Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here!
In my last post, I outlined some of my goals for this blog going forward and where it belongs in the California Cuisine continuum. My blog embraces the ideas that we should eat within the seasons, prepare ingredients so that their natural flavors really shine and that food should be shared and embraced for its ability to comfort. So, I guess my blog really falls into California Comfort Cuisine, or California Stone Soup Cuisine. I’m still working on that, so stay tuned.
But today, I want to talk about wine and how it fits into California Comfort Cuisine/Stone Soup Cuisine. Let me start by saying that it is true what the Napa Valley Wine Country sign says: The wine really is “bottled poetry.”
But not all of it. Let me explain:
Here in Northern California, we have some of the best wines in the world in our backyard–literally. Ridge Winery, whose wines famously won against its more prestigious French wine cousins back in the 1970’s at the “Judgement in Paris,” is a 30-minute drive from my house. And the Napa and Sonoma Valleys are an easy 2.5 hour drive. I love wine and enjoy pairing and drinking wine with the food I cook on a daily basis.
California has deep historical roots in the wine industry and a good portion of California’s immense economy is based on wine. Immigrants brought their knowledge of wine and winemaking to our area during the Gold Rush. Those immigrants felt that wine was not something to be consumed only for a special occasion, but rather to be enjoyed alongside their traditional foods that they lovingly recreated in their new homes. This is a philosophy I also embrace; unfortunately, our wine industry got a little big for its britches.
The explosion of wineries starting in the 1990’s, and particularly in the 2000’s, took the wine industry to a dark place when some wineries insisted on turning “tasting” into a spectacle. Wine tasting used to be a relaxing stop at a winery, where you frequently met with the winemaker, and chatted about the wine. Tastings were just that: small tastes of current vintages from whatever clean glassware the host had available. Sometimes, if you got the winemaker in a good mood, they would even take you to the barrels and give you an advance barrel-tasting of an upcoming vintage. Oftentimes, there were no fees for tasting and if there were, you got to take home a souvenir glass. It was informal and unpretentious and all about your and the host’s love of wine.
Tastings are almost never free anymore, but there are still places where you can find informal experiences. Increasingly, though, they are being replaced with expensive or unbearably pretentious private tastings–or worse yet, drunken free-for-alls in over-the-top tasting rooms. Not long ago, Mr. Stone Soup and I visited Napa with friends who insisted on tasting at a particular winery. Mr. Soup and I should have followed our instincts, skipped the $75 tasting fee and stayed in the car. Instead, we were treated to a tasting room that featured mannequins dressed in bustiers perched on trapezes dangling from stainless steel ceilings and disco-ball lighting–I can’t make this up. I remember nothing about the wines (other than that they were very expensive) because the tasting experience was so bizarre. What I do remember were the legions of people drinking way too much and competing with each other to scream over loud music in an echo chamber. This kind of spectacle drinking is not about the wine, it’s about pure (and very weird) entertainment. Well, that, and just getting drunk.
It was also during this time that wine prices started to soar. As wineries had to pay for not only the expensive real estate, but also the Disneylandesque experience, wine prices also had to go up commensurate with the added entertainment expense. I think this was the point at which the California wine experience went a little off the rails. Well, that and because of dreadful movies like “Sideways,” which showed a much seamier side to wine-tasting than I’ve ever experienced. And trust me–the more entertainment-based the wine tasting is, typically the less enjoyable the wine itself is. Why? because the winery is more invested in the entertainment than the wine.
Beware though, even when the winery seems to be putting the wine first, the experience can get overly fussy, not to mention expensive. We were recently guests at a private, guided tasting with a price tag of $100.00 per person, where the winery host led a super-pretentious and singularly unenjoyable tasting experience. The object of the tasting was to identify the type of mostly very mediocre wine we were drinking–zinfandel, pinot, cab–like that. How can I say this? It just wasn’t any fun.
Everyday folks can fall into this trap too: we attended a dinner party many years ago where the hostess made herself and her husband bananas by switching out our glassware with each change of wine. By the end of the evening, there were 30-40 dirty wine glasses waiting to be cleaned up by our now breathless hosts. There were only 10 of us at the dinner party. Hear me when I say: if it holds liquid and has a hole in it, you can drink wine from it. Are there nuances of the wines you’re going to miss by not drinking from the exactly appropriate shape of glass? Yes, but save that for the tasting room, and for a different blog.
Here’s the thing: eating and drinking has to be fun or WHAT’S THE POINT?
All of this is not to say that there aren’t still some wonderful wine experiences out there–you just have make up your mind to avoid the glitz, glamour and pretense of the wineries who take entertainment more seriously than wine. There are also wines that you can enjoy daily that don’t boast a bloated price tag, and I’ll try to highlight those wines in this blog. After all–our immigrant ancestors tried to teach us this: food and wine go together like salt and pepper–enjoy them in moderation as an enhancement to your food. Additionally, there are wines that are pricier, but well worth the money. I’ll also be highlighting these wines when appropriate.
So what’s the takeaway for this blog? I like wine and I enjoy drinking it with my dinner on a daily basis–especially with friends. I am not a very pretentious person. Particular? perhaps; but not very pretentious. I can keep it up for a little while–for example, I love to set a beautiful table for a dinner party–but at some point, I just don’t want to do all those dishes.
Going forward, I’ll be sharing my take on California Comfort Cuisine/Stone Soup Cuisine, including dishes inspired by other cultures, and I’ll be recommending complimentary wine pairings from time-to-time. They will mostly be wines that I think are a good value for the quality. I will not be recommending a wine just for the prestige–for one thing, I can’t afford them–for another, I don’t think that’s the point of wine. You should drink what YOU enjoy, not what someone tells you that you should enjoy.
With all that said, please tune in tomorrow as I turn a metaphorical page on this blog. As always, I’m looking forward to what’s ahead and right now, I’m looking forward in a way I’ve not felt before. I hope that’s a good thing and I hope you will take the journey with me–
Until then–
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
