I met Scott Palazzo a bit more than a year ago, when he visited Ohio to plug his wine. We had a blast tasting his wine and shooting the breeze. He has this great mane of silver hair, and history as a vagrant in Bordeaux in his early twenties. As I recall he used to be a producer in the music business, and directed some music videos, among other things, so in all, a very interesting guy. We didn't actually talk about the wine as much as we did other things (no doubt because of our common musical background) but I did learn enough about his vinous offspring that he achieved his objective. Besides I had already bought his wine because it is sensational.

Among the things he told me about his wines (because he does make more than one) was that they are informed by the practices he encountered in St.-Émilion (the Bordeaux appellation famous for Merlot- and Cabernet Franc-dominated wines). I appreciated that he didn't say "Bordeaux-like". You may think me a nitpicker over this, but bear with me: he may say "Bordeaux-like" (or Bordelais, something along those lines) to other people routinely, but on this day perhaps he was bored with that descriptor so he happened to say "informed by" (or maybe it was "inspired by," but that's moot now).  Whatever the case, the way he said it to me makes an important distinction, and is a FAR more accurate statement, because it is VERY DIFFICULT (with the exception of cool vintages like 1999) to make wine in Napa Valley that is "Bordeaux-like", largely because it's HOT in Napa Valley, and NOT HOT in Bordeaux.  If you've ever watched your garden (or even your grass) grow over the course of multiple summers, you'll know that steady, predictable, warm weather is good for it (though with grapes, you generally don't want rain after a certain period in the growing season, where your garden is always thirsty).

Scott Palazzo runs a terrific micro-operation. He produces fewer than 2,000 cases of balanced, graceful wines that are zesty, vigorous, expansive, aloof (seems out of place, I know), and packed with the slutty fruit profile one can only get in California. They are at once rhapsodic and introverted, and the first time I tasted the 2005 Red Wine, I thought of, for some weird reason, Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day. The evolution of the character in the movie was extreme perhaps, but the wine followed a similar path--it continually took on character, gaining in appeal and depth, while never losing its surface sheen.

Palazzo Wines come in two flavors--a Red Wine and a Cabernet Franc. Both are currently from the 2006 vintage. Now that I've checked the website, I see that the Franc is sold out at the winery, but it is in the market, although quantities are limited, so check with your retailer. The Red Wine is available through the website still, and I can tell you that it is a smash.

The Best Part? The wines are $60! I know, that's not inexpensive, but they are not $120 like so many Napa Valley trust-fund reds are--and this is a marvelous bargain for the quality in the bottle. I would adjure you to add Palazzo to your list of yearly must-buys.

Popularity: 9% [?]

I have written an article for Cincinnati Magazine on Austrian Red wines, specifically focusing on St. Laurent and Blaufränkish. It is my first article for the magazine, so there is a bit of a personal introduction at the beginning but it gets to the point quickly enough. I'll be doing a bit more exposition of Austrian red wines on the pages of this site in the coming days, as they are fascinating and energizing wines that also offer an extraordinary value (typically).

If we can continue lightening the recession by buying more wine, inexpensive or not, that is a good thing.  Buy Austrian Wine!

Popularity: 2% [?]

The jewel in the crown of any growing region where it may thrive (and like Pinot Noir, that is a narrow range of places), Riesling is the world's finest white wine grape. Okay, in the interest of equanimity, it is arguably the world's finest white wine grape. Certainly it is responsible for the finest white wines in the cool-climate regions of three of the world's great wine-growing countries--Austria, Germany, and France.

Riesling has suffered at the hands of bad wines made in its name, and suffers still from a bottle shape that also reminds consumers ineluctably of that too-sweet wine that they thought they had left behind. Over the years of rehabilitation, Riesling has proven that--while great--it is certainly not for everyone, and it is still fabulously unfashionable in the minds of drinkers who haven't yet been willing to let go of what they "know" and approach Riesling without prejudice.

Misunderstood though it may be, this statement cannot be gainsaid: based on the kaleidoscopic flavors it can present, along with the incredible sense of fathomlessness (if you want this to be a more dispassionate statement, you may substitute "along with numerous indescribable qualities") it can achieve, whether bone dry or super-sweet, a well-made Riesling has no peer. I'll give Chenin Blanc a close second, a grape is possibly even less fashionable than Riesling lately (given the rate with which Chenin is being pulled up in South Africa).

Riesling has a soaring aroma and intense flavors, and usually a lower alcoholic content, especially in Germany, where after fermentation, unfermented grape juice (usually called süssreserve) is added to the wine in order to balance out the high acids that are routine in the cool-climates of the Mosel River and its tributaries, the Ruwer and Saar Rivers. Alcohol levels of 8% are the norm, but in Austria and Alsace, the wines are much more potent at 12%. They are also generally made in a dry style.

I have poured many a BONE DRY Riesling to customers who will insist that it is sweet after they've tasted it. This happens less often if I can pour it in a blind-tasting. That it continues to happen even in a neutral setting is attributable to the simultaneous purity and depth of fruit inherent to Riesling that Chardonnay, for example, doesn't have. Tasters expecting the relatively fruit-poor expressions of Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and to a certain extent Pinot Grigio, will no doubt perceive sweetness in a dry Riesling. The irony is that a dry Riesling almost surely possesses less sugar than any of these others.

Food and Wine Harmony

Riesling is among the most useful of wines at the table. Residual sugar is, up to certain limits--a non-issue. Savory food tends to like sugar mixed-in, making Riesling an obvious choice for a mellifluous pairing. It would almost be better to say what it DOES NOT go well with, as that is a much shorter list. Some obvious choices, though, are:
Dry: Asian cuisine, beef (can be a revelation!), cheese, chicken, Choucroute, ham, duck, goose, onion tart, rabbit, salmon, trout
Off Dry: apples, Asian cuisine, chicken, crab, mild curry, roast duck, fish, fruit and fruit sauces, pork, smoked salmon, scallops, roast turkey, Vietnamese food
Sweet: dessert (except chocolate, depending on the wine), foie gras

Unless you want to go deep with Riesling, you may safely stop here without missing a thing.

The natural disposition of Riesling is so fine--provided it is planted in the proper regions--that it can continue to ripen for many weeks after initial ripeness is attained. The natural relationship between the grape's sugars and acids can be maintained while the grape has an opportunity to develop more flavors. This is seen most clearly in Germany, with designations for different ripeness levels that are dictated in several cases by the number of days between harvest (i.e., Kabinett wines may be picked no earlier than two weeks after the first picking of the basic "Qualitätswein")

Riesling from Alsace is not particularly similar to German Riesling, though occasional similarities can be seen with the Trocken (dry) Rieslings from the Pfalz in Germany. German Riesling, especially those from the Mosel area are low in alcohol and can seem to be born out of the ether.

Riesling is a particularly hardy vine, and this is especially helpful in cooler wine regions where other grape varieties might succumb to frost damage. Riesling's springtime bud-break is later than most, and ripening comes earlier than other famous varieties, but achieving full-ripeness in cooler regions can stretch well into Autumn--late October or even late November.

Popularity: 9% [?]

August 6--International relations between the United States and Canada were soured last Saturday by an incident at the Michigan/Ontario border.

Returning from vacation in northern Ontario the Morton family were deep into day two of their drive. The old trapper's town of Temagami (pop. 1,000) and its eponymous lake were the environs of the vacation, and a more beautiful place on Earth would be difficult to find. After a week in the semi-seclusion of a cottage on a lake so crystal clear you can still see the bottom fifty feet down, seven-year-old Sebastian knew it was too good to be true.

"I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. It hit me in the head with a colossal waste of time at the border crossing."

Anticipating the madhouse created by the construction rerouting at the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit, the family chose to cross back into the US through Port Huron, MI.

Port Huron looked like smooth sailing upon approach. "We even took a pit stop before we crossed over," says Burke Morton, 37. "Thank God we did!" When they got back into the car and began to climb the bridge, there were three lanes, the far right marked with an overhead sign reading "CARS"; the middle lane marked with a sign for "TRUCKS"; the left-hand lane had a credulity-straining sign over it reading "Vintage Tractors".

Mr. Morton: "Vintage Tractors? My first thought was that since this was farm country for both Ontario and Michigan, it didn't seem too implausible for there to be a tractor lane, and perhaps some Amish-looking German Anabaptists would chug past on their way to do some freelance plowing across the border." Doubting there was such a community in Port Huron, MI or Sarnia, Ontario, the family pressed on, but as they reached the zenith of the bridge, they could see a Vintage Tractor Parade beginning.

Hulking & Sleek Machines
"The tractors weren't on our side of the bridge, they were heading into Canada. We were a bit disappointed that we would miss seeing it, because it sounded to me like good, quirky fun," says Mr. Morton's wife Cynthia, 34. "We could see a bit of the tractors through the bridge railings, and we even saw a combine, but it really wasn't a rewarding view."

Cars piled up at the check point. The Morton's mini-van was three cars from the Border Agent's booth--tantalizingly close to freedom. "We waited for an hour. We started worrying about some kind of border lock-down--had they found drugs? An illegal immigrant? Explosives? And then out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a vintage tractor returning from Canada!" At this point Morton started ranting things that cannot be printed in a family publication, but he was, according to his wife, not the only one frustrated by this.

"I got out of the car with the kids and walked over to the side of the bridge to watch the parade. I figured we might as well make the most of it, and my husband wasn't really fun to be around just then. We were joined by lots of other wives and kids, too."

Having regained his composure and looking a bit sheepish, Mr. Morton tried to save his dignity by saying that "people all around were worked-up and getting angrier at the ridiculous parade, because they didn't actually use the designated 'Vintage Tractor' lane. There were at least two thousand cars backed up that I could count, and there's no way there weren't twice that over the crest of the bridge. People--even those with Ontario license plates--were swearing at the Canadian government for consenting to this nonsense."

Memories of the Fields
Port Huron resident Fred Ramsey, 72, extolled the virtues of the Vintage Tractor Parade. "I just love seeing these tractors. I grew up on a farm and vineyard here in St. Clair Township, and we had an old 1952 Minneapolis-Moline--it was an ugly thing...had a rusty orange color...." He heaved a sigh. "What a great old gal!"

The Black River Area Antique Power Club's annual Vintage Tractor Parade causes traffic snarls every year in Port Huron. "One year we had a 15-minute traffic jam," said Earl Roberts, 59. "For Port Huron that's like Detroit rush hour, so I hear."

After crossing the Blue Water Bridge, the parade ended at the Thomas Edison Inn, for Port Huron's Concours d'Elegance of tractors--110 of them on display, some from as far back as the 1940s.

Implicated & Exonerated
It seems that drivers stuck at the U.S. Border misplaced their ire. For while the tractors did cross the Blue Water Bridge, they turned around in a maintenance lane without ever getting off the bridge. Turns out the city leaders of Sarnia, Ontario saw the problem from the beginning. Tractors aren't allowed on the major roads leading off the bridge, because they are too big and slow, and would cause major traffic problems.

Popularity: 11% [?]

The Chesapeake Bay Oyster (crassostrea virginica), which is known as the Eastern Oyster when not raised in the Chesapeake, is an endangered species in the Chesapeake Bay, which is at once surprising and expected. It is surprising because the Chesapeake Bay gets its name from the local Native American word Chesepiook, meaning 'Great Shellfish Bay'. The Bay was awash in oysters (and no doubt blue crabs, which have over-fishing issues of their own) when the first Europeans arrived in the Chesapeake in 1607. At roughly one percent of their estimated original population, Chesapeake Bay Oysters are currently residing in the 'where are they now' column. Which brings me to why this was to be expected: Chesapeake Bay Oysters were harvested at a staggering pace from what was once (a century ago) the world's largest oyster 'fishery'. The Chesapeake Bay Oyster was not only popular as food, but valuable as a building material. Once a couple of diseases took hold, the already declining oyster populations dropped precipitiously.

Consuming Chesapeake Bay Oysters

We just visited my parents, whose house is on the estuary of a river that feeds the Chesapeake. They are participating in an oyster reclamation project whereby individuals raise oysters for their own use, but the Bay is beneficiary of the oyster's spawning and water-cleansing power in the meantime. My parents buy three hundred oysters every year and raise them in a cage off their pier. In the third year (they have three populations going at any given time) after getting a new tranche of the endangered bivalve, they have 'market ready' oysters that they can eat.

And we did eat! The oysters were exceptional--I've never had a more seductive oyster experience! We ate them raw, of course, and the flavor...mmmm...they need no 'enhancers'. Perhaps it was the remains of the salt water on the oyster, but the oysters had a fabulously aromatic, heavenly flavor, that seemed to create a halo of the oyster-flavor floating around my head. It was as though the oysters had been growing in a garden of fresh fennel. It is hard to believe that this is the same species as Cape Cod's famous Wellfleet Oyster, which is delicious in its own right...but it is no Chesapeake!

Food & Wine Harmony

It was an enlightening experience, and I cannot tell you how much I wished I could have had a bottle or two of Vermentino! We did well with Picpoul, which was a fine alternative. If the Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc (old vine Roussanne) wasn't so expensive, I'd jump on a bottle of that to have with these oysters, too.

Popularity: 16% [?]

I cannot express fully the import of good glassware for wine, because you'd realize that you would rather be a test subject in the NIH Toe Stubbing study than read on. But this website is, in part, about getting "more from your glass" (see above), so breathe easy--and read on!

You may think this some bit of snobbery, but I assure you, it is not. Wine deserves good glassware. This is hardly an original position: I'm just another in a myriad of voices adjuring wine lovers to graduate up. Clearly this is catching on, though, as the 99¢ glass from your local mass-merchandiser has become sufficiently insufficient that Target now carries Riedel crystal stemware in several shapes.

If you drink a wide variety of wines, it is worth investing in more than one glass shape. I have four that I use with regularity: two of these stem shapes are excellent "all-purpose" glasses; two are key for making some wines better, and if you drink the wines suggested below, they will be come important glasses to you, too.

My Stemware of Choice

My all-purpose glass #1:
...is the red wine glass from Riedel's Overture series of glasses. Almost every wine tastes great out of this glass, but another "all-purpose" glass may be even more appropriate (see below for more). More specifically, I would choose this one for:
Whites: Gewurztraminer, richer-styles of Chardonnay, Marsanne, Muscat, Viognier
Reds: Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir, Tempranillo

My all-purpose glass #2:
Initially designed by Riedel for Zinfandel, Chianti, or Dry Riesling, I use this one as often as the preceding glass. In addition to the aforementioned wines that inspired this glass, Champagne from this stem is WAY better than out of a traditional flute, and I also us it for the following:
Whites: Albariño, Auxerrois, Chablis (or similarly ringing Chardonnay), Chenin Blanc, Grüner Veltliner, Riesling (across the range from dry to sweet), Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, Roussanne, Sauvignon Blanc, Viura
Reds: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Petite, Sirah, Sangiovese, Syrah, Zinfandel

Important Glass #1
The Riedel Vinum Burgundy glass looks like a brandy snifter on a tall stem. If you drink lots of Pinot Noir, Grenache (Côtes-du-Rhône), or Nebbiolo, then you should get this glass. Its shape allows an aromatic wine to bloom and then retain the aromas until you get your nose into the glass. This glass is excellent for:
Whites: Chardonnays of a majestic style (i.e., White Burgundy and the like), Viognier is lovely from this glass as well.
Reds: Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo, Grenache, Beaujolais (Gamay), Pinot Meunier, Counoise, among others.

Important Glass #2
The Bordeaux glass from Riedel's Vinum series is a very aggressive glass that is designed to tear through tannic structure so that one can appreciate the wine faster than having to let the wine mature for several years. Wines that perform well from this glass are, as a rule, youthful reds: Bordeaux; Cabernet Sauvignon; Syrah; Merlot; some more strident Cabernets Franc; some stiffer kinds of Malbec; Mourvèdre; gripping, young Tempranillo. I've never enjoyed using this glass for white wine--the wine becomes too diffuse.

What does this have to do with Wine & Food Pairing?

Plenty.

Wines chosen for specific foods are, one hopes, selected to enhance the way a diner experiences the flavors within a dish, as well as between the food and wine. If you really intend to capitalize on this (and if you love food, I suspect you'd agree that one should do this), the way a diner perceives the wine should not be inhibited the glass.

Some of this sounds fussy, I know, but it really isn't much trouble, and it can make a huge difference. If one goes to the trouble of getting a good companion wine for their food, then--unless financial considerations preclude the purchase of new glassware--it would be a shame to be half-assed about its presentation.

Other Choices

As far as good values go, and I'm all for good values where something as fragile as a wine glass is concerned, you might also try Riedel's 'O' series, stemless tumblers (great glasses that also do fine in the dishwasher) that are inexpensive and come in bargain-priced sets. If it turns out that you were wronged in a previous life by a Riedel ancestor, or if you simply want to try something different, you might try Spiegelau, another excellent crystal company whose stemware I own and admire (it's just less easy to get). I shouldn't forget another crystal maker I'm partial to, as well: Schott Zwiesel makes some wonderful, sturdy glasses out of titanium crystal, which I have used in a restaurant setting with excellent results.

Popularity: 20% [?]