Ask the Somm

bewarethejabb

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How cool, a sub-forum for the other random thing I do!

If any of you ever need to know anything about wine, ask me in this thread. I'm a CMS certified sommelier for my day job. If I don't know the answer, I will look it up, and it will be good for both of us.

I apologize for acting self-important if there's already someone here who is as or more qualified than I am. I don't know many somms who are also fiction writers, but with my luck there's a Master lurking around her somewhere and I just look like an arse now.

But if you don't know something about wine, ask away!
 

mccardey

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How cool, a sub-forum for the other random thing I do!

If any of you ever need to know anything about wine, ask me in this thread. I'm a CMS certified sommelier for my day job. If I don't know the answer, I will look it up, and it will be good for both of us.

I apologize for acting self-important if there's already someone here who is as or more qualified than I am. I don't know many somms who are also fiction writers, but with my luck there's a Master lurking around here somewhere and I just look like an arse now.

But if you don't know something about wine, ask away!


Ahem - that would be me.
 

mccardey

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OMG - I can't stand it! I feel guilty in case you think I actually meant it. Iwas just teasing - I'm not a somm, I don't even like wine, I spent the whole of last year in the chateauneuf de pape region in France and didn't drink anything. Something came over me. *sob* I'm sorry.

Where's Mirandashell? She usually digs me out of this sort of catastrophe.
 
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bewarethejabb

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Hey, at least I covered my bases :) Lovely to "meet" you.

People should still ask me random stuff and make me look it up. It's still good for me.
 

bewarethejabb

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Hahaha. And here I was, not at all surprised. I was about to ask your name, too, and then you would really have been stuck.
 

mccardey

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Oh, we cross-posted! If only I'd held out a minute longer! You would have felt terrible! :ROFL:

Damn!
 

RedRajah

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With winter upon us, I've a friend who is also vegetarian. What wines pair well with root vegetables, winter squashes and bean stews?
 

GeorgeK

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This reminds me of a movie with Vincent Price and....Who was the little black haired guy with the bug eyes? Vincent's a somm, the little guy is a...wino? who really knows what he likes...

Now I've been googling it and can't find it, but it was a good movie. It may have been a short regarding Poe's stuff
 

GeorgeK

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With winter upon us, I've a friend who is also vegetarian. What wines pair well with root vegetables, winter squashes and bean stews?

MALBEC...It's sort of a South American Shiraz with fruity overtones. If it's not available you can make a blend of 2 parts merlot with one part lambrusco
 
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Myrealana

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Generally my philosophy is "It's wine o'clock somehere."

My questions about what wine to buy or order were all answered very effectively by John Cleese some time ago.
 

jvc

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If, after a couple of bottles, the voices in my head have quietened, then the wine has done its job. And that's all I can ask for really.
 

Maryn

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I'm a wine lover who doesn't know nearly enough about how to identify the traits of what she likes so she can find more like it. Instead, I just buy the same things over and over. It's been a while since I made a discovery...

For a wine drinker who enjoys a sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio with fish or chicken, and who does not like grapefruit or citrus elements, got any recommendations? Especially under $15, or it'll become a special-occasions-only indulgence.

Maryn, who'd drink wine with every meal if that wasn't bad for her (what goes with cereal and milk?)
 

ResearchGuy

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Could be a fun thread. FWIW, a year of Saturday tastings (most weeks; can't make 'em all) at an excellent local wine shop (www.thewineconsultant.com), visits to local wineries, plus thousands of pages of reading, and wine almost every day, has been an education. It is an endlessly interesting topic.

--Ken
 

bewarethejabb

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With winter upon us, I've a friend who is also vegetarian. What wines pair well with root vegetables, winter squashes and bean stews?

Argh! I had such a long reply that got eaten by hitting send right as my wifi crapped out. First world problems.

List of important questions before I can answer you accurately: What sort of spices and cooking methods? Flavours in the bean soup like chili? like curry? Or...? Root vegetables - roasted, grilled, braised? Oil, garlic? Butter? Herbs d' provence? Tomato? Balsamic? Lemon? They can go very different ways, and the overall flavour profile matters a lot.

Do you and your friend hate meat flavours, or just meat ethically? Ie, are you into fake-on and bacon salt (I LOVE bacon salt) and chik'n nuggets and bbq seitan? Becuase a lot of wine that call things out in meat go just as well with soyrizo and chorizo, but if you actually don't like the seaoning profile, then we need to go in a different direction.

Finally, budget? Also very important in making useful recommendations,
 

RedRajah

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My friend's the vegetarian (health & morality reasons) -- I'm an unabashed omnivore. :D

Spice-wise, so far we're looking at elements of Thai (mild curry/heat, butternut squash soup), Jamaican (allspice, cumin, garlic, cayenne. sweet potato-black bean stew ) and Middle Eastern (cinnamon & lemon, toasted pearl couscous w/roasted winter squash & onion).

Oil used is olive (or Pam cooking spray).

Budget, nothing to break the bank over. $12 or less.
 

bewarethejabb

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I'm a wine lover who doesn't know nearly enough about how to identify the traits of what she likes so she can find more like it. Instead, I just buy the same things over and over. It's been a while since I made a discovery...

For a wine drinker who enjoys a sauvignon blanc or pinot grigio with fish or chicken, and who does not like grapefruit or citrus elements, got any recommendations? Especially under $15, or it'll become a special-occasions-only indulgence.

Maryn, who'd drink wine with every meal if that wasn't bad for her (what goes with cereal and milk?)

Sauvignon blanc is famous for it's grapefruit elements. We either have to determine what shitty sauv blanc you've been drinking that it doesn't taste like grapefruit, or what it is you're calling grapefruit that everyone else calls by some other name. May i suggestion you try a little experiment with some friends who want to learn as well?

Buy: a new zealand sauvignon blanc and a sancerre or poiully fume (two kinds of french sauv blanc). Both are consistently available for under $15 from trader joe's. pour yourself a sip of each (use two glasses) and compare them and tell me which ones taste more like lemon? like lime? like oranges? like grapefruit? or what about apples? sour green or sweet honeycrisp? maybe pear? hard bosc or ripe d'anjou? You get the point. Maybe even buy a lemon and a lime and an orange and a grapefruit, and peel them each, smell the zest, eat a wedge, find out if it's REALLY grapefruit you're smelling.

Pinot grigio should come from Friuli, Italy. Everything else is an imposter. (Pinot Gris from Alsace is the same grape but a different beast.) Good pinot grigio should taste of almonds, ginger, cherry blossoms, white pepper. Cheap pinot grigio is glorified water.

You can get a good Fruilian PG for $10-15 for sure. Avoid the three buck chuck, however.
 

bewarethejabb

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Also, Maryn: I read a study recently that suggests drinking alcohol, of any kind, is good for your heart until the point where it's bad for your liver. The happy medium is an average of 4-6 drinks per day, depending on body weight.

Two caveats: by a "drink" they mean a standard pour: a 4.5 oz glass of standard-strength wine, a 12 oz standard-strength beer, one standard-proof shot as measured in a jigger. Pouring your wine glass to the brim, drinking pints of 11% skull splitter beers, or calling a martini (which is 3.5 shots on average) "one" drink is not the point. Secondly, they're not speaking of running out and doing six shots - they're speaking of drinking gradually over the course of the day with food, such as is the norm in southern europe. Have a beer with lunch, a cocktail with tapas, a glass of wine with dinner, maybe a bit of cognac or baileys afterwards. At no point are you ever DRUNK on this method. But yeah, a few glasses of wine every day with food like you're suggesting? Spot on.

Also, MIMOSAS are what you drink with cereal and milk, silly girl. If you're not having Champagne for breakfast, you're not living up to the true potential of your own fabulousness.
 

bewarethejabb

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My friend's the vegetarian (health & morality reasons) -- I'm an unabashed omnivore. :D

Spice-wise, so far we're looking at elements of Thai (mild curry/heat, butternut squash soup), Jamaican (allspice, cumin, garlic, cayenne. sweet potato-black bean stew ) and Middle Eastern (cinnamon & lemon, toasted pearl couscous w/roasted winter squash & onion).

Oil used is olive (or Pam cooking spray).

Budget, nothing to break the bank over. $12 or less.

I'm former vegan who still really likes vegan food, but I'm too much of a foodie to be anything but a dedicated omnivore.

With Thai food, I absolutely love riesling, gewurtztraminer, and chenin blanc. Sweet counteracts spicy, and thai curries often have notes like pineapple in the. In this case, the butternut squash will likely be sweet. Good riesling comes from Germany, btw. Fuck California. Far too hot to make good riesling. Also doesn't have to be sweet - it can be anywhere on the gradient from bone dry to the sweet most people know to thick and syrupy, literally, as honey. My favourite region for riesling is Mosel, up in the mountains in Germany. Very steep slopes with granite soil - big chunks of black rock, really, doesn't even look like soil. The roots draw up the granite element in the groundwater, and you get a really 'clean' taste. You know that 'mineral water' flavour, a la Evian? That comes from streams that run over mountain streambeds of slate. People usually love the "slate-y" note in water, or in wine. It's clear and refreshing. You probably also know limestone in water - that's the "hard water" kind of mouth-coating, bitter, eggy flavour. Limestone happens elsewhere, though, back to Mosel. They are going for a quality they call 'transparency' - a sense of sheerness, and elegance. It should have a delicate, perfume-y nose... all sweet fuji apples and d'anjour pears and little mandarin oranges in the can, white peaches and fresh apricot and white flowers. Perfumey, but understated. Like a pretty woman who knows not to put on too much. It reminds me of "Joy" meets someone cutting into a pear. Girly, delicate, gorgeous, fleeting, clean and sheer and slate-y. Thrilling acidity that makes it perfect with food. I could seriously sit there and smell Mosel all day. I cannot overstate how excited I am that one of your foods would work well with Mosel.

Another experiment: get a Mosel riesling, spatlese, preferably (Google "german ripeness categories" for the meaning of that second word - it's relevant, but already simply explained in many places on the internet) and any american one. The American one will be bigger, louder, riper, more bosom-y, and the Mosel will be all understated elegance. Unless you have a hardcore sweet tooth you'll never go back.

Gewurtztraminer, which literally means "the little spicy one" is a very complex, beautiful perfume-y wine, but can be almost too much for some people. White flowers, pepper, ginger, sweet fruit. It always smells like it;s going to be syrupy sweet even when it's bone dry. It's so spicy and complex it can stand up to crazy weird thai and indian foods and hold it's own, though it doesn't have the acidity of riesling, so it won't cut grease as well. Get a Gewurtz from Alasce for the trueness of type. Try it side by side with your mosel to comprehend the difference - the gewurtz is lusher and louder on the nose, but softer on the palate. Riesling is more restrained, but the acidity just sings and sings.

You can definitely get good examples of both for under $15, and probably under $12. I know for a fact that trader joe's always has a good mosel for about $10. If you are cooking two nights in a row, get both at once and try them both with the thai and the jamaican (can you cook that for me, btw?) and see what you prefer with what. They'll both do fine with both, but one will probably edge out the other in your personal preference, so compare thoroughly and be educated for the future!

definitely get one of these: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00004SAF4/?tag=absowrit-20 It stops your wine from going off if you don't drink it the first night. Great for drinking slowly, or for opening a few things at once to try in comparison without wasting the rest of the bottle, so you can try them with different foods over several nights.

Try Beaujolais with the middle eastern one. It's November - the Beaujolias Noveau is here! I'll wax poetic about that later; enough for one post.
 

RedRajah

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I absolutely looooooove Gewurztraminer and Rieslings, luckily enough. Was trying to find a decent Gewurtz for Thanksgiving w/the in-laws this year (they love Rieslings too).

I will definitely keep an eye out for Mosel though. I had a good experience with a dry Riesling from here in Ohio last year from Paper Moon.
 

bewarethejabb

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Great, easy to find Alscasean shippers for reputable gewrutzes include Zind-Humbrecht, Trimbach, Hugel and Sons (I think the label says Hugel et Fils, but that's what it means.) Unfortunatey, most of their offerings will be around the $20 mark (which is not bank-breaking, but it's not quite what you were going for,) but it's a starting point if you want to really get to know what the style should be. Go into a wine store and say you're looking for a dry Alscasean gewurtz LIKE those three big names, but a bargain, and they should be able to guide you.

One of the best and most widely distributed shippers of Mosel is Dr. Loosen, although the trader joe's brand is very respectable, and cheaper.
 

MaryMumsy

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I had a white from Trader Joe's a while back that I actually liked. I don't usually drink white, but needed some for a recipe. Went to the wine stash and rummaged. Found something that looked possible and took it to the kitchen. Opened it and tasted. Yum. Not a chardonney, not reisling, not pinot grigio, or any of the usual suspects with white. It was one of TJ's house brands (not Chuck). Unfortunately hubby recycled the bottle before I wrote it down. Have to make a trip to TJ to search. Someone must have brought it some time when we had guests.

Take my liking it with a grain of salt. According to my wine loving friends, I have appalling taste in wine. I'm the girl who tastes a $50 bottle of cab sav, goes hmmm not bad, and pours the rest over a glass of ice.

MM
 

bewarethejabb

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Trader Joe's really does have some good value-quality balanced stuff. Nothing earth-shattering, but because of their tendency to buy out the entire stock of something for a lower price and label it with their house brand, they sell for $10 bottles that should be $15, etc.
 

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Also, Maryn: I read a study recently that suggests drinking alcohol, of any kind, is good for your heart until the point where it's bad for your liver. The happy medium is an average of 4-6 drinks per day, depending on body weight.

Two caveats: by a "drink" they mean a standard pour: a 4.5 oz glass of standard-strength wine, a 12 oz standard-strength beer, one standard-proof shot as measured in a jigger. Pouring your wine glass to the brim, drinking pints of 11% skull splitter beers, or calling a martini (which is 3.5 shots on average) "one" drink is not the point. Secondly, they're not speaking of running out and doing six shots - they're speaking of drinking gradually over the course of the day with food, such as is the norm in southern europe. Have a beer with lunch, a cocktail with tapas, a glass of wine with dinner, maybe a bit of cognac or baileys afterwards. At no point are you ever DRUNK on this method. But yeah, a few glasses of wine every day with food like you're suggesting? Spot on.

Also, MIMOSAS are what you drink with cereal and milk, silly girl. If you're not having Champagne for breakfast, you're not living up to the true potential of your own fabulousness.

I can't believe that's not per week. That has to be per week; I've never seen close to anything like that recommended by any health professional anyplace.
 

kikazaru

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This reminds me of a movie with Vincent Price and....Who was the little black haired guy with the bug eyes? Vincent's a somm, the little guy is a...wino? who really knows what he likes...

Now I've been googling it and can't find it, but it was a good movie. It may have been a short regarding Poe's stuff

Are you thinking of Peter Lorre?