Blame it on Rioja

This six-page, ambitiously-titled wine primer in the latest Gentleman’s Quarterly might not be the last word in wine education, but it sure is a hopeful sign that more and more American men are ready to trade in their bottles of brew for glasses of vino, one of mankind’s most remarkable manipulations of nature.

That wine knowledge and palate confidence can also radically inflate a man’s desirability quotient in the eyes of women is merely an added bonus, a benefit rarely mentioned in men’s magazines–but this is a story for another time. (more…)

You might recall that in last week’s post on “The Marriage of Wine and Cinema,” I referenced the restaurant double-date scene in Sideways, calling it the most accurate depiction of anxiety-fueled wine overindulgence in the history of cinema.

What a nightmare to be haunted by a lost love, to feel awkward in some forced-upon-you blind date, and to decide that rushed, four-ounce slurps of fine wine might be the only way to make the desperation of that single moment possibly more palatable.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

No, wait. I’m not bitter. (more…)

In an attempt to create something of a Netflix for wine, a guy named Joshua Zader recently launched wineq.com (as in wine “queue”), whose inventory at this point draws exlusively on California wines.

There’s a small ($4.95 monthly charge) plus the price of the wine; all orders above $35 give you free shipping.

All producers participating in the program make 10,000 cases of wine per year or less, so your chances of getting something unusual are pretty good; of course, a lot of folks like to go with names they recognize, so maybe that’s not always a good thing.

Interesting idea. To learn more about the legal changes that enabled such commerce,  visit http://freethegrapes.org/.

Early one morning in the spring of ‘06, Violeta asked me what the deal was with the cocoon hanging from my bookcase.

“That’s a little weird,” she said.

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I really liked Sideways, Alexander Payne’s twisted California Wine Country road picture, which came out in 2004. I loved Virginia Madsen’s character; when she talked about wine on screen, I wanted shout out, “Marry me, please!”—how’s that for suspension of disbelief? The restaurant double-date scene still haunts me to this day, joining the likes of the “Sister Christian” scene in P.T. Anderson’s 1997 Boogie Nights on my short list of favorite movie scenes in the last decade. Seamlessly cross-cut between dinner and its drunk-dialing outcome, the double-date scene is surely the most realistic depiction of anxiety-fueled alcoholic overindulgence in the history of cinema.

Museo de la Cultura del Vino Dinastía Vivanco

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