Some great insight to the overall wine market/industry for the US…
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5 Simple Rules of BYO
With more and more consumers reluctant to pay the high markups that are inherent to many wine lists, BYO has become more prevalent than ever. Restaurants tend to mark up wines anywhere from 2-4 times the retail price that you will find at your local wine shop, not to mention the mark up from their cost. While the convenience and selection is well worth the price to some, others prefer to select from their own collection then the restaurant’s wine cellar. Below are 5 simple rules to help determine the appropriate scenario to bring your own bottle and some guidelines for restaurant etiquette if you choose to do so.
- Free is for me! – If there is no corkage fee, than there is no reason NOT to bring your own bottle. Even if restaurants charge a nominal (under $10) corkage fee it still makes all the sense in the world. You could choose to bring a moderately priced bottle and it will still be a lot less at your local wine shop then at the restaurant.
- Big names = Big Corkage Fees – If you are going to a top tier steakhouse or a popular French bistro, you are probably looking at a corkage fee of $35-75. For these eateries you’re probably better off sticking with their wine list.
- Make it worthwhile – You certainly could bring an inexpensive bottle, but that would defeat the purpose. Mark ups are typically higher on the reserve selection wines, especially from older vintages, so the better bottle you bring the more you are saving.
- Tip on the service – The server should provide the same service on the bottle of wine whether it is purchased from the restaurant or not, so be sure to include something in the tip for that bottle. A good rule of thumb is to multiply the retail cost of the wine times 2 or 3 and add that to the total bill before calculating the tip.
- Buy an additional bottle from the wine list – If you’re dining with a large group, doing this shows you appreciate their hospitality and would like to thank them for it…that is of course if you are enjoying the meal and the experience!
Cheers!
The Westchester Magazine Wine and Food Weekend is HERE!!
This is more of an informative update than a post… lots of great events happening this whole weekend starting tonight! Tickets are still available for some of the events….I’ll be there all weekend and hope to see some of you there! Check out the kick ass restaurants and wines to be featured:
A Hopping Good Beer Pairing Dinner at The TapHouse Featuring Lagunitas!
If you’ve ever dined at the TapHouse in Tuckahoe, you know that the food is generally very good with flashes of brilliance. Well if you take all of those flashes of brilliance and offer them in one meal the end result ends up being one of their beer pairing dinners. This installment featured the brews of Lagunitas, a California craft brewery that is not afraid to get aggressive with their hops! Those that have had the pleasure of sampling their well known IPA know exactly what I mean.
For the first couple of pairings they served the Lagunitas Czech Pils which was the least hoppy beer of the night. First they paired it up with a sushi grade tuna wrapped around crabmeat roulade with a caramel soy sauce. The pairing worked pretty well but they immediately followed it up with a blood orange and hamachi ceviche that paired perfectly. The citrus zest in the dish brought out all the coriander and bright acidity in the beer, almost to a point of it feeling effervescent. Great way to start out the meal.
The MC for the night was Mark Sljukic from Lagunitas who was kind of a cross between Sam Adams and The Big Lebowski. He was super passionate about the brew and while he came across as a bit of a stoner, he was a salt of the earth kinda guy who knew his craft, and represented Lagunitas, very well. The next few pairings featured some seriously hoppy brews including their popular IPA, the Hop Stoopid (named for the ridiculous, or stupid, amount of hops used in the brew) and the Maximus which was like their Double IPA. The Hop Stoopid went a little over the top on the hops and didn’t maintain the balance whereas the sweet, malty character in the Maximus smoothed out the hops as to not leave you with that bitter beer face.
For these selections, Chef Kevin went right to the meats serving a spiced pork belly in a lo mein noodle bowl with the IPA, braised veal cheeks over a spiced waffle with vanilla parsnip puree and caramelized oninon syrup with the Hop Stoopid and a smoked lamb loin in a lacquer sauce with the Maximus. All pairings worked out well, with the latter being my personal favorite. However, I feel like the food was really the star of this event as by the third beer I could see some of the people at my table getting a little overhopped. But they didn’t stop there…
The desert course was maybe my favorite pairing of the night as they matched up a chocolate marquise (like a very rich chocolate mousse) and espresso ice cream with the Soco Stout. Both were dark, rich and creamy and really worked lovely together…amazingly even the stout had some noticeable hops but not as aggressive as the previous three brews.
So the moral of the story is this…if you like a hoppy brew, than Lagunitas beers are definitely something to look out for. If you like to eat some creative and really delicious dishes served by an excellent staff in a lovely restaurant setting, than the TapHouse beer dinners are not to be missed! And if you only like to pair your meals with wine, then check out some of my other posts as this would all be a complete waste of time 😉
Salud!
Thanksgiving Wine Pairing Made Simple…
With Thanksgiving being such a food focused holiday, you are going to hear a lot of different opinions on what wines to pair with your Turkey and various trimmings. The truth is they are all probably right! There are few bad pairings for this meal since there are so many variables involved. However when it comes down to the basics the three most simple and effective wine pairings for your basted bird are Riesling, Pinot Noir and Zinfandel. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the most important is the weight and the natural acidity of these wines play off Turkey quite well allowing the food and wine to enhance one another. Since the Holiday craze seemed to start a little early this year, I’m guessing that you have about as much time to read this as I do to write it. So to keep it short and sweet I thought I would just offer a list of some delectable and accesible wines for your holiday feast.
RIESLING
Dr. Loosen Dr. L Estate QbA 2011 Mosel, Germany (Under $15)
Eroica 2011 Riesling, Columbia Valley, Chateau Ste. Michelle & Dr. Loosen ($16-29)
Dr. Pauly Bergwelier Bernkastler alte Badstube am Doctorberg Spatlese 2011 ($30 and up)
PINOT NOIR
Castle Rock Sonoma Pinot Noir 2009 (Under $15)
Bourgogne Pinot Noir 2009 Chanson Pere et Fils ($16-29)
Etude 2009 Estate Pinot Noir, Carneros ($30 and up… this will be on my table!)
ZINFANDEL
Ravenswood Lodi Zinfandel 2010 (Under $15)
Terra d’Ora Zinfandel 2009 Amador County ($16-29…again, on my table!)
Turley Pesenti Vineyard Zinfandel 2010 Paso Robles (Just named in Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of 2012!)
And the Double Secret Probation Westchester Wine Guy Surprise Thanksgiving Wine is…
Mollydooker Blue Eyed Boy Shiraz 2009 South Australia…Since there are some newer vintages of this wine out you can find it for around $35 instead of the $60 retail price…great deal! And Syrah/Shiraz is definitely a classic Thanksgiving pairing too.
Lastly, the most important thing is to drink what you like as that will really enhance the enjoyment of your Thanksgiving meal.
Cheers….and have a Happy Thanksgiving!
What do you open to celebrate those big moments in life?
To follow up on my Father’s Day post, this week my wife gave birth to a healthy and beautiful baby girl and we couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s one of those surreal events that changes your life forever and is deserving of a proper bottle to celebrate the occasion. While it may seem like a trivial afterthought considering what a blessing it is just to have a healthy child enter the world, it’s those small yet meaningful celebrations that can stick with you for years to come. I still remember my epiphany wine (the bottle that first sparked my passion), the bottle I opened when I proposed to my wife (and she miraculously accepted), the over-sized bottle we had everyone sign at our wedding, the bottle we opened to celebrate my son’s birth and the bottle we served at his Baptism (coincidentally the same bottle from our wedding). So deciding what to open with my wife to celebrate this joyous occasion is not so trivial in my book.
Over the past day or two I have had some internal debate about the subject. My first instinct was to go with a high end Napa Cab that we acquired from one of our trips to wine country. While it would clearly be delicious and memorable, without the right meal it may be a bit overpowering. I’m not sure we are quite ready to fire up the grill and cook up some big boy steaks to pair with such a wine just yet. So I thought about a Pinot Noir from the same trip, something that may not need the meal alongside it to enjoy. But Pinot is not really my wife’s favorite and I want it to be as enjoyable for her as it is for me.
So this led me to the somewhat obvious answer… bubbles! I was thinking it really should be a Champagne for an event such as this, but at the end of the day I know my wife prefers the California sparklers which tend to be a little less yeasty. And then it dawned on me…we picked up a couple of bottles of Domaine Carneros (owned by famed French Champagne producer Taittinger) Brut Rosé Cuvée de la Pompadour on our last trip to Napa. While at the vineyard we sipped it on their outdoor veranda on a beautiful day overlooking the Carneros vineyards with two of our closest friends and of course our son running and playing around the garden. Yeah, that was a pretty good day. The idea of bringing back some of those memories and starting some new ones with that particular bottle sounds pretty good to me! Oh, and of course… it’s pink 😉
The purpose of saving those special bottles, and opening the right ones at the right time, is all about creating long lasting and meaningful memories. I am sure I’m not the only one that associates certain wines with monumental events that are relived when that same bottle is opened at a future time. Wine can encompass so much nostalgia and emotion which is one of the main reasons people (including myself) are so passionate about it. It’s not just about drinking, it’s about embracing and celebrating life with those that are closest to you.
So the next time you are in the midst of an occasion that is deserving of opening a special bottle, take some time to think about what you select. After all, it may be something you hold with you for many years to come.
Cheers!
A Father’s Day Thought…
While typically I would write a post on what the best Father’s Day wines are this year while working in a couple of feeble attempts at humor, I can’t seem to wrap my head around that this year. Wine is always a great gift (it is what my dad asks for every birthday, Father’s Day, Sunday…whatever!), and as long as you know the preference of the recipient and get something in their realm of enjoyment then it’s pretty tough to go wrong. My pops is all about California these days, so I guess it’s just a question of which Napa Cab to pick up.
However with a son that just turned two and our second child due literally any day now, Father’s Day is starting to take on some new meaning for me. Not in the hallmark sense, but in what it means to be a father. I feel like love is not a big enough word for the emotion that parents feel for their children. It is this innate and powerful force that encompasses feelings of care, fear, protection, worry, empathy, frustration, futility, generosity, pleasure and dozens of other emotions but of course mostly…unconditional love.
It’s hard to describe the elation you feel when your child learns to do something so simple, like ride a scooter, and to recognize his pride in his own accomplishment. On the other end of the spectrum, the heartbreak we experience when seeing our own child endure any kind of pain, sadness or disappointment can be utterly devastating. And of course none of this compares to the anticipation, excitement and anxiety of welcoming a child into this world and taking on the responsibility of caring for another human being.
So what’s the point? I’m not really sure to be honest. But if I have a point I guess it is this…If I have experienced all of this in the first two years of fatherhood, I can only imagine what the future has in store. It helps me to understand why parents sometimes act the way they do as no matter how old you may be, you are always someone’s “child”. But mostly, it gives me a new perspective and respect for parents everywhere as the roller coaster of emotions they have experienced over the years must be surreal… and something I genuinely look forward to.
So be sure to toast your dad this weekend with a glass of his favorite wine, and mom too! After all the nonsense you have put them through over the years, it’s the least you can do 😉
Cheers!
Marshall Tilden III, DWS, CSW 