Dr Vino's wine blog

Since I have sacrificed too many corkscrews to the TSA, I now know where to find them: Georgia! Well, if I ever flew through Georgia that is. The WSJ had a quite hilarious piece yesterday on the bounty that the TSA collects from (presumably) clueless travelers including 12,295 “clubs, bats and bludgeons” and 1.6 million “knives and blades” collected last year.

It turns out that states, not the feds, can dispose of the stuff and many of them have decided to sell it directly. Pennsylvania, which, oddly, sells the 2.5 tons of goods a month collected from JFK airport and others, has a wall of items that they won’t sell just to demonstrate for the sheer outrageousness of what people tried to bring on board: “deer antlers, a foot-long fish hook, nunchucks, a medieval flail and a hand grenade with the explosive drilled out.” As the reporter says, what were they thinking?!?

Anyway, Georgia sells corkscrews it collects for less than a $1. Score! Anyone found any good corkscrews from such piles of miscellany? Ebay? Apparently states do use Ebay to dispose of some stuff. I would love to get a Laguiole for $1.

And remember, it’s only the tiny blade of the foil cutter that makes the corkscrew illegal (why, I’m not sure since they allow metal scissors “with pointed tips and blades” up to four inches in your carry-on. ‘Tis not mine to wonder why.). Pack a cork screw without a foil cutter and you’re good to go this summer!

“Carry-On Items Taken at Airports Find Happy Homes” [WSJ]

* Slow Food Westchester: July 25, 6 – 8 PM. I’ll be helping out with the inaugural event for this chapter (convivium). We’ll taste seven great wines that also happen to be some hue of “green.” Plates restaurant, Larchmont, NY. $40, reservations necessary. Call Plates to reserve: 914.834.1244

* New York University: Buying and Cellaring, three sessions starting on September 25. Register here
* University of Chicago: Buying and cellaring liquid assets: one monster session, September 29. Register here
In both of these new classes, we will examine the red hot wine market. We will discuss where to buy wines, where to sell, how to store, and when to consume wines. In the longer, NYU course, we will devise a buying strategy for your budget and storage conditions and I hope we’ll be able to do the same in Chicago, even though the time is more limited. Both NY and Chicago will have tastings of collectible wines so be sure to sign up–especially, since the people enroll, the bigger the tasting budget is!

* New York Unversity: Becoming a Wine Expert. Six Wednesday evenings, starting October 17. Register here
This spring, one participant in the course said that he had waited two years to get into the class — I hope it was worth it! This, my core class, has the enrollment limited to 25 because of space limitations at the Torch Club.

* The Gourmet Institute: New York City, October 19-21. Register here
I’ll be participating on the panel “Eat the Web: Blogging’s Effect on the Food World,” moderated by Ruth Reichl. It’s very expensive (think two iPhones) but there are all those celebrity chefs whose food you can eat!

And I’m trying to coordinate an offline meetup, hopefully for next week…More on that very soon.

We pick, you decide! That’s right, people, this is more fun than Fox News. I pick a wild and crazy food that we eat here in Amurrica, and you decide the wine pairing!

And if you think I’m going to lob a softball at you with some sorta cheese or bacon no brainer, forget it. We’re swinging for the fences here. There are no right answers, of course. So which wine has worked for you with…

Chips and salsa!

Comments are open.

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Sipped: Peter Singer, Princeton ethicist
“And buying the merlot may help sustain a tradition in the French countryside that we value–a community, a way of life, a set of values that would disappear if we stopped buying French wines. I doubt if you travel to Fiji you would find a tradition of cultivation of Fiji water.” Excellent! He’s clearly been reading his Dr. Vino! [great piece on bottled water in Fast Company]

Sipped: NYC tap water
The NYT gives NYC tap water a thumbs up for taste and price, pointing out that eight glasses of tap water a year has a total tab of $0.49. [NYT]

Sipped: Oregon wine tourism
Oregon Wine has a new interactive map for plotting your next trip to the state. Good stuff–we love maps! [Oregon Wine]

Sipped: Michigan wine country(?)
“There’s a quiet revolution happening here,” Joel Goldberg, a local wine writer, told the NYT about the burgeoning wine life in Michigan. “Go off a side road and through the woods and you’ll find a vineyard here, a vineyard there — hundreds of acres of new vineyards are going in all over the place. And there are some real quality wines.” [NYT travel]

Spit: the US Dollar
Touched a record low versus the Euro on Friday as it fell to $1.3814.

Spit: EU wine reform, in Central Europe
“If this EU reform is passed, I think the size of the vineyards under cultivation in Hungary will be halved. It could create a dramatic situation,” Laszlo Kiss, president of Hungary’s National Council of Wine Communities. [AFP].

Spit: California Rhone-style wine under $10
“Why can’t California deliver the same kind of terroir [as a Cotes du Rhone] for $10? “[SF Chron]

What would you think if I told you that an armed robbery was averted because of wine? No, not a broken bottle waving sort of thing. But a sipping leads to a change of heart sort of thing. Sound implausible?

One evening last month, just such an event occurred in Capitol Hill. Read the astounding and bizarre full story here in the Washington Post. Truth sometimes IS stranger than fiction.

Wouldn’t that be great if everyone kept a bottle of wine at home to foil would-be attackers? Too bad the story doesn’t state the vintage of this Malescot St-Exupéry.

* Water cools faster than air. For urgent chilling needs: bucket, ice, cold water, and some salt. Dunk bottle. Or try one of those sleeve things, which are also very good.

* Small pours. When it’s hot out and the wine is cold, just do small pours since wine in the bottle keeps colder (see above). If cold is your goal, that is (see next).

* Experiment with temperature. Of course, some whites can be served too cold, which closes down the aromatics. Try chilling some young reds with higher acidity, such as sangiovese or Beaujolais.

* Think light thoughts. Save the cabs for winter by the fire. On the deck, go for whites when you’re not drinking rose.

* Think pink. Cast aside any lingering prejudices and catch the hot wine of summer, a dry rosé. They are so food friendly and offer something with more substance than a white. I like ones from Provence, such as Domaine Sorin, but they actually come in a range of styles.

* Venture off the beaten path. Try a Soave (much improved in recent years; try Pieropan). Or a Moscato d’Asti (sweet, lightly fizzy dessert wine; try the Giovinale). Or a lambrusco (purple or pink fizzy wine such as the Vezzelli). And those are just some Italian ideas!

* Put the stem in stemware. Try the “impact resistant” crystal glasses from Schott Zwiesel. Sure beats Solo plastic cups! If you do have to drink en plastique, try to make it thin and clear. (Note: the crystal glasses are impact “resistant” not “-proof”)

* Forget the corkscrew. Go on a hike or a boat and leave the corkscrew behind–choose a wine with a screw cap or possibly even in a TetraPak (lighter to carry back out empty). Or go for the ultimate no-corkscrew-needed wine–champagne! (Caution–not so great on hikes though.)

* Hit the sauce. It can be hard to match the sweetness of BBQ sauce. Try a sweet red fizzy wine, the Sangue di Giuda by Verdi (find this wine).

* Cocktails without corn. OK, this is a wine web site, but if you’re doing a gin and tonic, you can either make your own tonic water or buy a new brand, such as Q tonic, which is made without high fructose corn syrup. Taste the difference.

“Do Americans have a wine cellar?” runs an old industry saw. “Yes, it’s called the back seat of their car on the way home from the wine store.”

True enough. Virtually all wine bought in American gets uncorked (or uscrewed) within a very short time after purchase. And at no price point is that more true than under $10 wines. So for today’s Wine Blogging Wednesday assignment of finding a Spanish wine under $10, I thought I’d try the impossible: an under $10 wine with some age.

I dug around the Dr. Vino cave, and came across a bottle of the Castano, Hecula, 2002. Since I bought it for $7 about three years ago, I had low expectations that the wine would still even be good. But it was a Tuesday night, so what the hey.

Wow, was it good, perhaps the most rewarding under $10 wine I’ve had in a long time. Alluring notes of grilled meat drippings, leather and tobacco permeated the aroma and the wine actually had an attack, a midpalate, and a lingering finish. While five years of age is just warming up for most more expensive and age-worthy wines, this under $10 wine may have been particularly long lived because of the grape variety, monastrell, aka mourvedre in the south of France. In a tasting last fall of this big red grape, I found that I preferred the wines with some age on them to blow off some of the gamey, animale character.

The sad news about this wine is that it was my last bottle. A quick price check showed only a few vendors with it available, and now they want $14, double what I paid for it three years ago. A sign of the times, for popular Spanish wines.

Check out wine-girl.net for the full WBW round-up of good value wines from Spain.

Related: “An open letter to Jorge Ordonez“

Best spit bucket
Perrin. Try to dump that over yourself, Miles! Yes, I spit my Beaucastel on stones imported from Chateauneuf du Pape.

Cheesiest video
Some continuous loop at the Torres stand about monks in Priorat. Excerpt: “The white light guided us to the land.”

Most groan inducing slogan
Tie! “Rockin’ Rhone” and “California wines: inspired by life”

Oddest attire
Woman dressed up as a martini glass

Best 2006 red tasted at Union des Grands Crus tasting
Leoville Las Cases (search for this wine)

Best 2006 dry white tasted at Union des Grands Crus tasting
Chateau Carbonnieux (search for this wine)

Best red wine tasted
Chateau Le Pin 2001 (from magnum; find this wine)

Worst red wine tasted
Chateau Le Pin 2001 (from magnum–more later; find this wine)

Best white vertical
Tondonia, gran reserva, 1981 – 1964, selected vintages

Best cheese plate table
Chateau Angelus

Best lunch
Vieux Chateau Certan. Yummy oysters!

Oddest animal
Life sized, black plastic stallion in the press room

Best fireworks
La Jurade, St. Emilion, complete with acrobat walking up side of old tower

Best looking ambassador in ceremonial robes
US Ambassador Craig Roberts Stapleton

Worst traffic
Everyday! (especially when leaving)

By the random numbers:
Attendees: around 50,000
Exhibitors: 2,400
Length of lines for sandwiches: 30 yards
Cost of mediocre lunch: 16 euros
Neutral places to sit: way too few
Men seen talking on the cell phone while urinating: 3
People seen wearing Crocs: none
When Vinexpo will be in Hong Kong: 2008