Dr Vino's wine blog

Football playoff season is upon is. The last college game wrapped up last night with the BCS championship and this weekend the NFL playoffs kicks off.

So we need to pair this viewing with some food. Since we have previously tackled wings and chips and salsa, this time we round out the viewing with something heartier: seven layer dip!

For those of you who haven’t enjoyed the dish, imagine a layer of refried beans imbued with chiles or other seasoning, then slather on a couple of ripe avocados (or guacamole), smother that in an inch of sour cream, then add an inch of salsa, some lettuce, cheese and possibly olives. Scoop it out with tortilla chips. Although it may sound gross to the uninitiated, it has an amazingly magnetic effect on those in the room.

So what would you pair with seven layer dip–or is it impossible?!?

Writing on Slate.com, Sara Dickerman wonders why fruitcake remains so unpopular. She points out that it’s rare among cakes to be aged (intentionally), aided by boozy fortification. And then she throws down the oven mitt with this challenge:

They are heavy, indeed, but that is OK: Fruitcake looks best in thinly sliced cross sections. [See image at right from Slate.com–ed.] Studded with fruit and nuts, it reminds me of salami’s piebald patterns of fat and peppercorns. Like salami, too, I think fruitcake tastes swell alongside slivers of nice old cheddar or parmesan. In, fact, I’d argue that fruitcake, with its aging and its complexity, is essentially the charcuterie of the baking world. If that’s not a way to get some traction among today’s foodies, I don’t know what is.

Oooh, charcuterie! Well, we should be able to pair that with wine–except for the rum, apricots, golden raisins, kalamata figs, coconut, and dates. So which wine with you pair with fruitcake? Or is it impossible?!?

Related: Goodbye Wassail, Hello Christmas Smoking Bishop

Last night, someone asked me, “what wine do you pair with fried food since I’m going to be having it for the next eight nights.”

Let’s shed some light on the wine pairing for…latkes! Seems like a blank slate to me, starchy potato (with some onion, salt and pepper) simmered in olive oil. So have at it–or is it impossible?

And if you want to make it a Hanukkah duo, the gentleman also asked for a pairing with jelly doughnuts. That may require a second bottle…

Right now, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Dr. Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India, is being feted at a state dinner! The Obamas brought in chef Marcus Samuelsson of Aquavit in New York to cook a meatless, Indian-inspired meal for the 320 honored guests. (Get full details at nytimes.com) In a toast, the President hailed the American relationship with India a ”great and growing partnership.”

But cutting to the chase for us wine geeks, are the wines fulfilling a great partnership with the food? One course in particular caught my eye: guests wanting the green curry shrimp with smoked collard greens will be offered the Beckmen, Garnache [sic] from the Santa Ynez. While I haven’t tried the wine, one of Beckmen’s other grenache wines rolls in at 15.6% alcohol, not exactly my recipe for good times with green curry. I might just hold on to that Riesling from the previous course if I were seated next to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Jhumpa Lhiri, Bobby Jindal or Steven Spielberg tonight.

What would you pair if you were the USA sommelier with this course? (Only American wines are served at the White House.) Full menu selections come after the jump. Read more…

Tis the season for squash and gourds. But more than looking at them as decoration, I prefer eating them. And for butternut squash, few ways are better than as ravioli with sage/butter sauce.

So, which wine would you pair with these delicious, autumnal ravioli? I have some thoughts but will hold them for the comments.

To anticipate your comments, I didn’t call it “impossible” as is my wont, because it’s merely a tricky blend of sweet, salt, fat and herbs.

If you want an impossible pairing for this week, surf over to the WSJ and read Jonathan Safran Foer on eating dog. But apparently eating a low-fat diet will make you less pissy than eating a low carb diet, so maybe staying here and thinking about pasta will put you in a better mood.

Halloween is a mere two days away and excitement is building around the Dr. Vino World Headquarters: for the kids, they’re after the candy; for me, I can’t wait to take down all the skeletons, ghosts and goblin decorations.

As candy washes over the country these days in a giant, wrapper-encrusted wave, it seems only timely: which wine goes with Halloween candy? Or is it impossible?!?

Please make your candy suggestions as trashy as possible–no gourmet chocolates here, just Reese’s peanut butter cups, KitKats, Almond Joy, Butterfinger, Pop Rocks and/or Necco wafers.

For those of you who cannot fathom pairing candy and wine, then play sommelier for Paul Rudnick: as profiled in yesterday’s NYT, the 51 year old man weighs 150 pounds and subsist almost entirely on candy.

Sushi, it’s still all the rage! Despite warnings from the NYT dining section about mercury levels and an economy that is softer than a fatty toro, the WSJ recently declared that “recession or no recession,” sushi “is not going anywhere.” “Iron Chef” Masaharu Morimoto pointed to the the ubiquity of sushi to go places as a sign of the degree to which it is now embedded in our culture.

You don’t have to love sushi as much as Jeremy Piven to think about which wine pairs with this delectable treat. Why not go with a trio of commonly ordered items such as salmon nigiri, tuna maki and tamago? (Or add your own favorite.) Which wine would you pair with sushi–or is it impossible?!?

The leaves are falling and the autumnal bounty is hitting our tables. Nothing says fall, apparently, like deep fried butter on a stick.

Or at least at the Winston-Salem, North Carolina fair, where a reporter filed this tasting note from the fairgrounds:

Fried cheese is heaven. Would fried butter be Nirvana? We had to find out…Will fried butter be this year’s runaway food sensation of the Dixie Classic Fair? Well, it’s novel. It’s tasty. But it’s no funnel cake, just this year’s fad. But it’s also hard to top. It’s a fluffy, airy pocket of fried batter, basically — the heat of the oil melts most of the butter — sweet and salty at the same time. We felt invigorated. We felt sick.

So what do you say, what goes with deep fried butter–or is it impossible?!? (Sugar, as depicted above, is optional.) And if you think this is hard, at least I didn’t challenge you with this week’s atrocity, Paula Deen’s donut bacon cheeseburger.

If you’re looking for more traditional fare, we previously tried our hand at pairing wine with butternut squash soup.