Monthly Archives: September 2011

When writing about a wine for this blog, I like to do a little casual research, consulting the tomes weighing down the coffee table. Usually I find they’re in general agreement about a particular varietal or region and I glean various complementary tidbits of information from each.

However, in the case of Puglia, the heel of Italy’s boot, my two favorite sources conflicted so completely, I didn’t know what to think. Both The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia by Tom Stevenson and The Oxford Companion to Wine by Jancis Robinson agree that “a great many ordinary wines are still produced” (Stevenson) in Puglia. Beyond that, it’s as if I were reading about two different wine regions.

Stevenson concedes that in the 1970’s, most of Puglia’s wines “were seen fit only for blending or for making vermouth,” but he strikes a much more optimistic tone than Robinson, noting that Puglian winemakers “radically” transformed the industry and “various changes have greatly improved the situation.” Lower yielding varieties have been introduced, he explains, and winemakers moved “away from the single-bush cultivation, known as alberello, to modern wire-trained systems.” All in all, Puglia shows “renewed promise.”

Robinson sounds an altogether more pessimistic note, mourning the demise of single-bush cultivation. She points out how “Many growers have taken subsidies from the European Union to grub up their vineyards but, unfortunately, many of these were of low-yielding bushvines, while those remaining tend to be high-cropping inferior varieties planted on fertile soils.” Even in DOC zones, “High yields are the rule, and a significant number of DOCs have lost credibility with excessively tolerant production limits.”

What to think? I turned to my old standby, André Dominé’s Wine, for a tie-breaking opinion. (more…)

The deliciously cool evenings of September call for light, fun reds — it’s still too warm to crack open the really serious stuff. While picking up a few odds and ends at Trader Joe’s, I noticed a $7 bottle of 2007 Epicuro Salice Salentino, a sunny red from Puglia, and for a Denominazione di Origine Controllata Riserva, it seemed like a steal.

Until, that is, I read up a bit on the Italian wine classification system. According to Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine, the DOC classification system was created in the 1960’s, when Italian wine was arguably at its worst. New wines and new techniques fit poorly into the government’s system, and subsequent revisions to the system have helped but little (Super Tuscans being a notable exception). Even now, innovation continues to be stifled by poorly designed government regulations.

So much for my system of seeking out wines with Controllata, Riserva or Controllata e Garantita on the label.

In any case, $7 seemed hard to beat, the inconsistencies of the DOC structure notwithstanding. I suspect it was so inexpensive because it was already old; wines like this aren’t really meant to age. I uncorked it and hoped for the best.

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When taking a road trip, bringing along the appropriate beverage is crucial. And though my paternal grandfather reportedly used to declare, “You’re never really too drunk to drive,” I err on the side of caution and pack some non-alcoholic treats.

My current #1 road trip drink is Reed’s Extra Ginger Brew, an “All Natural Jamaican Style” ginger beer. Sold in packs of four bottles, this ginger beer, unlike regular ginger ales, is “carefully brewed and aged like fine wine in small batches by [Reed’s’] expert brewmasters,” according to the website.

However they make it, the ginger beer tastes delicious, with small bubbles and a powerfully spicy ginger kick (sure to keep you awake while driving). It lacks caffeine, but since caffeine is a diuretic, that can perhaps be an advantage.

Once you reach your destination, you can save any leftover bottles for the trip home, or even better, make a proper cocktail. My favorites are the Dark ‘n’ Stormy and the Moscow Mule:

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When a men’s room flood shorts out a circuit panel and your office building loses power for two days, there’s just one thing to do: Braise some celery and open a half-bottle of Zinfandel.

We slow-braised celery (seriously) with onions, garlic, tomato paste, fresh black olives, red pepper flakes and a hefty dose of olive oil. There’s no denying it’s an unorthodox dish, but it tastes absolutely delicious — hearty, savory and spicy, with a wisp of bitterness underneath. You can find the recipe here.

I reheated some for a light dinner, and I looked around in my collection for something big to pair with it. I found some good candidates, but I was dining alone, and opening a full bottle seemed a bit of a waste. Even I can’t put away an entire bottle. Or, well, it seemed unwise on a weeknight, certainly. Fortunately, I had a half bottle of what turned out to be a delightful 2009 Tin Barn Vineyards Zinfandel.

Zinfandel from Sonoma’s Russian River Valley can hardly be classified as obscure, but half bottles of anything other than dessert wines are still surprisingly rare. Even the largest wine stores tend to have just a corner devoted to them. It’s odd and unfortunate, because half bottles come in quite handy.

I frequently drink alone for this blog, I will freely admit, and it would be ever so much less wasteful to uncork half bottles. Typically, I’ll taste only about 1/3 of a full bottle before calling it a night. I’ll spray a blanket of inert gas on the remainder, which sits undisturbed on my counter or in my fridge for approximately four days, after which time I feel less guilty about pouring it down the drain. A half bottle solves this problem, allowing me to proceed with my important blogging work guilt-free.

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