Dr Vino's wine blog

Happy Chinese new year! Or lunar new year or spring festival. Call it what you want, we’re now in the year of the rat! And the year of the Beijing Olympics!

China is getting a thirst for wine. But is pairing the cuisine with wine…impossible?!? Rather than an Americanized dish such as chop suey or General Tso’s chicken, let’s go for the real deal: Peking duck!

Hit the comments with your suggestions!

“Oversized wine glasses in British pubs cause worry among pols, health officials,” blared a headline in the NY Daily News. I have to admit that when I saw that, I feared that there had been a Riedel war in a London pub, perhaps a jousting match with broken stems.

But it turns out that “big glasses” are being blamed on binge drinking! Roll the tape:

“The glasses are larger and the wines are a lot stronger. It’s a minefield for anyone trying to keep tabs on what they’ve had,” said Srabani Sen, head of Alcohol Concern, a charity.

While binge drinking is no doubt unfortunate and apparently has risen to worrying levels in Britain, are big glasses to blame? Have your say in the latest poll!

poll now closed
UPDATE: now with intel from London in the comments – Golly and StuckatLGW
Image: John Joh, with permission

The fantastic tale involving a tremendous cast of characters and some possibly fraudulent bottles from the collection of Thomas Jefferson has not one but two–TWO!–interested parties in making this a movie. (story on Decanter, the wine site with the most obnoxious advertising ever.)

Excellent news! THIS is the wine movie we have been waiting for! Forget Paris 1976. Forget Russell Crowe. This has it all–intrigue, fine wine, possible duplicity, remorse, vengeance, and bling! The only thing missing is the love angle but I’m sure Hollywood’s finest screenwriters will be able to work that in when they get off the picket line.

So let’s do our own casting call. I outlined some of the characters in an earlier summary of the story. Will Smith is reportedly involved.

Potentially fraudulent seller, with a hidden past: Paul Giamatti. Back for another wine role! No, wait, Johnny Depp!

Potentially complicit, eager auctioneer: Ian McKellan. Or take it down a few decades with Hugh Grant.

Flashback to Thomas Jefferson: Nick Nolte! Back again, and with wine…

Hired detective: Chris Cooper

Billionaire sheriff: Clint Eastwood. No doubt. But this is probably the part that Will Smith wants. That could be fun too.

Love interest: Catherine Zeta-Jones. Could merge my previous suggestion about the wine heist quite easily here.

And major congrats to renaissance man Ben Wallace (er, wait, this Ben Wallace) on selling the movie rights before the book has even been published! And to Patrick Radden Keefe for selling movie rights to a magazine article! I’m happy to sell movie rights to a blog posting.

“The Bryant Park Project,” a very good program on NPR, asked me to discuss (live!) the issue of interstate wine shipments this morning (segment is here). What with the Giants’ upset victory yesterday and Super Tuesday tomorrow, I’m glad that the politics of wine saw the light of day! Hopefully some momentum is building on this important issue especially after Eric Asimov’s story from last week in the Times.

And speaking of the Super Bowl, which wine to you think Gisele was sipping up in the booth?

Belinda Chang, 34, has been a sommelier at leading restaurants in three cities including Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago, Rick Tramonto’s Cenitare, and the Fifth Floor (Laurent Gras) in San Francisco where she was nominated for a James Beard award for excellence in wine service. In November last year, she started as the wine director at The Modern in New York City.

I asked her eight questions via email and discovered how she plans to change the wine list and what’s the best value wine, whether you can pair wine with art, what differentiates diners in those three cities, and find out why she has no wine in her wine cellar.

How did you get into wine? Read more…

This seen by our undercover operatives at Pottery Barn: a bag of 55 wine bottle corks for $14. Not a wine stain on any of them! Stumped by why they were being sold (home winemakers wandering through the store perhaps?), our agent then spotted a square vase filled with the display corks. A good look, but a little sterile since the corks were mere props.

Just think that 55 bottles of $10 wine is only $550 — pleasure, memories, and, yes, corks, included. Then you can apply the $14 saved toward the cool vase. I’m looking forward to the bag of 55 screwcaps, due out soon.

What do you do with your used corks?

Related:
–Reduce, reuse…recork?
–13,500 bottles of wine ARE the wall
–To Cork or not to Cork, a giveaway

Status Costquo
Judges in the Ninth Circuit Court ruled two to one against Costco, which sells almost a fifth of all wine in Amerca. The judges upheld the Washington Liquor Board’s ban that prohibits distributors from offering deeper discounts to big retailers, varying prices from one retailer to another, and making deliveries to specific stores instead of a central warehouse for retailers. Changing the status quo could have led to reduced wine prices since Costco stores in Washington could buy wine more or less directly from wine producers. [Seattle Times]

Rosenblum sold to furriners!
“Diageo buys Rosenblum for £53m” read the headline in the Financial Times. Why the foreign coverage of a California winery acquisition? Oh yes, Diageo is a drinks multinational based in Britain. With the US dollar tanking, are foreign buyers going to start snapping up American wineries almost as fast as Manhattan pieds-à-terre? Who’s next: Jackson Family? Trinchero? In the case of Rosenblum, let’s hope this reliable producer of zinfandel will continue pumping out the good value vino. [FT.com]

Chew on this
“…if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius.” The meat-guzzler, love it. [NY Times]

Vino Italiano
The next Wine Blogging Wednesday theme has been announced: review an Italian red in seven words. Since having a good picture might help stretch that to 1,007, check out this month’s host and his tips on how to take better pictures of wine bottles. [Spitoon]

Design for wine
Yes, your design could win you free wine in the WBW logo contest, now underway. [WBW.org]

Four questions with…Dr. Vino!
I spoke with Paul Berger and gave him a few tips for NYC wine geeks. [NY Metro]

Just in time for Super Bowl Sunday, a giantly patriotic dish showcasing American innovation: Buffalo wings!

Is it impossible to pair wings with wine? You make the call! (And don’t forget the blue cheese dip.)

Related: “Betting wine for football.”
“Impossible food-wine pairings: chips and salsa!”
UPDATE: Thanks, Mark, for pointing out the “classic” wine pairing!
Image: istockphoto.com