Today on Serious Grape: Open That Bottle Night

Tomorrow--Saturday, February 28--is the 10th annual Open That Bottle Night.

Each year, Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher of The Wall Street Journal give us permission to open up those bottles that hang around our houses with all kinds of sentimental strings attached. Often, we hold on to them so long they're no longer drinkable.

Today on Serious Grape, I talk about the event, my experiences with holding on too long to a special wine, talk a bit more about the philosophy behind the event, and give links to public and online OTBN celebrations you may want to participate in.

What bottle do you have that you're afraid/unwilling to open? Tomorrow night's your chance! I'll have my OTBN tasting report up on Monday night, so check back here if you want to know what I opened up.

Voting Begins for the 2009 American Wine Blog Awards

It's time to vote for your picks in the 2009 American Wine Blog Awards.

Every year, all over the country, hundreds of devoted oenophiles put down their wine glasses long enough to turn on their computers and share their thoughts about wine. It's a labor of love. We all have full time jobs, but we blog because we think that bringing more voices into the national conversation about wine is a good thing.

Tom Wark, from the blog Fermentation, organized the awards to bring attention to this large and growing phenomenon and to recognize dedication necessary to blog consistently and well over the course of a calendar year.

This year, votes are being cast in the following categories: Best Writing, Best Graphics and Presentation, Best Single Subject Blog, Best Business/Industry Blog, Best Winery Blog, Best Wine Reviews on a Blog, and Best Overall Wine Blog. Many excellent, deserving blogs are on the list of finalists, and I encourage you to take a look at them all before making your final decision.

Voting is open now through March 4 at 11:59 PM. Thanks once again to Tom for having a thick enough skin to organize and man these awards.

And a big thanks to those of you who nominated GWU$20. I really appreciate your support and readership over in this corner of the wine blogosphere.

February Book Club Wrap Up

We had a small but choice turnout for the February Wine Book Club. Kori from Wine Peeps and I are the devoted duo still doggedly reading wine books and reporting on them.

This month we read the Kladstrups' Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times. This month, we were in agreement about the book, too.

Kori knew what to expect, because she read the Kladstrups' other book Wine and War. She enjoyed the longer historical span that Champagne covered, as well as the focus on a single region. Kori also enjoyed having the myths surrounding Dom Perignon debunked and finding out about the real monk behind the myth. You can click here to read her complete review, with some of the book's more memorable quotes.

We both agreed that the tales of the wine caves and how they served as bunker/employment center/hospital/school/opera house/ banquet facility for the region was astonishing.

We also both agreed that Champagne was getting bumped up on our list of wine regions we simply must visit. The Kladstrups are very good and conveying the history and flavor of the area, and making the reader want to know more.

In the end, both Kori and I recommend this book to anyone who likes history and Champagne. You'll get generous servings of both with this book.

Kori and I will be back next month. Why not join us? I'll explain why I picked the March title on Thursday. And for those of you who like advance notice, our next three books will be:

March: Adventures on the Wine Route, Kermit Lynch
April: The Science of Wine, Jamie Goode
May: Passion on the Vine, Sergio Esposito

Indian Food and Wine: A White Blend That Works

As regular readers know, pairing Indian food with an appropriate wine is something of an obsession of mine. And even though I love Gewurztraminer and Riesling, even I get tired of always pairing this flavorful and aromatic cuisine with these choices.

I've just discovered another white wine that works with spicy Indian food: the 2007 Hayman & Hill Interchange. (MSRP $14; find out more information here about this relatively new release) This wine is ideal for pairing with Indian food, because it gives a slightly off-dry impression without being sweet. It also has a slightly heavier mouthfeel than Riesling or Gewurztraminer, so its ideal with richer curries like chicken korma, shrimp tikka masala, or lamb pasanda.

The 2007 Hayman & Hill Interchange is a white blend made from 47% Chardonnay, 34% Sauvignon Blanc, 7% Muscat Canelli, 5% Malvasia Bianca, 4% Semillon, and 3% Gewurztraminer. The result is a wine with creamy, floral, and orchard fruit aromas. These are followed up with flavors of honey, peach, and a touch of smoke from the six months that the wine spent in small, French oak barrels. The combination of richness and freshness was interesting and appealing.

We had the wine with creamy shrimp tikka masala, and it was perfect for the meal's combination of spicy, but rich, flavors. The sweet impression the wine gives meant it didn't clash or compete with the spices, and it also brought out the sweetness of the shellfish. And the heavier mouthfeel was a nice complement to the coconut milk in the sauce. I think this wine would be excellent with yellow Thai curry, or even a spicy General Tso's chicken because these dishes also combine spicy and sweet notes.

Full Disclosure: I received this bottle as a sample.

February's Wine Book Club: A Book About Bubbly

For the Wine Book Club's February read, we turned to Champagne--the world's favorite bubbly beverage--and Don and Petie Kladstrup's critically-acclaimed book, Champagne: How the World's Most Glamorous Wine Triumphed Over War and Hard Times.

The book opens and closes with a trip to a battlefield. Don and Petie Kladstrup use these bookends to emphasize the fact that what is arguably the world's most glamorous wine comes from the same place on earth where a great deal of blood has been shed.

These kinds of contrasts--between glamour and war, between the luxury-loving Louis XIV and the disheveled Dom Perignon, between the underground world of the Champagne region's wine caves (complete with banquets, cabaret, and opera) and the German bombardment taking place overhead--occur again and again in the Kladstrup's book. The result is a highly readable and engaging account not only of how Champagne got its elegant reputation, but how that reputation was zealously guarded.

Champagne is not a chronological trot through the history of the beverage or the region--although the authors do follow a rough chronological framework. Instead, it reads a bit like you're accompanying the Kladstrups on a saunter around town. Along the way you meet some interesting people, learn some history, and visit some beautiful places. The Kladstrups are excellent tour guides, and clearly know their subject inside and out.

While the book is wide-ranging, it focuses on both the wine of the region and the period of the Great War--or World War I as its called in America. Maybe I'm having a hard time taking off my history hat, but I sometimes found all the jumping around from place to place and time to time a bit exasperating. It wasn't that I couldn't follow the Kladstrups--they write well, and the stories they tell are interesting. But I sometimes felt as though I just wanted them to tell the story simply, from beginning to end, and be done with it.

Despite my occasional moments of frustration, the book includes enough riveting detail and compelling story-telling to more than make up for a few rambling moments. What I will most remember from this book, for instance, are the accounts of life in the region's caves or crayeres during the Great War. The pictures were amazing. Seeing entire schools, bedrooms, banquets, hospitals in the caves was something else, and drove home the Kladstrups' point that Champagne, for all its elegance, is made from soil on which hundreds of battles have been fought.

Reading the Kladstrups' book made me want to visit Champagne myself and explore the region, its wine, and its history. I'd recommend this book to armchair travelers, World War I buffs, and anyone who truly loves the wines of Champagne.

I'll be back on Thursday with the wrap-up, so if you have a review to share, please send me a link or put the link in the comments here or on the announcement post.