"wine labels" news and stories

For Valentine's Day this year you could give your sweetheart one of our favorite boxes of chocolates or take our advice on a bottle of great sparkling wine. Or, you can celebrate humor and wit with one of these bottles. Each of the five labels we've selected is tongue-in-cheek, funny or downright obnoxious. But they're romantic all the same.

Without further ado, here are five of our favorite quirky, romantic wine labels.

Cycles Gladiator 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon, California ($10)
The red-haired woman cycling naked through a midnight sky is borrowed from a vintage (1895) French poster by G. Massias. In 2009 the state of Alabama deemed this logo -- from Hahn Family Wines -- pornographic and consequently banned its sale there. (Note, you can also purchase a Chardonnay, Syrah, Merlot and Pinot Grigio with the same label.)

Naughty Cellars 2004 "Racy Red" Blend, Napa Valley, California ($50)
Is the cherub on the label creepy or naughty? You decide. Since it's Napa Valley red fruit you probably can't go wrong with this wine. Buddies Steve Reynolds (owns Reynolds Family Winery) and Oscar Renteria (a seasoned member of Renteria Vineyard Management) teamed up to create this juicy blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Cabernet Franc, as well as its very suggestive label. And it doesn't stop with "Racy": the collection also includes "Sticky" (Semilion and Sauvignon Blanc), "Inky" (Petite Sirah and Syrah) and two "Naughty Bubblies" (Rose and Brut).

In today's Los Angeles Times Food Section:

The sweet side of rhubarb - and I was literally just thinking that I should try my hand at rhubarb pie like mom used to make (er, not MY mom). Russ Parsons examines the many faces, sweet and sour, of this complicated veggie.

Accompanying recipes include rhubarb crisp a la mode with strawberry sauce (please! It's too early in the morning to be reading such things!) and rhubarb-strawberry sorbet.

Perfecting Chicken: Roasted or otherwise. And a recipe for roast chicken with fried artichokes and lemon. Other recipes include: braised chicken with capers and a Basque-style chicken.

S. Irene Virbila reviews the new Citrus at Social Hollywood, chef Michael Richard's experiment with running a successful restaurant from across the country.

Meet the man who's going to revamp your wine label -- complete with calories and nutritional information. You mean wine has calories...? And a sidebar with the history of U.S. wine label regulations.

A lively but not too complimentary review of the Top Chef Cookbook.

Wine of the week is a 2006 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Etna Rosso.

Finally, Susan la Tempa looks back at several easy late-night recipes here.

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When you see the alcohol percentage noted on the side of a bottle of wine, you probably don't think too much of it, but it may not be as accurate as you might think. The alcohol content is required by law by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Trade Bureau (TTB) to be listed on the front of a bottle, but there is a range allowed. The benchmark for the alcohol content of wine is 14% because that is the level at which taxes go up. For wines that have less than 14 percent alcohol by volume, they are allowed to have plus or minus 1.5% of the content listed. So, for example, a 12.5% wine could actually have either 11% or 14%, which can be a fairly significant different if you're having more than one glass with dinner. Wines over 14% alcohol are allowed to be plus or minus 1%.

In general, the more precisely the alcohol content is written, whether it is 12.9% or 14.2%, the more accurate it is likely to be. If nothing else, you can always estimate based on the 14% benchmark if you really need to know how much alcohol you're consuming.

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Celebrity Cellars, famous (?) for the iconic Rolling Stones lips wine, is shipping a new variety starting January 12, 2006: Madonna. The label is typically sexy material girl and features two images from "Confessions on a Dance Floor," Madonna as a "sexy disco diva."

The wine comes in Barbera, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Grigio and, of course, UnWine for those recovering alcoholic Madonna fans. Although the blurbs describe the wines (the Barbera: "has abundant, velvety layers of ripe plums, blackberries and spice"), there's no telling how reputable the wine, or whether it's even meant to be drunk. The vineyards are loosely described as "cooler valleys of Northern California," which could basically be anywhere. So, what do you think - should this be drunk?   [via the feed blog]

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