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 I’m not dead, just blogging elsewhere.
It was that darned holiday season that pulled me away from here three months ago. With plans for three weeks in Southern California, I forced myself to crank out four advance posts for the Everything Wine store blog in one week, and I never got back to my own blog. Then, as a new years resolution, I decided to redesign the place in Word Press – finally.
But before I could launch this new page theme, the Olympic circus came to town and my job at Canada Hockey Place inhaled my life. Twelve days straight with one day off over sixteen different games that all looked like hockey Halloween. I’ve never clapped nor whoo-hooed so hard in my life.
 Though I haven’t been blogging as much, I have added seven new Olympics videos to my Winetalker Youtube channel including my four part series, Better Know a Colbert. I knew he would be at Pride House that week, and on the way to my CHP job I asked a show crewmember when he was scheduled to be there. 6 pm Thursday I just walked upstairs at Qmunity, signed a release, and watched the Can v Suisse game until the man showed up and stayed all of fifteen minutes. So far, Colbert Report has not broadcast this footage, but I have it online. More Vancouverage is coming soon.
Also, I re-scanned and uploaded a new set of images from my old Deadhead Families portrait project, circa 1989. Just looking at them makes me hear Jerry’s voice.
On the wine front, I have plans to review wines from Trio Vintners, Wertzberger Cellars and Le Clos Jordanne, so please come back soon.
And, yea Canada! You deserved it all.
 Natalie MacLean is a gal who likes her wine buzz. The Ottawa-based wine writer says as much on page seven of her book, Red and White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass. Right up front, she states,” I wouldn’t be writing about wine if it weren’t for the buzz.” How can she be any more honest? Despite having alcoholism in the family, she comes right out and admits to what few wine writers will: they like to catch a jag.
I’ll second that emotion.
Nat’s wine writing has been awarded numerous James Beard and MFK Fisher awards and she writes an immensily popular e-newsletter called Nat Decants, which has become a powerhouse of vinformation since it began in 2001. I especially like the wine and a food matcher, accessible on the right panel of this page.
 But, for all the wine knowledge she dispenses to the masses – did I mentioned she is an accredited sommelier? – Natalie’s history lacks front line experience. She’s never worked the service side of wine or food, nor the distribution or retail sector, or in the winegrowing fields.
In an attempt to put some balance in her wine life, Nat set out for wine regions she’d never visited to get the first-hand experience she’s been craving and to write a book about the wines she’d drunk all over.
Chapters on tasting in Burgundy, Champagne, Bordeaux are rich with descriptive prose and insight about the ancient producers there. And the chapter with author Jay McInerney is like soaking your brain in alcohol. But the chapters I enjoyed the most were the ones where little Miss Intellectual rolls up her sleeves and dives into one-day wine jobs. Like a vinicultural George Plimpton, this is where Nat is at her most vulnerable best, literally.
In Undercover Sommelier, she dribbles red wine on a table she is serving and gets a cold shoulder from the customer. She writes, “For the first time in my life I realize what it’s like to feel servile, dismissed,” and you want to say welcome to the real world, princess.
In A Tale of Two Stores she sells wine and decides that “Working in a wine store is a lot like life: you spend most of the time waiting around for just one or two memorable moments, (which you can easily miss because you went to the bathroom.)”
Been there, thought that, too.
And in Harvesting Dreams, Nat gets down and dirty picking grapes in a Bonny Doon vineyard. In a flight of fancy, she says, “At first, I feel like a hero returning to a hometown parade: leafy green vines reach down in front of me on either side, like well-wishers wanting to shake my hand. But after three hours, the streets are deserted and I’m alone. It’s backbreaking work carrying an ever heavier pail…”
Oh, her aching back.
These first-hand experiences form the character arc of this book, and create drama, which is what readers, like me, love. Much of the informational interludes – such as the pages on proper behavior on both sides of the table, which should be read by every foodie on the planet – could have been written from her office in Ottawa. But her real-life situations keep readers from falling asleep from wine theory overload. She writes with wit and wonder, and it’s a treat to see her learn how the wine industry works, being brought along for the ride.
Ok, enough about Natalie MacLean, here’s how you can buy her book, Red and White and Drunk All Over: A Wine-Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass.
Click on the link here and buy it from Amazon. The original hardback is the cover shown here. The paperback reprint that I got has a “new chapter.” It’s a fun holiday read.
 Don’t like what you’re drinking and yet the wine’s not technically bad, or corked enough to return? Take a leap. Grab another bottle and blend them. See what happens. It might become the best or worst thing you’ve ever tasted, but at least you know it was your blend. Nothing can take that away from you.
It was the harsh, closed Chilean carmenére I drank one night that made me appreciate the power of blending. I remembered a half-emptied bottle of Santa Julia Viongier in the fridge, added a splash of it to the carmenére, and voila – I had a completely different wine with more aromatics and a softer texture. And, I didn’t have to waste that almost full bottle of carmenere.
Sure, blending white with red sounds kinda’ gross until you think of the august Hermitage wines of the northern Rhone Valley: syrah and viognier, baby. Power plus beauty is the way to go.
Why blend wine? Grapestompers offers a few reasons:
To enhance aroma (As I did with the carmenére/vio.) To improve color To add or minimize flavors and tastes To adjust the pH of a wine To lower or raise acidity or alcohol levels To adjust the sweetness of a wine To correct a wine with too much oak flavor To raise or lower levels of tannin
The great thing is, blending can be done anytime and almost anywhere – at home or in a restaurant – but it’s especially fun at a big dinner party, when there’s lots of wine to play around with.
Here are some famous blends to try:
Alsace: pinot gris, pinot blanc, riesling, gewürtztraminer, muscat
Red Bordeaux/Meritage: cab sauvignon, cab franc, merlot, petite verdot, carmenére
White Bordeaux/Meritage: sauvignon blanc, semillion, muscadelle
Champagne: chardonnay, pinot noir, petit menieur
Rhone: syrah, viognier, morvedre, granache, carignan
Rioja: tempranillo, garnacha
Super Tuscan: sangiovese, cab sauvignon, merlot
Zinfandel: zinfandel, petite syrah, carignan
What’s blendable for the big boys certainly works for us. But, these formulas are only starting points for wine blending. There is literally no end to what combinations can be blended at home.
So try it. Go nuts mixing things up, and tell me what you get. I love a good blend.
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