I've thought long and hard about this one, but it's time to shut up shop here at The Wine Chicks.

As you all know, I simply don't have the time any longer to post stuff - that's been more than obvious. I also have been focusing so much on certain wines that I rarely taste outside of my own portfolio. And the last thing I want to do is make this site an extension of my day job. I've wanted to keep this open but since I'm pressed for time, I too often just post about a tasting/wine dinner/IPO wine with which I was involved. The quality of my writing has certain suffered and I don't want to keep posting crappy blips just for the sake of posting crappy blips.

So, let's ring in a Chick-free New Year! Who knows? Maybe I'll resurface elsewhere in the not-too-distant future...

Tasting notes:

Bright nose of peach and lemon

Nicely textured on the palate; fruity and acidic

Finish of citrus, melon, and lingering vanilla

This South African beauty is a steal at just $6! Well, that was the sale price. Regardless, the regular price is more like $10 which is still a good deal for a fruity, elegant, and nicely textured wine.

I could see this pairing well with a variety of dishes, and it also was delicious to drink on its own. I encourage you to seek out South African Chenin Blanc. Some wineries use the grape name Steen, however, it seems more of them are reverting back to the French name for the grape on the label. Either way, it's often great stuff at a modest price. Raise a glass!

I can't hold Thai food entirely responsible for making me uproot my life and move halfway around the world to Sydney, Australia. But it did play a role. In Sydney, incredible Thai restaurants are as ubiquitous (and about as affordable) as burrito joints in San Francisco. But no matter how authentic the cooking, it's hard to beat paying 20 baht (about 50 cents) at a bustling Bangkok market for curry that's bursting with tangy lime; tempered by the salt of fish sauce and the caramel of palm sugar; and followed, ideally, by a bold aftershock of chili. I decided a long time ago that if I couldn't eat out that way every day, the next best thing was knowing how to make it. Having cooked up many a dish of Tom Khai Kai, Mee Khrob, and Massaman Curry, I thought I was pretty well versed in the cuisine for a Western chef. But it wasn't until a culinary tour of Thailand, including an amazing cooking course in Chiang Mai, that I really felt like I "got it." Whether fiery hot or comparatively mild, when it comes to Thai, harmony's the guiding principle. Overpowering spices are toned down by pungent fresh herbs, like lemongrass and galangal. Salty sauces are tempered with sugars and offset by acids, such as lime. Moreover, rather than being served in courses, a Thai meal is presented all at once, so diners can enjoy the juxtaposition of contrasting flavors. Yet despite the apparent complexity of Thai food, many dishes are surprisingly easy to concoct. Much of the art lies more in the prep work than in employing tricky techniques. In fact, you'll often find that having the ingredients lined up and ready to go is half the battle. Of course you can just go to a restaurant or buy ready-made curry pastes and sauces, but trust me, Thai is almost certainly easier to master than you realize. And if you can't afford to travel, cooking this marvelous cuisine is the next best thing to a trip to Thailand. Or Sydney. Wine & Thai Food When choosing a wine to accompany a Thai meal, the same thought should be given to equilibrium as it is in cooking Thai. Riesling and pinot noir are probably your two best bets for spicy hot dishes: a good rule of thumb being that the spicier the food, the sweeter the wine. For example, pair a slightly dry number with a tangy but mild lemongrass and coconut chicken soup. But use a more sugary vintage to tone down the fire of a curry. The German Auslese style rieslings are excellent and reasonably priced. Two U.S. producers, Bonny Doon (whose Pacific Rim is marketed to serve with Asian cuisine) and Hogue, both make good, affordable rieslings. As for pinots, their delicate flavors, which can be smothered by heavy steak or barbecue, are enhanced by hot and spicy food. Remember that spicy food exaggerates the tannin and natural bitterness in wine. The addition of salt and sour flavors will help counteract this effect, as they make the wine milder, fruitier and less bitter. Thus, if you're drinking a merlot or cabernet sauvignon with duck in red curry, the addition of fish sauce to the curry - or salt to the duck - will help counteract the chilies. Similarly, the addition of lime juice to a green mango salad will offset the spiciness and pair nicely with a sauvignon blanc/semillon blend. For a moderately spicy, ginger-rich dish, a good gewurztraminer makes an excellent contrast. Another thing to consider is the method of food preparation. Generally speaking, grilled or pan-roasted foods will be better matches with your wines than those that are deep-fried. For example, Kai Yang (chicken marinated in garlic, pepper and lemongrass, and then grilled) is delicious with a crisp white wine or a fruity red. Tips and Tricks Never cut kaffir lime leaves, as too much oil will come off on the knife and diminish the strength of the flavor. Tear them gently instead. When kaffir zest is unavailable, substitute lemon peel rather than lime, as the latter is too bitter. Ginger, in smaller quantities, can be used as a substitute for galangal (also known as ginza or laos powder). When making large quantities of curry paste to store in the fridge or freezer, it's best to fry it first in oil, and then store both the oil and the paste. This helps retain better color and flavor. Dried chilies provide a better color in paste than fresh ones. Always add lime juice after the heat has been turned off. Mung beans should be stored in salt, not water, to keep them crunchy. Don't fry garlic and shallots together, as the garlic will cook quicker and turn brown. Shallots soaked in water for 10 minutes won't make you cry when cutting them. Use a tablespoon of coconut milk as a garnish for curries to provide an attractive color contrast. To separate coconut cream from milk, refrigerate it for 10 minutes, then skim off the top. Milk, cucumber or tomato will stop the burning sensation from chilies; water will amplify it. When stir-frying, always preheat your wok at least five minutes, until it's smoking hot. Add your oil and wait 10 seconds before beginning to add meat and vegetables.

SEE KRONG TORD GRATIUM (Fried Spare Ribs with Garlic) (serves 4) Although Thai people eschew appetizers in favor of eating a variety of dishes all at once (proving yet again that it's the harmony of opposing forces that define this cuisine), for us Western cheats, this makes a great appetizer that can serve as a prelude to a wide range of main courses. 4 cups pork spareribs cut into 1-inch pieces Enough oil to deep fry 3 cups chicken stock or water 1/2 cup oil 1/2 cup chopped garlic with skin on SAUCE 1/2 cup chopped garlic 1/4 cup roughly chopped coriander root and stem 1 t crushed white peppercorns 2 T oyster sauce 1 T light soy sauce* 1 T soy sauce 1/4 t sweet soy sauce *You can easily cheat and just use 2 tablespoons of regular soy sauce. But try to get the sweet soy. In a pinch, just add a little palm or brown sugar instead. Mix the spareribs together with all sauce ingredients, then put them in a pan along with the stock. Simmer 20 minutes. Drain the stock, and set the ribs aside. Put 1/2 cup oil into a wok. When it's hot, add the unpeeled garlic, and cook on high heat until the garlic starts to turn brown. Lower the heat, and keep stirring until the garlic is crispy (about 2-3 minutes). Drain the oil, and put the garlic on some kitchen paper. Put the oil for deep frying into a wok. When it's hot, fry the spareribs until golden brown (4-5 minutes), then drain. To serve, put the ribs on a plate, and sprinkle with garlic.

GAI HOR BAI TOEY (Chicken in Pandanus Leaves) (serves 4) If you can't get pandanus leaves or don't want to fry the chicken, this dish is also excellent when the marinated chicken is baked, covered, for about 30 minutes. If you do use leaves, be sure to remove them before serving, as they aren't edible. 1 cup chicken breast cut into 20 equal-sized pieces 20 pandanus leaves 4 T roasted sesame seeds 1 t ground black pepper 1 cup of oil SAUCE 1 T light soy sauce 1 T tapioca flour 1 T sesame oil Put chicken in a bowl, add sauce ingredients and mix well. Marinate at least 10 minutes. Then add the sesame seeds and pepper, and mix well. Wrap each piece of chicken in a pandanus leaf, cutting off the ends if too long. The chicken can be stored in the refrigerator until ready to fry. Put oil into pre-heated wok, and turn to medium heat. When oil is hot, add chicken pieces, frying until cooked through - about five minutes. Drain on kitchen paper and serve immediately (ideally with a sweet chili dipping sauce). NAM JIM GAI (Sweet Chili Dipping Sauce) (serves 4) This sauce makes a fantastic accompaniment to most Thai dishes and is added like salt and pepper. Once cooked this can be stored in a bottle for about one month at room temperature. 3/4 cup finely chopped coriander root 5 cups chopped pickled garlic 7 finely chopped big, red chilies 3 1/2 cups sugar 2 cups white radish, cut into thin strips 1 1/2 cups vinegar 1/4 t salt Put all ingredients into a pan, and simmer on low heat about 20 minutes, until sauce is thick. Stir occasionally. Recipes adapted from A Passion For Thai Cooking by Sompon and Elizabeth Nabnian.

Published on May 1st and just delivered to my doorstep via Amazon.com, The Wine Trials by Robin Goldstein enlivened (inflamed?) the wine blogosphere before anybody cracked the cover.

The striker to the matchbook?  Eric Asimov, a seasoned journalist for the New York Times, wrote a post based on reading a Newsweek article about the book.

You would not expect a journalist to comment on another piece of print media, especially without having read the book, but I guess this is the blogosphere and we are all guilty of seeking inspiration outside of traditional journalistic boundaries, but what ensued in the comments section of the post when nobody had read the book was truly sociologically interesting.

After a 65 comment explosion, Asimov wrote a follow-up after receiving a pre-release galley copy of the book and that post incited 31 comments.

Sequentially, the original post can be found here and the follow-up here.

Interestingly, the book is only, initially, available on Amazon.com.  And, yes, you guessed it.  Amazon is currently backordered on the book.

Somebody is interested …

Piqued by all of this, I did what anybody would do with all of that content on Asimov’s blog—I cut and paste into a Word document with .5 margins and 10 pt Trebuchet font.

36 pages and 17,000 words later I am more confused than before I started.  And, with no small amount of irony, the 17,000 words has to exceed the actual content in the book, which is 2/3’s wine listings. 

Here is the net-net version with this book:  the author did a blind tasting of many wines with large number of tasters (some 500 +) and the result was that numerous inexpensive wines (under $15) bested wines that are more expensive ($50 +) based on the panel of judges.

Pragmatically speaking, you do not have a book if people preferred more expensive wines to the less expensive wines so there is some room for question because the study, presumably, was set-up with an end conclusion in mind and not a hypothesis, but just the same it’s a fascinating book that makes for good arm chair reading over the course of a couple of hours.  With 58 introductory pages and the balance of the book being wine listings of the 100 wines under $15 that bested the $50 - $150 wines, it’s a light read.

The majority of the blog comments about Asimov’ posts on the book were centered on the division of small expensive wines and large grocery store wines.  This is an old ideological argument and more analogies were employed to explain the difference in art versus culture.  Variants cropped up about wine appreciation versus simpleton quaffers, etc.

Ugh, wake me when this tired old song is over with.  We get it.  Get over it.  Yes, there is a cultural difference between NASCAR fans and those that attend the symphony.  By God, both of these groups of people enjoy wine, too.

Nested within all of this debate is the essential truth by Asimov.

He states:

I am not saying wine is the equivalent of art. I do say that wine can be appreciated on many different levels, but that nobody should ever feel obliged to appreciate wine on any level. In the end, the book seems to divide wine consumers into the casual buyers who are pushed this way and that by forces they don’t understand, and the wealthy conspicuous status seekers who also are not quite aware of capitalism and marketing. Unacknowledged are the serious wine lovers who are knowledgeable, experimental and passionate, and who, yes, are in control of their own destinies. The book may speak to the first two groups, but not to the third.

As a member of the third group, the “serious wine lover” I can say unequivocally that I occasionally drink inexpensive wine and, natch, this book is an interesting take and a welcome addition to the pantheon of wine studies and a nice guidebook to the maze of choices at your grocery store for a through the week glass.

For additional reading at the source research study that led to the book, see this white paper.

Although I missed the boat on this one completely, the results are in for the latest Wine Blogging Wednesday over at CorkDork. This month’s objective was to try new red wines from New Zealand. 31 bloggers participated this time! Check it out!

Out of thousands of wines entered from 30 states and 10 foreign nations at the second annual National Women’s Wine Competition,...

Just thought I'd share a few of the keywords in searches that have lead viewers to The Wine Chicks:

Vomiting chicks

yuntrip

That's how I roll

Vin Diesel

italian hash

... and a disturbing number of image searches for Edie Brickell and Shaggy from Scooby Doo...

Of course, it would be no surprise to assert that Argentina has come a considerably long way over the last decade in terms of the depth that its wine producers are capable of achieving. The manner in which this process has and continues to take place, however, has less to do with the factors that used to be paramount (foreign buyouts) and more with the industry exporting a different image of itself altogether. This phenomenon alongside other compelling developments in recent times have precipitated what I believe to be a pivotal changing of the guard when it comes to the style of Argentine wines that American consumers are welcoming more and more.

Artisan-made Argentine wine producers are no longer lost in the wilderness, playing second fiddle in terms of international exports, to say, the larger, industrial-style producers or Mendoza wine operations funded with foreign money. Argentina?s bout with hyperinflation in the early 1980?s, the kind that made my family sell their business and book it towards the United States, as well as the government?s mismanagement of the World Bank and IMF-instigated crises of the 1990?s were devastating for the export aspirations of Argentine families with a winemaking tradition. Like many American fruit farmers getting undercut and essentially obliterated by Dole, Sunkist and the like, the nature of wine production during times of turbulence in Argentina has made it difficult for these producers to stay afloat; and so, like vultures, the 1980?s and 1990?s saw foreign capital descend upon Mendoza in the form of large multinational drinks corporations and others who scooped up the winemaking patrimony of many financially pressed families.

For quite some time now, these types of wine operations have made drinking the wine of my native country while abroad in the US a sadly confusing affair to say the least. Here I was, drinking these wines which had labels reading ?Mendoza? or ?Cuyo,? so they were certifiably real, but made in styles which weren?t even in the ballpark as far as what I knew I liked to drink. Did Argentine wines change, and thus, Argentine tastes, or was something being kept from those of us who live in North America? Some very successful investors and qualified winemakers from highly prestigious European wineries became involved with their pet projects in Mendoza, but to me, something just did not sit right. I felt a bit heartbroken that as a wine lover, the wines of my native country available for export reflected something I didn?t like?far from it in fact, something I couldn?t even relate to in any meaningful way.

Those darker days, however, seem to be coming to an end as the tide of taste gradually begins to favor Argentine winemakers that provide innovation, quality, exceptional value, and at last, the types of wines that bring a little piece of home back to my dinner table. I feel that a newly found sense of openness and curiosity in the American wine consumer is taking hold. From the wider availability of all sorts of Argentine wines I?ve noticed to the stimulating conversations I?ve had with people here about Argentina?s winemaking heritage and how it is increasingly reflected?things are moving in a direction I am liking more and more. Someone, however, from the point of view of imports to the US, has to be at the forefront of this revolution. For my next post, I?ll be presenting my interview with a major player in building long-term relationships with artisan Mendoza producers and in turn, striving to make authentically Argentine wines more of a staple than an oddity in the US market.

Old but innovative, the London based wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd have started a regular series of podcasts which can either be accessed from their site or subscribed to through iTunes.

According to the company, the ‘podcasks’ provide the latest updates on wine news, en primeur releases and wine events as well as featuring exclusive interviews with some of the biggest names in the world of fine wine.

The always erudite Eric Felten bemoans the Mimosa, “the official semi-alcoholic drink of brunch” as “an ordeal.” True enough because of OJ from a carton and cheap, off-dry bubbly. Then he spells out his recipe for success with the drink: freshly squeezed orange juice and good dry champagne.

In my limited cocktail making, I have come to learn that the fresher and better the ingredients, the better the cocktail. But I’ve also learned that there really aren’t that many great wine cocktails. While I agree in principal with Eric’s suggestion for the Mimosa makeover (though his suggestion of Veuve Clicquot is hardly the driest champagne around in these days of brut zero), I can’t bring myself to put OJ in my Bollinger (his second, and much better, champagne suggestion). If I have a fresh OJ and a glass of fine champange I’d rather enjoy them separately and never the twain shall meet. For me, it’s a nice dry cava or prosecco that is the best way to go with the fresh OJ in a Mimosa.

What do you say? Is the Mimosa where you’d put your Bollinger?

Image: istockphoto