Wine-Pairing Advice From Astor Wines & Spirits and a DVD Recommendation for After the Meal Is Over

By West Village Bill

Yesterday, my squeeze Tony P. and I took a walk to the East Village to check out Astor Wines & Spirits. I loved the Match Game–style window display that offered recommendations on which kind of wine to pair with various elements of your Thanksgiving meal.

I realize it's hard to see everything because of the weird angle and the window glare, so I'll note that the pairing suggestions are: cabernet franc with herb (stuffing), pinot noir with roast (turkey), zinfandel with spice (cranberry sauce), chardonnay with butter (butternut squash), sherry with pie (it probably should have said sweet instead), and riesling with char (Brussels sprouts).

I was impressed with the breadth of the bottles inside. There were many wines I'd never heard of.

As you'd expect with any large store, there were some items that seemed like bargains and others that seemed overpriced. Tony and I have been drinking a lot of Oregon pinot noir lately, and we saw one from Benton-Lane Winery that we'd drank before that cost a couple dollars more than at stores in our neighborhood. But we spotted an enjoyable pinot gris from Montinore Estate for the cheapest price we'd ever seen it: $12.99.

A Summer Red Recommendation

By West Village Bill

Tony P. and I had the 2008 Fox Run Vineyards Lemberger from upstate New York last weekend at the Slice on Hudson Street. Tony had tried it at our go-to local wine shop and enjoyed it.

The best word to describe this wine is soft. And even though that's not really a quality I'd usually seek out in a red wine, it wasn't a bad thing at all in this case.

The label described the wine as having "a soft and flavorful palate structure." And Tony said it drank "like it was made with soft water."

The flavors were different from any I've experienced in a red wine before. I didn't detect a lot of ripe fruit; there was more a perfumey suggestion of fruit. "It's got some fruit but it's not too fruity, and it doesn't have that freshly fermented alcohol burn," Tony said. "It's what Beaujolais should be."

I'd never heard of the Lemberger grape before. It's more commonly known as Blaufränkisch.

The FRVL was $21 retail. Give this interesting local wine from an unusual grape a whirl sometime.

2009 Trentadue Old Patch Red and Lamb Stew With Sweet Potatoes and Spinach

By West Village Bill

My sweetheart, Tony P., picked up a mostly zinfandel California red wine the other day after tasting it at our local wine shop, and we've both really taken a liking to it—and have bought several more bottles. It's the 2009 Trentadue Old Patch Red, which is made from a mix of 77% zinfandel, 11% petite sirah, 11% carignane, and 1% sangiovese.

The Old Patch Red has typical-for-zinfandel dark-berry-and-spice flavors, including a touch of anise, and a nice aroma with a hint of maple. It's a round, satisfying wine at a bargain price of $15.

We had a bottle Friday night with a delicious variation of Lamb and Sweet Potato Pie that Tony has made for me twice now. He makes a stew rather than a shepherd's pie–type dealie, and he tweaks the spices a bit, including leaving out the star anise. He uses the freshly grated nutmeg, though, like Martha says to, and the whole dish is a wonderful melange of fruity, spicy, earthy, meaty deliciousness.

Blue Hill New York

By Brooklyn Bill

I had a phenomenal meal with Stash at Blue Hill New York Saturday evening. The food was amazingly fresh and delicious.

I started with a glass of 2009 Château Haut Rion Rosé. It was lively and refreshing and a good lead-in to all that followed.

One of the two appetizer amuse-bouche consisted of two baby carrots and two baby bok choys, unadorned and impaled on spikes on a wooden block like flowers on a florist's frog. I'm a farmers-market fanboy, so I enjoyed BHNY's flair for putting produce on a pedestal. And as I write this, more than 24 hours later, I still have the taste memory of that carrot on my tongue. The bok choy was a stellar specimen too, but if that carrot were a man, he'd make hunky Jon Hamm look like—oh, why not? I'll go there—Carrot Top.

The other amuse-bouche was a mini asparagus burger. I don't know what was used to flavor the chopped asparagus that stood in for ground beef, but it was heavenly.

For my first course, I got the Spring Vegetable Salad, which was a collection of fresh produce in a bowl with a delightful golden dressing.

For my second glass of wine, I got the 2004 R. López de Heredia Viña Cubillo, a blend of tempranillo, garnacho, mazuelo and graciano. BHNY's wine list separates its offerings into various style categories, which I find extremely helpful. This wine is classified as "smooth and earthy." Other styles include "ripe and luscious" and "big and bold" for reds and "crisp and bright" and "elegant and round" for whites.

QNY Wine List: Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Not for the Impatient.

By Father Tony

Because QNY's Brooklyn Bill mentioned it, I snagged a bottle of Barton & Guestier Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2006 while at the market, and ran my fingers over the papal coat of arms in raised glass before I placed it in the shopping cart. I had always been a bit let down by this wine and have avoided it for many years. We'll see what the Baad Lamb has to say about it.

Meh. To begin with, I can tell you what it isn't: fruity, jammy, with strong berries or oak. I think it is mildly floral in a gentlemanly way. It seems weary and wise. It is not stormy. More of a calm and cold starry night. Think Maurice Chevalier. (The baad lamb did not feel strongly about it and went back to his perusal of fractals and Google Earth overviews of Floridaian landscapes.)

However, after about an hour, it finally opened up, delivering a fuller more satisfying, almost effervescent shimmer. I guess you can't expect an elderly boulevardier to run like a boy. Some folks, like a certain famous wine critic who is responsible for giving this humble wine its cache, will like it immensely. Pas moi.

QNY Wine List - Penfolds Bin 2 - An Educated Peasant

By Father Tony

Sometimes, I suspect that wine "experts" relegate vast sections of the wine universe to "inferior" and therefore "cheaper" because those wines are simply not "complex". We have friends who are complicated and others who are simple. Neither adjective is a guarantee of or barrier to an appealing personality. To illustrate this premise, I'd like to make the case for a wine with an attractive personality that is closer to simple rather than complex and definitely a bargain at $17.

The Penfolds Bin 2 shiraz mourvedre 2007 is the dark lord of Australian wines. Here is the intriguing  Southlands description.

First made in 1960 with a wish to create an Australian 'Burgundian' style! The fruit is sourced predominantly from the areas of Langhorne Creek, Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. Matured in previously used American oak barrels for 8 months to create a wine which combines ripe plum, blackcurrant and liquorice with well definied tannins on the finish.

The mourvedre grape is, it seems, a Spanish peasant whose DNA has been analyzed of late and is gaining in popularity. It is often a work horse used to fortify more delicate grapes. I don't think I've ever tasted it on its own. (Think Louis XIV chasing one of the queen's handmaidens? Very "Upstairs Downstairs".) Combined with shiraz in the Bin 2, the result has muscular calves over delicate ankles. Chase it.

QNY Wine List: A Fantastic Local Chenin Blanc

By Brooklyn Bill

I enjoy a dry chenin blanc every once in a while when I want a break from reds or when the main course for dinner calls for something white. I started drinking a lot of CBs from the Stellenbosch region of South Africa with my friends Bob and Jen not long after I moved to the city and into their apartment building. By accident, I hit upon a Stellenbosch chenin that we all really liked from a winery named Simonsig. (I wrote about that wine back in the early days of Hawleyblog, when I had no freakin' clue about photos.)

I'm always on the lookout for more good chenins labeled with that grape name (for U.S. and South African wines) or with the Vouvray appellation (for French ones).* And I was particularly excited the other day to see the 2008 Paumanok Chenin Blanc at Red White & Bubbly. I'd read in Lettie Teague's column in the December issue of Food & Wine that she considers this bottling, from the North Fork of Long Island, to be the finest CB produced in the U.S. (Eric Asimov of the New York Times is also a fan; he calls it "one of the best American chenin blancs around.")

The Paumanok cost $26, more than I'm used to paying for a CB. But it was an absolutely delicious, classic CB with aromas and flavors of citrus and pome fruits and honey and honeysuckle. I will definitely get more.

*There are other appellations in France's Loire Valley where CB is the predominant white grape used in wines ranging from dry to very sweet, but I haven't experimented with them. And Vouvray seems to be the most commonly available here in the States.

QNY Wine List - One of These is Excellent!

By Father Tony

Making a last minute wine run? Here are two Spaniards and One Argentinian:

Volteo 2008 Tempranillo + Shiraz

Tapeña 2006 Garnacha

Condor Peak 2008 Malbec

Can you guess which of these $11 bottles is head and shoulders above the other two?

QNY Wine List: An Organic Malbec

By Father Tony

Here's a great bottle of Malbec and you can find it in Manhattan. Details after the break.

A Fantastic Dinner at the James Beard House

Posted by Brooklyn Bill

Last night, my buddy Lou treated me to my first dinner at the James Beard House. It was an amazing experience, one I highly recommend to queer New Yorkers and out-of-town visitors.

Lou has been to many of these dinners over the years. He loves the meals but sometimes finds his fellow diners to be "pretentious, overdressed, and unfriendly."

I felt a little underdressed when I entered the home where James Beard lived until his death in 1985. Almost all of the men were wearing ties and jackets, and I had on my usual workday uniform of casual pants and a gaily patterned button-front shirt.

I signed in and passed through the kitchen, where that night's guest chef, Adam Savage of the Delray Beach Marriott in Delray Beach, Florida, was presiding. That's him on the right in the photo above.