The Like List (20 Things that don?t suck)

I’m fond of a quote from comedian Patton Oswalt where he suggests, “Pointing out that stuff sucks is not edgy or dangerous anymore.  Everyone knows what sucks. What’s better is to find the stuff that’s amazing and hold it up.”  With that in mind, here is a random assortment of things that I’ve been enjoying recently because they don’t suck—some are wine-related, others not so much.

Sean Minor 2010 Vin Gris.  All of Sean Minor’s wines are a terrific value.  This Vin Gris is no exception and the perfect spring wine.

This version of Little Ole Wine Drinker Me (Dean Martin classic) by Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers

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Enameled Good Grape soda signs from the 1930s and 40s.  A seller on eBay plucked money out of my pocket for the sign pictured above.  So far, I’ve resisted buying another one (link).

My wife went to the UK last month and brought back Chunky Kit Kat’s and Cadbury Dairy Milk Turkish Delight Bars, amongst other treats.  The Kit Kat is good, but the Turkish Delight bar was otherworldy and a match made in Heaven for a nice Port.

Terry Theise Estate Selections 2010 catalog.  If you haven’t read it yet, you do need to – the most enjoyable catalog reading you’ll do this year. Though, like a regular consumer catalog it might incent you to spend money you didn’t plan on.

Meta-irony t-shirts like this one (link).  Based on the “Mc” in McDonald’s, co-opted by a movie, licensed back from the restaurant and then sold to the consumer.  I bought mine for $10 at Target – at least I’m aware of the consumer con.
 
It’s allergy season.  God bless Zyrtec and Allegra and Claritin and Alavert and …

The live cam of an eagle’s nest in Iowa and its three just-hatched baby eagles.
 
Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution on ABC. Season two is in LA and it picks up some of the hackneyed dramatic elements from season one (Huntington, WV) and Jamie’s efforts to bring quality food into the school system.  Despite some of the overwrought production, I really admire Oliver who did create real, lasting change in the UK before coming state side for the reality show.  It’s more than lip service to Oliver and anybody that cares about food would find this show educational and entertaining.

Trader Joe’s buttermilk pancake mix – fluffy, light, and yummy.  Add real maple syrup, and a whisper of some bacon-flavored Torani syrup (cane sugar, no HFCS) and you’re all set for breakfast.

Cedar raised bed garden frames from The Farmstead.  My wife and I have four of these.  Sturdy and dead simple to set-up, these raised beds offer an inordinate amount of inexpensive joy when you pluck a tomato from your vine in August.

Tumbleweed pottery chicken roaster. A bit more refined than the beer can chicken apparatus you mind find elsewhere, using this roaster with a whole organic chicken, a little butter and herbes de Provence and an hour and ½ in a 350 degree oven and dinner is deliciously served.

Real Wine.  This is the third time I’ve read this book, first published in 2000.  It serves as a gentle grounding element for the natural wine movement that seems to be so breathlessly au courant today.  Read it while drinking a Lioco Pinot or Chardonnay or something from Donkey & Goat.

Shamanism.  I was raised Catholic and married a Jew.  While spiritually grounded, I am adrift from organized religion, and I’ve been doing a round robin exploration of religion for a couple of years, mostly eastern thought.  Shamanism has my attention now.  While the Biodynamic and Western religion connection is oft-cited, Shamanism is the one religion that believes that plants have a spirit.  Reading up on this is a fascinating punch in the gut to prevailing wisdom.

Notre Dame football. Saturday, April 16th is Notre Dame’s spring football scrimmage.  Only 4.5 months until football season!

Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurant.  According to my server on a recent Wednesday, this small chain of restaurants based in the ‘burbs of Chicago with one additional location in Indianapolis is now the largest wine club in the U.S. with 25,000 members.  I’ve found the food and service to be good and the wines very uneven.  Yet, to be fair, Cooper’s Hawk is designed to be accessibly upscale and it hits a broad market that is wine interested, but not necessarily wine inclined.  On that measure, I have to give them kudos for helping build a wine culture in the Midwest.

Drinking Paisano-style.  I love to drink my wine at home with a decidedly down-to-earth bent.  Forget the Riedel.  Get some glass coffee mugs and an old-school carafe.

Sacre Bleu wine.  Owner Galen Struwe could write a Harvard case study on the challenges of the wine business, particularly for those coming from outside of the industry.  Yet, after a couple of years of progress and experimentation, his Chilean juice is selling like hotcakes at Central Market in Texas and he’s poised to expand in a big way.  Galen is a good guy and I always like to see the good guys succeed.

Online wine-related videos:  Paso Wine Man’s newest video.  Jordan online videos—always incredibly well-done from Lisa Mattson.

Wine retailers who place the responsibility of receipt of wine packages on consumers and ship nearly everywhere, including Indiana which is technically a no-ship state.  I’m not tattling on whom, specifically, but I’m grateful that this occurs; at least that’s what my neighbor told me.  Ahem.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/the_like_list_20_things_that_dont_suck/

Viognier Chenin Blanc Gewurztraminer Muscat pinot noir

Wine Revelations, Power Grabs, Numbers, Battles and Events

Thinking About... THE REVELATION Upon reading Anthony Lane's remarkably thoughtful analysis of Terrence Malik's new film, The Tree of Life, in The New Yorker, it finally hit me why wine critics likely won't rise to the quality challenge laid down...

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Barbaresco Semillon Viognier Chenin Blanc Gewurztraminer

Death to the ?Cult? and Birth of the Domestic First Growth

One of the more interesting aspects of the domestic wine world over the last fifteen years has been the phenomenon of the “cult” winery. 

You can count the true “cult” wineries on two hands.  Denoted by critical success, reputation, limited volume, inelastic demand with wait lists, and profitable aftermarket value, you can almost name them off the top of your head – Harlan, Screaming Eagle, Scarecrow, Colgin, Bryant, Dalla Valle, Hundred Acre, Araujo … The rest of the hundreds of wineries that suggest they are of “cult” status are a mix of allocated wineries trying to up the ante and some wannabes that want to be allocated. Some have the pedigree to emerge into this classification.  Most do not.

The net outcome based on those that wear the crown and those that desire to ascend to the throne is a real dilution in the meaning of “cult” wine.  This meaning has been further diluted by the lingering economic malaise that has also metaphorically centrifuged the contenders from the pretenders.

This brief reflection would be apropos to nothing were it not for a couple of emails I received from a flash wine site recently that described an unknown Paso wine with its “cult-like” following.  This did nothing but reinforce the “contender from the pretender” notion in my mind.  Just as the denizens of a Phish concert gives off a wafting hint of b.o. intermingled with da kine, a flash wine sale for a wine with a “cult-like” following at 60% off of list price gives off a hint of b.s. intermingled with desperation.

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The reality is that the word, “cult” like “boutique” before it, and “artisan” in the near future has become meaningless: An unoriginal euphemistic phrase no more convincing than calling a used car a “pre-owned” vehicle.

We’re not fooled by the phrasing.

In the wake of the co-opting of a phrase that has been stripped of meaning coupled with an economic environment that has re-calibrated most wine price points and demand to rational levels, I think what we’re subtly seeing is the very early emergence of a New World Order in the domestic wine world, at least as far as the inelastic upper echelon of wine is concerned. 

Borne out of necessity, true “cult” wines are morphing into a new category:  a Premier Cru class; – a Domestic First Growth equivalent – both in perception and reality.

While this isn’t the time nor place to discuss the differences in between a French classification system that is based on tradition and history and a U.S. based system that rewards vision and moxie, I will note that any winery in this lofty position has to carefully navigate the gauche indelicacy of outright calling themselves a Domestic First Growth wine.  That designation has to be anointed just as they were anointed as a so-called cult wine(ry). 

However, wineries can and do politely suggest, via their vision, that this is the case, as Tim Mondavi has done when he says at the Continuum web site, “Our goal at Continuum Estate is to produce a single wine to be recognized among the finest in the world.”  Continuum is one of a select few wineries that aren’t yet mentioned in the same breath as Harlan, but for whom their potential will surely place them in this category in the next couple of vintages.

Combining premium location, a singular focus, a ‘spare no expense’ meticulousness to detail that would make an OCD man anxious, we’re starting to see the germinating market elements with these wineries who are not only emboldened coming out of the recession, but also the beneficiary of some wind at their back by virtue of the French first growth wine sales in Asia.

Call it an educated hunch:  Humans love mental order and things that fit into a realm of understanding.  With a re-balanced demand curve, a very muddled “cult” meaning, and upper-tier wineries that have effectively shaken the ankle-biters that are other would-be elite wines, we’re going to see the emergence of a new classification of Napa wine – they’ll be geographically clustered (Pritchard Hill, for example), they’ll be expensive, they’ll be scarce and they’ll be the future darling of the insatiable luxury wine market in Asia in the not too distant future.

Call these wines the scourge of the everyman, call them Domestic First Growths (DFG), just don’t call them, “cults” a phraseology that has lost its relevance in the wine world.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/death_to_the_cult_and_birth_of_the_domestic_first_growth/

Gewurztraminer Muscat pinot noir burgundy shiraz

A Wine for Tonight: NV Lunetta Prosecco Brut

Would you like a quick suggestion for a good wine to drink tonight (or this weekend) that won?t break your budget and is widely available? Many of our readers have said this is something they would like, so here is this week?s selection, the NV Lunetta Prosecco Brut from the Trentino region in Italy. Our [...]

A Wine for Tonight: NV Lunetta Prosecco Brut was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Barolo Pinot Grigio Barbaresco Semillon Viognier