Greetings From Houston. Not all that much to say except that Houston definitely seems to have a pretty vibrant food and wine scene. I didn't press them on what it means exactly, but the restaurant tonight, the Boulevard Bistrot, had a sign outside saying it was one of Food & Wine's top 10 restaurants (or maybe a nominee... whatever). Anyway, it was definitely very tasty with a wine list that was limited but seemed very carefully chosen (only like 20-25 wines). The place reminded me a bit of Lilette. We got a French Sauvignon Blanc that was supposedly one from a harvest of less than 800. More generally, I'm still getting my feet wet with stuff. I have found a nice wine store with regular tastings, and there are Houston wine brats that I hope to meet soon. I had a good time with Dante during his visit a few weeks ago, and would be pleased to host more purplesunshiners. I know I'll be in New Orleans before long, but I'm not sure if I'll make it before Halloween. I miss everybody & hope all are doing well. Cheers!
 :: posted by John Biers at 11:49 PM
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Two-buck Chuck. I haven't tried the much-hyped two-dollar wine, but vast amounts of ink and e-ink have been spilled over it. Slate's wine columnist, whose stuff I kind of like, tries to burst the bubble. The story leads like this...
     "There are a few things you should know about Two-Buck Chuck:
     "1. It is a wine, not the street name of a Mafia don or pimp.
     "2. Its price actually ranges from $1.99 to $3.50 a bottle.
     "3. It sucks."


 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 12:04 PM
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The non-award award. While dining in the Florida Panhandle over the past several years, I've been surprised to come across a surprising number of restaurants in Destin with "Awards of Excellence" from Wine Spectator. These restaurants happen to be quite good -- particularly given that they're in a beach town -- but maybe I shouldn't have been at all impressed with the awards.
     This Amanda Hesser article suggests that getting Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence is barely harder than winning a good citizenship award from your second-grade teacher. The magazine gives that distinction to 2,800 restaurants, none of which are ever inspected. Instead, restaurants send in a $175 application fee and copies of their wine lists and menus. And that's pretty much it. "We're trying to be as inclusive as possible," says the magazine's executive editor. "If they fail, it means they have done something fundamentally wrong, like not listing vintages."
     The magazine's two higher-tier awards are a bigger deal to win, though most winners of the middle award aren't inspected, either. But apparently, some restaurants try to scam the system when trying for the basic award that pretty much anybody can get through honest means.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 6:01 PM
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Shiraz. Today is Iran blog day, on which bloggers are urged to express solidarity with the Iranian democracy movement. The idea seems to have originated here (with your Webmaster's former boss), and you can find out more here, here and here.
     For our superficial and hedonistic purposes, though, the discussion has to center on the putative Iranian origins of Shiraz (a.k.a. Syrah). The Aussie name for the grape is the same as that of one of Iran's largest cities. According to iExplore, "Shiraz (pop. 965,000), called the 'City of Poets, Wine and Roses,' was the Persian capital and rival of Isfahan during the 18th century. It's now a regional capital and university town dotted with beautiful gardens filled with roses and orange trees (it's particularly nice in April when the orange trees are in blossom—you can smell the fragrance everywhere in the city)." It's widely believed that Shiraz the grape came from the area around Shiraz, Iran, though there's some doubt about the matter.
     What's sad is that, in the possible home of my favorite grape, it's a capital crime to drink alcohol.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 9:59 AM
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Playing safe with cork taint. I haven't tired of this issue, not since we first discovered the link between natural bottle stoppers and the fate of a certain cuddly mammal.
     Come to find out, there's a solution to the problem in sight. From this article in The Oregonian, I learned of "an exceptional Dr. Loosen riesling [that] uses a plastic shield, what wine insiders drolly call a 'cork condom,' at the bottom of the cork." By Googling around to www.preserveur.com, I learned that the cork condom -- that's "préservatif" in French -- looks like this. It's ingenious: No cork taint. No homeless lynxes. In short, problem solved. I'm relieved.
 :: posted by Dante Ramos at 8:29 PM
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