Category: Posts

  • The Successful Wine Bar: No Pimpin’ Required

    A wine bar opens and begins to attract a following. Then come the lines, the need for bouncers four nights a week, and the requisite “look” necessary to not only get in the door, but be waited on. Soon there is no parking, no room for regulars, and as one guy puts it, the bar becomes “a smorgasbord of plastic, cocaine, and working girls.”

  • Flavor Profiles – Food and Wine

    Approaches to Food & Wine: Are You a Mad Scientist or Methodical Scholar? When learning to cook or to pair wine with food, I am of the opinion that Jacob’s scholarly approach is the best way. Once a good foundation is laid, let the mad scientist Alex loose. Over the years I have taken the opposite approach when learning a new skill and have regretted it, despite having some success.

  • Break-Up Wine: Do You Own a Bottle of Spite?

    On my first trip to Wine Country I knew next-to-nothing about wine. It was in the early 90s. And everyone I knew was drinking White Zinfandel. Some of the adventurous women were drinking Chardonnay. But when I met Joe later; in 1999, I still had this one spiteful little bottle of wine, I’d taken from the ex. It then traveled with me when I moved from Houston to Ohio to go to law school. And again from Toledo back to Houston. And somehow it ended up in the wine jail.

  • Wine Pairing Recipes: Wild Salmon & Mussels

    Almond Encrusted Salmon with Blood-Orange Vinaigrette; fresh Gulf Coast Mussels with a shallot Muscadet reduction, and a spinach-chevre salad. The blood-orange vinaigrette brought out a zesty orange-peel citrus in the wine, that combined well with its notes of floral and citrus. The menu was such a perfect pairing to the wine, we thought we would publish the recipes, so you could try them as well!

  • Give Birth to Your Own Little Sommelier

    “We were in our wine cave doing a barrel tasting with a couple from Houston. The cave reminded us of that special place for prenatal development. We looked at our barrel wine extractor, and it made us think of a turkey baster — and Voilà, the idea was ‘born!’ so to speak!” said Rueben, spokeschicken for El Jefe Twisted.

  • Spring Has Sprung – Anaba Coriol White Blend

    The best thing about Spring, especially for anyone living along the Gulf Coast as I do, is the signal that it’s the perfect time to start drinking white wines. So, for a recent Open that Bottle Night, we decided we needed to try a white Rhône-style blend from Anaba, their 2007 Coriol White.

  • Why do I hate Sandra Lee so much?

  • Another Wine Byte 9: Vertical Tasting

    Ladies, have you ever felt like slapping a guy who just invited you to a horizontal tasting? How about a vertical tasting? Don’t! As suggestive as it sounds, a vertical tasting isn’t an initiation into the “Mile High Club.”

  • Ann Landers, Miss Manners, and some winos in Houston

  • Great Bargain Wine – Tamari Reserva Malbec 2007