Wine Giques

Libation as punctuation

Your beverage of choice says a lot about you.

The ellipsis... it goes without saying. You are a sexy beast indeed - Amarone, Mouvedre

Underscore -  bigger is, indeed better in your book - think  Petite Sirah, Cabernet or 16% alcohol Zins.

Exclamation! The Wow factor is your factor - German Rieslings, Left bank Merlot, Suoer Tuscans.

Question Mark?- You haven't figured out your style? That makes you open to just about anything. Try a     French Rose or a Chenin Blanc from South Africa or maybe a Pinot from Oregon.

Colon - the list of wines (and your ability to drink them) goes on and on: New Zealand Pinot Noir or Sauvignon Blanc, Chateau Cheval Blanc, Sparkling wine from New Mexico, Norton wines from Virginia.

Etoile Rose

Yesterday I was preparing to open a bottle of Etoile Rose. I had the glasses, the cloth to wipe the glasses, the bouche to save the wine I couldn't drink. The thing I forgot was the beer opener.
Beer opener? I am sure you're thinking I'm crazy - have you seen the new pop bottle closure for Etoile? Actually, I think it's kinda cool - and blog-worthy. If you're an old stoner or a college student you can open the bottle with your lighter... or maybe not.
Well, I finally found a wine opener which does have the little hook thingy for opening this kind of closure. The wine is delicious like most dry roses, yet it also has those bubbles that I love. This is one of my favorite sparkling wines - it has a hint of the meatiness of a red wine mixed with orange peel, plum and just a light toasty yeastiness.
Now they need to change the billboards that ask which cork looks the most fun - perhaps a bottle with a beer opener hanging from it?

Moo Ved Ruh

I went to visit a very good friend and she asked me to help her shop for wine. It was one of the most fantastic (and memorable) trips for me since she had no budget (that I knew of). I had never been to "Bev-Mo" before (and who knows when I will ever grace their aisles again) but I was impressed by the prices and the layout of the store.  The best part was shopping with OPM.

Since then she has called me a couple of times to tell me how much she liked the wines I chose for her - admittedly she knows nothing about wine. She said that she and her husband particularly liked the Rosenblum Mouvedre that I picked out. In fact, she went back to the store and bought everything she could find on the shelf.

Just goes to show - there is a wine for every palate and a palate for every wine.

Pride and... oh, boy!

I went to the Pride and Joy concert last night at Copia. Let me tell you, wine country or no we have more than our share of local color.

Concerts are a great place to people watch. Dancing, like eating, is something that some people have never learned to do in a public place. There were a few Deadheads swaying to their inner-Jerry and a skinny bra-less woman with two black eyes punching the air like she meant it. I enjoyed watching the older couples that looked like they had been dancing together for a couple of decades and the couples made up of parent and child.

Women over sixty should not wear leather halter tops with fringe.

And what's with the people that drink a bottle of Cabernet in 85 degree weather - in the sun!

That's all I have to say.

Waitress

This morning I read a piece in the NYT by Alison Owings on the new movie, "Waitress". She said some things that hit home with me. I haven't seen the movie, but it sounds as though the characters were "typed." There's nothing stereotypical about servers or other restaurant employees - they come from everywhere, from every economic background, and they do some crazy (and amazing) things in their other lives. What she did say and I found to be true is how the women in the biz are treated. I worked one place that wanted us to wear very short skirts - we were weighed on a regular basis as well. That would never happen to the male employees and, certainly, wouldn't fly in today's workplace.  Owings also mentioned that  most women waitresses she interviewed remarked at how poorly they were treated by a population of "classless" Americans. Women are not regarded as being experts at what they do - oftentimes their gender seems to slot them as incompetent. While much of civilization was once ruled by Matriarchs, in this country all we've ever known are white-haired, white men!  Okay, reign me in - I really went off on a tangent. But, this is equally true in the world of wine.There are very few Master Sommeliers that are women, but I would argue that women have much better palates than men. Andrea Immer has made inroads in the wine arena but I still wouldn't call her the "expert" - Jancis Robinson is, perhaps, alone at the top with Robert Parker and, dare I say it, James Laube.  The good this is - change is afoot. Hopefully we can change antiquated ways of thinking about women, and wine, and politics.
Thanks for hearing me out.

Do not open until Christmas

Who was it who said anticipation is half the fun? I'd have to agree to some extent - except that there was this bottle of 2005 Patty Green Notorious (Pinot Noir, in case ya didn't know) hanging out in my wine fridge - just begging to be opened. My east coast wine buddies gave it to me when I left Atlanta. They made me write on the bottle - Do not open until 2009.
I was doing fine for awhile - my husband asked on several occasions for me to pop the cork on that bottle - but last night (in the company of a very good winemaker friend of mine, and in the interest of being the best hostess I could possibly be) I opened the wine. It was glorious - a little bit of that fabulous mushroomy, forest floor that I love in good Pinot, plus lots of luscious ripe ollalieberries. The wine took awhile to open up in the glass. My winemaker friend said I should have waited to open it...

Goldilocks likes her wine Just Right

I love a great restaurant and am willing to try something untested now and again. Last night I took my dad to a restaurant that got some good ratings on Yelp. The food was really better than what I expected in this small Gold Rush town. What was disappointing was the wine list from this restaurant that was also touted as a Wine Bistro. There were very few wines by the glass - and even fewer that I wanted to drink. The reason I may not ever return is because the red wine was served warm.

Wineries - hear this - make sure you know who your accounts are, how your wine is being advertised, stored, and served. If I didn't know anything about wine I might think that the wine I was served was just not good. What is was, is warm - too warm to taste the fruit or any of the flavors that the winemaker intended for me to taste.

I returned the wine - and got another glass of the white I was drinking before - Pinot Blanc from Alsace.At least it was chilled, but not cold. Wine that is too cold doesn't show well either - at the correct temperature the wine is able to strut it's stuff.

I don't want to have to do what Goldilocks did - taste wine until I find one that is served just right. Make sure you don't either.