The basis is an engine… a thinking engine that drives sustainable development, and more specifically, the health of the world. How do you create something in which the consumption heals the body and the production heals the earth?

Think about it

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They bought a car with another girl (the rock star of the group), and were planning to head way north to work on a farm for a little bit. They invited me to go, so I left my suitcase with a friend in San Francisco and hit the road with them. The following few weeks were beyond amazing… so many serendipities. My favorite was running into one of the winemakers I worked with everyday for 2 months in Argentina earlier this year in a small grocery store parking lot in Napa, and I just so happened to have a bottle of the organic wine we worked on in my backpack. Our car turned into a sustainable circus. We worked on the farm we set out for, did a little harvest work at a winery, but mainly stayed on the road visiting sustainable farms all around northern Cali. We touched Humboldt, Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, and Marin.

A couple of our favorites were Filigreen Farm in Anderson Valley, where Chris Tebbutt has built an amazing mixed biodynamic agriculture setup of vines and fruit orchards, it was incredible. He also had huge solar arrays setup that produce 100% of the farm’s energy… a true thinking farm. We also visited Paul Dolan at his biodynamic Dark Horse Farming Ranch in Ukiah, which was powerful. He has an “energy center” with his flow form, preparations, and a stunning “bug strip” of crazy flowers and vegetation that generates the biodiversity and balance in his vineyard. On our way south, we made a stop at Solar City somewhere on 101 south of Ukiah, which is a sustainable building/living community. We slept in a teepee and talked about what it takes to build sustainable communities.

Somewhere along the way we got tipped off about the Bioneers conference down in San Rafael so we trekked down there and crashed the conference for the weekend. I talked to Rebecca of the Biodynamics Association about heading up their booth for a day in exchange for a free pass, and she graciously accepted my offer. We got to see some amazing speakers and share even more amazing ideas, and I was able to pitch biodynamics all day Sunday at the trade show.

We just kept going, drinking, laughing, breathing, seeing how these amazing farms are changing the environment, all while staying break even along the way. We went crazy and then sane and then crazy again. It was a ride. Now, I’m back in San Francisco to soak in what this place is all about, and make some magical elixirs along the way…

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A good Italian, yet affordable, is going to come under the names Nero d’Avolo, Dolcetto and Primitivo. Key regions are going to be Sicily, Sardinia, Puglia, and Umbria. This is the perfect time to try something new. France? You can drink from there as well, but same thing applies; try something new. Draw yourself towards Loire, Rhone, Provence, and Alsace. These are the more affordable areas but of course you may come upon more expensive prices mixed in. Stay away from these. You can’t afford them. A general and fun rule that I suggest you follow is: if the label doesn’t make sense and it’s under $12 then buy it. Turn drinking into an adventure.

A friend of mine has a rule that she sticks to, an expensive one, but smart at the same time. The first bottle that she drinks is always a more expensive nicer bottle. If you have to get it out of your system then do it, and then buy cheaper ones after that. Also remember that everyday is not a holiday or occasion to be celebrating. If you believe that everyday is well then learn how to do it on a budget or invite me over. Little known fact about me, I do enjoy a good celebration.

It’s hard to drink American cheaply right now. For that I suggest you try something else that is in that price range and home grown: Beer. Microbreweries in the United States are really starting to produce great ales. Like all things, baby steps are required. Flying Dog, Dogfish, Rouge, Magic Hat, Brooklyn, Sierra, these are just a few suggestions. Go to your local beer distributor and follow that same rule, never heard of it, then buy it. If you are one of the many out there that believes that beer doesn’t have a flavor profile, then stop yourself now and start drinking ales. You are going to get that same old bland taste in a lager. Leave the lagers to drinking games. I’m not a huge fan of the Budweiser family beers, but the new American Ale that they are producing is good and possibly a stepping-stone for the masses.

Just because our nation is broke doesn’t mean you have to particularly live like it. When we stop having fun and laughing is when I leave the country (again). So run to your local beer distributor or wine store and Wine (or Ale) Your Diet.

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With Mills’ poems that have religious flair, I’m not going to lie, I was a bit freaked out at first. Growing up in a Irish Catholic family, going to Catholic school for thirteen years I can appreciate things that have a religious tone to it, be it music, movies, or literature, but at the same time I would not want to read a collection of poems that are all spun that way. And then I came upon Bibiana, the Patron Saint of Hangovers, “I bet it is also annoying that so few of us pray to her by name; instead we try to go right to the top or moan supplications with no address”. Now that I know her name I believe we will be good friends.

Then the second half of the book deals with Life and Relationships. In Introductions Made Easy, Mills simply puts how much easier life would be if people came with labels such as those on wine bottles. You would be able to find out their background and see if that person is to be enjoyed in the moment or if they will improve with age. Dating would be so much easier. And then finally in Opening Up, Mills, though the visual of a dinner party shows how each person approaches wine in a different matter, the same that we all approach people differently. “If we’re lucky/ as the years unfold/ we open up/ until we reach a point/ we can appreciate/ one another’s complexities/ and even the tart irony/ of finding yourself/ at the table’s next seat,/ taking seriously,/ so many of those things/ you once mocked.”

And that’s what wine is, subjective to the individual. Mills does a good job exploring his passion, though I would not recommend this to non-wine lovers. It’s fun, and that’s what it’s suppose to be, take it in stride, grab a glass of wine and continue to Wine Your Diet.

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Image by Polifemus via Flickr

I’ve been cruising around the wine world for a year and a half now. While I know more about wine than I did when I started I still have been unable to quantify what I’ve learned, am I any closer to understanding wine? Perhaps, but I still feel that I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface, which might be its allure.

I can differentiate the varied sections of Burgundy, but then there’s the Loire Valley and after that there is some other place or grape. Shakespeare once wrote, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” This quote not only reminds me of my foolish roommate, but also those who decide to take wine too seriously. Don’t get me wrong a healthy enthusiasm for knowledge is great but mastery does not come when you have finished every book known to man about wine, nor after visiting ever major wine region. There are still those diamonds in the rough that make the journey through wine even more rewarding. A great example is the Tannat coming from Uruguay.

I never want to feel like I know everything there is to know about wine because then where would I go, its almost as absurd as conveying a complete understanding of life, preposterous. And while Tastevine will hopefully never be able to fully explain wine, we hope that it will give its users a tool in which to explore, to let wine’s mysteries draw you in as it has me. Cheers all of you fellow quaffers. And remember to share your experiences with friends so they can share the joys too.

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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

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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.)

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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 man than when 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.

At this point it’s time to pour yourself a glass of wine and get down to preparing a simple salad (feta, tomato, cucumber, rocket, red lettuce and sesame seeds with a balsamic glaze always goes down well) together with some baked vegetables (onions, courgettes, egg-plant and butternut are perfect.)

After about 3 hours of marinating or so – once the guests arrive; you can chat and get the barbecue going for about half an hour. The veg will take about an hour to cook and the meat will take 15 minutes (if you like it burnt and bloody); 20 minutes if you want it medium rare… so stick the veg in in a pocket of tin-foil – and half an hour later gather people around as it’s always a bit of excitement to watch the meat go on.

Generally if the steak is sealed – leaving it on one side should do fine; and at a medium temperature it should cook through. At this stage you can heat the marinade up, add a lamb stock cube and a cup of water along with some diced mushrooms and pepper and you have a great red wine and mushroom gravy.

The perfect wine for steak on a summer’s day is a Shiraz Viognier – especially if you’ve used mustard, and garlic as they really complement and bring out the spice flavour. Some people would argue cab – but I think that that would more be for an evening event if there’s a chill in the air.

For our Angus Fillet I chose the Graham Beck Joshua 2003 – which turned out to be a perfect accompaniment. It may not have been March 14th, but any chance for steak and red wine is something to smile about.

Cheerz!

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There is no better way to gauge public interest online than to look at the web and information provided by Google Insight, Google Trends and Google Analytics; there are obviously more advanced tools such as Hitwise and Comscore – but for directional information something like Google Insight is good enough: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

‘Porn’ is just in because of the old Avenue Q song ‘the internet is for porn‘ – and it’s an authoritative bench-marks for public interest considering the recent court case where a high-court used Google as a measure of common values and interests. The interesting trend we see is that online there is demonstrably more interest in wine than in beer over the last 12 months. As a bench-mark of public interest – oddly enough at the time of the Iowa caucuses both Obama and Porn see a simultaneous spike in interest, which is the first time that Obama becomes more popular as a search query than both beer and wine combined. Disturbingly, porn becomes increasingly more popular throughout 2008 – and encouragingly Obama’s popularity online remains ahead of both beer and wine; whilst McCain’s only ‘More Popular than Beer and Wine Combined’ moment is only for a brief time at the end of January and then for a little tiny bit in August.

So it stands to reasons then that outside of a presidential year, politics takes a back seat and all people are interested in is porn, beer and wine… you animals!

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Step in Sergio Esposito‘s Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Food, Wine and Family in the Heart of Italy – which from the first page pulls one directly into the rental car of he and his brother Sal at the end of an epic 60 winery tour of Italy. Sergio, an Italian born New York wine retailer has embarked on a wine-buying tour of Italy with his brother who got him into the business in the fist place – and within the first pages of reading you are situated within a remarkable life, which I was utterly compelled by because suddenly the retailer I had been up against was given a face. I completely sympathise with the opening sentiments of having a job that on the surface sounds glamorous but in reality can be very gritty – however one quickly learns that Esposito has been doing this for 3 months every year for nearly 2 decades. From my part I was around the East Coast, Mid West and West Coast pushing wine to restaurants retailers and country-clubs tasting wine from 8:30 in the morning to 1am sometimes 6 days a week – and within two years I have more stories than I care to remember. For Sergio and his brother they’re diligently working through 10 wineries a day tasting through varietals and enduring long-drives in hot weather – often what sounds glamorous, and would seem like the setting for a series of Sideways style misadventures through a foreign country ends up being a lot more like work than anyone else could ever imagine. One has to take their hat off to such dedication even though amidst the work it is interspersed with tales of seductive winemakers daughters, raucous Italian weddings and personalities you’re unlikely to forget.

Passion on the Vine is an insight into a life less ordinary from one of the world’s leading wine consultants who can be found on the pages of the Wall Street Journal to the Times to the Wine Spectator itself. Esposito brings the innate raconteur nature of Italian New Yorkers, combined with a mellifluous writing style into a memoir that goes to the heart of what it means to be an epicurean. He illustrates so perfectly how passion, love and romance can go a long way to carrying someone throughout life. Ultimately this is a romance between one man and an entire region which will make you fall in love with Italy; and paints the picture of a dying breed – wine-men who actually love wine, men who excel in their jobs for more than money and people who add value not only to their families but pay their dues to those who have helped them over the years. Esposito’s is a poignant picture of optimism and love in a marketplace that is primarily having the life squeezed out of it by soulless critters.

Esposito re-introduced me to a feeling I nearly lost, and in his words I remembered a part of myself. When one is up against Little Penguin – it’s difficult to find the actual stories and vines and passion in a fuzzy cartoon character. There is no doubt that much of Western Philosophy was built on the back of wine-fueled sentiments; and from the foundation of Western culture there is no doubt that Italians built New York and have made the culture (together with the Irish) what it is today. Esposito, in a tale filled with adventure, comedy and energy has staked his claim to not only being a philosopher, a wine lover and a great New Yorker – but being an advocate and an inspiration to future wine millenials, showing that there’s no real substitute for loving what you do.

Cheerz.

Special thanks to Dianna Tingg from Italian Wine Merchants who has reached out to so many of us on the wine blogosphere, and has shared this wonderful book with us. It is a priveledge to have been given the opportunity to review such a great book.

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