You decide the winner in the comments!

Voting for this round will close at 11:59 PM on Sunday. Come back to vote in the semifinals and final next week!

Parkerized bracket results (click bracket to see all results):
* Mollydooker came out strong drilling left-handed shots from inside and out leaving the Run-Rig squad wondering how well they bottle-aged. El Nido Clio slapped Numanthia silly with the new oak stick and used the match as a springboard to the second round.

* Ornellaia showed a surprising degree of finesse against a cabernet-heavy blend from Sassacaia and won by a narrow margin. And in a legendary match that has become known as the Right Bank Spank, Coach Thunevin and the Valandraud squad got the better of Dr. Alain Raynaud and the Quinault team, who surprisingly played a lot of 07s, not yet ready to dunnk. Michel Rolland watched on from the front row of seats looking like Jack Nicholson with his sunglasses on throughout the game.

* Moving to the Natural wines bracket, Coulee de Serrant was the upset winner over Domaine Huet in the Chenin showdown. Commentator Lettie Teague had called this for Huet pointing to their greater depth with a lineup that includes still, sweet and sparkling as compared to Coulee who just has the dry style typical of Savennieres. But wily Coach Nicolas Joly decanted his team three days early and won the game at the buzzer…And in the other of a Loire double-header at the Tours Axa Arena, Thierry Puzelat relied not only on his estate wines but also his strong negociant wines to beat Bernard Baudry. Sulfites were flying after the match since Baudry disputed the refs calls in the close fourth quarter.

* In the other matches, the sharp-shooting guards of Ch. Thivin made quick work of Georges Descombes despite the latter’s strategy to deploy a team consisting of magnums. And in a strong match broadcast nationally from Turin, Cappellano was able to upset grand master Mascarello who had benched his single vineyard wines, holding them for later in the tournament. A poor decision in retrospect.

Who will advance? You make the call! Have your say in the comments! The teams with the most votes in the comments as of 11:59 PM Wednesday will advance to the next round on Thursday.

Supermarket bracket Results (click bracket to see all results):
* Two Buck Chuck, the #1 seed, coasted (haha) to an easy victory of Mondavi Coastal whose squad appeared tired and overoaked…In a heavyweight showdown, a three-liter Carlo Rossi jug blew an halftime lead against Franzia three-liter box who came back to win on penalty free throws in the final seconds.

* Moving to what is considered the lightweight portion of the supermarket bracket, French “wine for women” Wine Sight beat White Lie but Beringer White Zinfandel fired back with suh-weet three pointer to beat arch-rivals Sutter Home.

* In the Riesling bracket, Dr. Loosen handily slayed the Dragonstone. And in perhaps the most exciting matchup on this side of the bracket, Keller and Schafer-Frohlich treated the spectators in Koblenz to a three-point extravaganza with Keller prevailing at the buzzer.

* In a battle of the legends, JJ Prum sent out a squad of auslese and prevailed over a team from rival Donnhoff, where Hermann thought he could win with mostly Kabinetts…And in the only non-German matchup in the bracket, grand master Pierre Trimbach brought out a squad of Frederich Emile to fend off the tall bottles from down under at Leeuwin Estate. Will Pierre reach for the Clos St Hune in the quarterfinals or try to rest them til the semis?

Who will advance? You make the call! Have your say in the comments! The teams with the most votes in the comments as of 11:59 PM Wednesday will advance to the next round on Thursday.

Mark Fisher’s request is my command! Based on this “Beer Madness” from the Washington Post, I present “Wine Madness.”

Wines are divided into four divisions: Supermarket wines, Parkerized wines, Natural wines, and Riesling. The early money is coming in strong on Mollydooker for taking the whole thing, but don’t count out the other number one seeds, Two Buck Chuck, Dr. Loosen, and Domaine Huet.

Some of the early match-ups will be bruising, particularly the Carol Rossi vs Franzia in a battle of heavyweights and one of these two may play the winner of the Mollydooker vs Run Rig game for the title. Games also of note: White Lie and Wine Sight might be a catfight in the “wine for women” pairing; Noel Pinguet (Huet) vs Nicolas Joly in a biodynamic chenin show-down; and Leeuwin Estate and Pierre Trimbach will battle it out with their different styles in the Riesling category and the winner could be the tournament’s Cindarella.

Click to see the whole 32 team bracket.

UPDATE: Thanks for the support! Check back next Monday when you can see who advanced to the quarterfinals–and then vote them through to the finals!

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, a giantly patriotic dish showcasing American innovation: Buffalo wings!

Is it impossible to pair wings with wine? You make the call! (And don’t forget the blue cheese dip.)

Related: “Betting wine for football.”
“Impossible food-wine pairings: chips and salsa!”
UPDATE: Thanks, Mark, for pointing out the “classic” wine pairing!
Image: istockphoto.com

Photo one provides a glimpse of the left front label, photo two, the right, photo three, the actual label for your spy cam comparisons. Put them together and what does it spell? Domaine Ste Michelle! Is it the finest “handcrafted” bubbly that $6.99 can buy? You decide! Oddly, the Sox changed since they popped Korbel back when they won the first round of the playoffs. But why no Red Sox charity wine?

What sort of bubbly would you pop if your team made it to the Major League Championship round?

It may appear a rhetorical question, but around America this week it is a question that confronts baseball team owners. And from their choice, we can tell who will win the World Series.

Consider my hapless Cubs. What did they pop after they clinched the NL Central? Korbel. Granted, spraying a locker room is one of the best things you can do with Korbel. But it didn’t bode well. They were swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Boston Red Sox, until recently, lovable losers like the Cubs, have advanced one round further. But which bubbly did they spray all over each other? Korbel. And with goggles and ponchos, no less!

The Indians appear destined for greatness. After beating the Yankees, they popped open the Mumm’s. Granted, it’s best use is probably Christening ships but at least if you ended up with a shot in your mouth, it wouldn’t be too traumatic. (Though there are some beer cans visible in that top picture.) And the Indians eschewed goggles and ponchos. Real wine geek men. Winners, it appears.

Unless trivial details like earned runs and batting averages come into play.

Image 1: Fair use is made of a reduced size, cropped photo from sports.yahoo.com attributed to Bill Kostroun/AP
Image 2: Fair use is made of a reduced size, cropped photo from sports.yahoo.com attributed to Elsa

He was somewhere in the second half of the pack. Oh, and my “name” strategy didn’t work well in race 7 either with my exacta box on Dr. Pleasure and Dr. Googles Boogles. Next time, quantitative analysis only!

What would you name your race horse to have it called out when crossing the line in first place?

And, btw, if you do venture to Saratoga, head off Broadway for dinner–we had a very good meal at Beekman Street Bistro, which has an interesting, succinct wine list to boot.

62 Beekman Street, 518-581-1816

You could be forgiven for thinking these headlines were about my illustrious cycling career (come on–I went mountain biking over the weekend!). In fact, these are some of the headlines appearing today after the Kazakh Alexandre Vinokurov, aka Vino, won the stage in the Tour de France, his second win in three days. A pre-race favorite, he’s out of the competition for overall leader now because of an early crash and a poor performance yesterday.

Congratulations, Vino, you’re doing all of us Vinos proud. Hopefully, if there’s any suspicion with his being “juiced,” it would just be with wine!