by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
The 2007 fireworks finale from the annual Bernkastel-Kues wine festival in Germany, courtesy of timandsaundra at You Tube. Because one can mix wine and fireworks (and because the Wine Curmudgeon really likes fireworks).
Enjoy the holiday.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
I made my second appearance on Olivia Wilder ?s New Art of Living program Sunday. I ?m the second guest, about 30 minutes in. We chatted about a variety of subjects, including screw caps, biodynamic wine, terroir, and cheap wine for the holiday weekend. I ?m on again July 12.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
Yes, we ?re taking your cash for the Aug. 15 event in Dallas ? and we can do it over the Internet, with credit cards. That ?s actually quite amazing, given I ?m the one in charge of technology.
The details are here. Your $35 gets you into three seminars, pays for lunch prepared by the chefs at the world-famous Cordon Bleu, and allows those of you older than 21 to participate in the Texas Twitter Taste-off. You ?ll taste about 40 wines, and then Twitter or blog about your favorites.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
And the medium will never be the same.
I ?m going to be a semi-regular guest on Olivia Wilder ?s New Art of Living call-in show on Blog Talk Radio, which debuts its new format on 8 p.m. central on Sunday. (You can also check out her Facebook page.)
I should be live about 8:30. No surprise what I ?m going to talk about ? finding value in wine. I ?ll see if I can find a couple of nifty wines we haven ?t discussed here for my inaugural appearance. After this week, I should be on every couple of weeks.
And if you call in, be gentle.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
On his blog, On the Wine Trail in Italy, my pal Alfonso Cevola had written about sommeliers who take themselves too seriously. The discussion had been intelligent and thoughtful, and included the final comment: ?And anyways Wine is a luxury, you don't need it to survive. Its a cash crop its made to make money. Its not food. ?
Which made me wonder: Is that true? Is it a luxury?
I ?m not a sociologist, and I try to avoid those sorts of discussions here. But the question is worth asking, because it says a lot about how we see ourselves. It ?s quite true that I don ?t need wine to live; water will do. But life (and dinner) would be awfully dull without wine.
The novelist Clyde Edgerton has a good take on all this in Raney, about a rural southern Baptist girl named Raney who marries an Atlanta Episcopal boy named Charles. And, as Raney describes it:
Charles has got me to sip his white wine at the Ramada a few times ? to show me how much better it makes the food taste. One night I tried a whole glass. Just to make the food taste better because it can make the food taste some better, depending on what you ?re eating. Thursday night when we stopped by the store I ?d had two glasses. For the first time. I don ?t think I ?ll ever do it again, and I shouldn ?t have then. I can ?t decide what I think about it exactly. It does make the food taste some better.
Which it does, actually.
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
I was wandering through the wine department of a national grocery store chain with a marvelous reputation over the weekend when an employee asked me if I needed any help. No, I said, I ?m just looking to see what ?s here and checking prices. Oh, she said, we have some of the best prices in the area.
I just grumbled and moved on. I didn ?t think it would be proper for the Wine Curmudgeon to lecture her on why that wasn ?t true. Instead, I decided to do a post about retailers, cheap wine, and why so many of them don ?t like it. More, after the jump:
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
The Wine Curmudgeon can ?t decide if the highlight of the the 34th annual competition was the quality of the regional wine we tasted, how many cheap wines won gold medals, or the picture of me in a lab coat.
Probably the first two.
I don ?t think there is any doubt that New York wine, and especially the rieslings, can hold its own with wine from any other region in the world. Yes, some of it is still ?regional ? ? inconsistent and too tasting room in style. But there is a solid tier of affordable, well-made wine that ?s worth writing about. I hope that the wine media in New York is paying attention, and doesn ?t automatically opt for California wine when there is New York wine available.
And the cheap wine? Oh my. One of the finalists for the competition ?s best red wine was a $10 merlot from a Central Coast winery, Five Rivers. It didn ?t win, but I liked it more than the wine that did win.
After the jump, some highlights from the competition.
