Holiday Wine Challenge Part 1: Turkey? Ham? Red? White? Rose?

What’s your traditional holiday meal? Is it turkey? Ham? Prime Rib? Or something a lot less carnivorous?

Once you figure out the main course as well as the sides, what wine do you choose to pair with the cornucopia that will overflow on your table and in your belly. (What wine do you think they’re drinking in this classic photo from the collection of Charles Phoenix?)

And how do you decide which wine to choose?

Pinot noir or Beaujolais, both light red wines, seem to be all the rage and the recommendations from wine influencers. In fact, when Rick Bakas posted the question on his facebook profile (“Pinot noir of Beaujolais?) most people answered one or the other, with just a few people offering other suggestions including Barbera and Petite Sirah. Read here about how the pinot noir trend started on Oprah!

However, when I have tasted pinot noir and Beaujolais with holiday feasts of turkey and ham, these wines were good but not that exciting.

So what’s a Wine Blogger to do?

In the call of duty, I convinced my husband to cook a turkey BEFORE Thanksgiving. AND I convinced him to cook a ham too! (It wasn’t that hard actually; we enjoy turkey and ham as often as possible!) Then I lined up a bunch of wines, many of them samples sent in the hopes of a recommendation for YOUR holiday table, and I tried them with the turkey and the trimmings.

MENU:

Turkey: Kosher, brined, Trader Joe’s ($2.49 a pound for a 13# bird), rubbed with fresh rosemary, lemon and other secrets of my husband (which took about an hour),  cooked on the BBQ for three hours, resting for 15 minutes before carving. (Always use a thermometer!)

Dressing: Trader Joe’s cornbread dressing as directed for stovetop substituting chicken broth and a splash of white wine for the water.

Side: Steamed brussel spouts, bacon, chestnuts.

Because I didn’t have time to make a gravy and there were only three of us, I poured the drippings onto the dressing and the brussel sprouts (oh lordy that’s good!)

Salad: Baby mixed greens with fresh raspberries and blackberries dressed with huckleberry vinagrette and Spanish olive oil.

Process:

I tasted the wines “straight”, then with various items from the menu. All wines were in the same stemware. At first I went from whites to reds, light to heavier, then mixed it up using the food to change my palate. I didn’t really know what the bottles retailed for until I researched and wrote the blog posts.

A few WHITE and ROSE Wines: Continue reading →

International Food Bloggers Conference 2011: Highlights from Santa Monica

Here’s a quick rundown of highlights from my whirl wind experience at the International Food Bloggers Conference in Santa Monica November 11-13, 2011 including details from our Food Truck lunch and the dinner prepared by Chef Michael Moore from Sydney and wines from Temecula.

First, I missed out on November 11 because of my son’s birthday party. I heard dinner was a blast and that folks enjoyed wandering around with their food tickets.

On Saturday, we arrived and got checked into the hotel–the DoubleTree with its warm chocolate chip cookies, suites and for many of us, views of the Pacific on this gray, rainy, cold, fall day.

We were just in time for a food truck lunch held over at nearby SaMo High School by some picnic tables. The trucks were lined up and offered a limited but delightfully varied and tasty menu. My son, the birthday boy, was over the moon about the grilled cheese sandwiches: one half was plain and simple, but the other half was mac n cheese with rib meat. Wow. No wonder my husband had been trying to track The Grilled Cheese Truck down for awhile!

I couldn’t tell you which was food from which truck was my favorite. Honestly. I can be really tough to please but it was all so good and so nice AND they were all willing to take the onions off!  (Onions destroy my palate and I was going to be tasting wines later). Perhaps what was most memorable was the super fresh ginger in the peanut sauce from the Chomp Chomp Truck.

We also fell in love with the Voss water that was served. While I certainly would have enjoyed experimenting with wines with these foods, the Voss water in the glass bottles has such a classy presentation, and was of such high quality that I wasn’t tooooo disappointed. I usually don;t go for “water with gas” as they call it in Europe but this time I did because it went better with the rich food than a still water.

Here’s a few of my tweets with links to photos of Food Truck Heaven: Continue reading →

Experience “Life on the Douro” on the West Coast this week–and taste the wine too!

Documentary film maker Zev Robinson will screen his new film Life on the Douro on the West Coast this week starting with LA tonight Tues. Nov. 15 and then San Francisco on Th. Nov. 17. The film will be followed by a tasting of some very fine Port and Douro wines from Graham’s, Dow’s, Niepoort, Crasto, Taylor Fladgate, Quevedo, Mourao, and possibly Sandeman, Ferreira and Portal. In addition to seeing a beautiful and engaging film with a fascinating story, this is an amazing opportunity to taste wines that are rare and difficult to find in the US.

“Directing this film has been one of the great experiences of my life,” says director Zev Robinson, “the Douro is one of the wonders of the world that should be seen at least once in a lifetime, and Portugal is a country that deserves to be much better known.”

Doors open at 6 PM, the film will start at 6:30, presented by director Zev Robinson, followed by a Q&A, and a wine tasting presented by Oscar Quevedo, marketing director for the Quevedo winery http://quevedoportwine.com/,  and Roy Hersh of http://www.fortheloveofport.com, one of the world’s leading experts of Port and Douro wines, one of the world’s leading experts of Port and Douro wines and organizer of  tours of the region.

IN LOS ANGELES:
Chaplin Theater and Raleigh Cafe,
Raleigh Studios
5300 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles CA 90038
Tickets are $32.00 and can be purchased here –
http://lifeonthedouroinla.eventbrite.com/

IN SAN FRANCSICO:
Delancey Street San Francisco
Screening Room and Private Club
600 Embarcadero
San Francisco, CA 94107
Tickets are $32.00 and can be purchased here –
http://lifeonthedouroinsanfrancisco.eventbrite.com/

Life on the Douro can also be viewed Saturday, November 19, at Paso Robles Film Festival (exact time TBA) –
http://www.pasoroblesfilmfestival.com/

I had been looking forward to attending this film in Los Angeles and seeing Zev and Oscar again but I took over teaching a college class that meets on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and can’t cancel class. I’ll have to miss Saturday in Paso Robles because it is the 50th Birthday celebration and concert of my lifelong friend Jeff Kaiser. I’m so disappointed I’ll be missing out on the film and the tasting!

How To Create Compelling Content: Part 1

How To Create Compelling Content For Your Food Blog About Wine
Or, How To Become a Wine Blogger Without Really Trying

This afternoon I am speaking at the International Food Bloggers Conference. Here are a few notes for my presentation.

I started blogging the November night the time changed in 2007. I was waiting for my husband—he was putting our son to sleep then we were going to watch a movie. But my husband fell asleep.  And I awoke to the wonderful world of blogging.

I’d had a newspaper column for a number of years called Art Predator, an eclectic mix following Coleridge’s definition of the aesthetic as that which engages the whole soul. I wrote about art, literature, film, Burning Man, music, travel and yes, food and wine.

I found I was writing so much about food and wine that I started another blog –Wine Predator! That year I attended the first Wine Bloggers Conference. In 2009 I attended the second Wine Bloggers Conference then I wrote an essay and was selected to travel to Portugal to the European Wine Bloggers Conference and to learn about Portuguese culture, cuisine, and wine as a guest of Enoforum.  In 2010, I wrote a series of blog posts and was selected to travel to Washington State. Most recently, I was a co-host for International Champagne Day at the Jolly Oyster in Ventura.

So what have I learned over the years about producing compelling content at the intersection of food and wine?

1)   Go for the jugular.

2)  Tell stories.

3) Be specific.

4) Experiment.

I’ll add more details in a later post!

Read more tips about writing and using social media over at The Write Alley.

International Food Bloggers Convene on Santa Monica With A Focus on Wine

Gwendolyn Alley blogger author writer poet This weekend, Food Bloggers from around the globe but especially from California will convene near Santa Monica’s famed Third Street Promenade to exchange tips on blogging, to try new and exciting foods, and to learn about how to incorporate wine into food blogs by tastings and pairings and by attending a Saturday afternoon session on the topic where I am one of the panelists! I’ll be focusing on how to create compelling content about wine.

3:30 — 4:45    Session: How to Incorporate Wine into Your Food Blog sponsored by The Crusher. Hosted by Michelle McClendon, Winemaker, Don Sebastiani & Sons, Gwendolyn Alley, Blogger, Wine Predator, Michael Wangbickler, Balzac Communications

For many cultures around the world, wine is an integral part of people’s daily lives. It is served with every meal (okay, maybe not breakfast) and enjoyed with friends and family. Walk into a restaurant in France or Italy, and you will likely see a bottle of wine on every table. In America? You are as likely to see beer, cocktails, or Coca-Cola as you are wine. Inexplicably, most Americans are intimidated by wine and are afraid of making a mistake when purchasing a bottle. But the simple fact remains that wine doesn’t have to be complicated and can be enjoyed by anyone. In this session, we’ll explore ways for you to integrate wine and wine reviews into your blog to further enhance your and your reader’s enjoyment.

Here’s the complete agenda for the 2011 Food Bloggers Conference in Santa Monica. I’ll be attending and blogging the sessions on Saturday and possibly Sunday (I couldn’t attend today Friday because of my son’s 8th birthday party!)

And I promise to post the key points of my own session–I’m thinking about putting them up before the session so people can follow along!

Who am I? Of course you can read my “about” page.  Here you can read recent press about me.

Last May, influential blogger and wine publicist Jo Diaz named me a “woman wine blogger who matters.”

PS While it’s not about food or wine or blogging, I will also have my book Middle of the Night Poems From Daughter to Mother :: Mother to Son with me for sale and signing.

On Books & Bottles, Wine & Sex

“The sway of alcohol over mankind unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.” American philosopher and psychologist William James, one of the first to study the application of alcohol in religious ritual.

So quotes Jeremy Parzen in his article “(Not So) Odd Pair: Wine and Sex.” His globe trotting discussion includes a mention of the first English-language translation of the “youthful, sex-fueled tale of wine tasting and daring” Japanese manga comic Drops of God by Tadashi Agi (a pseudonym for brother and sister Shin and Yuko Kibayashi) which British wine magazine Decanter has written is “arguably the most influential wine publication” of our time–partly because prices for wines mentioned have skyrocketed, partly because it has a great wine related story (plot summary here), and according to a 2007 Reuters feature, “wine industry experts believe part of the manga’s appeal is that it teaches readers enough about wine to understand the drink and impress their friends, but does so in an entertaining way.”

The holidays are coming: this might be a good book for the wine lover on your list! While I haven’t read this one, I have a few more that I will be reviewing in the coming weeks. What better present for than wine lover on your list than a bottle and a book?

Because books too stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature!

Wine for Fall Celebrations Part 1: A Birthday, Halloween, Days of the Dead

A few weeks ago, we used a Halloween and skeleton theme for my husband’s 50th birthday party and camp out at the beach. While we certainly celebrated with champagne paired with dozens of oysters and clams from the Jolly Oyster, he grilled a tritip and we all enjoyed red wine as well as a full moon tequila toast!

Along with some photos, here are some thoughts on some wines you might choose for tonight’s Halloween dinner or for Dias de Los Muertos or other fall dinners including Thanksgiving!

Also, I can’t recommend the Govino reusable plastic glasses more highly for picnics, camping or parties. These really are marvelous! We do a LOT of camping and bringing glasses that allow me to really enjoy the wine has been a challenge. I picked up the Reidel to Go this summer as well as a box of Govino reds at Dunham Cellars after tasting wine in a variety of vessels there.

While I prefer the glass Reidel and I appreciate that it comes in its own cardboard tube, you can’t beat the plastic ones for convenience, less worry, and WINE TASTES GOOD in GOVINO!

I’ve tasted several reds, whites and even champagnes and been very impressed. If you loan them out, however, you need to make sure people know these aren’t disposable. They’re about $13 for a box of 4. And what about the wine with the Reidel To Go?

When people pooh-pooh syrah these days, especially AUS suyrahs as “fruit bombs” I know it’s because they haven’t tasted this one: Two Hands Gnarly Vines 2007 from the Barossa. Now this is what a glass of wine should be every time if you ask me–rich, balanced, flavorful, with lots of fruit but plenty of acid. It was all we could do to NOT drink it all before our dinner of filet mignon wrapped in bacon was ready! As you can see, we were camping in Zion NP on a beautiful fall afternoon. I am so glad that I brought a special bottle of wine for that meal because the day and the meal deserved it. I found it on sale for $23 instead of $46.

Bacon wrapped filet-mignon + Two Hands Gnarly Vines Barossa Valley Shiraz + Fall Day in Zion National Park= ecstasy

The second photo shows some of the wines we brought to the beach campout in mid October. On the left, you’ll find 3 boxed wines. I’ve written before about the Carlo Rossi boxed wines and the Octavins; boxed wine is a convenient way to enjoy a glass of pinot or other wine when you don’t want a bottle because it stays good in the box for a month or more. We brought out the chardonnay  because this is a great way to have wine around to cook with–we used it in the clams that we cooked on the fire with garlic, basil, and mushrooms. Everyone who tries the Pinot Evil is surprised by how good it is–a box is about $20.

On top of the boxed wine is una calavera of tequila, a reposado from Kah. And yes, we lost our heads with that tequila we we used for a full moon toast over the fire near the close of the night.

The Dearly Beloved Forever Red Mendocino Red Blend is a fruity, friendly wine that I found at Trader Joe’s for around $7; I have to admit I liked the bottle more than the wine. But others liked the wine a lot–it’s very fruity (plum, cherry lifesaver, vanilla oak) and friendly and fun. It was a good wine to have as people were gathering.

Much more acidic, balanced, full bodied and complex was the next wine over–Bogle’s Phantom Ranch Zin and Petit Sirah blend from the Clarksburg AVA which was about $16 at Trader Joe’s. I loved this wine with the tritip. Bogle’s wines I find are typically great values and so is this one. I definitely recommend it–as well as Bogle’s other Petit Sirahs which are also wonderful wines for the price. (I also really like The Crusher’s Petit Sirah from Clarksburg which is about the same price.)

Bogle’s 08 Phantom Ranch Zin & PS is a spirited wine for $16! But only 14.5% alcohol!

Holiday meals call for bubbles. At the beach party, we loved Henriot for its delicate foamy bubbles, its dryness, its apple and peach; it went fabulously with the oysters and the beach. This was the best champagne that most people there had ever had.

Stay tuned for more pairs for fall including Smoking Loon pictured above!

DISCLAIMERS: I bought a box each of Govino red wine glasses and sparkling wine flutes; I later contacted Govino about supplying flutes for champagne day and they sent me samples of all three. The boxed wines were sent as samples as were the bottles of Smoking Loon and the Crusher Petit Sirah.