The Wine Broad's Board

Sake2Me

It took me many years to get around to this point, but I really like cold sake. When I first encountered the stuff, it was always served hot--and I was usually serving it up to patrons of the various sushi restaurants in which I worked. (An Italian girl wearing a full kimono get-up: not a pretty picture.)

In any case, I eventually came to understand that good sake is always served cold. (For more on my sake epiphany, and about sake in general, see this article I wrote for Wine X several years ago.)

A new category in the sake market (at least in the U.S.) is sparkling sake. It's often packaged in single-serving bottles, with a crown cap (the kind they use on beer bottles). Sometimes slightly sweet, with playful bubbles, sparkling sake is a fun alternative to aperitifs like Prosecco, or to higher-octane cocktails. And--surprise!--it's great with sushi.

This afternoon I tasted a new entry into the sparkling sake category: Sake2me.  It comes in four flavors: Ginger Mango, Yuzu Citrus, Green Tea and Asian Pear ($13.99 per four-pack of 187ml bottles). While this is not what I'd call "serious" sake, it certainly is tasty. Though it weighs in at about 7% alcohol, I could imagine drinking this stuff at breakfast--it's that deceiving. My favorite was the Green Tea flavor: not overly sweet, and with a definite infusion of green tea. You can find Sake2me at Whole Foods Markets in the Bay Area.   

As American as...

Well, you know. We have a Golden Delcious apple tree in our backyard, which is now loaded with more ripe apples than we can eat (even with the help of our mini-dachshunds, who devour all the apples that fall on the ground). This weekend I took advantage of our bounty by baking an apple pie. This wasn't just any pie--it was a pie made from my great-granny Gould's recipe. She lived well into her 90s, so I knew her growing up, and enjoyed many of the fabulous pies she baked. Granny was a tee-totaller and disapproved of liquor--except for the occasional glass of wine she drank with my father. She made this exception, she claimed, not because she enjoyed it, but because she didn't want to "offend" him by not having any.

If she'd ever tasted the Hawthorne Mountain Vineyards 2000 Ehrensfelser Icewine, she wouldn't have felt the need to make excuses. How could something that tastes this good be sinful? (If you're not familiar with ice wine, it's a deliciously sweet wine made from aromatic grapes that are allowed to freeze on the vines.) We picked up this particular bottle during a trip to the Okanagan Valley, in British Columbia, a few years back. The best word for this wine is: luscious. It has a gorgeous golden color, sweet, rich apricot aromas and flavors and a satiny mouthfeel. I can't think of a better match for Granny's apple pie.

If the sight of it is making you drool, use this recipe to make one of your own (I only have the filling recipe, but you can use any good pie crust recipe):

Grandma Gould's Apple Pie

6-7 medium size apples

3/4 cup sugar

dash of salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 Tablespoons butter

2 Tablespoons uncooked tapioca

Lemon wedge

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel and cut apples into thin slices, place in a large mixing bowl and top with a squeeze of lemon juice. Toss with sugar, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and tapioca. Pour into pie crust and dot with butter. Top with second pie crust and cut a few slits in the top with a sharp knife. Before baking, mix 1 T. sugar with 1 tsp. milk and brush on crust.  Bake 10 minutes, then reduce oven temp. to 350 and bake 50 minutes more.

Does Mass-Produced = Swill?

After reading my "Hot Fizz" post, one guy commented that he won't be drinking any "mass-produced swill" like Korbel with his Thanksgiving dinner, and will instead be serving a French Champagne that sells for 50 bucks a bottle. Nice for him, but I wonder: Had Thurston ever tried Korbel's pink sparkler before dismissing it?

I too am a fan of limited-production, hand-crafted wines made by independent producers, but that's not to say that I'm ruling out everything else. After years of attending wine events, tasting through wine samples and visiting countless wineries, I've learned never to say never: Just when you start thinking all mass-produced wine is crap, one of them is bound to sneak up and surprise you. On the flip side, I've tasted rivers of "boutique" wines--priced anywhere from $30 a bottle to over $100--that I wouldn't buy for a quarter of their suggested retail prices. I've never been a big Korbel fan, but their pink sparkler is an exception. I challenge you to find a better pink bubbly in the U.S. for 10 bucks.

We'd all love to drink Sea Smoke Pinot on a daily basis and brine our Thanksgiving turkeys in Krug Champagne, but that's just not realistic for most people--whether for economic reasons or logistical ones. Sometimes you forget to bring a bottle from your personal stash, and the grocery store is the only wine seller on the way to wherever you're going; sometimes you're in a strange town and the only place that sells wine is a double-wide trailer a mile from your in-laws house (true story); sometimes you're at an outdoor concert with limited beverage options.

When confronted with such realities, it's nice to have go-to wines that you can count on to quench your thirst for wine without offending your taste buds. The non-small producers that I've found to be consistently good include J. Lohr (still family-owned, by the way), Sebastiani (ditto) and Geyser Peak (the Sauv. Blanc in particular). I've made do with much less--even on Thanksgiving. (When I'm at my dad's house in Michigan I've even been known to drink Carlo Rossi jug wine because that's what's in the house. Hasn't killed me yet.)

Anyone else out there want to share the names of their go-to "big brand" wines?

Hot Fizz

While fall is elbowing summer out of the way in other parts of the country, the temps are still toasty here in Northern California. For my friends in San Francisco, this is the beginning of their "summer."

To me, the extended summer means more time to sip my favorite warm-weather wines. Last weekend while checking out the Russian River Jazz Fest, I enjoyed a yummy pink sparkler: Korbel's Brut Rose NV. (Sorry Francophiles, but I don't know how to make the accent over the "e" in this application!) For just about $10 per bottle, you get pretty strawberry flavor with a touch of tart acidity. It's medium-dry, so there's none of that nasty "Cold Duck" sweetness that reminds you of that time in college when you drank two bottles in your dormroom and then woke up... oh, never mind, that was me.

My point is that this stuff is a pleasure to drink, and a great value. Don't worry if you live someplace where the weather is on the cooler side; this would be a really nice Thanksgiving-dinner wine, too.

And the Winners Are...

Well, the moment of truth has arrived: After minutes of careful consideration, I've selected the winners of the RPB t-shirt contest. And naturally, I've rated the poems according to our beloved 100-point scale!

You may be scandalized to hear that the top-rated entry was a haiku, rather than a limerick. No doubt there are some who would say that by its very nature, a limerick is a more noble varietal of poem (what, with all the rhyming), and that a haiku is deserving of no more than 87 points, but what does it matter what YOU think? I'M THE POEM CRITIC AND THE ONLY OPINION THAT MATTERS IS MINE! MINE, I TELL YOU! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

But I digress. Following are the winning entries:

Parker sips my red
light body low alcohol
spits, screams: fifty points!

- Marco

RATING: 98

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A wine is not bound by its rating
Though some would have you believe it's berating
To be below 85
Best be buried alive
Maybe I'll have a better chance wine spectating

- Rocket21

RATING: 96

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Parkeresque wisdom

concentrate, yes concentrate

BOOM...an explosion

- Eric

RATING: 95

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In my market with a yen for some Pinot,
to match with my Friday night beano,
My choices grew starker

whey I saw that Mr. Parker

had down rated my favorite vino.

- Bradley

RATING: 94

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One day in the grocery store
I spied a real Parker whore
With Wine Advocate clutched
And his eyebrows bunched
For the 90-pointers were no more!

- Randy

RATING: 92 (bonus points for submitting a limerick, a haiku, free verse AND iambic pentameter!)

Thanks to all the poets for their clever entries: You guys rock. Winners: Be sure to shoot me an e-mail with your mailing address so I know where to send the booty (as in, your exquisite t-shirts).

As for those who didn't make the cut, don't be sad: There's a great "loser prize" too! T-shirts are expensive, but Target was having a sale on tighty-whities (only slightly used), so you'll be receiving a limited-production pair of exclusive RPB underpants! You think I'm kidding? Send me your mailing address, non-winners, and see what happens.

Last Call For Poets

Attention winemaking poets: If you've been thinking about submitting a poem for the RPB t-shirt contest, now's the time to get crackin'. Sept. 6 is the last day to post your masterpiece. What, like you've got more important things to do? Crush, you say? Priorities, people!

Here's a limerick to inspire the stragglers:

When you're all making your wine

Keep only Bob's palate in mind

He'll reward all his bitches

With 100-point riches

and RPB t-shirts divine