Cru Club Dinner
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Just a quick post about last night’s Cru Club dinner at Marigold Kitchen. Great group of people showed up (as always), and we not only drank a number of exceptional wines, but enjoyed them alongside some great dishes. Wine highlights included the Olivier Leflaive 2006 Chassagne-Montrachet, Duhart-Milon 2000, Vernay Condrieu 2007, Shinn Estate 2007 Bordeaux-style blend, and a 2007 St. Laurent. The best pairing of the night, though, had to have been the Graham’s 40-Year-Old Port with the chocolate terrine. I’m ruined for dessert for the next several days, at least. Anything else will seem somehow unfair to my tastebuds.
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Bacon cookie redux
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A delicious addition to any holiday dinner, party, or midnight snack. (It’s also been rumored that Santa will overlook that “naughty” next to your name if these are the cookies left out for him). So……with out further ado, the recipe for Bacon Cookies (aka Swedish Ginger Cookies).
(This guy? Naughty!)
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Phillies!
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Time to open that bottle of Salon 96. I love my home town!
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Ask the Wino
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Dear Wino,
I’m writing about a bottle of 1999 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild we have. In the past we have had wines that we drank before they peaked and other wines we drank after they peaked.
It didn’t happen often but we would kick ourselves when it did happen. So I come to you, oh great wine guru, to see if you might have an idea as to when our 1999 Chateau Lafitte Rothschild might peak. It’s been stored in a stone basement that stays pretty close to published ideal temperature and humidity. Any help is appreciated. Read more
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Planning for Election Night
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The politics of drinking are complicated indeed. Which is why, as I plan my election-night festivities, I have decided on the kind of wine I’ll be drinking: Champagne. And not because I plan on celebrating or drowning my electoral sorrows in a sea of bubbly; that has nothing to do with it. Rather, I’ll be popping the corks on a couple of bottles of the fizzy because it will pair well with what I’ll be eating that night: Fried chicken, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, fries, apple pie…that sort of thing. Why? Because I figured that (a) I’ll have indigestion anyway from watching the returns come in, and may as well enjoy food that I might normally avoid for fear of its various inevitable attendant gastro-intestinal distresses, and (b) election night is as American as it gets, and quintessentially American food seems like the appropriate thing to eat.
So: French bubbly on election night? Mais oui! Nothing could be more patriotic.
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Not a Good Pairing
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Now, I’ve written a fair bit in the past about the enjoyable or otherwise serendipitous pairings I’ve been fortunate enough to taste. So this blog post may come as a surprise, as it is, rather, all about a combination that nearly brought me to tears last night.
There I was, perched on the edge of my couch and rearing to go for the big Veep debate, a Styrofoam container of ribs, greens, and mac and cheese in front of me. And there Mrs. Wino was, right next to me, looking adorable with her barbecue-sauce mustache and tears glistening in her eyes from the extra-hot habanero sauce we’d anointed the greens with.
Everything was perfect, from the food to the entertainment to the company. And then, in a move that I didn’t think would scar both of us as seriously as it did, she took a bite of her spicy cornbread and tried to wash it down with a swig of 2006 Strong Arms Shiraz.
Her reaction was disturbingly similar to the one she had when I told her I wanted to drink wine for a living: Eyes a-bugging, disbelief and then horror clouding her face, and then, ultimately, a strong desire to share the misery with whoever would listen, which, at that moment, happened to be me.
So I gave it a whirl. And here it was, a perfectly formed object lesson ripe for the pontificating: The cornbread was excellent on its own; the wine was delicious unaccompanied. But together? A tastebud Chernobyl; a Bikini Atoll of the palate; A Soviet invasion of Afghanastan of the upper-GI tract…you get the picture.
Next time, I think I’ll just stick with cheese.
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The August 2008 Newsletter
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The newsletter is available, after the jump: Read more
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We’re Back, and the Pigs are Safe
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I never thought the day would come, but here it is, in all its perplexing, fat-streaked glory: I’m taking a break from ham. It even feels weird to type that. I’m. Taking. A. Break. From. Ham. Nope–no easier. Maybe it’s the residual cottony lard still coursing through my newly thick fingers. Or the remaining salty stench pouring from my every pore. Or the fact that, whenever I hear a word whose sound is vaguely reminiscent of “Iberico,” I weep like a diehard Jagger fan at a one-night-only Stones show.
My new Angie is a pig, and I’m not ashamed to say it.
I just returned from a weeklong trip with Keith and a number of other Wine Schoolers to Priorat, about two hours from Barcelona. More details will certainly seep out during classes and in blog posts over the coming weeks–stories of flash-fried sardines, heaping plates of wood-grilled meats (including the best damn rabbit kidney I’ve ever snapped between my molars), barrel tastings of wines that will likely never see this side of the Pond–but for now, it’ll have to suffice to say just this: We back. And for the time being, the pigs of Pennsylvania are safe from my hammed-out maw.
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Smackdowns, Boots and Hexagons, and the Future of the Human Race
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Tomorrow evening, Frank Cipparone, the Wine School’s resident Italian-wine expert, and I will do battle in a Smackdown for the ages. Planetary polarity may shift. Weather patterns could run amok. Children and grown men may very well weep. Indeed, the amount of energy generated by the CERN’s Large Hadron Collider will, in all likelihood, pale next to the element-shifting vino-passions unleashed on May 12th.
Or, you know, it could just be a tie.
Either way, things should get interesting: The rules this time are a bit different than they have been in the past. The menu includes two vaguely Italian courses and two kinda-French ones. And for the pairings, Frank is only allowed to use Italian wines, whereas I’ll be limited to those of l’hexagone. Strategy, as well as a real sense of creativity, will be crucial. For there is much more at stake here than the thrill of victory.
This time, nothing less than pride itself is on the line. And, perhaps, the future off the human race. (Vive la France!)
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Albarino Season!
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With the warm weather upon us and the season of root veggies and all things braised blissfully put away for another year, this time has come to break out those bottles of peachy-keen Spanish goodness. Now, don’t get me wrong here: Francophile that I am, I’d be more than thrilled to celebrate the season with a bottle or eight of Condrieu. There is, after all, just something about Rhone viognier’s addictive, eye-rolling-to-the-back-of-the-skull perfume that gets my day going better than any shot of espresso ever could. But sometimes, all you really need are simpler (and blissfully cheaper) pleasures. Which is exactly where albarino comes in.
For less than $15, you can find yourself sipping nothing less than a glass of springtime sunshine. It’s got great acid, a stone-fruit perfume that’s just this side of addictive, and the ability to pair as well as anything else with crab meat. And if peaches and crab meat don’t make you excited about the cruelest month’s merciful departure, then I’d consider moving to colder climes. And getting used to the idea of root vegetables year-round.
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