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Your New Orleans Advice Needed
Brooklynguy's Wine and Food Blog 13 Mar 2010 | 10:09 am
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I will be traveling on business in New Orleans next week. Most of my time is spoken for, but I will have several hours on my own one afternoon.I'd like to go somewhere for lunch and eat delicious food that is specific to New Orleans. I've never been to New Orleans and know nothing about it at all. If you know of such a place, or a website where I can read about such things, your advice is most welcome. -
Geeking Out Over Brin de Chèvre
Cherries and Clay 13 Mar 2010 | 8:47 am
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Menu Pineau. What can be said that hasn’t already been?
I’ve sat quietly on the sidelines reading others praise Thierry Puzelat’s Clos du Tue Boeuf 08 ‘Brin de Chèvre’ (particularly Guilhaume), from the Loire’s Touraine region. Made with natural methods from a grape which maybe ten other producers in the world cultivate, Menu Pineau. For more background, Wine Terroirs has a very in depth post on everything Thierry Puzelat.
We drank half the bottle with a late dinner. The remaining half sat in my fridge like a glowing beacon. Should i get up in the middle of the night and drink it? Maybe breakfast? How will it taste tomorrow? I was sure it would take more than a couple days to kill this wine. Intriguing as hell. While not for everyone, it borders on being esoteric, but should speak to those who enjoy the weird wonders of the Loire.
The nose is a bizarre blend of vegetable, floral and briny characters. Fresh cut flower stalks came immediately to mind. The palate is pure puckering lemon acidity and minerality. I can think of few wines more suited to accompany white fish. Check it out if you get the chance. $22 at Arelquin in San Franisco.
Le Brin de Chèvre is like this Beach House video in many ways. Or maybe it isn’t, but I enjoy them both. -
A month after migrating servers, and some decent web stats
jamie goode's wine blog 13 Mar 2010 | 8:34 am
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It has been a month since I shifted wineanorak.com from its old server to a new one – with decent bandwith allowance and proper webstat reporting (the last one was a bit flaky, and I didn’t always get good statistics).
Here’s the data on traffic to the site over the last month. [I'm not sure if you are supposed to reveal your web stats like this - is it in bad taste, like talking about your salary? Or is this commercially sensitive information? Oh well, I think it's OK, and I like being open and honest about these sorts of things.]
Traffic is a bit more than I realised, with almost three-quarters of a million page views (I’d been quoting 400 000 page views and 90 000 uniques a month, which is an underestimate by some distance). Thanks to all of you for reading.
I’m now inspired to go on and make this a bigger, better site! -
Barbera 2010: Pride in Simplicity?
saignée 13 Mar 2010 | 12:26 am
Read more...Yesterday the Barbera 7 visited a producer by the name of Azienda Agricola Negro. One of the first questions we asked was “have you got any unoaked wines?” “Si si si” came the answer. So she poured us the unoaked wines, a fantastic Langhe Nebbiolo and a Barbaresco. The thing was she also insisted on pouring us the top cuvees as well, which had been aged in barriques. Guess which ones we preferred? She was a bit taken aback that we liked the unoaked cuvees the best. They showed vintage, variety, region, while the oak on the other ones obliterated much of this. It has happened time and time again. We taste the producer’s oaked wine blind and come away with a negative opinion. We visit the same producer and they show us an unoaked wine and our opinion changes. The problem is they aren’t excited enough about the simpler wines to want to showcase them (this is, of course, is not unique to Italy). It has been mentioned several times during our stay by Jeremy that simple Italian foods have conquered the world, so why haven’t so many Italian producers realized the same thing? They still make these beautifully simple wines, wines that go with food, wines that are light and show off so much of what is Italian. If i can ask one thing of these producers it’s to take pride in these wines they make. Show them off, not barriques from France.
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Denis Lin, one of the coolest cats, and the best tajerin
Do Bianchi 13 Mar 2010 | 12:16 am
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Chinese wine writer Denis Lin was one of the coolest cats I met on this trip. He draws the label of many of the wines he tastes in his tasting book. “This way, I don’t get drunk,” he said. His drawings are amazing.
One of the cool things about Barbera Meeting was the folks I met from all over the world. There were a lot of Asian buyers and writers here…
Denis, above, is currently in talks to appear in the sequel to The Barbera 7, scheduled release 2011, working title: The Barbera 8.
In other news…
The best tajerin I’ve ever had.
At Ristorante Antica Torre in Barbaresco with Gaia Gaja.
Thanks again, Gaia, for an unforgettable meal, from The Barbera 7! :-)
Ristorante Antica Torre
Via Torino, 64
12050 Barbaresco
0173 63 51 70
Highly recommended… -
Going Sans Soufre in Monterey
McDuff's Food & Wine Trail 12 Mar 2010 | 3:30 pm
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Please pardon the dead air of the last few days. I've been in California since Wednesday, here to celebrate (and help with as much as possible) the pending nuptials of my great friends Steve and Stacy. They welcomed our arrival on Wednesday night with a simple meal Chez S&S, which we all enjoyed along with a fantastic bottle of Marcel Lapierre's 2008 Morgon.While the bottle above may look no different than usual (Meyer lemons aside) to the American-based imbibers of Lapierre's wines, let me tell you that this wine was different from what you're likely to have enjoyed before. The secret's all on the back label....You may remember me mentioning here before that Lapierre actually produces three different "batches" of his Morgon: one with no sulfur and no filtration; one with no filtration but with a light dose of sulfur; and one with both light filtration and a little sulfur. Importer Kermit Lynch had never brought the unsulfured version into the States, as he prefers the more stable nature of that with a light sulfur dose for the rigors of national distribution.Notice that I wrote "had" rather than "has," as Kermit has now brought a small lot of the unsulfured version -- "Lot n," as you can see in the photo at right -- specifically at request of the crew at San Francisco's natural wine bar extraordinaire, Terroir. Though I've had several bottles recently of Lappierre's regular 2007 Morgon, I've yet to drink the regularly sulfured version of his 2008 release, so this is a bit of a McIntosh to Gala comparison. Taking the liberty of tasting across vintages, though, I found the unsulfured version to be a little darker-fruited and earthier in aroma, crunchier in texture and ever so slightly more rustic than the regular cuvée. It was also[…] -
How Important Is It for a Red Wine to Be a Dark Color?
The Pour 12 Mar 2010 | 1:58 pmDo most people believe that a darker red wine is better than a paler red wine?
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Good wines for under $10.
Slate Magazine - Drink 12 Mar 2010 | 12:40 pm
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As toddlers, both of my children were big Elmo fans. My daughter was especially enamored of "Limbo Elmo," an online game in which Elmo and some of his pals do the limbo while he sings a personalized version of the Chubby Checker hit, "Limbo Rock." Ava is now 5 and, like her older brother, she has outgrown her furry red friend. I have not. The sound of his scratchy voice warbling "Elmo nimble, Elmo quick, Elmo go under limbo stick" regularly pops into my head. Clearly, I am in need of an Elmo exorcism (that, or professional help). But the song did provide me with some excellent mood music during a recent visit to Total Wine & More in Wilmington, Del. I went there to perform a limbo of my own—to see how low I could go in price and still find something decent to drink. Back in May 2008, I wrote a column about $15 and under wines, all of which I procured from the same Total store, one of the retail giant's 64 locations nationwide. With "Elmo's Limbo Rock" as my mental soundtrack, the goal this time was to see what I could get for less than $10.[more ...] -
The Lady Eve
Captain Tumor Man 12 Mar 2010 | 12:19 pm
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Few things are perfect in life.
I watched Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve last night. I can't remember laughing so loud, alarming Zaggy, and having such a great time. The movie is simply comedic perfection.
Get it from Netflix or your DVD source of choice.posted by: Joe Dressner at 3/12/10 3:19 pm -
Bourgogne Wines Tasting
Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France 12 Mar 2010 | 10:11 amAlix De MontillePavillon Ledoyen, Champs Elysées, Paris High season of tasting events again. This monday was quite typical of the overcrowding of the genre in Paris : at least three major tastings in a single day, each one being relevant...
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One Sip and It's Strawberry Hill Forever
John's blog 12 Mar 2010 | 6:36 amFor your Friday morning viewing pleasure.
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Lazy yet poignant one word tasting notes
Rockss and Fruit 9 Mar 2010 | 5:12 pmI really have grown to hate tasting notes and that is why I have not posted many recently. Here are some with my new medium of choice. The one worder.2008 Schafer-Frohlich Felseneck Grosses Gewachs - Harmonic. 2001 JJ. Prum Graacher Himmelreich Spatlese - Secondary.NV Causse Marines Preambulles - Savory.2000 Cote de Baleau - Library.2002 Donnhoff Schlossbockelheimer Felsenberg Spatlese - Advanced.
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