Wine Giques

Hillary and the Blood-Red Bubbly

So, there we were, the Hillary fans, lined up in front of the television, steaming hot homemade pizzas on the the table (the "grownup" pizza -- sauteed mushrooms, onions, garlic and anchovies -- was particularly divine), waiting.   We were preparing for the bloodletting, the ritual resignation of Hillary from her campaign, her handover of the holdout delegates to the Chosen One, Obama.

What sort of libation would be appropriate for the occasion?  Not an everyday event, watching a strong woman in a persimmon pantsuit -- who has come closer than any woman to being President of these United States-- hand over her ambition, while her husband cries in the stands.  Certainly no wimpy old Chardonnay is gonna do it.  It wouldn't be good with the anchovies, anyway.

I fished around in my wine cabinet and came up with a winner:  2007 Lini 1910 "Lambrusca" sparkling Lambrusco Rosso ($16).  Yes, it's a sparkling red wine, produced since 1910 by four generations of la famiglia Lini -- the latest Lini winemaker is a woman, by the way -- in Correggio.  It even comes capped with a champagne cork in a wire cage.  We chilled it, served it, watched as Hillary delivered her speech in a series of powerful, gracious knock-out punches, and drank a silent toast to her:   oddly sad, oddly celebratory, just like the blood-red bubbly in our glasses.  Which was delicious with that grownup pizza. 

As for her weepy hubby, we'll be toasting his speech tonight with a margarita, and perhaps a glass of this.  Hillary, you go girl, and we can't wait to see what Cabinet post you get. 

Shatner's Revenge, The Sequel

Sometimes, life delivers perfection, wrapped up in a tiny red bow.  On Wednesday, I was watching Bottle Shock.  On Saturday, I was standing next to Bo Barrett at a wine-tasting event. 

"Hey Bo," I said. 
"Hey," he replied. 
"I just saw Bottle Shock. What was up with Chris Pine's wig?"
"I don't know," he said.  "They saw the pics.  I had an afro, not that straight stuff.  And besides, we got no creative input on the movie, beyond making sure the actors weren't holding the pruning shears upside down.  Heidi [Bo's wife] got to supervise the tasting scenes." 
"You know," I said, "I thought the glassware in those scenes looked kind of modern." 
"Yeah," he replied, "But they got the jelly jars right.  Plenty of folks used those, back then."

We both paused, and swirled the wine in our glasses. 

The wine, by the way, was made by Bo's wife, legendary winemaker Heidi Peterson Barrett, who, after years of hard labor in the service of others, finally has her own winery, dubbed La Sirena.  Run, don't walk, for a bottle of her 2005 Cabernet.  The wine is spectacular.  Tipped with dense fruit, earthy, full-bodied, with just a hint of tobacco.   A wine made with a woman's touch, with all the right ingredients for the perfect seduction.  Watch out boys, La Sirena is in the house.  It will set you back one-hundred-and-fifty smackers, but any good woman is worth that much trouble.  Sometimes, you just gotta put your cards on the table, if you know what I mean. 

"Okay," I said to Bo, "I'm sending you the link to my blog post about Chris Pine's wig."
"Cool," he said.  "Have a little more wine before you go.  And by the way, that movie wasn't for you, it was for the folks in Kansas." 

And that, my friends, was the beginning -- not the end!-- of a perfect Saturday night in La-la Land.  More to come--oh yes--there is more to come. 

Obama's Veep Choice - Joe Biden

I woke up this morning to find out that Joe Biden (D-DE) is Obama's running mate. It makes sense to me that someone who speaks so slowly and deliberately would chose someone who has a direct line between their brain and mouth. So, in that same vein (and the fact that Joe is another old white man) it makes sense that we should get Joe some wine that will go straight to his head - something big, alcoholic, and mature  like Renwood Grandpere. Like most other Amador County Zinfandels, Grandpere is massive and almost port-like with an intensity of fruit. Hopefully it's give his utterances a nice gloss without loosening his tongue too much.

Shatner's Revenge

Now, when I was a very, very young girl, I was in love with William Shatner.  Not the T.J. Hooker kind of Shatner, but the James Tiberius Kirk Shatner.  I watched Star Trek (which by that point was airing on local television stations --remember those?-- in the afternoons, after school) every chance I could get, drooling over the delicious man-flesh that was Captain Kirk.  Even as a six-year-old, I loved nice Jewish boys.

Now, I don't remember them doing a lot of wine-drinking on that original Star Trek.  I do remember that there was a lot of disappearing, reappearing and shape-shifting that may have been the result of massive cannabis consumption in the writers' room, but no vino.  So, why am I writing about this?

Well, you see, it's all about the hair.

Like any good Team USA cheerleader and oenephile, I went to see Bottle Shock last night.  The movie celebrates the "Judgment of Paris" when the 1973 vintage of Jim and Bo Barrett's Chateau Montelena Chardonnay outscored all the French wines.   (Stag's Leap Cabernet also won in the reds competition, but strangely, is not in the film.)  It's the event that's credited with drop-kicking the California wine business onto the world stage.  But none of that matters.  Because Chris Pine plays Bo Barrett in the movie, and his wig is so god-awful that you can't pay attention to anything else. 

Now, Chris Pine is also notably playing --wait for it-- James Tiberius Kirk in the upcoming new Star Trek prequel movie from geek hero JJ Abrams.   He's taking on Shatner's role.  And Shatner, starting with those aforementioned TJ Hooker years, has been wearing a rug for a very, very long time. 

I tried to reach out to Bill to find out how he feels about this callow youth attempting to assume the mantle of Kirkness, but he's not talking.  So, one can only assume that Bill is miffed.  And that, given his intimacy with LA's wig-making community, he ensured that Pine got the worst headpiece possible for this film, so it would be all anyone would talk about during the run-up to the Star Trek release.  (Pine has already gone on record saying that Bottle Shock would be his "last wig movie.") 

If so, Bill, I salute you.  I'd like to send you a bottle of 2006 Palmina Mattia, a delightful red blend from California's Central Coast region, which is also the wine we consumed over dinner at the lovely Anisette Brasserie after watching Chris Pine's wig for nearly two hours.   Thanks for keeping American wine-making in the news, and for showing the young upstarts how it's done.  Team Shatner, all the way. 

Family Business

In many ways, getting older is a drag -- for me it means that milk and ice cream are no longer on the dining menu, second helpings go straight to my midriff no matter how much I run, and staying up until 3 am in Vegas now buys me two ensuing days of naps.  On the plus side, Mark Spitz looks much hotter to me now than he did when I was seven -- and my kid is also getting older, and taking a much greater interest in the family business:  being obsessed with all things food and wine. 

For many years, I have wondered how the offspring of a dilettante cookbook editor and a professional chef could be so prosaic in her food choices.  We're talking about a kid who'd been to at least seven foreign countries by the time she was eight -- and consequently, knows how to say "can I have fries with that?" in seven languages. 

But lately, things seem to be changing.  "We should cook more, Mom," she says yesterday, "Let's go to the store and see what interesting things they have."  Music to my ears!

Instead of the grocery store, however, we headed for one of the wonders of Los Angeles:  Farmers Market.  A very dangerous place to go if, as I did, you've neglected to eat lunch:  the aromas from all the food counters can drive you insane, one country at a time.  (Singapore noodles?  Oyster po'boy?  Brazilian barbecue?)  But the kid (who had eaten lunch) dragged me past them, destination firmly in mind:  Mr Marcel. 

Once inside, we wandered among the shelves, examining tiny jars of tasty sauces, smelling the baguettes, lingering over the cheese counter.  Our choices:  Gnocchi in a clever vacuum-sealed package decorated with emphatic Italian cooking instructions; ripe, rich Gorgonzola; Point Reyes blue cheese (for sentimental snacking when I'm thinking about west Marin); one of those baguettes; a box of tiny biscotti.  Back out to one of Farmers Market's produce counters for arugula and figs (we tried to buy a roasting chicken, too, but the chicken boys were busy), then home for dinner. 

I set the Point Reyes on the counter with the baguette and the figs (just a few bites were enough), whipped up a Gorgonzola sauce with just a dash of red pepper for the gnocchi (see Julia Child's The Way to Cook for the difference between béchamel and mornay), tossed the arugula with a little homemade dressing, and we were on our way.  Dessert was sliced strawberries and peaches, with the biscotti.

Libations?  Well, for me, the grownup kind:  San Felipe 2007 Roble Malbec, spicy and tannic enough to cut through the richness of the Gorgonzola sauce and leave a little tingle on my tongue, an adventure ride for only $10 a bottle.  For the kid:  Strawberry Ramuné, a favorite that she discovered, not while visiting Tokyo--want to see a picture of her there, eating fries?--but here in cosmopolitan LA. 

We're now researching how to say "Can I have some Gorgonzola with that?" in Japanese.  Welcome to the family business, kid. 

Tits and Totes

Got your attention, didn't I?   Well, I did it on purpose, because I wanted to ask the age-old question:  Do you have any wine in that purse?

Here's the thing.  I was lucky enough to attend Sunday Supper at Lucques two Sundays in a row.  (No, I have no idea how I generated so much good karma in the space of a week -- usually takes me at least a couple of months. Years, even.)  The second Sunday was even their fabled RibFest, for which you have to achieve reservations weeks in advance.  Let me tell you, the chow was good.  The ribs -- beef, pork and lamb -- were perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, the sauce perfectly spicy.  But it was the side dishes that stole the show.  Corn on the cob, cole slaw, Wonderbread (yes, Wonderbread -- have you ever made a rib sandwich with Wonderbread? awesome), cornbread.  And collard greens.  Now, I'm from the South, and even though I ate collards at least once a week while I was growing up, these were still the best collard greens I've ever tasted.  Please don't tell my grandmother. 

But here's the other thing:  the joint was packed, and most people brought their own wine.  Now, as I've alluded previously, Lucques has a fantastic wine list.  But it's also a bit spendy.  And though Sunday Suppers are a relative bargain at $45 a head, a bottle of wine can quickly bust your budget. 

Lesley, one of my dining companions, is a bit of a tastemaker in the food world here in LA.  And she has a great collection of wine.  "I got out some really good stuff," she said "I've been saving it for the right occasion."  "What for?" I asked, jokingly, "Didn't you see Sideways?"  "I meant to bring it," she said, "But there was so much going on, I forgot."

So, back to my question, or the second half of the question:  Why are the guys so much better at the BYO thing when it comes to restaurants?   Is it because they like to collect, and show off what they collect?  (See Hefner, Hugh).  It certainly isn't because they've got the bags -- we chicks have got a lock on those things.  And lately, the bigger they are, and the bigger the locks they sport, the better they seem to be.  (See Chloe, Overpriced Purses by). 

So, I'm challenging the fashion world to come up with a bag that's suitable for those of us sporting tits to tote some wine.  I've found a few chic Italian-looking items on various websites:  the Cluster (yes!) Wine Tote, the cute but unfortunately-named Murge Horizontal Pink, the Laguiole Wine Valise, which actually sounds like a disease (yes, I know Laguiole makes fantastic knives.  I've used a few, sometimes on things I won't mention).  But I'm talking haute couture here.  I want a bag with a big old Hermès label on it, from which I can produce a fierce bottle of 2005 Clos du Papes Châteauneuf du Pape and reduce the room to silence.  ("Look at that bag!"  "Look at that wine!")

Tom Ford, are you listening?  Get busy, boy.  You might want one of these babies yourself, tits or no tits.

The wine, you ask?  Oh, we had a bottle of 2006 Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc.  Serviceable, but not quite up to the power of the ribs, although we certainly could have given it a very dramatic entrance if we had yanked it out of a big, red, lock-encrusted handbag.   

The Zinful Life

So, it's obviously summertime, and here in Southern California, that can cause a girl to feel a little steamy.  I usually try to cure that feeling with a glass of Prosecco or Rosé, but I've been venturing a tad more frequently into the land of reds.  Not the usual suspects, but something a little more spicy --that trickster of the wine world, that rogue grape, the Zinfandel. 

Now, for a long time, I was tempted to put Zinfandel into a box (well, not literally, although maybe I'll write a post on box wine sometime later, if I actually drink some), thinking that it was good for one thing:  drinking with food.  And once upon a time, that may have been true.  But more adventurous winemakers have been experimenting with the grape, and the result is a luscious collection of styles that are more versatile than a lissome wine groupie has the right to expect. 

I've already written about the deliciousness of wine associated with Black Chickens, but I had a few selections this past week that are also worth mentioning:  2006 Peachy Canyon "Incredible Red,"  2004 Brown Estate Chiles Valley, and 2005 Quivira Dry Creek Valley.  (Yes, it's only Wednesday, but I'm on a mission here.)

The Peachy Canyon was my libation of choice after a long day spent on airplanes and in meetings.  I chose it partially because it was there, waiting in my wine rack, but also because I needed something with a little personality to go along with my daily dose of the Daily Show.   Just the right touch of sweet fruit, followed by a bit of acid -- could it and Jon Stewart be a better match?  And at $12, it's a great cheap date.

I was lucky enough to have the Brown Estate over Sunday Supper at Lucques.  I highly recommend indulging in both, if you have the chance.  Simple and yet decadent (kind of like the food), the Brown was luscious with jammy blueberry and a hit of caramel, with that spicy Zin finish.  It retails for about $40, when you can find it -- Brown Estate makes great wine and has a charming backstory that has given it a bit of a following.

The Quivira was consumed at a wine bar in Los Feliz, accompanied by some totally unhealthful but spectacularly delicious Italian/Brazilian stuffed pizza thing dubbed a piadina.  Great with the piadina, but also very nice on its own, the Quivira actually sports little bit of Petite Sirah in the blend that gives a little extra punch to the finish.  It generally retails for about $20. 

Sometimes, a little extra heat can be liberating.  Zinful, even.  Enjoy it.

(As always, you can use the Snooth search box in the sidebar to find these wines in your area.  Helps fund the Wine Giques wine habit, you know?)

Le Dîner Sur Le Lac, or Olympic Basketball in Vegas.

So, we had an excuse to abandon Wine Giques headquarters and head to Vegas for two of my favorite things, both best served hot:  basketball and great food.  The basketball was compliments of the Men's USA Olympic team, who proceeded to blow Canada out of the water.  ("Hockey's our game," say all my Canadian friends, "Talk to us during the Winter Olympics, eh?  This, we don't care about.")  Yeah, I cheered for Kobe.  Don't tell any of my relatives, please.

The food came compliments of Julian Serrano, via his restaurant in the Bellagio hotel, aptly named Picasso.  I say "aptly" for a number of reasons:  Like Picasso, Julian is a divinely-talented Spanish artist, although apparently considerably less temperamental.  And like Las Vegas, le maître Picasso was cavalier about money, draped with a bevy of women, and undeniably larger than life. 

I arrived at the restaurant in an advanced state of starvation: A couple of basketball beers and some trail mix consumed on the road are not adequate sustenance for a red-blooded girl.  My dining companion looked good enough to eat in his suit, but I decided to save my appetite for the menu. 

I was rewarded for my discipline. 

First, you must note, everything is bigger in Vegas.  This "intimate" restaurant seats nearly 100.  The flower arrangements sit on oversized wooden tables designed by Picasso's son Claude.  $50 million worth of Pablo's doodles hang on the wall.  The wine list is 95 pages long.  And the restaurant prices come in two levels:  expensive and more expensive.  After a bit of dithering about reading glasses (eventually a pair was produced by our spectacular and ever-observant waiter, Richard), I delegated that muscle-bound winelist to the Boy in the Delicious Suit and settled in with the menu, which was terse, vibrant and evocative, just like Picasso's best neoclassical work.

Here's the list of what we ate:  Boy in the Delicious Suit:  Warm Quail Salad with Sauteed Artichokes and Pine Nuts; Ragoût of Vegetables with Foie Gras; Roasted Milk-Fed Veal Chop with Rosemary Potatoes au Jus.   Me (girl in the Françoise Gilot-style ballerina dress):  Poached Oysters with Osetra Caviar and Vermouth Sauce; Grilled Langoustines with Lobster-Tarragon Jus; Roasted Pigeon with Wild Rice Risotto.  And some tasty dessert.  And little amuse-boûches at the beginning and the end (the latter taken away to the hotel room in a handsome fabric box).  Spectacular.

The wine?  Suitably, not Spanish, but something from a little farther south in France, a soulful, spicy and round Gigondas, 2004 Domaine Les Pallières.  Fruit, leather and herbs.  An appropriate accompaniment for Le Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe and the spirit of Pablo.

BTW, the Boy in the Delicious Suit and I shut down the joint.  But not before we enjoyed the Bellagio's famous night-lit fountains to the strains of a soaring Italian aria.  An excellent thing to do with someone whose company you enjoy.  'Nuff said.  Merci, Maître, et une trés bonne nuit à vous, aussi.

Bastille Day: An American Homecoming

My friend Paul is something of a recorded music maven.  He seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the stuff -- and he has very, very good taste, to boot.  ("That's all relative," says my kid, who also has good taste, but who tends to focus on the more head-bangerish and hip-hopperish genres.)  Paul also has this interesting idea that you can pair wine and music to marvelous effect.   Since both wine and music seem to stimulate my senses in very positive (and sometimes memorable) ways, I think he's on to something.  He writes a blog about that, and various other things, called Tasting Notes.

When I discovered that Tasting Notes contained a set list of American music for the 4th of July, I was delighted.  You see, I have some friends who were returning from a tour of duty overseas that included a stop in Kuwait (yes, he's a Marine; he left his family in Okinawa while he was in the Middle East), and they arrived with a 3-years-long pent-up hunger for all things American.  While they enjoyed their time in foreign lands, and came to appreciate things like Okinawan beer, tiny painted flowers on their toenails, and women shopping in burkas, what they really wanted when they arrived at our door was a couple of slices of NY-style pizza, a big old piece of medium-rare steak, and used DVD's from Blockbuster.

They arrived on July 14th, which is not quite American Independence Day, but a good French substitute.  (And no, I never called them "Freedom Fries."  Those of you who have forgotten what Lafayette did for us should be ashamed of yourselves.)  We picked them up at the airport, and skedaddled to Wine Giques' SoCal HQ, where all the aforementioned items -- pizza, steak, DVD's -- could be found within walking distance.  They feasted on their chosen bits of Americana, then we all retired to the back deck, where I streamed music from the Tasting Notes set list, and we lit candles, drank wine, and chatted. 

The wine?  Well, in hommage to Lafayette and Bastille Day, we drank French.   2004 E. Guigal Côtes du Rhône.  Lovely, full-bodied, silky and plummy; a smooth match for the Cali twilight and the piano stylings of Dick Hyman.  A perfect wine and music pairing, for what proved to be a perfect homecoming for my friends.   Here's to the freedom to drink what you want, and the courage to defend that freedom to the last drop.    

Drink your Vote: Bush holds Fundraiser at Harlan 7/17

My sources tell me that President W Jr is in Napa right now - at Harlan - to raise funds for his party. Which begs the question:
When (and how) should our politics impact our personal choices? Do you drink what you preach?