Wine Party!

In previous posts, I’ve written about the perks of being a member at a winery, so just consider this another endorsement of wine club membership.  Last Sunday was Malibu Family Wine’s annual “Member Pick-up Party.”  This event is special because it is only open to members and their guests.  Another thing that makes is special is the fact that the party is actually hosted by the owners, in the vineyard, and in their backyard.  When most people think about Malibu, their minds jump directly to the beaches, and for good reason- we have some awesome beaches.  But, lost in all of the beachy glory of Malibu are the mountains that surround Malibu.  These mountains make wine growing possible, and a little valley was the site of this party.  Malibu, while mostly a beach town, has a large number of ranches up in the hills.  Up any of the numerous canyons, you can find ranch estates that have horses, stables, and that are just all-around beautiful country estates.  Malibu Family Wines owns one of these estates.

After turning into the driveway of the estate, we still had about a five minute drive to the parking lot.  The driveway twisted through the vineyards, around fields around horses, camels, and even zebras, and passed next to ponds, hiking trails, and gorgeous views.  The parking lot was just an open field that would usually be a place to ride horses, but today it was the dusty, bumpy parking lot that all of the Porches, BMWs, and Mercedes struggled to traverse.  The Jeep did just fine in case you were wondering.

From the parking lot, it was a short walk to the grassy field that was the setting for the party.  We all had to check in and receive our glasses for the day.  Each person at the party was given one glass.  This glass was ours for the day and could be filled and refilled with free wine as often as we wanted all day long.  After getting our glasses, the next mission was to have them filled.  Malibu Family Wines were on the menu (obviously), and featured today were a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Rose, and a Sauvignon Blanc.  Being our driver, I wanted to go straight for what I liked best rather than trying out all of them so I went with the Cabernet and then began to make my way through the food tables.  The food situation was a bit overwhelming (probably 12 different tables all offering different options), but I found the cheese table and, after preparing a nice cheese plate, went to go find a seat in the field.  We got comfortable, ate, drank, and listened to the live music for a while before walking around the party a bit, refilling our glasses as needed. 

We were entertained by the miniature ponies for a while, but really found entertainment in people watching at the party.  It was fascinating to see all the different people that were wine club members.  Most of them were middle aged (in fact, the four of us in our early 20s were definitely in the youngest 2% there), and most of them at least appeared to be pretty wealthy.  We didn’t really fit in with the crowd except for the fact that everyone there loved wine.  It was interesting to hear all of the conversations around us, especially those about wine.  The conversations were made all the more interesting because we were all drinking pretty much the same wines.  I heard some nice commentary on some of the wines, and I also heard several things about the wine that I know to be false.

The hours drifted by lazily, but quickly at the same time.  As the party started to thin, we made our way back out to the parking lot to be greeted by our going away present- our wine!  Often lost in the fun of parties like these is the fact that we do pay for this membership, but that this membership entitles us to wine!  I received a bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc that was being poured at the party and a red blend that is new for Malibu Family Wines.  I’m excited to drink both and, after a great party like this, I’m re-energized with wine and am eager to continue learning about it.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s party and all of the other, smaller parties that will come in the months between now and then.

Gewurztraminer and Albarino

I’m confident that if you don’t like either one of these white varietals then you just haven’t tried enough of them.  Both Albarino and Gewurztraminer are lesser known white varietals from Spain and Germany, so you aren’t likely to see many bottles pop up on grocery store shelves (although several large American producers now make a good Gewurztraminer).  Their brilliance lies not in their rarity or complexity, but in the fact that both wines pair with a wide range of foods, and mostly with foods that are hard to pair wine with.  Did I mention that they are also really cheap?

Albarino first came into my life as a result of an online food-wine pairing tool courtesy of Gallo.  My buddy, who happens to be a Gallo employee, and I were messing around with this tool on Gallo’s website, trying to figure out what food-drink combo we would have for dinner.  We decided on fish tacos, and Albarino came up as one of the possibilities for a good match.  We tried it out and found that it worked perfectly.  I tried it again a few weeks later with more traditional Mexican food and was highly impressed that the light white wine paired extremely well with the spicy Mexican food.  Being a Mexican food lover, I was excited to have a reliable pairing to occasionally replace the margaritas and beer that traditionally accompany Mexican food.  A short time ago, I bought six bottles of Albarino and have since been trying it out with a wide variety of foods, and each time, I’ve been impressed by its ability to work with food.  Kraft mac and cheese is just the latest example of a good pairing that I’ve found.  The cheesy pasta is heavy, and while I thought it might overpower the light wine, the acidity in the Albarino nicely offset the meal and was a refreshing drink to have with the pasta.  Try out Albarino with almost any meal and I have the feeling that it’ll pair at least decently.  Albarnio is by no means a complex wine, just a wine that loves food, so it definitely merits some playing time for anyone that likes to have wine with meals.

Gewurztraminer is a bit like Riesling’s little brother.  It hasn’t gotten the recent press that Riesling has received (from Wine Spectator, Parker, me, etc.), but it is every bit as good a wine as its Germany brother.  Gewurztraminer is another wine that loves food, especially food that is hard to pair with wine.  Thai, Chinese, and even burgers come to mind as foods that pair well with Gewurztraminer.  Mexican food even falls into this category as well.  Like Albarino, Gewurztraminer works best with spicy foods, but it also has a bit more of a sugary-sweet taste, allowing it to give the sweet and sour combo to some dinner pairings.  While I know that they exist, I have never seen a bottle of Gewurztraminer cost more than $20.  This might cause some people to hesitate and to think that Gewurztraminer has a ceiling and can only be so good (if there aren’t high end options that are “better,” then the cheapest options are all trash, right?), this is absolutely not true.  Like I said, some large American wine producers have been making quality Gewurztraminer that costs less than $10 per bottle.  Its cheapness comes from the fact that it just isn’t a popular wine and that it just isn’t that widely grown.  I blame its lack of success on the fact that its name is just so damn hard to pronounce.  It’s hard for anyone to sound like a wine pro while saying “Gewurztraminer.”  We have all learned how to say Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc. like we are fluent in French, but this German wine just doesn’t roll off the tongue like Chardonnay or even its German brother, Riesling.

If you can get over the fact that both of these wines are somewhat hard to find, are mostly unheard of and unpopular, you will be pleasantly surprised and may be able to give your Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Girgio, and Riesling some company in your cellars.  I promise that you’ll like them and that they will be the perfect wines for those dinner parties where you want to serve any food that doesn’t traditionally go with wine.

Wine Dinners

I’ve been to plenty of dinners that feature wine, but I have never been to an official “wine dinner.”  You know- the kind that you pay for a meal that has been meticulously matched to specific wines by some expert, the kind of dinner that will cost at least $50 (and often a whole lot more than that!) because it has been prepared by some master chef and features some yummy wine.  Now that I consider myself a wine writer (wine blogger didn’t sound as cool to me), I decided that this situation is something that I need to remedy.  So, for the past month or so, I’ve been on the lookout for a dinner to come along that was both affordable and that featured some intriguing wines, and I finally found one!  I know that I give Wally’s Wine nothing but praise and here comes some more.  My first ever wine dinner will be at their store and will feature wines to be paired with In N Out burger!  The dinner, on the cheap side of the wine dinner range (only $30) will let me try 15 different wines made by 3 different wineries with a Double-Double from In N out. 

I enjoy fancy, three course meals, but I rarely like them when they have set menus, so the simplicity and the deliciousness of the In N Out Dinner was immediately appealing to me.  I was also drawn to this particular dinner because two of the three winemakers will be presenting their wines in person, which is always a bonus, but especially so in this case because I’ll be interested to hear exactly why these wine makers thought that In N Out burger would make a good partner for their wine. 

I’ll have to report back about the experience after I go to the dinner, but I already have to say that I’d recommend the experience to any wine lover.  In my searching for a suitable wine dinner, I found dinners that featured everything from the perfect wine for pizza to chili, and ice cream to sushi.  If you have the money, you can even go upscale and try some of the best wines in the world at these dinners.  Looking at the economics side of things, going out to dinner these days is fairly expensive, especially if you buy a bottle of wine at a restaurant, so why not wrap the dinner and the wine into one predetermined cost so you can know what you are going to be paying and stay within budget for the evening without having to make sacrifices once you get to the restaurant?  Anyway, I’m excited for my first wine dinner and I will let you know how In N Out’s Double-Double partners with some of Central California’s best wines. 

Yes, boxed wine is ok to bring too.

I’m going to Stagecoach, a country music festival next week and I came across this sentence in one of the answers to the FAQs on the festival’s website.  Added as an afterthought to a long paragraph stating allowable amounts of alcohol, the organizers decided that yes, boxed wine is ok to bring too.

I kinda had to laugh upon seeing this statement.  I think that in the paragraph talking about allowable beverages to bring to the event, they mentioned that no glass of any kind is allowed some five or six times, so I can (barely) see their need to clarify that our cherished Franzia in a plastic bag will be allowed at the venue, but I still found this amusing.

The main reason I’m amused with this is because of the stereotypes that are associated with country music fans, especially the country music fans that travel to festivals in the middle of the desert in their RVs.  And, to set the record straight, I’m partly talking about myself when referencing these stereotypes so it’s ok, I’m not judging.  But, my stereotypical country music fan is someone that drinks cheap beer (think PBR) from a can, and when they want something a bit classier, they reach for the Jack Daniels.  I don’t see wine being a drink of choice for Kenny Chesney fans, so Stagecoach’s inclusion of the wine clause as I’ll call it draws attention to the fact that more people are drinking wine these days.

Wine even pops up in country music from time to time.  Darius Rucker (who will be performing at Stagecoach) mentions red wine in the first line of his song, “Alright,” Dierks Bentley includes a glass of wine in the chorus of his song “Down on Easy Street,” Kenny Chesney “took Katie down by the river with a six dollar bottle of wine” in “Nothing More,” and Brad Paisley talks about Bordeaux in “Alcohol.”  These are just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.  Being an exception to the norm (or my idea of the norm), my love of wine and country music finally seem to be more acceptable as likes found in a single individual.  So, bolstered by my newfound hope that wine is accepted in the country music world, I composed this list of wine pairings and country songs.  Note that all of these people will be performing at Stagecoach.

Kenny Chesney- “Summertime” with Beaujolais Nouveau.  You gotta chill the wine a bit, but Beaujolais makes for a great summer wine for summertime.  Classic combination of wine and song that put you in the summer state of mind.

Carrie Underwood- “Cowboy Casanova” with Franzia Burgundy.  I’d never try this pairing out myself, but I can see Cowboy Casanova drinking this wine when he’s leaning up against the record machine, thinking it makes him appear classy.

Rascal Flatts- “Too Good Is True” with Da Vinci Chianti.  Love the upbeat optimistic song with a great wine that is good vintage after vintage.  Both song and wine are a bit generic but they make great partners.

Darius Rucker- “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It” with anything 5+ years old.  A song full of memories and feelings, touching on regret deserves a mature wine that has the ability to bring up some memories on its own.  The lyrics in this song make you think about the past and decisions made, and an old wine can bring up some of those same memories.

Josh Turner- “Your Man” with Kendal Jackson Chardonnay- buttery smooth wine flows with his smooth voice.  Also, a very romantic song so might as well choose a wine that both a guy and a girl can enjoy.

Jack Ingram- “Love You” with Bitch Grenache.  Lyrics of the song and name of the wine are perfect for each other.  Not a fan of the wine and not a real fan of Jack Ingram (he kinda fell off the map after his one hit, Love You).  Interesting combination that some sassy country loving lady will enjoy.

Easton Corbin- “A Little More Country Than That” with anything French.  I just laugh when I think about what a French wine snob would say if they saw this pairing in action.  About as conflicting in styles as you can get, but it works, and I think country music fans will appreciate the irreverent attitude toward French wine.

Wine Toys

It was my apartment’s turn to host Sunday dinner again last week.  We fell back on the usual pasta option and decided to keep it simple with a meat sauce.  Determined to make the simple dish as good as I could possibly make it, I decided to start it a good 3 hours before dinner and let the sauce simmer with the hope that it would gain flavor as it was cooked.  I think the sauce turned out pretty good but I’m not sure that the couple of hours spent in the kitchen were worth it.  Especially since I wasn’t drinking wine while I was cooking.  I tend follow the old saying- “I love cooking with wine; sometimes I even put it in the food.”  I was amazed that I went so long cooking Italian food of all things without thinking to open some wine. 

When I finally decided to go open a bottle, I took a quick inventory of my Italian wines.  I had just two.  An Amarone and a Brunello.  I decided to open the Brunello but knew that I wasn’t going to wait anytime at all for it to aerate and open up before drinking it.  So, I pulled out my handy Vinturi aerator, hoping that it would do the job for me.  I’ve got mixed feelings on this little contraption but I was in a bind so I had to trust that the little glorified funnel would open up my wine in an instant rather than waiting hours to let it happen naturally.  I was impressed with how it worked on the first glass, I had tried a sip of the wine immediately after opening the bottle and couldn’t taste much but this time I got a wide variety of flavors and even seemed to get a different finish.

While the difference in taste between the Vinturi and naturally aerated wine diminished with each subsequent glass, the little aerator did make for a good wine toy and it intrigued most of my friends that were over for dinner.  I know that I spent most of my last post pointing out the negatives in what I consider to be a useless wine toy, and I am well aware of the fact that the Vinturi aerator could very well fall into the useless wine toy category as well, but I kinda enjoy it despite the fact some people see them as useless.  Wine toys are fun on occasion.  They get people excited to drink or try new wine which is always a good thing, so maybe I was a little harsh on the wine straws last week.  They still aren’t for me, but if they encourage others to try more wine or if they make drinking wine more enjoyable for some, then more power to them.  I’ll just keep playing with my aerator.

Wine Straws?

It’s been a while since my last post.  Work has been especially busy and the NCAA tournament has taken up much of my down time.  But now that things have slowed a bit, I’ll have this week to get the blog back on track.

A friend forwarded me an ad for a new wine product that claims to allow you to “drink red and smile white.”  I’ve seen a lot of products claiming to protect your teeth from the purple tinge that red wine imparts, but never one like this.  The Wine Straws are little straws specifically made for drinking red wine.  The idea is that you use the straw to bypass your teeth and get the wine straight to your tongue and throat without dirtying the teeth.  I’ve never tried to drink wine out a straw, but I’m skeptical that doing so would allow you to experience a wine to its full potential.  My reasoning for this is that different parts of your mouth detect different tastes, so in order to fully experience a wine you are required to move it around in your mouth and get a complete feel for the wine.  Now, you can certainly move the wine around in your mouth and get a taste for it drinking out of a straw, but the purpose of the straw is to keep your teeth from coming into contact with the wine, and I cannot see how the wine would not touch your teeth when you move it around your mouth.  The purple tinge you get in your mouth is just one of the things you have to live with when drinking red wine.  I haven’t ever seen a product that can keep your teeth white without ruining the wine.  Just remember to brush your teeth after and you’ll be fine.

Now, after looking at Wine Straw’s website, I have to say that while I think the drink red, smile white claim is rubbish, but I do like their idea of these little straws offering a new take on the old wine glass markers.  Their current offerings are only for clear straws, but if they develop colored straws, they could be a new way to distinguish your wine glass at a party.

All in all, I’m not a fan of little wine gadgets like this.  I’d rather just have the essentials and spend my money on good wine and food to accompany it.

Bubbly 101

I never really thought that champagne would get so much airtime on my blog, but at a friend’s request, here is another post on bubbly.  I was asked to explain the differences between champagnes.  Example- what’s the difference between Brut and Dry?  What’s the difference between vintage and non-vintage?  The difference between champagne and sparkling wine?  And on and on.  So, here is my short guide to all things champagne.
First of all, champagne can only be called champagne if it is from the Champagne region of France.  Any other bubbly cannot bear the name champagne (there are a few exceptions, but they are very rare so we will ignore them for the moment).  So, first clue is that the word champagne on the bottle means that it is French.  Sparkling wine means it’s made in the style of champagne, but that it isn’t from that region of France.  It’s simple enough if you know to look for it.

Secondly, bubbly is rarely classified by vintage.  This is because sparkling wines are frequently made from a blend of grapes from several different vintages.  This allows producers to give the bubbly more different flavors, more complexity, and ultimately creates a more balanced drink.  Occasionally, a producer will release a vintage bubbly, this means that all the juice in the bubbly is from the same vintage.  This generally only happens in the best vintages and with the best grapes from that vintage.  With bubbly, style and producer are more important anyway, so let’s move on to the different styles you’re likely to come across.

The Brut, Dry, Doux, etc. that you are likely to find on a champagne bottle don’t refer to the varietal like they might with normal wine, rather they refer to the sweetness of the champagne.  I’ll list the types from least sweet to sweetest: Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry (or Extra Sec), Sec (or Dry), Demi-Sec, Doux.  So, Doux is the sweetest classification of bubbly you’ll find, Extra Brut the least.  I’d try several different levels of sweetness and see where you fall.  Most of what I see on the grocery store shelves range from Brut to Sec, so those might be a good place to start.

You should know what Rose refers to on a bottle of bubbly, if not, read my Pink Champagne post.  There are several other descriptions you might find on a bottle, so here are some common ones and what they mean.  Blanc de blancs refer to champagne made with Chardonnay grapes.  Blanc de noirs refers to champagne made with Pinot Noir grapes (it’s still lightly colored).  Prosecco, Asti, Lambrusco are all Italian takes on bubbly and hail from different Italian regions.  Moscato is likely a sweet, dessert like bubbly.  Cava is from Spain, and any bubbly with “sparkling wine” in its description is likely from a country that speaks English.

This is basically all I know about champagne.  The big thing is to try several different levels of sweetness to find what you like, and then at some point in your life, try a nice bottle of champagne; it really is something that everyone needs to try at least once.  I’ll leave with a fun fact.  There are about 50 million bubbles in the average bottle of champagne, but I’ve read that some scientists believe there are more like 200 million bubbles in a single bottle!  Either way, with each glass you pour, you are consuming more than a million bubbles!