Guest Post: An Italian Wine Primer, Part 2

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. For
this post we welcome back Kevin Keith, continuing his post from last week.
__

Welcome back, it’s Kevin Keith, your friendly neighborhood
wino from Liquor Direct, back with more Italian primer – this time we
take a brisk walk through the Italian wine landscape, starting at the top of
the boot, with the tiny region of the Valle d’Aosta.

Image Credit

Valle d’Aosta is
the smallest of the Italian wine regions, bordering Switzerland to the north,
France to the west, and Piedmont to the south and east.  An ancient growing region, grapes have
been cultivated since the Roman days, with around 22 varieties authorized for
growing, including Picotener (the local name for Nebbiolo), Neyret, Vien de
Nus, Fumin, Mayolet, Prie Route, Petit Rouge, Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir), Gamay,
Dolcetto and Syrah for the reds, and Moscato Bianco (also called Moscat de
Chambave), Pinot Grigio (also known as Malvoisie), Blanc de Morgex, Prie Blanc,
Muller-Thurgau, Chardonnay and Petit Arvine.  There are no DOCG wines from this area.

Piedmont means
“at the foot of the mountains.” 
This region is by far one of the most recognized regions in Italy.  It is the second largest region and has
the most DOC wines (over 40) and DOCG wines (7).  Most of the production of wine originates in the heart of
Piedmont, the Po River Valley. 
Here you will find Barolo, Barbaresco, Gattinara and Moscato
d’Asti.  The first three I
mentioned are all made with the Nebbiolo grape, and the last mentioned is from
the ancient Muscat grape.  Dolcetto
and Barbera are also widely planted red varieties, as well as Freisa,
Grignolino and Brachetto.  The most
popular white grape is the Cortese, used for the DOCG wine, Gavi.  Arneis (nicknamed the “white Barolo”)
and Erbaluce di Caluso are also grown. 
Another important wine product produced here is Vermouth, made with at
least 70% wine, and fortified and flavored with various roots, spices, herbs
and wood – this is what is known as an “Aromatic” wine.

Lombardy sits in
the semi-circle created by the Alps that enclose Italy to the north.  The mountainous north and the flat Po
River Valley in the south define the topography of the growing regions, which
are divided into three:  the
Valtellina in the North, the Oltrepo Pavese in the southwest, and the
Franciacorta in the east. 
Nebbiolo, known locally as Chiavennasca, is the primary red grape grown
in the Valtellina.  The Oltrepo
Pavese is known primarily for Pinot Nero. 
And the greatest sparkling wines from Italy come from the Franciacorta,
and is derived from Chardonnay, Pinot Bianco and/or Pinot Nero.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Post: A Culinary Tour of St. Louis (or, where the locals eat)

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. For
this post we welcome Kara Christopher, who has been a close friend for countless years.  Like me, Kara started blogging around the turn of the century. It's been a while! Kara lives in St. Louis and is, without a doubt, a foodie. She's also a foodie on a mission to get healthy, although you wouldn't know it from the culinary tour on which she's about to take you. St. Louis is a fun weekend trip – I've done it – and I highly recommend eating where the locals eat. Thanks Kara!
___

While Shel is away in the wilds of Alaska, allow me to take you on a brief culinary tour of St. Louis. These are some of my favorite places, not necessarily the ones you'd be told to visit if you were in town for a weekend. Until now, at least.

I should probably tell you who I am, though. I'm Kara & I've been blogging about life, knitting, and everything else for a little over 5 years at StarMonkeybrass.com. The name is a play on the Beastie Boys Brass Monkey & came about because I like monkeys. I am a knitter, music geek, graduate student in biostatistics, and I like to eat. When I travel, I don't want to eat at chains, at least not ones that I can also eat at in St. Louis.

So let's say you find yourself in St. Louis for a weekend and you'd like a little guidance on where to eat. If you happen to be driving up from the south, I'd recommend a stop at Dexter BBQ for lunch. There are several locations, but the one in Cape Girardeau is about a mile off the highway and probably the easiest to find. I heartily recommend the sammich with slaw on it. *Drool*

Once you get into town and settle in on Friday night, you're gonna be hungry. I'm sending you to the Highway 61 Roadhouse & Kitchen in Webster Groves. Let's be completely honest: you're here for the fries. The Roadhouse Fries. They are a masterpiece in the world of potato products: waffle fries covered in pulled pork, a creamy cheese sauce, applewood smoked bacon, and scallions. And this is just the appetizer. I can recommend the burgers & pulled pork as entrees if you're feeling traditional. I love a good burger & the folks in the kitchen definitely know how to make one. I'd also recommend going with a side other than the fries since you just gorged on the ones in the appetizer. For a side, I'm a fan of the sweet potato pie. As tempting as it is to order the banana pudding for dessert, don't do it. You'll get dessert in about 20 minutes.

Once you've recovered from the pork-tastic goodness at Roadhouse, head back to Southwest City and stop off at Ted Drewes. There are two locations, but the original is on Chippewa. It's legendary around here and a Friday night is going to be busy. But it's so worth it – I swear they have the best banana split in St. Louis, although the concretes are what most people go for. My favorites are the Hawaiian & the All Shook Up (peanut butter cups & bananas).

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Post: Wine & Your Health

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. Last week, David Lazarus offered a post and today, we get healthy with his wife, Jan Lazarus. Jan is a registered dietitian with a specialization in diabetes. This is timely, considering all the comments we get on our Slender wine posts. Thanks Jan!
__

Image Credit

Being a dietitian and diabetes educator I receive many questions on the use of alcohol.  Since this is a wine blog I will focus on my attention to the consumption of wine and its benefits and detriments.

The one myth that I really would like to debunk is the number of carbohydrates in a glass of wine.  On average a 5-ounce glass of dry wine contains 110 calories, 5 grams of carbohydrates and 13 grams of alcohol which accounts for 91 of the 110 calories.  It is extremely frustrating to attend a function and overhear someone talking about falling off the low-carb diet wagon while having a glass of wine.  This is a perception created by a good marketing firm. 

Wine or any alcohol is metabolized in the body as a fat not a sugar; that is why excess drinking can add extra pounds of fat even when you are consuming a low-fat diet.  Wine is fermented and does contain some residual sugar, but a very small amount. 

There are positive attributes to wine especially red wine. This wine contains components that can increase your good cholesterol “HDL” and it also acts as an anti-coagulant preventing platelets to stick together and decreasing the chance of blood clots. On the flip side, over-consumption can lead to high blood pressure and increased triglycerides, not a good fat. 

For those with diabetes, alcohol actually lowers the blood sugar for up to 10 hours. This can result in a hypoglycemic state especially if they haven't eaten or are on certain medications. But this is not the recommended method for controlling blood sugar, I have had clients who have tried with unfortunate outcomes. 

Now how much is a drink?  Women should only have 5 ounces of wine per day and men no more than 10 ounce per day. (No, you cannot save them up and have them all in one day.  I get that question a lot.)  Moderate drinking can be very beneficial to your health, but when you go over the daily recommendations then the detrimental effects may occur.  The key to remember is, too much of a good thing is never good.

Guest Post: Visiting the Suisun Valley Wine Country

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. For
this post we welcome Jen Rizzo. Jen is a freelance motion graphics designer, part-time writer and Cincinnati
transplant based out of San Francisco. She is a self-professed beer
nerd living in the heart of wine country and spends her free time
getting to know the area around her from the saddle of a thirty year
old bicycle – she's also a good friend and I miss her. Thanks Jen!
___

I moved to San Francisco from Cincinnati on Labor Day of 2008 and have made it a point to stay in the area for all the major holidays so I can learn how the city responds to them. I got to see the city empty out for Thanksgiving and Christmas, making it easier than ever to get a dinner reservation or sit at my favorite bar and not have to elbow people out of the way to get a drink. Of course, it didn't occur to me until two days before Memorial Day weekend that I lived in a major tourist destination. It was time to get out of the city.

This poses quite the challenge for me, you see, because I live in the Bay Area without a car. We're surrounded by all of this incredible terrain, and I see it all from behind the handlebars of a bicycle. This is great for being in the city, and it's very easy to ride over the Golden Gate Bridge to get into Sausalito and toward the mountains, but anything beyond about fifty miles is certainly a breaking point for me. So, I consulted the power of the internet, specifically twitter, to decide my destination for me.

I'm not hugely connected in social media, and my twittering is sporadic at best, but I do have a number of wine connections as well as cyclists and San Francisco residents. My needs were simple: I had never been to wine country in the nine months I lived here, I needed to be able to do it without a car, and I wanted somewhere that was going to give me a good day of bike riding. Oh, and I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars to do it.

Napa was out. The tastings were too high and the hotels were either booked on the night I wanted to be there or astronomically expensive. Plus, my point was to avoid all the Memorial Day nonsense, and a tourist destination was not the place to do that. Our very own favorite wine blogger Michelle suggested Sonoma, but the bus from the city is really the only way to get there with bicycles, and it was going to take upwards of three hours one way.

Then a friend suggested a winery in Suisun Valley, a place I had never heard of. The hotels would be cheaper, he said, and the winery was only an eight mile ride from the Amtrak station. Upon digging around, I learned that there were in fact four wineries in Suisun Valley, and to visit all of them would be a perfect 25 mile loop from the train station, ending up at a hotel that was less than half the cost of a stay in Napa. Oh, and I could take two trains there in an hour and a half, and it would cost me less than $20 to get there, and bicycles were allowed the whole way. Sold!

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest Post: Kentucky’s Jean Farris Winery

While Kevin & I are in Alaska, we've asked some friends and
colleagues to post on their wine loves, wine experiences and more. For
this post we welcome Shannan Boyer, a local parenting blogger and one of the driving forces behind Cincinnati Women Bloggers – also one of my close friends! Thanks Shannan!
__

Every summer our family packs up the car and heads down to
Somerset, KY for a little boating on Lake Cumberland.  The drive down is about 2.5 hours long, giving us plenty of
time to play car games and check out the scenery.  On our drive one of the things I’ve often noticed and have
always been curious about were the road signs posted along I-75 for local
vineyards.

Well this past weekend we headed down for our first trip of
the summer and this time, rather than driving straight through to Somerset, we
decided to be a little adventurous. We decided to pull off outside of Lexington
and visit Jean Farris, a cute vineyard located
off the very scenic Richmond Road.

Not having heard of Jean Farris, we had no idea what to
expect as we drove down Richmond Road. When we finally arrived, we couldn’t
believe how beautiful it was.  The
drive up to the main building was lined with rows and rows of grapes.  It was like nothing we’d ever seen
before.

While normally my husband and I would have sampled a few of
the wines before buying,  the
bistro was not open at the time we arrived, so we went with our guts and purchased
a bottle of their Riesling ($16).

From the label:

Cold fermented to
preserve the bright tropical fruits and citrus notes. This lightly sweet
Germanic white has a delicate balance, and soft floral notes.

Keep in mind I am no Michelle Lentz (ed. note: I think Shannan is doing just fine!), but I have to say that
this was one amazing Riesling. I found it to have a sweet taste and could
definitely identify the citrus notes.  The wine was smooth and I really
enjoyed the fact that it didn’t have a dry aftertaste.  If
you like dry wines, this would not be the wine for you. This wine was
extremely easy to drink, and in fact, my husband and I finished the entire
bottle in less than an hour – a feat for me – as usually I am a
VERY slow wine drinker.

We are heading back down to Lake Cumberland soon and
I will definitely be picking up a few bottles of their Riesling to have at
home. Overall if I was using Michelle’s rating system, I would
give Jean Farris’ Riesling a giant smiley face.

A local parenting
blogger, Shannan Boyer resides in northern Kentucky with her husband and two
young boys. When she’s not blogging about her family’s many adventures on her
blog Mommy
Bits, she and her family are likely to be found out exploring and
enjoying all that greater Cincinnati has to offer.