Burgundy for kings, champagne for duchesses, claret for gentlemen.

The wine and spirits thread. Expatiate here, my fellow imbibers, on bottled poetry (or just damned good grape juice and tasty fruit and grain alcohols).

What about rogues and devils? I feel ostracized.

Cider for commoners?

It's odd that New York is a major apple producer - I live a mile from a commercial apple orchard - and yet New York doesn't seem to make a good hard cider. A couple come from Vermont, though....

**subscribing**

Teach me! Teach me tonight!

Ah, Bacchus and his temptations...

Marie, if you're ever in the area, you should visit an upscale bar/restaurant called Aria whose cocktails are named after operas. I had only one last Friday - La Forza Del Destino, with Crown Royal, Kahlua, Chocolate bitters and soda (pretty good stuff) - and could have attended an actual performance with the $20 I had to flush out at the end. Ah, the life of a impecunious sybarite.

I was at an open air bar earlier that evening and ordered a Grey Goose. The waitress arrived with a tall glass claiming the bartender had made a mistake and poured a Smirnoff instead. All I tasted was ice and soda. Didn't stick around for long.

Tonight I am playing it safe and having a Bacardi and Coke at home. I can see how much I'm pouring myself and it's not going to cost me the equivalent of 2 CDs or a few used paperbacks (that's how I measure my money.)

and could have attended an actual performance with the $20 I had to flush out at the end

Ha! -- Don't ask me how much I spent on tickets to the LA Opera Ring Cycle.

BTW: Does Aria serve a drink called Götterdämmerung and, if so, what's in it?

Silent, $20 would only get me rush tickets or worse, so I'm sure your costs were worth it, although that provokes a perennial grumble of mine: a great seat at the Bolshoi used to cost about $18.

As for Götterdämmerung - not on the menu linked above, but that would be pure grain alcohol mixed with rainwater. It's what you drink before you trigger a nuclear holocaust.

'Burgundy for kings, champagne for duchesses, claret for gentlemen'.

I wonder what homemade Calvados and homemade plum brandy makes me then. A wench?

Burgundy for kings....

When my parents were in the mood for wine, they used to swill some godawful jug stuff called "Hearty Burgundy". I'm pretty sure it wasn't the wine of kings, unless the king happened to be the King of the Winos.

Sad to say, the Jamesons season here in the horrible state of Arizona is ending. It's hard to drink whiskey when the temperatures hit triple digits and the GIANT MUTANT COCKROACHES* start to emerge under the oppressive cover of darkness. We'll be sipping various Chenin and Sauvingon Blancs poolside, but I am partial to reds and whites give me headaches. Just typing this makes me feel like crying....

I suppose there's always beer.

*some people try to put lipstick on the roach and call them, laughably, Palmetto bugs. To hell with that - they're cockroaches and they're virtually fucking indestructable.

#6: (...But wow, La Forza Del Destino is a GREAT name for a cocktail.)

#11 - Yeah, my eye went straight to that; the mix was a secondary consideration, although the mention of Kahlua sealed it.

But to return to wines, my most memorable drinks from last year, all modest choices, were a Grand Fief de la Cormeraie Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie; a few Gewürztraminers - I think I liked the André Blanck Gewürztraminer Altenbourg and the Pierre Sparr Réserve Gewürztraminer most; and a Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio.



(Not my pic, but I like the label... god I have turned so fucking bourgeois.)

Hearty Burgundy was made by Gallo, so at some highly regarded tasting it astounded people by being picked as the best of the lot. I knew a liquor store owner who had sympathy for guzzling and whose father liked Gallo Hearty Burgundy. So he would get it for us in a case of four four liter jugs, which cases were supposed, by, I guess, the distributor or the bottler, to go only to restaurants. I gave it up not because it didn't hold up against other red wines but because the quantities that I consumed were just too much red wine. I switched to whites, but none had the value of Hearty Burgundy.

Robert

I prefer whites, but I tried a Chianti last week that I really liked, though I can't remember what exactly it was called. Traditionally Chiantis are bottled in fiaschi like these:

Speaking of Italian wine, E, have you every tried a Brunello di Montalcino?

Ever since my first sip of a Brunello, it has been my Italian wine of choice.

Silent, no, never, but I now have a good reason to make a trip to the large liquor store just a block away. It's been a while; I have a tendency to forget the difference between what I can afford and what I can't even pronounce.

Well, you've all been so busy while I was writing up the following notes and yet somehow the notes are still kind of relevant (all white wines and some Italian, including a Muscadet and a Pinot Grigio). I put that down to the season and, er, synchronicity...or something. (Police song now running through head. Argh! Make it stop!)

Anyway, since it's moving into summer and those of us in the Northern hemisphere are probably looking for cooler drinks, here are some notes on whites I've very recently enjoyed (prices are American dollars and mostly reflect my local wine shops):

2009 Pra Soave Classico (Veneto)-Robert Parker (Wine Advocate) and I rarely see eye to eye but he's right about Pra's Soaves (he's championed them for years). These are consistently delicious, crisp, well-balanced wines at value prices. The 2009 is particularly good; bright and minerally, full of zest. Great by itself but structured and acidic enough to pair with vegetables, white fish, chicken and dairy-based dishes. In my opinion, Soave is one of the few still European white wines that pairs really well with fresh tomatoes (tomatoes can make still white wines taste rather metallic) and I recently really enjoyed this with a yellow tomato, basil and burrata salad. ($11.95)

2009 Elena Walch Pinot Grigio (Alto Adige): Alto Adige Pinot Grigios are my favourite Italian versions of this grape and the Elena Walch wines are among the most sought after from this area. Unusually golden in colour, this is also surprisingly full-bodied and rich, smooth and somewhat soft on the palate but not flabby. The nose shows intriguing, almost perfumey, hints of white flowers, melon and almond as well as more standard citrus and stone fruit notes. A whole lot of interesting and complex wine for the price.($12.95)

2008 Domaine de l'Aujardière (Eric Chevalier) Muscadet-Côtes de Grandlieu Sur Lie (Loire Valley): Textbook Muscadet. Light, bright and very refreshing, zingy without being too sharp or acidic. Lots of lime and lemon zest, minerals and that faint salty quality that makes Muscadet such a great pairing with shellfish and bivalves. Great value at around $10-12.

2008 and 2009 Maison William Fevre Chablis "Champs Royaux": I love this wine. I would make tiny babies with this wine if I could. Year after year, for the price, this wine is awesome. It is fresh, it is delicious, it is ripe and rich without being cloying. It tastes a little bit of the sea (salt and stinging, briny breezes) and a little bit of the sun (think vivid ripe orangey Meyer lemons, Mexican mangoes and fragrant fields of thyme). Depending on where you buy it, it will run you between $18 and $25 and it is totally worth it. Just, please, don't drink it too cold and or too fast (let it open in the glass a little and use a Bordeaux style red wine glass for the best nose). I recently paired this with grilled ono fillets marinated in a mixture of pureed fresh golden sage, basil, oregano and rosemary, lemon juice, white vermouth, garlic, a dollop Dijon mustard and olive oil. It was sublime. At least as good with the food as most Chablis twice its price.

@ AYK Bob in #3, I do love a good cider. Apple or pear. The best ones I've had have been French. Norman to be specific. They are a bit hard to find (usually sold by wine shops here in California) and a little pricey (about twice the price of English ciders) but so worth it. Yummy stuff and complex enough to pair with wintry food like braised pork chops and cabbage and rabbits with apples and cream.

Existanai @ #6: that cocktail sounds pretty decadent! I love the idea of opera themed drinks! I can just imagine a Das Rheingold cocktail made with Goldschläger. Of course, only already drunk Teutons would probably be willing to drink it!

Norman cider. Now THERE'S something to dream of....

Makifat @ #10: why give up whiskey during the summer? I drink it year round! You can make a julep or a Sazerac or a Kentucky mule (ginger beer, lime juice and Bourbon or other whiskey of your choice).

Do you not care for gin? Gin drinks are great for warm weather. I love Hendricks-it's much less harsh and medicinal than other gins and makes beautiful cocktails. I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it!

17> It tastes a little bit of the sea (salt and stinging, briny breezes) and a little bit of the sun (think vivid ripe orangey Meyer lemons, Mexican mangoes and fragrant fields of thyme).

Wow, MT, you make me feel like good old Charlie Brown:

Silent, that cartoon made me laugh out loud because I actually have a friend that I (and a couple of mutual friends) secretly refer to as "Linus" because he truly is that individual who can see (and articulate, at great length!) the details the rest of us aren't always too certain are really there. I greatly admire him but also wonder most of the time what the hell he's thinking! ;-)

Don Giovanni:

"Versa il vino! Eccellente Marzemino!"

There's certainly poetry bottled up in Marie, regardless of what's in the wine! (Read about Brunellopoli only yesterday.)

Savoured this weekend: a 2009 Cave De Hoen Pinot Gris with obscene amounts of Ardennes pâté spread on a Lebanese flatbread (don't recall which.) A great meal if you're not paying attention to calories.