She then proceeded to purchase the actual cheapest bottle in the store. At $10, it had a cork.

The overwhelming irony of this act finally pushed me to write my views on screw caps versus corks, something I’m asked about in the shop a couple of times each week

First, why is a piece of bark used to seal a bottle of wine? A good old fashioned cork allows for the slow oxidization of wine. In other words, it allows very small amounts of oxygen to seep in to the bottle. This interacts with the wine in the same way decanting or spinning your glass would, but on a much, much slower timeline. It softens the tannins of the wine, allowing the secondary notes to come forward as the fruit flavor recedes, giving it a more alluring complexity. Most red wines will benefit from this aging process as well as some whites.

Now, let’s examine the average wine consumer. Most people who purchase wine at retail are intending to drink it soon. They’re bringing it home for dinner, going to a party or they’ve just had a rough day and need a drink. The time between purchase and when they find a wine glass may be the extent of how long they intend to age it. And that’s okay! In reality, about 95% of wines are meant to be enjoyed young; within 2-5 years of vintage. Not to say that they won’t benefit from some aging, but only 5% really need-and-or-deserve it. These are your prestige, high-end wines with big tannic structures – think expensive Napa Cabernet, Bordeaux and Barolos.

And let’s not forgot an essential fact about corks: they can fail. They may dry out or crack, allowing for the oxidization of wine to rapidly reach the point of no return (think of a bottle that’s been open on your kitchen counter for way too long – not good). Worse, they can become infected with TCA, a chemical compound born of evil fungi that can reside in the cork. This can result, in varying degrees, to unpleasant odors and flavors of a moldy, wet newspaper.

So to sum up: 95% of wines don’t really need the benefits of aging that a cork provides and the vast majority of wine consumers are buying wine to consume in the near term. Ergo, corks aren’t a necessity for the average consumer and aren’t something to avoid.

When you can use real ingredients to create something this lovely why bother with fake dye?

If Seder dishes such as bitter herbs and unleavened bread don’t whip your taste buds into a saliva-frenzy, I suggest putting a bit more effort into your Seder wine selection.  Four cups of wine should be enjoyable.

Manischewitz is a common kosher wine served at Seder, but if you’re looking for something that doesn’t contain fermented Concord grapes and corn syrup (seriously), there are some fantastic kosher wines that you would gladly drink year-round from all over the world, not just Israel.  The 2008 Covenant Cabernet Sauvignon, produced by Napa winemaker Jeff Morgan, received a 91-93 rating from Robert Parker.

So, what makes a wine kosher?

According to the Kosher Wine Society, wine that is considered kosher and sold to Orthodox Jews must contain a hekhsher (authoritative seal) issued by a Jewish supervising agency or by a rabbi.  The entire vinification process must be handled by a Sabbath-observant Jew. If you see mevushal on the wine label, this means that the wine has been cooked or flash pasteurized, which allows the wine to remain kosher if handled by gentiles, such as restaurant staff.  While cooking a wine can significantly alter the characteristics and quality of the wine, flash pasteurization has a more nominal effect.

In addition to carrying quality Kosher wines at Zola Wine and Kitchen, we scheduled Seder cooking class on April 13 where Chef Robbie Meltzer will lead the class in preparing Beef Brisket, Sweet Potato Kugel, and  Haroseth to name a few.  You will even get the chance to prepare his much acclaimed Matzo Ball Soup. A glass of kosher wine will be provided with the class, and it will not be Manischewitz. Reserve your spot here before it’s sold out.

Cuvée:  Roussette

Grape Varieties: 100% Altesse

What the heck is Altesse?! And how can a wine be a cuveé, which implies it’s a blend, and be 100% of one variety? Not one to hold back questions, I asked the vendor, prompting a severe look of shame and embarrassment from Zola’s wine director.

Clearly, I needed to do some research so here we go. Savoie is a region in eastern France along the Alps. Alteese is a grape that is also known as Roussette. Therefore, Roussette de Savoie implies that the grape is Alteese and it’s from the region of Savoie. Except that in actuality, Roussette de Savoie is often a cuveé of Alteese and Chardonnay. Thus, the reason that back label specifies that the cuveé is 100% Alteese.

We decided to start carrying the Jean Vullien Roussette de Savoie 2009 ($20). I revisited it last night, pairing it with a quick spicy Spaghetti Aglio e Olio. While not sweet at all, its fresh flavors of crisp pear, hazelnut and minerals sufficiently cooled my palate from the red pepper flakes. It’s not a highly acidic wine and I imagine it would easily pair with a wide variety of foods.

And now I know what the heck Alteese is.

In that same vain, about a month ago I began to longingly look at my (admittedly feeble) collection of wines. I felt like I had been drinking my normal, everyday wines for months and hadn’t indulged myself in some of the finer wines in life.

Now I’m the first to admit that in my own wine purchasing habits, I look for high quality value wines. In fact, I started in the wine industry at a business that exclusively specialized in those wines. However, it’s important to indulge yourself every once in a while. There are spectacular wines out there that, while not appropriate for everyday drinking, are critical to developing your palate.

I decided I’d get my fix in a shared-sacrifice sort of way (wine is meant to be shared, right?) by hosting a group of friends for a wine dinner. I’d cook dinner and my guests, all friends in local wine retail establishments, would bring a good bottle of wine from their collection.

Five of us crammed into my tiny studio apartment armed with a collection of wines. Needless to say, I got my fix. From Champagne to Amarone, White Chateauneufs to Meritages, we tasted a great variety of wines. The standout for me was the 2000 Lupicaia, a Super Tuscan from my friend who collects Italian reds.

I’d encourage those with similar cravings to stage their own wine dinner. You’ll be able to enjoy a greater number of wines and I’m pretty sure you’ll have a great time doing it.

How much?

First, you want to determine how much wine to purchase to help set your budget. Depending on how long the event is and any big drinkers you expect to drink you dry, I recommend estimating one bottle of wine for every two people. This may sound like a lot. One typical 750 ml bottle of wine will pour five, five ounce glasses. That’s 2.5 glasses of wine per person. If you plan on serving other drinks, you can cut back on the total number of bottles, but remember that it’s much better to have left over bottles than guests raiding your special stash.

When guests arrive…

Always start with bubbly. Why sparkling wine is often reserved for special occasions is beyond me. Bubbly is fantastic on Tuesday nights. Greeting your guests with sparkling wine should help create a good vibe and relax the crowd. Don’t feel obligated to drain your savings on vintage Champagne. A Prosecco such as the organic Mionetto Prosecco for $20 at Zola Wine will do just fine.

When you’re trying to impress…

Whether you’re having the boss, in-laws or wine snobs over for dinner, you can go one of two ways in your wine selection depending on how much money you’re willing to part with. If the wine cellar in your shore house is not accessible at the moment, I’d recommend purchasing a good quality white Burgundy (Domaine Gérard Thomas Saint-Aubin Premier Cru for $42 at Zola Wine) and a stellar Oregon Pinot Noir (to be safe, steer clear of the 2007 vintage).

If your monthly budget is dominated by rent and student loans, I’d recommend purchasing an obscure, yet tasty, wine that your guests may not be familiar with and that won’t push your credit card over the edge. Gavi from northern Italy can be a fantastic and reasonably priced medium bodied white wine made from the Cortese grape. Principessa Gavia for $17 has a crisp acidity with great minerality and melon notes. Valpolicella from Italy can also be a more affordable option. This wine typically consists of three red grape varietals: Rondinella Corvina and Molinara. Allegrini Valpolicella for $17 has great cherry and violet notes with an acidic and rustic finish. It will be difficult for some to dissect a wine they haven’t had before and you’ll sound impressive after you learn how to pronounce these grapes.

When you’re keeping it casual…

If you’re just looking for an inexpensive wine to plop on the table, please don’t revert to Two Buck Chuck. Not that this is a bad wine (I had a glass by choice a few weeks ago), but as a wine sales woman, it’s my duty to talk you off that ledge. There are so many more affordable options that will expand your palate (now I really sound like a wine snob). At $10 a bottle, Indaba Chenin Blanc from South Africa is incredibly tasty with tropical fruit notes and nice acidity. Also at $10 is Villa d’ Rosso Toscano from Montepulciano, Italy. Red fruit and high acidity – it’s the ultimate pizza wine.

Zola Wine and Kitchen is offering some great cooking classes in the next few months such as Bistro Basics and The Other White Meat. Sign up here today to get some culinary skill under your belt before hosting your next dinner party.

In other exciting news, Zola Wine and Kitchen is set to launch a new wine club. For $100 a month, plus the cost of shipping, members will receive six wines personally selected by Zola Wine Director, Malia Milstead, in addition to exclusive member discounts. Stop by Zola Wine and Kitchen to find out more.

The beverage director at Zola and I are relatively new to this organization and for the past few weeks we’ve been in the process of revitalizing the wine selection here at ZWK. We invited 6 local vendors to present some of their wines to us this past Tuesday.  We asked for them to bring what they believe are their 10 best wines within a specified price range.  Since it’s winter, we asked that they bring mostly reds.

When crafting a wine selection for a store, you want to keep a proper balance in terms of regions, varietals and price points. While I could drink Oregonian Pinot Noir for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy, it’s important to resist the urge to create a self-serving wine selection and keep the broader wine drinking population in mind.

Now I’ll admit that tasting 60 wines in 3 hours is no ordinary day at the office, but we do take it seriously. We had spit buckets and dutifully took notes. As we tasted through and debated the wines, a consensus around certain wines began to emerge. In the end, only about 15 or 20 wines made the cut. We think we’ve found some real winners – great wines at a fair price.

The following is a partial list of the new wines.  Stop by to try them out!

Onix Priorat

Vina Robles Red⁴

Pellegrini Family Cloverdale Ranch Cabernet

Domaine de Triennes

HRW Zinfandel

Opalia Pinot Noir

La Cabotte Cotes du Rhone

Bautista Simona Malbec Reserva

1.  Know what you like. This is my number one rule whenever selecting wine. Zinfandel and pizza can go wonderful together, but if you don’t like Zinfandel, you’ll get an epic FAIL off the bat. And how do you learn what type of wines you like? Drink. Drink a lot.

2.  Balance. Think of a justice scale, canoe, seesaw, etc. Imagine a light, fresh summer salad on one side and a big, bold California Cabernet Sauvignon on the other. Cabernet is the fat kid on the seesaw. You should pair light, fresh foods with light, fresh wines (i.e. summer salad with a Sancerre) and dense, heavy foods with equally heavy wines (i.e. baby back ribs with a California Cabernet).

Another way to approach balancing the weight of food with wine is to consider the amount time the food spent cooking. Grilled or steamed foods often call for a lighter style wine while foods that have been roasted or braised for a while would typically need a heavier wine.

3.  Flavor intensity. Now think of a plain baked potato. Not very flavorful. If you chase a forkful of that with an aromatic Viogner, you won’t taste much of that potato. But if you top that potato with herbs, cheese and bacon, you now have a dish that will match the flavor intensity of a more flavorful wine.

4.  Complement or contrast. You can either match specific flavors or contrast flavors when pairing wine with food. One example of complementing the flavors is pairing a medium to heavy Pinot Noir with beef stroganoff. Pinot Noir tends to have earthy, herbal and mushroom notes which complement the ingredients of the dish. Salty or spicy food such as Thai with a sweet wine like Riesling is an example of contrasting flavors.

If you’re still truly stumped, go with a wine that has a lot of acidity. Acidic wines, like New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, tend to be very food versatile. Acidity is our friend.

For more expert food and wine pairing advice, the beverage director of Stir Food Group is leading a Food and Wine Pairing class at Zola Wine and Kitchen on Wednesday, January 12. Reserve your spot here before it sells out.

While I can’t speak to the white after Labor Day phenomenon, it’s been explained in the past that the tannins in red wine bring out a seriously unpleasant metallic flavor in fish when consumed together. This was – and still is – accepted by most as hard fact. In one James Bond movie that came out decades before I was born, Sean Connery chastises himself for not suspecting a bad guy posing as a British agent after he drinks Chianti with his fish. “Red wine with fish . . . well that should have told me something.” Nay, Bond, that tells you nothing.

Last year, Japanese researchers published an article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry that put the tannin myth to bed and was oddly enough around the same time Sean Connery told Wine Spectator magazine that he refused to give up red wine despite his heart disease.

To “Cliffsnote” the article, the culprit is not the tannins in red wine that produce the sensation of sucking on a nickel instead of buttery lobster. The wine’s iron content is the real villain. Now, it’s difficult enough for most people to determine the country or grape varietal from a bottle of wine, let alone the iron content. Needless to say, those measurements are not going to be found easily, if at all.

Although iron is found more in red wines than in white, red wine diehards should be encouraged to defy the old adage. To play it safe, stick with high acidic, low tannin red wines such as Pinot Noir and Gamay. If you’re like me and can only eat trout swimming in brown butter or salmon buried in a thick glaze of soy sauce, take the wine up a notch to a Zinfandel or Merlot from Washington State.

You can’t go wrong living by the white wine and fish rule, but odds are if you don’t like Riesling, you won’t like Riesling after a mouthful of scallops.