Didja hear the one about the wine called "New York Jew"?
We're not making this up: Although the punchlines practically write themselves -- "this bottle's got three varietals and four opinions, folks" -- the North Carolina restaurateur behind this new vino swears he's serious.
Eric Scheffer, who worked with Pat Roney and Leslie Rudd of the North Coast's Windsor Vineyards to create the new-this-month red blend of Cabernet and Petit Syrah grapes that comprise his New York Jew label, says sales have been tremendous.
"I can't keep cases of it in the restaurant," says Scheffer, a Brooklyn native who opened Savoy in Asheville, N.C., more than a decade ago. "I have people in Detroit and Chicago asking how they can get the wine. I have people driving up from Florida for it."
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.
Ubuntu Sommelier Daniel Sarao Photo: Michelle Branton
At Ubuntu, Napa Valley's acclaimed vegetarian restaurant slash yoga studio, it falls to wine director and general manager Daniel Sarao to find harmony between the lush bounty of on-site gardens and a vino list sparkling with biodynamic sips.
The son of Italian immigrants who taught him an appreciation for wine, Sarao put himself through college and grad school working at restaurants, cutting short a trajectory towards a liberal arts Ph.D. for the life of a full-time oenophile. We chatted with him about the myths around pairing wine with veggies (yes, you can drink red!), the wonders of caramelizing and five inexpensive summer sippers to pair with grilled veggies.
Are you a vegetarian? I am not a vegetarian. The chef is not a vegetarian and neither is the owner. But we believe that vegetables can stand on their own. We are breaking the stereotype.
How much of what you serve comes from your garden? Right now we get about 75 to 80 percent of our ingredients from [our garden]. Our goal is to get almost everything from there. It makes an amazing difference. Squash and peppers are [in season] right now.
Learn more, plus five great wines for under $25 to pair with vegetable dishes, after the jump.
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.
In just two years as the sommelier and wine director at New York's world-renowned Le Bernardin restaurant, 37-year-old Aldo Sohm has become a wine world heavyweight, having been recognized as "Best Sommelier in the World" in 2008 and earlier this month for "Best Wine Service" at the James Beard Awards. Trained in his native Austria, Sohm came to the United States to improve on his then "dumpy" English so he could better compete at wine competitions. We caught up with Sohm this morning to chat about the unwritten rule of pairing fish with white wine, which vino goes well with grilled salmon and that other reason why he now lives in America.
How did you become a sommelier?
Ever since I was little I had a thing of smelling food and wines. At first I didn't really like wine when I entered the industry. This was [when I was ] 16 or 17. People in the restaurant would ask me what you could recommend and I didn't know and thought this was embarrassing. [Then] I went on a wine trip with my father -- he invited me. I was 20 and I saw it, and it was kind of interesting and just went from there. You said you moved to the United States to improve your English, but I get the sense there was another reason?
Austrians love to complain. I hate to complain so I figured it is easier to change a country than to change myself.
More about pairing rules -- and how to break them -- after the jump.
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.
Chantelle Pabros, a sommelier at Chicago's L20, is widely considered a rising star of the wine universe. Entrenched among oenophiles since leaving high school, at a mere 26 she has worked alongside world-renowned talent including chef Laurent Gras at his seafood-centric eatery. Though Chantelle has few hard and fast rules about pairing wine with food, she offered a couple tips as we head into prime grilling season. We caught up with her this afternoon to talk burgers and vino.
Do you think burgers and wine go together? Yes, absolutely. Though we don't have burgers [at L20], I like pairing wine with them. There is this place here called Kuma's Corner. We normally drink beer there, but I am thinking about the possibilities of wines with their burgers.
How does one go about pairing the two? With pairing, things that you think would go well don't always go. It's trial and error. I start by thinking about the classic burger, cooked medium rare with really fresh lettuce, tomato, onion and a really intense mustard. Chantelle's five under-$25 burger-friendly wines after the jump.
"Loco for locavorism" might sound like some bizarro play on an old TV ad, but the phrase carries some heft these days, if the crowd at last night's Brooklyn Uncorked was any indication. The sip-and-nibble-fest in honor of local goods was jam-packed with tipsy oenophiles clutching wine glasses and munching on local pickles (garlicky!), rosé sorbet (brilliant!) and buzzed-about turkey meatloaf (by the time we got there, gone!). Dozens of local restaurants, wineries and producers were on the premises: as one sign bragged, no vinos were made more than a two-hour drive from Brooklyn.
Hyperlocalism isn't local to New York City, either. Edible Communities, whose Edible Brooklyn hosted the tasting, boasts more than 50 publications from Missoula, Wash., to Santa Fe, N.M. All feature the same bright, minimalistic food-focused design touting "local foods, season by season." If you believe that New York hearkens nationwide trends, well, like the Brooklyn Food Conference before it, this event was sold-out and about as crowded as could be.
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.
Just in time for your next Saturday night pasta party, a new jarred sauce that's worth a first taste and second helping has appeared on store shelves. Mezzetta, the company famous for such glass-jarred wonders as snappy peperoncini and an addictive giardiniera, has launched Napa Valley Bistro, a line of pasta sauces prepared with Napa Valley wines. We were glad to cook up a sample sent our way and toss it with some noodles. Hey, anything for our readers – especially if it involves eating spaghetti.
We tried two versions: basic marinara and the creamy version. The saucy results are 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.
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
Just in time for your next Saturday night pasta party, a new jarred sauce that's worth a first taste and second helping has appeared on store shelves. 
Second Helping of Slashfood - June 19
Competitive-Eating Contest to Pit Humans Against Elephants
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