Most common holiday accidents

Yesterday, I received the following message in my email inbox and this was one of the images attached to it. Please don't let this happen to you this holiday season.

From: "Win"
Subject: X'mas feast 2006
To:"Anna Xu", "AM Ferrara", "Vera", "Huy Duong", "David Chang", "Jason Ang", "Elsa", "Saif Husain", "Zeina", "Marcus Gilliam"

Here are some pics from yesterday evening!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season...

Notice how the word safe seems to be emphasized in the context of this particular photo. Don't let yourself be a victim. This image could've been prevented. Avoid posing for photos behind foreshortened bottles of wine. It's Christmas folks, but that Château Grand Launay Côtes-de-Bourg 2001 is no toy. Please pose with it carefully!

That forshortened bottle of wine, by the way, was a standard 750-millilitre bottle, not the Methuselah that it looks like from the viewers' perspective. Orient yourself with the wine bottle size scale here.


Our Grand Launay must've seemed bigger than it was. Nearing dinner's end we were daunted by the prospects of opening it and didn't end up tasting it. Hopefully next year we will get a second chance at it. Maybe when no one mindlessly lets it wander between a photo-op and the camera lens.

THE SPECIAL "DISCOVERY" WINES WE DRANK

But this dinner was not all tales of disaster and regret. The theme was our favourite wine discoveries of the year. We tasted wines (in standard-sized bottles) from Rodney Strong, Château Cabrières and Taltarni Vineyards, and I thought that they are were really good, near-perfect selections for the occasion.

• Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay Sonoma County 2004


• Chateau Cabrières Coteaux-du-Languedoc 2001


• Taltarni Vineyards Three Monks Cabernet Merlot Victoria 2003

The Chardonnay had palpable wood, and though my fellow diner thought it was slightly tainted by the cork, I quite enjoyed it.

The Cabrières and Taltarni wines created an amazing transition that I wouldn't have expected. They have similar depth, richness and are made in the same international style with fine tannins and well-integrated oak. You can tell the Cabernet and Merlot grapes were from a cool-climate region though, and next time I would reverse the order and serve the Cabrières second. It's a smoky, savoury Syrah with less perky acid and fruit and it eases you nicely into dessert.

But most importantly, the man pictured above has recovered and will attend holiday to come dinners featuring many more discovery wines.

Yellow Tail yellowtail [yellow tail]

Please don't buy this wine.

I was doing a little research on the web traffic of various wine blogs. A lot of my peers permit free access to their hit counters and I was surprised to see how many web surfers are referred to wine pages based on a search of "Yellow Tail".

Well, hopefully some of those inquisitive minds will start getting directed here. Please stop and read this! Yellow Tail wines are unsavoury mass-produced products. I haven't tried them all but each vintage is over-oaked and sweet. Avoid purchasing them.

THIS SURGEON'S GENERAL WARNING

The sweetness of these wines is the most troublesome aspect. Because Yellow Tail is a wine that uninitiated wine drinkers gravitate to (whether because of mega marketing campaigns or sheer worldwide over-distribution), those that are new to the world of wine are off to a bad start. The problem is that when you come to expect something that tastes so syrupy and sweet, you start finding that drier, more traditionally styled wines get lost on you. And so you buy more Yellow Tail like it's Coca-Cola. The downward spiral begins.

And since the New World is already creating a challenge for more traditional Old World wines, Yellow Tail is a particularly dangerous trend setter. I urge wine drinkers, especially those fresh-faced and curious ones, to try any of the links shown down the sidebar at left for interesting alternatives to that easy-to-find, easy-to-gulp, but hard-to-respect Yellow Tail.

Thank you.

A night off with the Aussies: Jacob's Creek & Penfold's Koonunga Hill 2004

It's remarkable how the right bottle at the right time can do so much for you. I am not talking about careful cellaring or making wise choices during a flight of wines. I'm talking about the thoughtful gestures of others.

Jacob's Creek Shiraz South Eastern Australia 2004 was not what I was planning to open today, let alone post on. After all in the middle of Portuguese week, what could be stranger than an oaked international varietal?

I woke up this morning and it wasn't long before I knew it would be one of those days. The bus driver told me to get out and walk when I didn't have the exact change. It was about a block to the subway, so his unsavoury show of power only meant the loss of my respect rather than the loss of my time. The smug subway car conductor had something to say about that though. The entire green line was down. I would have to seek out another bus to get to work. The fact that I didn't have a proper transfer allowed for some fleeting but mandatory humiliation, which the driver feasted on like a vulture to carrion. At least this time I was let stay on. Could the inconvenience have been worse for him than me, I wondered.

Showing up for work 45 minutes late, it was clear that my lunchhour would not be spent posting my latest installment to Portuguese week. I would have to make up time. That was the least of my worries though. The office today would be a day of stomach-dropping excitation. The kind of day when you don't realize lunch passed two hours ago because events are rocking your cubicle and making food a nauseating prospect.

And then came Danielle.

Stretching her arm out to hand me a generous expression of gratitude, I suddenly realized that when things you don't plan on start happening, they don't always have to turn into nightmares. Having a surprise visit from a colleague like Danielle certainly helps. And hey, so does the gift of a little vino. I hope you like Shiraz, she said, as I pulled the bottle of the bag. You bet. I have a feeling Danielle must've visited Weingolb before.

Some hours later, there still would be no Portuguese wine posted to the blog, no Portuguese wine opened and on the table. But who cares? The Shiraz was uncorked and decanted, and Gordon was grilling chicken in a skillet. While long grain rice slowly and aromatically steamed in the cooker, florets of broccoli readied themselves for a quick blanching. We were drinking Penfold's Koonunga Hill Chardonnay. Oaked chard and a slice of gruyère on toast -- how many time zones had I crossed to reach this oasis?

And it got even better. In a brilliant manoeuver, Gordon emptied the remaining white wine into the pan to create a mustardy dressing that he poured over the risotto-like rice, flecked with green onions, and the broccoli. Dinner looked stunning, as always. Gordon is such a great cook. Eric joined us and Danielle's Shiraz was poured into glasses...

A beguiling aroma of garrigue, black cherry and bay leaf. It tasted totally unlike the smell though. Baked plum, anise, wood chips and a slightly viscous cola finish. Gordon pointed out the cola and hints of vanilla. Medium to full body, and tremendously smooth. This Shiraz is convincingly textured by well-integrated, well-ripened fruit.

Thanks for the pick-me-up Danielle: Down time should always feel this good.

Today's originally scheduled post, and the start of the second half of Portuguese week, will appear here tomorrow.