12-17 Think about Pink

It used to be tough for me to decide what to serve at a dinner party when I knew the group would be headed out afterwards, but I think I've come up with a great solution after a couple trial events. The best wine to serve at a pre-party or pre-evening out dinner is Pink. It is usually lighter in alcohol then red wine and doesn't leave you feeling sleepy, so you'll have plenty of tolerance and energy to continue your fabulous evening. It will also stand up to bigger foods than white wine, so you can still serve that rack of ribs, instead of being forced to work with chicken or fish (which it also pairs rather nicely with). This New Year's Eve, my husband and I are planning on having a small group over to dine with us, prior to opening our doors to a much larger audience for the turn of the year. I'm planning to serve my famous lemon confit ribs, and a little pink wine to go with it!

Pink wine has been dealt a bad rap. Some of it is deserved, and most of its not. Pink wines are very popular among the French, known there as Rose (pronounced Rose-ay). They were very popular in America too, in the 70s and 80s, and have since developed a reputation for being cheap and sweet. Back then they were deserving of that reputation, however today, you can find very delicious pink wines made in the U.S. as long as you keep one key thing in mind: don't buy anything called "white (insert grape name)". This means, no white merlot, white cabernet, or the ever popular white zinfandel. These wines are going to be the sappy, inexpensive wines you're probably not looking for.

White Zinfandel was first introduced by Sutter Home Winery in the early 1970s. The story I've been told is that the winemaker was trying to make a more concentrated zinfandel wine and removed some of the juice so that there was more skin in contact with the juice that remained (giving it more flavor, tannin, etc). He decided to ferment the juice he had removed and see how it turned out. During fermentation, the wine stopped converting sugar to alcohol early (winemakers say this got "stuck" in fermentation). The result was a lower alcohol sweet wine that consumers loved. White Zinfandel continues to maintain popularity, but it is not considered the sophisticated beverage that most wines are today. However, it should be highly regarded by wine snobs and wine slobs alike, as it most likely saved the zinfandel plants from being torn up back in the 80s, when Cabernet began to reign supreme, as white zinfandel was still a big seller.

Happy Holidays!

12-5 Cheating words

The most important thing to remember about tasting is that whatever you think you taste is what you should say you taste. I recall one time in my degree program at the Culinary Institute that a well respected wine student confidently stated that the riesling we were tasting reminded her of a woman in an orange tu-tu. While I, and many of my classmates giggled, our teacher just asked her to explain. Since I was giggling, I missed the explanation, but the teacher seemed satisfied. The moral is, that if a Certified Wine professional can taste a woman in an orange tu-tu in a glass of riesling, then you can easily taste just about any fruit or spice in your glass of wine. I do recommend, however, sticking to fruits and spices (and maybe some vegetables), until you've got some real street cred behind you.

Even with that vote of confidence, most people still want some guidelines that our easy to remember. Tonight I'll give you some safe, bare bones tasting notes and someday soon I'll elaborate a little based on varietal. You should be able to remember these without writing them on a secret piece of paper stashed in your pocket, or worse, the palm of your nervous little hand!
Pink to Pale Red Wine- Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, white pepper
Medium Red- Raspberries, black cherries, violet, white pepper
Dark Red- Plums, blackberries, cassis, black pepper (maybe even leather or tobacco)

Pale Yellow (like albarino, tocai fruilano, sauvignon blanc)- lemon, minerals (think wet stones), zippy
Medium Yellow (like sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, pinot gris)- grapefruit, pineapple, peaches)
Darker Yellow (like chardonnay, viogner)- apples, pears, peaches, butter, cream, toast

Hopefully this will give you some confidence at your next tasting, and help you pretend you know a little something.

12-2 Holiday Cocktailian

In addition to being a wine and food fanatic, I also enjoy a side gig as a cocktailian. The definition of cocktailian, one who designs cocktails, cannot be found in the Miriam Webster dictionary, so I'm pretty sure it was created by my favorite cocktailian and writer for the San Francisco chronicle, Gary Reagan. He has a great bar book called The Joy of Mixology that can help you on your way to becoming a cocktailian too.

Here are my latest creations for the holidays. The recipes are all designed to make by the pitcher. Pitcher drinks are great for parties because they can be self-served rather than making each drink individually, which means a lot less hosting and a lot more socializing!

Mistletoe Kiss

3 1/2 cups cranberry juice
1 1/2 cups vodka
3/4 cup creme de cacao
4 1/2 tablespoons orange juice

Mix all ingredients in a pitcher and chill in the refrigerator. When you are ready to serve, fill four short drink glasses with ice and pour drink into glasses (or, as may be the case...let your guests pour themselves!)

Reindeer Cheer
2 bottles of red wine (sweeter is better, but remember that it must taste pleasant!)
1 cup sugar
6 Limes, halved

Wash your limes. With a lime juicer (available at Crate and Barrel, etc), squeeze the lime juice from all 12 lime halves into a pitcher, reserving the skins. Cut each of the halves into four pieces and add to the pitcher (this is just for aesthetics, you can also just dump the halves in if you don't care if any end up in the glass when it is poured). Add the sugar and mash the limes with the sugar (a muddler is the best tool for this, but you can use any large spoon or spatula). Pour in both bottles of red wine and stir mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Serve over ice in wine glasses. This is a lot like sangria but the red and green makes it very festive!

Feliz Caramel

3 cups Apple Pucker
1 cup Butterscotch Schnapps
1 cup tequila
1 cup water

Mix all ingredients in a pitcher and chill. Serve over ice in small cocktail glasses. You can vary the amount of water to determine the potency of this one. If you add no water, serve as a shot.

My husband and I just threw our second annual Best Holiday Cocktail Party last night. The party is themed around an hourly cocktail, usually of my own mixology. On the hour, each hour, the drink is announced and the cocktail team (me and two highly evolved tasters), don cowboy hats and circle the room to serve it. One of us holds the pitcher, another the ice, and the third holds the cups. We dish out the cocktail to anyone who is empty (and some who just have an empty hand), giving us the opportunity to touch base with all the guests. The recipes above were from this years cocktail list.

A special thank you to all of my wonderful tasters who attended the party last night for helping me determine that this list of recipes was worth sharing!

11-28 BYOB

To some of you, I'm sure BYOB still means bring your own beer. While that is still an appropriate meaning if you are going to, say, a superbowl party, I've got another one for you. Bring your own Bottle. Sometimes a restaurant will open before they get their liquor license, and they will allow you to bring in your own bottle of wine (or beer). They will somehow designate that they are BYOB (usually on the menu and on their website, if they have one). It is also acceptable and appropriate to bring you own bottle of wine to almost any restaurant as long as you follow a few simple guidelines.
Do's
1. Call the restaurant first, or look on their website, to confirm that they allow you to bring wine. Also confirm how much they charge you to have them open it and make sure it is an amount that you are willing to pay (corkage*).
2. Once you are seated at your table, let the waiter or waitress know that you have a bottle you would like him to open, and when to open it.
3. Tell the waiter that he is welcome to save some for himself to try as well (a nice gesture that may help with the corkage fee.)
4. Bring a wine that is special to you in some way, even if the reason it's special is just because you already know that you like it a lot.
Dont's
1. Don't bring a wine that is on their list.
2. Don't bring a wine that is seriously cheapo, that's an insult to the chef and the sommelier (wine person).
3. You might not want to bring your own if you are meeting up at a bar for a drink first. I once tried to stop in to Harry Denton's for a drink before dinner, toting along the bottle that I was going to bring to a restaurant down the street, and they refused to let me in with it. I guess they were worried that I would crack the bottle open with my hands and drink straight from it, instead of waiting behind the flurry of barely of age kids for my drink. Just a warning.

You can do a little research in your area to find out if there are restaurants that waive corkage at certain times of the month or for wines purchased from a nearby wine shop.

In SF:
Mondays, no corkage at Zuppa
Tuesdays, no corkage at Zazie
Wednesdays, no corkage at Alamo Square

Fish and Farm only charges $5 for a California wine and waives the fee if you buy a second bottle.
PlumpJack doesn't charge corkage if you buy the wine from their wine shop.

*Corkage typically varies from $10-$45. I've never seen anything more than $45, which was at the four star French Laundry in Napa. The amount is meant to cover glassware, service, and unfortunately compensation for what they are not making off of selling you one of their own wines. It is highly correlated to the priciness of the restaurant. Restaurants will sometimes wave the fee if you buy a second bottle of of their list, or if you tell a really good story about why you are opening the bottle (ie your late grandfather worked for the winery as a kid, you won it from your father in a bet, its your birthday and its your favorite wine). BYOB restaurants that don't serve any alcohol of their own usually don't charge anything for corkage, but they will probably just give you a corkscrew and water glasses and let you pour yourselves. At least then you won't have to wait for the waiter to come around and fill you up!

11-28 It Must be Drinkable

The first rule of cooking with wine is that you can't cook with wine you can't drink. If it tastes terrible in the bottle, it will taste even more terrible once you've have heated it, reduced it, and poured it on your food. Its unfortunate, I know, but the best use for bad wine is staining your sink pink as you pour it down the drain (if the wine was red that is).

That said, here's a few recipes for either your leftover, drinkable wine or a good reason to open a bottle even though you probably won't finish it (you had to...the recipe called for it!):

Sweet Meat or poultry glaze:
Once you have finished pan-frying meat on the stove, there should be a little bit of oil and some little bits from the meat left in the pan. Over medium high heat add about 1/4 cup of wine (red for red meat and white for poultry) and scrape up any bits that charred to the pan. Next add 1/4 - 1/2c of diced fruit (something chunky) and 1 tablespoon of jam or preserves (something sweet). Reduce 5-7 minutes are until it looks thick enough to hold up as a sauce on your dish. Add salt or pepper to taste. This is also a great use for that strange jam you thought sounded so interesting at the farmer's market.

Yummy Combinations
For pork:
White wine, diced persimmon, and yuzu preserves (this is a japanese citrus fruit)
White wine, mango, and jalapeno preserves (also good on chicken)

For beef or lamb:
Red wine, chopped figs, and fig preserves (if you just have fresh figs try combining with a little honey or brown sugar to sweeten)
Red wine, cherries, and molasses (also good on pork)

Its also nice to sprinkle a little of a chopped herb on top once you have added the sauce to the meat. This could be cilantro, chives, basil, etc. Get creative. Its hard to go wrong as long as all of your ingredients are tasty on their own and you can imagine them all tasting good toghether. If something does go wrong, make sure you have a frozen pizza handy. I always do!

11-27 Peeling a Grape

Have you ever peeled a grape? Probably not. For some reason I used to peel them when I was a kid. Wierd, I know. If you had, you would know that almost all grapes are white (or green) on the inside, not red. So where does wine get its color? It all comes from the skin. The amount of time the skin is left with the juice will determine how much color the juice absorbs from the it. This makes red grapes very versatile; winemakers are able to make clear, pink and red wines from just about any red grape. Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are both red grapes used in making Blanc de Noir sparkling wines by removing the skins immediately after the juice is pressed. Rose's are pink wines that are made from any of a number of red grapes, such as, syrah, sangiovese, zinfandel, and pinot noir. Rose's are typically made by the saignee method which means that the juice from the wine is kept with the skin until right before fermentation, and then some of the juice is removed to make the remaining juice more concentrated. The juice that was removed becomes the Rose. As far as red wines from red grapes go, I think you all have examples of that covered.

There are a few grapes that have red flesh on the inside, none of which are commonly used by themselves (as varietal wines) in winemaking. Alicante Bouschet is probably the most well-known red fleshed grape (not among anyone I know, but among oenologists). It was very popular during prohibition because its dark color and robust nature allowed bootleggers to stretch the juice a lot further by adding water and sugar. It is now illegal to add sugar to wine in California, limiting its popularity here. Without sugar, the wines that are made from Alicante by itself are usually harsh and bland in flavor, but in blending with other grapes it can add structure. It is still used for blending in southern France and the central valley of California. Spain is one of the only countries still making it into wine on its own.

In any event, there's nothing special about red wines made from red fleshed grapes. White fleshed ones are tastier!

11-26 Send it Back

When I go out to dinner these days, its very rare that the whole table doesn't turn to me to do the tasting (and they've probably deferred to me for choosing the wine anyway). Most people have no idea what to do or what to look for when the waiter pours that first taste into the glass. Some people don't have any idea why the waiter poured half a sip into one person's glass. Here's the what, why, and how.

The waiter usually defers to the person that ordered the bottle to taste it. He should do this whether or not the person that ordered is a man or woman (no bitterness intended). The reason for the taste is to determine whether the wine has any flaws, not to determine whether you find it to your liking. The waiter will pour about 1/2 oz. of wine in the taster's glass. If you are the chosen one, you should first pick up your glass and smell it. It should not smell like, wet dog, wet newspaper, vinegar, nail polish or rotten eggs, and if it does, you should send the wine back. If you ordered a Pinot Noir or Gigondas, it may smell like a barnyard. Unfortunately mild barnyard smells are characteristic of those wines and you are supposed to keep it (major ones are license to send it back).

If you have chosen to send the wine back, let the waiter know that you think the wine is flawed, and that you would like another bottle. He should not argue with you, but should recommend whether or not you should try another bottle of the same wine or not. It is usually best to pick something entirely new, especially if you are not sure of the nature of the flaw. You can attempt to impress your friends while sending the wine back by using this cheat sheet to deduce which flaw is the cause of your wine's bad smell.

wet dog, wet cardboard= the wine has been affected by TCA. Also known as "corked".
vinegar= the wine is too old ("turned" or "past its prime")
nail polish= the volatile acidity (VA) of the wine is too high
rotten eggs = there is hydrogen sulfide in the wine
barnyard= brettanomyces or "brett" has effected the wine.

If the wine smells pleasant, then you should swirl the wine in your glass (the small pour should keep you from spilling), smell again, then taste. You don't need to do the fancy sip that wine snobs do, but it does help you taste all the nuances in the wine. To do the fancy sip, put a little of the wine in your mouth, open up, and breathe in a little air. This will enable the wine to spread over all of the sensory parts of your tongue, which you may not care about, and may result in you tasting things like nutmeg, pepper, or cassis. If it tastes good, you are good to go. Smelling the wine should have uncovered any bad news anyway.

One thing you never need to do is smell the cork. This will tell you nothing, except what cork smells like, and you probably have known that since grade school.

Good Luck!