Dr Vino's wine blog

Fresh tomato season is winding down here quickly in the northeast. But before it goes and tasty tomatoes in farmers markets are replaced by tasteless tomatoes in supermarkets, let’s give it one last hurrah. Which wine would you pair with (heirloom) tomatoes, sliced and sprinkled with salt and some fine olive oil? Or is it impossible?!? Hit the comments with your thoughts!

The tricky part about tomatoes from a wine perspective is the acidity. A few years ago, we celebrated Mrs. Vino’s late summer birthday at a fine, seasonal restaurant. She opted for the vegetarian menu and was met with nine courses (or whatever it was), all with tomatoes! I can’t even remember which wine we had that evening, given the acid bomb of all the tomatoes–talk about turning a “mortgage lifter” into something subprime.

SIPPED: cover crops!
Antidrug officials in Washington State have discovered something other than grapes in the vineyard–marijuana plants! Yes, this budding business of cover crops had a street value of $165 million according to today’s WSJ. Fingers point at immigrant workers–someone alert Lou Dobbs! Oh, and the vineyard manager. These vineyards may soon rival Mendoza for the “highest” in the world.

SIPPED: competition!
Amazon will soon be in the business of selling wine according to the spokesperson for the Napa Valley Vintners, who spilled the beans to Reuters.

SIPPED: a smaller carbon footprint of wine!
Two producers in areas with large carbon footprints are lightening the load in the name of generating fewere greenhouse gas emissions in transit. Huzzah! Champagne house Mumm experiments with lighter glass bottles and Boisset introduces a plastic bottle for its Beaujolais nouveau.

SIPPED: French litigation
Critic Robert Parker’s former assistant sues him in a Paris court for defamation after he wrote on his site that she “could end up stagnating in prison.” Meanwhile, she fends of charges herself in a Bordeaux court. [AP]

SPIT: human wine critics!
In Japan, a 20,000 shipment of Burgundy or a New Zealand riesling can sell out thanks to even a “dreamy sigh” from Shizuku Kanzaki. The only trouble is that he doesn’t have a pulse–he’s a comic book character with 500,000 readers! He’s on a quest find the “Twelve Apostles” — a collection of wines described in his father’s will. So who is the man behind that curtain who actually writes the story and picks the wine? Actually, a brother-sister duo going by the pen name Tadashi Agi. Unmask them, Japan’s wine movers and shakers! [Times online]

SPIT: red wine substitute
Embodi, a new “health beverage” contains “a specially developed grape pomace extract made from the skins, seeds, and stems of red wine grapes.” Hmm, which vintage is that again?

Which wines will we be pouring at the U of C this Saturday afternoon? Well, there’s a generous wine budget and I spent it all. Some of the wines will include Ridge Monte Bello 1990 and a mature Bordeaux, Pax Cellars Griffin’s Lair (from magnum) and J.L Chave St. Joseph. There will be more but I don’t want to ruin the surprise!

So sign up for the few remaining spaces if you can. It will be a really fun edition of our Saturday seminars where no previous knowledge of wine is required for this non-credit session. All participants will also get a signed copy of my new book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters, and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink. All wines poured will tie in to the themes of the book. Click though for more details and registration info. (And no, I don’t get paid any more based on enrollment; it’s just that these wines will be crazy fun so come, taste them, and contribute to the discussion!)

If for some reason that doesn’t work out, I’ll be doing a smaller, shorter tasting at Just Grapes on Thursday (details and registration) and a book signing at Sam’s Lincoln Park on Friday, 5 PM – 7 PM. Stop by and say hi! Now if only I could score some Cubs tickets, my trip to Chicago would be complete!

Site reader Katie has taken the old mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle” to heart. Instead of merely recycling her old wine magazines she is know weaving their pages into handsome wine totes.

She wrote via email: “I weave the entire thing….got the idea because they are making purses now from recycled candy wrappers, potato chip bags, etc…so I thought, why not magazine pages? I covered each piece with a layer of packing tape so it would be waterproof and then figured out how they weave the purses together…then it was just a matter of altering size, and creating a pattern with the color. The inside is lined with a canvas pouch to carry the weight of the bottle.”

She also doesn’t hide her disdain for the magazines’ penchant for giving wines a score out of 100, which carry a false sense of objectivity–and don’t tell you which wine goes with duck breast, she adds. So now she says she “finally” has a use for the mags.

Related:
Katie’s new blog, Gonzo Gastronomy
HOWTO: make a furoshiki wine carrier

Have you ever wanted to sip wine at a movie theater? Perhaps taste along with the show in Ratatouille or Sideways?

Well, wine geeks in Vancouver know how to go to the movies. (And I’m talking about Vancouver, Washington, not that other eno-gastro-hub further north). The Cinetopia offers a wall of Enomatic machines, those self-service wine machines that dispense one ounce at a time after a swipe of your card. Over 100 “world class” choices are there for your tasting prior to the movie in one ounce pours.

And if you feel a little parched during the show, bring your wine in and there’s a waiter who can serve you food during the film! For more details, check out the promotional video. And tell me which wine you’d have with popcorn. I’d opt for Champagne.

Just because Hudson Valley, NY is not the first location when you think of American–nay, New York–wine, that doesn’t mean they haven’t been growing grapes there for a long time.

The 28 wineries in Ulster, Dutchess, and Orange counties have launched a new web site to boost awareness of their new but old region. They claim “the country’s oldest vineyard can be found in the Hudson Valley,” dating back to 1677. Whoa! Them’s fightin’ words!

While the site offers itineraries, history and links to wineries, I have to wonder about the authenticity of one of the pictures. Consider this picture on the left, from their site. Compare to the photo that we pondered earlier on the right, which is a cellar in Hungary with the distinctive red banding on the barrels and the bare bulb illumination.

If the cellar depicted on their site is REALLY in the new/old Hudson Valley, then I will go to that winery and visit!

The remnants of Tropical Storm Hanna swept over the northeast on Saturday afternoon and early evening, stopping play at baseball stadiums and the US Open as several inches of rain fell in a couple of hours.

Here at the Dr. Vino World Headquarters, we lost power. As dusk fell and stomachs started growling, we broke out flashlights, candles and the sea bass we had gotten earlier in the day. Not to let some rain deter our dinner plans, I got out an umbrella and fired up the grill.

Which wine goes with a tropical storm and grilled sea bass? Well, in our case it was the immensely rewarding Vacheron Sancerre 2006 (find this wine). I pour Sancerre at some events, especially in the summer, since it has such great minerality and can really illustrate terroir and be refreshing without breaking the bank. This Vacheron also had a layer of richness, honey-like but completely dry, with sprightly zest of Meyer lemon. When the power came back on, the bottle was empty!

I told this to a friend and he thought the scene sounded “very Thurston Howell III.” To that I say, “Lovey, have Gilligan open up another bottle. It’s de-lish.”

Two Buck Chuck, the celebrated wine that debuted at Trader Joe’s several years ago will never have a British equivalent, Two Pound Chuck. Why? Taxes.

The duty on a bottle of wine under 15 percent alcohol in the UK is £1.46. Throw in VAT at 17.5% and you can see why it is essentially impossible. Even wines under £4.99 have a distinct aroma of taxlicious since 40% of the price paid at the register ends up going to HM Treasury.

That’s one of the things I learned writing a short piece about wine politics for The Guardian & Observer guides to wine, which appeared on Saturday on news stands in the UK (a second part of the guide will follow shortly and I have another piece in that). Fortunately, since I can’t pop down to a WH Smith and pick up a copy, the full contents of the section are available on the Guardian web site. Be sure to check it out for more fascinating articles by Jancis Robinson, Steven Spurrier and others.