As a wine drinker and wine lover it has been hard not to be rather cheered up by the images of Lehman Brothers employees walking out of their office with boxes in hand shouting trite like ‘you’re watching history, man’ at journalists. Call this bitter, jealous or misunderstood – but is wine not about sour grapes? And if it’s true that wine is sour grapes then it is also true that it is sour grapes that become more palatable over time, and like my seemingly cynical cheer at the demise of City bankers such an opinion will also become more palatable over time. The reason I believe this is because of one thing that society has temporarily forgotten: value.

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Seems to have more alcohol than their Riesling-Kabinet

Clear, clean, light pale-straw

Nose: candy, sherbert, fresh, lime-minerality, tinned-peaches, honey

A lot fuller – more dimension to it, broader on the entry, much fuller mouth feel, more bracing finish… would stand up to food a lot better than the Riesling-Kabinet. A bit more graceful – certainly not as lively but certainly better rounded.

Serve with: shell-fish (scallops pan-seared in chilli-infused olive oil)

or – with Thai-green curries/ Chicken Korma with pineapple and coconut

Seemed to have a higher acidity

Clear, clean, light pale-straw

Nose: Apple sour-patch-kids, fresh green melon, sea-breeze, cheeky, clean

Muscata on the entrance; immediately makes the mouth water; enough sugar to keep you bouncing off the walls, fizzes with sweetness, pumps vitality. Rocketing sugar cut with a high acidity – making for a high-wire act that still pulls off a fine balance between two extremes.

Pleasant and clean finish, lingering tingle on the tongue,

Balanced – could make a crazy spritzer… or even used in cocktail instead of sour-mix… would work well in a punch as well (perhaps two-shots Van Gogh Appel Vodka, one part Riesling, one part soda water, a twist of lime, a dash of bitters and ice.)

For the reward given – cooking steak is probably one of the best things you can do to entertain guests. It’s so easy and there’s really no better accompaniment for steak than red wine.

I like to buy a whole Angus fillet and cook it first before cutting it into fillet steaks, this way you can keep the juices and really preserve a lot of the flavour. It also presents a perfect opportunity to do what any male wine millennial, or any male for that matter - likes most… marinade. Like making hot-sauce, there is perhaps no time more satisfying to a person than when he given the chances to marinade something. There’s a certain feeling of alchemy in preparing the meat that really doesn’t come with other pre-preparation chores like peeling potatoes or rolling pastry flat.

The ingredients for getting a steak ready are quite simple: rock salt, English mustard, lemons, pepper, red wine, olive oil, chopped garlic and mixed spices. Adding lemon juice helps seal the steak and within minutes the pinkish colour will disappear and the fillet will start to gain a more cooked sort of colour. At this point I roll the fillet in a bed of rock-salt before smothering it in a healthy dose of English mustard mixed with spice and crushed garlic. Once done, leave it to soak in a pool of red wine on top of a bed of diced onions allowing the blood and fermented juice to comingle.

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It has been a month now since I re-entered into life in the States. Though three months isn’t that long of a time, my transition from Paris to Southampton, NY was a bizarre one. Who would have thought hearing people speak English around you would feel strange. In Paris everything was at my doorstep and now here I am out east on Long Island in driving distance of everything. The one thing that is in full source here are the wine vineyards. Long Island is not typically known for great wine. They are developing more and more over the years. The varietals that strive are Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. And that is what I am trying to accomplish here, bringing pride back to Long Island Wine Country.

Pindar is a vineyard that has been in the North Fork of Long Island for 15 years. Usually they are dressed in a tacky label, and because of this I have always over looked it. What can I say, I like visuals. While walking the ailes of the local wine store I came upon a label with the Pythagorem Theroem across it, a2 + b2 = c2. It was called Pythagoras. My mom is a math teacher, though I’m not a math wiz, I always did enjoy algebra. Because the label was so different from any other Pindar wine I was shocked to find out it was in fact the same vineyard. That’s lesson number one, don’t judge a wine by its label.
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