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!

The venue was in fact the venerable and soon-to-be-demolished Yankee Stadium. Bud Light be damned–the wines available were, naturally, from Alsace!

So for you, dear reader, I broke a decade-long fast and had my first ball park dog, loaded with sauerkraut and mustard. It’s a crazy food that comprises of salt, fat, some meat-like product, nitrates, and probably much more. I wasn’t about to eat 66 of them like that American who brought home the glory earlier this month in other “sports” news. (As a point of interest, there was a hot dog afficionado present who informed me that, indeed, the hot dogs consumed in such a contest have to “stay down” and if they come back up, it is a violation known euphemistically known as a “reversal.”)

Hot dog in hand, I surveyed the Alsatian wines. With their good acidity and minerality, they seem like a good pairing overall for the dawg if you’re not doing the classic beer pairing. The most effective was the Albert Mann, cremant d’Alsace, brut nonvintage (about $19; find this wine). It has bubbles, like beer! But more importantly, I found the zesty citrus notes worked really well with the dawg.

Moving up the wine richness scale, I found the heft of the Domaine Ehrhart, “Rosenberg,” geurztraminer, 2004 (about $20; find this wine) to work well too. The faint spice of the wine was somewhat overwhlemed by the “zesty mustard” but the refreshing core of acidity and minerality remained a good complement. The Albert Boxler 2004 pinot gris (about $30; find this wine), a rich, sweet and powerful wine seemed a little too flabby with the food.

The Hebrew National dog was great going down but an hour or so later I found it had an unpleasant, um, “finish” (safe for work: no “reversal”!). The finish of the Boxler wine lingered longer and was much more pleasant.

Maybe this should be an “impossible food pairing” post, too. A double-play, if you will. So which wines do you like with hot dogs? Vega Sicilia?

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Boating wine
“That regatta [in 1851], known as the 100 Guinea Cup, was a fleet race around the island in sturdy yachts made of hardwoods, iron and copper that often featured staterooms below decks and carried plenty of wine and provisions. It took nearly 11 hours for America to complete a 50-mile journey and win…This time, the America’s Cup, sailed in the Mediterranean waters off Valencia, is a best-of-nine match-racing series around the buoys in carbon-fiber yachts, where lightness is king everywhere except in the keel and where the wine remains on shore unless it is being poured on someone’s head in celebration.” You decide which was the better wine voyage. [IHT]

Taste test
In a fascinating exploration of the physiology of taste–and a takedown of the system of wine scores–Michael Steinberger submits himself to the ultimate taste test to find out if he is a supertaster. Must read. [Slate]

Moldovan wine to flow freely again
Is that the sound of clinking glasses you hear in Chisinau? What? Where’s Chisinau? Why, Moldova, of course! In a showdown of the Vladimirs, President Putin said that he would lift the ban on President Voronin’s country’s wine. Russia had accounted for more than half of Moldova’s wine exports before the ban. [Moscow Times]

To Russia, with love
Should wine producers target Russia, India or China? David Skalli makes the case for Russia. [sawf.org]

Mondavi, House of
Eric Asimov reviews the new Mondavi tome in the NYT as does Jon Bonné in the SF Chron.

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Last week I sat down with reporter Lisa Altobelli to taste three wines whose profits benefit various charities associated with the Boston Red Sox. As a Cub fan (why bother?!) I may have been the only non-partisan taster in New York.

The Chilean wines were the Schilling Schardonnay, Manny being Merlot, and Caberknuckle, selections from Red Sox stars Curt Schilling, Manny Ramirez (described as “a budding enophile”) and Tim Wakefield. Check out the May 28 issue, p. 26 for my detailed comments but I’ll tell you here that is the order that I preferred them. Even though they won’t be available to Red Sox Nation and beyond until next month, 264,000 bottles have already been pre-sold.

And if you’re stopping by the blog for the first time because of the story, then consider subscribing to the site’s feed or monthly email updates on the right. And feel free to poke around and see some wine picks or explore any of the categories on the first sidebar, including wine and sports!

“A very good year: three Red Sox enter the world of wine” [pdf, from SI]

UPDATE: if you’re looking to order the wines, surf on over to Charity Wines to order directly. They say specific stores will be posted soon. Or try wine-searcher for the Shcardonnay, Merlot, or Caberknucle.