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The Negress explores the Zins of the past with Bogle (1993) and Beringer (2002)

April 30, 2012

The Negress has been trying to help people and build her business. As a result of one of those activities (a trip to Urbana to help a pal clean out her dead mot

hers house), she lucked into a pleasant flashback. The friend’s parents were 50s style “Mad Men” drinkers with cases of booze and wine stacked up in a damp basement. Quite a bit of the wine didn’t survive that cavalier treatment, but a case did. So the Negress brought it back to Chicago.

First up was a 1993 Bogle Zinfandel, which was 12.5% abv, making it a puny drink compared to the big-ass Zins populating various cellars and stores these days. The Bogle was a pale garnet and had the slightly ethereal taste of a wine past its prime. It was as though the Negress was tasting the ghost of the fruit, which only made her wish she could have gotten her hands on this bottle a little sooner. Color this one pale and stale.

Bogle and Beringer together again for the first time

The Killer B's of old Zinfandel

Next was a 2002 Beringer Zinfandel with 13.9% abv. This wine had held up beautifully, with rich notes of dark fruit and an almost chocolate-like feel. It paired nicely with the last of some chili the Negress was glad of during this frigid spring. She suspects most folks buying Beringer’s 2002 vintage drank it well before 2004. If you find some of this hiding in a corner somewhere, pull the cork. You will not be disappointed.

While the Negress adores big Zins almost as much as she loves just about any Petit Sirah, she was confronted with a saddle of elk at a recent dinner at the Gage here in Chicago. She had recently had a venison burger at this fabulous boite, and paired that with a 2009 Vina Sastre Tinto Ribera del Duero (all Tempranillo all the time). The elk was gamier than the venison but more subtle than she would have expected. Her dining companion recommended the 2009 Three Saints Pinot Noir from the Santa Maria Valley in California. Excellent pairing and one of the few California Pinots that hadn’t been vinified to resemble a Cabernet with a head cold.

The next time the Negress opens one of the oldies from Urbana, she will check in here and tell you all about it. But, for now, it’s back to the inhalers, work life its very own self.

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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)!

Posted in baseball 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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In which the Negress offers a BOLO and pops her cork

February 19, 2012
Green grow the grapes but they will ripen in time

We're all waiting on a harvest of some kind or another, no?

Your beloved Negress has been absent from her little corner of the bandwidth universe because she is getting Uncorked weekly, glorying in a new job and preparing for a convoluted solution to an ongoing health problem. She’s also been digging some tunes and reconnecting with pals old and new.

So, the new job. It’s a good one and it lets the Negress work as hard as she wants and enjoy the gains from that work. She can also help people, advocate for a company culture that has no peers in a business usually awash in short-term thinkers and brain-dead leadership. Thanks to some Federal regulations, she’s not going to say more than that here, but she’s very happy.

As for wine, a 21-day course of Augmentin has put almost all of her alcohol consumption on hold. This particular antibiotic leaves a metallic taste on everything. Add Prednisone and inhaled steroids, and wine is no fun. Woodford Reserve slices through the effluvia like a well-sharpened knife, but the Negress is too busy and happy to slip into an uncontrolled stupor. Also, she’s about to put her debilitating allergies where they belong. These drugs are a prelude to an effective protocol that should allow her to go outdoors with less agony.

However, she is still writing about wine. Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Nomad Editions, she executes a weekly column for Uncorked magazine, which is designed for tablet consumption, but can be viewed on any screen. You can get the app from iTunes, and view sample issues. Going all in costs a budget-friendly $9.99 annually. Read. Comment. Drink. It’s all to the good.

As for the tunes, the Negress caught both halves of the annual Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival. The first, headlined by David Grisman and Del McCroury, was satisfying, especially when the old “dawgs’ teamed up on a tribute to Bill Monroe (McCroury, now 72 with hair as immobile as Mitt Romney’s, was one of Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys). The Negress also gives big props to the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University, which is beautiful and acoustically perfect.

While she does appreciate that Jerry Garcia’s love of  American string band and acoustic music led a lot of Deadheads to embrace the bluegrass way, she fervently hopes they learn how to behave. This is not to say they have to go all Bluebird Cafe solemn and silent, but all that hairy-footed Hobbit dancing accessorized by patchouli and Hacky Sacks is hard to take. The Negress almost screamed, “The last train to the Shire is leaving in 15 minutes. Haul it, friends.” But she demonstrated the restraint they seemed incapable of.

The next weekend was another story. The Negress headed to the Congress Theatre to check out theDrive-By Truckers,  Joe Pug and Dawes. Pug and the Truckers were transcendent and fine, with Pug winning points for doing Joe Ely’s “All Just to Get to You,” and making the original recede in memory. The Congress sounds like shit, unless you stand in the back under the balcony, but it had the right ramshackle fin-de-siecle feel for the proceedings. The Negress loves the Truckers unconditionally and thinks the songs about the frayed seaminess of the “New” South capture a sense of place and time like few others. As for Dawes, color this colored unimpressed. Everything felt watery and mellow in a way that makes you wish that the worst Chicago winter would descend on everyone you hate who lives in tropical climes and you have all the windshield scrapers and shovels. The Negress is sorry she’s been gone so long. It won’t happen again. Next up musically: Lez Zeppelin (March 9) and Rodrigo y Gabriela (April 12).

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Negress offers alternative reading matter

November 29, 2011

The Negress is busy busy busy achieving NaNoWriMo nirvana, but if you want some reading matter in the meantime, check out this list from band of Thebes of LGBTQ recommendations.

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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.

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Follies and falling down again

October 2, 2011

So the Negress went to New York, saw some friends, did her Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame duty and then received a bottle of Paumanok Vineyards 2010 Chenin Blanc. The vintage is sold out and she can easily see why. The wines drinks well with or without food and is delightfully only 12% abv. Upon returning to Chicago, the Negress polished it off in about three sittings and wanted more. But she settled for some of her Bonny Doon 2009 Ca del Solo Albarino and was pretty happy.

However, while she was in New York, it was the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the air was thick with potential threats, backed up traffic and vehicle searches. Whether the atmosphere or various other annoying input was the cause, the Negress fell down in Union City, scraped herself up a bit and wondered if other things might be getting to be wrong.

So she sought one of those bad ideas that should be banished from the kingdom. She drank a bunch of Pinot Noir and went to see the new production of “Follies,” with Bernadette Peters and an astonishing Jan Maxwell. The inevitable blood sugar crash made sure she missed quite a bit of the lengthy first act, but she pretty much liked it overall (also there’s a production here in Chicago that might be worth a comparison).

In the background of all of this were her attempts to absorb the material she needs to know for her upcoming Series 7 exam. The Negress can take tests but her usual flypaper memory had been undercut by a few too many sleepless nights and a some other annoyances of middle age. She also knows her family history of troubled brain chemistry. So meds were adjusted, she’s feeling better and has almost gotten a handle on the exam prep. So the next thing to do was face the music.

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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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In which the Negress envisions how the Devils should have won the Stanley Cup

June 20, 2011

The Negress saw a different Stanley Cup final than you did. You see, on April 2, 2007, her beloved New Jersey Devils fired Boston Bruins coach Claude Julien so general manager Lou Lamoriello could coach the team for the rest of the season. The Negress would like to think that if Claude had stuck around, it would be the Devils pushing the Cup around in a baby stroller to some suburban Jersey bars. She might even imagine a parade in Newark, a city that could use a parade now and then.

Johnny Oduya and me. I'm now in Chicago. He's in Winnipeg

The good old days: Johnny Oduya and a writer

But things didn’t work out that way. Julien had exactly what he needed to win the cup. Goalie Tim Thomas made his net all but impregnable and Zdeno Chara really screwed with the Sedin brothers rhythm. It reminded me of how Scott Stevens and Ken Daneyko didn’t have to hit people to make them wary of crossing the blue line. Martin Brodeur, perhaps the best goalie of his generation, could play like Thomas and leave opponents shaking their heads in wonder and dismay.

As much as the Negress likes to cling to this dream, she knows Julien wouldn’t have had a prayer if he had stayed in New Jersey. Brodeur paid for his Iron Man youth with long stretches lost to injury. Patrik Elias isn’t getting any younger and as much as the Negress likes him, she wishes the Devils had traded him three seasons ago. Adding Ilya Kovalchuk to the mix just destroyed the team’s ability to defend. People may have thought watching the Devils spring that neutral zone trap on folks was dull, but it was effective.

Since Julien’s departure, the Devils have blown through several coaches including one of the Sutters, the return of Jacques Lemaire and a little time with John MacLean. None of them were around long enough to shoulder blame. The Negress throws the whole spewing mess at Lamoriello’s feet. Lamoriello’s preference for American players and his salary cap illiteracy have turned the team into one part nostalgia act (Jason Arnott came back. Why?) and one part nursery school recess (trading Johnny Oduya after losing Paul Martin and leaving Colin White as the brains of your defensive unit was at best laughable). She loves her Devils still and yet, but is skeptical about the future.

Meanwhile the Canucks don’t rest Luongo enough, and it certainly showed at the end of the finals. The Cup needs to go back to Canada soon. While the Negress knows it’s well appreciated in Boston, it’s just not the same.

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In which the Negress drinks some Viura and wonders about her reader

June 6, 2011

The Negress often tries to imagine her reader. She is of the mind that every blog has one reader and that reader is not necessarily the blog’s author. She slogged through endless hours at the National Restaurant Show and almost rethought her entire relationship to food (vegan “chicken”: threat or menace?). She dithered and dawdled and saw one fine assignment

El Coto Viura from Rioja

Some juice for idle thoughts

evaporate but it was replaced by another that is pleasing but possibly not as lucrative. She also addressed her insurance career, spent some money and became secure but not exactly busy. She found a couple of new blogs – Babette Bakes and  Jewette. She fell in love with other people’s writing at the Chicago Lit Fest and felt the tug of the books inside her (they may explain her colon woes). Should she write them? So, while enjoying a nice Viura from Rioja (opened for cooking until she smelled the deadly perfume of expired chicken), she decided to think while wasting bandwidth. She figures her reader won’t mind so much if she tells said reader the name of the Viura (El Coto 2008. The Negress likes to be helpful.) She helped teach some people to knit and was reminded that she is not entirely impatient with teaching, but she likes teaching motivated, smart people. These are in short supply, especially as candidates for public office.

So, the Negress may do something about all of the above but the trick will be figuring out which wins out over the other — a return to life in the daily journalism world, the somewhat quixotic desire to try to be more political than she is now (there’s an extraordinary civil rights battle going on in this country right now and if you know anyone who is LGBT, you probably have some idea. If you think you don’t know anyone who is LGBT, you are delusional) or write books. Perhaps there’s room for all of the above. But, for right now, she’s getting some more Viura.

Posted in Health and Wellness, Knitting and Feministing, Wines of the world in danger | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments »

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