You know the rest of that line, right? Well, it's with some small amount of sadness that I am saying that about this blog: It must come to an end. I've had a terrific time writing it, but we've decided that in the end it's a bit strange, for a magazine that's all about bringing together food and wine, to have separate blogs on those topics.

So, from here on out, any wine blogging that I (and Megan Krigbaum, Kristin Donnelly, and various other stalwart folks) do will instead appear in F&W's primary blog, Mouthing Off. No less wine coverage, just a different venue. See you there.

Ray Isle

I had the pleasure of appearing on the 4th hour of Today this morning with Hoda Kotb, Kathie Lee Gifford and my good pal Leslie Sbrocco, doing a fun 'he-said-she-said' Valentine's Day wine segment. Leslie and I each presented our picks in four categories—for a romantic dinner, for popping the question, for lounging around in a bathtub (!), and for pairing with chocolate—and Hoda and Kathie Lee chose a winner in each one. Check out this clip to see whose choices got the nod...

Last weekend goes down as one of the best in recent memory for me thanks to two great meals in Boston and a little baseball team called the Red Sox.

Friday night found some friends and me at Coppa, where I made it just in time for the late-night menu-an abbreviated version of the dinner menu, but no less impressive. Highlights included chef Jamie Bissonette's stunning crudo with radishes and carrots and borage flowers and the Pattypan di Popeye pizza topped with summer squash and spinach. A friend ordered the Strongman cocktail, which came in an enormous stein with a very muscular glass arm as the handle. The drink, a mixture of green chartreuse, yellow chartreuse and Coors Light (!) was remarkably refreshing and surprisingly strong.

The next day we were lucky to score some seats to the Red Sox game versus the Detroit Tigers. Now, as a girl who grew up in Michigan, I get a lot of flack for rooting for anyone other than the Tigers, but I can't help it. I love David Ortiz. I confess. I also love walk-off homeruns. And guess what: Bottom of the 9th, Sox down 3-2, David Ortiz gets up to the plate and WHAM! Three-run double, and the Sox win the game!

To celebrate this ridiculous victory, we sat down for dinner at Eastern Standard where the oysters were delicious and the 2009 Domaine Colotte rosé (find this wine) from Marsannay went expertly with the tomato, goat cheese and almond salad. Mixologist Jackson Cannon started us off with a to-be-named mini-cocktail (created by fellow bartender Bob McCoy) that was the perfect aperitif. Cannon's been making amber vermouth in-house, and it made this cocktail particularly herbaceous and balanced and refreshing. This is the best possible drink for a hot summer night after your favorite team comes through in the end:

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add 1 ½ oz. gin, ¾ oz. amber vermouth, ½ oz. fresh lemon juice, ¼ oz. simple syrup and 1 dash orange bitters. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Squeeze a fresh lemon twist over the glass and discard. Serve.

It's grilling season, and consequently I'll be appearing on Weekend Today tomorrow morning—Saturday—in the eight o'clock hour with some affordable wine recommendations for everything grilled. Malbec with burgers, albariño with grilled fish, zin with ribs, and one of my favorite dry rosés that I've tried recently—the 2009 Mulderbosch Rosé ($11), from South Africa—with grilled chicken breasts. If I don't run out of time (always a risk, since three and a half minutes goes fast), I'll wrap it up with a tangerine-and-peachy, lightly sparkling, lightly sweet 2008 Michele Chiarlo Moscato d'Asti ($14) to serve with grilled peaches. Should be fun, so tune in.

Contrary to popular belief, it's not every day that I get to taste brand new vintages of Dom Pérignon with its Chef de Cave Richard Geoffroy. In fact, I'd never done this until last week when I, of course, jumped at the chance. For being the winemaker of what's arguably the most highly esteemed Champagne in the world, Geoffroy is remarkably well-grounded and funny and easy to chat with. He even has a blog.

The matters at hand were Dom Pérignon's newest rosés, of which there are two. The first, the 2000 Dom Pérignon Rosé, is a 50/50 blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, but Geoffroy thinks the wine "makes a statement on Pinot Noir. The point is to go for the Pinot Noir-the holy grail of winemakers and consumers."  The 2000 vintage is a delicate golden salmon color and has the power, tannic structure and strawberry and sweet cherry fruit of Pinot Noir, balanced by a roundness on the palate and minerality, thanks to the Chardonnay. It's a duality that Geoffroy calls "very Dom Pérignon." The price, a cool $350, is also very Dom Pérignon.

The second wine we tasted was extraordinarily exciting, but, unfortunately, you won't ever be able to get it. Let me repeat: you won't ever find this wine. There will only be 350 bottles of it in the U.S. That said, the 1990 Dom Pérignon Œnothèque Rosé (the very first Œnothèque Rosé ever released in this country) is just dazzling.  Œnothèque bottlings are late releases of particularly great vintages, and 1990 is especially important to Geoffroy because it was his first vintage at Dom Pérignon. The copper-toned wine is at once mellow but intense; creamy with spectacular acidity; and has remarkable longevity on the palate. "What I'm after is the lasting sensation of something," says Geoffroy. "I want the finish to be a seamless, gliding, holding note." I'd say he hit his mark.

I am a spinach-pie fanatic. Doesn't matter if it's the Greek phyllo variety or the folded-dough Middle Eastern sort; there is no food more perfect in my mind. And just recently, I had a spinach-pie-and-wine pairing epiphany that makes the ultimate even better.

My neighborhood Middle Eastern place, Zaytoons, is BYOB and happily just down the road the from another local fave, Smith & Vine, my go-to wine shop for stuff from excellent small producers world-over. Last week, over the aforementioned spinach pie, my boyfriend Michael surprised me with a bottle of fizzy rosé called Moussamoussettes from one of my favorite Loire producers, Agnès et René Mosse. I'd never seen this wine before, probably because they don't make much of it and it's nearly impossible to find, but it was incredible, with juicy strawberry flavor and an intriguing fennel note. Sparkling wines tend to go really well with salty foods, and this was excellent with the feta-filled spinach pie; the fruitiness was great with the spices, like za'atar, as well.  

I sadly won't be able to get my hands on a bottle of Moussamoussettes every time I eat spinach pie, but there are plenty of other sparkling rosés that will go equally as well. Here are a few to try:

2006 Llopart Rosé Cava (about $17, find this wine) This rather rich cava from Spain is excellent year after year. This vintage has a pretty floral aroma and an unmistakable burst of cherry fruit.

NV Riondo Raboso Pink Prosecco (about $10, find this wine) Pale pink with some herbal notes, this delicately frizzante prosecco from Italy's Veneto region is a steal.

NV Domaine Chandon Rosé ($22, find this wine) This juicy rosé from one of California's top sparkling wine producers is loaded with ripe red-berry fruit.

I had a good time appearing on Today this morning, recommending wines for their "Made in America" Friday whip segment. (On the whip they run through four or so variations on a topic in a speedy way.) In this case "made in America" meant not made in California—which was a great chance to highlight some of the other great wine regions in the country. I brought along:

• The NV Domaine Ste. Michelle Blanc de Blancs ($12), a nice, creamy and fairly full-bodied sparkler from Washington State

• The 2008 A to Z Wineworks Rosé ($12), a fragrant dry rosé from Oregon made with (oddly enough) Sangiovese grapes

• A terrific, crisp, Kabinett-style Riesling from the Finger Lakes, the 2007 Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard Dry Riesling ($17), which will also age beautifully if given the chance

• And one of my favorite Texan wines, the 2006 Flat Creek Estate SuperTexan ($19), a juicy, robust Sangiovese blend that I first ran into while touring around the Hill Country with my father, doing some barbecue research.

Plus, I got to see Al Roker sing part of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina" from on top of a crane, which was definitely the sort of experience you don't get every day.

There's no particular theme to this last-minute grab bag of good, inexpensive wines, though I was flipping through my notes and I did come across this comment from wine importer Bart Broadbent: "Wines are like people. If they please everyone, they're bland." This was said in the context of a tasting of Chateau Musar's unquestionably un-bland wines, but it's good food for thought regardless.

Anyway. I don't think that the 2006 Feudi di San Marzano Sud Negroamaro ($12) from Puglia would necessarily please everyone—it's too luscious and dark-fruited for folks who like their reds lean and angular—but it would certainly please a lot of people with its cassis and blackberry fruit. And no, it isn't bland.

Even less bland is the impressive 2006 Domaine de la Petite Cassagne Rouge ($15) a juicy, lightly funky red with black plum fruit and prickly tannins that wake up your tongue. It's a blend of Grenache, Syrah and Carignane from the Costières-de-Nimes, and it's a steal.

Once your tongue is awake, you could keep it that way by drinking some 2007 Rocky Gully Shiraz-Viognier ($14), which proves that not all inexpensive Aussie Shiraz tastes like blackberry jam. This one is lighter than the usual run, with bright fruit and evocative peppery notes in both the aroma and the taste. Stunning with seared kangaroo kidneys, or what have you.

If you're after rosé—which, yes, can still be drunk without hesitation despite the season—the 2007 Jean-Luc Colombo Rosé de Côte Bleue ($13) has a pretty raspberry-strawberry character and good texture. It's still drinking just fine. And if you put it outside for twenty minutes, it'll be exactly the right temperature.

 

 

Since I'm in the Bay Area for our annual American Wine Awards event, I took the opportunity to head over to the East Bay and grab lunch at the Chez Panisse's Café. Seemed like a good idea, since I haven't been there in thirteen years and, after all, it's Chez Panisse.

Something about the dark, wood-beamed, stained-glass space made me feel rather as though I were having lunch inside a particularly well appointed Hobbit hole—go figure—but the kitchen still has that ability to turn out mundane-sounding dishes like "avocado and beet salad with citrus vinaigrette" that pretty much blow you away, simply because of the quality of the ingredients. The same was true of the aïoli served with a perfectly cooked (and very flavorful) piece of Northern halibut—the garlickiness of the aïoli had the subtle, perfumed character of fresh farmer's market garlic rather than the hoary pungent heads of the stuff, imported from God knows where in China, that lately have been turning up at grocery stores near me.

Anyway, the point is that the wine I had to go with all this, a 2007 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé ($35), is a wine to put to rest any comments that rosé can't be serious stuff. It was luscious, not in a fat, overripe, fruit-jam way, but in a tongue-caressing, silky, substantial-for-a-rosé way. Great strawberry and raspberry fruit notes, but what impressed me most was the texture, which was just plain seductive. Kermit Lynch imports it, and it certainly isn't cheap (especially for a rose), it's still more than worth picking up.

In classic form, I stated that the results of my rosé tasting would be posted yesterday; of course, I am only getting to them today. But the world does seem to be spinning on its axis, so evidently promptness wasn't all that important.

In any case, I tasted through twenty-odd rosés today in the always-pleasant-to-be-in F&W Tasting Room, and came out of it feeling a few things. First, southern France still rules when it comes to pink wine. Not that there aren't good rosés from other places, but the Languedoc, Provence, Saumur, etc. always seem to come out tops whenever I do a survey tasting like this. Two, when rosé is bad, it's really depressing. There's nothing worse than a cheerful, fun wine that's actively unpleasant (for instance, odors of canned corn or flavors recalling watermelon Jolly Ranchers). Three, old rosé—with the exception of Lopez de Heredia's truly unusual bottling, which is released so old that it's sort of fascinating & wonderful—is a mistake. Buy the current vintage, or be prepared for the world of canned-corn-watermelon-candy-yech.

So, with that in mind, here are the winners of the bunch:

2006 Prieuré de Montezargues Tavel ($20) Scents of cherries and strawberries, a slightly prickly, just this side of petillant texture, and lots of flavor. Lovely Tavel. Makes me wish I had a boat to drink it on.

2006 Langlois-Château "La Bretonniére" Cabernet de Saumur ($18) Langlois-Château—which makes very good Loire sparkling wine—is owned by Bollinger, the rather grand Champagne company. I haven't had many Cabernet Franc rosés, but evidently sparkling-winemakers know what to do with it: make a charming rosé with light red currant and cherry notes and a touch of tannin. 

2006 SoloRosa Syrah Rosé ($28) Big, luscious but balanced rosé made with fruit from Saralee's Vineyard in the Russian River Valley. Abundant cherry fruit kept alive by the orangey acidity. Sort of a main-course rosé—I'd happily drink this with a pork chop, or somesuch. Pretty dern pricey, though.

2006 Fortitude Rosé ($14) You sort of have to love this if only because it's primarily made from Valdiguié, which, according to the Oxford Companion to Wine, "enjoyed its finest hour in the late 19th century." Poor Valdiguié; nevertheless, this is a nice comeback: a little watermelon in the aroma, a lot of raspberry and some citrus in the flavor.

And all of these would be just fine with a tasty corn salad.