help? ... and spam of course

So, do I need to go make diacritical marks?

Lars, thanks for the suggestion about the gamay description. I changed it.

As far as the sentence about wine = BBQ sauce. It's a core lesson of all my experience with this restaurant. In practice, I'd like to suggest that lots of sauce will tend to defeat the flavors of wine (and any other beverage that isn't properly sugary.) I see them more as alternatives. And then there's the agricultural rationale behind sauce/wine. they are convergent forms. tomato/pepper wine = grape sauce. It's all preserved liquid fruit for flavoring smoked meat. Slows offers five sauces, but most people will taste one sauce at a time. And sauce use is not universal either.

Help me come up with a way of suggesting this, at least the practical part. Space is limited of course.
 
originally posted by Putnam Weekley: what Zins do you suggest?
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Dashe Dry Crk Val '07
Hendry Napa Primitivo Bl 24 '6
Quivira Dry Crk Val '05
Ravenswood Big River Alex Val '05
Ridge Geyserville
Ridge Pagani Ranch '06
Rosenblum Redwood Val Annette's Reserve '04
Seghesio Sonoma '07
Summers Napa Villa Andriana '06
.
and a host of others.
.
.
. . . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Putnam Weekley:
Pete, maybe its the specific dry rub used at Slows, but we've found that many high alcohol/low acid wines can be harsh with our food.
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Also, if one utilizes some of the sauces that are just sitting on the table, especially the sweet sauce or the apple BBQ sauce, the food is immediately too sweet and fruity for such wines. The fruit's already slathered all over the plate.

Hrm. I miss sitting on the Slows patio pounding bottles of Les Giroflees.
 
I know that I'm nitpicking here, but it would be nice to know vintages, too.

Mark Lipton
(just think what happens if those nits are left unpicked)
 
I agree that it's within the realm of mathematical possibility. But that's about it. I suspect it's equally likely that his fingers slipped and accidentally hit "al" when he meant to type "y".

Apply common sense:

"The wine made from a single grape variety I like best with BBQ (and most any tomato based preparation) is almost always Zin."

Seem likely? Not very. I've never seen that construction, anywhere. Not once.

(BTW, I'm picking on Pete here. Don't mean to. Just the usual pedantry.)
 
originally posted by Thor: I'm picking on Pete here. Don't mean to. Just the usual pedantry.)
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Thor, Not a problem!

I saw your posting and it never occurred to me that it was directed at me. Now you say it is!?!

My usage is a very common one. What problem do you see with my use of the term?

Varietal - defined as a wine made principally from one grape and carrying the name of that grape
[END QUOTE]

Again, not a problem...just curious!?!

. . . . . . . Pete
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If you really meant to restrict your range of BBQ-accompanying wines to only those made from a single grape variety, then I guess Jeff is right and you used "varietal" correctly, and I apologize for the misplaced pedantry. Though your followup list of recommended zinfandels certainly includes more than a few non-varietal wines, so there would seem to be a conflict there.

If you meant "varietal" as another word for "grape," as in:

"The [grape] I like best with BBQ (and most any tomato based preparation) is almost always Zin."

...then the word you wanted was "variety."
 
originally posted by Thor: If you really meant to restrict your range of BBQ-accompanying wines to only those made from a single grape variety, then I guess Jeff is right and you used "varietal" correctly,
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Thor, No apology necessary! I like wordsmithing.

You left out the word "principally".

Varietal - defined as a wine made principally from one grape and carrying the name of that grape
[END QUOTE]

All of the wines I mentioned would fall under this definition (at least as I interpret it).

. . . . . . . Pete
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Well, not the Geyserville.

But OK, I now see that you did mean to exclude blends (other than Geyserville) from your pantheon of possible BBQ-matches, and so I apologize again.
 
originally posted by Thor: not the Geyserville.
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Thor, The Geyserville vacillates above and below 75% Zin in different vintages. The Ridge folks prefer to call it Geyserville even when it technically could be called a Zin varietal.

I think this is probably a good strategy by Ridge given the high quality of the bottling year in and year out.

. . . . . . . Pete
 
But if you're going to call the Geyserville, which occasionally drops closer to 50% zinfandel (and does not use the grape as an identifier anymore) a varietal wine, then you'd be justified in (for example) identifying most Chteauneuf-du-Pape as varietal grenache. Yet I suspect -- I haven't done a survey -- that most people consider CdP a blend, aside from the monovarietal super-cuves, and I suspect you do as well.

More specifically, if you think Geyserville qualifies as a varietal wine, how do you define a blend in the context of wine? To me, if Geyserville is a varietal wine, then there's almost no such thing as a blend, and as a corollary no specificity to the word "varietal" as a suggestion of monocpage.
 
What's incorrect about monovarietal? It's redundant, perhaps, but not incorrect, since "varietal" is the adjectival form therein, no?
 
I'd write "single variety" (or more likely "single-variety"), but I'm still not clear on how "monovarietal" is incorrect.

Monocultural. Polysyllabic. Monomaniacal.

All wrong to you as well? They should be monoculture, polysyllable, monomaniac?

(edit) Again, I'll agree that there's a measure of redundancy in "monovarietal." So if you'd prefer "varietal Chteauneuf-du-Pape" to refer to grenache- (or mourvdre-)only cuves, I've no objection.
 
"Monocpage" (n.b. not "monocpageux") is what you're basing it on. Otherwise you'd say "single-variety."

But while this is delightful hair-splitting, you're probably right and I'm probably skewed by speaking Frog too much.

ETA: Agree about the Chteauneuf-du-Pape.
 
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