Saturday's Wine run...

As I mentioned in the last article, on Saturday, Mick and I ventured down to New York State for a Wine run...

"It's 106 miles to Kenmore, we have a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's overcast and we are wearing sunglasses... let's roll"

The better halves decided to pass on our Wine run, so Mick and I head down to NY by ourselves. We left at 11:30am, we had a quick lunch at the border and then a longer wait at the border and reach Prime Wines by 2:15pm. It took us longer to get there than we expect but it was raining off and on slowed things down on the roads.

We spent over two hours at Prime Wines. This isn't hard to do as there are so many different wines to see. Heck, I spent fifteen minutes standing at the entrance, with tear of joy streaming down my face, as the Angels sung overhead, while surveying row after glorious row of wine, thinking 'this is what the LCBO should be like'. Prime Wines staff just walked by, nodded, smiled and mumbled 'another poor wine deprived Canadian'.

Our first stop at Prime Wines was their temperature controlled wine room. This room is probably 15' feet across by 40' feet deep and holds an amazing collection of wine. High end wines from all over the globe and not just current releases but aged vintages as well. Here is just some of things I picked up -

• 1999 Joseph Phelps Insignia
• 1999 Robert Mondavi Napa Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
• 2002 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, Oakville
• 2001 Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Merlot
• 1989 La Tour Blanche Sauternes
• 2003 Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux
• 1999 Oremus 5 Puttonyos Tokaj Aszú

The three I'm most excited about are the 89 La Tour Blanche, the 03 Château Margaux and the Tokaj Aszú. My goal for this year is to become much more familiar with French wines. The 2003 Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux is Château Margaux's second label. Château Margaux is a 1st Growth Bordeaux, their premier label can command a price of over a $1000... so being able to try one of their second labels allows me to experience their wine on a budget.

The Sauternes and the Tokaj are both dessert wines made with grapes that have Botrytis cinerea or Noble rot. Noble rot removes water from the grapes, leaving behind a higher percent of solids, such as sugars, fruit acids and minerals. This results in a more intense, concentrated final product. I have had a couple of Botrytis affected dessert wines made by Henry Pelham that were truly amazing and cannot wait to try these two.

Side note - while I may slag on Niagara VQA Wines, Henry of Pelham is example of a Niagara region winery that does things right - http://www.henryofpelham.com/. In the LCBO, there is currently a Henry of Pelham Botrytis Affected Riesling 2005 (Vintages number - 534628) 375 mL bottle : $ 34.95. This wine is exceptionally good and the LCBO still has good stock levels on it... pick some up before it is gone.

Once I was done in the 'room', I hit the rest of the store. I picked up a odd bottle here and there but the main things were - 1 Case of Kendall Jackson 'Vintner's Reserve' Chardonnay, 1 Case of Joseph Phelps 'Innisfree' Merlot and 3 bottles of Yalumba Antique Tawny.

I covered the Merlot and the Tawny in the last post, so KJ Chardonnay time. KJ Chardonnay is a classic example of why the LCBO needs go away. They have been carrying KJ Chardonnay heavily in the LCBO for years. Even in the smaller LCBO stores, you could usually find KJ Chardonnay. About six months ago stock levels at the LCBO for KJ Chardonnay were much lower than usual, then 3 months ago there was only one store in the province that had stock and now no stores have stock. It is like they just decided to drop the KJ and go with something else. Why? You have built up a loyal following of people who love this wine and carrying year after year and then drop it...

OK, off on a rant there... back to NY, we got out of Prime Wines, with both of our wallets a lot lighter, and were on the road by about 4:30pm. The border wasn't that busy but was slow. We declared the wine and then went inside and paid our duty... ouch, 64% duty hurts. We got home by 6:00pm. So the trip took 6.5 hours which was longer than we want but both of us are happy with what we picked up. The wives, not so much... no more 'unsupervised' trips to NY for Mick and me for awhile :)

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night - My wife is always right...

This Saturday night's dinner was supposed to be my turn to cook, but as Mick and I spent the day Wine shopping in NY and didn't get back until 6:00pm it ended up being takeout. We have an Italian Food/Pizza joint in the area called Chicago Style who makes great pasta. We ordered Garlic Bread with Cheese, two Anti-pasto salads, two fried Ravioli, a large Tortellini Alfredo and large meat and cheese Ravioli in tomato sauce for dinner.

My main reason for going to NY was to pickup more Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Merlot. http://www.jpvwines.com/. Joseph Phelps wines are quickly becoming some of my favorite wines on the planet. I have tried their Insignia, Le Mistral, and their Napa Valley Merlot. The Napa Valley Merlot is the most amazing Merlot I have ever tried. I have tried the 2000 and 2002 Napa Valley Merlot and both were equally as good.

I was looking at getting some more as I was down to one lone bottle of 2002, and after visiting the Joseph Phelps website, it looks like they are no longer making the Napa Valley Merlot. The 2002 Merlot was released on Jan. 2005 and that is the last Napa Valley Merlot they have listed... there should be 2003 and a 2004 out by now but there isn't. The LCBO no Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Merlot in stock, the Lifford Wine Agency (which is the agent that handles Joseph Phelps products in Ontario shows the Merlot in their "archived" wine section, so my last shot at finding some was the Premier Group in the NY... they had the 2001 Napa Valley Merlot listed on their website so I was in business and off to NY we went.

In New York State, the Prime Wines location of the Premier Group in Kenmore was were we ended up. They had six bottles of the 2001 Joseph Phelps Napa Valley Merlot in stock ($44.99 US each) which I snapped up.

While I was there I noticed they also had the Joseph Phelps "Innisfree" Merlot on sale for $19.99, regular price was $25.99. I had never tried it but decided to take a gamble and buy a case.


For dinner with the pasta we tried the 2003 Innisfree Merlot and the Napa Valley 2001 against each other.



Both were very good, though I preferred the Napa Valley, I wasn't upset at the fact that I had another 11 bottles of the Innisfree sitting down in the cellar!

They both paired very well with the Alfredo, the Fried ravioli and the Garlic Bread with Cheese. Both were OK with the Ravioli in tomato sauce. Both were not so great with salad.

If you can get a hold of either of the Joseph Phelps Merlot in your area, do so you won't be disappointed.


For dessert we had a couple of large wedges of St. Agur (a French blue cheese) and two ports - Taylor Fladgate 20 year old Tawny port and a Yalumba Antique Tawny. Both of these are like Heaven in a glass.

Funny story about the Yalumba Antique Tawny... last time we were down at the Premier Group, my wife, Kathy came across a lone bottle of this and wanted to pick it up. We argued, I didn't want to buy for two reasons - it was from Australia so we could probably get it at the LCBO and it was getting taxed in NY and then again at the border so it would probably be cheaper via the LCBO. Secondly, WTF do Australians know about making port???

In the end, the Yalumba was $17.99 for a 375mL sized bottle, so I decided to give in and it ended up in the cart.


We opened it on Father's Day as my father is a huge fan of Port and Blue Cheese. It was stunning... I liked it even better than the Taylor Fladgate 20 year old port.

I tried everything to find another bottle back in June but there was none to had.

So when I saw three bottles sitting on the shelf in Prime Wines this past Saturday I grabbed all three. We opened one of them for dessert and it was as good as I remembered it to be.

This is not the first time my wife has been right and I have been very wrong about a wine... so to quickly recap - Joseph Phelps makes great wines, especially Merlot, the Australians make a kick ass port and my wife is a wine genius who I should never question.

Cheers!

Mark

Wine shopping in NY state for Canadians...

As the Canadian dollar is rocking and at par or better with the US, a lot of Ontario residents are looking to the South for deals. Wine shopping in NY State is a great experience - a wider selection on wine, especially California based wines. You will see a number of labels that you'll have never seen in the LCBO. You will also see older wines - French wines from the 80's and 90's also on store shelves in the US.

Now you are entitled to 1.5L of wine duty-free if you are down in the US for 48 hours. That's great but not really worth the gas and hotel costs to score two bottles of wine duty-free.

So this will blog focus on a day trip down to NY and what you can expect to pay in duty.

How much wine can you bring back if you are willing to pay duty?

45L.

Is that 45L per car or per person?

We had a Customs person check this the last time we went down and the answer is 45L per person. This means if you go down with your spouse or a friend you can bring back 90L or 10 cases of wine (750mL bottles).

How much is the duty?

Rough and dirty you will get dinged 64% on the value of the wine in CDN dollars. So if a bottle of wine is $10 in the US, you will have to pay $6.40 in duty on that bottle. Even with a 64% duty, there are some deals to be had. Robert Mondavi Private Selection Chardonnay is $18.15 in the LCBO, in NY it can be found for $8.99 a bottle, so $9 plus 64% duty = $14.76, that is a $3.39 savings per bottle. That doesn't seem like much but buy 1 case of that wine and that is $40.68 in savings... that will pay for you gas and now every bottle/case you buy is money in your pocket. What is even better, is a lot of NY based wine store offer a 5-10% discount on cases, so then the savings get even better.

Now these types of savings are nice, but my next trip down to NY will probably be in the next couple of weeks and my main purpose for going isn't to save money but to buy wines that aren't currently available in the LCBO.

So whether you are going NY for the savings or the selection, it is a good time to be a Canadian!

Cheers!

Mark

The LCBO - Part 5

This is the final part of the LCBO series. In the last article, I pointed out things I liked and disliked about the LCBO. This final part will deal with some ideas I have on how to improve the LCBO or how to change the system.

The ideal solution in my mind would be to privatize the LCBO but as I stated my reasons in the first part of the series, I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.

So time to 'think outside the box'...

1. Remove Beer from the LCBO, I'd be tempted to add wine/vodka coolers or any beverages under 7% alcohol. The will force the LCBO to focus on Wine and Liquor and dedicate their efforts in both departments.

2. Allow regional based specialty wines to stores to be opened privately. Example of this is a wine store that sells nothing but French wines. This will increase the selection of wines available to Ontario consumers and leave the LCBO in public selling its general selection of wines. It will also allow regional experts to pass on their knowledge of a region to Ontario consumers; as I have to imagine that someone opening a regional wine store would be very familiar with the region.

3. Allow easy web-based shopping via the LCBO's website. You can order and pay online and then pickup your order at the LCBO of your choice. Have on the website a section called "Can't find a wine..." where you can click and send an e-mail with the wine you are looking for, and have staff that specializes in tracking down wines.

If anyone is reading this and has another suggestion, leave a comment and I will add it to the list.

Cheers!

Mark

The LCBO - Part 4

In the first three parts, I covered the three objectives of the LCBO and how these could still be achieved under a privatized system. This part was supposed to discuss what I felt is wrong with the LCBO, but I don't want to just be negative so I've decided to discuss the good points of the LCBO as well.

The last time the topic privatization came up under the Harris government, the LCBO went through a number of changes. They modernized their signs and stores from the old plain blue and white to their current green and white/beige look. Some of the stores before the makeover looked dirty and old. The current LCBO's are all very clean and modern looking. They opened on Sundays and have longer hours of operation; they started accepting Debit and Credit cards. They now offer Air Miles on purchases. They have a website and web-based searchable inventory system. Their product inventory has gotten better over the years.

In short there have been a lot of improvements to the LCBO over the last 10-15 years. For that I will give them credit.

This still doesn't change the fact that they have a monopoly on imported liquor and wine in the province Ontario. It doesn't change the fact that their unionized workforce lags behind in service levels vs. private sector retail. It doesn't change the fact that Ontario consumers are paying more for wine than they should and while their selection has gotten better, it is still far too limited.

Here is a few of the issues I have with the LCBO...

1. There has been an alarming trend for LCBO stores to increase the size of their beer selections to the detriment of their wine floor space. (There are Brewers Retails/Beers Stores where you can buy beer, but there is only one place you can buy imported wine).

2. There web based inventory system is good but it has a few short comings - inventory levels aren't 100% accurate, they are slow to purge out inventory items which they have no stock (and aren't getting any more) from the system, the search isn't as flexible on search criteria as it could be, you can't right click on a link in search and open it in a new window (this would be very useful to compare products).

3. There should be a way to order products that are listed online and have them shipped to your nearest LCBO.

4. Customer service... here is two examples of problems with LCBO customer service - I found a wine that I wanted located at Toronto store as none of the local stores had stock. I went to my local LCBO after work, and asked them to transfer 12 bottles from the Toronto store. The lady told me that the product manager had gone home for the day and to come back tomorrow. I had the store number, the product, and all the details they needed, I would have quite happily pre-paid for the wine, but yet she couldn't take this information and give it to the product manager when he was in next. Instead, I had to make a trip up on my lunch hour to do this.

The next example is my favorite... there was a brand of wine that I read nice things about their Merlot. I had tried this brand's Chardonnay and really want to try the Merlot. I did a search and found that the LCBO doesn't carry the Merlot for this brand. I decided to go to my local LCBO, to see if they could help me. In the end the person helping me, gave me the name and number of the agent who imports the wines for this brand and then sells it to the LCBO. Two problems with this - Wine agents usually only order by the case, and I just wanted to try a bottle and why the hell should I do the leg work and calling around... I’m not in the business of selling wine - they are.

Now both of these are small points but neither of them would have happened in a regular retail environment.

There a store in Kenmore NY called the Prime Wines and is part of the Premier Group. If you live in Southern Ontario and like wines make the trip. The Prime Wines store is huge; this store is like a Home Depot of wines... HUGE! The customer service is fantastic and the selection is mind-blowing. If you think the LCBO is adequately serving Ontario, one trip to Prime Wines and you'll realize how under served we are.

5. Limited selection, I have done searches on the wines on the Wine Spectator and found a list of 20 or so and found that the LCBO doesn't carry a single one of them. Here would be a classic example – in a search for South African Chenin Blanc, 5000 cases made, rated 85 or better. This will produce a list of probably 20 or more, and yet the LCBO didn't have a single one. If stores were privately owned, you could establish a relationship with the store and I sure they be able to get you in one of the twenty wines... There was a wine tasting event in Calgary (Alberta, Canada) where they judged 1000 wines under $25 and then made a list of the top 3 of each wine by grape. I did a search via the LCBO and half didn't even come up, and out of the remaining half, half of those that came up had no stock. This wine tasting was done in Calgary not California, Alberta is a smaller province than Ontario and yet we only are able to get a 1/4 of the wines on the list? Alberta has privatized liquor stores...

6. The Ontario Government has recently changed the rules and added a 20 cent deposit on wine bottles. The idea was to cut down on waste and keep wine bottles out of landfills and recycle them instead. Two problems with this - most cities in Ontario have a "Blue Box" recycling program. I know I haven't tossed a bottle in the garbage since the Blue Box program went in, and I image most Ontarians are vigilant in their recycling efforts as well so I question how many bottle were ending up in landfills. The second and biggest problem with this deposit idea - YOU CAN'T RETURN THE BOTTLE TO THE LCBO... you have to take it the Beer Store... so I have to waste more gas driving (really thinking of the environment with this plan!) to the Beer store to return my empty wine bottles.

What pisses me off the most about this, is this deposit idea was taken out of a report that Ontario's Liberal Government had commissioned to look at liquor sales and how well served the people of Ontario are by the current system. The report was like 100 pages, and the majority of the report recommended privatizing the LCBO and the deposit thing was like half a page, almost like a footnote... so of course they choose to do the deposit idea and implement it half-assed and ignore the rest of the report.... sigh.

These points seem like small issues, but as the LCBO has a monopoly on imported wines, there isn't any other option but to go New York State to buy wine to get around these issues.

The people of Ontario should have more options and this monopoly hurts Ontario consumers. We deserve better than this and it is time for a change...

The LCBO - Part 3

3. Supporting the domestic wine industry and providing it with incentive through differential pricing, marketing, and promotion practices.

This one can be handled in two different ways if the LCBO was privatized.

The first way is the Ontario government could mandate that a certain percentage of stock/floor space is dedicated to domestic wines in privatized stores. Similar to the way Canadian content rules are used for radio and TV airtime. Bookstores in Canada are subject to this as well.

The other way to deal with this is to stop protecting Canadian based wines altogether. We are living in a global economy and regional protectionism is very outdated thinking. This protectionism hurts the Canadian wine industry by giving them a closed market for sub par wines, and Ontario consumers by charging higher prices for imported wines to prop up the domestic market.

Ontario makes great Riesling, Late Harvest, Ice wines and some decent Chardonnay but that is it. Ontario wines are also generally overpriced, can't count the number of times I have an Ontario based wines that is good, but then see the price and think, "It was good, but not that good.." and know I can find a much better imported wine for the same price or less.

Here is a link that shows a list of wine producing countries by volume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wine_producing_countries

Canada is 32nd in the world. I tossed around the numbers and came up with a few interesting observations - Canada produces less than 1/6th of a percent of the world's wine. Canada's total wine production is 4% of South Africa's production, Canada total wine production is less than 1% of France's total wine production.

Now with those observations, wander into your local LCBO and look at their wine sections. The South African wine section is super tiny (if it exists at all); France's wine section will be at maximum the same size as the Canadian or less. The Canadian wines usually take up 20-25% of the wine floor space of an LCBO. So Canada makes less than 1/6th of a percent of the world's wines and yet gets 20-25% of the floor space at the LCBO which is ONLY place to purchase imported wines. This isn't including the bonus of being the only wines sold in Ontario Supermarkets.

What is their motivation to make better and more competitively priced wines with these types of market bonuses???

What is really scary is most Canadian wines were over-priced when our dollar was at 63 cents vs. US dollar... now that our dollar is at par with the US; Canadian wines should be stupidly overpriced. Well, they would be if the LCBO was actually quick to pass on those savings on California wines to Ontario consumers. To be fair the LCBO has passed on some savings - a bottle of wine in the US which retails for $7.99 US, was listed at $19.95 is now listed at $17.95. Wow, a $20 wine when the dollar is at 63 cents in now is $18 when our money is at par!

STOP protecting Canadian wine... if Ontario can't make wines which are competitive on the world stage then they need to get the fuck out of the wine business.... PLEASE.

Now people reading this make think I'm being very "Un-Canadian" in my thinking, and thinking that if I love the US so much then I should just move there.

My response to that is this... I'm a confident and proud Canadian. I have no doubt in my mind that our Rieslings and Dessert wines can easily compete on the world stage. Stop planting vines in Niagara that don't grow well (Cabernet Sauvignon for example) and focus on making the best damn Rieslings and dessert wines on the planet. The only way this is going to happen is if we stop protecting them...

Cheers!


Mark.

The LCBO - Part 2

2. Balancing regulatory control with the need to raise revenue for the provincial and federal governments through profits and taxes on alcohol sale;

The point above,basically means the LCBO is in business to make money for provincial and federal governments.

The LCBO Employees Union loves to talk about how much money is raised by the LCBO and if we privatized it, all that revenue would go away.

This is a half truth at best…. when I go to NY state and buy wine, once I reach customs on my way back and pay duty on the wine there is a line on the bill called LCBO markup charge.

Last time I was in NY buying wine here was the break down on the duty...

Value of wine in CDN dollars - $1160.70

Excise Tax - $11.16
GST - $70.31
Provincial (LCBO) Markup fee - $464.06
Provincial sales tax - $196.31

Total duty - $741.84

So the province of Ontario between the markup fee and sales tax got - $660.37 without an LCBO employee handling a single bottle!

This markup charge is in those profit number that the LCBO Employees Union talks about. So if the LCBO didn’t exist the government would still get a good chunk of that revenue (via alcohol taxes) that is currently gets from the LCBO.

Cheers!

Mark.

The LCBO - Part 1

There are two things I hate about Ontario and wine - Ontario wines and the LCBO. For those of you unfamiliar with the LCBO (Liquer Control Board of Ontario)... please give this a read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCBO .

The LCBO is a government run monopoly on alcohol. I do not believe they are doing a good job in serving the province of Ontario and changes need to be made.

Ideally, I would like to see them privatize the LCBO. I don't believe this will happen as Employees Union of the LCBO works very hard at putting out propaganda every time privatization issue comes up, the Government itself loves having the LCBO around for patronage appointments, and lastly the voters in Ontario are too apathetic to force the change.

I found the following on a report done for the Ontario Liquor Boards Employees' Union. ( http://www.yorku.ca/nuri/lcbo.htm )

The objectives and concerns of the LCBO are basically the following:

1. Regulatory control of the sales of alcohol to protect society;

2. Balancing regulatory control with the need to raise revenue for the provincial and federal governments through profits and taxes on alcohol sale;

3. Supporting the domestic wine industry and providing it with incentive through differential pricing, marketing, and promotion practices.

I am going to break this blog up into five parts - the first three will deal with each of the objectives, the fourth will deal with what is wrong with the current system and the last will be about suggestions I have for changing things with the LCBO.

So lets get started - 1. Regulatory control of the sales of alcohol to protect society;

Whenever the topic of privatization comes up this first point is a favourite for Ontario Liquor Boards Employees' Union propaganda, I call it the "Think of the Children" argument.

The "Think of the Children" argument is basically this - if booze was sold in convenience stores the restrictions on alcohol to minors would be much more relaxed than it currently is. They like to make out that minors would be buying booze buy the caseload, teen alcoholism rates would go through the ceiling, instead of packing a drinking box of Orange Tang in their lunches they'd switch to bottle of Vodka to get them through the day... Oh whoa is me!

The answer to this is simple - don't sell booze in convenience stores, instead require stores that carry booze to be stand alone stores. If your whole business and livelihood centered on having a valid liquor license, how relaxed would you be in I.D'ing minors?

Also this "Think of the Children" argument is bullshit anyways... when I was 16 and needed a bottle; it wasn't hard to find someone's older brother or sister to go buy it. I sure today's youths are just as 'clever' as we were.

So as long as alcohol is sold in stand alone stores this whole “Think of the Children” argument is invalid versus the current system...

Saturday Night - Hit'em with the spice weasel!

In the WTF? is ZippySauce article I made reference to another couple - Mick and Amy who were there when Zippy Sauce was born. Mick and Amy and my wife, Kathy, and I usually have dinners on Saturday nights. I decided to start writing about each of our Saturday night dinners for a couple of reasons.

1. We always have wine with the food and since this is Wine and Food blog...

2. This way I have a diary of Saturday nights and which wines and foods we matched, so if I decide to do a dish I haven't done in awhile, it will hopefully be listed on the blog and I can use it for reference.

This Saturday was Mick's turn to cook and he was busy. He did three courses and two of them were brand new. All three courses had one thing in common - spice.

The picture here is of the possible wine line-up for the evening. The red on the left is a Rodney Strong Zinfandel, the three white are (from left to right - EJ Gallo Single Vineyard Chardonnay, Robert Mondavi Riesling, and a Beringer's Alluvium.

Mick was planning on using a Zinfandel on the first and third courses but wasn't sure which white would pair with the second, and wanted to hold off until trying the second course to pick the wine. <--- Wuss... a real man is willing to take a shot at the pairing just by knowing the ingredients :).













First course was Diablo Meatballs and the Rodney Strong "Knotty Vines" Zinfandel.

Diablo Meatball were ground beef, onions, cumin, Chipotle peppers and a few other ingredients.

These were quite spicy, but were funny as you didn't notice the spice on first bite but it really hit you on the aftertaste. We were all sweating after a few of these meatballs.

We tried all sorts of different sauces with the meatballs - honey mustard, salsa, Zippy Sauce, garlic mayo, Bull's eye Honey BBQ sauce. Zippy and the garlic mayo were probably the most interesting. My wife made the suggestion that the meatballs had a nice flavor but would be really good as burger. At that point we all drooled at the thought of Diablo burgers with aged Cheddar, Bacon, lettuce, tomato and a good hit of Zippy Sauce. Mick has promised to do the burgers on his next Saturday.

"Waiter, there's a cat in my wine..."


Mick and Amy's cat "OJ" helping with wine duties.


The Rodney Strong 2001 "Knotty Vines" Zinfandel was a bit of a disappointment to me. I like a big bold Zinfandel and the Rodney Strong reminded me more of a softer, peppery Shiraz than a Zinfandel. Mick really liked it though so I guess it is more of what you are looking for in a red Zinfindel.


The second course was BBQ grilled shrimp in a brown sugar, orange and chipotle marinade.

These suckers were brutally hot and almost too much after my taste buds were still burning from spice of the meatballs. These were good but Mick has other shrimp recipes that I like more than this one.

After trying the shrimp, Amy, Kathy and myself wanted the Mondavi Riesling and Mick wanted the Beringers Aluvium. Out voted 3 to 1 Mick gave in and we went with the Riesling.

The Robert Mondavi 2005 Riesling is a great food wine and pairs well with alot of foods that normally are hard to pair with. I've had this wine with Chinese, Curried foods, and other spicy dishes and really liked it. This pairing was good but not great, and I couldn't help but wonder how the Alluvium would have gone with the shrimp instead.

The third course was spicy Chicken Quesadillas. These normally have a bit of a kick to them but after the first two courses, seemed very tame.

Mick broke out a Francis Ford Coppola's "Director's Cut" Zinfandel (since we killed the first Zinfandel with the meatballs!).

This was more like a Zinfandel I know and love - Big, bold and very fruit-forward. Out of the two Zinfandels we tried this was my favorite, but I'm sure Mick would go with the Rodney Strong.

The Zinfandel was a pretty good pairing but I was bugging Mick before this course to try the Chardonnay with it but he held his ground so Zinfandel it was. I would have been curious to see how the Chardonnay went with this...

For dessert, Amy and Kathy had bought a Chocolate and Peanut Butter based cake. It was OK but by that time I was filled to the gills and heady from all the wine so I didn't pay much attention to it.

"Until today, I have never liked White wine ..."

I have had three different people on seperate occasions tell me this after trying a White wine I had paired with a food course. The first time someone said that to me, I was amazed. I thought about all the different White wines I had tried and how wonderful most of them were; the diversity and complexity of a Riesling, how refreshing a Sauvignon Blanc can be, or how good a big buttery Chardonnay can be.

This got me to thinking how could someone go their whole life and not find a White wine they liked and then it hit me - Weddings and large group functions. I remembered how many weddings and large group functions I'd been to that the White wine was god awful.

My buddy, John called me and asked about what wine he should serve at his wedding. I asked him what price point he had to work with ... "As cheap as possible". I came back with two wines that I thought were OK - a $10 white and a $11 red. Both of these wines weren't what I'd describe as amazing but they were at least drinkable. He thought both of these would be good, and then discussed the choices with his parents... who freaked "Spending that much money on wine? Most people aren't wine drinkers at the wedding and you want to spend that much!!!"

When he told me this I was floored - $10-$11 bottles of wine are too expensive? I've used higher priced wines to cook with, but I guess when you are buying a very large number of bottles, a couple of bucks per bottle can make a big difference.

In the end he picked up a Red wine from Macedonia (until that point I didn't even know Macedonian wine was even sold wine in Canada) at $6 a bottle and I can't recall what the White was but it was just as cheap and even more nasty than the red.

(Note - to any of my American friends reading this - a California wine that you buy for $7-10 will end up costing $18-20 in an Ontario Liquer store, so when I say $10-$11 CDN, it would be like a $4-5 bottle. $6 CDN is going to be like a $2-3 bottle of wine in the US.)

I don't think John's parents were the exception to the rule, generally at most weddings and large functions the wine's most important feature is price.

This got me thinking about weddings in general - if you aren't willing to spend a few extra bucks on wine to get something drinkable, maybe you should cut down on the guest list? Smaller guest list = more money per person to spend on people you do like!

For a lot of people there first exposure to wine is at a wedding or large group function, if this was the only place you were drinking wine, you are not exactly getting the best that the world of wine has to offer.

The other thought I had was the food that the White wine was going with. I find Red wines are a lot more forgiving when pairing (i.e. if you pair something that goes with a Cab. but instead use a Pinot Noir or a Shiraz, it will probably be OK, not amazing but not bad). White wines tend to be lot more diverse between grapes than red. You miss with a White wine pairing and you'll really know it.

So between Wedding and bad pairings, it does kind of explain why someone might not of had a White wine they liked. If your experience with White had been like that, it wouldn't exactly motivate you to go out and spend $15-25 on a nicer White, would it?

Cheers!

Mark.

Food and Wine pairing - the Basics.

My love of cooking is what got me into wine in the first place. I usually will not drink wine on its own. Matching the right wine with the right food will take your dinning experience to the next level.

Wine pairing isn't hard. It is exactly the same as knowing that a baked potato is a good match for steak. Would you put a scoop of vanilla ice cream with that same steak? No, of course you wouldn't. This is because you tried ice cream, potatoes and steak many times and know how they taste and what they do and don't work with.

So the reason wine pairing seems hard to most people is lack of exposure to wine. Once you become familiar with the different types of wines out there and try them with more and more foods it will become much easier.

Here is how I started learning how to pair - My wife, Kathy and I would get together with another couple every Saturday night for dinner. We alternate between the two houses each Saturday. I would cook/make three courses - Soup, Salad/Appetizer and main course.

Hit the Internet (Google is your best friend when it comes to wine pairing) and do a search on what wines go with each course. I guaranty whatever you are making; someone, somewhere on the Internet has made something close to it and has a wine they are recommending with it. Now you should have a list of three wines. The exact brand isn't important, what is important is type of grape. Buy those three wines.

Once you sit down for dinner, pour out all three wines so there will be twelve glasses total on the table. Tell everyone which wine is supposed to go with each course, but make sure you try all three types with every course.

Here is an example menu -

Curried Chicken Soup + Semi-sweet Riesling

Smoked Salmon with Bagel Crisps, Cream Cheese, Lemons and Capers + Chardonnay

BBQ Beef Tenderloin with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans + Cabernet Sauvignon

When you have the Riesling with the Curried Chicken it will be a nice match, hopefully one of the other two wines should be really nasty with Curried Chicken. Sort of like the flavor you get with toothpaste after drinking a big glass of orange juice. You will start to wonder if one or both of the other wines is off or has something wrong with it. This is what you are looking for. You will be amazed at how good the Chardonnay will be with the Smoked Salmon and the Cabernet will be with the Tenderloin. I'm also willing to bet you will be very disappointed with how the Riesling does with the Tenderloin.

The whole key to food pairing is exposure to as many types of wines and foods as possible.

Another option to get more exposure to wine is to form a Wine Club with a group of friends. Say four to six couples and each couple brings a bottle of wine and a small snack to go with it.

Every few months or so we expand Saturday night out to another two couples. Every couple is responsible for bringing one course of the meal and a wine to go with it. This is awesome as for the price of one bottle of wine and one course, you get exposure to three other wines and three other foods.

Lastly, keep your eyes open for Wine events happening in your area - wine stores doing tastings, wineries in your area doing tastings, charities doing a wine tasting as a fund raiser.

One thing you will want to purchase is a small notebook. Nothing too large, something that can fit in your pocket, so when you try a wine that you really like you can write it down! Can't count the number of times I have had a great wine and didn't write it down and then a few months later think about that night and can't recall the wine for the life of me.

Cheers,

Mark

WTF is Zippy Sauce?

This bowl, though worn, well-loved and now retired, was where the very first batch of Zippy Sauce was created.

The two Mason jars in the behind are both filled with Zippy Sauce.

WTF is Zippy Sauce? Zippy Sauce is the name I have for a home made BBQ sauce that was created on the fly at my friend Mick's house when he was in the middle of grilling steaks and remembered that he was out of a commercially branded steak sauce. As all four of us had already been drinking... there was no way any of us were driving to store to get some.

So I volunteered to make something up... and after a quick web search on BBQ sauce recipes which gave me a rough idea of what is in a normal BBQ sauce, I raided his kitchen cupboards and "a little of this and a little of that" and voila "Zippy Sauce" was born.

The dinner was funny as Mick and his wife, Amy and my wife and I sat down for dinner, everyone took the smallest amount possible of the new BBQ sauce. Each of us in turn dipped a little steak into and tried it. A minute later we were all heaping more of the sauce on our plate.

A couple of weeks later we were back for another BBQ. Mick mentioned that he bought some steak sauce from the store. I figured that was the end of my home made BBQ sauce adventure, at this point Amy spoke up and said she didn't want the store bought stuff and she wanted the "zippy" BBQ sauce I'd made before. My wife agreed and want the "zippy" sauce as well.

I almost panicked as I'd made that sauce up two weeks ago and wasn't sure if I could remember exactly what went in it. I gave it a shot and while it was slightly different from the first batch, it was close enough that everyone enjoyed.

The "Zippy" sauce was born. I played around with the ingredents and which ratio of each to use for the next year or so and now I have the recipe down and Zippy sauce is now very consistant.

Cheers,

Mark