Listening to Freakonomics radio which is from a blog http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/ Very interesting and somewhat humorous report on whether expensive wines are better than cheap wines. Let me know your reaction to the story.
Are wines good gifts for Christmas? Sure especially if the recepient loves wine. Instead of one expensive bottle try giving 2 or 3 inexpensive wines that have a theme such as the same grape, one country etc. A wine lover might also appreciate a subscription to the Wine Spectator or the Wine Advocate.
A holiday tradition of mine is to host a party for my tennis partners. Usually there are 3 or 4 of us. I play tennis every week during the winter. The menu is caesar salad, paella, sour cream walnut apple pie and Champagne. The menu selections originated with our original group of doubles players over 20 years ago. One friend made caesar salad as his specialty, another friend was not a cook but lived in NYC. His favorite pie was the Little Pie Company's sour cream apple walnut pie. Paella was one of my favorites and I had always used the recipe from the NY Time International cookbook by Craig Claiborne. Champagne was chosen because of the holiday and because we loved it.
Now I make all of the components of the meal except the Champagne. Sometimes I make chocolate mousse for dessert and there have been times when we had chocolate covered macadamia nuts. We also top the meal off with tastings of cognacs and/or rums. I had collected rums from all over the world but few years ago, one of my sons decided to try my rums and put an end to my collection. Oh well.
Shopping, cooking and cleaning can be demanding. Without my wife's assistance I could not pull it off. Also agreeing on a date that works for all is a pain. Sometimes maintaining a "tradition" can be tough but I believe it is well worth the effort.
Wines of the week.
Had a Tohu pinot noir 2006 from New Zealand. It was light, spicy with nice fruit. We had it with Indian food and I thought it went great with the food. I got a great deal on the wine when I bought it ( I think I paid about $8) but I believe that more recent vintages are more expensive. New Zealand pinot noirs can be good values and that is not easily said about pinot noirs.
Also had 2009 Cartagena sauvignon blanc Estate Grown, Lo Abarca from the San Antonio Valley in Chile. It was $12. We enjoyed the wine but I can't say it had any outstanding characterics. I find the sauvignon blanc wines from Chile to be OK wines that are reasonable priced and food friendly.
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A number of wine stores are deeply discounting wines these days. There are lots of great values out there. More at a later date.
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