Dr Vino's wine blog

There’s a funny gag in the indie movie Scotland, Pa. where Christopher Walken, playing a (vegetarian) detective, is gently interrogating a suspect. The suspect receives a Styrofoam cup of horrendous coffee that he nervously sips during the interrogation. Finally, after what is his third sip or so, he blurts out something to the effect of, “why do I keep drinking that stuff!?!”

When the whole Vino family grabbed panini at ‘Inoteca recently, that was about the reaction of Mrs. Vino to my glass of lambrusco, purple fizzy wine. Dry tannins on the finish and a grapey quality made it not exactly her cuppa tea–or glass of wine.

Why? Although the wine was on the tannic side, I think it has to do mostly with food pairings–lambrusco craves meat. Mrs. Vino is a vegetarian.

“It would be great with mortadella,” I suggested, knowing that was going nowhere.

“Mozarella?”

“No, some bologna-like meat thing from Emilia-Romagna.”

Bottom line: dry lambrusco, like dry rosé, could be a wine that depends on context for maximum enjoyment. And that might just include a meat pairing.

Continuing our fine, week-long tradition of “impossible food-wine pairings” (see chips n salsa), we pick a food that we eat here in Amurrica and you decide what to pair with it. And today’s contestant is:

Falafel sandwich!

Two reasons. First, I had a such a terrific falafel in Paris a short time ago at L’As du Falafel in the marais. Great street food. So great that I thought (in one of those delusional traveling daydreams) about opening a chain of falafel shops back home.

Second, it turns out I was not the only one having such daydreams. In the Financial Times last week, James Altucher threw out a business idea of his, which is to open a national chain of falafel shops to capitalize on the phenomenal demand for good falafel seen in NYC. So we’re clearly on the front end of this food trend. Which means…we have to know which wine to pair with it!

Comments are open for your suggestions (and which falafel joint is your fave?). Please note this is not a meaty shwarma but the fried chick pea, hummus, lettuce or purple cabbage, chopped tomato, possibly eggplant, possibly onion, and white sauce version in a pita. Wow, after writing that description, I’m in need of lunch!

(image)

OK, which wine category is hot? Sooo hot? As in up 39 percent nationally for the first six months of this year? That’s right, folks, we’re talking about rosé! Dry rosé!

Just as America is warming up to dry pink wine, Papa Bear Eric Asimov tells us it’s jumped the shark. It’s over. Before it even began! Rosé, we hardly knew ye! EA cries out for rosé therapy on his blog:

But doc, why am I so unhappy about rosés? I don’t want to buy them. I don’t want to drink them. I don’t hate them. I’m just not interested. But I know I’m supposed to care. That is, I’m supposed to be carefree, which is the proper attitude for rosés. You know, lunches in Provence, tapas in Spain, let the rosé flow. But I’m not carefree about rosé. I’m grumpy. What’s wrong with me?…I hate to be a killjoy, doc. Isn’t there anything you can do for me?

Don’t be grumpy, Eric! Just get into the vibe! Although I’m not the kind of doctor you’re looking for, here are some tips for starting to think pink:

1. Context matters: rosé could be the ultimate wine where context matters. When it’s hot, chill it and have it on the deck, at a sidewalk cafe, under a tree, in a hammock–wherever there’s no air conditioning! The hotter you are, the better it will taste. 😉

2. A halfway house for whites and reds: dyed in the wool partisans of whites and reds may not often overlap but rosé may just prove that common ground.

3. Tired of serious wine? It’s a quaffer, easily downed. Refreshment is key. Rosé is almost a state of mind more than it is a wine. (Is this sounding New Age-y yet?)

4. Food friendly: high-acidity dry rosé pairs with a lot of foods, including some hard ones like salads and gazpacho and, of course, anything meaty.

5. Wallet friendly: I’d be grumpy too if I paid a lot for rosé–$15 is my max. This is the first press of some wine or from red vines that aren’t mature enough to do anything interesting so there’s an economic argument for it’s being cheap too. Last summer when we were in the south of France we got a 5L box of the hearty Bergerac rosé for 12 euros, which brought down our per glass costs to practically nothing. It makes you extremely generous when the wine is always cold and your per glass cost is less than a postage stamp–and wine is for sharing!

Some of my favorite dry rosés from this summer:
* Chateau Peyrassol. At $17 it is in my grump-zone, but still very nice light Provencal style. (search)
* Commanderie de Bargemone: Yummy, fresh strawberry notes, good acidity and $12 (search).
* Domaine Houchart (St. Victoire): This wine just makes me think about lunch, outside under an umbrella. $15 (search)
* Domaine Sorin, Terra Amata (Cotes de Provence): Sustainably grown; wonderful with fried calamari (search)
* Chateau d’Aqueria (Tavel): Darker in color and bolder in taste, this is a good one for enticing people from the red side as I did last weekend with a guy who “only drinks red.” Though at $17, it’s into my grumpy price range (search)
* Bodegas Muga (Rioja): easy to find, this one is an even better value at $10 (search)
* Bernard Baudry (Chinon): pleasant, but a tad too serious for mindless summer fun with it’s dollop of minerality (search)

Preppy is back. Drink pink.

The good people at Wines of Alsace held a press event in the Bronx yesterday. It allowed me the opportunity to ponder a question I have long overlooked: which wine goes with hot dogs?

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?

(image)

We pick, you decide! That’s right, people, this is more fun than Fox News. I pick a wild and crazy food that we eat here in Amurrica, and you decide the wine pairing!

And if you think I’m going to lob a softball at you with some sorta cheese or bacon no brainer, forget it. We’re swinging for the fences here. There are no right answers, of course. So which wine has worked for you with…

Chips and salsa!

Comments are open.

(image)

Some might think Jim Hutchinson and Jeremy Parzen wacky: they are importing lambrusco after all. If you remember lambrusco, it might be from the cloying Riunite whose marketing department declared “on ice…so nice.” (As recently posted in a comment, with video!) Ack.

So why lambrusco? Because it’s actually great stuff, fast on its way to becoming my Wine Of The Summer 2007. That’s right, purple fizzy stuff.

It’s great on a deck, with food, especially mortadella, a specialty also from the Emilia-Romagna region. And at 11 percent alcohol, it’s light and refreshing. One writer I was talking with about lambrusco said it’s kind of like the old Schaefer beer whose slogan was “the beer to have when you’re having more than one.”

Jim, Jeremy & Co (formally known as Domenico Valentino Selections) are importing lambruschi–or lambrewski if you prefer–from one producer, Lini. They are available at the wine shop Vino, I Trulli restaurant and the hipster wine bar and stealth restaurant Centovini in Manhattan. These boutique wines bear no resemblance to the mass-marketed lambruscos.

The white is fun. The dry red has great red fruit, vigorous bubbles, and some serious tannin–it is more fun. But the real winner in my view was the dry rose. It has a beautiful delicate notes of cherry and strawberry and good acidity.

So chill, pop, nosh, and enjoy the new wave of lambrusco. And like a beer, there’s no corkscrew needed!

Related:
New York wine shops, a map
New York wine bars, a map

Wine beats beer
How did wine become more popular than beer in America? It must be because we got klass. Not so, argues Field Maloney on Slate. We’ve got lifestyle. [Slate]

Corked, ’tis (almost)
The wine market for direct shipments in Illinois is about to become corked up. If passed, IL HB 429 will limit Illinois residents to receiving 12 cases of wine a year. You might think that a case a month would be reasonable. But the bill also would strip many out of state wineries and retailers from the right to ship to Illinois wine consumers. That is not reasonable. [SunTimes]

Corked? No ‘taint
Amorim, a cork producer facing a marketplace challenge from screwcap manufacturers, claims to have found a way to treat corks to bring spoilage, known as cork taint, down to below one percent. [IHT]

What’s all white and has a whiff of man?
Why, the editorial dept at Wine Spectator. Dr. Debs explores and admonishes. [GWU $20]

Pairings gone awry
In his office just off the tasting room at Food & Wine Tower, Ray Isle has recently explored disastrous food wine pairings. California chardonnay and smoked sable ended up “the pairing equivalent of hammering yourself on the side of a head with a mallet.” And he finally found a food that does NOT go with champagne: yuzu sorbet sprinkled with espelette chili powder. I’ll have to bear that in mind… [Tasting Room]

Ixnay sake?
Two sushi experts sayonara to the sake and sushi pairing: “it’s a fool’s pairing—the flavor of sake is too similar to rice to enrich the meal. Opt for beer or green tea—their bitterness acts as a palate cleanser.” What about champagne? [TONY]

Dear Dr. Vino,

Which wine would you recommend for a Mother’s day barbecue?

Thanks,

Erin

Dear Erin,

Hmm, that’s a tough one. When I think BBQ I think “big red” to go with the grilled meat. But “mom” and “big red” are not the first wine and people pairing that leaps to mind.

Since mom is the star of the show on Sunday, I’d check with her to see if she likes big reds. If not, I’d consider structuring the menu toward lighter fare such as grilled fish and vegetables.I’d try the Pazo de Senorans albarino 2005 from northwestern Spain. It’s a bit more expensive than entry-level albarino at $20 (find this wine) but it has a beautiful mouthfeel thanks to aging “on the lees” (dead yeast cells–don’t ask) to round out the minerality and acidity. It’s a great complement to grilled white fish.

If you wanted to do some ginger grilled shrimp, I’d try some bubbly or faintly spicy gewurztraminer. On the bubbly side, you could go for the value play with the wonderful, dry Bisol “crede” prosecco for $15 (find this wine) or pay a bit more for the Falmet brut Champagne, a full-bodied bottle of champers thanks to being 90 percent from pinot noir and pinot meunier. For a gewurz, I’d try the Zind-Humbrecht to really hit a home run (find this wine).

If your mom likes reds and grilled meats, then I’d try a mencia from Bierzo for around $12. At that price point the wines are unoaked and lots of food friendly acidity and fruit. Try the Peique (find this wine–or the Abad dom Bueno). For a lush red, try the Terra Rosa malbec for $12 (find this wine) or the Castillo de Jumilla monastrell for same price (find this wine). I had an excellent Gigondas recently, the 01 Domaine Le Mas des Collines Regis de Taxis, for about $21 that would be great with heartier grilled meats (find this wine). If you really wanted to splurge, go for the Ridge Lytton Springs zin (find this wine) to leave your relatives and mom with a lasting impression.

Fingers crossed for good weather on Sunday!

Cheers,