When the going gets tough, the tough pour a glass or three

For about a week now I’ve been suffering from this horrible cough … I sound like I’m coughing up a lung. I’ve probably got the swine.

So tonight I’m trying a new strategy: port wine.

I’ve had two glasses–so far–and it seems to be working. And if it doesn’t, well, who cares?

Wine packaging, glassware, ratings

A fair amount of b.s. around all that? Sure looks that way.

This article from Gourmet Magazine about wine glasses is pretty interesting reading if you’re convinced that there are physical explanations for wine tasting ‘better’ when consumed in expensive glassware vs. a Flintstones jelly jar: Shattered Myths.

Also, boxed wine vs. bottled: most people can’t seem to tell which is which, from the little bit of reading I’ve done on that.

None of this should surprise us. At least, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Our sense of taste is subjective, and therefore subject to biases. And one of those biases, it appears, is that we expect things to taste better when we believe we are ‘pampered’ with higher-quality utensils and packaging. And there’s really nothing wrong with that, as long as we understand it is actually more about our individual senses and biases than the wine itself.

And just today, this from the Wall Street Journal: A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion, about wine ratings and judges. Apparently, they aren’t all that.

According to a series of studies done by Robert Hodgson, a retired math professor and winemaker, when you point the harsh light of double-blind studies at wine judging, the wheels start to come off. For instance, even when tasting the same wine, individual judges are all over the map, depending on all kinds of uncontrollable factors like when they ate last, the time of day, the other wines in the competition, etc. And wines that win gold medals at one competition get dismissed at others, which seems unlikely if there is a truly objective hierarchy that we can decipher accurately with our individual senses of taste and smell.

Again, unsurprising. I’ve long been openly antagonistic to the whole idea that if Robert Parker rates a wine a 94, then by golly, we’re all going to like it, too! Here’s why. If I don’t like it, I don’t care what the number is on the label. A rating from somebody who is not me is useless. And likewise, if I do like it, I also don’t care what the number is. I already know that I like it, so what other info do I need, exactly? Ratings might be useful in some situations, but they can never be more useful than your own taste buds telling your brain “this tastes good” and “this doesn’t”.

So, my advice is: Drink what tastes good to you, poured from boxes or bottles into jelly glasses or fine glassware, without regard to price or awards or ratings, and ignore everything else. It’s all good. It is wine, after all.

 

Two Things I Didn’t Know Yesterday

After hearing some of the lyrics to a few songs by “Peaches”, I’m glad she is no longer an elementary school teacher.

Australians call their high-alcohol, fruity style of Shiraz “leg spreaders”.

Carry on.

You Deserve … Well, SOMETHING Today. Not Sure What Though.

Since Monday is also known as “Free Coffee Monday” at McDonald’s, I decided to stop in on the way to work this morning and grab one.

Small, and black. Like Flip Wilson.

Surprise #1: “That’ll be $1.18, please”. What happened to Free Coffee Monday? Still not sure, because the cashier’s answer was inaudible.

Surprise #2: So I tried to hand her $2. She took $1, and gave me back 46 cents. No, I didn’t get it either. Maybe it’s some new Impromptu Whiner’s Discount.

Surprise #3: After sipping the coffee a couple of times, it tasted a little odd, so I took off the lid. It had cream in it.

So my free black coffee became a 54-cent coffee with cream. Maybe McDonald’s itself could use a little jolt of Free Coffee Monday.

Exactly What the Doctor Ordered: Some New Wine Recommendations Under $10-12

I’ve been in a rut the last few months with wine. Many of the wines I used to enjoy now taste like grape juice with alcohol, and the ones I do still really enjoy are slightly more $$$ than I’m willing to spend with any regularity.

So when I stumbled upon a wine blog called Dr. Vino, and one of the first posts I saw was about the relative scarcity of decent American wines under $10-12, I welcomed some new ideas.

Nuts Are Health Food

So add nuts to the list of “yummy food that is also medicine when taken in moderation”:

• olive oil
• red wine
• coffee and tea
• nuts

Coincidentally, I’ve been eating more nuts lately — a lot more — and I’ve noticed a few short-term benefits, too. They help with “regularity” — what a dumb word that is, to mean, well … you know. My skin and hair — which are usually pretty dry, to the point I get itchy — are softer and more “normalized”. And my blood sugar seems to do very well when I eat nuts a few times throughout the day, which makes sense, because they have both protein and fiber, which I’ve read are very important in managing blood sugar.

The article lists other benefits:  antioxidants like vitamin E, and unsaturated fat, a “healthier fat known to lower blood triglycerides and increase good cholesterol”.  Which, if you’re like me, means you lose some of your taste for less healthy forms of fat, like cheese and other animal fats.  Win/win.

Plus, they are one of my favorite snacks.  Especially the butter toffee coated kind.  OK, fine, maybe I’m pushing a boundary or two there.

Brining Turkey

Ever since I discovered turkey brining a few years ago, it’s the only way we make our Thanksgiving turkey.

It’s very simple:  you need a 5 gallon bucket, a turkey, and some kind of brine to soak it in for 12 hours or more.

The brine I use is very simple and makes the turkey very moist, even the white meat.  Just mix 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of salt (kosher, regular, whatever) into about 1/2 gallon of cool water, and mix it very well.  Put the turkey in the bucket.  Add water to top it off, and put the bucket into a cold space like a garage or outside.  Or, you can put lots of ice in the bucket with some water, and keep it in your house, but then you have to be careful about not letting the water get warm.  I like the garage method myself.

If using a frozen turkey, thaw it out first; I’m not sure how well brining works if the meat is frozen.

After cooking, the dark meat will fall off the drumstick, it is so moist.  The white meat tastes moist even cold in a sandwich.  Plus the sugar and salt add a little extra flavor.  It’s simply delicious.

There are all kinds of brining recipes you can use, just Google it and do some experimenting.  I wouldn’t mind something that adds a little more spice to the white meat, myself.

Wine Links

It’s been a while since I posted anything about wine, so here are some good links I found yesterday.

http://www.cheapwinereviews.com/
http://www.boxwines.org/
http://www.professorbainbridgeonwine.com/
http://redwinehaiku.blogspot.com/

I haven’t had a chance to dive too deeply into any of these, but I’m down with the general idea of looking for good, cheap wine.  I found these by searching for Fish Eye wines, recommended by a friend, and we’re both always on the lookout for decent cheap wines, especially in the box.

Hmmm … when do you think some winery will issue a Box o’ Bordeaux? Now that would be awesome.

NHL Alumni Wines

A Match Made in … Somewhere

The NHL Alumni Wine Series.

Seems like an odd pairing: hockey and wine?

Bill Daley of the Tribune says the Tony Esposito Cabernet and the Bobby Hull Chardonnay are good, but especially the Hull.

Whose idea was it to pair Bobby Hull with a Chardonnay, anyway? Though I see that noted Philadelphia Flyer bad boy Dave Schultz, and legenday bad-ass Gordie Howe, are also paired with Chardonnay. Perhaps it’s an image-rebuilding tactic. Maybe we’ll start seeing advertisements featuring these guys with voiceovers saying “Yes, I was a bad boy who led the league in penalty minutes multiple times and pulverized a few guys’ faces. But now I’m older, wiser, and mellower. So buy my Chardonnay before I smash your face into the boards.” Cut!

The wines are produced by Ironstone Vineyards in California. Each player picks charities to receive a portion of the proceeds; Bobby Hull picked the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and Tony Esposito picked Cougars Selects Youth Hockey. Proceeds also benefit ex-players and other charities picked by team alumni associations.

Other players of note in the series: Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay, Bobby Clarke, Rod Gilbert, and a bunch of Islanders and Sabers that I don’t remember much about.

No pricing yet — sounds like they might be a bit on the expensive side.

Who Talks Like That?

Oh … it’s a Wine Expert … imagine my shock

I may not know much, but I do know this: if I ever use the word “panoply” in spoken English, please do us all a favor, and just kill me.

Of course, there isn’t much chance of that, since I have no idea what it means. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t use a word like that in spoken English.

I try not to build walls between speaker and listener.  Call me kooky!

Slaying Snobbery, One Taste Bud At A Time

Tim Hanni is both a Master of Wine and a recovering alcoholic who hasn’t had a drink in 14 years.

Part of his recovery involved re-evaluating his attitudes, and decided he had been pretentious: “I was an arrogant ass.”

Imagine that — an arrogant wine expert.

I never really drank wine until about 2-3 years ago. I love it now — it’s my first choice in any type of drinking setting, nearly every time — but have always found the snobbery around it very off-putting. And these days, beer snobs are just as bad.

But Hanni adapted. He recovered his humility, and stayed in the wine industry, and consulted with taste experts in the food and wine world:

“He became convinced that some people prefer light, sweet wines to high-alcohol, high-intensity ones because of factors such as the number of taste buds they have — and not because White Zinfandel drinkers are unsophisticated.”

This is a somewhat radical idea in the wine world. The idea that something as simple and easily explained as a physical difference in our taste buds causes us to prefer one taste over another? Bloody impossible!

As a result of this research, he invented a taste scale called the budometer, and a test to evaluate a person’s taste bud sensitivity and recommend certain wines based on those results. He also invented a new way to classify wines, the progressive wine list, which is used by many restaurants today.

I took the test, and it said I was in the “Tolerant” category, which means I like lots of flavor and high-alcohol content: Cabernet, Rhone, and reserve style Chardonnays. True enough; I’m surprised it didn’t put Zinfandel in there too, which I like a lot, and which definitely fits those parameters. Although, I also really like Syrah and Pinot Noir; it just depends on what sounds good to me at the moment.