Dr Vino's wine blog

All right people, we’ve done this impossible thing before. But they were all warm ups for this one: okra!

The Brooklyn Guy, who eats local foods and drinks sparkling wine, recently admitted that okra is one of his favorite late summer vegetables at the farmer’s market. He’s not even put off by okra slime! While trying to match his pickled okra really would be impossible, there’s a chance of finding a wine match for his suggestion for cooked okra: “Imagine pureeing stewed okra with hot chilis and coconut milk, and using that to stew some chicken thighs or chunks of beef.” Can you imagine? Do you believe? The challenge is really more the okra/spicy/coconut with the dark meat.

Hit the comments with your suggestions!

If VOS Selections were a wine consumer, the company would just be allowed to drink. The boutique wine importer and distributor, based in New York City, is celebrating its twenty-first year. I dropped by their trade tasting on Monday and sat down with president and founder Victor Owen Schwartz to ask him four questions. What follows are his juicy thoughts on the dollar and wine prices, strikes, the summer from hell, Greek wines, the word of the day (“autochthonous”), and why he’s drinking rosé all year long.

What are you most worried about this fall? Read more…

One of my aunts recently showed her fine sense of judgment by telling me that she’s always on the lookout for light-bodied red wines under $15. Unfortunately, with the bump up in euro-denominated wines, this isn’t as easy a proposition as it was even one year ago. But here are two wines from the lip-smacking gamay grape that fit her criteria.

Pierre Chermette, Le Vissoux, Beaujolais 2007 (find this wine): Although a humble Beaujolais, as opposed to one of the smaller crus in the region, this wine still has lots of interest and is highly quaffable, with a good balance of fruit and acidity. They should put it in a bag-in-box to make it easier to squeeze off a glass or two! (Btw, this is a “drink now” kind of wine; I stumbled on a 2005 vintage in the Dr. Vino cave a few weeks ago and it was shot.)

Clos Roche Blanche, cuvée gamay, Touraine, 2007 (find this wine): A tad more minerality, though still not as complex as a good cru Beaujolais, this gamay from the Loire is organically grown and delicious with a wide range of foods. I went nuts at the Chambers Street Wines sale last month and bought several mixed cases. But this is the one wine where I splurged for a whole case (at $13 a bottle), which is now, sadly, running low, thanks to my own depletion–and giving one to my aunt. In all honesty, this wine is listed at $16 retail so a tad above her threshold. But with a 10% case discount, she’ll be in the clear. And who could resist buying a case of this?

Which light-bodied reds under $15 do you enjoy?

SPIT: Pailn syrah!
An organically grown syrah from the Chilean producer, Palin (find this wine), was the best selling wine at Yield wine bar in San Francisco–until Sarah Palin was selected as John McCain’s running mate. The case of mistaken identity has led sales to plummet. One patron suggested changing the tasting note on the wine list to “moosemeat, salmon, hint of gunpowder.” [Serious Eats]

SIPPED: Stephen Colbert
Speaking of the election, how could we make it through without Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Even though they both won Emmys last night, only one appeared to have wine at the afterparty! [Eonline]

SPIT: federalism
Canada gets the America treatment as inter-province shipping rears its ugly head. Oh, Canada! Hey, at least Ontario hasn’t made shipping Okanagan pinot a felony–yet. [Vancouver Sun]

SPIT: financial market turbulence
Hart Davis Hart, the Chicago based auction house, sold 100% of lots for $11.2 million in a single cellar, two-day sale over the weekend. And it wasn’t even Hank Paulson buying!

SIPPED: box wine
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, box wine gets its first New Yorker cartoon feature with an enormous “Chateau de Costco” dominating the living room. [Cartoonbank]

The next time you hear a wine maker extolling the virtues and distinctiveness of the vineyard, a good follow up question might just be to ask about the yeasts used in fermentation.

Yeasts may be boring, invisible agents of the fermentation process but they have been getting more attention recently. Jancis Robinson is the latest to focus on them in her column from Saturday’s Financial Times, “Forget the grapes, it’s a cultural thing.” To the tape:

The overwhelming quantity of wine on sale today was fermented using commercially available strains of yeast, yeasts specially chosen for their particular and powerful attributes…One prominent New Zealand winemaker claims…that he can make any required style of Sauvignon Blanc from exactly the same grapes, provided he can choose the yeast. The following thoughts have been inspired by Chardonnays that taste like Sauvignon Blancs, a raft of indistinguishable New World Syrahs, and my sense that the flavour spectrum of wines today seems narrower than it has ever been.

She then describes some of the characteristics. Enoferm Assmannshausen®, for example, suggests that it be used “for making Pinot Noir and Zinfandel. It is considered a color friendly strain that enhances spicy (clove, nutmeg) and fruity flavours and aromas.” Lalvin CY3079® is designed “for barrel fermented Chardonnay and aging on lees. Gives rich, full mouthfeel and aromas” while Uvaferm SVG® is designed “to enhance typical Sauvignon character, diminished acidity and with good fermentation kinetics.”

While methods of grape growing and vineyard sites are certainly important, yeasts deserve to leaven the discussion of winemaking more than they do.

One of my private tasting clients asked me an unusual question recently: which wine goes with almonds?

The answer was easy: sherry. A much misunderstood wine, it’s not just for sherry hour in the faculty lounge any more–it is distinctive and makes a great aperitif. And probably because of the confusion, it’s also a great deal.

In order to try this out, I bought the Hidalgo La Gitana ($10; find this sherry) and got some marcona almonds. On it’s own, chilled, the sherry is tangy and briney, refreshing and appetizing. But with the marcona almonds from Spain, the whole experience was elevated in one of those classic food-wine pairings that brings out the best in both.

And a little sherry goes a long way; we were able to have three evenings of aperitifs from the same $10 bottle. It may be the ultimate wine for an economic downturn. Pity the almonds were $16.99 a pound.

For more background on sherry, check out Eric Asimov’s recent article in the NYT.

One of those rare winemakers of the world, described as “iconoclastic,” “maverick,” and the “wild boy of Pouilly-Fume,” Loire legend Didier Dagueneau tragically died yesterday at the age of 52. The ultralight plane he was piloting crashed in the Dordogne region of France. Jancis Robinson has an homage as does Eric Asimov, as does Le Point, where I got an image of him that I reduced and cropped.

Faster than you could say “Holy carbon footprint, Batman!” two new box wines have arrived on our shores!

Naturalista wine importers Jenny and Francois win the prize for the first new box wine since my op-ed in the NYTimes last month! Actually, the red was around last vintage but the white is all new! Double your pleasure while reducing your carbon footprint.

Both the wines are from the Cotes du Rhone cooperative Estezargues, which Jenny & Francois claim is the only co-op in France to make “natural” wines (no commercial yeasts, no enzymes, no filtering, minimal sulfur before bottling).

The white, called “From the Tank” and packaged in unbleached cardboard, is actually a great value transitional white for fall (find this wine). This 2007 is aromatically complex, its big and rich, with typical low acidity, and dry. I was envisioning pairing it with a squash risotto. Although it is not a low-priced box wine at $40, it is, they write in their catalog, “exactly the same wine as what we bring in bottles,” which sell for about $14.50 each. Booyah! For all the Wine Century Club members out there, its 70% Grenache Blanc, 20% Clairette + Bourboulenc, and 10% Viognier.

The red, a big blend of grenache, syrah and carignan, has that ripe, juicy quality from many of the wines of the region. The wine lacked the precision and structure of some their other Rhone reds but it is a solid offering to keep around for squeezing off a mid-week glass. It’s the same price as the white “From the Tank.” (find this wine)

I didn’t have time to taste through all their wines at their trade tasting last week, unfortunately. But I did like the Binner wines from Alsace, which I had not previously discovered (search for Binner). The pillowy pinot gris 2006 has no added sulfites; the 2006 gewurztraminer had a blast of white flowers and mango on the aroma and balanced tropical fruits on the palate.