Dr Vino's wine blog

With gold at $1,800, Ron Paul polling third among the Republican candidates, and people flocking to a wine cellar for safety, is it any wonder that Costco is currently marketing a one year’s supply of food? Called Shelf Reliance THRIVE, it’s dehydrated, freeze-dried, and comes in big cans. All the better for storing in your bunker! (One commenter points out that it’s a lean 1,220 calories a day amortized over a whole year. And the ability to boil water is required for some of them!)

So, if you had to tuck away a year’s supply of wine to pair with such delicacies as Taco TVP–textured vegetable protein–what would it be? Or is it…impossible?!? Given that all the food costs $799, ratchet up the degree of difficulty by trying to keep under that number. (Needless to say, a $10 bottle every night in your bunker would cost $3,650 for a year.)

“When I was pregnant, I just craved organs…so the placenta just made sense.”

So a new mother is quoted in a New York magazine article on cooking placenta. No, not polenta–placenta. I’ve never delivered a placenta personally, so maybe that’s why I find it a little difficult to, erm, swallow. But the NYmag story highlights various preparations including raw, popped in the blender with coconut water and banana, stewed with ginger, lemon, and a jalapeño pepper, and even pill form.

So let’s help the new mothers (and new fathers?) out there as only enophiles can with the fruit of their own labor and the fruits of the vine: which wine would you pair with placenta–or is it impossible?!?

Related: “Breast milk cheese: impossible food-wine pairing?“

Ah, Iowa. Every four years, politicians stampede your county fairs, kissing babies, shaking hands and eating fried foods. This year provides the spectacle of a raft of socially conservative Republican contenders chowing down on foot-long corn dogs. Doesn’t the Bible say something about that? Anyway, let’s help them as only enophiles can: which wine would you pair with corn dog on a stick…or is it impossible?!?

And for those who were wondering about pairing wine and the Bible, check out our archive post on Jesus, oinos, and the marriage at Cana.

Images of Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry are reduced-sized crops by Toby Harnden and Iowa Politics. See Kos for complete library of corn dog and pols pics.

Beets are contentious. Not because one variety can be made into sugar cubes or ethanol. But because some people don’t like them!

I was at lunch with a friend who has fine taste when a beet salad appeared. And a zinfandel. He didn’t touch the beets. I asked him if it was the unflattering pairing with the wine. He said no, he just not a fan.

But some people are. And summer is a great time for a beet salad as a part of a buffet or a picnic (don’t spill them on the blanket, however). They are good for you, packed with folate, featuring in the number one slot on a list of “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating.” So if “eat your beets” is the new “eat your peas,” then we should at least know which wine to pair with them! Complicating factors in the beet salad for the wine pairing are the sugars in the beets as well as a vinegar dressing. After many trashy “impossible” pairings, here’s a healthy one to help us all look awesome in our swimsuits.

Which wine would you pair with a beet salad–or is it impossible?!?

It’s National Pancake Week starting March 1–who knew? The timing coincides with the week before Mardi Gras, since pancakes have been a temptation worth avoiding during lent for 2,000 years now.

Site reader John G. requests that we get a jump on this hedonism a little early. I’m a pancake purist myself making them from scratch since it is so easy and tasty. After many years of suffering through inferior syrup (and–be damned–fake maple syrup!), I’ve discovered Grade B maple syrup. Darker in color and richer in flavor, it’s the best kept secret in syrup because the “B” thing reeks of inferiority. But don’t be fooled, it’s the real deal and well worth the tariff.

As to the pairing, I think nothing goes better with a stack of pancakes than a cup of hot, black coffee. But perhaps you are more daring than I. What do you think–which wine would you pair with pancakes, or is it impossible?!?

The Super Bowl brings to the host city all kinds of things ranging from pulse-pounding punt returns to prostitutes. Apparently the Super Bowl also brings out avocados in force (although it doesn’t have such an impact on sales as some may think according to snopes). But they end up mashed in a super bowl of their own with diced tomatoes, onions, lime juice and cilantro to make guacamole.

So, this week we have a pairing question for you by request: which wine would you pair with guacamole? Or is it…impossible?!?

I finally got around to reading the food issue (Nov 22) of the New Yorker, and was amazed to find not one but two–two!–articles extolling the gustatory and health virtues of sauerkraut (sauerkraut!). In one brief piece, David Bezmozgis describes the making of this pickled cabbage as “part wrestling match, part science experiment.” That’s because after dumping the sliced cabbage in a large container, adding salt (about two tablespoons per head), the cabbage must be mashed or kneaded until it releases its juice, then kept submerged as fermentation occurs. The other, much longer article profiled Sandor Katz and his wild fermentations that transform, among other things, cabbage into kraut, rich in vitamins and isothiocyanates.

But does it taste any good? I went to my local farmers’ market and bought a pint from a vendor. I also bought a loaf of organic bread from the excellent baker Wave Hill, and some microgreens. At home, I spread Dijon mustard on a slice, added some cheddar, heaped on the kraut, cherry tomatoes, and greens to make a sort of a cold, vegetarian, full-of-flavor, crunchy, tart riff on the reuben. Next up I will have to try Schupfnudeln, a regional dish (with an odd name) from southwestern Germany that amounts to homemade gnocchi fried up with bacon fat and sauerkraut.

What do you say? Help the fermentation foodies. Which wine would you pair with sauerkraut (in any preparation)–or is pairing fermented grape juice with fermented cabbage…impossible?

Nobody goes to a Thanksgiving meal and says, “Mmm, I can’t wait to try the cranberry sauce this year!” But while it is not the center of the meal, it is a crazy component of it.

Ever since the Native Americans opened the first can of cranberry sauce for the pilgrims in 1621, it has been a part of the Thanksgiving meal. And ever since 1976, in the wake of the Paris tasting, we wine enthusiasts have been trying to pair wine with it–or find a wine that won’t be demolished by the combination of natural tartness and the added sweetness.

So what say you: which wine do you pair with cranberry sauce…or is it impossible?!?