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May 22 2006

Old News with Fresh Perspective, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items …

When in New York recently, my wife and I did a Greenwich Villagefood tour … a kind of neighborhood tour de force that delineated all of theexcellent purveyors—some history, some gossipy chatter, whom to go to for cannoli’sand a lot of tasting—from pizza at Joe’s to Murray’s Cheese.

Murray’s is the venerable cheese shop that carries over250 varieties of cheese including a good number that you’re not likely to findanywhere else in the states and some blue cheese that is so full of flavor thatit makes the stuff at the local A&P seem like Kraft singles.

The tour ended inMurray’s upstairs area where classes are conducted; a quick scan of the classschedule shows that a lot of the classes are about wine and cheesepairing.

Thatmakes recent research all the more curious.

HildegarrdHeymann and a graduate student/researcher, Berenice Madrigal, from UC Daviscompleted research that challenges the conventional wisdom of wine and cheesepairing. This research got some mediaplay last summer and then again in the early portion of ’06.

TheSan Francisco Chronicle, as usual, has a nice article that encapsulates theresearch.

"Ourdefinition of a good pairing was that the two enhance each other," saysHildegarde Heymann, professor of sensory science in Davis’ viticulture andenology

…it was Heymann who steered Madrigal to cheese as a thesis topic, a continuationof the professor’s research into the sensory analysis of wine with food.

ToHeymann’s surprise, few sensory scientists had analyzed the presumed affinityof wine and cheese. A review of the literature turned up almost nothing. ASwedish scientist, Tobias Nygren, had looked at white wine with blue cheese --the cheese mutes white wine flavors, he found—but no one apparently hadlooked methodically at the intersection of red wine and cheese.

Heymann says, "My ‘take home’ is, you shouldn’t worryabout which wine you have with which cheese," says Heymann. "Have thewine you love with the cheese you love. " If most cheeses affect most redwines in a similar way, by turning down the volume, it may be pointless to keeplooking for a match that soars.

Sometimes academics can get shouted down for breakingconventional wisdom with research. I’mnot sure if Heymann was smart, or not brave for her caveated last statement, “Havethe wine you love with the cheese you love.” Many gourmands are likely to call “poppycock” on her, but at the sametime, the little man has struck another blow—the guy that wants to drink aSyrah with Tilapia in a buerre blanc sauce has moved one step closer tovalidation.

X X X X X

Also on the same tour, wevisited some historical houses made with clinker brick. Clinker brick, as I learned fromwikipedia is a brick that is very usable, but has been overfired.

Inearly brick firing kilns, the surface of the bricks that were too close to thefire changed into the volcanic textures and darker/purplish colors, and werecalled "clinkers". They were originally discarded, but around 1900, these bricks werediscovered by architectsto be usable, distinctive and charming in architectural detailing, adding theearthy quality favored by Arts & Crafts style designers. Modernbrick-making techniques can recreate the appearance of these bricks and producea more consistent product.

In the past I had enjoyed theKlinker Brick Zinfandel from the winery of the same name, but, really, I didn’tknow a clinker/klinker brick from a paver stone at the local Home Depot.

I re-visisted the Klinker BrickZin and it’s really a good value. Theweb site tells their story, as well.

http://www.klinkerbrickwinery.com/index.htm

Rich, deep color, enormousdensity, unique and distinctive are the same qualities found in our old vineZinfandel. And, we hope it is a name that you are not likely to forget!

The Old Vines Zin is around $15bucks and deep and rich. It doesn’thave the same sort of minerality that you find in other OVZ’s, but it’s wellworth taking a flier on …

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May 22 2006

The Two Best Days of a Man’s Life

I have a new post on the Wine Sediments portion of the Well Fed network. You can find it here.

They say that the two best days of a man’s life is the day he buys his boat and the day he sells his boat.

The money pit connotation aside, wine does play a role in every good boat christening, and I explore that tradition loosely.

If you are not dry docked and already own a boat, but think that maybe re-naming your baby sounds like a good idea ... perhaps something associated with wine like: "No Effing Merlot" ... than you’ll need to check out this site which gives instruction for the re-naming process. And, yes, it specifies Champagne and no "effing" sparkling wine.

Centi’ Anni!

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May 21 2006

Cluetrain #5—People Recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice

Cluetrain Manifesto #5 relates to #4, and an earlier post that can be found here.

#4 Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissentingarguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural,uncontrived.

#5 People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

I could go on and on about the discrepancy in wine marketing and those that receive the message. Dozens and dozens of sales training courses exist to help people communicate to their customers and prospects in a language that is understandable to their target.

Marketers exist to bridge this language gap. Yet, wine, and perhaps car buying remain the two mass consumables where there is a Golden Gate bridge size chasm that needs to be crossed in order to make customers raving fans of a wine label. Some have made the move, but nobody has made the leap.

Posted in, Cluetrain Manifesto Revisited. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This

May 19 2006

New World

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May 18 2006

Snobs Strike a Death Blow against the Wine Proletariat

Wine aficionados around the world now have theirproverbial crosses to use against the middle wine consumer acting as vampiresto the wine tradition.

I introduce to you the Winesceptre.

Somewhere in betweena lot of form, and marginal function lies this beauty that is designed to servewine at optimum temperature. A blurb fromthe web site that can befound here:

Invented by a restaurant owner in Europe, the Winesceptreis an innovative and simple way to maintain the optimal temperature of apre-chilled bottle after it has been opened and while it is being served at thetable. Sommeliers and fine restaurants worldwide take great pride in the careof fine wines. Wines are kept in special wine refrigerators to maintain theirideal serving temperatures. Much of this effort is wasted as the wines are putin ice buckets causing their temperature to drop dramatically and the wine tolose its bouquet.

After approximately three hours in the freezer, theWinesceptre is ready for use: Pour a small amount of wine into a glass to create space; remove the Winesceptre from the stainless tubeand, with a slight pressure, insert it into the top of a pre-chilled bottle of wine. The o-rings hold theWinesceptre securely in the bottle. Pour your wine through the top of the Winesceptre and enjoy.

The coup de grace for this absurdist wine accessory--priced at $119.99 no less--is the fact that it comes with different finials or toppers and a level of scientific evidence on the warmth through which unwashed americans drink their wine.

Here stateside, Todd English, a chef turned gourmet pitchman that aspires to Wolfgang Puck levels of whoredom, pimps this on HSN--where, apparently it has sold out on numerous occasions.

Overall, I lump this baby into the same category as the countertop chocolate fountains, mini vegetable choppers and Popeil Pasta & Sausage maker as something that will absolutely never get used and costs too much. I checked the demographics for HSN, and over 75% of the purchasers are woman with a househould income of $61,000.

Ahem, let me add that $120 wine chilling systems are more likely to be used with Charles Shaw here then a Screaming Eagle, for example.

So, instead of striking a blow against the proletariat, perhaps, some marketers are taking advantage of the masses.

I would say that Todd English should be ashamed, but his $40 plates of high grade Houlihan’s fare at the Disney resort in FLA has effectively already done that for me.

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