Krewe of Cork does Mardi Gras

posted by Annie in Wine Industry

Mardi Gras has hit the streets of New Orleans - Fat Tuesday is next week to be exact. When I think of Mardi Gras, I usually don’t think of wine. What comes to mind are Hurricanes, daquiris, Abita, crawfish, beads, parades, etc. I’ve never had the pleasure of attending Mardi Gras in NOLA, but I have seen a lot of pictures and experienced it vicariously through phone calls from my boyfriend, a Tulane alum.

Though most partake in gluttonous beer and daquiri drinking, it seems there are some folks who stick to wine when Mardi Gras comes around. The wine club “Krewe of Cork” makes wine an integral part of their Mardi Gras enjoyment, as well bringing it to the streets of the French Quarter. Krewe of Cork was founded in 2000 and holds monthly gatherings at a little bistro on the upscale, yet still charming Royal Street. Since its inception, KoC has become a staple in Mardi Gras happenings as well as in the wine indsutry.

Every year, KoC hosts a parade in the French Quarter, where members walk in wine bottle costumes (I’m serious, see below) with wine glasses in hand. They elect a king and a queen and a parade grand marshall. There are even “Wine Police” who drive the “Winemobile” and serve a selection of whites and reds to parade participators and viewers. At the end of the parade is a huge party at the Omni Royal Orleans hotel on Royal St, which features what else, more wine.

Sounds like I’ve been missing out. If the parade hadn’t already taken place this year (January 25th), I might have hopped on a plane to join in. Maybe next year. Any club where you can dress up like wine and who’s mission statement is “We celebrate Wine! Food! Fun!” is totally worth my time.

If you are interested in learning more about the club or you’d like to join, check them out at

www.kreweofcork.com

Burns Night

posted by Dan in Wine, Guest Bloggers

On Friday, January 25th Napa Valley residents celebrated the Immortal Memory of the “Ploughman Poet,” Robert Burns. The event was promoted as “The Grain Meets The Grape – an evening of Scottish tradition.” This was Napa’s second annual Burns dinner organized by Ediburgh’s (and Larkmead’s) own Colin MacPhail who entranced us all with the promise “once you have heard bagpipes, eaten haggis, heard Scots verse and danced a ‘Strip the Willow’ your life will be somehow deeper and richer.” Burns is probably most famous in the U.S.A. for his song “Auld Lang Syne.” Without letting auld acquaintance be forgot, one hundred and fifty people from all walks and skirts (I counted a minimum of 20 men in kilts) braved a daylong torrential downpour to fulfill their curiosity. Hosted in the Tucker Farm Center in Calistoga, the rustic, candlelit setting adorned with tartan tablecloths was a far cry from the obligatory glitz and glamour of a Napa Valley gala. And with Burns himself not a fan of the grape juice, as he declared in his poem “Scotch Drink”…

Let other poets raise a fracas
‘Bout vines an’ wines, an’ drunken Bacchus
An’ crabbit names an’ stories wrack us,
An’ crate or lug:
I sing the juice Scotch bear can make us,
In glass or jug.

…I was smitten with the cast of winemaking characters sitting at my table, DuMOL and HdV, Anthill Farms and Terra Valentine, Vineyard 29 and Saracina and over the shoulder at a table behind us Turley and Saintsbury, to name a few. Preparing for the evening, I was not content to while away the night with a dram of whisky; so, I used this opportunity to fulfill my previous post’s “Resolution” by ridding myself of odds and ends bottles of younger wine in my cellar. Running the muddy road in the rain, six-pack in hand, I carried the following wines to be uncorked:

2006 Yves Cuilleron Syrah
2005 Meadowlark (73% Cabernet and 27% Syrah)
2004 Hartwell Merlot
2003 Larkmead 60/40 (Cabernet and Merlot)
2002 Gary Farrell Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County

A few of my tablemates followed suit with a 2005 Vineyard 29 Cru, a 2006 Saracina Sauvignon Blanc and the house provided 2006 Larkmead Sauvignon Blanc.

Some Tasting Notes and Snooth Ratings below:

2006 Saracina Sauvignon Blanc: a pungent and pronounced SB from cool climate Mendocino showing lime-like acidity and an extended mouth feel and finish. Refreshing, even on a rainy winter’s night. (4 Snooth Glasses)

2006 Yves Cuilleron Syrah: a tablemate leaned over after taking a smell and a sip and whispered, “[Yves] should stick to the whites.” Yes, it is true. This wine had a bit of mouth puckering sourness. In contrast, Cuilleron’s Condrieu La Petite Cote (Viognier) will always be a desert island wine of mine. (2 Snooth Glasses)

2005 Vineyard 29 Cru: An obvious crowd pleaser, rich and ultra-concentrated, lovely (cassis), dark (cherry) and deep (chocolate) from the venerable Phillipe Melka - and a lot easier on the wallet. (4 Snooth Glasses)

2004 Hartwell Merlot: I jones a good Merlot and was truly excited about tasting this wine this very evening, but the wine showed a faint hint of volatile acidity (i.e. acetic, vinegary, nail polish remover) that I couldn’t overcome in the glass. Very sad, I was. (Hate to do this, but 1 Snooth Glass until I taste it again in hope that this was just the devil in bottle variability.)

2002 Gary Farrell Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma County: Another exciting tasting opportunity for me this evening as I have been seeking out high-quality Cabernet on the other side of the Hill (in Sonoma). And 2002 was a superb vintage year in both counties. But in the end, I am still seeking and deem “I am neutral” on this wine, as the 2 Snooth Glass rating is website described.

And for the astute few who realized my six-pack was one shy, it was true, my sixth bottle was a Glenmorangie Cellar 13 Single Malt (which I am drinking the remains of while I type this). The pale gold liquid in the honey yellow label was the clear winner that evening. Spicy herbaceous-ness with a hint of tangy lemon-ness above a bit of woody bitter-ness. Only Don Knotts as Mr. Furley could say it best, “Snooth,” I mean, “Smooth.” I hope you all can attend next year’s Calistoga Celeidh.

Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west.

A Post About Capsules Probably Shouldn’t Be This Long

posted by Scott in Wine, Guest Bloggers

Let’s start at the top. Really, let’s start at the top of the bottle. This is where it all begins. After we lay eyes on the wine label, but before we extract the cork, we encounter the capsule. Our experience in dealing with the capsule can color the impression of the wine. Cheap PVC (poly-vinyl chloride) plastic capsules give off an aura of, well, cheapness. These are the difficult to remove capsules that are often found on mass-market wines; they are heat shrunk to fit snugly on the top of the bottle. There are also aluminum capsules that give a wine an air of sophistication for about 10 cents more than PVC capsules.

There are Polyam capsules (pictured above), which are hybrids, and there are tin capsules, which are weighty, classy and expensive (at 13 to 18 cents a pop). Then there are no capsules (free and naked looking, like a bag of cereal without a box) and there are wax capsules (the bane of sommeliers who struggle to chip away at the stuff without making a mess).

There are so many choices and every one is compromise between quality, price, accessibility, and aesthetics. For a interesting (as interesting as an article on wine capsules can get), contemporary history of capsules click here and for a current overview of bottle toppers click here.

What do I like? I love tin. It is easy to cut through with the blade of a waiters’ corkscrew; it tends to be thicker and heavier (which certainly has its own connotations). Of course, it costs more, but it also looks and feels right. I enjoy the look of wax, but not the work required to remove it. Aluminum is a fair deal, easy to remove and visually similar to tin without the pomp and price. I can live without PVC and Polyam capsules, but I don’t imagine them disappearing anytime soon. Let me state that I don’t believe that any wine buying decision should be governed solely by wine capsule type. Of course, if you lack a corkscrew (or a vacuum to clean chunks of wax off the floor) you might opt for another type of capsule entirely, a screwcap.

Scott Rosenbaum is director of operations for the International Wine Center and wine buyer for the retailer DrinkUpNY.

Turning wine into water

posted by philip in Wine Industry

I’ve spoken about the glut of wine across the globe, with billions of bottles being destroyed annually. And, if I didn’t do it then, I should say it again now, its government subsidies that cause this mess. I know its a complicated issue, but people’s hard earned tax money, not only goes to support hard working farmers (we can debate subsidies in general if we need to), but worse, to first subsidize the growing on unneeded grapes and then to subsidize the expense when they either gets destroyed or distilled into fuel. At that point it would probably be cheaper just to pay the farmer to leave their fields fallow.

My proposed solution back then? Easier said than done, of course, but it’s simply to grow good grapes. Don’t forget, its not Opus One thats being turned into gasoline, but rather some industrial strength bulk wine that no one is willing to buy.

Well now, in a perverse twist, yet again caused by subsidies, the growers have another option.

California is suffering such a water shortage (its now illegal in Long Beach, CA to serve a glass of water in a restaurant unless the customer asks for it first), that farmers can profit by reselling their water supply at up to triple the rate. As a capitalist, that sounds great. Farmers own valuable asset / people wish to buy asset / farmer sells. I don’t blame the farmers, at this stage in the game its silly not to sell it. The problem is the mis-aligned incentives these subsidies cause in the first place.

Now we have municipalities, in dire need of water, paying more than they’d have needed to otherwise. The local residents will have to cover these extra expenses through extra taxes. Which considering it was their taxes that funded the subsidies in the first place doesn’t really seem all that fair.

The Likes of Which I’ve Tasted Before

posted by mark in Website Updates, Snooth

It’s Friday afternoon and the Snooth team is settling down from the bustle of the day to enjoy its Friday wine tasting. Today’s bottle will be partially in celebration of a new feature.

As of this morning, Snoothies have the capability to post multiple tasting notes and ratings of a single wine. This is especially useful if you want to track how your taste or a particular wine is evolving. All of this will of course tie in nicely with the Average Rating over Time graph already on the detail page.

Wine Openers

posted by alesha in Wine

You just came home from a long day at work. The kids are fast asleep. Now it’s time for to relax with a nice glass of wine, like Wolf Blass Cabernet Sauvignon Black Label. You go to the kitchen drawer, extract your wine opener and raise it to the bottle. After you attempt to open the wine, the unthinkable happens… the cork breaks!

How many times has this happened to you? Again, you are screaming at the wine opener, as you place it back into the bottle for a second attempt. You are now at a crossroads: pray you can get that sucker out in one piece or start thinking of grand excuses why the wine has cork pieces swimming in it. How embarrassing…

Waiters and waitresses make it seem so easy - it must be since they practice so much. Well, I have been drinking and opening wine for roughly 10 years now, and I still can’t seem to stop breaking a few corks every now and then. Thus, I have decided my troubles are the fault of my wine opener. I have several in my kitchen, but I still haven’t found one that I can truly depend on. I’ve got the $1 liquor store plastic wonder, the cheap wing corkscrew opener ($5-$7), the Waiter’s corkscrew ($5-$10), and the two-prong corkscrew ($10-$12 - though quite helpful in extracting already broken corks but are quite difficult to use). The only one not in my collection is the most expensive opener - the Rabbit ($50+). My fear is that if I spend a lot on an expensive wine opener, it will fail me just the same as the others and I’ll just be out more money. So, what’s the best opener? Do I pay for what I get, or is there a compromise?

I have heard two sides of this story. The first side claims that all wine openers are the same and I need to just slow down and take my time. The second side claims that if you really are a true wine lover, a good opener is imperative no matter what the cost.
So I must know – is The Rabbit the answer to my troubles? What do you fellow Snoothers find works best? If you do have The Rabbit(or openers with similar designs), what are the positives and negatives. I’d love to solve my wine opening dilemma before it’s time to open the next bottle.

Proud to be an New Yorker! (I’m talkin’ Upstate)

posted by Annie in Wine

I went to college in upstate New York - in Ithaca to be exact. When I first realized that my school was in the middle of the Finger Lakes wine region, I got pretty excited. I figured there would be plenty of opportunities for some wine tasting with new friends *obviously* once i turned 21! helloooo!?! The first winery I remember visiting was Treleaven, on the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake. Though my palate of newly of legal drinking age was still inexperienced and unsure, I did enjoy a few of their Rieslings, a Cabernet Franc, and a Seyval Blanc. I left with a bottle of Semi-dry Riesling(with lots of residual sugar) and a 375 of ice wine to drink at home. (Yes, I totally loved ONLY sweet wines back in the beginning, who else is with me on that??)

Flash forward six years - Here I am, working at Snooth, I’ve just completed the Advanced Certificate for the WSET, and I have a much more experienced palate (Evidence!). Maybe its just me, but since learning about the magnitude of wine’s impact on world culture, I tend to be more fascinated by wines from foreign places, as they are, well, foreign. I’ve grown an affinity for wines from the Rhone Valley, Northern Spain, and South America. I definitely gravitate to these sections when I enter a wine store or search online.

I decided it was time to ask myself some important questions. When was the last time I opened a bottle from Upstate New York? Can I remember? Have I forgotten that I lived in this wine region for four years of my life and really enjoyed drinking the local wine? In one of my WSET classes, the lecturers asked why New Yorkers seem to be so enamored with famed French wines and classics from Napa, yet rarely enjoy our own state’s products. Its a good point. Why don’t we find more New York State wine on New York State wine lists and in New York State wine stores?

I decided to break free from the ’shackles’ of my love for Chliean Malbec and just do it. On Saturday night, I opened a Hosmer Seyval Blanc that I had been saving since my last visit to Ithaca. It was dry and crispy and had a very refreshing apple and citrus flavor, not too dissimilar from an Austrian Müller-Thurgau or Chablis. I proudly continued to drink, because whats not to be proud of? We New Yorkers make some good wines and we shouldn’t forget it.

Since I know the area surrounding Cayuga Lake better than the other Finger Lakes , I can wholeheartedly suggest trying Cayuga Lake wineries Hosmer (their dry riesling wins wine awards annually), Sheldrake Point, and newcomer Thirsty Owl.

What NYS wines do you like? Don’t you heart New York too?

The Lees’ Knees

posted by mark in Snooth, Wine

A friend of mine pointed me at a crossword clue … 4 letters, “dregs from wine fermentation”, starts with L. I had no idea but she figured it out to be “Lees”. As I’d never heard of the stuff before I figured I’d scrape the bottom of the wine barrel to find out the dirt on it.

Lees is made up of the pulp, yeast, and grape skins that float to the bottom of the wine barrel as wine is fermenting. The separation of the wine from the Lees (a process called Racking) is a pivotal step in forming the flavors of the wine.

As the wine rests on the Lees it undergoes Malolactic Fermentation which leaves the end product much more buttery. During Malolactic Fermentation the strong Malic Acid in the wine softens to Lactic Acid. Most red wines are left on the Lees to undergo this process. White wines are often racked earlier to keep them more tart, but some white wines are similarly allowed to soften. It’s up to the winemaker to decide how the wine should use the Lees. Whatever they do decide will play an important role in how the wine ends up tasting.

As for my awful pun in the title of this post, I don’t believe the Lees have such an appendage, however perhaps the legs do?

Does anyone have any other good wine crossword clues?

Cooking With Wine

posted by Todd in Wine, Guest Bloggers

[Snooth is pleased to welcome its newest contributor, Todd Kennedy. Todd is a self-taught foodie/chef who writes the blog Gute Essen about the meals he cooks for himself and his friends. ]

Lets be honest — the world of the oenophile is a frightening one to an outsider. When it comes to that holy grail of consumption, the wine/food pairing, this seems to especially ring true. High-end restaurants make a killing with tasting menus accompanied by a specifically paired wine list (for only $90 extra!), but this isn’t necessarily beyond the reach of hoi polli.

But when it comes to cooking with wine, many of us don’t even follow the simple rule of “If you don’t want to drink it, you don’t want to cook with it.” I’ve seen more than my fair share of bottles of supermarket cooking wine in pantries (which is low-quality wine shelf-stabilized with a ton of salt) which strikes fear into my heart.

Not that I’m a wine snob; in fact it’s the opposite. I’m not a master vintner; I’ve yet to meet a rioja I didn’t like and I don’t spend more than $20 on a bottle of wine unless I’m in a restaurant, but there are some simple rules you can follow for cooking with wine.

First: As I mentioned above, if you can’t drink a glass of it by itself, you shouldn’t cook with it.

Second: The stronger the flavor when you start, the more that flavor will come through when you’re finished. Since heat will boil off most of the alcohol and a bit of the water, you’ll be concentrating flavors when you cook with wine. If there’s a huge oak flavor out of the bottle, the more you cook it, the more oak you’ll taste.

Third: This goes true for any alcohol you cook with, always add it off the heat. When the wine hits the hot pan, the alcohol can atomize and if you’re cooking over a flame at the time, there’s a chance it can ignite. Sometimes you want this effect (flambe), but it’s something you should always do on purpose in a controlled manner.

Fourth: I’m a believer in the concept of terrior – the concept that foods from the same region will taste better together than mixing foods from disparate regions. Say you’re making the classic French dish Coq a Vin. You’re going to want to use a good French red wine with this; an Australian Shiraz would just be out of place.

Now that we’ve got some basic rules down, it’s pretty much free game. Since tastes are all personal it’s hard to define a fast set of rules as to what sort of wine you should use when you’re cooking a certain type of food, so your best bet is image a wine as a set of flavors and think about how they compare and work with the food you’re cooking. Lets say you’re cooking with lamb. Think about the flavors and cuisines you most frequently associate with lamb: dried cherries, apricots, raisins, mint, rosemary, garlic, fennel, and mint all immediately spring to mind, as do North African, Italian/Sicilian, Israeli, and New American (I’m gonna go out on a limb and group New Zealand and Australian in here) cuisines. When I think of wines from these regions I immediately come to Shiraz/Syrah, Malbec and Pinot Noir. Each of these wines goes pleasantly with lamb and depending on what else you’re serving with with it, you’d want to choose characteristics that will compliment the final dish. Cooking with lamb and cherries? A decent Malbec would be perfect.

One of my favorite things to make is a simple braised lamb in the style of Morocco. Take a pound of lamb stew or shoulder, cut in 1″ cubes, season it with salt and pepper, and brown it in olive oil in a large cast iron. When it’s well browned, remove from the pot and add two diced, peeled carrots, a medium onion, diced, and a medium fennel bulb diced. Caramelize these vegetables over high heat — when they’ve got some color, deglaze the pan with a half bottle of a nice Malbec. Reduce the liquid by half and add the lamb back in. Add 2 bay leaves, 1/2 cup of chopped dried cherries, 1/2 cup of dried chopped apricots, 1/2 cup of rinsed pitted black olives, and a half cup of whole, unsalted almonds. Place in a 250 degree oven for 2 hours, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Serve over couscous or rice.

Blasted Barcode

posted by Scott in Snooth, Guest Bloggers

Say what you will. Wine is not a quilt; it’s neither handmade nor one-of-a-kind. It is a commodity. Even if production is minuscule. 500 cases, for instance, still yields 6,000 bottles which is higher than I’d ever like to count out loud. If you don’t care to admit this, I offer you some evidence: the barcode.

The barcode is a sign of the times. The world has become itemized and scannable. Those who wear loathsome looks on their faces while reading this ought to think about how long it would take to buy groceries at the supermarket without barcodes. Evil or not, the barcode is necessary. Those wineries that send their bottles out into the world without barcodes display disregard for those wishing to sell and buy them.

Now don’t get me wrong. Not everything about barcodes is all sunshine and kittens. While our eyes have become habituated to the way they look, barcodes tend to visually clash with the rest of the back label. Such design is often awkward and disjointed. Viewer complacency is no excuse for lazy design choices.

Some wine label designers have taken to the challenge the barcode offers. They incorporate it into the story the label tells thus enriching our experience while giving us pause to think how a little creativity goes a long way. Take the line of Blasted Church wines. Graphically pleasing to begin with, these wines playfully integrate the barcode as part of a newspaper or hymnbook to make for a more cohesive visual.

Similarly, CheapSkate’s Miser Meritage turns the barcode into a toothy grin conspicuously reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat’s menacing smile.

These are but a few examples of what a quick search yields. I welcome comments that point to other such examples of barcode innovation. After all, there’s nothing wrong with a label that has a boring barcode except for the fact that it doesn’t have to be boring.