Bob’s Winings
                                                                           former
                   Tasting Notes from a ^ Beer Drinker

This page contains Winings from the 4th Quarter of the year 2002.

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December 31, 2002

Out with the old, in with the new; and for the tech world, good riddance.  The year 2002 holds very few positives for life in the electronics world.  As for WinoStuff, the popularity of the site and the number of people bookmarking us in their "Favorites List" continues to escalate exponentially.  Linear graphs are for those unwilling to put out their best.  So, in my name and in the name of the WinoStuff crew, I would like to send out a huge THANK YOU to all our Wino comrades who find what we do here educational and entertaining.  We look forward to many exciting new things, like any high budget show, the special effects this coming year promise to rival Star Wars the Sixth.  I hear Wino John has purchased some exciting new software that can make Wino Wilson come to life.  So look ahead to the dancing and talking Wino Wilson…

So here it is, the day I need to unveil my selection for Grape of the Year.  For those of you who have taken the time to read this stupid column I write, you know I do very little research, and mostly spew incoherent thoughts and bring up inane issues that that carry little weight in the Big Picture of the Wine Gurus like Marvin R. Shanken and Robert M. Parker Jr.  But this is the one entry I do spend some sober moments pondering.  I do take this responsibility seriously and try to define a grape that has relevance to the world.  We are not a political, touchy-feely bunch as you can see from the irreverence we bring to the serious world of wine.  However, this is the one time we do get serious and will treat this Year of the Grape naming procedure as ceremonious and important as the Unwrapping of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.  Make no mistake, if I survive nine years hence, we will be unveiling the First Official Grape of the Year Calendar with the same pomp and circumstance given to Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

For the Year 2002, our staff felt the Zinfandel Grape defined the Spirit of America in light of the events that closed out the Year 2001.  Though Wino John has never listed any of the Zinfandel wines he enjoyed throughout the year, I tried to do my part to support this patriotic grape.  As we enter 2003, we are in a climate of global unrest and we face serious threats on two fronts.  We believe the Year 2003 needs to be a coming-together, a year when we realize that we all have a great deal in common, whether you come from France, South Africa, Spain, California, Macedonia, Tunisia, Crete, Italy, Australia, Argentina or Chile. (that represents 5 Continents)  We need to find a grape that unites many countries and peoples of many differing races and religions, and this one does.  This grape also spans the economic strata by producing inexpensive wine to stylish, classy collectible wine.

The world renown, Oz Clarke described this grape to me in this manner, “(This Grape) has a wonderful raw-boned power that sweeps you along in it’s intoxicating wake. It exudes a blithe bonhomie (I’m not sure if this is a good excretion or one that looks like what came from my bung) and a taste -all ruddy cheeks and flashing eyes… that seduces you and makes you think it’s all harmless fun.  It is the wild, wild woman of wine, the sex on wheels and devil take the hindmost, the don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Yes folks, the opinion of a wine guru quoted right here at WinoStuff.  OK, so I got the quote from his book Oz Clarke’s Encyclopedia of Grapes, but that’s what he would have said if he ever returned my calls.

So Winos and Winettes, I give to you the 2003 Grape of the Year...  Granacha Tinta/ Grenache  

Granacha Tinta is the most widely planted red grape and has origins rooted in Spain well before the Romans ruled the lands.  Granacha/Grenache most often teams up with his buddy Syrah/Shiraz to provide enjoyment from wines produced in the Rhone Valley and as a major player in the seductive Chateauneuf-du-Papes.  Australia’s famous GSM, Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvedre, have caught the attention of the Rhone lovers around the globe.  Most important, is the wine from Spain where this grape started and the beauty that is defined in a good glass of Priorato wine.  This is our grape, for it’s multicultural presence, for it’s high alcohol content, for it’s spicy and raspberry flavors and for it’s wild, wild woman allure.  So my friends, drink up to a year when we can come together and put aside our differences over a bottle of Holy Trinity, or Les Terrences, or Beaucastle Chateauneuf du Pape.  Let us drink to the similarities we share as humans, not alien clones, and the positives that can come from a cooperation of nations.  I give to you Granacha Tinta/Grenache and toast to you, “A Safe, Healthy and Prosperous 2003.”  

Yours in Wine,
Wino Bob

December 29, 2002

Holy Crap, time is running out and Wino John has called me three times today to see if I have the Grape of the Year ready yet.  I told him I was doing extensive research and have been holed up in my office for the past three days trying to make the wise choice.  I even had to get help from my best friend, Wino Wilson.  As you can see here, we are hard at work. Sorry, this was when we took a break and had a quick drink to make sure we tasted as many different grapes as we could to make a sound judgment.  No, really, we have been at it all night. 

I promise, I only have twelve more wines to drink, but we will have this thing figured out by New Years Day.

2000 Tikal Corazon $$ (24.99)   This blend of Bonarda and Malbec is a good tasting, medium-bodied wine that has a strong backbone, with a spicy dark fruit flavor.  Good at the cost, but if this ever was priced below twenty dollars, it would be a fantastic wine; hints of smoke and raisins develop late in this one.

1998 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon $$ (42.00)   This ruby colored lush wine delivered red fruits, soft tannins and brown spice with an attitude that told us it preferred to sleep in the cellar several more years before it would show all it has to offer. Drink now, but buy two to hold and enjoy in five years.

December 27, 2002

I find myself now, shopping for a wine or bottle of scotch as a present for friends and relatives as an excuse for me to look for myself.  As with most fathers, they don’t want another plaid flannel shirt for Christmas, so I usually buy my father a nice bottle of scotch.  Let me qualify that statement, I buy my father a nicer bottle of scotch then he would buy himself.  It really turns out that I look quickly for his scotch and spend the remaining time browsing the wine shelves for, uhh, myself.  

This past week, I shopped for 45 minutes at my local, Mr. Kim’s wine store.  I saw Silver Oak, Caymus, Caymus Special Selection, Gaja, Lafite, Vosne Romanee and more.  None fit into the budget, so I relegated myself to the lower end selections.  I grabbed a few bottles of things I wanted to try, and last night as the TV blared in the background and the log crackled on the fire, I opened a Priorat for my personal enjoyment.  As you know, I have taken a liking to Priorat’s bold wines for their thick, inky, flavorful style.  Unfortunately, I did not pick a winner and this wine will not be on my lists for the year 2003.

2000 Mas Igneus Barranc dels Closos $ (19.99)   There is little for me to discuss on this wine.  It is a blend of Granatxa, Carinyena and Cabernet Sauvignon but I was hard pressed to find any resemblance of fruit.

December 26, 2002

Let me first ask how many of you spent the night of Christmas shoveling out from the “White Christmas” that hit the North East?  This morning, the quick freeze has the roads icy, but drivable.  The last time I remember seeing snow on Christmas Day was in 1977, but you know the memory is the second thing to go.  

There is something else that happened for the first time in about as many years.  Our Christmas Eve celebration found the audience of WinoStuff increased by two.  Yes, my reading audience has doubled.  For the first time in many years, both of my parents enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner.  Well, for my father, alcohol consumption is not a new phenomena, but he did decide to depart from the Bud and a chaser of Cutty Sark to celebrate with a glass of wine from the bottle I brought.  More interesting is enrollment of Wino Mom to the ranks.  For the better part of my forty plus years, Mom has not shown a great deal of interest in alcohol, except for the occasional rub on the forehead during a high fever.  I guess that because of all those breaking news stories Wino John has offered about the health benefits, Wino Mom has decided to enjoy a small amount of Wine with dinner to ward off the rheumatism.  She has started slow, but haven’t we all, so I will anticipate a guest column from Wino Mom or a guest book posting questioning my review of a wine in the not too distant future.  So if we can all welcome our newest member to the Wino ranks, the women in her Mahjong Club will be happy to see your letters.

The second new experience this Christmas was drinking a wine that had been stored in the freezer to keep it fresh since it was not finished when it was first opened.  As you can see, this was a totally new experience, if you ever read any of my entries, you know I never open a bottle that I don’t finish.  Wine storage in racking before consumption, I have that under control.  Wine storage after opening and not consuming…well, uh, that’s stupid.  However, I did some research and found one reference to freezing opened wine from the Wino Eggheads at “The Oxford Wine Room”.  There are reams of articles on inert gassing, degassing, refrigeration and or dumping of the open bottle; but I have never froze and thawed a wine for later consumption.  To be forthright, I did not taste the wine prior to freezing to compare the difference; though the wine did not taste ill-effected from the experience.  So I offer this business opportunity to the world, Wine-Pops!  Yes, wine on a stick for those hot summer days.  Maybe a Cabernet twin pop to share with an over heated friend.  Maybe I should just make wine ice cubes for my crazy aunt so she can just pop one in her mouth and not need to dilute the wine in her glass.  I will be in my lab coat, boxers, and black socks for the weekend.  Sorry, I mean I will be in my Lab doing experiments with my liquid nitrogen tank, Erlenmeyer flask and Bunsen burner seeing how well this will work.  Recommendation number one: like a gold fish, you can only freeze and thaw wine once, do not refreeze.

Since it is now six months beyond the Chardonnay Challenge that Wino Wally posed, and since Wino Mom requested a nice white wine with our traditional Polish Christmas Eve Dinner, I dug into the only 5 bottles of Chardonnay in the cellar and brought one of the, dare I say, "award winning" white wines I would have placed into the contest.

1998 Mulderbosch Chardonnay $ (17.99) Maybe it’s the sun or the heat or the salt air breezes but this example from South Africa holds up well for those liking a bit of weight to their white wine.  Rich and buttery with a nice blend of acidity and fruit make this wine a great selection for those that want a bigger Chardonnay.

1983 Bolla Amarone ?  I don’t know the cost and I don’t know what this tasted like before the freeze, but the thawed wine showed nice plum and fig flavors with a long silky finish.

December 24, 2002

Well, I will tempt the political correctness gods and wish all a Merry Christmas.   With the way the holidays fall this year, most people were finished for the year last Friday.  This means there are ten full days of wine enjoyment for this festive season.  And for the first day of the Holiday Season, the first wines I had were with my Wino neighbors, Wino Chris and Wino Karen.  These neighbors I see, well, once per year, around the Holidays, to drink a bottle of wine.  Though I was the host, I was less than impressed by the wines I opened.   On the second day of the Holiday, we celebrated at Wino Lou’s house.  Wino Lou spent the day preparing homemade pasta so it was only polite that I brought a 1997 Italian Wine.   The Season holds many more exciting days to drink wine, but if I don’t start posting them now, I might never remember what I started with so here is the beginning of the list.

2000 E. Guigal Cote Du Rhone $ (9.99)     This is at the opposite end of the number one wine from E.  Though a small amount of fruit shows up, it doesn’t last long and leaves little impression on the senses.

2000 Smoking Loom Cabernet Sauvignon $ (8.99)    Though I really enjoyed earlier releases of this label, this release smelled and the taste was boxed in by all the wood.  This wine also had a bit of a tangy aftertaste that made it of little interest for me to try again.

1997 Castello Banfi Excelsus $$$ (74.99)    Let sleeping dogs lay, this one needs time to develop and blossom into the richness of the blending between the Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot.  As the tannins soften, they release a flavorful plum and black currant with a hint of pepper and spice.

December 19, 2002

As we head into the holiday season, here’s hoping you get the wine of your choice.  I have sent bubble wrap to the North Pole in my request for a bottle of the 1999 E. Guigal Chateauneuf Du Pape so the bottle will not clang against the walls of my chimney.  I will aptly supply the milk and cookies with a shot of Tequila, 1800 Gold.  He said the milk coats the stomach before the Blue Agave warms the skin.  Little secret, after 2 am it’s not Rudolph’s nose that is aglow.   Which reminds me that many years ago, I once played Santa for a group of kids.  All the time I was listening to their requests, I was thinking of all the funny things I could have been saying that would have traumatized these kids for life.  As a Santa, they prep you to ask them if they were good little boys and girls.  I would have loved to say, "Hey kid, that’s NOT what your mom told me.  She told me you were a whiney little bastard and I’m going to bring you a cheap knock off of the Red Power Ranger."   (Now, that was a company that made tons of cash!  Saban Entertainment pumped out tons of poorly-constructed, cheap, made-in-China plastic things that fell apart 5 days after the kids played with them.)  Once, the last kid slobbered all over my itchy white beard that was made out of some highly flammable toxic polymer.  I should have gone over to the bar and slammed down a few red wines.  Hey kids, Santa is an alcoholic who derives pleasure from living with small, hairless elves in a place that is dark for six months of the year!

OK, sorry, I really do love this time of year.  It gives me the opportunity to see just how much people think of me as I unwrap a goofy theme tie, not fit to be worn at the Geekiest of business meetings, or the umpteenth bottle of Bailey’s with the card, “I didn’t want to buy you wine and embarrass myself.”  Bailey's?  Isn’t that the beverage 21-year-old girls drink to catch a buzz after dinner?  Hey buy me a bottle of Yoohoo and I’ll spike it myself with Vodka.  And yes, I did receive a Fruit Cake one year as a serious gift from a former guest to the Wino Bob Holiday Bash…

So this week I will be holed up in my room, placing serious thought into selecting the candidates for Grape of the Year to represent 2003.  Wino John and Wino Wally aren’t as off the cuff as I am and require a plethora of backup documentation on the why's and why not's for Grape selection.  Like a girlfriend, it is out with the old and in with the new.

Here are a few from my recent evenings alone in front of the TV

1998 Marques de Murrieta Rioja Ygay Reserve $ (11.99)    The name says it all.  "Rioja", I mean, not "Ygay", though that is a strange name for a wine in my opinion.  Largely Tempranillo, this is not the best example of the fruitiness of this grape.  Ok for a pizza, but not much to impress your friends.

2000 Alice White Shiraz $ (9.99)   his wine has a good amount of red fruits and a spiciness and woodsy finish.  Bring this one out for some duck confetti or grilled lamb.

1999 Hedges Columbia Valley $ (14.99)  This Meritage from Washington left me longing for a Pinot Noir.  Unfortunately, there was not a great deal to find in this wine from the first to last sip.  Depth and complexity from the blending of 5 grapes should reveal a bounty of fruits but this wine had neither.  Save this one for the demi glaze reduction but not the dinner accompaniment.

December 14, 2002

I am usually not one to ask for more government.  However, in the recent turn of events and in light of the new Department President Bush has recently formed, I feel it is my duty and right as an American to offer up an addition to the forces we currently have.  This one, for reasons I will explain must be formed swiftly to keep me out of jail.  othing worse than a swarthy stick figure all dressed in black, sharing a cell with a suicidal maniac who hasn’t had the company of a woman in 5-10 and is looking for love in all the wrong places.  Last week, I had to make a citizen’s arrest.  Wino Bob, are you a hero?  Did you catch someone burglarizing an expensive car in Essex Fells?  Or did you wrestle a mugger to the ground and return the purse to a poor old lady?  No, Winos and Winettes, I took it upon myself to place handcuffs around the bartender at UnBacchus.  Though she enjoyed it, I had to inform her why I was placing her under arrest.  What I saw was egregious, it turned my stomach, and I had to avert my eyes from it and quickly tackle her and bind her at the wrists.  Though UnBacchus has never been a place I go for top wine ingesting, it is a place that offers a selection of low-end reds and whites, for those who might want to add some ice or a splash of club soda to add the fizz that will tickle your nose.  But the other night, as I found a seat, right in front of the place that for months held the mega bottle of Luna di Luna Red, I saw it.  Like dancing Wickens during the Summer Solstice, like a Hun in heat, this sight was vile and left me little choice but to stand up for the small, hurt member at the bar.  There, on top of the beer cooler stood a carafe of the remaining Luna di Luna, with a beer coaster across the top to keep flies out.  And then, the bartender had the nerve to serve it to a patron who wanted a glass of red wine.  It was bad enough when that bottle stood open for months, but to have the carafe there, exposed to every breeze, sneeze and bar sleaze to infect what little fruit that crappy wine had when it was just opened, is an outrage.  I am sticking up for the Luna, but really, I am sticking up for all the wine at UnBacchus which one day may realize the same fate as the Luna.  Since the bottle was not completely empty, but we needed space, let’s place the wine in an open container to use whenever the situation is called for.  God save the Grape and teach these wicked people a lesson by placing one of them in jail for wine abuse.  Even if I do not like the wine, I respect the winemaker and no one’s hard work should be disregarded in such a fashion.  So winos, join me as Official Members of The Wino Patrol, whose duty it will be to stop wine abuse such as this, and to secure the future for these wines to reach their full potential in life so that patrons can consume them and excrete them, till their heart’s content.  I ask for the Official Department to be formed by this administration and nominate former Mayor of NY, Rudy Combover, as the Head of this Task Force.  “Schop Abusching that Wine, or I have to bring the long arm of the Law down on you like I did to Schcoresch. This is a Schacraledge.”  Let the Wino Patrol make wine-drinking a safe, fun, enjoyable time for all and let’s keep the ice and soda out of the glass.  Oh crap, I have to go arrest my Crazy Aunt...   

December 13, 2002 

Has science gone too far?  First I read about Dolly, the cloned sheep that opened up the Pandora’s box of how far our moral standards would let this go.  Then, it was reported that a series of other farm animals were cloned.  Although there is great excitement in Arkansas and parts of Mississippi, the scientific community has stirred the morality of the world on where this will take us.  Most recently, a news report from Italy claims there is a cloned human in development.  This may have been the start of the down fall of humanity, human body farms and cloning of tortured, twisted individuals who spend all their free time alone in a dimly lit room on the third floor of an old house….  Never mind.

So, fellow Winos and Winettes, I ask you to join me in becoming ONE voice in the Moral Outrage department to vocalize our opinion against the latest in scientists gone mad with genetic engineering.  We tend to be technology friendly at Winostuff, but this latest issue will certainly land these misguided researchers into the front row of Hell.   I hope you are sitting down.. Yes the wacky, defenseless Frogs have decided to make a white wine that has the health benefits of red wine.. Can you F'n  believe this?  Hold on, I’m hyperventilating.   I will say it slowly so I don’t faint again.  A Dr. Pierre-Louis Teissedre (pronounced Pier Lew Teder) of The University of Montpellier genetically engineered a Chardonnay that now contains the polyphenols of a red wine.  They have named it Paradoxe Blanc after the health benefits the medical community points to as the chemicals that allow the fat, lazy French to eat all those cheesy sauces and logs of cheese with very little adverse effects on their hearts.

Do you realize what the French are doing to the only thing they gave the world which is worth crediting to them, save the Statue of Liberty?  First, the press on the mislabeled Burgundies and crappy cheap counterfeit wines, then they started blending other things in with the Pinot to make their poorly produced wine more palatable to consumers.  But the audacity of creating a white wine, usually enjoyed by the female and less masculine amongst us, to be a beefy, robust “Red” wine has me ready to fly to the University of Montpellier and punch Dr. Teder in his French proboscis.  But what else is one to expect from a country that cut off a woman’s head for eating dessert, denied us their air space, and crowned Jerry Lewis a comic genius?  And another thing, mime’s are stupid.  I know they don’t have a friggin' rope in their hand.  Next time I see one of those French, pancake make-up, red beret and striped shirt non-talking circus clowns, I’m going to duct tape him into that imaginary box.   Don’t F with my grapes….

December 8, 2002

After yesterday’s ramblings, I needed to relax and settle myself.  So, it was a quick trip down to the cellar for a bottle of red, then a quick trip back to the third floor to sit next to my old radio with tin foil wrapped coat hangers for an antenna to check in with the world through the eyes of the media.  I grabbed a Chilean Syrah since I do not have any E. Guigal Cote Rotie in my cellar at this moment, but I am glad that Wino John finally accepted my WOTM suggestion.  Though it was more like the caving in of a worn-down parent by a fixated four year old, "I want E. Guigal, I want E. Guigal, I want E. Guigal…"  “OK, if I name E. Guigal as WOTM this time, will you just shut up and go away!!!”  Thank you, Daddy.

As I sipped and watched, it occurred to me that talk radio was split on two very important subjects.  The first being the 13, 000 page disclosure, single-spaced front and back, in Arabic which Mr. Hussein submitted to the inspection staff.  The only thing I could think is that once the translation is complete, the report will read like the novel Jack Nicholson wrote in The Shining.  Hey, I know the Arabic alphabet is more complex then ours, but does it take 13,000 single spaced pages to write, “We have no weapons of mass destruction”?  OK, I’ll be nice, I’ll spot you 20 pages of International pomp-and circumstance, and I’ll spot you another 10 pages of pictures of hot chicks to distract the readers, but 13,000 pages.  Hell, Tolstoy didn’t need 13,000 pages to write War and Peace, and that was a much larger country. (OK, I never read War and Peace, but I think it was only 1300 pages).  War and Peace, is that what we want to accomplish anyway…

The second most talked about topic deals with the leader whose future is uncertain also.  Yes, not since the Fonzi jumped the Shark episode of Happy Days was there some much air time dedicated to the ending episode of this season’s Sopranos.  Everyone complained about the slow moving, go nowhere plot lines in more than half the season, but it is the most anticipated ending since M*A*S*H (I don’t know that for fact, I just wanted to use the asterisk key).  No, what might happen tonight is that Carmine might submit a thirteen-word note to Tony that reads something like this. “If you kill me or one of my guys, we will kill you.”  See?  Short, sweet, and to the point.  My take on the whole thing is that Furio has moved back to Italy to buy a small vineyard in Tuscany where he will get in touch with Carmella so she can leave Tony and become the marketing director for “You lika my wine or I kill you” Inc.  I know it will be hard to fit on the label but Meadow manages to do a clip art stick figure with a ponytail and big nose that’s next to a Horse’s Head.  Syl will finally tell Tony he wants out to follow his life long dream of becoming a rock star, while Christopher enjoys rehab so much that he moves to take over the East Coast’s rehab facilities as a cover to distribute heroin to the addicts he is trying to cure, one of which turns out to be AJ.  Finally, after Tony sees the horse picture in Pauly’s house he turns Pauly over to the Russian guy that never turned up last season and they make Pauly their own Pony Boy by using his internal organs as a suite case on trips to and from Russia.  Tony, left without a crew decides to open a small Italian deli in Belleville where Janis cuts proscuite and parmagiana all day while Tony walks around in one of those butcher outfits, sips espresso, and eats Biscotti all day.  Thereby, David Chase appeases all the groups demonstrating against the show by making Tony turn into a really nice guy and living happily ever after… or not.

2000 Montes Alpha Syrah $ (12.99)    This is Jethro Bodine in Armani, great window dressing, but short on class and finesse.  An attractive nose with an abundance of eucalyptus and chocolate, but a rather undignified harshness and little fruit.  Best served to a drunken crowd where it’s quantity not quality.

December 7, 2002

Happy Pearl Harbor Day, or something like that.  I have been doing a lot of thinking while I have been doing a lot of drinking regarding the complexities facing our younger generation.  Back when I was a boy in seminary school they taught us to petition the Lord with Prayer, petition the Lord with Prayer…  YOU can NOT petition the Lord with Prayer!!!   Before I slip into unconsciousness .that was for you Doors fans.  Back when I was Growin UP, I took month long vacations in the Stratosphere and boy, you know it’s really hard to hold your breath.  Sorry; Springsteen.  Anyway, what I am trying to say is I grew up when the magic age of 18 allowed you to do everything.  Our government recognized us as citizens who could vote, go to war, be tried as an adult in court and purchase and consume alcohol.  Today, 18 year-olds can vote, go to war, be tried as an adult in court and need to wait another 3 years to purchase and consume alcohol.  Are we better off as a society for this restriction?  Recent studies have shown that teenage sex is decreasing and virginity is on the rise.  I guess that’s a good thing, kids are making wiser choices at 2AM and not letting beer goggles make them sleep with an ugly girl.  The Gen-Xers seem to have been lost in this career abyss and live at home syndrome.  Maybe if they were able to drink a glass of wine or two and take the edge off, they wouldn’t have developed a generational irritable bowel syndrome.  HBO tells me that Ecstasy in on the rise, cocaine was a drug of choice for the wealthy youth from the lucrative 90’s, and pot smoking is up.  I don’t remember school massacres in the 60’s and 70’s.  We had protests that ended with a few night sticks to the noodle and some fire hoses and rubber bullets, but no one walked into my high school with a gun to take out students and teachers. 

We live in a great country, I dare say, The Greatest Country in the World.  Our respect for personal freedoms is second to none (except for those silly Liberals that want to take my gun away and want me to stop smoking any place inside or out, or the fact that too much McDonalds makes you fat).  And our value for human rights has given rise to an industry of lawyers who will defend a criminal and set him free, like O.J., just to ensure no innocent man is wrongly put to death.  But in the world arena, the US is last in legal drinking age.  What makes 21 the magic age for maturity only in regard to alcohol?  Don’t you  think one has to be mature in handling pressures while maintaining a 3.9 average at Harvard, or delivering a payload under the cover of night against a hostile enemy who is trying to kill you with their best weaponry?  Here is a picture of the Board that didn’t want you to drink at all.

Would you really want to be sober and have to kiss one of those beauties? 

I say when we turn 18 (collectively speaking, I have been their more than twice now), we get our voter’s registration, our draft card and a Drinking Wheel that we can use to calculate how much alcohol we have consumed, how much we weigh and if we are impaired or not.  Wino Wally, you should place this in your Christmas Gadget review for next year.

So look at the list below, and see if it make sense for the Greatest Nation on this earth to be so prohibitive to our young adults and see if we can bring the age in line with the rest of the Rights we are given on our 18^th Birthdays

  Minimum Drinking Age By Country

* - with exceptions. This chart was provided by years of research and investigation by too many people to acknowledge at this stage, but it legally serves as a disclaimer and removes me from the talons of a money grubbing lawyer who has nothing better to do than search out frivolous lawsuits because of frustrations brought about by the unusual love for his mother and the miniature size of his manhood.
 

December 1, 2002

My Father used to say, “When you want things done right, take matters into your own hands.”  As much as that got me through my teens, it certainly allowed me to recover from the God-awful wine experiences this weekend.  I decided last night that I had to open up something to get my olfactory senses back on track and tie one on with a good bottle of wine.  The plan last night was simple, slice up a plate of Stilton Cheese, turn on the USC vs Notre Dame game and drink a red wine that will place a Wine Smile back on my face.  So I invited Wino Wilson to watch the game with me and after I poured some wine into his wine hole on top of his head (which used to be the place where the cork came out of since his mouth is not really a mouth but the result of my drawing a mouth on the front of an unlabeled wine bottle), he loosened up and really enjoyed the game.  I think his Catholic upbringing had him cheering for Notre Dame although he told me he didn’t care who won since they were ranked 6 and 7 in the National Rankings and the USC offense could struggle against the highly rated ND secondary.

This brings me to the next question, why isn’t there a Wine Bowl, or commercials for Wine during football games?  We have been treated for years to that childish commercial of Budweiser bottles with little helmets on their heads playing a modified version of the electric football game we had as kids.  Our game was put together by my older brother, who at the time, placed the running back on the stand that was designed for a tackle; he cut right on every play so we had a special rule that after the first 5 yards, we got to rearrange him and point him way left so he would run almost straight through the line.  I believe my mother threw the game away when she found my sister spending a great deal of time with the field on and no players on the board…

I say we develop the next great Super Bowl commercial with cepages playing each other.  I could hear John Madden now, “Here’s a grape that has a tough skin and is really harsh and crunchy, Al.  Tonight, I look for the linebackers of the Malbec’s to crush the West Coast offense of the fanciful Pinot Noirs.”  You know what, it sounds stupid to me too, now that I read it back.  Somehow cepages and football just don’t mix and we all know that any of the French grape teams would offer no defense.  Hell, if they lost the coin toss, they’d probably surrender the game.  What do you think of Winostuff Stadium?  I must call my good friend Jerry Rice and see if he can get me a meeting with Al Davis.  I think the Oakland fans are much more Wino-oriented then the Forty-Niners, but there are many other reasons for that…

So I suggest the Liberty Bowl be renamed the Free the Grapes Bowl, the Orange Bowl be renamed the Cabernet Classic and the Fiesta Bowl be renamed the Drink More Wine Bowl, but then again, I spend a great deal of time with a wine bottle I painted a face on…

2000 Rancho Zabaco Dancing Bull Zinfandel $ (14.99)   Zinfully pleasing, this wine has great fruit and a complex nose.  Right from the first sniff, I got cranberries and cinnamon, and then there was a host of raspberry, dark cherry and chocolate. The only reason I didn’t give this one a higher rating is that the after taste ran hot, too much of an alcohol back-draft and not enough of a long fruit finish.  Let this one sit open for sometime.

November 30, 2002

I must have pissed off the Wine Gods.  Thursday was uneventful as I mentioned.  Friday has carried the tradition of hooking up with friends in a “Big Chill” type get together where everyone brings some leftovers and we have a shared meal.  Since driving would be a minimal, I grabbed a bottle from the cellar that I was looking forward to drinking and I headed out the door.  These friends are the type that have no problem opening the wine I bring.  They know I’m not offended and they don’t have an ego that would have them insisting to drink what they opened.  So I went with a smile and looked forward to a bottle I had in hand.

The fire was roaring and the table was set impressively with a bottle of white and a bottle of red in a wine caddy.  When the host asked me if I wanted wine, I smiled politely and said, “RED.”  With that she took several other’s order and trotted off to the kitchen.  Moments later her husband brought out the appetizers and she carried out the wine glasses and handed each of us our respective drink.  OK, Wino Bob, breath in the nectar of the Rhone Valley, prepare your taste buds for the vibrant spicy sensation that will awaken the inner…  Hey, what the hell is this crap?  There’s no spice and black fruit and cedar and leather and horse manure.   No, this smells like a freshly cut tree and it tastes like, wow...  I don’t even know what to say.  Politely, I drank and smiled and held myself from breathing in while I joined everyone in a quick toast to health and friends and some crap like that.  Not wanting to be the wine snob, I choked down the glass and headed to the dinner table when instructed to do so.  There the bottle stood, label facing away from me, so I politely, turned it around and much to my humor and dismay, I mumbled. “Turning Leaf, what the F#@&.”  Yes, pissing off the Wine Gods is not fun and I still don’t know what I did to them, but my Friday night drunk was curtailed by the fact that my only wine choice was Turning Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon.  Sorry, no review…

November 28, 2002

Well here it is almost 8 PM on Thanksgiving night and I am still sober.  Yes, this was the first time since I owned a house that I did not have people over.  As families grow up and out, this was the first semester of two nephews being out of the house.  So my sister invited the crowd to her home to welcome the future pillars of society back from the liberal campuses across this great nation.  Again, as I always do when speaking about my eldest nephew, I will bask in reflective glory, knowing that somewhere in the gene pool from our branch of the tree, he has gotten the intellectual infusion to be on campus at Harvard.  Yes, oh yes, the nephew who (or is it whom?  I must ask Frank next time I see him.) that sat for hours taking in the wisdom of Uncle Wino Bob is a Harvard Man.  My other nephew is attending College in Florida so Thanksgiving is a time of family, a time of homecoming and a time for Uncle Wino Bob to get drunk and make my youngest nephew pull my finger after dinner. Usually, they joined us at my home where the only traveling I needed to do is to the cold bathroom floor after the house clears out, so I could pass out and be close to the porcelain bus after drinking wine all day and after dinner cordials all night. 

But with an hour drive home, I did not over indulge and only had time to drink the Beaujolais Nouveau I agreed to bring.  I did not partake in a before, during and after dinner wine this year.  No, for me, the Thanksgiving Day meal was, ahhh, a meal.  Blessed is this weekend, for tomorrow through Sunday I will have time to make up for the rather dry and uneventful dinner.

2002 Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau $ (8.99)   Where’s the fruit?  This wine should be screaming with raspberry and strawberry and a brash bit of acid, but I found it to be rather unexciting.  This serves as my once-a-year dose of Gamay, but does not show the wine in the spirit it should be.  I was looking for a packet of Starburst but got gummy bears instead.

November 27, 2002

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and the like.  Yes, here I sit one day before Thanksgiving and outside the window of my small dank room on the third floor of this boarding house is a pile of snow.  Couple this with the fact that the town has all their Christmas decorations lining the streets and the meters have been covered with those holiday park-for-free bags, excuse me but I haven’t killed my turkey yet.  Just because President Bush has offered up the ceremonial pardon to the Official US Turkey, I have not.  This is the first Presidential Pardon of a turkey that actually has feathers, unlike those late night pardons Bill Clinton made while the staff put the Presidential silverware in his El Camino to drive it up to Chappaqua.

Yesterday, I stopped in to Kings to pick up a few items for the weekend and I hunted high and low for my new friend and wine department manager, Mark.  One thing that caught my eye was the soon to be hottest item in NJ, TOFURKEY!  What the..., who the…??  TOFURKEY, a lump of Tofu molded and colored to look like a turkey.  Can you imagine the Native Americans heading into Plymouth with a Tofu Turkey in tow?  Black powder musket firing would now be the ceremonial action on the last Thursday in November instead of a gluttonous adventure with family, friends, and wine.  OK, so I don’t have friends and the family thing has lead to the drinking heavily thing.  My proposal is to skip the over-indulging in starches and triptophan and get right to the wine consumption and arguing.  If I were John Smith, I would have brought wine to the first Thanksgiving and we would have owned Manhattan a lot sooner and for a lot less than all those valuable beads and shells and stones and sticks that we paid for it.  Everyone knows that the Red Man can’t hold his alcohol, so we could have been building a casino by mid 1600’s in Connecticut and not paying taxes on our tobacco. 

After I shook off the shock of the plastic turkey, I was hit with the uppercut of Beaujolais pricing at $9.00 a bottle.  I’m sure in the next five years, Wino John will be posting a story of the Frog’s blending Gamay with Cabernet Sauvignon to make the Beaujolais heartier for the turkey stuffing and spicy pies.  “Zis year, ze Gamay was not so fruity zo we blended it with zome Merlot and Cabernet Franc.  Now pay us $15.00 because we are French.”  Why don’t you just eat a Tofurkey and drink White Zinfandel?

So, my new friend Mark was no where to be found and I paid the clerk the full Monty to sample this year’s Beaujolais with no intention of ever drinking the Cru Beaujolais, nor the Village, nor any 100% Gamay from anywhere else in the world.  Tomorrow, I will taste it and write about it and give my uneducated opinion of the wine as tradition, like bourbon sweet potatoes, chestnut stuffing and a 20 pound fowl whose neck and organs are neatly sealed in a plastic bag and stuffed inside it’s own cavity.  I will eat that bird’s flesh for the entire weekend knowing it tastes like turkey and not like some soy-based, saw-dust-pressed, composite thermoplastic of a mind game.   And nothing better than Grandma’s recipe for turkey neck soup and giblets gravy to remind us that they ate the real thing at the first Thanksgiving.  

To my friends in PA, happy hunting!  Yes, Monday is a holiday in PA since everyone over the age of 10 will be out thinning the deer population.  Just don’t shoot your hunting buddy…

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, and as far as wine selections with your real bird I offer the following:

• Riesling

• Pinot Blanc

• White Burgundy

• Pinot Noir

• Zinfandel

• Shiraz

• Syrah

• Tempranillo

• Cote du Rhone

• Beaujolais

• Or the oft-mentioned Hungarian Zweigelt

November 24, 2002

It was card night this weekend and with needing to have some cash in my pocket to cover the food charge and the buy-in, it didn’t leave much in the till for purchasing wine.  If only I could get Nike or Microsoft to sponsor my wine consumption, I could have some real pocket change to drink the good stuff.  Just think, when you log onto our page, you could be greeted with a pop-up that says, "This month’s drunken, inane babbling of Wino Bob brought to you by Roche Pharmaceuticals" (hint to Wino Lou, talk to the Big Boys about sponsoring my black outs).  I don’t know anyone at Pfizer otherwise I would push for the Viagra sponsorship.  Which reminds me, has the email Spam gotten way out of hand?  It seems I get a great deal of mail with headlines wanting to sell me generic viagra, all natural man enhancers and something that will guarantee to make me 3 inches bigger.  Wino John gets all his money offers and someone wants me to buy lifts for my shoes, I guess.  Why 3 inches and will I have to let the hem down on my pants to accommodate the added height.  The funny thing is that I can guess how to make someone 3 inches bigger, but why do they say they will make me ¼ inch thicker.  My waist doesn’t need any help expanding from all the liver damage.  It’s amazing they can be so specific in what they will make me grow to.  I will have to open one of those emails up next time to see if they explain it. 

So cheap wine hunting is what I did before the card game.  I managed to find a Shiraz for $6.99 that brought me some luck after consuming half the bottle.  Though it was not stellar, this wine had some good qualities, not the least of which was my change back from the ten-dollar bill I handed the clerk. 

Regarding the web cam, Wino John hinted around spicing up the picture and I am not opposed to drinking wine nude, though one must understand that at 55 degrees the grapes have a tendency to stay close to the vine for warmth….

2000 Tyrrell’s Old Winery Shiraz South Eastern Australia $ (6.99)  Prepare yourself for the mouth drying tannins of this wine.  If you can stay with it long enough, an earthy, herbaceous fruit and coffee flavor come to light.  The tannins will soften to reveal a pleasant drinking wine.

November 23, 2002

Kudos to Wino Wally for his brilliantly stated position on de-snobbing the wine rags with down to earth, gut level, unpretentious information.  (Geez, I hope that’s what he was writing about.)  For years now, OK for months, well actually I complained to Wino John one night in a drunken stooper (me not him) about the exact same issue.  Why is it that the wine critic for Food and Wine magazine, or the Vine and Spirits editor for Departures is able to jet off and tour the top Chateaus for research and I am relegated to gawking in the South African isle of Home Liquors?  Damn it, we need first hand research!  I should be able to lunch with Joe Drouhin and ask him about this year's attributes of the Nouveau Beaujolais while munching on fois gras in a baguette or something French like that.  Instead, I am walking the floor at Shop Rite Discount liquors asking the manager if I can get a mixed case discount to sample the new release. 

I even went as far as contacting Lori DeGraw of Wine Television (airs Sunday nights at 9PM on Discovery Home and Leisure Channel in NY), to offer our services to review the upcoming release in the Rhone Valley.  After she stopped laughing, I then proposed we submit a hand-held VHS-C tape to her of me drinking Rhone wines in my basement.  At that point, she hung up and changed the phone number of her production company.  But how else are we to expose to our massive audience the various bargain wines from unknown vineyards unless we can meet the cellar masters, walk the soil, and sample the barrels of the cult wines of the future?

So this afternoon, I decided to take matters into my own hands.  I called Continental Airlines to book and excursion fare, coach ticket with a Saturday stay-over, 60 days in advance, with a non-refundable status and a $100.00 change fee, to the Rhone Valley.  Considering the fact that they could only get me to Paris, then I’d have to hop a train to my starting destination, then rent a car for the ride through the picturesque Valley of the Pope’s new house, with room and board and time off from my real job, the whole thing was going to cost $4,276.84.  So I guess the trip to Mr. Kims, which I can walk to, will have to serve as my participant observation research of the Southern Rhone Region.  Boy, I can’t wait for Wino John to get his money from the Nigerian Consulate’s private attorney.  I think that should be here any day now. 

My offer still stands to put streaming video on our web page with a 24-7 web cam in my cellar to show the research that a true Blue Collar Wino does to bring our reviews to the World Wide Web.  No, there are no invitations to dine at Chateau Beaucastle, and no, there is no private tasting at Caymus or Silver Oak.  We drink the selections purchased on our own from the monies left at the end of the week after mortgages, car payments, food, gas and electric, DSL, DirecTV, Hair Jell, moustache wax, Black Sweaters, and Nestles $100,000 bars.  That is why I bring you the best of wines for less than 20 dollars.  Maybe one day we will become pretentious snobs when the gates of Harlan Estates welcomes the staff of WinoStuff.com, but for now, I must ask Wino John where I can get a web cam to wire up in the cellar for $19.99.  So there, Jay…  (Editor's note: Interesting idea, Bob, and technically not too difficult.  However, how are we going to make money from people watching you consume mass quantities of vino in your basement?  Unless, of course, you and the Mrs.  were to...   Never mind.)

November 18, 2002

What’s 5.4cm long and 2.5cm in diameter?  No!!!!  5.4cm is 2.125 inches, give me some credit.  OK, dirty minded winos, that is the typical dimensions of a cork.  But as in life, some are longer, some are shorter, some are fatter.  So, what’s the cork envy all about, Wino Bob?  Some things in life just aren’t fair…  You see, it all relates to this stupid wine corkboard thing I have been trying to complete.  The picture in the magazine shows all the corks in a nice orderly structure.  It seems that the wine I drink, as in life, have corks in varying lengths and, dare I say, girths.  Nothing screws up a nice row of freshly extracted corks until there is one that is longer and thinner or shorter and fatter then the rest.  Show offs.  For the sake of the male psyche, would the cork industry admit to a standard.  Quite frankly, the longer corks exceed the extraction stroke of my Big Bertha wall mounted cork extraction device.  If Big Bertha can’t handle it in the normal operating procedure, what will one need next?  The designers manufactured the range of Big Bertha to penetrate the cork through half of the arm movement and then extract the cork during the remaining travel.  But now, with the longer corks, you have to awkwardly hold the handle steady, and then tug downward on the bottle.  This is a sure recipe for disaster.  Wine spilling all over, a popping sound and the obligatory, “Oh Shit” as the bottle suddenly frees itself from the restraint of the lodged cork.    Every book I have read says longer is not better, it needs to be long enough to do the job.  The cork that is…

2000 Beringer Founder’s Estate Pinot Noir $ (9.99)   Not a shinning example of Pinot, not that I am any kind of Pinot expert.  Mild fruitiness just doesn’t deliver enough for me to brag about this wine.  Black cherry and a hint of oak, but nothing exciting here.

November 14, 2002

Kings Cooking Studio Presents

 Dinner with Andrea Immer at Bacchus Chop House & Wine Bar

Despite inclement weather on Tuesday evening, Wino John and I attended the dinner, book signing, and charity event hosted by Andrea Immer, second from the left.  Michael Frodello, immediate left (head chef and owner of Bacchus) and the King’s staff designed an epicurean adventure for the delight of a small, intimate group of about 34.  The evening’s activities were delayed a bit while the crowd made their way through the flooded and slippery highways and by-ways of New Jersey’s finest entanglement where routes 80, 23 and 46 merge.  Having a cot in the back of Bacchus, I had plenty of time to warm up with a few glasses of wine before the festivities began.

So, I did dampen the enjoyment of the Champagne served doing the mingling time.  We were treated to Veuve Cliquot Brut, Champagne that holds a dear place in Andrea’s heart and anyone else that dinned at Windows on the World, where Andrea was Head Sommelier. Veuve was the house Champagne and many of the guests at the dinner remembered special celebrations they enjoyed at the 107^th floor of North Tower.  The diminutive, perky, and may I be politically incorrect by saying, attractive Immer spoke about her love of wine and treated us to a small discussion regarding the pairings she selected for the meal.  As her new book points out (visible on the table), keep an open mind when selecting a wine to go with dinner and you don’t need to stick to the old world "red with beef, white with fish" rule of thumb.  To prove this, Andrea selected two differing cepages, to allow us to judge with our own palates which best suited the fare.  Dinner consisted of:

                Shrimp and Lobster with Thai Curry Fregola with Roasted Acorn Squash

                Leon Beyer Riesling                                    Cambria Chardonnay

                Cocoa Dusted Filet Mignon with Brandy Demi-Glace served with French Beans and Potato Gaufrette

                Frie Brothers Pinot Noir                            Heitz Napa Cabernet Sauvignon

                Assorted cheeses                                          Assorted Petit Fours

                Ruffino Riserva Ducale Gold                       Graham Malvedos Vintage Port

Much to my enjoyment the curry shrimp and lobster was supported well by the Riesling, but stepped all over the Chardonnay.  As an experiment I dug out the meat of the squash and tasted that plain.  The sweetness of the squash was handled much better by the Chardonnay the