Dr Vino's wine blog

Sadat X, a niche hip hop artist, has taken up wine reviewing. The segments are concise and involve neither a dump bucket nor stemware. For more videos in the Sadat X oeuvre, head on over to Rockss and Fruit for a compendium.

A great piece of wine writing has just become accessible: oddly, with the closing of Gourmet magazine, Gourmet.com has made the classic article “Shattered Myths” available for free.

Written by NPR contributor Daniel Zwerdling back in 2004, the story starts at a tasting with Riedel stemware, which the attendees loved and bought $1,000 worth of the crystal afterward. Then the author reviews some scientific studies about taste and olfactory analysis of wine in different vessels, which clashed with the what he had seen at the Riedel demonstration. So the author put the question to Georg Riedel. Click through to see Riedel’s reply.

The article then turns to a fascinating and important discussion about perceptions and wine, much of which we have discussed since 2004 in various ways here and elsewhere. The now-available article is an oldie but a goodie and well worth the read if you haven’t already seen it.

Related: “Shattered Myths” [Gourmet]
“Varietal stemware: genius or hucksterism?”
“The Tongue Map: Tasteless Myth Debunked” [LiveScience]
“Wine’s Pleasures: Are They All in Your Head?” [NYT]

Recently, at a crystal glass tasting at the Riedel Manhattan showroom, Maximilian Riedel unveiled his latest $500 decanter called “Eve.” It resembles a coiled snake with a two foot protruding shaft. Needless to say, it was mouth blown. “Eve” derives from Adam and Eve; the snake theme came because Riedel was born in 1977, a year of the snake in the Chinese calendar.

He poured the wine from the bottle into the shaft and rolled it around in the double decanting chamber, which he designed and said was patented.

The question arose of how to clean the snake decanter. He said that he cleans his in the bathtub. (He admitted an intercultural faux pas when in Japan the week prior by saying as much to his local audience; apparently taking anything from the kitchen into the bathroom is taboo.) Ah, memories of the Seinfeld scene of Kramer trying to save water by washing lettuce in the shower…

Riedel goes to restaurants, he said, because he wants to be entertained. When dining, he asks to keep the decanter of wine he’s ordered on the table, saying, “I want people to see that I am spending more than $12 on wine!”

More to come about the Riedel taste test. In the interim, Riedel did offer some tips on how to clean Riedel crystal glasses.
* He said he puts his right in the dishwasher.
* If you have the time to hand wash, that works too. He cautioned against washing them the same evening since he said the sink can appear very small and the glass very big.
* For red wine glasses, fill the glass to the top with warm water and soak overnight to remove tannins. Dry with two dish towels, starting with the base, and working up to the balloon. Don’t hold the base while drying the balloon; rather, cup it if you can to avoid separating the stem from the balloon, which could cause a nasty injury.

Related: “Varietal stemware: genius or hucksterism?“

Cara, who runs the green room (or whatever that waiting room is called) for Fox Business, asked me a great wine question when I was on the station in December. Instead of asking me for a specific wine that she might or might not be able to actually find, she asked me for on how to get the most out of wine. Nice! Context! You know I love that.

So I asked her whether she meant actually consuming wine or finding wine. She said both. So here’s what I said:

1. Spend a little extra on good stemware! You don’t have to break the bank since, undoubtedly, the glasses themselves will break at some point. But they can elevate modest wines and do fine wines the appropriate justice. Ravescroft has some good crystal stems starting at $10. And our house staple, as I’ve written before, is the Tritan Forte, which is “impact resistant” thanks to titanium infused in the lead-free crystal.

2. Find a good independent wine shop! You can read all you want about great sounding wines on blogs or in the paper but unless you can actually try the wines, your fun is severely limited. Work with an articulate member of the staff to find wines that you like.

You can read more about these suggestions–and more!–in my new book A Year of Wine: Perfect Pairing, Great Buys, and What to Sip for Each Season. If Cara asked you for your top two general wine tips, what would you tell her?

Also, the first segment I did on Fox Business over the holidays has just unearthed from the great video vault somewhere (although the poor audio and video quality makes it look like I was in a witness relocation program). “Enjoy!”

Intrigued by the notion that an entire restaurant will be opening in Manhattan tonight with baby bottles for stemware, I decided to try this vessel out for myself. Since we have two lads, one of whom is baby bottle age, I had to go no farther than my own kitchen.

Filling it up with some red from last night, I took a sip of the wine before screwing on the lid. Still passable on day two. I screwed on the lid. I sucked.

Mrs. Vino: “Obscene!”

Me: “Frustrating!”

It was kind of like having a governor on your car that prevents it from going over 50 miles per hour. Or 5 miles per hour as the case may be since a mere drip escaped at a time.

I tried a fresh aromatic white. Sipped with the lid off, I got lots of nice aromas of tropical fruits etc. Once I screwed on the rubber nipple, those aromas were trapped! I felt like one of those subjects in the Cal Tech study. Yes, it’s a $100 wine! Whatever you tell me! Just give it to me in a glass!

Prediction: within a week, the restaurant will be offering normal stemware as well.

Pennsylvania is hardly the first state where you would expect innovation in wine retail. The state’s Liquor Control Board owns all the retail outlets and the distribution in the state. Generally monopolies are known for limited selection and high prices, not innovation.

Yet that is exactly what might be in store for Pennsylvania wine enthusiasts as the state has proposed to allow 100 “wine kiosks” around the state. To the tape:

The kiosks, a type of temperature-controlled vending machine capable of holding 500 bottles of wine, would be placed in grocery stores and other places [malls], according to request on the LCB’s Web site. They would offer about a dozen different types of wine.

Before you think this is where all the minors are going to go before the prom, each kiosk will have “fingerprints and biometric readings” for age verification. Yikes! Retinal scan for retsina.

Making wine more accessible is a good thing. I hope for all wine loving Pennsylvanians that the selection is great! Get a little Bollinger before heading to Borders? Malbec and a movie? I wonder if they will have stemware. Or perhaps TetraPak wine so the bottle doesn’t break while being dispensed.

Would you like to see them in your state?

Related: “Poll: should the US drinking age be lowered?”
(image)

Ray Isle has an cute article called “Holiday Wine Survival Guide” in the December issue of Food & Wine, which landed with a thud in my mailbox on Saturday. He offers many tips for the holidays including how much wine to have on hand (whoa, Ray, invite me over and send for the F&W stretch hummer afterward!), wine gifts, and some tips for temperature.

He also brings up the issue of renting or buying glasses for a big party. The appeal of renting is easy: it’s can be less than $1 a stem and you can often return the glasses unwashed. But then there’s the downside: generally poor glass quality, potentially high minimum charges for delivery, and, obviously, you’ve got nothing to show for your expenditure when the party’s over.

So break out the rent or buy calculators! My own calculations were just about finished when I saw that Ray recommended a decent-looking $3.95 stem from Crate and Barrel. But then I saw that it said “hand wash.” Whoa! Talk about a buzzkill cleaning several dozen glasses! I’ve had good luck with the Tritan Forte, which can be found for under $10 a stem, goes in the dishwasher, and is impact resistant (note: NOT break-proof).

What do you do for glasses at parties?

* 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.