Tag Archives: wine advice

The “What do you drink when your magazine is sold and everyone gets fired?” blog post

The Wine Curmudgeon ?s career in the newspaper business included three newspaper closings as well as one really spectacular newspaper wake (for the late and much lamented Dallas Times Herald). So I am, sadly, well qualified to write this post.

Pet Age, the premiere trade magazine for the pet retail business, has been sold and all of its employees have been fired. I have freelanced for Pet Age since the early 1990s (one does not live by wine writing alone), and so I know the good work the staff did. Cathy Foster, who was my editor, was smart and quick to see how a story should be written, and editor Karen MacLeod, a fellow Northwestern alum, may know the pet business better than I know cheap wine.

So this is my gift to them for a job well done: What to drink when they hold the Pet Age wake, be it public or just sitting at home trying to make sense of the whole thing:

• A decent boxed wine: Because, frankly, a lot of people are going to want to get drunk, and boxed wine provides the best price quality ratio for that purpose. Black Box and Bota Box whites are a safe bet (though I’d skip the pinot grigio); the price works out to the equivalent of $4 to $5 a bottle. (Though, of course, the Wine Curmudgeon does not advocate drinking to get drunk, driving while drunk, or any of those sorts of things.)

• A bubbly for toasting: Regular visitors here know this one — Cristalino, all $6 or $7 of it. Or, as I wrote the last time it was the wine of the week: “bone dry, refreshing and brisk.”

• Something nice: As my pal Tim McNally reminded me when I told him about this post, life is too short to not to drink something nice at a time like this. I’d open one of my remaining bottles of 2002 Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet, but any fine wine will do. What was something you once had and really liked, but never drank again because it was too expensive or too hard to find? Now’s the time for it.

• The hard stuff: I’m not much of a cocktail guy; I prefer my fruit in a pie. I do, however, appreciate good spirits. Wild Turkey makes a rye whiskey for about $18 that gets the job done (just cut it with a little water). And I was lucky enough to sample Partida tequilla, which offers value for $45.

Drink up, my friends. You deserve it.

Winecast 19: Tim McNally, The Wine Show

TimMcNally2Tim McNally hosts a wine radio show, writes extensively about wine, and judges some of the most important wine competitions in the world. In other words, he knows more than most of us about the wine business — and is more than happy to share. Or, as Tim says about our tendency to drink specific wines because we're told they're good: "If wine doesn't give you great pleasure, then don't drink it."

Tim and I talked about wine intimidation and how to overcome it, the changes in the wine business and especially in the quality of cheap wine, and he even called me out once or twice. Can't get a better guest than that.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 14 1/2 minutes long and takes up 13 megabytes.

Wine and your wedding

Wine and your wedding
It’s your wedding — pick the wine you want, not what others force on you.

This is the time of year when brides-to-be start planning for next spring’s weddings. And, since one of the most common questions that the Wine Curmudgeon gets from blog readers is about choosing wine for weddings, why not a post with just such advice?

Even better, I brought in two other experts ? wedding planner Linda Alpert of suburban Chicago’s Affairs with Linda, and my old pal Mr. Sommelier, who has been doing this sort of thing even longer than I have been writing about wine. And, yes, that is a nom de plume, since Mr. S. has a day job and his bosses might not appreciate this gig.

“They know they’re supposed to have wine, but they’re not sure what to do,” says Alpert, something we’ve heard on the blog before. Thank you, wine business, for confusing your customers. So don’t be afraid to ask questions, and don’t be afraid to tell someone you would like them to answer your questions in English, not winespeak.

• The people are attending your wedding because they like you, not because they want to tweet about the wine selection. In this, simple is usually more than sufficient. Make sure the wine more or less pairs with any food you’re serving (whether reception or dinner), make sure there is red and white, and don’t worry about spending trillions of dollars to impress anyone. Most people won’t notice.

• What specific wines to serve? That depends on your budget and local availability. But this is what brands like Rodney Strong, Hess and King Estate do best — give you value for money and quality wine that’s a step above the grocery store stuff.

• Mr. S. has your quantities covered with his interactive Drinks Calculator. Click a few boxes on the web page, and it generates a complete list of what you’ll need. As a rule of thumb, figure on a couple of glasses of wine at dinner.

• Hotels are not in business to help you save money on wine. They’re in business to make as much money as possible, and their markups make restaurants look reasonable. And, says Alpert, how does a $40 corkage fee sound if you want to bring in your own wine? The hotel’s house wine, because of this, is almost always your best bet, she says.

• Caterers, on the other hand, are more flexible, and are more willing to work with you if you want to buy your own, Alpert says.

• Yes, you should serve sparkling wine. And, no, it doesn’t have to be the expensive French stuff. Mr. S. likes prosecco, the Italian bubbly, which is reasonably inexpensive, while regular visitors here know my preference for cava, Spain’s sparkling wine. And, since so many future brides get hung up pouring a big-name Champagnes, the prices hotels charge are gouge-worthy.

Why most wine is not made to age

P4210035We ?ve talked about this on the blog, but a regular visitor makes the point dramatically with this picture. When you buy wine, drink it. Almost all of the world's wine is made to drink more or less when you buy it ? and not to age.

Sadly, the person who bought these three bottles of 1988 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau didn ?t know that. Which is not surprising, since most Americans (thank you, Winestream Media) still think that ?s true. But Beaujolais isn ?t made to age, and nouveau ? made quickly so it can be sold shortly after harvest ? is especially not made to age.

Hence 24-year-old bottles of wine that look like this. The wine has evaporated in the bottle and those gross splotches (mold, perhaps?) will not doubt enhance the wine ?s current post-vinegar flavor profile.

Thanks to Rich Liebman, who sent the photo and has been a loyal reader since the blog started. Where he found them (and it wasn ?t his house) is probably best left unsaid.

Wine terms: Wine glasses

wine glasses

Pretty pictures notwithstanding, wine glasses affect the taste of wine.

This may seem like a silly topic for a post. How are we supposed to drink wine unless we use a glass? Would that it were that simple. The concept of wine glasses can be as complicated as wine itself; how else to explain something like Riedel's $139 sommelier black glass?

The trick, then, is to approach glasses with the same skeptical eye that we approach wine with. Do you need a decent wine glass to get the most out of wine, even if you're drinking $10 bottles? Yep. Do you need to go overboard and spend hundreds of dollars on a glass? Probably not.

After the jump, a few thoughts on buying and using wine glasses:

Continue reading →

Easy ways to learn more about wine

Wine drinkers are creatures of habit. We tend to drink the same wines and shop in the same places for those wines. Which, frankly, doesn’t do much to expand our wine horizons.

This is an especial problem for beginning wine drinkers, whose lack of experience is compounded by the intimidation factor — wine can be a scary place for newcomers, who are overwhelmed with labels, names, terms, and the like.

Hence this post, part of my New Year’s resolution to write more items for people just getting started with wine. And a big tip of the Wine Curmudgeon’s fedora to Dave McIntyre, who has written about some of this and jarred me into action.

Four easy things anyone can do to boost their wine savvy:

? Drink more wine. Seriously. One of the things that people always laugh at when I talk about wine is the idea that they can learn more by drinking more. This, I’m convinced, has its roots in our post-Prohibition cultural outlook. Americans have been taught that liquor is different, and can’t be approached like other consumer goods. So we reserve wine for special occasions or let people who are supposed to know more about it than we do tell us what to drink. What we should be doing is drinking more (responsibly, of course), deciding ourselves what we want to drink, and not really caring what others think of what we drink.

? Shop in a different store. It’s amazing, as Dave notes, how this will change your wine-buying perspective. For one thing, there will almost certainly be wines that you haven’t seen before. For another, a store employee could recommend something you’ve never thought about. This is very important for people who only buy wine in grocery stores, where there are a lot of wines but mostly from the same old places made by the same companies and tasting exactly the same.

? Write down the names of the wine you enjoy. And even those you don’t. No one, including the so-called experts, remembers the name of every wine they drink. So we write it down (CellarTracker, the unofficial wine inventory software of the blog!). There is nothing wrong or snooty with this; it’s common sense. You don’t even need a computer or smart phone or iPad — pencil and paper work just as well. Record the name, price and what you thought about the wine (and, believe it or not, phrases like good and bad are perfectly acceptable). If you have that information, you can go into a store and ask an employee to recommend something similar to the wine you liked — or to steer you away from one you didn’t.

? Try a wine you don’t like. You don’t have to do it often. But every once in a while, if you don’t like sweet wine or red wine or whatever, taste one. Yes, there’s a good chance that you still won’t like it. But, given that your palate will change over time as you gain more experience, there’s also a chance you’ll find a new appreciation for a wine you didn’t like.

The photo is from luisrock62 of Argentina, via stock.xchng, using a Creative Commons license

Does wine make food taste better?

Does wine make food taste better?
Norton thinks Chianti makes all the difference in the world

Usually, when the subject of wine and food comes up, it’s about pairings — what goes with what, and often in such nuance that it scares the hell out of beginning wine drinkers. Which may be one reason why wine and food pairings are becoming increasingly less important to many wine drinkers.

The Wine Curmudgeon has been pondering this for a good while, trying to figure out a way to write about pairings that wouldn’t drive new wine drinkers crazy (as part of my resolution to make the blog more accessible to people who are new to wine).

Which led to the thought: Are we putting the cart before the horse? We’re telling people to pair certain wines with food under the assumption that the food will taste better. Is there any evidence to support this?

In other words, when I’m drinking an unoaked chardonnay with roast chicken, does the chicken taste better than if I had been pairing it with sweet tea or a soft drink (something I see very often in Dallas, where restaurant diners seem to drink more of the last two than the first). The answer: No one knows for sure. More, after the jump:

Continue reading →