Product Review: NewAir AW-181E 18 Bottle Wine Fridge

When we were first approached in January about reviewing the NewAir AW-181E 18 bottle wine fridge, Hubby and I had two reactions:

1.  Is someone really going to send us a wine fridge?

2.  How the heck does one review a wine fridge?

Well, the answer to the first one was yes, rather quickly, and all I can do is apologize for the delay.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I got a book contract at the end of January and have been very focused on that.  The wine fridge box arrived and hung out in the kitchen for a few months, and we finally just got into it last weekend.  At least it gave me time to talk to people and figure out what they look for in a wine cooling device.

As you can see, the unit itself is sleek and attractive, and it fits well in the narrow space we have for it in our little Craftsman bungalow, where all the storage is pretty much in narrow spaces.  Seriously, you should see our closets.

The big selling point of this wine fridge is the thermoelectric cooling system, which keeps the wine at temperature and "doesn't rely on coolants or chemicals that can harm the environment."  We have a thermometer in there, as you can see, and it has confirmed the set temperature.  The wine has also tasted at cellar temperature, although we haven't measured the wine itself.  It's a definite improvement over our usual experience, which, in our aforementioned drafty old house, requires us to use the counter top wine chiller to get our reds to temperature.  This can take quite a while during the summer.  

Pros:

It looks nice and fits well in a tight spot.

It's super quiet.  We can't even hear it running unless everything else in the house, including our ancient refrigerator, isn't.  It has also not "traveled" in the week we've had it going, which considering our not so straight floors, is evidence that it is, as promised, vibration-free.

The shelves slide in and out easily.

The unit cooled to the desired temperature quickly, and the temperature display seems to be accurate.

Cons:

The racks are a little too close together such that you actually have to pull them in and out to get the bottles out.  There are also no catches on the back to keep the racks from sliding out completely, so you have to be careful not to pull them out too far.

While it fits the Bordeaux-style bottles just fine, the Burgundy-style bottles will only fit on the bottom or top.  They're too big for the middle racks.  Sparkling bottles won't fit at all unless shelves are removed.  We don't have any at the moment, but I suspect storage of Rhone-style bottles would also be limited.

Overall impression:

A nice wine refrigerator with a couple of design flaws that would be fixed by perhaps changing the spacing between shelves, which would reduce the number of bottles it holds but would make Pinot and Syrah drinkers happy.  It's definitely a red wine fridge with its minimum temperature of 54 (maximum 66), so the sparkling bottle limitation may not be relevant, although it would cut down fridge cooling time. Luckily for us, Pinot and Syrah doesn't hang around for very long and isn't the majority of our collection.

It's quieter and more convenient than our counter top chiller and more accurate than putting the bottles in the fridge.  I'm definitely looking forward to having it this summer so that my red wine drinking will be a matter of instant gratification.  We may even keep some whites and roses in there so they'll take less time to cool in the fridge.

Disclaimer:  This unit is a sample that was received free of charge from NewAir.  This did not influence our impressions or review.

Pasta Project Parts 2 and 3: It's About More than the Dangly Bits

I'm making turkey lasagna tonight.  We ended up with a little extra homemade sauce and not much room in our freezer for it, so the next logical step is, of course, to turn it into something yummy.  I have a confession, though…  I will be using boxed noodles.

"What?" you say.  "You were off to such a great start with your pasta attachment!  What happened?"

All I can say is that it was a classic case of success leading to cockiness and then my downfall.

The second time I pulled the pasta maker out was to make spaghetti.  I figured I'd give the filled pasta a rest and focus on something relatively simple:  noodles.  I think the dough sensed my heightened confidence, as it first decided to cower in fear in the bowl:

Then it huddled among other objects on the counter as it rested:

The sheets emerged from the rollers beautiful, long and silky.  The recipe said to let them rest for a bit, which helped to dry them out. 

Then came the harder part, sending it through the noodle cutting apparatus.  However, again it went smoothly, and I ended up with gorgeous long spaghetti noodles.

The spaghetti was in anticipation of my birthday, which was at the end of February and a couple of days away, so badass me even made calzones from homemade dough that night:

Yeah, I was rocking the kitchen.  I didn't get a chance to blog it for other reasons, which I will get to, but I was feeling confident.  My spaghetti making had gone without a hitch, and I now had a full set of lovely two ounce nests in my freezer.

Then, mid-march for Hubby's birthday, I decided to try the ravioli again.  I adjusted the recipe a little according to directions from Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, adding a tablespoon of milk to the dough and allowing the eggs to come to room temperature so the dough wouldn't be tough.  I also made some of her Ricotta-Parsley filling for inside the ravioli.  The pasta sheets came out lovely and silky, and I made them a little thinner this time, taking the rollers to 5 rather than 3, which had made them too thick the previous time.

I had my pasta and filling.

I had my strategy.

I even had a blog post planned out in my head titled, "It's all about the dangly bits."  I was going to be witty and clever and compare pasta making to writing romance and the importance of a certain kind of chemistry between characters. 

That's where it all went wrong.  No, I don't have any pictures from this process.  It was too gruesome.

In an effort to make the ravioli not come out thick and tough, which they were edging on the first time, I overcompensated.  Once I fed the dough into the ravioli press, the weight of the remaining dough on the sides caused it to stretch, and therefore only the middle row of ravioli (of three) ended up being completely sealed.  The outer two rows were pitiful half-raviolis that oozed filling.  The second sheet went a little better, but by the time I got to the third, it had dried out too much.  Stubbornly, I pressed on, but it mocked me, and I had very few keeper ravioli.  The fourth sheet got turned into fettuccine.  Here's the final result.  As you can see, there are many fewer usable ravioli than with my first attempt:

I still succeeded in my carb production efforts with a lovely focaccia, though:

And dinner turned out fine:

So yes, I could make pasta dough tonight.  Lasagna sheets would be easy, but I'm a bit demoralized.  I'm obsessed with the ravioli, my little square nemeses, and should I proceed with any kind of homemade pasta, the idea of ravioli would be taunting me.  The rollers would whisper, "We're over here!  Ravioli filling and lasagna filling is similar.  Just make a little extra and try again."

Oh, I will attempt them again with fewer recipe tweaks, thickness 4, and perhaps only two sheets so they won't dry out as quickly, but not tonight.  See?  This is why it's a bad idea to mix perfectionism and pasta.

However, red wine and pasta always go well together, so tonight, Hubby and I will be partaking of the Mettler Cabernet Sauvignon.  It's a good wine for those who love fruity and well-balanced reds, and this cool snap is the perfect opportunity to visit those big reds one more time before we shift to whites and more heat-friendly reds.

And yes, I will remember next time that when it comes to writing romance and pasta, it's about more than the dangly bits.

Note as to why I haven't been posting much this year:

Remember how when you were a kid, and there was that one toy you wanted so badly you felt like you needed it?  And then how when you got it, you couldn't play with anything else for hours, you were so enamored of it?  Well, we have the same strength of desire as adults, but we often don't admit what it is we really really want.

I got it at the end of January when I got THE EMAIL (in this modern age, you don't get THE CALL anymore) that a publisher was interested in one of my novels.  I made some minor edits they suggested, signed the contract, and since then have been hard at work on the sequel.  I just sent the sequel proposal to the editor, and I'll be getting my major edits for the first novel soon.  

So that's where my writing energy has been going.  There hasn't been a lot of energy to spare with work being super crazy with major personnel issues, and honestly, writing the sequel has kept me sane.  I will get to the samples and wine fridge I need to review soon and will try to post more often.

The Great Pasta Project: Attempt One

When making pasta, be sure to have plenty of booze on hand.

For those who are wondering, being half Italian does not automatically confer pasta making skills upon you.  My first couple of tries at fresh homemade pasta resulted in thick lumps of chewy dough with sweet potato in the middle that I euphemistically called "ravioli."  The problem wasn't necessarily the recipe, but rather that I couldn't get the dough thin enough by hand, not even with a tapered rolling pin, so the texture was off.

I'm a perfectionist, so this failure to make good pasta by hand really irked me.  I determined that the fault was not mine, but rather my inferior tools, so I hinted at Hubby that I would like a pasta making attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer.  This was my Christmas present:

Yes, he likes pasta, too.

Rather than start with something easy like long noodles, I decided to dive right in with butternut squash ravioli based on this recipe from Cooking Light.  Instead of using wonton wrappers, I made my own pasta dough.

So, first step, make the dough itself.  The Kitchenaid recipe that comes with the ravioli maker is simple enough with just four ingredients:  flour, eggs, water, and salt.  Mix for a bit with one attachment, then for a while longer with the dough hook.  The pasta dough, not being in an agreeable mood, attacked the dough hook like sentient swamp ooze on a tourist:

Um, yeah, I know what that kinda looks like.  A geoduck!

It's resting...and plotting.

I rescued the dough hook and took over the kneading by hand.  The dough took a lot of flour before it became tacky rather than sticky, or so I thought.  I let it rest and made the ravioli filling, then grabbed the pasta rolling attachment.  I fitted it to the Kitchenaid on the first try.  My first roll was a bit short, but okay.  The second one came out perfect:  long, lovely, and silky.  I put it on the cutting board, which I thought had enough flour on it, and covered it with plastic wrap.  Then I did the third and fourth sheets, also pretty, but not quite so much.

I let the sheets rest for the requisite ten minutes, switched out Kitchenaid attachments for the ravioli one, and read the directions twice.  This is where the dough really started messing with me.  The first step is to take a sheet of dough, fold it in half, put the folded end in the ravioli maker, turn it a little to catch the dough, and then allow the two ends to drape gracefully over the sides.  I did that with the pretty second sheet and got as far as folding it in half and anchoring it in the ravioli maker.  Then it wouldn't unfold.  Crap.  Lesson learned:  when they say to dust the dough with flour, they're not kidding.

This is supposed to make it easy.

That sheet ended up being rolled out again.  I attempted the ravioli with an adequately dusted pasta sheet, which anchored and draped as it should have.  I started cranking, and the dough started laughing at me.  Okay, not literally.  The directions say to make sure the ravioli are coming through but don't have any tips as to what to do if they don't.  The attachment should make a ravioli sheet of three across, but only one came out, and I swear it looked at me like a good kid with two naughty siblings:  "See?  I'm doing what I'm supposed to do."  I figured out that the ravioli had stuck to the roller closest to me and gently released them.  They didn't turn out pretty, but they did have stuff in them.

So those were the first ravioli.  I managed to fix that sheet before it got too messed up, and then, overconfident, I proceeded with the second.  This is where I really screwed up, or maybe the dough got smart.  I watched the roller closest to me, but unbeknownst to me, the ravioli got sneaky and decided to stick to the other side.  By that point, I was in pasta-making denial:  "I can't really be screwing this up that badly."  But I was.  Half of that sheet turned into a squashy, doughy mess before I figured out that you have to gently fondle the dough as it comes out of the machine to make sure it's passing through and dangling as it should.  If I can offer a euphemism to my romance writing colleagues, you could refer to…  Never mind.

At least they're tasty.

I salvaged enough dough to roll another sheet and ended up with about sixty little ravioli.  Approximately a quarter of the dough and a fifth of the filling were a loss.  By the time I finished fighting the dough, cooking it, and making the pesto, four hours had passed from my initial optimistic mixing of the dough to dinner.  Hubby, being the wise man that he is, didn't say anything other than it tasted good.

So, here's what I learned:

Use flour liberally on the pasta, on the ravioli maker, and pretty much on anything that doesn't move fast enough in the kitchen.  Okay, maybe not the cat.

Watch the pasta dough at every step.  It's sneaky and defiant.

The ravioli attachment has plastic guides for the ravioli that open for cleaning.  Watch out, they bite.

Choose and pour cooking wine ahead of time.  Yes, I did all this without wine.  Maybe that was my problem.

I think I'll make pappardelle next time. 

Last-Minute Holiday Gift Ideas: Wine! (Yes, you have to share)

Luckily these bottles were empty before the SEC Championship.

Typically picking up Holiday gifts at the grocery store is considered, if you'll forgive the pun, in poor taste.  What could grocery store shelves hold of any value beyond the tan and gold boxes of candy with maybe two edible pieces in them?  Okay, I'll always take a bag of Dove Dark Promises (no Hershey's for this half-Belgian, please), but I'm talking about wine.  It seems that there are some hidden gems for reasonable prices out there.

Our first foray this year into reasonable gift wines came courtesy of some wine samples from Deutsch Family Wine & Spirits.  Yes, FCC, these were samples, but as you'll see, their free-ness didn't influence our opinions.  We tasted them at a dinner gathering with a couple of friends, one of whom has been in the restaurant/hospitality industry for several years.

The first wine wins the "most likely to be damned by its label before it's given a fair chance" award.  It was pitched in the original email as the perfect gift for "that bubbly person who keeps you smiling! Maybe your girlfriend who brings a smile on your face, or your best friend who is the one you’re sharing laughs with and celebrating life with."  Yes, it's bubbly and pink.  It also has a kangaroo on the label.  We found hints of strawberry on the nose, and the wine itself is off-dry with some strawberry stem, and lots of tropical fruit mid-palate & on the finish.  Our friend noted that, if no one ever saw the Yellow Tail label, it could be a good choice for a restaurant house bubbly.  I liked it and would give it a good to very good rating.  It would also be fun to surprise our wine snob friends at their annual New Year's party.  For a suggested retail price (SRP) of $10, it was deemed "Totally worth it."
Region:  Southeastern Australia
Varietals:  Semillon, Traminer, Shiraz, Frontignac

Couldn't resist the Christmas tree shot.

The second wine, the Villa Pozzi Pinot Grigio (Sicily), boasted to be "ideal for the modern woman with its refined aromatic, well balanced taste profile and simply-elegant packaging."  According to the tech sheet, the nose should be of rose and honeysuckle.  Maybe we got an off bottle, but the nose we got was overripe dishtowel, which is a smell typically associated with corked wine.  This one has a screwtop, and yes, we checked the dishtowel that had cleaned the glasses.  It was fresh.  The wine itself fell flat with some floral in the middle, but not much else.  Yeah, I'd skip this one, even at its $10 SRP. 

Finally, the 2011 Ruta 22 Malbec (Patagonia, Argentina), designated the "the gift for the adventurous, travel-lover on your list" rounded off the evening.  The nose was a little gamey, which is not unpleasant for a wine that begs to be paired with meat.  It was juicy but not jammy with berry and dark fruit.  Some found the peppery finish to be a bit much.  Forget the travel-lover, bring this as a hostess gift to a meat lover who's serving a nice juicy roast.  I feel the SRP of $13 is about right.

Our other "Go-to Wine" tasting came courtesy of JavaMonkey in Decatur, Georgia, and all of these should be available at the Dekalb Farmers' Market and are all under $15.  Since they're fairly reasonable, consider getting a magnum to wield against the pre-Christmas shoppers.  Yes, FCC, we paid for this tasting.  Fellow blogger Dan Browning and I decided to play off the go-to theme with our comments.

The wines:

2011 Protocolo Blanco (Vino de la Tierra de Castilla, Spain):  70% Arien, 30% Macabejo
Go to the beach with this crisp, mineral wine with a gardenia nose and lemony finish. 
Rating:  Good to Very Good

2010 La Craie (Vouvray, Loire Valley, France):  100% Chenin Blanc
Go to the tropics with a nice, light nose and plenty of pineapple and tropical fruit.
Rating:  Very Good

Love the label!

2011 Monte Oton (Borja, Spain):  100% Garnacha
Git along little doggie.  This wine smells like meat and butter.  It starts leathery, but as it opens, more fruit comes out.  I'd pair this with a Tanja Michaels Texas romance novel and a steak.  Yeah, I might have made the comment that it's like licking a cowboy.  No, I don't really know what that's like.  Moving right along…
Rating:  Good

2010 Santa Ema Merlot (Peumo, Cachapoal Valley, Chile):  100% Merlot
Go to the housetop.  Yep, it's got some clove and a little cedar on the palate.  It's medium-bodied, but still has a lot of nice, dark fruit.  Santa might prefer this one to milk.
Rating:  Good

2010 Castaño Monastrell (Yecla, Spain):  100% Monastrell
Going…  (No, I'm not sure how that one tied in)  A little funky and bitter at first, which was disappointing after the nice dark fruit nose.
Rating:  Okay

2011 Château Pesquié Terrasses Red (Ventoux, France):  70% Grenache, 30% Syrah
Vas-tu au Ventoux!  Hubby and I discovered wines from this sub-region of the Rhone Valley on a trip to Belgium a few years ago, and we snap them up when we do.  This one had a funky French Syrah nose, and was dark and smooth with just a hint of frizzante (mild fizziness).  This would be a great one to take to a party.
Rating:  Very Good

Whatever you happen to be drinking this holiday season, I hope you enjoy it and stay safe.  Happy Holidays from me, Hubby, and the blog cats!

Book Review: The Curious World of Wine

On the eve of the Decatur Wine Festival, I brought Richard Vine's The Curious World of Wine (Perigee/Penguin, 2012) with me to Café Lily in case I had time to read the end of it before meeting a friend.  Allen Sanders, the wine expert, noticed it, and we had a great conversation about Zinfandels.  So, if you want to look like you know something about wine:  buy this book.

Those who actually want to know something about wine are in luck, too.  I've played trivia a few times with friends, usually in pubs for prizes or credit, and the secret of a good trivia team is each person has a specialty area like sports, popular culture, etc.  I don't feel very competent in any one area, although I'm a decent fill-in for addictive substance-related science questions like "What does THC stand for?" and "What is the maximum International Bitterness Unit level the human palate can discern?"*  After reading The Curious World of Wine, I feel able to offer a trivia team more wine-related knowledge.

This one little book covers a range of topic areas from wine history to people to expressions.  I had a few "oh, so that's where that came from!" moments such as when reading about the Chateauneuf de Pape region of France.  I like wines from this region because it's fun to say.  This was a perfect example of how bits of knowledge floated around my brain but never got connected until I read this book.  Anyone familiar with Church history remembers that in the early 1300's, the Pope moved from Rome to Avignon, and it took the influence of Saint Catherine of Siena to get it all straightened out and move the pope back to Rome in 1376.  I took French in high school and know the words Chateau (house or home), neuf (new), and Pape (pope), but I never connected the Chateauneuf de Pape – or "new home of the Pope" – name with the Avignon papacy period.  The hills around Avignon overlook the Rhone River and grow Syrah, Grenache, and other reds, and now I have an interesting historical tidbit to relate in addition to the fun of saying Chateauneuf de Pape.

The book is loosely organized into chapters, some of which have clever titles like "French Connections."  However, I sometimes found my head spinning a bit with the time-hopping within the chapters better organized by topic area (e.g., different wine areas in France).  For example, the Chateuneuf de Pape story came after a World War II champagne story.  It was kind of like if disorganized time-traveling British science fiction character Doctor Who decided to lead a wine tour.**  That said, when dealing with this kind of material, it can be tough to figure out the best order, and I appreciate Dr. Vine's challenge. 

On first glance, this handsome little hardcover is appealing, and it's apparent someone spent a lot of time making it look pretty.  Upon opening it, I couldn't help but think they couldn't decide whether to go with a regular nonfiction format or a coffee table book.  The text inside is presented in double columns, which I found annoying until I got used to it, and bordered by nice little designs in the corners.  The enclosed text boxes with very short items are in regular format.  Illustrations add to the text without being distracting, and the editing was almost flawless with no typos.  An index would be nice for when I'd like to reference these stories in future blog posts.  As it is, I'll have to flip through the chapters to find what I'm looking for.  If you're not looking to use it as a reference, this will probably not matter as much.

Although the text is presented like a textbook and written by an academic, it's very easy to read, and the tone is light and conversational.  The humor contributes to the stories without prompting eye-rolling or groans.  After reading it, I would love to go to dinner with Doctor Vine and hear more of his wine stories, especially ones related to his experiences researching this book, and to find out what he couldn't include within the time and space restraints.  I thank him for providing a resource that will help with my blogging, my own dinner parties, and, of course, impressing random wine experts and trivia teams.

 

FCC Disclosure:  This was an advance review copy (ARC) provided to me free by the publisher.  This did not affect my opinions or review in any way.

* Answers:  THC, the active molecular component of marijuana, stands for Tetrahydrocannabinol.  I know this from my required psychopharmacology course in graduate school.

IBUs are the measure of how bitter beer is, and typically this flavor comes from hops.  The human palate can discern levels up to about 90.  My palate can tolerate levels up to about 25.  Yep, I'm a wine drinker and hop wimp.

** I would totally sign up for this.

Photos:  

Top:  The book on my wine rack nestled in between a couple of bottles of Canadian wines, which, sadly, are not mentioned in it.

Above:  The inside of the book.  Yes, it's blurry.  If you want to read it, please buy it.  

Winery review: Youngberg Hill

As always after a wine bloggers conference, I sit back and ponder what kind of wine blogger I aspire to be and how to make that happen.  The first thing that comes to mind is, "more consistent," and believe me, Hubby and I really appreciate our readers who stop by to see if we've posted something new.  Once I get through the hump of training the new colleague who just joined my practice, I hope to be able to write here and at my Random Writings blog more regularly.  Obviously, since I'm posting this almost two months after the conference, we've got some work to do.

One other aspect of blogging we've been discussing is how to portray exactly who we are and our philosophy of wine.  We've come to the conclusion that we're not wine tasters, we're wine drinkers, meaning we typically experience wine more as average consumers, not wine experts, which we've never claimed to be.  Our blog motto, as I've mentioned, is that it's by amateurs for amateurs.  We just happen to be amateurs who've drunk a lot of different wines.  We also like to look at the whole picture from the buying experience to the final sip in the bottle.

This brings me to the topic of today's blog post:  what does holistic mean? Youngberg Hill Winery in McMinnville, Oregon claims to be organic, biodynamic, and holistic.  Hubby and I were fortunate to be invited to a tasting and lunch there the day before the wine bloggers conference went into full swing. 

The whole thing was arranged through Twitter and email.  I'll admit I didn't look at the website too closely, so the night before we went, Hubby checked them out.

"They're not just a regular winery.  They say they're holistic."  He looked up at me like I'd signed us up to join some sort of wine cult.  "What have you gotten us into?"

Thankfully no tinfoil hats were necessary.  No brainwashing occurred as far as I could tell, the wine was darn good, and I got to ponder exactly what holistic means in this context.

At first it seems owner and winemaker Wayne Bailey is one of those overachieving types who's got to go for all sorts of titles and certifications.*  I mean, seriously, the winery is organic, biodynamic, sustainable, salmon safe...  You get the idea.  Seriously, this guy thinks of everything.  From the website:  "In addition, Youngberg Hill specializes in exclusive, romantic, and personalized weddings and elopement packages, everything you need in one fabulous location."  Elopement packages?!  It's a really good thing we didn't know about this in the midst of planning our wedding in 2003 (don't tell my mom I said this).

But really, his philosophy goes deeper to one very simple principle:  if you take care of the land, the land will take care of you.  That's my clumsy paraphrase.  As I mentioned in my Pinot Smackdown post, Pinot Noir, which is their one red grape, tends to show where it's from.  Luckily Oregon soil, geology, and climate play nicely with it.

So let's get back to the experience.  We arrived and immediately went into the tasting room, where we had the opportunity to try a white and three reds, and Pinots.  Others on the trip have likely written with more eloquence about the wine, so I'll just say my favorites were the 2011 Pinot Gris and the 2008 Jordan Pinot Noir.  A bottle of the Pinot Gris came home with us, where it awaits a lovely afternoon -- come on, fall! -- and my back porch.  The Jordan Pinot Noir was lovely, nice and fruity, but a little beyond our price point, although still reasonable for the area.  Besides, we were trying to be conscious of space in Bertha, our wine shipper.

Then came lunch.  I like lunch, especially when a chef gets to play and pair his food with specific wines.  Some might argue that wine is a condiment, and choice should be driven by the food, but c'mon, remember where we were.  Personally, I believe wine and food should complement each other. Chef Joel Czarnecki of the Joel Palmer House in Dayton came out to play.  He specializes in dishes made with wild mushrooms and truffles, and also with local ingredients.  To borrow a current buzz phrase, think of it as farm and woods to table.

We got to join in with the playtime for the first dish, a two-tone gazpacho that got me over my fear of cold soups. It's hard to be afraid of something topped with marigold petals.  I enjoyed tasting the pink half, tomato-pickled ginger, and the green half, cucumber-lemon balm, by themselves and in combination, and especially with the Pinot Blanc. 

Then, beef stroganoff made with Painted Hills beef, porcini and black truffle cream paired with the 2009 Natasha Pinot Noir.

Oh, my, yes.  This pairing drew from the principle of "pair like with like," and the earthy Pinot played very nicely with the mushrooms.  I liked the wine with the food better than on its own.

Finally, a Pot de Chocolat, a baked dessert with a base of flourless chocolate cake and top layer of chocolate pudding, paired with the Jordan. Yes, I left a very happy chocoholic.

Wayne sat at our table during lunch, and Hubby and I enjoyed talking with him, Carl of Carl Giavanti Consulting, and Julia of the "Best New Wine Blog" award-winning Wine Julia blog (check out her Youngberg Hill post for complete tasting and pairing notes).  They and the rest of the fun crew on the van to and from the excursion brought the final, but possibly most important ingredient, of the wine experience together for me:  the people I've had the opportunity to meet and share wine and food with.

This, my friends, was my kind of holistic experience.

Required legalese:  The entire experience from transportation to dessert was comped, but, as always, we did our best to keep it from influencing our opinions.

* Not that I would know what that's like.  Just ask my husband, who finally had to tell me, "You've got a Ph.D., license, and extra certification.  It's my turn." 

2012 Pinot Smackdown at Purple Corkscrew

As we learned last week at the wine bloggers' conference in Oregon, Pinot Noir grapes tend to reflect where they're grown down to the soil type and the weather.  In 2010, a couple of oenophile friends of ours decided their lives needed a little excitement, so they pitted Pinot Noir wines from around the world against each other in a little event called the Pinot Smackdown.  Did I mention these two friends are both guys?  Yeah, you probably guessed.  The tradition continued last year, and you can read the testosterone-fueled intro post by one of the founders, who also happens to be one of my favorite Atlanta bloggers, here. Well, he went and got himself a job in the wine industry, so he's unable to host the usual shenanigans this year due to potential conflict of interest or something like that.

Hubby and I, being big fans of the Pinot Smackdown because it's an event where you get to have both virtual and face-to-face interaction, decided to continue the tradition of getting friends together to drink, discuss, and, if you're so inclined, tweet to help pick the winning region.

The date:  Thursday, September 6

The time:  7:00-9:00 p.m.

The place:  The Purple Corkscrew Wine Bar located below Saba Restaurant in Emory Village.

The cost:  $25 per person

The wines:

Charles Krug Pinot Noir, Carneros

Rodney Strong Pinot Noir, Russian River

Latour Pinot Noir, Domain De Valmoissine, France

Belle Valle, Oregon

The rules if you care to tweet, which is fun, but not absolutely necessary:  

We'll have three of the Pinot Noir growing regions represented, California (#CA), Oregon (#OR), and France (#FR).   Please tweet your tasting impressions, opinions, or just plain votes with #pinotsmackdown and the region hashtag, specified above.  So, for example, if you're digging the Rodney Strong, you might tweet something like:

Dude, the fruit on the Rodney Strong Pinot is outrageous! #pinotsmackdown #CA

I'll be back on the blog later this week with impressions from the Wine Bloggers Conference.  Yes, there was a lot of Pinot Noir consumed and some other yummy stuff as well.

Please RSVP for the Pinot Smackdown by commenting here, tweeting me (@RandomOenophile), or commenting on Facebook where I posted this link. Whatever you do, please let me know by next Monday, September 3 if you'll be coming.