The Wine Cave

It has been a long time since I have posted and my laziness has only been over ridden by my consumption of wine. Lately I have been trying to expand my palate in trying a lor of different wine from different regions. I have been drinking Malbec’s, Cab’s from Agrentina, some white’s from Italy and even a Merlot.

“No, if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!” – Learn the Quote!

So while drinking wine I did some traveling to Wisconsin. First, I flew into Milwaukee and went to the Milwaukee Public Market. On the inside it was a bunch of different stores with spices, candy, sandwiches, a ton of f-in cheese, and a surprisingly enough a wine store with a bar. You can buy a bottle, glass, or a flight. My wife, sister, and her boyfriend (Dr. PhD) had some wine and Wisconsin cheese. I had a flight of heavy reds and it was an amazing afternoon break, but lets be quite honest wine is by far not the best thing in Wisconsin, especially in Milwaukee. No, its not that I got to hang out with two of the coolest people on earth, My sister-in-law and her boyfriend, but the BEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!

Milwaukee had one of the best beer tours I have ever been on and their beer is the some of the best I have ever had. No wonder that’s all they drink by the hundreds of gallons a week. After Wilwaukee I made my way to one of the coolest towns I have been to, Madison, Wisconsin. Home of the Badgers, Teach Me How To Bucky!! I have never had so many different types of beer in one location, Oktoberfests, Weisbeir, pale ale’s, dark beers, I cant even name them all. It was like I was in heaven. I forgot how much I loved beer until I went to Wisconsin. Seriously if I could get beer like they make in Wisconsin, which you can’t because the microbrews dont export much at all, I would have a huge gut!! There is nothing like a cold beer and either a Brat or Fried Cheese Curds.

There is no wine review this week because I miss the beer and fried cheese curds to much. I have actually had a dream about the beer and curds. Nikki and Dr. PhD BRING ME BEER AND CURDS PLEASE!!!! I am dying over here!! I need my fix and I can’t stand it anymore!!

As I was reading an article recently I was amazed at what the CDC has come out with. To begin with the CDC or Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the American’s government think tank on health and disease in the United States, has come out with a very interesting article. They are now suggesting that moderate alcohol consumption, two drinks a day for men and one for women, is part of a healthy lifestyle!! Can you believe that shit. Egg whites are bad, egg yolks are good, egg yolks are bad unless you add them with egg whites, alcohol is bad, and now it is good? Their minds change more than a politician does during re-election. What is even more crazy are some of the stats that come along with it. Specifically, the study says moderate alcohol is one of four low-risk lifestyle behaviors that together can reduce mortality rates by 63 percent, compared to people who do not partake in any of the behaviors. The other three behaviors are never smoking, a healthy diet and sufficient exercise.

Can you believe that? I cant believe that my glasses of wine a night are making me healthier!! The decision to include moderate alcohol use as a beneficial behavior suggests a changing attitude among health organizations toward alcohol. The most recently revised 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans includes a section on potential benefits of moderate drinking. The interesting thing is the things we know. Smoking cigarettes will kill you, eating bad is not good for you, and you should always exercise. The interesting piece is excessive alcohol use is considered a high-risk behavior in the study text, no alcohol intake is a high-risk category as well.

So the moral of the story is drink some more. Here is my next review. The wine is called A by Acacia. The winery is Acacia. They are in Napa Valley in the Carneros region. This is my favorite region in Napa because of the earthiness of the wine. It reminds me of good wine from Burgundy in France. The wine starts off with a complex Black Cherry smell with some spice and floral scents. As you drink it it gains some complexity and smooth refinement. This wine costs around $15 and is well worth it for the price. I would suggest it for a nice evening wine.

Rome….What a great city, o much history and culture. There is wonderful feeling of being a part of an old country when you go to Rome. I live in Boston, a city that was founded in 1630. That is one of the oldest cities in the USA, but when you go to Rome and see the structures, Old Rome, and talk to the people, you realize we have nothing on them. I was in a church that was founded in 1099. What Rome has in age and architecture it also has a feeling of being overwhelmed and just a little bit touristy. Not in a bad way though because I would return to Rome. I loved the history of the city, and the great food. That being said there is no city that made me feel so embedded in their culture as Florence. They speak to you in Italian knowing that you only spoke English so you had to figure it out. It was a great experience being forced into understanding the local culture.

Not only is Florence a great city on its own, but it’s only 1 hour from Chianti country. Some of the best wine in the world, in my opinion, is made there. The Chianti and especially the Super Tuscan wines are by far in my top 5. I honestly believe the best wine in the world is made in Italy outside of the Chattaneuf du Pape and Burgundy. The wine is able to get some age on it and has great flavor and acidity. We had a great experience where we cooked with a local chef. She taught my wife and I how to make 3 types of pasta including ravioli. We also were taught how to make Pesto, a Mushroom Sauce, and Panna Cotta. We spent almost 2 hours cooking and drinking a delicious bottle of wine. Then we got to eat all of our food. It was the best experience that I’ve ever had on a vacation.

If you see a bottle of wine from Chianti, and it has a black rooster on it, then it is from the Florence side of Chianti. If it does not, then it is from the Sienna (town in Italy) side. Historically, there was always war over these lands and presently this is how they separate the wine. Little Italy fact for your ass.

One of the wineries we went to in Chianti was Sant’ Appiano. We did a wine tasting of their wines, while eating dried meats, bread, and “extra-virgin olive oil” (they insist that this is the best and I concur). It was amazing how awesome this was. We were on a tour so they definitely played it up, but amazing none the less. The owner’s mom was pouring wine and couldn’t speak a lick of English. So much fun!! We left the winery, or should I say that I showed up with 4 bottles of wine on the bus. 2 Super Tuscans and 2 Chianti (DOCG).

The Chianti is basic yet amazing. It is very smooth and full of berry flavor. It has intense plum and cherries at the front of the wine and smooths itself at the end. It is a great wine for every day but lacks a little bit if you want something special. I loved the wine and would continue to buy it if I could find it in the USA. I paid $9 a bottle in Italy. Here you will probably find it for $13 or $14 bucks. Well worth it though.

Sant' Appiano Chianti

Has it been this long really? Have I been away for over a month? I feel like its the NFL Lockout, or a break from LOST, or I was on vacation. Well I was on vacation at the end of July in FUCKING ITALY!!! Yeah Buddy, but that is no excuse for before or after that. I do have some wonderful wine experiences to share, funny stories, and of course the reviews. Today I am going to mix it up though because I have been saving a few wines to review. Today I am going to be crazy because we are going to talk about the first city I went to Italy, Rome and review a wine from Bordeaux. Ooooohhhhhhhh them fightin’ words ya Yankee. Ya damn right that’s what WCM does!!

Rome is a magical place. It really is. Some people say that Rome is really crowded, there are pickpockets, and that it is expensive. Well it is not that crowded. Its kind of like NYC but only was visiting the Vatican like NYC on Christmas. Pickpockets? Probably who knows I wore this belt thing that kept my money on my belly button. It was real attractive though you could never know it was there. I felt pretty safe. I thought I was going to spend a ton there but it wasn’t that bad. I ate in Cafe’s for lunch and had good dinners. Plates weren’t more than 12 Euro for a pasta dish which is under $20. Jess and I had a pasta dish for dinner and a bottle of house red or Chianti. It was amazing. The flavors of the food were nothing like I have ever had before with the ambiance of eating on a sidestreet where only few people walked down was truly breathtaking. The wine did it for me of course because even the house red was amazing. The Chianti’s we got there were out of this world and so much cheaper than the US obviously. The best meal was something like a ravioli stuffed with a pear based filling with a carrot and Gorgonzola cheese sauce. It sounds weird, but it was one of the top 2 meals I had in all of Italy. I could have eaten four more dishes, but I wanted to save room for Gelato and Wine!!

Site seeing update real quick. No? You dont have a choice you get it all on the WCM. The Vatican is by far the most amazing structural building I have ever seen. I have never felt like I needed to be Catholic or experienced something with such a presence of age and revere than Vatican City. The sculptures were ridiculous, not to mention the pope chopped off everyone’s HoHo, and they are in a vault in the basement. How funny is that? A vault full of johnson’s in the Vatican basement!! The fresco’s were stunning and Saint Peter’s Basilica is by the far the best place I saw in my whole trip outside of the City of Florence and the Sistine Chapel. There is a whole story that goes along with Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel. If you want more detail ask me!! There were a whole bunch of churches in Rome that I walked in though that were extremely beautiful as well.

The Trevi Fountain is a must see at night. It is lit up and the water flowing really shows off the light and sculptures perfectly. Ancient Rome including the Colosseum makes you realize just how old this city is. The US was found in 1492. Just over 500 years old. I was in a church that was built in 900AD. Holy Shit!! There are so many sights within Rome that I would actually go back for 2 days or so to check out more sites and experience some of the locals. Mostly everyone was real nice and we had no problems there at all, or any place in Italy for that matter. That is all I have for Rome unless I think of something else boring….HAHHA.

Chateau Roland La Garde is from an area of Bordeaux called Blaye. Blaye was around before the wines of Medoc were even planted. Medoc is where all the top wineries are and I mean the top 10 in Bordeaux, like Margaux and St Julien. According to my boss Blaye is where real French get there wine because it is considerably cheaper and is very good by its own right. He was right. This was dark in color and heavier. Plummy on the nose with a lot of earthiness on there. I had a 2005 which was very balanced and full bodied though with soft tannins. This probably could have gone up to 5 more years. It was really good for $15 bucks. If you find it…buy it. I will

Chateau Roland La Garde

This week I was at a conferenece in Chicago and while I was not there to have wine I was hoping it would be somewhere. So here I am in one of the 3 biggesst cities in the country and I could not find a good glass of wine for the life of me. I do have to give a caveat with that though. Every night I had to go two events with vendors that do work for us at work. So I will break this down for you. 4 events 2 nights 0 good wine. What kind of BullSh*t is that!! It made me not want to work with them anymore hahaha. I am such a jerk. Some of these companies were large I mean largest in Silicon Valley large and some were world wide companies but couldn’t crack open few nice bottles of wine. The sad thing is one even had a very good cab there but the other wine was just okay. I can’t complain though because the food and the booze was free. I always like to take advantage of moments like that. You never know when they are going to come again. Regardless, I am now home and I am so happy to sit down with a nice bottle of Bordeaux that costs $15. That is what I will be reviewing tonight because it is quite good.

The wine I am drinking tonight is Chateau Roland La Garde. This wine is from the region of Blaye. Which is more of an unknown area of France that a frenchman told me was a good value area and he was so right. This wine is very very good for $15. Wine Spectator gave it 88 points. It is very dark in color and has Earthy and Musty tones on the noise. I love when I smell this. Usually some very good flavors come out of this. There is plenty of ripe dark fruit on the palate. It is a very full bodied wine but with some soft tannins to it, so it is not so overpowering for a Bordeaux. It has a long soft finish that makes it seem like it can live for a while in a cellar. I am sure it would soften up and some secondary fruit would come out in 2 years or so. Its hard to find so if you can pick it up!!

WCM

Chateau Roland La Garde - Cotes de Blaye

In some aspects, wine stores are similar to grocery stopres. You eithr go to Stop and Shop or the locally owned neighborhood store, like when I was in California, and depending on what you want, service is important. If you’re looking to buy a couple of bottles at the cheapest price you can find..do you really need good service or best price? I think that answers itself. If you are trying new types of wine which you have no idea about you ant someone to guide you in the right direction.

I usually go to a wine store in Milton called Espirit du Vin. Its close to my house and Keith and his wife are very friendly and smart. I love Italian wine probably the best all around. Value is a hard thing to come by in Italy, Keith always has great value wines. His shop is mostly in the area of wines I would review which is great.

I am always looking forward to picking up a bottle from small producers and usually they are hard to find. When you go into a wine shop and you don’t know what to choose people like Keith can point you in the right direction. The thing is sometimes you find a great wine and search for it online to get a review or something like that and find a great price. The next thing you find yourself doing is buying it online especially when getting a deal. I often face a conundrum, sort of like when someone is speaking and you can’t figure out whether to be sarcastic at the ridiculous things they are saying or act interested… Do I support my local wine shop or look online for the best price? If you ask my wife I say support local all the time. Sometimes the deal is too good to turn down. I have come to the decision to do both. So, if you find a good deal online go for it, but don’t deny the value that a good local wine shop can give you. Especially, if they have free tastings!

I just read this and had to post it. Untill recently Disneyland, you know the place with all cute cuddly creatures and the scariest ride on earth….Its a Small World, has just been surpassed as the number one most visited place in California. Napa Valley has just pass it with 5.5 million visitors a year. The Valley, as I like to call it, or NV for short, has just been rated as the #1 tourist desitination in California.

This is a great time for Napa, California, and all lovers of wine showing that this is a growing market. As a secondary end point the conclusion I have made is that more people are spending money. While Disneyland isn’t free they offer all sorts of deals to get people to go there. Napa on the other hand does not. Which logically concludes that people are starting to go out again, spend a little money to have fun, which could mean that the economy is turning around…..hopefully.

The bad thing about this is my valley which I love so dear is going to get more and more crowded. I wonder where the next Napa will be? Oregon, Washington…what do you think?

WCM

Today I recieved Rosetta Stone. My brother got me a copy of lessons 1, 2, and 3. It is in Italian and my wife is sitting in the other room listening to me pronounce “Lui Beve” or “Lui Mangia” over and over again. When I say listening I mean loudly laughing at me and mocking me. Isn’t love grande? Its quite weird because it just starts you off speaking Italian and you kind of have to figure out if they mean the man, they, or he. Maybe it is all the same in Italian. Hopefully they start to tell me because I am getting a little confused and I know I am going to sound like an idiot. My goal is to be able to speak or at least understand when I got to Italy at the end of July.

The ironic thing is I am sitting here drinking a french wine, Cote du Rhone if you must know, which is dusty and earthy and full of flavors that usually do not come out in Italian wine or food. As I sit here and think about Italy and being there I can’t wait for the Barolo. I have had a glass of Barolo..well okay a bottle a week or two ago. Let me say I love wine. I usually dont review wine over $20 bucks or so here, but I have to make a exception. I love Super Tuscans, California Cabs, Cab Franc, Pinot Noir / Burgundy. Once I had a Barolo I knew what wine is in my Top 3. If I could drink Barolo every night I would. It ages for 25 years or so but usually isn’t ready to drink before 7 or 8 years of aging. Meaning if it is 2011, for you who don’t know that is now, the bottles you should be consuming is 2004 or before. There in lies the problem with Barolo. It can get expensive because it has to age for so long. I say treat your self every once in a while. Take a trip to Piedmont and have a classic.

Send me the bill and wish me luck with Italian

WCM

As I was sitting around today thinking about Risotto….Well let me say first I wanted to make a Mango Risotto for dinner today. I have the mango, shallots, and rice. I was going to use a Meyers Lemon as well. As soon as I start to begin I realize I am F’ed. No, Chicken Stock. Fock Me I say. That is why after dinner I was sitting around thinking about Risotto instead of eating Risotto. Now that I write about it my mouth is watering and I want some…badly. Now as I think about Risotto aI start drinking my glass of wine this night. What I have tonight is not an Italian wine, which would be logical, I have a French wine from one of the greatest value area’s in all of France called the Rhone Valley.

Here, plateaus and rolling hills make up the Côtes du Rhône-Villages area, where good wine makers don’t have the benefit of a well-marketed and recognizable appellation. It brings both benefits and hardships. As a consumer, you can find excellent values in these areas—outstanding quality that can’t command the price of a Châteauneuf-du-Pape or Gigondas. But the wine makers have to work twice as hard to pull quality from these terroirs, which aren’t as naturally blessed.

The wine I am drinking is called La Vieille Ferme. Its a blend from the Rhone Valley of Syrah, Grenache, and Cinsault. All typical reds from that area. I purchased at Whole Foods for $8. This is one of the best value wines I have found recently. On the nose its full of Cherry and sweet plums. It has a very smooth finish with layers of dustiness on it. It does have an initial smell of high acidity and alcohol but the taste and finish doesn’t show it. Try it out….a great value

Recently I have come across a slew of these discount websites where you can get discounted items because the website has a direct deal with the merchant. There are clothes sites, shoe sites, food sites, and now I have found the gem of them all. The discounted wine site. Well, I cant take all the credit because I actually did not find it. I would have to give that credit to a colleague of mine, who I will call “The Spartan.” No he is not a cheer leader from Saturday Night Live but might resemble one depending on who you ask…Sorry dude!! “The Spartan” showed me this site that had all kinds of wine for a discounted rate online. At first it was very small and only 2 or 3 bottles. Now about 6 months later it has almost 8 different bottles at any given time for sale at a discount. This website is called Lot 18. You can find it Lot 18.

Right now there are 11 different wines to choose from a bottle of Riesling discount from $19.99 to $10.99 to a bottle of 91 Point Wine Spectator Barolo priced at $125.00 but discounted to $85.99. I have bought wine from Lot 18 only once so far but plan on doing it more. There main MO is that they are talking directly to the wineries and trying to acquire wines that are usually sold to a wine club only or wine that has been in a cellar for some time. Originally when I saw this website it had a bottle of 1974 Clos Du Val Zinfandel that had been in a cellar for years, obviously. My point is there are some crazy deals and opportunities to be found on this site. Its hard sometimes to ship to MA for any winery and Lot 18 is subject to the shipping availability of the winery. Good thing my I have a Mother-In-Law who works in Connecticut and parents in NY. I think I have all my bases covered WOO HOO. Don’t tell the wine police though HAHAH

The only thing is you have to be invited to Lot 18. While I can see why you need to be invited, due to the limited quantities given, it still is a special opportunity. If you would like to be invited let me know. I cannot let this great site be kept from great wine lovers. They sometimes even have sale prices in things like Groupon, another great site to get deals. Check em out. I can’t wait to the next time I can buy something off this site.

Oh what I am drinking right now you ask? Since I was at a wedding this weekend, haven’t gotten to the store, and didn’t want to open something nice…….that’s right you guessed it……3 Buck Chuck

DON’T JUDGE ME!!!