Rebel Rose

The Vancouver Courier reports a rumor that the BCLCD may put a freeze on "critter labels." I don't understand the article's point but it made me wonder if it would be fun to list here the labels we are familiar with that employ an animal figure or logo. Photos welcome! Maybe price points, too.

Very cool. I'll have to add that to my will.

Sanford is a tight, elegant style and '02 was a lean vintage, so that bottle should have some pretty bracing acidity. I believe I had that vintage a few months ago; I recall a definite cinnamon dust finish. I'm thinking some penne pasta with late-season heirloom tomatoes, gently warmed with garlic in olive oil, served with Parmesan and a sprinkling of the last of the pre-frost basil and maybe some fresh thyme. Hmm, on second thought, if you can get late-season heirloom tomatoes, I'd slice the tomatoes and warm them gently in the microwave, drain off any tomato water, and then pour the garlic and olive oil over the penne and tomatoes. Chicken optional.

Why that would be A Little White Lie, wouldn't it? Do you think all these marketing maneuvers like Virgin Vines and A Little White Lie are more a form of anti-intellectualism than "marketing to women"?

Now that would make a funny sitcom. Even funnier if he has a little girl with his attitude. And perhaps a vacuous neighbor with her own huge ego.

I'm kind of on the fence about Wine X. I think it's a refreshing approach, but I also think they try way too hard to be hip and it ends up sounding forced instead of fresh. Wine Brats suffered from a sense of entitlement. Our winery was one of several local firms that were turned off by the wild, unfocused parties they sponsored. They hustled up wine and winery representatives under the guise of presenting marketing opportunities to a younger set, but made no effort to keep even part of the evening focused on learning about wine or appreciating the product being presented. I heard reports of this happening in more than one city. That had more to do with the organizers than the concept, I imagine. And while VV's slogan "Unscrew it, let's do it," is catchy I can't see the allure of bashing wine culture to sell wine. Even Miller Lite advertises taste. What's next? "Chill and swill" "Plonk--Everybody gets some tonight" "Vat to Table--Fresh from France"

This conversation is making me drool. I'd mash those potatoes, herb them up, and serve topped with melting dollops of butter and Gorgonzola with a heavy sprinkling of coarse-ground Tellicherry peppercorn and fine sea salt. But it all sounds good. Be sure to let us know how dinner turned out! Photos, maybe?

Cali pinots range in style from dark cherry and cinnamon bombs to brick red, mushroom and earth over pie cherry styles. Can you give us more information about the wine? But basically, I think any medium weight or braised meat with side dishes of wild rice and sauteed mushrooms are always great with pinot!

In casual restaurants, like family Italian places, they may even waive the corkage entirely if you offer a glass to the chef or staff. I wouldn't expect it, of course, but in some of these places they only have four wines on the list anyway, most of which have been sitting in a warm kitchen for months! When Papa Segreto was still with us, we always took a bottle and planned on one glass for each of us, one for the waiter, and one for Papa Segreto. His lasagna and calamari was the best ever, and the spumoni was homemade. ::sigh::

Excellent suggestion, Doc!

I love the squeaky texture and fresh, light flavor of baby octopus. We fell in love with tako poke in Hawaii, and we eat buckets of it when there. The Korean kimchee sauce in which it's usually served is too hot for me in that quantity, so we usually make a big salad of local greens and serve the tako on top. According to the staff at Big Daddy's in Kaunakakai, an octopus of 1-2 pounds should be slow simmered. Smaller tako can be frozen, poached, or beaten to tenderize them, like the abalone that we are more familiar with here in California.

Behemoth, you have a special knack for catching those flashes of logic just under the surface of the conversational waters. I always enjoy your posts. I guess that's kind of a compliment . . . Edited for typos.

The past ten days have gone by in a blur. My 22 year old son is visiting and has absconded with my camera, but I have it back today and will try to get some shots loaded up into ImageGullet tonight. Several of the reds have finished fermentation and Dan is pressing today. Although we are taking in less fruit than usual, we have just found out that we will be getting a total of 12 tons of Dusi old vine zinfandel. We were expecting six tons. As of this vintage, only Ridge and Dover Canyon will receive the old vine Dusi fruit. Benito Dusi will also sell a few tons to home winemakers with whom he has been doing business with for years. (Sorry, he doesn't have any more available.)

Yes, it's industry standard. In a well made dessert wine, the amount of brandy used is negligible and would not affect the flavor. It's sole purpose is to "shock" the wine with a quick addition of alcohol in order to kill the yeast at a point where the winemaker feels the sugar and alcohol are in balance. With the vigorous yeasts available now, sometimes letting a dessert wine go until the yeast naturally die off results in a hot and imbalanced dessert wine. So in some cases a "port" style wine may actually be gentler and have more varietal character than a late harvest. I haven't tried the Messina Hof, looking forward to learning more about them.

Doc, I certainly agree with you and with Vinfidel that the wine industry could go farther toward making wine more approachable. But please. Calling food pairings stuffy and unnecessary? Well okay, maybe they are. But they can be fun, too. Can you imagine what Virgin would do for beer? "Mircrobrews -- for Microbrains."

From the ATF label regulations for the USA: What isn't mentioned here is that if a winery produces a port-style dessert wine it must designate the wine with one of these choices or a proprietary blend name. I just want everyone to understand that until the BATF-TTB changes its rulings, wineries have limited options as to what to call a dessert wine. We produce a late harvest or fortified dessert wine each year, but some years it's zinfandel and in some syrah. We prefer to use the "port" designation after the varietal name so that it's easy for our customers to recognize and order their favorites. I guess I should start thinking about proprietary names. Maybe an eGullet contest? Winner gets a case of port? And to answer your question, Kent, the "brandy" used to fortify dessert wines is a clear distilled liquor with no oak aging. As the purpose of fortification is to raise the alcohol just enough to stop fermentation, we generally use only a cup or two per barrel.

A report on KIROTV, from BusinessWeek.com: Interesting point: Their website, www.virginvines.com, says on the home page, "WARNING: If you're looking for recipes or food pairings, hate to break it to you, but you're in the wrong place." As they plan to sell 300,000 cases a year, there must be a vast market of wine drinking idiots who actually like to be treated honestly as wine drinking idiots.

I agree that one must be careful not to jump to conclusions when translations are involved. I use my regular cooking-grade olive oil in olive oil lamps in our sunporch. No smoke, no odor, and safe if tipped over.

Based on this recommendation, I ordered McMahan's book, and I agree that she would be an interesting guest for a panel discussion, if anyone is interested. Also, I found some interesting information on the history of various Mexican-influenced foods at Food Timeline: Along with some enlightening information on the source and true meaning of various Mexican dish names. I always wondered what 'refried' meant!

At $18.99, it may not qualify as plonk, but who can resist a sangiovese-cab blend called Super Texan? (For those not familiar with "super Tuscans," there's an explanation in the article.)

Are former Nobel winners eligible? Dr. Cary Mullis, for discovering the polymerase chain reaction, upon which DNA identification is based, for allowing us to trace the origins of zinfandel. We also now know that the roussanne we purchased from Chequera Vineyard, and the roussanne for which Wild Horse won a best of show, is really viognier. Genetically. Although the French still insist it is roussanne, just a really, really obscure clone. And I'm pretty sure he likes wine. And world peace.

Mare Island, The Movie. Actually, I think you're right. This deserves to be a film. Some of the wineries affected are young artisanal firms, and some of the wine libraries date back to a time when those firms were also struggling young artists. Whoever started this fire had a lot of smoldering, psychotic, self absorbed hate for someone. So let's see, we need a director, a Sumo sized wine embezzler, warehouse partners who hate each other, a sexy and smart FBI agent, tough and smart BATF-TTB specialists, a few sleazy rich attorneys, and at least one beautiful damsel winemaker determined to get to the bottom of it all (I nominate Michelle Rodriguez).

A new online wine business, MyWinesDirect.com, says they let their customers screen the final selections. From their press release: What do you think? Will this idea be a hit?

Article on the WineStyles franchises in San Francisco Bizwomen.com: Okay, I'll admit that there are many fine limited distribution wines under $25, but a focus? In a franchise? If they're limited distribution . . .

Results from a recent study by Constellation Brands: Notice this, however: Soo . . . that could be rephrased as "drinkers of Constellation Brands' premium wines?" Here's a link to the Adobe Acrobat version of the report.