Dr Vino's wine blog

A reader writes in: “I’m flipping through the channels and “The Jerk” (Steve Martin) is on… and there’s a scene with him pulling wine from dispensers. Lafite 66!”

Funny image indeed! (Note wine glass in top left corner.) Hit the comments with your caption!

While you may not be able to touch Wynn’s nuts in Las Vegas, the Meadowood resort in Napa encourages you to pull the corks on the wine in the room.

Even though I wondered briefly which wine goes with Kettle chips, I managed to make it through my stay for a wine writers’ conference last week without opening a bottle in my room. But I was tempted since the wines were some top examples of local offerings at incredible prices. Consider the Joseph Phelps Insignia 2001 for $145 in the room when it can’t be found for less than $130 in a store (find this wine), if at all! While they are not all steals (the Sinskey Carneros Pinot Noir was $55 in room compared to $25 in a store) there were other, lower priced wines too: Plumpjack Chardonnay for $65 in room and about $50 in a store (find this wine) and the sparkling Schramsberg blanc de blanc is $35 in the room and about $25 in a store (find this wine). And free in-room wi-fi to run your own price check!

I asked the affable Gilles de Chambure, Master Sommelier and Director of Wine Education at Meadowood about the pricing and quality of the wine in the rooms, he said “we want people to pull the corks.” Indeed!

One negative about the beverages at Meadowood, however, was the abundant pouring in the dining room of one-liter glass bottles of Acqua Panna, a water imported from Tuscany. With bottled water available from five miles away in Calistoga I was tempted to break out my carbon calculator…

Although the gray clouds were high in the sky, rain threatened every minute of our cool walk along the trails. After a fun but draining week in Napa last week I welcomed a break with my cousins on Saturday as we walked about five miles over hill and dale (what is a dale?) to reach the beach pictured above in Marin County.

Anyway, after the hike, we stumbled on Small Shed Flatbreads in Mill Valley, a restaurant where the banquette is made from a reclaimed bowling lane–complete with arrows–and the menu has a local and organic focus. I ordered a sweet potato curry soup and we shared various other excellent flatbreads and salads for the table. On a whim, I decided to order a Zardetto Prosecco (find this wine) and it came in a Duralex glass, not a flute, but tasted great and refreshing, cool with its pleasant acidity and faint sweetness.

Prosecco is now my official wine after hikes. A good wine tastes great in the right context.

A couple of nights ago I had one of the storied dishes of Napa Valley. And no, Thomas Keller, I’m talking about the fish tacos at Taylor’s Refresher, a roadside joint in St. Helena!

The horrendously bad cameraphone pic does not to the food justice but it is a piece of grilled mahi mahi, shredded lettuce and a hot sauce that has an arc like a wine, really kicking in on the finish.

Is pairing fish tacos with wine…impossible?!? Hit the comments with your suggestions!

This excellent New Yorker article examines the phenomenon of measuring carbon emissions. The author, Michael Spector, mentions the study on the carbon footprint of wine that I wrote with Pablo Paster. And we were THIS close to a mention! Roll the tape:

Last year, a study of the carbon cost of the global wine trade found that it is actually more “green” for New Yorkers to drink wine from Bordeaux, which is shipped by sea, than wine from California, sent by truck. That is largely because shipping wine is mostly shipping glass. The study found that “the efficiencies of shipping drive a ‘green line’ all the way to Columbus, Ohio, the point where a wine from Bordeaux and Napa has the same carbon intensity.”

It’s good the research is getting out there! The WSJ blog Environmental Capital also mentioned it here and the New York based authors were delighted to raise a glass of Bordeaux to the finding. Foreign Policy also mentioned it in passing this time around but actually did mention it before.

Anyway, if this has made you thirsty for more on the topic, check out a summary of our research findings, my op-ed in the NYT suggesting a local drink, and be sure to come to the March 18 free talk and tasting benefiting The Nature Conservancy! Hope to see you there!

This photo comes from site reader Jennie along with her own rant:

I have been composing a blog ever since I took that pic re the manifest lack of thought in the architecture. Whoever is responsible should be SHOT! They go on and on about the 360 panoramic views (which there are outside) and yet the tasting room has one “picture” window with one table in front of it and aside from that you’re sipping your tasting glass on bar stools either looking at the wall or looking at the bartender – I mean REALLY. Don’t you often think the world would be a better place if you ruled it?!

In a follow up email, she admitted to not really having her own blog. Too bad!

So, where in the wine world was she? UPDATE: Read more…

Schramsberg is an iconic American sparkling wine and it’s no surprise that it as been poured at the White House over 100 times. Last week, I caught up with Hugh Davies on the phone to ask him about the experiences for this second installment of our two-part mini-series, Entertainer-in-Chief. Two instances stood out to me of serving Schramsberg at state events.

Hugh, 42, told me that in 1972, his dad, Jack, got word from the Nixon White House that they would need 13 cases of Schramsberg 1969 blanc de blanc. And those cases had to be delivered to Travis Air Force Base. Hugh said that it was all a bit mysterious but his dad loaded up the cases into his jeep, drove them over to the Base where he got paid and left the wine.

Then three weeks later, images of Nixon’s historic trip to China were broadcast back to the US. And there was good old Nixon raising a glass of Schramsberg with Premier Zhou En Lai in a “toast to peace.” Hugh said that Barbara Walters reported from Tiananmen Square that Nixon and Zhou had just toasted with the Schramsberg “blank de blank.” Thirteen cases must have kept the whole delegation happy!

In what would be a bookend to state dinners and Schramsberg during Hugh’s mom’s lifetime, the Schramsberg brut rose 2004 was served at the state dinner with Queen Elizabeth II in Washington last year. The Teetoaler-in-Chief did not call and there was no drop-off at an AFB. Instead, the head usher just ordered it through the local distributor and Hugh didn’t even know it was being served.

Image credit, click through for more photos from the historic trip including this one, no doubt after the 13 cases of Schramsberg.

With President’s Day soon upon us in this election year, it’s time for the first installment of Entertainer-in-Chief!

…the urbane Thomas Jefferson, who occupied the residence from 1801 through 1809. Jefferson moved swiftly to grace the President’s House with all the trappings of the leader of a great new country, including stocking it with fine wines from around the world. Jefferson’s Williamsburg education and worldly ways imbued him with a predisposition for the pleasures of the palate, and his extensive travels throughout France and Italy in the 1780s made him a student of wine.

When he ascended to the presidency, Jefferson had wine vaults constructed below the east colonnade to house his sizable collection. (The area is no longer used for that purpose.) He is said to have spent more than $11,000 on wine during his two terms as president, a sum that in today’s economy would equal roughly $175,000.

Jefferson was a gracious host, regularly dipping into his private collection to entertain foreign dignitaries, as well as his colleagues and opponents, in high style. In Jefferson’s day, presidents didn’t have expense accounts, but rather were expected to run the household from their own salary. Indeed, it is said that Jefferson was generous to a fault, entertaining so lavishly that financial problems would follow him to his grave. [Wine News]

Wow, what a gent. And what an exemplary, overstretched American consumer! Good thing home equity loans hadn’t been invented or he might have set off his own mortgage crisis at Monticello.