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2012 year in review: In which Canada distracts the Negress from depression, bloody mayhem and bad wine

December 31, 2012

The Negress is quite ready to be done with 2012. This is a year that deserves to be tossed away with both hands. She had friends blown sideways by a crazy, globally heated storm with boat and homes going every which way. She continued her fierce love of Chicago, but now found it mixed up the strain of building a business on communicating when she never felt less like speaking, making phone calls or getting out of bed. So, 2012, please get the hell out of here so she can get on with it. She will keep listening to 54.40, Dan Mangan, the Tragically Hip and other Canadians she hopes will return to Chicago when she has the cash to go see them.

What The Negress wants to get on with is knitting, reading, cooking and keeping herself healthy. That has actually gone pretty well with weight and the shedding of at least three diabetes medications. Crohn’s seems to know its place but she’s somewhat afraid to even think that. If you’re interested in the year in wine, nose around the rest of the blog and read. She briefly worked for an e-magazine called Uncorked before it went under; settling the $1,125 it owed her for a mere $225. There’s a plum assignment looming that has been looming for a few weeks. Once the secret is out, things will be good but just looking at the books (including one she wrote a chapter in) she needs to skim has her nervous

As for the other books she’s read, she adored “Gone Girl,” is still on p. 200 of “1Q84” and hopes Robert Caro doesn’t die before he finishes the LBJ biography (she’s read through “Master of the Senate,” but wants to finish all of it). She’s seen friends retire (buen suerte Juan), fade (you’re not reading this if you were one of those), sober up, and graduate (way to go nephew JT). There was some good news amongst all the bloodshed.

The Negress still loves music, wine, hockey (she misses it, wants it back and will settle for the college game and the Wolves until further notice) and men and women. She and golf are seeing other sports, but will get back together once her broken foot heals.

The Negress went on a road trip or two, spending time in Ohio, DC, NJ, PA (crossing the Poconos could not have been achieved without all those Canadian bands on The Verge), Ohio again, Michigan and then home. Baseball is still in the picture but the late-season collapse of the White Sox and the Nationals’ early playoff exit were hard to take. She’s officially done with Astros, leaving them before they make their shameful transition to the American League. The Negress isn’t sure she knows who they are anymore. She also feels that way about SABR, so she’s pondering an exit strategy there too..

The Mazda and her home are good, but she needs to get back to work in a stupendous way. May 2013 be your lucky number too (Lene Lovich, sorry about that).

Posted in Music and our culture, Wines of the world in danger, Years in review | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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The Negress denounces the passage of time: 1999 Patrick LeSec Rasteau Vieilles Vignes,Toad Hollow Apropos and 2011 Mission Point Pinot Noir

August 27, 2012

The Negress has had death on her mind a lot lately so the 1999 LeSec Rasteau Vieilles Vignes and Toad Hollow Apropos  roared out of memory like the morning after a cheap, greasy meal. A friend’s Mom died, leaving a central Illinois basement and house awash in mysterious liquor and wine caches. The basement was humid and filled with cases of indeterminate Scotch, several cases of a French white with moldy labels and rotted corks, plus multiple bottles of creme de menthe with just enough gone to suggest sequential outbreaks of  excessive grasshopper consumption and complete amnesia of the  previous purchases. This is the sort of drinking that adults in university towns could get away with before drunk driving, interventions and 30-day “leaves of absence” conducted on the down low if tenured; followed by contract cancellation if not. Of course, so many are adjuncts now nothing might happen for different reasons. Welcome to the age of disposable academia.

2011 Mission Point Pinot Noir and 1999 Patrick LeSec Rasteau Vieilles Vignes

New. Old. Indifferent.

Back to the wine. Most bottles you and the Negress buy are designed to be quaffed quickly. All the vinification techniques in fashion now suggest that more wine makers should put a “drink by” recommendation on the label. As in “as soon as you can.” The Rasteau and the Toad Hollow deserved to be drunk young. They were faded beyond recognition and tasted feeble and forgettable.  Cote du Rhones Villages wines are not usually feeble, but this senile Rasteau was (according to a bit of research, this one was about seven years too old). The Negress suspects improper storage may have been part of the problem. She also knows that Toad Hollow makes impeccable value wines, but the Apropos was truly nothing special.

To regain some palate perspective, the Negress picked up a bottle of 2011 Mission Point Pinot Noir at Trader Joe’s on a co-worker’s recommendation. She will not extend the recommendation, but will pose one of her favorite questions, “Why do California vintners try to turn Pinot Noir into Cabernet Sauvignon?” If you’re looking for more candid assessments of Various Buck Chucks and the rest of the Trader Joe’s ilk, try my pal Tim Lemke’s site Cheap Wine Ratings.

Speaking of pals,  please raise a glass to the Negress’ old one, Brent Grulke of SXSW, who died unexpectedly Aug. 13. Grulke worked for the gargantuan festival back when it was a puppy. He was the stage manager when there were only tens of venues. He later rose to be the guy who picked the bands that played and was immune to persuasion by anything other than the submitted demo. Brent, a lot of us who miss the old festival (and know we are too old for the reboot), will miss you and hope your family has what they need in this troubled time.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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10 Things I will never do again

May 6, 2012

The Negress likes lists and is going to post one every week so stay tuned. Sometimes it”s nice to know when you are done. These are not ranked but listed as the Negress thought of them.

1. Go see the Grateful Dead. Once in DC at RFK Stadium with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the deadly DC summer was quite enough. No Dead spinoffs either.

2. Throw up at length in the bathroom at Fitzgerald’s in Houston. Take multiple shots of Weller, add swigs of Jack Daniels from the stage during a Dash Riprock show and you have a recipe for being tore up and sorry. Many thanks to the person who drove that night. You know who you are.

Dash Rip Rock

Members of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame dadgum

3. Go to SXSW. The Negress acquired her last badge in 1999 and doesn’t miss it one bit. Except for the night she was onstage with the late Molly Ivins banging a tambourine. Austin is a fine place to visit but she will never go during South by or the ACL Music Festival. She wants to see her friends when they aren’t frenzied.

4. Stagger with two suitcases when your bus to the Melbourne airport breaks down a quarter mile from said airport. The Aussies’ friendliness and generosity of spirit does not always extend to customer service. The Negress flew to Brisbane and spent three hours in the airport between flights and drank diet Coke until she nearly exploded.

5. Pick up a full ostomy bag off the floor of a Manhattan theater. You want to know more about that, you just have to wait until the Negress writes her memoir, tentatively titled “Notes of a Chronic Negress” or “Another Black Room with a Pole in the Middle.”

6. Deal with a member of the clergy (identifying denomination will not be divulged) who began almost every sentence with, “I’m the adult child of an alcoholic.” The Negress just wanted her to pass the salt.

7. Take NJ Transit from Newark airport to the Newark train station to get on the PATH to Jersey City. One arthritic shoulder and two titanium knees scream out for another way to do this journey.

8. Be nervous about being in a room with Miami Steve Van Zant, Lenny Kaye, Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun. The Negress is actually sorry about this one since Jerry and Ahmet are gone.

9. Go see Gary Stewart in some wide spot in the road in Texas. This one makes her sorry too. Find the music and you’ll see what she means.

10. Sit on a tour bus in Belleville, TX while Brooks and Dunn blast their new single, “Rock My World (Little Country Girl).” This duo retired before the Negress and others could reach the “Oh them again” stage. She wishes some other musicians could take the hint, but that’s another list for another week.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Music and our culture, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

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The Negress pickles her brain with Top 40 and enjoys it immensely

March 11, 2012

The Negress has been flitting through several realms of late. Alcohol was banished for Lent so not much to report there. Music comes and goes. Work is front and center, and is going well as far as she can tell. Hockey is good with the Devils surging and one of her future ex-husbands, Johnny Oduya, now a member of the Blackhawks. Right now, the Blackhawks can use all the help they can get.

The Negress loves Ke$ha and does not feel guilty at all

The Negress loves Ke$ha and does not feel guilty at all

With the impending arrival of spring and the annual crash landing of Daylight Savings Time, the Negress needed a respite from all the hard thinking she’d been doing preparing for the toughest part of her FINRA registration. So she flipped the dial to her favorite Top 40 (these days known as CHR for Contemporary Hit Radio) station, Z100, in New York. It’s available online and on satellite radio.

One quick conclusion she came to was that there are only about eight or nine songs in deuterium rotation, most involving Katy Perry, Chris Brown, Rihanna, Pitbull, FloRida and Drake. Ke$ha(her Twitter handle is @keshasuxx, which we love) and Lady Gaga show up, but not often enough for our tastes.

Also, prolonged exposure all of this mindless Auto-Tuned robot pop can shave a few dozen points off your IQ. You may not notice immediately, but it does happen. You say “awesome” a lot. You wanna party with, like, your friends and stuff.

However, the Negress is quick to declare her enduring love for commercial radio, especially the triple-A station here in Chicago, WXRT. She especially thanks them for Mumford and Sons and even some of the Fleet Foxes. The new Springsteen single is running heavy there now, which in its own way is as irritating as the robot pop. The Negress escaped after 12 or so years in Jersey without gaining a Springsteen obsession. She likes him and the E Streeters fine, but not to the point of rearranging her life.

Sorry for the long rest periods here, but the Negress is busy. Back as soon as something worth talking about happens. In the meantime, roll down your windows and blast some tunes.  It feels like opening a can of  spring. Baseball helps with that too, so do it. Go Sox (White, not Red)!

(December 2012 update: Still love Fleet Foxes, but the arrival of the second Mumford and Sons record killed that crush dead. Enough ballistic folks with predictable dynamics. As for Ke$ha, “The Warrior” is step in her adult heels, but “Die Young” wins the Artie Fufkin award for entering the charts at No. 1 the worst time on the worst week ever.

Posted in baseball, hockey, cycling and other sports habits, Health and Wellness, Hockey, Music and our culture, New Jersey Devils, Wines of the world in danger, World Travelling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

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The Negress, Whitney Houston and the dance of addiction

February 19, 2012

The Negress heard about Whitney Houston’s death when she was working the auction floor at the Equality Illinois gala. There were some murmurs of sadness, but very few expressions of surprise. The public Whitney had walked the same road a lot of addicts do, and their families no doubt now are recalling similar turns on their own roads. Think of all the family gatherings with knotted stomachs, awaiting the first slurred argument followed by the broken dishes. Review the whispered, tentative approval of a post-rehab appearance without drama. “She looks good, doesn’t she?” Yes she did, but we still checked on the jewelry drawer afterwards. Russell Brand and others momentarily safe in recovery have talked about the exhaustive lying that comes with addictions and how addicts are never fully present in whatever they’re doing. Family members know that all too well as they hear promises repeated, see contracts signed and wait for the better times to come. (courtesy of YouTube)

But those times don’t come usually. The Negress had an uncle whose heroin addiction lasted until he was near 60 when he died of an overdose. His third wife, she of the blond Afro and infantilizing nicknames, buried him in his Christian Dior pajamas because they were designer duds. My uncle used to drop by our house to pick up his disability check (addiction was a disability at that time. Not sure how that goes now.) He worked as a treatment counselor, which sounds like a macabre joke, but junkies were all over the Narcotics Treatment Administration in Marion Barry’s DC. The Negress remembers getting a lecture from said uncle about staying away from drugs, especially cocaine. His life was the best warning she could have gotten. His children split the difference. One is a successful entrepreneur; another a neurosurgeon. The third was an addict, gifted at illegal computer scams who bounced in and out of recovery like a Super Ball of unfulfilled promise. As far as the Negress knows, he is incarcerated still. There are other kids from other wives, but the Negress has lost them somehow. She hopes they are well, but doesn’t know for sure.

As for Whitney, our paths crossed when the Negress was working in New Jersey. The singer was beginning her long free fall of shoddy performances and tentative albums. It was hard to watch and, after a point, the Negress thought of her uncle and cousin and turned away. When Whitney was at her best, you could feel God in her voice even if you didn’t believe. The Negress regrets that many of her successors and emulators embraced her bag of vocal tricks and not the spiritual truth of her best performances (feel me, Miss Aguilera?). Whitney will be missed, but we hope she’s free from pain now.

Postscript: Frank Bruni wrote a column about alcohol that also has a connection to a cousin, who would go on benders, be retrieved by his fellow cousins, dry out and then do it all over again with a few drunken, spittle-flinging rants offered at family gatherings. Since the Negress loves fine wine and spirits, she also thinks she has some responsibility to show that it’s not all upside.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Music and our culture | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments »

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Four bottles (2 California Pinot Noirs), one Series 7 exam and making the writing thing more disciplined with NaNoWriMo

November 6, 2011

The Negress has been in the midst of a whirlwind of food poisoning, medication titration, power knitting, yarn shopping, concert going (which led to booty shaking) and some more career whipsawing. There’s been a little time for wine and since she wants to get these empties out of the house, she’ll start there. Ordinarily, the Negress had been avoiding California Pinot Noir for a while since, post-Sideways, many producers got into the Pinot business as though delivering a delicious version of this persnickety grape required the same skill that it takes to make Kool Aid. The Golden State was awash in oceans of indifferent Pinot. It made the Negress want to smack Paul Giamatti in the mouth even though it was not his fault at all. However, thanks to her ongoing association with the Cellars of Sonoma wine club, she was able to quaff a pair of fabulous Pinots recently. The first was 2008 TR Elliott Three Plumes Pinot Noir (abv 14.6%) from the Russian River Valley. Winemaker Teddy Elliott put together five barrels from his Hallberg Vineyard and one barrel from the O’Connell Vineyard. The best Pinot Noirs whisper and the really good ones whisper dirty little nothings to your palate. Three Plumes is one of the good ones and, at $42, is a lovely special occasion wine that doesn’t require a credit default swap.

Johnny Oduya, one of my hockey future ex-husbands, now with the Winnipeg Jets

Johnny Oduya, on the hockey part of the future ex-husband list and my NaNoWriMo inspiration

Before moving on to next Pinot, this is a good spot to announce that I failed the Series 7 securities license exam by 4 points. This ended my pre-employment journey with an excellent financial services company, but it also put me on the road to somewhere very different. More about that as it develops.

You should love the James Family Cellars 2008 Stony Point Vineyard Pinot Noir ($35 but some discounted supplies remain, 13.8% abv) as well. This is a richer Pinot that will likely be enjoyed by those who like big fruit wines. Normally, when Pinot Noir gets artificially engorged by crafty vinification, things can get ugly. The James Family, who should not be mocked for using the words “world-class” and “artisanal” on their labels, walked a tightrope here and landed gracefully.

One of the better-kept secrets among wineaux is the loveliness of Merlots from the North Fork of Long Island. Much of that region suffers a bit from economies of scale — in short, most of the wine is pricier than its quality merits. But exceptions should be made for just about all the Merlots I’ve tried. My favorite is the Bedell Cellars Reserve Merlot. The 2006 vintage (13% abv, only available in minute quantities through the wine club) benefited from it being a warm year. This wine is ripe without being overblown. Think Lena Olin, not Anna Nicole Smith.

The Negress also lucked onto a surprising wine at her local WineStyles (small national chain of wine stores; some of which do online shipping).  The 2009 Finca La Linda Bonarda (14.3% abv) was going for $10 a bottle at last count. This one hails from the Mendoza region of Argentina. Bonarda is a bit like the Petit Verdot of Argentina. It rarely shows up alone. Too bad. This one is a little figgy with some red fruit. It went well with some spicy foods and drank well without food, although the Negress avoids doing that lately.

The blog has been quite of late, and it will remain so for the rest of this month. The Negress has thrown her lot in with the folks at National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo, so she’s hoping to have a 65,000 word draft for a memoir by Thanksgiving. She and the members of the ChiWriMo region are busy when they aren’t knitting. Stay tuned.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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NLGJA, Hurricane Irene and trying to sort things out

September 13, 2011

For a Negress who is supposedly leaving full-time journalism behind, let’s just say this farewell tour may be longer than Cher’s. She came to Philadelphia for the National Gay and Lesbian Journalists Association convention. Does this mean the Negress is coming out in some sense? Yes and no. Her history is bisexual, and she’s beginning to realize the spectrum of gender and sexuality is fairly fluid. She has several transsexual friends and believes in safe bathrooms for all and no stupid questions about shaving.

NLGJA is a very welcoming organization so she is proud to be a member since she knows she will never stop writing or being curious about the world. Plus, she had never spent a lot of time in Philly so it seemed like a good idea.

However, a couple of things happened. One, the Negress had her arthritic, bone-spur filled shoulder cleaned out arthroscopically Friday Aug. 19. She got the dressing removed the following Monday and headed to Philly on Wednesday. Yes she is sore. But she arrived in Philly on something of a mission — meet fun people and get a good cheesesteak. She accomplished those goals and got a couple of extra days in Philly thanks to Irene.

Some things she hopes NLGJA will do in the future: introduce a freelancer rate, add karaoke night (calling all sponsors), have a panel on racism in the LGBT community, have a productive panel on transgender issues (the one this year was dominated by a crackpot army of one) and stop asking Don Lemon about Anderson Cooper. The Negress adores Mr. Lemon and wishes him and his nice Jewish boyfriend well.

By the way, the Negress is still drinking wine but her Series 7 exam studies have seriously curtailed her consumption. Besides there are some other threads of her narrative fabric that deserve attention. So stay tuned. There are some stories to tell.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, World Travelling | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

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Yellow Face, Chinglish and the AAJA convention and a dawning realization

August 23, 2011

The Negress spent a day with a pair of David Henry Hwang plays  in Chicago and several days at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Detroit.  The Silk Road Theatre produced “Yellow Face,” an older play of Hwang’s about racial identity, stereotypes and artistic freedom while the Goodman has sent his latest, “Chinglish,”a masterpiece of interlocking misunderstandings, to Broadway. Thanks to the convenience of scheduling, the Negress saw them both on the same day and was delighted by each for different reasons.

Money on my mind

current thoughts so to speak

“Yellow Face” is a delicious mingling of a revenge fantasy, hard truths and the fluidity of racial identity. In some ways, it reminded the Negress of “Passing Strange,” which is happily available since Spike Lee made a film of its last Broadway performance. When you’re not white or not straight, you often fiddle with how you show yourself to the world. Sometimes it’s a matter of survival and there’s an enormous cost. Sometimes you can have some fun, but you can’t always be sure the joke isn’t on you. Expectations, stereotypes and archetypes keep close company and it can be challenging to separate them. The conversation begun with “Yellow Face” continues in “Chinglish” with the tables turned.  Hwang places an earnest white American businessman in China where his understanding of how things work is often lost in linguistic and cultural translation. As the Negress often says to friends near and far, some people just don’t get it. And some never will.

So, with all that bouncing around in her head, the Negress drove to Detroit for the AAJA convention. AAJA doesn’t have a racial requirement for membership, just a belief in the organization’s goals. Unity, the quadrennial gathering of journalists of color, is coming up next summer in Las Vegas. The Negress hopes to go, work and finances permitting and being a member of one of the sponsoring groups gets her a discount. The National Association of Black Journalists, of which the Negress was a member for a while, pulled out of Unity for various murky reasons, some of which are financial.  Unity has coincided with the Presidential campaign for the past two campaigns, and it is likely candidates will be invited to attend. While that’s a selling point for going to Unity, the Negress mainly goes because it’s fun and she gets to see a lot of friends from all over the country. Journalism as she knew it is dying in place, and she figures the upcoming Unity might be one of the last opportunities to see some pals before everybody’s required reinventions take them away.

Hence, Detroit for AAJA. The Negress had a great time and learned some things she didn’t know, which is always good. The most important of those was how much of an issue immigration is in Asian communities. One AAJA member took 22 years to go the legal route to citizenship since his having siblings in the U.S.  was not a strong enough family relationship for his case to be expedited. Also, since he is Filipino, there are country quotas that he also came up against as he sought legal status. Not surprisingly, many opt to enter the country without papers, figuring that there’s a good chance they can stay without getting caught. A highly publicized case in point is Jose Vargas, a former writer for the Washington Post, who came out as an undocumented immigrant and hid the fact from most of his employers and close friends for years.

Another area of interest were transnational and, in some cases, trans-racial adoption. The Negress found out that boys have been adopted from China, contrary to the prevailing perception that only girls are chosen. A panel discussion including adoptees as well as adoptive parents covered ways in which these adoptions have changed over time. More parents now are taking their child’s cultural and linguistic heritage into account, while that wasn’t always the case. It was delicious to hear tales of half Jamaican heritage black, half Chinese parents adopting half black, half Korean kids and living happily ever after.

The Negress made a desultory pilgrimage to the job fair and had an enjoyable conversation with a woman who offers fellowships to journalist in search of career revitalization. Then she got sick to her stomach and went back to the hotel to resume studying for her securities license. Although the events were in close proximity to each other, they weren’t entirely

related. However, all led to a sure conclusion: The Negress is done being a full-time journalist, and she thinks that’s going to be OK.

Now back to calls, puts, straddles, bonds and other such lingo.

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Rosé and summer: perfect together unless it’s Mateus

July 15, 2011

Remember those  frigid interludes in  the nation’s midsection? The Negress does and she’s trying to forget them. Some memories don’t need backing up. Now summer is upon  as a tractor trailer comes upon an armadillo in the middle of the Texas interstate. Grisly image aside, how can you not be thinking of rosé  right now?

If you remember the song lyric “get juiced on Mateus and just hang loose,” (blame Bernie Taupin for that one with Sir Elton John aiding and abetting) you probably flinch at the thought of extended exposure to rosé. Visions of sticky pink, slightly fizzy, sweet wine crowd out thoughts of pleasantly lazing by various bodies of water with the piquant smell of barbecue smoke in the background. The  Negress knows. She’s been there and she’s here to help.

how not to drink rose

Just get juiced and hang loose but drink something else the Negress begs you

Most wineauxs worth their salt and  pricey education will point novice rosé drinkers to the South of France. Places like the Languedoc and Provence do produce some intensely quaffable wines, but, hey, the Negress lives, slightly underemployed,  in the real world and prefers not to contemplate refinancing her modest abode just to buy some summer wines.

So, after a trip to the local wine store with very little coin in her purse, she came up with these picks:

2008 Casa Silva Colcahgua Valley Rosé – The deep color of this Chilean wine is enticing, but things get even better when it’s in the glass. An off-tart blend of red currant and strawberry on the palate, the wine blends Syrah and Carmenere for a rosé that’s got a little more heft than its pinker counterparts. We could see this wine cozying up to heartier summer foods like grilled pork loin or salmon steaks. It’s also delicious as a porch pounder of sorts for those afternoons where firing up the grill or turning on the oven seems like too much effort to expend. Also, say you have a friend who is adamant that wine should always be red and uses dismissive epithets to narrow his or her drinking. Pour that narrow-minded soul a glass of this that’s been properly chilled. Watch the joy that suffuses their being with each sip. Save your smug look until they’ve drained the glass.  The price on this gem is usually not more than about 12 bucks a bottle. Lay in a supply for the warmer months  and you will not go wrong.

2010 Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare – The folks at Palate Press called the 2008 edition of this wine one of the finest wines they had ever tasted.  The latest edition is a pale pink and, according to the Dooniverse website, can benefit from 6-12 months of additional time in bottle. Winemaker Randall Grahm has been playing with the skin contact for this wine with recent vintages, and the playing around has paid off nicely with a palate dominated by pale red fruits and some hint of mint.  If you’re itching to drink this now, there’s a bit of the 2008 left for sale and shipping from the winery, but if you’re one of those type A personalities who is planning next summer while enjoying this one, you can lay in a supply of the 2010 for next year this time. The Negress would  join you but she’s too busy roasting tomatillos.

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“ATV” Wines: Albariño, Torrontes and Viura Offer the Perfect Breezy, Summer Ride

July 14, 2011
Martin Codax albarino

Albarino should mean "summer" in Spanish

If you think “ATV,” you no doubt conjure some squat vehicle with knobby tires hurtling over dunes or climbing hillocks, spraying dirt in its wake.  It’s a vivid picture, but the Negress would like for you to change your focus.

As we have officially drilled down into summer, it’s nice to have some white wines on hand that aren’t as predictable as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio have become. Welcome to ATV Negress style – Albariño, Torrontes and Viura.

You can find Torrontes from Argentina pretty much at any wine emporium. It’s an ethereal wine with a floral note or two on the nose and bright, crisp acidity. It’s more green apple than citrus on the palate. We love this wine with relaxed, cool summer fare such as salads and flaky, white fish (don’t bring out the bluefish with this wine. The oily flesh will just beat it about the head and face.) You’ve probably seen Crios de Susana Alba Torrontes around. It’s the bottle with the hand on a green label. It is to be hoped the label will not give rise to a “body part” label theory as did the “critter label” canard of recent memory. The Crios is a nice value wine with little variation from year to year.

But the Negress found a slightly more upscale Torrontes she liked. The 2009 Vida Organica Torrontes from Mendoza clocks in at around $20, smells a bit of honeysuckle and went nicely with a spicy chicken dish she threw together. You can find the Vida Organica, which sports a synthetic cork, at Whole Foods. Guess everything can’t be organic.

All right, let’s move onto Spain and Albariño. There’s been a little bit of an Albariño boomlet of late. It doesn’t compare the Gruner Veltliner explosion of a few years back, but it’s picking up steam. This is not a bad thing by any stretch. Albariño is food-friendly, not hideously expensive and widely available. The best examples have a cutting acidity with some citrus, peach or almond notes. It’s mostly found in the Rias Baixas region of Spain. The grape is also a big player in the Portuguese Vinho Verde realm. Like its Iberian neighbor, Albariño is not a wine you cellar. Drink it early and often.

You’ve probably seen the Paco and Lola Albariño since it has a distinctive polka dot label. You won’t go wrong with it, but the Negress also recommends the 2009 Martin Codax Albariño. The price circles $20 with intent. We adored the lime on the nose and the mouth-watering acidity.

Lastly, Viura is kind of a sleeper. It can be found in the Rioja and Navarra regions. The Negress tried the 2009 Vega Sindoa from Navarra, but found it a little disappointing. First, it’s 25 percent Chardonnay and it’s picked up enough oak to make us think of a barn-raising. If you like noticeable oak, you’ll love it. If you don’t, the 2008 El Coto from Rioja is all Viura and quite fresh and intensely aromatic.

 

 

 

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