by Bok Nan Lo
Does Japanese food goes well with White Burgundy?When my customer invited me to supply some wines to his restaurant, obviously I happily obliged. I almost fell off my chair when he told me he wanted me to recommend white wines for his Japanese restaurant Sushi Mitsuya! I was taken aback with this proposal, as I never had any experience pairing white wines with Japanese food, I do not even know if the food and wine is a match! So I told my customer, hang on to your order, let me bring some white wines over and we do a blind tasting over your Japanese food with white wine pairings. So after some further communications, we decided to have four blind bottles and six judges, four of them are restaurant owners and the chef himself.To me, I’m very traditional with Japanese food, the choice of d...
by Jerry Greenfield
The cruise lines have obviously been monitoring their target demographics more attentively of late, because the Celebrity ships we’ve sailed on in the past few years have wine bars on them. These are dark wood and leather chambers that hold those Enomatic wine dispensing machines where you can insert your key card and receive a 2-oz. pour of Opus One for $20, or other whites and reds for more reasonable prices. A good way to sample widely, albeit a bit pricey.The ships also manage to stage a “Wine 101” class at least once during each cruise, and hold little wine flight events every night or two. Last week, on the Celebrity Constellation, I ran through quite a few of these small pours, and found some interesting new experiences.One fight, which they whimsically called “Run With t...
by Andrew John Chalk
Bodegas Franco Espanolas is a wine maker founded in 1896 in the town of Logroño by Spanish and French vignerons to produce Rioja wine. Today, the winery is totally under Spanish ownership and committed to producing quality wines in the traditional Rioja style. Last week, export director John Perry came through town to show the latest vintages of the company’s wine and I was an invited guest at a trade tasting. Franco Espanolas wines’ intrigued me not least because they appeared to be such good values. Furthermore, most Rioja nowadays is in what is called the ‘modern’ style of forward fruit and French oak. By contrast, Franco Espanolas expressly adheres to the traditional style of using American oak for ageing. Also, a winery characteristic is that they age their wines longer in oa...
by Matt Young
Christmas dinner is something that a lot of people look forward too, its a chance to be with family, friends and loved ones you might not get to see as much as you like or more than you want, don't worry that's what the wine is for. I always love Christmas because it's a chance to see family, you get to have another reason to feast like your royalty, getting and giving gifts, and enjoying the time of year where its cold and you get a reason to dress up and dress warm at the same time. Now its time for the good part, talking about the dinner your having and the wine to pair with it:Big red meats such as beef and lamb you are going to want something that will hold up to flavor as well complimenting the wine your drinking. Cabernet Sauvignon is the obvious choice for most people, but lets go ...
by Anita Bennett
I have a little something on the side, you know. A job. If you can call it that.I do wine tastings. I like to say that I mix business with pleasure.Nine years ago, I went to France and enrolled in the Wine & Spirits Program at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. After a year of studying and traveling to wine regions, I completed the courses and went back to Boston. There, I attended a wine event for the trade and met a woman who owned a promotional company. I've been working in the wonderful world of wine ever since. Did I mention that I love wine?I love opening it and serving it. I love drinking it and talking to people about it.I love discovering new wines and discussing it with my wine colleagues. And most of all, I love sharing great wine and delicious food with my family & friends, sittin...
by Laura Ness
Holiday Wines from Local Vinesby Laura NessIf you live on the Central Coast and want to entertain a crowd with local style, here are a dozen wines for the Twelve Days of Christmas and beyond:SPARKLINGLoma Prieta Winery Blanc de Noir, $29 (reg $35). This spectacular gem in the Santa Cruz Mountains is a sight to behold, and the perfect place to take out of town guests over the holidays. It’s also the perfect place to do some holiday shopping, for this awesome bubbly, as well as their beautiful Pinotage and Pinots. lomaprietawinery.comWHITESAromatic Whites2012 Morgan Double L Riesling, Santa Lucia Highlands, $22. Zippy, zingy, thirst-quenching rendition that will have your tastebuds dancing a jig. At Taste Morgan in the Barnyard shopping center.2011 J McFarland “Tribute” Riesling, $19....
by Chef David Darugh
What is a vini da meditazione? It’s an intriguing term often seen in Italian wine notes. It looks like the word “meditation,” but in Italian it means much more.Coined by famous Italian gastronome, Luigi Veronelli, meditazione is often used to describe sweet passito wines or profound red wines aged for a long time in wood and in the bottle. Based on my understanding a vini da meditazione means:It is, in part, about the quality of the wine: it often includes quiet sweet wines, the ones with no bubbles, produced mostly with raisins. In Tuscany the most famous exponent of the class is undoubtedly the Vin Santo, which is obtained from Trebbiano and Malvasia, left to dry hanging on hooks or lay on mats of reeds. Evaporation of liquid present in the grapes allows a higher concentration of ...
by Chef David Darugh
You put cream in your coffee, I don’t. You put salt on your eggs, I don’t. I put Tabasco on almost everything, you don’t. We all have different tastes; it’s just that simple.If we translate that to wine, you drink oaky Chardonnay while I prefer a steely Sauvignon Blanc. You drink Beaujolais while I enjoy a hearty Cabernet. We have different tastes. In my earlier days I used to think all wine tasted more or less the same. I liked some better than others, but I could not say why. When drinking wine, as opposed to Pepsi, you should keep two things in mind: Slow down and pay attention. The more attentively you smell and taste wine the more interesting you will find it, and the more you will learn. There are countless books written on wine-tasting, but I figure you just want the esse...
by Bok Nan Lo
Casual drinking with an old themeLast night, friends called me up for a last minute drinking session…. Theme, something old. That obviously get me excited. Without hesitation, I quickly grabbed an old bottle that happened to be standing up for a couple of days and rushed over.In his cellar, a glance and I saw some striking labels – Gaja. They didn’t blind the bottle. Interesting, I never had very old Gaja before, so I thought this is going to be some interesting session.We pulled out our weapons – the old cork remover, The Durango. My bottle’s cork came off nicely. My friend’s Gaja Barbaresco 1962 wasn’t so lucky – a bit of pressure applied and the cork sank further in, even our old faithful weapon couldn’t salvage sinking cork. So no choice, just got to depress the cork ...
by Andrew John Chalk
by Andrew ChalkCan a Chilean wine age and improve for a quarter of a century? More expert Dallas wine tasters are saying ‘yes’ today after an impressive vertical showing by parent winery Concha y Toro of their flagship Don Melchor to a trade audience last week where i was an invited guest. Backed by the wine-friendly food and seamless service of The Capital Grille Dallas, winemaker Enrique Tirado made a presentation about Don Melchor and guided attendees through a tasting of the 1989, 1993, 2006 and 2009 vintages.Don Melchor was the founder of Concha y Toro. The decision to name a wine in his honor came after a 1986 initiative by the head of the winery, Don Eduardo Guilisasti Tagle, to send his son along with the winery’s enologist to Bordeaux to meet with legendary French enologist ...