Today on Serious Grape: Wine Survival for Early Fall

It's crazy time.

Back to school. Back to work after summer vacations. Back to clothes with waistbands and shirts with buttons. (picture by Avolore)

Today on Serious Grape, the wine column I write for the fantastic food site Serious Eats, I've got a wine survival guide to get you over the late summer blues and through the early fall crazies.

It includes my shopping list for a mixed case of wine so you will always have the right bottle to try with your takeout, put on your table when entertaining, and pair with all your transitional meals. Rather than running to the store every time you need some wine, this will give you that comfortable feeling that you're ready for any eventuality. A mixed case is kind of the wine equivalent of restocking all your pens, paperclips, and computer supplies. Check it out and see what you think.

Most importantly, remember to ask your wine merchant for a mixed case discount. It's a typical courtesy that many of us don't take advantage of, but if there's a time to take every discount coming to you, it's now.

Washington State Riesling to the Rescue

It's hot. I'm hot. I'm tired. I'm overworked. I'm eating lots of takeout.

Riesling to the rescue.

There is no joy so profound as I experience back to school, Labor Day, and the looming need to buy fall clothes as a cool bottle of Riesling waiting for me in the fridge when I pull into the driveway after a long day of work with a few cartons of Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Japanese food sitting on the passenger seat next to me. Riesling is the perfect match for Asian food, and because you can store it in the fridge it's always ready when you need it (just let it warm up for 10-15 minutes before your drink it or you'll miss out on Riesling's extraordinary aromas).

Because I love its low alcohol zinginess and Asian food-friendliness so much, I'm always on the lookout for new labels I haven't tried before. My latest discovery is the 2006 Mildbrandt Traditions Riesling from Washington. I purchased this for $12.49 in my local grocery store; you can find it near you for between $10 and $15. It was pale in color which suggested cool, clear water. The aromas and flavors ran the spectrum of citrus and flowers from orange blossom, to Meyer lemon, to lemon peel. There was a nice, juicy finish that kept you reaching for more to sip along with your ever-diminishing pile of pad thai. This wine also had a relatively low alcohol level for a domestic white at only 12.5%, which is good news when it's so hot outside.

What I loved most about this wine was that it was slightly off-dry but still restrained and balanced. Oh, and I loved its pricepoint, too. This certainly qualifies as a wine with excellent QPR, given its clear, refreshing citrus and floral flavors. It may not be as complex as a German Riesling, but it will combine with your takeout beautifully. So if you see this in your local store buy several bottles, leave them in the fridge, and the next time you're running late and General Tso is your dinner date you'll have one less thing to worry about.

Wine Book Club #4: Tasting Pleasure

Today I'm participating in the 4th edition of the Wine Book Club, hosted by Farley the Wine Poet from Wine Outlook.

The title she picked, Jancis Robinson's Tasting Pleasure, was one of those classic wine books that I always meant to read, but somehow never quite got around to opening. I'm so glad that Farley got this book of my shelf and into my hands. Robinson has a wonderful voice when she writes, and I was quickly caught up in the story of how she developed from a wine novice to a wine expert.

Robinson's wine roots go back to Italy, where she drank wine from the local co-op while working as a maid in a hotel, but her earnest study of wine happened at Oxford University. You may associate Oxford with rowing, rugby, and the debates at the Union (not necessarily in that order) but I can tell you from first-hand experience that the University may be the world's best wine-appreciation experience for those under 21. Colleges and other university institutions have had cellars since the medieval period, and students and dons in residence there take wine knowledge as seriously as they take Shakespeare's sonnets and particle physics.

It was not until Robinson left Oxford that she began her circuitous route (via working in the travel industry and working in a wine bar) towards becoming a wine writer. And it is where Robinson talks about writing about wine that she is at her absolute best in what is a marvelous all-around book. Throughout this memoir, the reader is struck again and again by her sensitivity to the individual palate, her concern that truly extraordinary and different wines don't become lost in a sea of homogeneous wines shaped by a mysterious collective palate that emerges in tasting panels, and her humility concerning what she still doesn't know about wine. At points, she almost apologizes for her hesitancy in making wine recommendations, but this (I think) is one of the reasons she is so very good at what she does: she believes that all she is qualified to tell you is whether she likes a wine or not, and why.

The subtitle of this book, Confessions of a Wine Lover, is really the best possible description for her chatty, informal, and tell-all story. Robinson does not tell us everything, perhaps, but she tells us an awful lot (including her childhood experiences battling anorexia) in a way that makes us laugh, gasp in admiration, and shake our heads in disbelief at the way the wine world works. By the end of the book, it is almost impossible not to like her enormously and respect her deeply for what she accomplished as one of the first women in the wine writing business.

A resounding thank you to Farley for picking this classic title. If you didn't read along with us these past two months, I hope that this review convinces you to put Tasting Pleasure on your list of must-reads in the future. Farley has promised us a round-up of posts next week, and I'll post the title we're reading for the 5th edition of the Wine Book Club on September 2. And if you'd like to participate in the Wine Book Club as a host or as a "Spin the Bottle" featured reviewer, please let me know in the comments or by dropping me an email.

An Italian Wine for Beaujolais Lovers

Do you like wines from the Beaujolais made from Gamay?

If you do, have you tried an Italian variety called Cesanese? When I tasted it all I could think of was that it was Italy's indigenous analogue to that better-known French grape.

Cesanese grapes are a particular point of pride for the Pallavicini family, who have been growing grapes in the Lazio region since the late 1600s. They have been working to preserve indigenous varieties such as Malvasia del Lazio, Ciliegiolo, and Bonvino as well as planting international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Petite Verdot.

Their 2005 Pallavicini Tirso was a light bodied-red wine made with 100% Cesanese that is ideal for serving slightly chilled just as you would a Beaujolais. ($7.99, Weimax; available elsewhere for around $14) It was dark eggplant in color with grapey and plummy aromas and a touch of deep earthiness. The flavors continued along in this vein, with the earth coming farther forward to meet up with the plums. The wine had 12% alc/vol and there was a juicy aftertaste. This simple wine was pleasant and refreshing and at well under $10, it represented good QPR so long as you aren't expecting a robust Italian red.

Cesanese is an ideal partner for simple, rustic bistro or trattoria food. We had it with a quick version of Pollo alla Romana, where chicken is cooked with peppers, tomatoes, capers, and prosciutto. With some crusty bread and a big salad, you've got a perfect meal. The wine's earthiness and fruit flavors went well with the acidity of the dish and the sweetness of the sauteed peppers. With all the fresh tomatoes in local farmer's markets and ripening on backyard vines, this is a grape to remember when you're looking for something to pair with late summer tomato sauces and salads.

So try Cesanese if you get the chance. But beweare: the increased demand for Italian wines may have led to a reorganization of Pallavicini labels. The Tirso label is no more as best I can discover, replaced by wine labeled "Cesanese" and a different picture. The label for the 2005 Tirso is now being used for a Sangiovese wine called "Tiaso." So if you see this wine in the store, make sure that you're getting Tirso and not Tiaso if you're trying to secure some of this rare Italian grape.

AVIN3952653959051

Rodney Strong + Wine Bloggers = Making History

Last week, Rodney Strong Vineyards made some wine history by being the first winery to release sample bottles of an allocated, limited- production wine--their 2005 Rockaway Cabernet Sauvignon--to a group of wine bloggers at the same time that the wines were sent to the Wine Spectator and other print journalists. (image by said&done)

Coordinated by Jeff Lefevere of Good Grape, the release of these wines into the hands of bloggers marked what I think will be seen in future years as a turning point in how wines are reviewed in this country.

Those of you who haven't been following this story, and even those of you have, might be interested in hearing a little bit more about how this all came about. Earlier this summer, Jeff Lefevere contacted a group of bloggers including Tim Elliott of Winecast, Renee Wilmeth from Feed Me/Drink Me, Sonadora from Wannabe Wino, Joe Roberts the 1 Wine Dude, Kori from Wine Peeps, and master sommelier candidate Arthur Black who guest blogs on Good Grape. He wanted to know if we would be willing to participate in an experiment with Rodney Strong in which we would receive a bottle of soon-to-be-released wine in exchange for an assurance that we would blog about some aspect of Rodney Strong's Rockaway Vineyard project during the week of August 18.

We were free to blog about anything. We were of course free to report if we didn't like the wine. The only requirement was that we blogged something during that week. If you follow the links to the participating bloggers above, you will discover that our notes are consistently positive and quite similar in terms of what we tasted, but I hasten to add that we all tasted the wines independently and wrote our reviews independently.

Why did Jeff want us all to blog about this topic in the same week? It was not because it was "payment" for the review. Instead, Jeff wanted to be able to gauge the impact of a group of bloggers working simultaneously on the same wine. One of the questions that bloggers wonder about is do our individual voices make a difference, and would we be more powerful if we were working in a group?

I think it will be a while before we know what the impact of this experiment might be. I do think that this will not be the last time that winemakers will release their wines to bloggers and print journalists simultaneously--even though this was, to my knowledge, the first time such an effort has been made with a higher-end wine.

After participating in the Rockaway experiment, I remain convinced that the #1 advantage that bloggers have over print media is simply this: time is on our side. It will be months before this wine is reviewed in print. But now, just prior to the wine's release, there are half a dozen reviews of this wine on the internet for anyone who is considering joining the Rockaway mailing list.

What do you think about wine bloggers as individual voices, as opposed to wine bloggers joining together in such a project? If you followed the Rockaway project through the blogosphere, did having multiple perspectives on the same wine help you to determine whether you might be interested in it? And most importantly, is this something you would like to see more of with a wider range of wines--not just the higher end bottles? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts and reactions, and I'm sure the other participants would, too.