Sip Quips

It’s been a rather busy week – errands, appointments, deciding to cancel my next wine class (boo!), and the husband was out of town for a conference for a few days at the beginning of the week, so all of the little girl responsibilities were mine. Busy though it was definitely a good week. How could it not be when you start the week off with a wine shopping spree at 50% off? I have yet to organize and put away the booty from my shopping spree, but I definitely feel ready for any wine pairing emergency with my well stocked cellar. 

There is something immensely satisfying about a well stocked coffer – both in the kitchen, and in the cellar. I know that I am ready for company at a moments notice. Ready to celebrate, toast, feed, and enjoy our guests, planned or unplanned. Granted, being tucked away in our little mountain bungalow we don’t see too much in the way of unplanned company, but it’s not uncommon for a dinner guest to turn into an overnight guest and I take great pleasure in being able to feed them well and share the joy and satisfaction that food brings. 

As I write this, I wonder if I really needed to share my thoughts on a well stocked cellar and pantry, or if perhaps, this blog post is serving as a procrastination tool. Rather than take advantage of this nap-time as a chance to go sort, organize, and stock the cellar with the weekend’s shopping trip, I’m sitting in front of the computer, waxing on poetically (okay, so the poetry is up for debate) about the boy scout credo ‘Alway be prepared’ and how it applies to my wine cellar and pantry. I think there may just be something to that – perhaps it in time to shuffle bottles around and get a good organization system in place. Or perhaps it’s time to make a warm cup of coffee, check my email, and do a bit of surfing on the web. I think that option may win out after a hectic week. 

Recently we had the pleasure of having an old college friend in town for the weekend. Concurrently, I have been speaking with both my mom and my mother-in-law about their respective trips to visit us and see their granddaughter. It’s not uncommon for folks to stress about house guests, myself included. After the arrival of our little one, I was quite sure that there weren’t going to be enough hours in the day to get everything done, much less prepare for and host company. That’s where I was wrong. I had a bit of an epiphany after our friend left – we planed ahead for meals, had everything on hand (okay, I admit it – there was an ‘emergency’ trip to the store, but I inevitably always forget at least one ingredient), and popped open a bottle of wine while we were cooking, and our friend couldn’t stop raving about our hospitality. Having been in the restaurant business for so long, I am inclined to think of hospitality mainly as a function of food and beverage, and it seems that with a bit of forethought in planing simple, delicious, easy-prep meals, a little wining and dining goes a long way in being a great host, especially since I never got around to vacuuming before our company arrived – oops! The first night I planed a simple pasta and prepped the few ingredients that required prep before our company arrived, so that I could toss dinner together whenever we were ready, and it would be on the table within fifteen minutes. Since travel plans are always subject to change, I thought a simple supper suited the evening best, that way there was absolutely no stress about timing.  Night two – pork chops, mashed cauliflower, sauteed chard – homey, comfortable food that everyone loves, and no the cauliflower was not because we are on some crazy Atkin’s diet, merely because we had cauliflower on hand, not potatoes. Again though, an easy meal to get from fridge to table quickly, and super satisfying. On night three, we changed it up a little and made my all-time favorite Chicken Enchilada recipe (thank you Tyler Florence). It’s not hard, but it does take a bit longer, but you can get everyone in the kitchen together and have a little cooking party to assemble everything and suddenly dinner becomes entertainment.  Night four, Memorial Day, it had to be burgers. The great part about this menu was that my husband, aka Grill Master, took care of most of the cooking, and there was minimal clean-up. Delicious and low maintenance - what could be better. I guess my epiphany boils down to this – your company is there because they want to see you. What better way to reconnect than around the dinner table. Good food, good wine, and good times. 

With the depth and breadth of wine topics out there it’s rather remarkable that I could suffer from writer’s block. I know I could write about dinner last night (a delicious seared salmon, Tuscan beans and greens, and a gorgeous PInot Noir, that we are unfortunately now out of), or perhaps write about the wine shopping I did today (rosé!! I finally picked up some rosé. Spring has officially sprung), or even the wine of Alsace (which is phenomenal – I implore you to pick up a Trimbach Riesling or Lucien Albrecht Pinot Gris – you can’t beat them with simple summer fare), but none of it is really calling out to me – or perhaps I am starting to feel like I’m getting a bit redundant. Then again, perhaps I’m spending less time thinking about wine right now with a busy, busy little girl keeping me on my toes.

So, here is where you come in, dear reader, what are your wine questions? What perplexes you about wine? What labels do you want to know about? What regions do you want to know about? What recipes are you still trying to find the perfect wine for? It’s shameless, I know, soliciting you for ideas, but to be topical and relevant for you, who better to do market research with than you?

Email me your questions (mollie@sipquips.com), or drop them in a comment below. There are no stupid questions, so ask whatever you wish. I promise to answer all questions, either via email or in the blog. Whether you’re a wine novice or a cork dork there’s bound to be something you want to know, so ask away!

What is it about an aperitif that whets the appetite and sets the tone for the meal? There is something all together nostalgic, charming and civilized about starting a meal with an aperitif. With a full range of cocktails, wines and liqueurs available before a meal it begs the question – what makes a good aperitif?

The word aperitif comes from the Latin aperire, meaning to open. The role of these drinks to open the meal, and set the stage for what’s to come. If that’s the case, you want to offer a drink that will heighten the dining experience rather than dull the senses. To get the most bang for your flavor buck, while still keeping a clear head you probably want to offer something with a relatively low level of alcohol, probably under 25% or so. Looks like the big four heavy-hitters – vodka, gin, whisky, and tequila, are probably out of the running for Aperitif of the Year.  By that same logic, a Long Island is likely not your best bet for a pre-dinner cocktail.

Good candidates for an aperitif? You not only want something low alcohol, but definitely not sweet, and perhaps a little bitter. Why? Because the acidity or bitter flavors will cause your mouth to water and get all those digestive enzymes flowing. Delicious options include a glass of bubbly or dry white wine, Campari, Vermouth, Lillet, Dubonnet, Pastis, and Pernod. As you’ll notice several of these are either wine, or fortified wine liqueurs. The wine base gives them a nice acidic backbone, then the producers add closely guarded herbal concoctions making them much more savory, and occasionally bitter, than your average glass of wine. 

At your next dinner party think about offering a little aperitif with some olives or cheeses as your guests arrive. One sip and they will automatically shut off from their day and slide into a comfortable evening. 

Recently I got an email from a reader:

Today I bought the dvd Grease, and it came in a cute leather jacket around the case. When I got it home, I realized the jacket was the perfect size for a bottle of wine. Check out the picture!

So my question to you is which wine would you choose for a Grease movie night? Do you have any other favorite Wine & Movie pairings?

P.S. I always make sure to have a bottle of rum handy when watching pirate movies and a martini on hand for Bond movies, but those are easy

Interesting question. My first thought was Boont’s Farm, Mogan David, or wine coolers – after all what other wine do high schoolers get their hands on? Then, I thought that you might want something a bit more sophisticated than the former options. I mean I’ll go a long way for a good theme, but drinking Mogan David? That’s a bit too far even for me. Then it came to me, the grown-up Greaser’s wine – Red Zinfandel. It’s bold, brash, fruity – but not too sweet, plus I can’t think of a better bottle to put in a black leather jacket. With all of the racy labels out there – Sin Zin, Seven Deadly Zins – Zinfandel seems the perfect candidate for a little leather treatment. 

So, on to other movie night wine recommendations. Since my husband is a big fan of the Godfather trilogy (yes, the whole trilogy, he even liked number three), that seems a good place to start. I always have a bottle of Chianti, or Tuscan red of some sort in the cellar for an impromptu Godfather viewing. I find that the food friendly reds of Tuscany are the perfect complement to a ‘family’ movie like the Godfather. Cook up some Sunday gravy and you’ve got an evening. 

Some other recommendations:

My go-to movie night combo is bubbly or a super cold rosé (even white Zin) and super salty popcorn.

Mafia movies, other than the Godfather, I like Sicilian Nero d’Avola – intense, not too complicated, and a bloody hue.

Pirate movies, if you, like me, aren’t a big rum fan, go with port, preferably served out of a mug or stein.

French Kiss – Pinot Noir, preferably Burgundy.

Sci-fi – a Turley Zin? Wine that’s manufactured, in an unnatural fashion. Or, if it’s about pod people, a Napa Cab. 

Amelie – a good Cru Beaujolais, perhaps Fleurie.

Spaghetti Westerns – Rhone Rangers of course? Central Coast Syrahs and Rhone style blends scream cowboy.

Under the Tuscan Sun – Tuscan. Need I say more?

Super-hero movies – any Mondavi wine. He was basically a superhero in the American wine market.

Horror movies  - Petit Syrah – dark, inky, and intense.

B-rated Horror movies – a Beaujolais. Fun, fruity, and unabashedly simple. 

Finding Nemo – a fruity white from down under, like Marquis Phillips ‘Holly’s Blend.‘

Romantic Comedies – whatever she likes, of course! She is why you’re watching the movie in the first place isn’t she?

Musicals – whatever wine makes you want to sing and dance. For me? It has to be a rosé of Pinot Noir.

When Harry Met Sally – bubbly, naturally. What else for a movie that encompasses several New Year’s Eves and a couple of weddings?

I could go on, but by now you hopefully have a few ideas for the Netflix queue and/or the wine rack. Please comment with any great combos that I may have overlooked, or check out some of my new combinations. I always love a good themed movie night.

After a wonderful trip visiting my folks, I returned to a beautiful brand new home for my wine. While I was gone my wonderful husband was hard at work converting our dreary cellar into a custom wine cellar. Now I’m beginning to understand his fascination with Norm Abram, or even if I don’t understand it, I certainly appreciate the what he has done with his woodworking knowledge. 

We’ve been storing our wine in the crawl space under our house since we moved up here. We’re fortunate, in that we live on a ridiculously steep hillside (50 plus degrees), so while the crawl space is only 18 inches on the upslope side it’s easily 6 feet on downslope side, where we now have storage for over 500 bottles. So now rather than using moldy cardboard boxes (which smell way too much like corked wine for my tastes) we have an amazing cellar. Thanks love!!

The most fun part was getting to go through all of our wine, remembering where we got some of the bottles, rediscovering some bottles I’d completely forgotten about, and organize the bottles so I have a better idea of what we have. It’s only about half full right now, so I have plenty of room to grow, and we have enough room to stash our next round of home wine, which we have yet to bottle – our little girl’s birth got us a little behind schedule, but we’ll get it done soon. .

I think that it is a good practice for everyone with wine to ‘clean out the cellar’ occasionally, whether you have four bottles or four hundred, bottles can easily get put aside and forgotten. Going through your wines lets you rediscover lost treasures and relive the stories that go along with each bottle – you know the one you got as a congratulations from your coworkers, the one that you got at that cute little winery, or that one you scored on clearance – 75% off – how could you say no? You not only get to relive the story, but you create new stories when you open bottles that you are excited to try. Some moms get jewelry as a ‘push present,’ but I’ll take a brand new, custom, wine cellar over a necklace any day. I’ve got the best husband!

I am amazed at the things I am learning from my four month old daughter – you can use your tongue to operate an iPhone, a Burt’s Bees lotion bottle can be entertaining for at least ten minutes, it is possible to hold a wiggly baby with one hand and type with the other, but most of all what joy can come from simple pleasures. Each time my daughter sees a familiar face her face lights up, and she gives a huge toothless grin – she derives so much joy from the simple pleasure of our presence.

I realized that this is roughly what I aim to do with food and wine – turn the drudgery of getting dinner on the table every night into a simple pleasure, a chance for our small family to connect and delight in each others company. Neither the food nor the wine needs to be fussy or complicated, all that’s important is that it taste good and we all unplug for a little while (since my baby girl is so wired). While not every dinner is a peaceful, elegant meal, as very few things are particularly peaceful or elegant when there’s a baby involved, every meal is a chance to enjoy the simple things. Seeing how quickly my little girl is changing, it seems foolish not to enjoy each and every day.

In March, legislation was passed in the European Union to extend the list of terms not permitted on the label of US wine imported into the EU for sale. While I’ll agree that the agreement of 2005, which limited the use of place names like Burgundy, Champagne, and Chianti, to wines produced in those regions, was a victory for producers in those regions. If they have to pass a rigorous set of standards to use that place name on a label it seems only fair that others not be allowed free use of the term.

However this new legislation also includes winemaking terms such as chateau, classic, clos, cream, crusted/crusting, fine, late bottled vintage, noble, ruby, superior, sur lie, tawny, vintage or vintage character.  I’m guessing that the thought is that these terms are inexorably linked to the regions where they originated, but so many of the terms are common English terms with double meanings. Chateau and clos definitely are French terms, so perhaps have some validity. I agree with Alder in that there might still be some hard feelings towards Chateau Montelena from the judgement of 1976, with the inclusion of those French terms.

The rest of the terms, come on now. I guess American winemakers will now have to proclaim that their wines were aged on dead yeast cells, rather than sur lees, if they want a chance to sell their wine in Europe. The EU had my full support in keeping their place names sacred, but honestly this is overboard. I guess there will be no more dessert wines will noble rot, no wines with a hint of cream on the palate, and no more reds with a beautiful ruby hue sold outside of the US. Ridiculous if you ask me!

My daughter and I just flew in yesterday to visit my folks leaving my husband at home to make risotto for one. Shortly after we got to my childhood home my dad nonchalantly got out a martini glass, vodka, and a shaker – a not-so-subtle cue for me to get to work mixing him a martini. My mom went to the wine cabinet and started looking for a bottle of red to go with Spaghetti Bolognese. We settled on a French Pinot, and she poured me a glass.

With two sets of grandparent hands available and more than willing to hold my little one I proceeded to rifle through the wine cabinet, always a favorite passtime. I know that my parents aren’t big wine drinkers, but there were several long-time tenents of the cabinet that are deemed “too nice to drink,” and I realized that I need to clue my mom in to Open That Bottle Night, or at least declare one night I’m in town to be an open bottle night.

There’s a big buzz in the culinary world about honoring the ingredients. Well, I think it is due time that we honor the wine too! What kind of service are you doing to the wine, and the winemaker who worked hard to perfect that bottle, if you turn the wine bottle into a tsatchke, sitting on a shelf collecting dust? The only way to honor the wine is to open it and enjoy it.  Yeah, you may not have it with the ‘perfect meal,’ but so what? As long as you enjoy it with friends and/or family, you are doing much better by the wine than just letting it collect dust. So what do you say mom, how about we pop that bottle of Veuve you’ve be saving?

It seems that you can order everything from toilet paper to cars online these days so it is no wonder that there are a number of online retailers specializing in wine. But just like you wouldn’t buy toilet paper on ebay, not all online wine retailers are created equal.

First off, due to individuals state by state shipping laws, not everyone is able to order directly from wineries, or even from third party resellers. Yes, there was a Supreme Court case regarding direct shipping that received a lot of press back in 2005. In Granholm v. Heald the justices decided that it was unconstitutional to concurrently allow in-state wineries to ship directly to consumers, but not allow out-of-state wineries the same privilege. States responded by either allowing all wineries in and out-of-state to ship, or by not allowing any wineries to ship. All of the headache regarding liquor laws goes back to the 21st Amendment, the one that (thankfuly) ended prohibition, but also granted states the power to regulate and control alcoholic beverages within their boundaries. So, if you are fortunate enough to live in a state with relaxed liquor control, this blog’s for you. If not, sorry, you will have to continue to shop for your wine the old fashioned way. 

Back to the topic at hand – how do you know if you have a good online retailer. Buying directly from wineries is a good bet. Usually their websites are seriously lacking -the wine industry is not know for being technologically advanced, after all they are making wine roughly the same way it has always been done.  However they are happy to accommodate special shipping requests, because it means they are selling wine at full price without paying to staff a tasting room. 

If you want a broader selection, there are countless online retailers. Before purchasing from one of these stores take a close look at a couple of things.

1. Is it a wine auction? Are you buying wine from a retailer who has the wine in a temperature and humidity controlled warehouse, or an individuals private cellar?  Wine auctions can be a great source for rare or scarce wines, but they are not without risk. Be sure you only purchase from sellers who have stored the wines properly, and are willing to provide photos of label details and bottle fill level (too low indicates the bottle was stored improperly, leading to spoiled wine). Most wine auction sites have a seller rating – take note of it before you end up with a priceless bottle of vinegar.
2. Offer a variety of shipping methods. We all know how important temperature is in wine storage. Well what about the time that the wine spends in transit? Carriers do not have air conditioned trucks or warehouses, so ambient air temperature is going to be the temperature at which your wine is stored. Live in Phoenix? Your wine will spend hours in the summer heat before it arrives at your front door, another sure fire way to get a bad bottle. You should have the ability to select expedited service, albeit at a cost, or better yet have the option to hold your wine in their warehouse until the temperatures cool down. Many large retailers offer this option at no additional charge.
3. What days of the week will they ship wine? Again that pesky temperature problem – if you order wine on Friday, they should hold it until Monday, so that the wines are not sitting in an un-air-conditioned warehouse over the weekend.
4. Shop locally. There are several stores where you can make your purchase online, and then pick it up from the store. Not practical in every application, but it comes in handy when you don’t want to miss a sale, but can’t make it to the store right away.