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Showing posts from April, 2009

Enjoying wine as a dish or an ingredient?

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I was thinking... that the world of wine drinkers is divided into two camps. In one camp, we have a lot of "serious" wine drinkers who grew out of and away from the wines so beloved by the other camp. This other camp typically encompasses people who are just getting into wine as well as those who evolve ever so slowly mostly sticking to the more basic and juicy flavors they are naturally comfortable with. Thinking deeper, one key fundamental reason for the disagreement between the two camps is how they view wine. I believe one group always treat wine as a dish in and of itself, expecting completeness and self-containment. They expect a wine to be tasty on it own like a risotto with prawns or a soup is tasty all by itself. I believe, the other group, however, learned to appreciate the incompleteness of a wine on its own. Members of that camp, perhaps without even explicitly realizing it, treat wine as an ingredient, an additive to a dish, just like salt, pepper, spice, vinega

Japanese wine drama Kami no Shizuku: Episode 7

...continued from Episode 6 . If you are new to this series, start here . This is an awesome Japanese Manga -drama about wine. Laugh, cry, enjoy as you watch Kami no Shizuku ("Drops of God"). Episode 7 Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Episode 8 is available here .

Salty Riesling?

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This wine was salty... hm, hm... saline is the more appropriate "positive" term, I'm told. Positive, because at a wine dinner of at least a dozen high-end wine lover's wines, this came out of nowhere to steal the show. My regular readers already know how much I appreciate Riesling, but so far it has always been one with some sweetness (Kabinett or Spatlese level) necessary in order to extinguish the heat of Sichuan cuisine that I usually pair German Rieslings with. But this dinner on Wednesday night of April 15 featured halibut with beans for course #1, and beef bourguignon for course #2, preceded by cheese and olives. Naturally, it was going to be whites for aperitifs and halibut, and reds for the beef. Starting off with Champagne, and following up with Condrieu, Cote-du-Rhone blanc, white Hermitage from Guigal, and Chateuneuf-du-Pape blanc from Vieux Telegraphe, somewhere along the way the host pulled out a Kallfelz Rielsing, with the following longer description:

Japanese wine drama Kami no Shizuku: Episode 6

...continued from Episode 5 . If you are new to this series, start here . This is an awesome Japanese Manga -drama about wine. Laugh, cry, enjoy as you watch Kami no Shizuku ("Drops of God"). Episode 6 Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Episode 7 is available here .