Showing posts with label Grüner Veltliner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grüner Veltliner. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Joe Versus the Movie Pairings, part 2
...and so it continues. Completing the challenge posted on the Suburban Wino facebook page by a friend (see part 1 HERE). Trying to pair some wines with some of the 80's finest films. Cue your Europe...it's the Final Countdown:
Top Gun: Château Pétrus. Quite possibly, year-after-year, the most expensive wine in the world. Nestled in the Pomerol appellation of Bordeaux, France, this tiny producer cranks out- at most- around 2500 cases per year. I've seen recent vintages priced at a barrel-roll-above the-hard-deck, nosebleed-inducing pricetag of $1200+. Obviously, someone out there thinks this is the real Top Gun. Interestingly, it's made primarily out of Merlot, as most wines in the Pomerol AOC are. Often thought to be the wingman of Cabernet Sauvignon, it takes the Top Gun trophy this time. "You're still dangerous, Merlot...you can be my wingman any time." "Bullshit, Cabernet Sauvignon. You can be mine."
Amadeus: Grüner Veltliner. Celebrate Austria's most brilliant composer with Austria's most notable grape. Those with much-more-refined palates than I seem to laud the brilliance of these minerally white wines, especially their food-friendliness. I haven't drank a multitude of them, but- like Antonio Salieri- I jealously desire to possess the palates of those enological Mozarts who know GrüVee's symphonic charms. That being said, some of the better ones I've had come from a producer called Wolfgang Vineyards, if you really want to take this pairing thing too seriously.
The Naked Gun: For some reason, all I can think about is O.J. Simpson's performance in this movie. Drink a bottle of Orin Swift's "The Prisoner" in effigy, and remember the good times... 2,000 yards with the Buffalo Bills, and the one-man Comedy of Errors that was Nordberg.
Rambo: First Blood Part II: Chalone Vineyards was the closest-sounding thing I came up with on a feverish search to find the non-existent "Stallone Vineyards". Or, something from Paso Robles' Sylvester Winery. Drink alone.
Troop Beverly Hills: Like Shelley Long's intrepid vow to sell 2000 boxes of Wilderness Girls' cookies (to the chagrin of sinister district leader Velda Plendor), take on the equally-daunting challenge of drinking 2000 boxes of wine. Or was it 1000? I can't even being to put into words how much I don't care.
Beverly Hills Cop 2: Because nothing says "huge in the 80's, but completely washed up now" like White Zinfandel, synthesized pop music, and Eddie Murphy's career.
The Empire Strikes Back: Dammit. The now-defunct "Skywalker Ranch" wines would have been a total softball right here. However, the force is strong with this one, and I must imagine, if there was to be a wine made on the Ice planet Hoth, it would without a doubt be an Ice Wine, or "Eiswein" in Wookie (okay, that's German. But I know some Germanic people who look like Wookies). A delicious nectar made when grapes (usually Riesling) are left on the vine very late into the season, until they freeze. The majority of the water in the grapes is removed as ice, and what's left is a sweet, concentrated (but balanced) dessert wine that will take you to Cloud Nine, or at least Cloud City.
Gandhi: Vinho Verde. This light, crisp, and very pale white wine (the "verde" refers to its youth, not a green color) from Portugal pretty much looks the part of water, a.k.a. the lone staple of a hunger strike. Fighting the good fight for peace is darn admirable, but it doesn't have to be boring. Hey, I don't recall anyone calling it a "cocktail strike", okay?
The Karate Kid: Yeah, we all love Daniel-san. And lovable Mr. Miyagi could certainly help make a case for sake on this one. But let's be honest: we all wanted to be part of Cobra Kai Dojo. So, if you desire the juice in your glass to "strike like a cobra", you've gotta reach for a wine from Washington's Rattlesnake Hills AVA. Actually named for the shape of the hills, rather than a proliferation of poisonous serpents, this sub-AVA of the Yakima Valley AVA brings some serious Cabernet Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot, Riesling, Syrah, and many more. Indeed, Washington wine is crazy-good, and it's not afraid to go up against California's finest. Sweep the leg, Washington. You gotta problem with that?
What a fun challenge. Brought me back a bit to my days of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" mastery. I hope some more challenges are posed, and I really hope some folks drink these wines with the movies suggested.
I've tried to think of a way to wrap this one up cleverly. Staring at the screen is no longer an option. All the creativity was used up on the movies. So...hmmm. Bye?
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Seeking clever ways to work the word "groovy" into the title of this post
My first- particularly terrible- instinct was to title it "A Groovy Kind of Love"...
C'mon, Phil! Pictures like this and songs like the aforementioned-and-wisely-avoided potential title make me not want to think you're totally awesome. Can't we avoid the heartfelt cheese of the balladier and the artistry of a sternly-intense superimposed headshot and get back to the free-wheelin' Phil Collins? The free-wheelin' Phil Collins' mullet and the free-wheelin' days of "No Reply At All" and "Sussudio"? Okay, okay. I know "A Groovy Kind of Love" came out in 1988. So it's not like you've recently jumped the shark. Any I know the hair won't grow back. I have intimate knowledge of that depressing phenomenon. Maybe I'm just holding onto the past too tightly. Hey! I bet Phil Bailey's not doing anything...maybe a remake of "Easy Lover" with some auto-tuned T-Pain??
I can't believe I went off on a tangent. That never happens. Anyway, the whole "groovy" thing stems from a recent dunking o' the whiskers into several different bottles of Grüner Veltliner...an intimidating-sounding wine grape that is often referred to by the much "cuter" name of GrüVee (pronounced "groovy"), thus softening the awkward Germanic name (and lessening thoughts of robots dancing to techno music. Am I right?).
As I was (eventually) saying, Grüner Veltliner is basically THE white wine grape of Austria. The wine-growing regions of Austria are in the eastern part of the country, in and around Vienna. GrüVee makes food-friendly wines with flavors and aromas of minerals, pepper, herbs, peaches, and citrus. It's not Riesling. It's not Sauvignon Blanc. It's a pretty unique grape that makes awefully unique wines. But, yes, the name can be confusing. In fact, the German word for wine is "wein" and the word for Vienna is "Wien", thus easy fodder for mix ups. That being said, the German word for Viennese is "wiener", so a Viennese wine label written in German is a slow-pitch softball when it comes to sophomoric humor (see video below for details).
Getting back to the evening at hand, four said bottles of "GrüVee" (the umlaut is still a little intimidating) were graciously donated by Austrian Wine and the other three by Matt from Wine and I (thanks, chaps!). Not quite having the intestinal fortitude to down seven bottles myself, I called on the eager palates and steadfast livers of local Atlanta bloggers Ed from Wine Tonite!, Jimmy from Eat It Atlanta, and Broderick from Savory Exposure. We ranked four of the bottles (as part of a national blog-wide event called the "GrüVee" olympics...results HERE) and simply enjoyed the three from Wolfgang. As always, it was a great time, better represented in moving pictures than words on a webpage.To protect the innocent, I've omitted the following transgressions from the video below, which is a brief recount of another fun and wine-soaked evening at Chez Wine Tonite:
1) Jimmy raising the roof (but I still have video evidence for the highest bidder)
2) My consumption of cured meats, in direct violation of Lenten observance
3) Ed's and my utter perplexity at the existence of a Sonoma winery's cork in a bottle of Gevrey-Chambertin, along with the Burgundy's cork. Also eliminated are our hypotheses on counterfeit bottles and how this crazy coincidence could've occurred (Ed realizing the next day that the Sonoma cork was on his opener, and our hazy opening of the Gevrey had simply pushed the original cork down into the bottle. As my friend Disco Stu used to always say, "oh, sooo dumb.")
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