Sip Quips

It is amazing how much our diet has changed since we became part of a veggie share, aka CSA. I used to peruse through my various cooking magazines at the beginning of the week, pick out a few for the week, then head to the grocery store to pick up all of the ingredients, in season or not. These days I get all of my seasonal veggies from a local farm and then figure out recipes from there. The pressure of my weekly veggie pick-up forces me to get creative with different ways to incorporate the veggies so that they stay not only literally fresh, but the recipes stay fresh and interesting as well. 

As our veggie share pick-up is on Wednesday, Tuesday night dinners are almost always dictated by the veggies that we have on hand. Last night, I needed to use onions, squash, and mizuna, so roasted chicken breast with summer squash hash and wilted mizuna salad was on the menu. As for wine pairing – time to break out a summer-time favorite, a Pinot Gris (aka Pinot Grigio if it is coming from Italy), light, fruity and fresh, and perfect with all our veggies.

Since joining a veggie share, I am reminded of my mom’s stories of summer when she was growing up in the midwest. My grandmother was forced to cook seasonally, because seasonal veggies were all that you could get. My mom fondly recalls having fresh corn on the cob, tomatoes, green beans for every meal, lunch and dinner, until they were no longer in season. There was an anticipation each vegetables commencement, then you would stuff yourself silly with it, and by the time you were growing tired of that veggie, it’s season would conclude.

Personally, I think this is a heck of a lot better way to eat, rather than having veggies transported from the far reaches of the globe just so you can have a tomato (that doesn’t actually taste like a tomato, I might add) in the middle of winter. I know I’m not the first to stand on this soapbox (and hopefully not the last), but food just tastes better when you eat seasonally an locally.

Yeah, it can be daunting to come up with yet another recipe to use radishes when you are up to your eyeballs in every variety of radish known to man, but at the same time you step outside your proverbially recipe box, and try recipes you would have overlooked.

As if delicious food, trying new recipes, and vegetables that actually taste like vegetables weren’t enough of a reason to eat seasonally, taking part in a veggie share has made both of us much healthier. In yearly check-ups my husband’s cholesterol went from pushing 240 to just over 100, and the only major change we’ve made is diet. I’ll take a salad, green beans and curried cauliflower over Lipitor any day!

While the recession has had many wide-sweeping negative effects, but I do think that some good will come of all of this. The budget crunch that many of us are feeling is resulting in more folks turning to their pantry rather than their phone book for dinner plans, which I am a big fan of. The trend has become so prevalent that it seems that marketers are latching on to it as well. Within the past week I have seen multiple commercials for products ranging from frozen vegetables to Campbell’s soup highlighting the cost benefits of dining at home, not to mention one commercial claiming that your kids will make better grades if you eat together as a family.

As many of you know I’m all in favor of the family meal, and a big fan of eating at home, but why not make good recipes from scratch with whole ingredients rather than turn to the prepared foods aisles. It is just as quick and easy to make recipes from scratch, not to mention a whole lot better for you. I also find that the throwaway meals that my husband and I turn to from time to time when neither of us want to cook end up costing us a whole lot more than the recipes we make at home. Equally easy, better for you, and cheaper? Sign me up!

Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before folks catch on to the marketing racket of prepared foods, and start actually cooking. I’m not sure where this cooking stigma came from – the idea that cooking is complicated and time consuming, and that the average person needs short cuts to make dinner on a regular basis, but in my mind it’s a load of BS. While it may take a bit more forethought to cook from scratch than from a can, it’s worth the extra effort to make something wholesome and delicious and know where your food comes from.

Well, we spent our days walking to museums, restaurants, and markets. Suddenly I came to the realization that Americans have it all wrong. Let’s see – fast food, convenience stores, the degradation, if not total abolition of family meals, not to mention city streets that were designed for driving rather than walking — is it any wonder that we are fat?

Looking at the American diet it seems that we could take a pointer or two from the Europeans. In addition to eating seasonally and locally, they enjoy the richest foods in moderation, get regular exercise walking to the market to buy fresh ingredients for dinner, and treat wine as the fifth food group. Now, that is a diet I can get behind. 

First, we need to reclaim the meal. When was the last time you sat down to enjoy a meal? Probably the last time you treated yourself to a nice restaurant. In the interim meals become something we are forced to take part in on a daily basis – rarely more exciting than a trip to the post office. Think of the last movie you watched featuring an Italian family meal, or a lunch at a European cafe. People sitting down, talking, laughing, arguing, lots of food, a couple bottles of wine, and the sense that life has stopped for a moment. Sounds great doesn’t it? Well, don’t just dream about it, make it a part of your life.

Then, get yourself to a farmers market, or join a CSA. Nothing brings me more epicurean delight than strolling the aisles of a farmer’s market looking at all of the fresh produce, artisanal cheese, composing menus, and wondering if these blackberries really would taste good with the rosemary from a few booths back. Not only do you get to touch, smell and taste the food, but you get a sense of ownership and pride in the bounty that you carry home with you. Your inner hunter/gather is brought to the surface and suddenly you are excited to cook the broccolini and fava beans you found. Plus, walking the aisles of a farmers market can’t exactly hurt your waistline.

Finally, enjoy a glass of wine with dinner.  We’ve all heard by now of the numerous health benefits of enjoying wine in moderation – reseveratrol, anti-oxidants, flavonoids et al, but above and beyond all that the simple act of opening a bottle of wine to enjoy with your dinner flips a switch in you head which all but commands you to relax. You’ll find it nearly impossible to rush though a meal when you have a glass of wine in your hand. It may not be as quick or effective as Beyonce’s Master Cleanse, but I’ll take good food and wine over spicy lemonade any day of the week.

I’m not sure if it is my background in hospitality, my love of sparkling beverages, or a glass half full kind of optimism (mmm… half-a-glass of bubbly!!), but I do think that we let far too many occasions slip by without properly recognizing them. Come to think of it, my mom could have something to do with this. She had a knack for commemorating occasions in perfect, appropriate ways – birthday blowouts, surprise Valentine’s gifts, green milk on St. Paddy’s day (okay, so that one was dad), and magical Christmases. She always made these days extra special, and so much fun. I think that it’s foolish not to bring a festive touch into all of your little victories. 

Now, last night, my husband and I did have something momentous to celebrate – the first day of a new/old job, so we toasted his success with our favorite bottle of sub $10 bubbly, Cristalino, and had a beautiful antipasto plate. Yet, our celebrations are not always so noteworthy – each month we celebrate our little girl’s luniversary, as she turns one month older, we toast our dogs’ birthday every June 3, we celebrate the Calla Lillies coming up, the completion of our beautiful new wine cellar, the munchkin taking a two hour nap, all of the laundry being done (which, if you’ve been around an infant, you know is a big deal), the first fava beans of the year, Farmer Tom’s strawberries, the start of an exciting week, or the end of a long week.

I find that by marking these events with mini celebrations, you don’t risk letting time blur by, leaving you dazed and wondering what you missed out on. Instead, you stop and acknowledge the significance of these moments. It’s like putting a little tick mark on the calendar, and the more tick marks you have the more focused your recollection is. You’re not left holding your champagne flute on New Year’s Eve, feeling that it was only yesterday you were toasting in this year. That year’s worth of celebrations slow down the calendar and let you recall how far you’ve come since last year.

We only get one chance to ride this merry-go-round, why not celebrate the ride? 

It’s easy to see how long  someone has been interested in wine, and and how deeply their interest consumes them by looking at their collection of wine related gadgets. The very new wine drinker will have an archaic wine opener, often something inherited from a relative. It’s awkward, difficult to use and cumbersome. After they use this opener regularly for a period of time, they decide that it is high time to upgrade their hardware.

They soon amass a vast array of the latest and greatest openers – perhaps a levered model, a rabbit, a ratcheting opener, and CO₂ cartridge system, spending ridiculous amounts of money on ridiculous, contrived, and bulky corkscrews. There are countless catalogs dedicated to ineffective and inefficient tools for the budding oenophile to collect and demonstrate his wine opening prowess.

Like with all hobbies, wine collecting gives you plenty of opportunities to buy stuff. After the wine openers have been collected, used once or twice then put away to collect dust in a drawer come the other wine accessories. Here you find coasters, bottle collars, filters, decanters, glassware, decorative glassware, bags, coolers, and even bottle lingerie, as if the sexual innuendos of wine descriptions weren’t blatant enough. The budding oenophile greedily gobbles up any wine widget he finds. These tchotchkes are a status symbo, showing that he is knowledgeable and passionate about wine. 

Then – the epiphany. You only have so much money to devote to a wine collection, why not spend it all on wine. Suddenly the need to have a third size of neoprene bottle carriers is only marginally important, and it takes a true innovation to pull dollars of the wine budget away from wine to buy a tool. Typically around this time all of the gadgets, widgets, and whatnots get unceremoniously ushered into a rarely opened drawer or cabinet, and one favorite opener rises to the top and stays out due to frequent use. Now the wine cellar starts growing gradually and all but a few of the wine toys get put away. 

I’ll admit it, I, too, have a drawer filled to the brim with useless wine gadgets, and a cabinet full of glassware that gets used a couple of times a year. To me, they are a badge of honor, proof that I made my way from clueless sipper to full blown oenophile. Occasionally I open up my ‘wine drawer’ and pull out an overpriced corkscrew, but for the most part I stick with my Pulltaps and stemless glasses, and keep it simple.

Recently you can’t turn around in a science journal without tripping over an article extolling the health virtues of wine. Whether it be scientific curiosity or scientists’ oenophilia it has had the decided effect to give wine a certain yoga-chic cache, it’s not just good, but also good for you. In case you needed an excuse to uncork a bottle tonight here are a few examples of how a glass of wine a day can keep the doctor away.

1. Heart Health - Amidst all of the recent talk about polyphenols and resveratrol being heart healthy major publications have left out two major facts 1) all of the resveratrol studies done thus fsr are on mice and 2) to get the doses sufficient to affect heart health you would need to consume over 100 bottles per day but all is not lost! Alcohol, in moderation, raises good cholesterol, lowers bad cholesterol and reduces the formation of blood clots. So, even if it’s not for the reason you thought, wine is good for the old ticker.
2. Memory - Granted after too much wine you may not remember details to clearly, Professor  Matthew During of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, along with Dr Maggie Kalev have demonstrated that alcohol use challenges the brain and it responds by building memory. Too much alcohol and the memory building was focused on memories of highly emotional stimuli, but moderate alcohol uses demonstrated better retention across the board.
3. Trimmer Tummy Studies at the University of Buffalo have shown that folks who consume moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis (1-2 drinks per day) had less belly fat than binge drinkers (3+ drinks sporadically). Wine drinkers were shown to have slimmer waistlines than liquor drinkers and those who abstain from drinking, A similar Australian study showed 25% less belly fat on women who regularly consume wine than women who do not drink.
4. Bone Density - Dr. Katherine Tucker, of Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, found that, in women, one to two glasses of wine per day increased Bone Mineral Density by up to 5%. 
5. Better Blood Sugar Control – Recent studies have shown wine, specifically red wine, inhibits the activity of a target enzyme called alpha-glucosidase, which triggers the absorption of glucose from the digestive tract into the bloodstream, resulting in steadier blood sugar levels following meals.

Wine contains alcohol. Alcohol gets you drunk. Yes, it may seem blatantly obvious, but with wine’s high social standing it seems almost unseemly to bring up such a mundane detail. Still, there is a reason that the folks with the brown bags are called winos, and it’s certainly not because of status. At one point in time the stuff in the brown bag commonly ranged from 11- 13% alcohol, but these days it is unusual to find a wine under 14%, and alarmingly, 17% wines are commonplace. So how has today’s high-end wineaux gotten more bang for his buck?

First – a little science. The alcohol in wine is produced by fermentation. Fermentation is the process which converts grape sugars (measured in brix) and oxygen into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Naturally the more sugar you start with, the more alcohol you end up with. The conversion factor from sugar to alcohol is roughly 2 brix:1 percent alcohol. There is a limiting factor in this conversion – the yeast cells which convert sugar into alcohol are little living creatures. They have a set range of alcohol percentages in which they survive, as well as a set rate at which they can turn grape juice into wine.

So what gives? Why is it that the alcohol percentages are going through the roof? Here are the the main factors.

1.  Global Warming. Temperatures are on the rise the world over, resulting in longer growing season and grapes that are more ripe (higher sugar concentrations) at harvest time. Why not just pick the grapes earlier you ask. Well, sugar is not the only thing to develop as a grape ripens. There are also the phenolic compounds, or the scents and flavors of wine, that develop over the course of a growing season. Increased temperatures do not accelerate the development of the flavors at the same rate as the production of sugar, resulting in grapes that have a lot of sugar, but don’t taste ripe. To get the ripe flavors the winemakers allow longer ‘hang time’ (or leave the grapes on the vine longer) to end up with grapes that taste right, er… ripe, and they end up with super sweet grapes that make super strong wine. The drawback to this theory is that the resulting low-acid, high-sugar juice is a prime breeding ground for all sorts of microbial nasties, and sets a wine up for a flat and flabby texture.
2. Manufactured Yeasts. These days winemakers have a whole catalog of yeasts to choose from. Scientists have isolated strains of yeast from around the world and modified them to suit the needs of the winemakers. One major modification is increased alcohol tolerance. Yeasts naturally die off at a certain alcohol percentage, traditionally around 12%. If you start out with juice that is 30 brix and your yeast dies off at 12% alcohol you will end up with leftover, or residual, sugar. To avoid making sweet wines, winemakers have switched to yeast strains that are tolerant of alcohol percentages up to 21%! Suddenly there is no concern of residual sugar when choosing when to pick the vineyard. Regardless of the sugar concentration, the modified yeasts can do the job.
3. Because we’ve let them. Sadly many winemakers are, at heart, mad scientists. Rather than be satisfied with the status quo, these winemakers push the envelop to see what they can get the grapes to do. This has ended up with wacky and unnatural practices like fermenting wine up to 20% alcohol or more and then diluting it with water back to legal percentages, using color enhancers with names like Mega-Purple, and water evaporators to create a smoother mouthfeel. And sadly the public has gone along with it. Why haven’t we protested these abominations of winemaking?

Second, the flavor of the month in fashionable beverages went right from the martini to wine. The alcohol sodden, gin-numbed taste buds of the stylish sipper weren’t primed to pick up the finer nuances of an 8% Mosel Riesling. They were ready for a kick your teeth in, slap you silly, high-powered fruit-bomb. I mean they are accustomed to drinking two ounces of straight booze; a pansy-ass little 11% alcohol wine isn’t going to do much, now, is it?

Thankfully, I’m not the only one to think that high octane wines are a crime, and the wine industry is slowly responding. You’ll never learn and innovate unless you experiment, but I think this whole series of experiments need not be repeated. The pendulum of winemaking is swinging from the ‘mad scientist’ side to the ‘honor the land’ side, and fortunately the wines are swinging from nostril-burning to soft and subtle. Think of it this way – you can enjoy an extra glass of 11% wine and not feel horrible the next day. Do you really need another reason?

Recently, while poking around the internet I stumbled across an article claiming that food and wine pairing is a complete scam at Vinography. While I certainly do agree that a fear of picking the wrong wine should never stop you from drinking wine, and your own tastes are ultimately the most important factor in selecting a wine – but that’s Wine Drinking 101. What about those of us who love a broad range of wines and cuisines? Are we ultimately wrong in trying to figure out what wine tastes best with any given food?

This swing away from food and wine pairing will result in people ordering wines that they don’t ultimately enjoy  just to show that they are part of the counter-culture that bucks fundamental wine-pairing sensibilities, and that is just ridiculous. I’m all in favor of bucking the fundamental and trying all sorts of new pairings, but to deny that certain wines are a better match is absurd. Yes, everyone’s palate is unique – but the wine chemistry and human physiology are consistent throughout all of us. There are rudimentary chemical reactions that cause some food and wine pairing to just work. While you, Alder, are a special and unique flower, you can’t deny basic science.

With as many individual wines as are out there it is absolutely naive to think that there is one wine, and only one wine, to go with any particular dish, but it is also naive to think that there aren’t certain pairings that taste better together. While I do agree that wine pairings are personal – what I like best won’t necessarily be what you like best, there’s a set of wines that will taste better than others with any given dish. If you don’t like any of the wines within that set, by all means order something else. It’s ludicrous to eat or drink anything that you don’t like.

What really gets me is that he (I’m assuming here) undermines the value of a recommendation. In restaurant – the servers are going to know more about the food, and more about the wine list than you do. Asking for a recommendation will help you find a wine you really enjoy. Naturally, should the server or sommelier fail to ask about your preferences – ignore the rest of what they have to say.  It is your preferences that will make or break a wine pairing, but within any selection of wines some will pair better than others; it’s your server’s job to know that. So, go ahead and ask the server what Cabernet to drink with the delicate filet of sole. His recommendation may surprise and delight you.

As to the notion that sommeliers are snooty stuffed shirts who look down their noses at the general wine-drinking public – this couldn’t be farther from the truth. The basic role of a sommelier is to facilitate (yes, I hate this word, but it’s the right one) the selection of an appropriate beverage for a meal. The training by the Court of Master Sommeliers includes beer, non-alcoholic beverages, liquors and liqueurs - so regardless of what you are looking it is the sommelier’s job to assist you in making the best selection for your meal. Their goal is to make the dining experience more pleasurable, whatever that takes. 

Having been a wine director in a high end restaurant, and having done the food and wine pairings in said restaurant, I know that my take on pairings was downright playful. My goal was to open eyes to new wines, unique pairings and emerging wine regions. Granted – I was partial to the old Foie Gras and Sauternes standard, but I regularly offered sake and wished that we had a full bar because there was one particular course that would have been killer with bourbon. A great pairing can be truly awe-inspiring, but only if you like both the food and the wine. When you do like them both – the wine enhances the food and the food enhances the wine, making everything taste better. So rather than claim that food and wine pairing is a racket – perhaps it’s just food and wine snobbery that’s a load of crap. Eat what you like. Drink what you like. And don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s only dinner after all.

Thinking about other terms that are often misused by budding oenophiles I came to Meritage, not only misunderstood, but often mispronounced. The word is wholly American and realistically nothing more than a marketing term.

First a brief history. American wines are labeled according to the varietal ie Pinot Noir, Merlot, or Chardonnay; whereas most European wines are labeled according to the growing region, and each region has a set group of grapes they are permitted to grow. Both styles of labeling provide the consumer with a good idea of what to expect, but labeling according to varietal doesn’t allow for blends of different grapes. Winemakers who choose to follow some of the European models for blending different grape varieties were limited to labeling their bottles as red table wine, a title usually reserve for $3 jug wine, not quality.

In comes a group of American vintners who want to practice the time honored art of blending. They want to make wines like the great first growths of Bordeaux, and I would imagine being able to charge as much didn’t hurt the cause any. They decide that they need to come up with a term that they can put on the label to indicate that the wine is a “bordeaux style blend” and after seeing all of the hullabaloo that was created by the Americans appropriating the term Champagne, wisely choose to find something other than Bordeaux.

So they come up with the idea for a contest to coin the phrase that will permit them to charge more coin for their wines. After sifting through more than 6,000 entries they found the winner in Meritage, a combination of the words “merit” and “heritage” and hence is pronounced like heritage. 

To call a wine a Meritage it must be a blend of at least 2 of the Bordeaux varieties (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot, Carmenere, and Gros Verdot for Reds; Sauvignon Blanc, Semillion and Muscadelle for whites), a wineries best wine of the type (read most expensive), limited to a maximum of 25,000 cases, and the winery must also license the term. So there ya go – a thumbnail sketch of Meritage, and feel free to correct your neighborhood wine snob next time he pronounces it meh-ri TAHJ.

Why is it that certain bottles cost $10 while others go for upwards of $100? Is there really that much difference in the bottle? In truth, often there’s not as much difference as the winery would like you to think there is.

A wine’s base price is derived from cost of production. This factors include the cost of the grapes,  cost of labor, not to mention the cost of materials – barrels, bottles, equipment and the facility.

Grapes can range from $1K to $10K an acre. Figure there are approximately 4000 bottles produced from 1 acre so grapes contribute anywhere from 25 cents to $2.50 to the bottle cost. More expensive wines require more labor at every stage of the game – in the vineyard, during fermentation, and during barrel aging so labor costs vary significantly.

American oak barrels cost about $400 while French oak barrels are around $800 new. If you figure there are 300 bottles in each barrel of wine you are paying for $1.30 – $2.70 per bottle for the oak aging. Bottles range from 50 cents to $2 depending on weight and shape. Corks can range from 10 cents to a dollar. Boxes can range from 10 cents to $1 per bottle. Every choice a winemaker makes affects the perceived quality and in turn the projected price tag of a bottle.

The simple perception of quality changes the price significantly. If a winemaker wants to be known for making the best Napa Cab he certainly isn’t going to charge $10 a bottle for it. No one would believe that it was the best around at that price. However just by adding a zero to the price tag, the consumer assumes the bottle to hold a higher quality product.

On top of production costs, and perception factors both the distributor and the retailer want to get their share of the profit. If you are paying $50 in the store, you can assume that the bottle left the winery at around $25-30. But it doesn’t get any better if you go direct to the winery. Retailers stay in business by offering the wine at a lower price than you can find it at the winery. You pay for the winery experience, not just the wine, when you buy at the winery.

Of course scarcity factors in significantly. That nasty old law of supply and demand – when supply is low and demand is high you can ask whatever price the market will bear. Think about the most expensive bottles out there. They are very rare – either old or very limited in production.

Then come the reviews. I hate to think of how often I have found a great bottle in the $10-15 range only to have the price shoot up to over $20 when it gets a stellar review in Wine Publication X. The other way to affect the supply and demand curve is to increase demand, and a killer rating or other prestigious accolade inevitably does that.

You need only be concerned with yourself. Like art, a wine is only worth what you would pay for it. Find bottles you enjoy in the price range you’re comfortable with and that’s how you determine good value.