It has been a cold and snowy winter. A great time for comfort food and good wine. I find that pizza is a great food to make on a cold night. We recently had a Vegan and a Vegetarian over for dinner and I made pizzas that everyone could enjoy. I used spinach, mushrooms, prosciutto, bufalo mozzarella, broccoli and tomato sauce to make all types of combination pizzas. Let your imagination and taste buds run wild. Tonight my wife is making tomato sauce and meatballs.Nothing like the aromas of good food -garlic, onions, tomatoes, olive oil, sauteed meat - to brighten the the winter evening. Bring on the snow!
The Wall Street Journal had an article by Lettie Teague last Saturday that discussed how do you know if a wine is bad. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304558804579374930439942914?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304558804579374930439942914.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5
There can be problems with the corks, the wine production or you may not like a wine. Quite a high number of wines are bad and I wonder how many people understand that. When you taste a wine that you do not like, do you assume that it is bad or do you just think that it is a wine that you do not like.
Most reputable wine shops will take back a wine that you think is bad but doing so is a pain. I usually just pour the bad stuff down the drain. I must say that I don't know which of the possible things that impact a wine are responsible for the bad wines that I taste. I do know that I am particularly sensitive to funky smells in wines. There are times when a wine does not taste anywhere near the bad aroma of the wine. There are people who like these smells and there are wines that are notorious for having these smells.Some of these smells come from the wine being infected with Brett, which is described in the article.
Interestingly there are restaurants where the sommelier will taste your wine before serving it to you. He/she will then identify a bad wine and not serve it to you. Okay but what if you don't like a wine that you have ordered in a restaurant. Should you just suffer in silence. I would tell the waiter and see what they suggest. Many good restaurants will take any back a wine that you do not like. They will not take back a very expensive or rare wine without agreeing with you that it is not good but they should take back most wines ordered off of the normal wine list. Same thing with food that you don't like. However people are less sure about their wine tastes than their food tastes so they hesitate to complain about wine.
Another recent article of interest is by Eric Asimov in the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/dining/why-cant-you-find-that-wine.html?src=me&_r=0
Asimov reviews a number of wines and apparently many people have trouble finding these wines. People are complaining about this and Asimov is adamant that his role is to find interesting and unusual wines. He does not want to review big production wines or wines that are widely distributed as he does not think that it is his role to do that.
Over the last few years I believe that I outlined some of things to look for in purchasing wines. Asimov always reviews wines by area and tries to give one a sense of what a good wine from a region should taste like. He also believes that people can read his articles for the fun of reading a wine article. Many of his readers disagreed.
Clearly people do tend to take the wine critics too seriously. I had a very good wine last night that was rated 89 by both the Wine Advocate and the Wine Spectator. A wine like this tends to be stay off most people's radar. The wine was a 2009 Campo Alla Sughera Bolgheri Adeo $18 from Tuscany in Italy. It was a Bordeaux type blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon and 40% Merlot. It was balanced with good fruit and about 13.7% alcohol which I like. If this wine had a 90 rating it would be a much more expensive wine.
I review the wines that I drink and I try to give descriptions that may be helpful to you when trying to determine if you will like the wine. Sometimes I will comment that a particular wine is worth finding, like Borsao, but generally I would recommend trying wines that have characteristics that you like. In order to be able to do this you need to try to understand the differences that geography, grapes and wine making create in wines. Does grass fed beef taste like corn fed beef or does Coke taste like Pepsi or does Breyers ice cream taste like Turkey Hill. A Chardonnay from Burgundy France will taste different than a Chardonnay from California. A Chardonnay from Santa Barbara California can taste different that one from Napa.
If you to establish some of the characteristics of a wine that you like, it will be able to find other wines that you like. Many of these characteristics can be found on the wine label. The area, grape content, alcohol content and the importer are all found on a label. I find that if all I know about a wine from an area that I like is that the importer is good, then there is a good chance that I will like the wine. Look for Eric Solomon wines.
Recent Wines
I had the opportunity to try new vintages of 2 of my favorite wines recently - the 2012 Domaine Drouhin Pinot Noir, Oregon $40 and the 2011 Chalone Estate Chardonnay, California $20. The Domaine Drouhin was excellent. 2012 was a very good vintage in the Willamette Valley. Domaine Drouhin wines are somewhat pricey but the quality is very consistent. Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs are less fruity and lighter than many California Pinot Noirs. The Willamette wines can be like wines from Burgundy, France. The Chalone Estate Chardonnay integrates oak and fruit beautifully. I am not a big fan of lots of oak in wine but I usually enjoy the style of Chalone wines. The Chalone Chards are big wines and have that buttery taste that one thinks of when describing oaky California Chards. The wines come from an area near Monterey in California.
Food
Easy dessert. For Valentine's Day I melted some good dark chocolate (Jacques Torres) and cream on a low setting in a microwave and had chocolate fondue. We dipped strawberries and apples in to the chocolate mixture. It was goood! For the main course I made linguine with clam sauce and broiled some North American lobster tails which were on sale for Valentine's day. We drank a NV Tendil & Lombardi Champagne Blanc De Noirs with the meal. I bought it for $25 on WTSO. The wine is 100% Pinot Noir, which is unusual for a Champagne. Most Champagnes are a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir. A Blanc de Blanc is all Chardonnay. An all Pinot Noir Champagne generally has more flavor and taste than other blends of Champagnes. Hint - the next time you find a Champagne that you like see if you can determine the grape blend. It will help you find another Champagne that you like.
Keep warm and enjoy the remnants of winter.
