With Independence Day just around the corner, we turn our attention to all-American wines for the all-American holiday. I combed through the Slashfood archives to find wines from all around our grand ol' country worthy of an American toast. Here are seven perennial favorites:
At Slashfood we're all about saving you moolah on the best food and drinks around. Here are five moreWine Steals to add to your "must-try" list.
5. Bodegas Arzuaga Navarro "La Planta" 2007 ($13): This Spanish red, made from 100 percent Tempranillo, has dusty plum and strawberry flavors with warm vanilla and allspice. With nice, grippy tannins and a lingering finish, it's a real winner for the price and one of best $13 wines I've had in ages.
According to industry research, the majority (58 percent) of grill owners use them year-round (I'm one of them, and have been known to dust a foot or so of snow off the barbie in the middle of January), but summer is really when grilling gets smokin' hot. With Father's Day and the whole "let's grill a big juicy steak for dad and buy him a tie" cliché less than a week away, let's talk a bitmore about barbecue-friendly wines. (And be sure to check out our expert grilling tips here).
Wine and grill pairing basics and four recommended vinos after the jump.
Warm weather is made for whites, rosés and beer to help quench the undying thirst that accompanies the heat. But red wine lovers need not despair: plenty of light reds like Barbera, Beaujolais and Pinot Noir are good summer sippers, too.
Pinot is often relegated to autumnal pairings of mushrooms and duck, but it's also delicious in summer with grilled veggies (think: eggplant with yogurt sauce) and Indian takeout when it's too hot to cook.
Five summery Pinot recommendations after the jump.
Here we are at the start of the idlest season of the year, when it's so hot you have to relax, when the produce is so bountiful you can't help but gobble it, and when life gets simpler and so should your wine.
Which brings me to rosé, the ultimate summer wine. Why? Because rosés, made from red grapes but drunk chilled and fresh like white wine, are pretty, refreshing and incredibly evocative of some of the best summer fruits -- and the newest releases are hitting the store shelves right now.
I'm opening a lot of sparkling wines these days in preparation for my exam, and a girl can only drink so much bubbly plain.
Enter the classic sparkling wine cocktail, Kir Royale. If you're not familiar with this gem, here's the short history: A guy named Canon Felix Kir, who was mayor of Dijon, France and a hero of the Burgundian resistance movement during World War II, loved to drink his Aligote, a dry, acidic white Burgundian wine, with a splash of crème de cassis, a locally produced liqueur made from blackcurrants. He served the cocktail at official town functions and it caught on.
Kir Royale is simply a Kir made with sparkling rather than still white wine. And did I mention it's gorgeous? After the jump, several versions to try and the basic recipe.
With just a week to go until Memorial Day, here are five more wine steals for party hosts and guests.
5. Mirassou Pinot Grigio 2007 ($9). Ripe with oranges, peaches, nectarines and hints of spring flowers, this deliciously inexpensive Pinot Grigio got a surprise 90 rating from Wine Enthusiast.
4. Barefoot Riesling NV ($7). Slightly sweet and tasting simply of green apples and peaches, Barefoot Riesling is a good choice if you like riper, sweeter wines.
3. Hosmer Cayuga Lake Dry Riesling 2007 ($12). Dry and mineral on the nose, the Hosmer Riesling is tart with lemons, limes, green apples and white peaches -- lovely if you like bracingly dry whites. It made Wine & Spirits magazine's "100 Top Values of the Year" list in the June 2009 issue and is one of my absolute favorite New York State Rieslings.
Two more -- including a $7 vino -- after the jump.
Taking on an entire country in a single post seems foolhardy at best, but here at Slashfood we're all about showcasing lip-smacking deals, and South African wine falls squarely into that category.
I'm not the only one who thinks so: Wine Spectator featured South Africa in its April 30 issue as one of five countries producing delicious wine for the cost-conscious imbiber. Wine Business Monthly published a two-part report on South African wine, whose exports to the U.S. have gone from next to nothing five years ago to a million cases last year.
More South Africa - Wine of the Week after the jump.
Attention doting husbands and children: Mother's Day is right around the corner. As the mom of two small children whose energy levels are inversely proportionate to their ages, I'm here to speak up for mothers of the world and give you a hint about proper Mother's Day celebratory etiquette.
It's simple, really. We want to observe Mother's Day by shirking our motherly duties and being bona fide adults.
Preferably with our feet up and a cocktail in hand.
This brings me to some easy sparkling wine recipes, in case you're planning to whip up a nice brunch for your lovely wife or mother. For mix-in drinks, don't bother spending megabucks on real Champagne; go with an inexpensive Prosecco from Italy (such as Fantinel) or Cava from Spain (Friexenet and Segura Viudas are good bets).
Three basic but beloved Mom-friendly elixirs after the jump.
"Great wine is made in the vineyard, not in the winery." The expression may have derived from top winemakers modestly claiming to be simple helpers taking advantage of Mother Nature's hard work. Still, a winemaker makes plenty of decisions after the harvest that affect the ultimate taste and character of the wine. Chardonnay is a great example of a vino whose character is formed through decisions made in the winery.
Chardonnay-making is rather like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Start with the fruit; where you go from there can take you to many alternate endings. A couple of decisions that drastically alter the finished product:
Stainless steel or oak: Chardonnay fermented in stainless steel will maintain a certain liveliness. Fermented in oak barrels, however, it takes on a lush, ripe character with notes of oak and vanilla spices.
Malolactic fermentation: Malolactic fermentation converts harsher malic acid into softer, buttery lactic acid (think milk, cream and butter). Chard that hasn't been put through this process can taste bright, fresh and wildly acidic.
Read more Unoaked Chardonnay - Wine of the Week and vote in the Chardonnay poll after the jump.
For those who just did their taxes and are feeling a bit cash-poor, budget wines may be on the brain. Here are five wines that really deliver for the price.
1. Pacific Rim Sweet Riesling 2007 ($9). Normally I'm not a big sweet Riesling fan, but I brought this bottle to Easter dinner at a friend's house, where some of the diners prefer sweet wine. Sweet Riesling is a knockout with ham, and this Pacific Rim (at right) really delivered. My problem with most sweet Rieslings is their flabbiness, but this brand has an underlying backbone of acidity that perfectly balances the sugar. Riesling is a great spring wine with its aromatic bouquet that recalls the apple blossoms blooming in the northeast. At $9, it's a steal.
2. Graffigna Pinot Grigio 2008 ($13). Pinot Grigio has a bad rep as a wine without much character, but this Argentinian version turns that idea on its head. Its nose has a heady fragrance of flowers and peaches and the wine itself is zingy with a peachy taste. It's a dry vino, but so fruity it tastes almost sweet.
3. Korbel Brut Rose ($11): Lots of wine snobs dismiss Korbel, but I happen to think the Brut Rosé is one of the best sparkling values out there. It's a perfect aperitif, the kind of wine you hand your guests when they're walking in the door and dinner isn't quite ready -- it's like giving them a glass of strawberries to sip before dinner is served.
4. Castello Monachi Salice Salentino 2006 ($13): Hailing from Puglia in the heel of Italy's boot, this blend of 80 percent Negroamaro and 20 percent Malvasia Nero is dark, leathery and earthy with a typically slightly bitter Negroamaro finish. It's a very food-friendly red with high acidity and earthiness that seems to vanish into fruitiness when paired it with a red-sauced pasta dish or veal. Oh, and did I mention that Robert Parker gave this wine 90 points?
But, as the Cornell study notes, Pinot Noir is a fickle grape -- difficult to grow and especially difficult to grow well. New York winemakers should only get into Pinot Noir if they're committed to producing wines of quality.
Happily enough, some of them seem to be.
One caveat: Fans of big, ripe heavily extracted Pinots with sweet cherry cola flavors and plenty of body and alcohol won't like Pinots from the Finger Lakes, a region upstate.The cool-climate region is similar to Burgundy in that it struggles to produce grapes of optimum ripeness in some years. Vinos of these vintages generally have a low concentration, lower alcohol (12-13 percent rather than upwards of 14 percent), a subtle bouquet and a taste suited to a more sensitive palate. We found two we love.
Read more New York Pinot Noir - Wine of the Week after the jump.
The name Frescobaldi may immediately evoke both history (the Tuscan family has made wine since the 1300s and once traded wine for Michelangelo's paintings) and quality (they are responsible for some of the top Brunellos in the region).
In these lean economic times, Frescobaldi is trying on an new image -- value. According to industry research, people are still drinking vino, but they're trading down. A $30-per-bottle kind of guy may now be springing for $20 bottles. Folks who snagged $15 bottles in the fat days of 2008 may be hunting for $10 wines in the lean days of 2009.
But no one wants wines as thin as their portfolios. Can we get the same quality at a lower price?
Pinotage is the cilantro of the wine world -- you either love it or hate it, but very few people sit on the fence.
A cross between Cinsault and Pinot Noir, Pinotage was created in 1925 by a Stellenbosch, South Africa university professor. The idea was to reap the best of both grapes and combine the sturdiness of Cinsault in the vineyard with the world-class taste of Pinot Noir in the glass.
Unfortunately, sometimes beautiful parents produce an ugly child, and though Pinotage lovers would disagree, I think this grape falls squarely in the "do not cross" category. Why? Because, more than its good qualities, the wine is known for its burnt-rubber aftertaste.
There are a lot of wine descriptors that critics enthusiastically use to describe a high-quality wine. Cat's piss. Horse leather. Barnyard funk. But burnt rubber? Definitely not on the list.
With the exception of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc expresses terroir, or a "sense of place," better than any other wine.
The grape picks up minerality in the soil and shows it off in the wine with an exaggerated sense. Which is why, when I heard about Sauvignon Republic, a wine company dedicated to making Sauvignon Blanc from different regions around the world, I felt like I won the wine lottery. What could be better than tasting the terroir in a single brand of Sauvignon Blancs grown and made thousands of miles from each other?
I wrote about Sauvignon Blanc last fall when the 2008s were just starting to come out of Southern Hemisphere, but now it's spring up here, and I'm in the mood for them again. Sauv Blanc is light, zingy, minerally, refreshing and perfect with so many spring foods or just for sipping on the porch now that the days are (finally!) warming up.
If you can, find all three current releases of Sauvignon Republic's wines right now ($20 each) -- one each from Sonoma, Calif.; Stellenbosch, South Africa; and Marlborough, New Zealand, three areas where Sauvignon Blanc is known to do well.
Taste them together, and even better, blind, to see if you can detect differences among them. If so, you're talking terroir. See my tasting notes after the jump. (I blind-tasted and got them all wrong, but it was fun anyway.)
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
Gretchen Roberts
For those who just did their taxes and are feeling a bit cash-poor, budget wines may be on the brain. Here are five wines that really deliver for the price.
With the exception of Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc expresses terroir, or a "sense of place," better than any other wine.
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