January, 2012

Reviews January 25, 2012

Querceto di Castellina L’Aura Chianti Classico, Tuscany, Italy, 2008.

Grapes 90% Sangiovese, 10% Ciliegiolo Sangiovese [san-joe-vay-zee] is the main grape in Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Carmignano and Brunello di Montalcino.   Ciliegiolo [chee-lee-eh-joh-loh] is a much more obscure grape than Sangio, and it took a little research to find out some info! We’re all still learning, right? The name is apparently derived from the Italian word for cherry in Italian: ciliegi. Through clonal research, Ciliegiolo has been discovered to be the parent of…

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Pairings, Recipes January 23, 2012

Moroccan Spiced Lamb Chops Paired with La Griveliere Cotes du Rhone 2010.

Ever since receiving a set of insanely expensive Laguiole steak knives for Christmas, I’ve been dying to test them out. Truth-be-told, when I unwrapped the small rectangler box on Dec 25th, my heart dropped into my shoes when I saw the Laguiole logo on the wooden case. For one second I thought the Mrs. had dropped $100+ on a Laguiole wine opener. I don’t by any means want to sound ungrateful, it’s not that I…

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Funny, News January 22, 2012

World’s First Meteorite-Aged Wine.

Norwich-born Ian Hutcheon (NB: I KNEW it would be a Brit behind this!) has released a Cabernet Sauvignon called Meteorito, aged with a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite from the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The “extra-terrestrial wine” was created at Hutcheon’s Tremonte Vineyard in the Cachapoal Valley in Chile, which he bought in 2009. “I’ve been involved in wines and astronomy for many, many years and I wanted to find some way of combining the…

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News January 22, 2012

New Drug Claims to Keep You Sober, No Matter How Much You’ve Had to Drink.

Chinese tree extract has long been used as a hangover cure. Now it is being turned into a ‘sobriety pill’ that could cure alcoholism. Imagine a pill that could instantly sober you up no matter how much you’ve had to drink, or a hangover cure that worked minutes after swallowing it. Hardened drinkers rejoice: researchers are about to begin human trials on an "alcohol antidote" that may soon offer a cure to alcoholism, reports New…

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News January 20, 2012

Sommelier Created Blog to Trash Yelp Critic

A Chicago woman who took her complaint about a local sommelier and his food and wine pairing class to the Internet said she got more than a taste of revenge from the businessman. Cecelia Groark’s post on Yelp (click here for the review), the popular online review site, about Bottled Grapes in Albany Park allegedly yielded an angry response from owner Krunch Kretschmar, (NB: it sounds like an angry name) an internationally known sommelier. She…

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News January 18, 2012

Life Sentence for Chinese Smuggler of Bordeaux Wines

ShanghaiDaily.com has reported that a wine smuggler named Sun Xitai, has been jailed for life for illegally bringing over 70,000 bottles worth 45 million yuan (US$ 7.128 million) to China’s mainland. This has been China’s biggest wine smuggling case. Despite being previously convicted in 2002 when he was sentenced to 1 year in prison and 1 year’s reprieve in the city of Tianjin, Sun Xitai continued his smuggling

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Pairings, Recipes January 17, 2012

Spicy Crab Cakes with Mango Puree Paired with Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling.

Yesterday, when I mentioned to the Mrs. that I was going to make crab cakes for dinner, the first words out of her mouth were “Make them like my Mom makes them! They’re the BEST!!!” It’s probably worth pointing out that the main 2 tricks behind how “Mom makes them”  is to use zero bread filling, and to shape them roughly the size of baseballs. Delicious, no doubt; but if she were the chef in…

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Reviews January 16, 2012

Willamette Valley Vineyards Riesling, Willamette Valley, Oregon, 2009.

Grape 100% RieslingHistorical references to the Riesling grape can be traced back to Germany in the 15th century.   Facts I’ve been a fan of Willamette Valley Vineyards (“WVV” for the cool kids) for quite a while now. Yes, they’re certainly one of the largest Oregon producers (70,400 cases in 2010), but I feel WVV maintain a consistently favorable quality to price ratio. An attribute which I personally note is lacking in a number of…

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