Dr Vino's wine blog

Many people in the wine trade are taking a bath because of the economic crisis. But not importer Terry Theise: he’s taking a shower.

Digging through the piles on my desk I unearthed this card from the illustrious importer of boutique wines from Germany, Austria and Champagne. After winning a James Beard award last year, Theise decides to bare mostly all on his year-end card. His caption is: “Theise Wines: so fresh & clean! Swirl. Smell. Taste. Repeat.”

What’s your caption? Be sure to “keep it clean.” Just like Terry.

What do Diana Krall and Sammy Hagar have in common? Not a lot from a musical perspective, that’s for sure. But both the performers have detailed wine requests built into their show contracts.

Krall, the jazz vocalist, presents a long list of acceptable producers of mostly red wine as detailed on thesmokinggun.com. Wines on “the Diana Krall wine list” are mostly robust reds such as Shafer, Paul Hobbs, Ridge, d’Arenberg, Castano, Pesquera, and Allegrini but also includes intriguing choices in Failla and Edmunds St. John. The skinflint show manager would, of course, get her some Ravenswood since that is also on her list. She also requires a can of Nestle’s Good Start baby formula, which may be a chaser of the Ravenswood–or for her then seven-month-old twins, touring with her. (Check out her other demands, including a private yoga room and a dressing room free of bleachy smell!)

The former Van Halen star, Hagar, is less specific in his rider.

Sammy Hagar is a wine connoisseur. Please select good bottles. We are requesting one bottle of red and one bottle of white. Red wine (between $30 and $100):
1st choice: bottle of French or Californian Pinot Noir
2nd choice: Italian Barolo
3rd choice: Merlo [sic] or Cabernet Sauvignon from California
White wines ($18 to $30)
1st choice: Californian or European Pinot Blanc
2nd choice: Californian or European Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonney [sic]

As stage drinks, he also requests 16 cold Mexican beers (Corona or Pacifico), 2 quarts of green Gatorade, and three cans of Dr. Pepper–in stage left cooler only!

For more performers such as Coldplay, Elton John, U2, Foo Fighters, and more, click through to Jamie Goode’s wineanorak, where I first read about these contracts being available on The Smoking Gun. Find out who specifically requested Mouton Cadet!

Which wines would you put in your performance rider?

I like light reds. Pinot noir, gamay, barbera all make food-friendly wines that can be light in style as compared to, say, cabernet sauvingnon or zinfandel, which are fuller bodied (and often higher in alcohol).

Talking about the flavor profile of wines, from light to full bodied is, in my view, a really constructive way to talk about wine. Heck, entire stores such as Best Cellars in Manhattan and wine lists at numerous restaurants arrange wines this way.

So I was surprised to hear a boutique wine distributor tell me the other day that “light” is verboten! Here’s what he said:

“Light is bad. It’s the kiss of death for a wine. I instruct my sales staff to never describe a wine is light–it’s not beer after all! Succulent and fruit forward and food-friendly, yes, but light, no.”

It’s probably just a question of semantics since he does have many light-bodied (my term!) wines in his portfolio, which I don’t think even has one Aussie shiraz or Cali cab. But I was struck by his hostility to the term and, needless to say, I don’t think it is the kiss of death; rather, it’s a strong endorsement in my view! What do you think?

You asked for this illustration commissioned from Alex Eben Meyer on a T-shirt; I present you the new Dr. Vino shirt shack at cafepress.

I threw in buttons, mugs and some other surprise items for you!

The folks at Nestle have a wine flavored KitKat in Japan! Clearly they need our help. I mean really, what KIND of wine?!?

So what should be this product’s tagline? Hit the comments with your thoughts!

To get the ball rolling, I’ll riff of the classic Reese’s ad with “You got your chocolate in my wine!”

If you’ve wanted to work for the Church of England but have felt constrained by the whole clergy thing, Birmingham Cathedral in England may have just the position for you: sommelier.

According to this article, the Cathedral has hired a new “director of hospitality and welcome” away from a department store. He plans to open a chain of wine bars in the downtown area as well as implementing “loyalty cards” for regular parishioners (on the tenth worship you get a tall glass of forgiveness?).

Mark Hope-Urwin, the new director, said: “We’re not trying to encourage drinking, but the cathedral has to engage more with the city and find ways of meeting people on their territory.”

Perhaps educating parishioners about wine will lead to an upgrading of the Communion wine? Wouldn’t want them to spit that, after all.

Hit the comments with your thoughts on what’s on the wine list at an Anglican wine bar!

Roederer, the Champagne house that makes the bling Cristal as well as an excellent nonvintage champers, has announced that they will be testing out a new location for bottle aging: under the sea. To the tape:

Roederer said on Monday it had placed several dozen bottles 15 meters (50 feet) underwater in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel, a rocky tidal island off the coast of Normandy, last weekend. A cellarman came up with the idea after realizing that the water temperature in the bay, a constant 10 degrees Celsius (50F), was ideal for aging wine.

But if cork lets in scant amounts of oxygen in a normal cellar, might undersea aging turn the champagne a tad briney? They will stage a tasting in a year to find out how it’s going. Assuming, that is, that lobsters haven’t opened an undersea night club where the cases are stored.

It’s not even January 1 and there’s an article about hangovers! Joan Acocella writes in the New Yorker about the phenomenon that Egyptians call “still drunk,” the Japanese “two days drunk,” the Chinese “drunk overnight” and the Danes “carpenters in the forehead.”

While drinking to excess without a resulting hangover might sound like something technology should have fixed by now (in a world of fat-free desserts, how could they not?), Acocella doesn’t suggest much in the way of a cures. But she does talk about various causes. To wit:

The severity of a hangover depends, of course, on how much you drank the night before, but that is not the only determinant…And what kind of alcohol did you drink? In general, darker drinks, such as red wine and whiskey, have higher levels of congeners—impurities produced by the fermentation process, or added to enhance flavor—than do light-colored drinks such as white wine, gin, and vodka. The greater the congener content, the uglier the morning.

Does that red-white difference ring true for you? What about “natural” winemaking? Partisans of sake often tout its purity and some even go so far to say that it doesn’t give headaches. I’ve never put that to the test.

And as to the cure, she suggests wearing sunglasses and moping around. Just kidding. Folklore often dictates the “hair of the dog.” But I’d steer clear of this morning-after twist from a Ukrainian in the story: “two shots of vodka, then a cigarette, then another shot of vodka.” She counsels to avoid Tylenol since it increases toxicity to the liver. For prevention, she points to advocates of drinking lots of water, a glass of milk or eating a meal prior to drinking. And, of course, consuming alcohol in moderation.

“A Few Too Many,” By Joan Acocella, The New Yorker