Several weeks ago, I wrote about the many ways to savor sherry wine vinegar. Banyuls vinegar is like sherry wine vinegar's more refined and delicate French cousin. Like Port and sherry wine, Banyuls is a fortified wine which means that alcohol is added to it. Banyuls vinegar develops a walnut flavor, taste of gingerbread and vanilla, and aroma of fresh plums after being aged in wooden barrels for five years. It comes from the Pyrenees, close to Spain. Like sherry wine vinegar, it makes a great vinaigrette. Where can you find this vinegar? You can purchase the vinegar online from French Food Exports, Honest Foods, and Gourmet Food Store. A while ago, I bought my favorite bottle of this stuff from Formaggio Essex in NY.
Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter picks up his second restaurant, Monkey Bar. His first, the Waverly Inn, has been luring a high wattage crowd for two years, despite not being officially open.
L.A.'s fast food moratorium raises questions about choice and personal responsibility.
Over the past few years, as wine has undergone repeated studies, it has started to seem like the modern-day fountain of youth. According to its various supporters, it can fight off streptococcus bacteria, reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, and flush one's system with antioxidants. Still, all of these pale beside wine's greatest claim to fame: the so-called French paradox.
For years, scientists have wondered how the French, who have one of the most saturated-fat rich diets in the world, manage to have such a low incidence of heart disease. While they haven't been able to scientifically determine the mechanism at work, anecdotal evidence has suggested that France's impressive wine consumption might have something to do with the paradox. Recently, scientists at Hebrew University in Jerusalem have confirmed the link and have even determined part of its mechanism.
According to the researchers, when the body digests meat, particularly turkey and red meat, it produces two toxic chemicals, malondialdehyde and hydroperoxide. These compounds can cause cancer, inflammation, and heart disease. However, red wine contains polyphenols, a particular kind of antioxidant, that neutralizes the toxins and prevents their absorbtion into the bloodstream.
If you've ever run a race - or missed a meal - you know the name "Clif Bar." Packed with protein and carbs, these pocket-sized portions can get you through a tough race or a long meeting.
Between energy bars, sports gel, and even kids' granola bars, the Clif family has sure made a name for itself. So now that they've conquered the sports food arena, why not go for something a little more...laid-back?
Clif Bar's owners, Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford, fueled by motivation, entrepreneurial spirit, and probably a few bites of Maple Nut-flavored Clif bar, are now pouring their energy into wine. The Clif Bar Family Winery focuses on sustainably-farmed and organic grapes, and the collection includes a white and red both named "The Climber," as well as a zinfandel, a syrah, and others.
Energy bar to wine might not be the most obvious transition, but since they opened up shop in 2004, things seem to be going just swimmingly for the Clif Bar family.
I didn't put it down until I had at least looked at every single wine on the list. It's Gary first list of favorite and recommended wines, and it's chock full of enthusiasm, energy, and genuinely great recommendations.
Here are some ways this book can be useful for you:
Exploring wine if you've never really tried wine before and have no idea where to start.
Choosing great wines for specific occasions from Gary's very cleverly organized and insightful lists for any event.
Finding the best wine for that flavor profile you really like (best dry Reisling, best "fruit bomb" red, etc.).
Learning how you can become better at recognizing what you like about wine and what wines you're passionate about (hint: drink more wine!).
Understanding that wine can be fun, and that it doesn't have to be serious or snobby.
What I really love about this book is the genuine authenticity that just reverberates from everything that Gary has to say. Each individual wine write-up is like getting to read an episode of Wine Library TV, chock full of enthusiasm, honesty, and insightful wine wisdom. The only thing I would change about the book is that, for a truly ignorant wine novice like myself, it's hard to tell which wines are white or red, etc., which is important for me since I have a hard time really enjoying reds and wanted to go through and pick out all of the wines that I knew I would want to try right off of the bat. A quick cheat sheet or wine primer at the beginning of the book (Petite Sirah is red, Reislings are white, etc.) would have been really helpful for me.
Overall, the book is well written, very straightforward in Gary's typical style, and I think it has potential to really help the everyday wine enthusiast reach a level of immersion in the wine world that many of us don't think we can reach. It can be expensive to start out in wine and buy a bottle of everything, especially if you're back at square one when the wine isn't a quality example of the genre you're trying to explore. This book makes jumping into every corner of the wine world a real possibility for every wine drinker, and that is something really worth sharing. Keep a copy handy for your own trips to the liquor store, and give a copy to a wine-loving (or wine-curious) friend!
I am not much of a drinker. There was a time, about four years ago, when I could hold my own at a bar, but these days, a single beer or glass of wine makes me tipsy and if I go for a second, I am instantly ready for bed. However, for someone who hardly drinks, I have a fairly extensive collection of wine, beer and hard alcohol in my apartment. The bulk of the booze is leftover from my grandparents, who always kept a well-stocked bar so that they'd be able to serve guests their choice of pre- and post-dinner cocktails. The beer is from Scott's birthday party back in February (we need to have another party, in order to use up this stash) and the wine is almost entirely from potlucks and dinner parties I've hosted over the years.
The bottles of wine (which I now keep stacked three high under a built-in cabinet in my living room) have become my go-to source for hostess and party gifts. Occasionally I feel a little embarrassed about this re-gifting habit (and then I start to wonder through how many hands that particular bottle has passed) but I've discovered a new product that will allow me to inject a little humor into the wine bottle hand off. It is the letterpress tags you see above that were created by two women who were challenged by the task of finding good cards to go with bottles of wine. I'm a particular fan of the one that says, "Regifted With Love."
Some times you need to work like mad, other times you want to just chill out and wallow around enjoying life and making a pig of yourself. Today started like the former, and ended up the latter. Or was it the other way around?
Since I last wrote in my journal it has been bottling time at the winery. We had several batches that were ready to go and so we decided to get as much done in one fell swoop as possible. I've bottled wine a few times here at Winterport. Usually Jody and I retire to the basement and work our way through a pallet or so of cases of bottles. This time it was a bit more systematic and speedy because Mike was on the bottling line with us. Mike and Jody have it down to a science. They are such good friends, and done this so many times, that they can anticipate each others thoughts and needs. So I have to try and fit into the scheme.
Today I worked the filling and corking stations. It starts at my left with a pallet of bottles where I would grab a case and quickly, but carefully turn them upside down on a wood counter. I was scared at first that they would break, but now it's no problem. The bottles end up standing at attention ready to grab and fill. I toss the box over to the end of the filling line, ready to pack up again later. Two more cases soon join the first ,and it's time for the next step. I grab a bottle in each hand, placing first one then the other top down over a air nozzle which blasts out any dust or glass chips. Then put them into the filler. Our bottle filler holds six at a time, grouped in pairs, and as a set are filled I pull them out, again one in each hand, and place them into the automatic corker machine. Finally I line them up so that Jody, who is to my right, can label them. It took a time or two for me to get smooth and efficient at this, but now I find that if I think about what I am doing, I get confused, and sometimes skip a step. So I go on autopilot and think about other things.
At the next station Jody quickly and smoothly feeds them into the label machine and pulls them out, lining them up to his right with the front label facing away. I asked if he wanted to switch stations for awhile but Mike warned me that he defers to Jody when it comes to running the labeler. It's a finicky machine and they told me that until you get real friendly with it, you stand a chance of getting your fingers caught in the rollers a few times, a painful experience. Knowing my luck it will be just moments before I get my fingers rolled for the first time. I'm a quick study and pick things up fast, but I also have a tendency to try to figure out better and more efficient ways to do things. Occasionally I find that the old way is the best way, usually by some minor but painful learning experience. I still have some cuts and scrapes on my hands and shins from my last learning experience, so I decide to wait a week or three before tackling the labeler.
Scrolling through my daily Thrillist email blast, I found a tout for "Sommelier Wine Glasses." Ever feigning an earnest and legitimate interest/knowledge of wine, I clicked through, only to find this truly stellar stemware.
These kegger-cups-cum-wine-glasses are ideally suited for people like me who pretend to care about Viticulture, but are actually throwin' back jugs of Carlo Rossi.
Just remember, these are hand-blown glass, so try and refrain from playing Wine Pong. (Or worse, Flip Cup.)
On July 1, 2008 at 6:30 pm the Astor Center in New York City will be hosting the seminar The Wonderful World of Sherry: A Food Pairing. Roger Kugler, Sommelier of Suba Restaurant and Wine Director of Boqueria Restaurant will lead a discussion and tasting of those beautiful and complex fortified wines and how they pair so well with various foods.
Roger has an extensive background in wines, with a strong focus on those from Spain. He is interviewed often and has been mentioned in, and tasted wines on panels, for the New York Times. This seminar looks like it will be a fun, entertaining, and educational event for those who want to know more about his oxidized elixir from Spain. The courses and dinners at the Astor Center are truly marvelous, and having been to quite a few, I heartily recommend them.
That's one tall glass of sparkling wine. Technically it's a Spumante glass, and it's the world's largest as recently certified by Guinness. The gargantuan glass was unveiled a few days ago in the city of Spoleto at a celebration of wine known as White Night.
It took 11 magnums (or a little more than 6 gallons) of Spumante to fill up the monster glass, which is 6.5 feet tall and 1.4 feet wide. Naturally they used Spumante Asti DOGG. I sure could of used 6 gallons of refreshing sparkling wine during the heat wave that engulfed New York City earlier this week.
Dolcevita posted a video of the authentication ceremony by a Guinness judge who flew in from London. It's 10 minutes long and entirely in Italian, so I chose not to post it here. It is kind of cool to watch them measuring the glass with stoic seriousness and then fiIling it. I speak fairly good Italian, but the only words I picked out were the emcee commanding silencio to the hordes of Italians cheering on a gigantic wine glass. Only in Italy.
The first thing I thought when I read about the new project from British designer Kacper Hamilton was, "How many times has this guy seen the movie Se7en?" The second thing I thought was, "How the hell do you drink out of such funky glasses?"
Hamilton's "7 Deadly Glasses" is a set of bizarre red wine glasses based on the 7 Deadly Sins. The one representing sloth, the fourth sin, is pictured here. It's an especially apt design since someone has to turn the the valve at the bottom so the sinner can drink. The glasses representing the other sins seem much more difficult to drink from. I'm not sure if it's because these sins are considered deadlier or what. Take wrath; it's a glass that has a teardrop shape hollow cut out of the top. It looks impossible to drink out of without cutting one's face.
Hamilton says the glasses are "about celebrating passion and encouraging the user to be sinful in a theatrical passion." I can understand why he chose red over white to embody sinfulness. I suppose a set of white wine glasses would have revolved around a less punitive bit of Western culture, like the nine muses of Greek mythology.
There seems to be confusion and mislabeling, but the Argentinian bonarda is "a killer pizza-and-nachos wine," that happens to be really affordable too.
Recipes ripe for summer days: Sorrel and Green Pea Soup, Grilled Whole Fish, Grilled Peppers, Grilled Rapini, No-Bake Strawberry Cheesecake Tartlets
The failures of Steve Lee, and the successes of Jamie Kennedy and his new lunch spot -- Gilead Cafe.
Proponents of this method say it works because "temperature is a constant 10 degrees, the movement of the current gently rocks the bottles and there is no danger of damage from UV light." They do say, though, that the ocean has more of an effect on white wines than reds.
Recently, the top French champagne maker Louis Roederer is testing ocean storage with some if its bubbly. They're giving the wines a year to age, and if they have an improved taste then this could be the wine storage wave of the future.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about the many ways to savor sherry wine vinegar. Banyuls vinegar is like sherry wine vinegar's more refined and delicate French cousin. Like Port and sherry wine, Banyuls is a fortified wine which means that alcohol is added to it. Banyuls vinegar develops a walnut flavor, taste of gingerbread and vanilla, and aroma of fresh plums after being aged in wooden barrels for five years. It comes from the Pyrenees, close to Spain. Like sherry wine vinegar, it makes a great vinaigrette. 
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Over the past few years, as wine has undergone repeated studies, it has started to seem like the modern-day 
If you're a Vayniac, you already know that Gary Vaynerchuk came out with a book called 
That's one tall glass of sparkling wine. Technically it's a Spumante glass, and it's the world's largest as recently certified by Guinness. The gargantuan glass was unveiled a few days ago in the city of Spoleto at a celebration of wine known as White Night.
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
