• 08 Jules Taylor Pinot Gris (Marlborough): Pure stone fruits & creamy complexity make for a jewel from Jules. Best JT I've had yet. $15 B #
• 07 Michael David Petite Petit (Lodi): Name is equal billing but it's mostly PS w/ some PV. Big, black, bold, & maybe a little Bretty. $18 B- #
• 08 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc (Marlborough): Capable Mevushal SB. Like lemon squeezed over wet rocks, only the rocks have rough edges. $17 C+ #
• Psagot "EDOM" (Judean Hills): Bordeaux blend, drinks like snacking on blackberries while strolling through the Asian spice market. $26 B+ #
• 08 Laurenz V. Singing Grüner Veltliner (Austria): You'll be singing after tasting the crisp apple acidity on this thing's palate. $13 B- #
• Laurenz V. 2006 Charming Grüner Veltliner (Austria): Charming indeed, but charming like Roger Moore's James Bond – also damn serious $26 B+ #
• 06 Ottimino 'Zinfinity' Zinfandel (Sonoma County): Dark, jammy, spicy, smooth, & just a bit hot. But also a bit of a hot bargain. $17 B #
• 06 Domaine Guion Cuvee Prestige (Bourgueil): Brambly red fruit & spice peeking out their heads from under a pound or so of fertilizer $14 C- #
• NV La Marca Prosecco (Veneto): You'll come for the smell of yellow apple, but you'll stay for the awesome whipped-cream-like mousse. $17 A- #
• 05 DaVinci 'St. Ippolito' (Toscana): Merlot & Syrah that's actually well-balanced & has food-friendly acidity? I'd call that Super. $45 A- #

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Alright folks – time for another giveaway, this week featuring a brand new release from leading World Music label Putumayo.  The new CD, titled Latin Party, is a funky, dance-infused, eclectic mix of tunes from Latin American artists, and features bands hailing from Cuba, the U.S., Peru, Columbia, Mexico, and Jamaica.

From the album press release:

“It includes a mix of boogaloo, funk, cumbia, son, salsa, ska and dancehall and spotlights cutting-edge bands and rising stars that pay homage to Latin music’s past while creatively moving it into the 21st century… features songs from New York-based hip-hop collective Brooklyn Funk essentials, Texas-raised Mexican-American musician and producer A.B. Quintanilla III (Selena’s brother), Peruvian salsera Cecilia Noël, multicultural French/Cuban collective Mas Bajo, Afro-Cuban group Luis Mangual y su Conjunto Mangual featuring José Mangual Jr. and from Colombia, three respected groups: salsa super group Fruko Y Orquesta, popular salsa band Orquesta Lo Nuestro and ska/reggae band Coffee Makers. The CD liner notes also feature a drink recipe by Food Network chef Daisy Martinez and an appetizer recipe by leading Mexican chef Patricia Quintana, owner of renowned Mexican restaurant Izote.”

And YOU can win a copy of Latin Party just by commenting on this here post!

Here’s the dilly-yo:

Leave a comment and tell us what wine would you pair with this album of funky Latin dance grooves?  At the end of next week, a winner will be randomly selected from the commenters using a super-secret, totally objective process that involves my dog (details are best left unexplained).  That winner could, of course, be YOU!

I’ll kick things off with my choice of wine pairing…

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Just a very quick tidbit today, to point you over to the house of the venerable king of wine blogging satirical musings, the HoseMaster of Wine (a.k.a. comedian and former sommelier Ron Washam) where last week 1WD was masterfully roasted in effigy.  Consider me as charred as the inside of a heavily toasted American oak barrel, but equally honored to have been playfully lambasted by the master!

Oddly enough, I have a slight fear of puppets and clowns so I find his choice of graphic a bit haunting (see inset pic), though Ron couldn’t have known that at the time he posted it.  Spooky…

Now, for those of you who might read the HMW piece on 1WD and not find yourself nearly peeing from intense laughter as I almost did: you need to understand that I consider Ron a very talented writer and I’ve long been an admirer of his scathing wit, and you should know that I don’t take myself so seriously that I couldn’t enjoy his bursting of my ego’s Champagne bubbles.  I loved the article and I’m hoping that you will too.

In fact, I’m planning on sharing a bottle or two with Ron when I’m next in Napa – I just hope that I don’t give him too much more material for that laser-focused satirical pen of his (Ron, if you’re reading this, I have a long list of others who need bubble bursting, and I may toss the list in one direction when we meet and run away in the opposite direction, not unlike offering a sacrificial slab of chuck to a fierce guard dog as a distraction…).

Anyway, enjoy!

Cheers!

Following is a guest post from Chicago-born poet and food-and-travel writer Matthew Gavin Frank, who is, by the account of any reasonably sane person, a very interesting guy.

Frank has, at turns, held the following jobs:

• proprietor of an Alaskan breakfast joint
• menu designer for Julia Roberts’s private parties in Taos
• sommelier for Chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand in Chicago
• instructor of creative writing to undergraduates in Phoenixa
• poetry teacher to soldiers and their families near Fort Drum in upstate New York.

I told you he was an interesting character.

If that doesn’t totally sell you, this probably will:

Frank has just released the book Barolo (The University of Nebraska Press, 2010), which, as he described it to me, is “about my illegal work in the Piemontese Italian food and wine industry,” during which he spent six months “living out of a tent in the garden of the local Pittatore farmhouse.”

Frank’s guest post is excerpted (with permission) from Barolo (around $17 at Amazon.com), and describes his first meeting with Piemontese vintner Luciano Sandrone, who sounds like the Italian version of Wolverine.  I think you’ll enjoy it as much as I did, though I suppose that we’re going to have to get the book to find out how what happens next in this intriguing tale…

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