Wine Beneath The Palms

Best wine I've tasted recently

                                                                                                                                                                                    

    2006 Ponzi Vineyards “Tavola” Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, Oregon: Black cherries and dark chocolate flavors, crisp acids, mellow tannins; $25.

      You could serve this with a complex chicken stew, or even a slice of chocolate cake. Or simply serve as an aperitif. No hard edges here.

      Oregon for some time has been known for its pinot noirs. If you follow Oregon's wine country, this wine is from several Ponzi vineyards, pictured here, in the Willamette Valley – the Aurora, Madrona, Estate, Dion, Alloro and Gemini Vineyards.

       It’s all 100 percent “certified sustainable” grapes, which is a step below organic.

Questions? Comments? This is the place

Q & A:

        Have a question?
        Want to make a comment?
        Want to tell about your latest favorite wine, your fabulous wine trip?
        It's easy: Click on the word "comments" below.

I'm looking for a few new blogs

       Do you have a South Florida wine or food blog? If so, let me know, and I will feature it here.

       Do you know of someone who has such a blog? Let me know.

       Click on the “comments” icon below and tell me about it.

Flying with wine? What's a fan to do?

       You finally take that dream trip to Tuscany, and discover a dozen fabulous wines that are sold only at the winery –- not imported to the States. You want to take some home, but you know the TSA screeners won’t let you carry them aboard the plane. What do you do?

     A survey of wine fans at last month’s Food and Wine Expo in Washington, D.C., found this:
     * 24.4 percent no longer buy bottles of wine when traveling by air.
     * 41.2 percent wrap bottles in clothing or bubble wrap and put them in their checked luggage.
     * 18.1 percent ask the winery to ship the wine directly to them.
     * 10.4 percent never travel with wine.

     Of course, one little mistake in shipping the wine in your checked luggage and you’ll be wearing purple clothes for the next year.

     Naturally, entrepreneurs are leaping into the fray. A company called Bottlewise, which did the survey, will sell you a padded bag (pictured here) about the size of a big purse with two liquid-proof inner sleeves to protect the wine. But it’s $48.95 –-kind of pricey for two bottles.

   Other companies -- U-Haul is one -– will sell you cardboard boxes with Styrofoam padding. A 12-bottle box costs $14.95. I’ve used these successfully, but it’s pretty hard to take it empty on the plane flight to Rome. When they boxes are full, airlines usually accept them as checked luggage, although they want you to sign a waiver that it isn’t their fault if the bottles break.

             So, readers, what do you do?  If you have a solution -– or an amusing horror story to share -– click on the “comments” icon below and tell us about it.

        Life’s not all beer and skittles even when you run a wine shop. Just ask Howard Lavine, president of Leon’s Wine & Liquor on Southwest Eighth Street.

        About 10 years ago his daughter, Karyn, 16 at the time, had Crohn’s Disease, a digestive tract disorder. Two years later one of Lavine’s twin sons, Greg, 11, had the disease.

        They’re doing better now, but after much pain and hardship. And, Lavine has become a trustee of the Florida Chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America. 

       Last week he helped organize a charity walk in Fort Lauderdale that raised $200,000 for the foundation. Usually he also holds a spring wine sale at his shop to benefit the foundation. But this year the two dates coincided, making the sale impossible.

         So instead of the sale, Lavine is asking his customers to mail checks made out to the foundation to his wine shop, Leon’s Wine and Liquor Center, 6874 SW Eighth St., Miami, 33144. He will match each donation at 50 cents on the dollar. Call 305-261-0221

       “We’ve got to raise money to find a cure. Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who has the disease.”

More kosher wine and food

        My current wine column is about kosher wines. The Herald’s online food page has kosher recipes.

       If that isn’t enough, here’s more:

       The 2005 Taperberg Meritage Red Wine from Israel’s Judean Hills is packed with firm red plum and berry flavors, with chocolate and spice on the finish, says Wine Spectator online.

       To Passover cooks parched for new ideas, wandering in a desert of matzo and dried-out brisket, Susie Fishbein is like a tall, icy Coca-Cola — the kosher for Passover kind, made with sugar instead of corn syrup, says The New York Times.

Wine fans, meet Nevada the parrot

       
Meet Nevada the parrot. She’s the Jungle Island bird who posed so nicely for the sig picture that runs with this wine blog.

She’s a patient bird. She sat on that wicker chair for half an hour without moving while the photog did his thing.

Only problem was getting her to look at the camera.

It’s hard to explain to a parrot.

In any case, thanks to Jungle Island for the loan of Nevada.

Vine Wine Shop & Tasting Loft goes virtual

                                                                                                                                                                          A door closes, a door opens. The Vine Wine Shop & Tasting Loft, which opened in 2005 under Cary Quintana & Steven Bowles at 7657 Biscayne Boulevard, is closing. "The road construction that went on for 18 months and is still going on was too much," said Quintana.

       But they’re planning to keep the concept alive by becoming a "virtual neighborhood wine shop'' within about 30 days.

       How does that work? They will advertise a virtual wine tasting on their Website and give customers time to order the wines online from the shop and have them delivered before the tasting. The tasting will then be done, including guest speakers, by streaming video.

       Quintana and Bowles have some interesting ideas about making the virtual tastings interactive, but they’re not ready to talk about them yet. Watch this space for further information.

Old Mr. Sun can be hard on wine

Hi Fred,
       This week I found one of the white wines you recommended in your column.  Since I planned to take it to our boat, I left it in the car for a few days. Does keeping a wine in a hot Miami car negatively impact the quality?  Of course, it will be chilled before serving.
Susan from Key Biscayne

Hi Susan,

        Ohhhhhh, I'm afraid you might have committed vinocide by leaving a bottle of wine in your car in sun-drenched, heat-blasted South Florida.  It's probably not ruined, but some ifs crispness and fruity flavor will have been lost. It won't hurt you, but it won't be as good as it was.

     Tell you what: Toss in a few pieces of fruit, maybe a shot of brandy, a few ice cubes, some seltzer if you want and call it Sangria. That's a nice, refreshing drink for a boat.

Fred         

What goes well with real estate? Wine.

Check out Miami real estate exec Christopher Zoller’s blog and you can do two quite different things. You can buy a condo on Indian Creek for $539,999. Or you can read his thoughts on wine.

His real estate blog, subtitled “Wines for the Weekend,” is a nice discussion. It has cogent ideas such as checking out a restaurant’s wine list on its website before dining there. And praise for restaurants that describe wines not just as merlot or chardonnay but also as “crisp” or “weighty” or “rich” and so on.

“In the bad old days,” he writes, “your server would drop a big old leather-bound volume on your table with your menu and leave you without a clue.”

Interesting stuff. But he notes: “All this blogging takes a lot of time when it's not my vocation.”