Goodbye, Jack...

It's been a sad week here at kybecca - way beyond bizzare celebrity deaths. Our very own Jack Morrison, will be leaving us in two weeks.

Jack has been shopping at kybecca since the store opened in March of 2005. After his beloved record store, Blue Dog, closed in April of 2005, Jack took some time off, and then Kyle offered him a position at our humble wine shop.

Many of our customers were his customers, and remember him fondly (as Jack is always friendly, courteous and professional.) Jack also has a wonderful palate, with an honest appreciation for wine and extensive knowledge. Something you may not know is that Jack is very gifted at writing tasting notes (the majority of the notes you see in the shop and at wines tastings are his.)

So Jack...runner of marathons, drinker of wine, lover of jazz....you are loved and will be missed.

Be sure to drop by kybecca on William Street in the next couple of weeks to wish Jack well in his new endeavors. Also, drop him a nice note on here.

I'll Take My Burger Medium, Please

I was reading Eric Asimov's always fascinating article, this week about beer taverns in New York. This paragraph caught my eye:

"I moved on to the food station. Weary of the numerous variations on the sausage that I had consumed in a recent survey of New York’s latest crop of beer bars, and wary of the slightly forlorn-looking sushi — yes, 21st century — I ordered a burger, medium rare. “We don’t take temperature orders for burgers,” the server told me. “They all come out medium anyway.”I would have been so grateful if it had. Instead, the prefab burger, as flat and tasteless a patty as any ever slung at a company picnic, was cooked dry, perhaps to compensate for the wet bun on which it rested."

Mr. Asimov might have been served a bad burger, but not because it was cooked medium. In my humble opinion, the medium rare burger is hugely over-rated. Here's why.

People seem to assume that because the best steaks are cooked rare or medium rare, with lots of pink showing, the same is true of burgers. It is not. For starters, burgers are made of ground beef, which means that you are not eating the best cuts from the cow. Not only that, but unlike steak where you trim the fat off, the fat in ground beef is mixed in. That means that when you eat a rare or medium-rare burger, you are eating uncooked fat. I hate the texture and taste of uncooked fat, as do most people.

Now, when I say a medium burger, I don't mean the over-cooked version Mr. Asimov got. I don't mean well done. I mean barely, just barely cooked through. It might even have a light shade of pink showing. That point when the fat has been cooked, but just barely. That's when a burger is at its juiciest, best goodness.

If anybody does not believe me that medium is the best way to cook a burger, I'm always up for a challenge.

Cooking At Home For Father's Day? Try This Easy Side Dish

Side dishes annoy me. I like them, but when I'm cooking a meal I find them an inconvenience because all my attention is on the main course. Side dishes like this recipe, for fingerling potatoes cooked in bacon, are great because they're fairly easy and delicious. I often cook potatoes in bacon fat because they absorb the flavor so well. And my guess is that your father/husband probably likes bacon.

Judging Wines At The Virginia State Fair

Last Monday I was one of the judges of the VA State Fair wine competition, the second year I have participated. The fair is not until autumn, but the competition takes place in advance and then the gold medal winners get to show their wines at the fair.

I am happy to report that I found the overall quality of wines to be better this year than last. There weren't very many that I rated below a 75 (out of 100), the score that basically says the wine is not fit for human consumption. The bad news is that there also weren't very many wines that I thought were excellent or outstanding - most were either good or pretty good. There are something like 154 wineries in Virginia now producing many different wines - we need more outstanding ones or Virginia wine will not get the national recognition that other states, like Washington, have.

There were 214 wines entered in the competition, of which I tasted about half. It's pretty grueling, actually. By the end you just want a beer. It also becomes harder to tell the reds apart towards the end, which is disadvantage if your wine happens to land there. Still, it was an interesting experience and it's always fun to have an influence on a wine's future.

Feeling the Heat

Summer coming on brings daydreams of grilling, entertaining, cold beer and refreshing white wine. But after a few too many beer commercials, it's kind of stuck in our heads that all beer must be served "ice cold" -- and the same popular wisdom comes into play for our wines -- whites served cold, reds served at room temperature.

Today The Pour, a NY Times blog, tries to set the record straight:

"My point, simply put, is that too often we drink white wine far too cold, which deprives us of tasting the nuanced aromas and flavors in a good bottle. A bad bottle benefits from being highly chilled. The cold masks imbalances and flabbiness. But a good bottle? The cold can hide all the qualities that make it a good bottle . . .

But with white wine – good white wine — I really believe that the experience can be entirely different at a warmer serving temperature. By good white wine, I don’t mean expensive white wine. It can be a $13 bottle of Muscadet, for example. Try it for yourself. This will work best if you have two bottles of the same wine.

Chill two bottles in the refrigerator – let’s say over the course of a day. That evening, remove one bottle. Allow it to sit at room temperature for 45 minutes. Then take out the remaining bottle from the fridge. Open both and sample side-by-side. I think you’ll see that the warmer one will offer far more complexity than the colder one.

While my column focuses on white wine, the reverse is true of red wine. We routinely drink it too warm, thinking that reds are meant to be served at room temperature. Yes, they are, when the temperature of the room peaks around 65 degrees. So while you’re taking those whites out of the fridge for half an hour before serving, try putting reds into the fridge for 20 minutes or so before popping the cork."

Drinking some big reds at room temperature just results in that feeling of alcohol burn, masking the real flavors of the wine. It's disappointing to order a great glass of red at a restaurant -- only to find the bottle has warmed up from being stored incorrectly. This is one of the great things about the Enomatics at kybecca, and every glass of wine served here at table -- temperature controlled every time.

Proper serving temperatures vary depending on the type of beer -- don't hesitate to ask us. Buying wine at the last minute? Don't forget the quick wine chillers at both kybecca shops!

New York Times' Eric Asimov on Two Buck Chuck

Here's a great post on the blog of Eric Asimov regarding bronco wines, the people who make "Two Buck Chuck", the nickname for the Charles Shaw wines sold at Trader Joe's. Here's a taste:

"Two-Buck Chuck fits in with this tradition. No, it’s not flawed. Very little wine is flawed in this day and age, now that we understand the science of winemaking and the importance of hygiene and temperature control in the mass-production of wines. But it is insipid. Wine-lovers today don’t need to fear flawed wines so much as dull, uninteresting wines."

I would be harder on the owner, Fred Franzia, than Mr. Asimov is. He and his kind have managed to convince huge numbers of people that wine is a simple commodity, like milk or garbage bags, and that price is the main consideration. His claim that no wine should cost more than $10 is not only absurd, I don't think even he believes that. That would be like telling me that because McDonald's sells burgers that are palatable for a couple of bucks, you should never spend more than that on a burger. Or because Wal-Mart sells dresses for cheaper than Nieman Marcus, you should always shop at Wal-Mart. These observations are no less ridiculous when applied to wine.

It's not that you can't find great wines under $10 - we sell many in that price range and stand by their quality. But they don't come from huge wine companies, they come from real winemakers who care about quality. And Mr. Asimov is also right that when you're willing to go between $10-$20, quality goes up quite a bit. I think the best value in our whole collection is the Puzelat Le Telquel, for $13.99. Best under $15 wine I've ever tasted. It wasn't made by some big, faceless wine company with revenues in the millions, it was made by one guy in Touraine, France.

Congratulations, Alabama

You can now get good beer. Alabama recently repealed their absurd law that beer that exceeded 6% alcohol could not be sold. This rules out many, if not most, of the best beers in the world. This is a good example of alcohol regulation that does more harm than good - by treating beer as a harmful beverage, Alabamans could not get exposed to beer that is more about the taste than the alcohol, further promoting the idea that beer is only for getting buzzed. It looks like the Alabama legislature finally wised up to the idea that if you treat alcohol as a dangerous beverage then people will behave irresponsibly with it.

Why Wine Might Give You Headaches

Here's a post from the Wall Street Journal's wine guide about headaches and wine and possible causes. Spoiler Alert: Sulfites have nothing to do with it.

I also recommend looking at their entire wine guide.

This is Why We Don't Carry Sam Adams

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051900868.html

Koch's hospitality, however, won't prevent the inevitable. Perhaps as early as this year, and most likely by the end of the next, his fellow craft brewers no longer will regard him as one of their own. He'll be allowed to remain in the Brewers Association, the small-brewers' trade group, as an associate member, but his barrelage will be expunged from its statistics.

It's nothing personal.

The association defines a "craft brewery" as one that's small, independent and traditional, and "small" specifically means "annual production of beer less than 2 million barrels." Boston Beer shipped 1.992 million barrels last year.

My Favorite Beer For Spicy Food

Although I prefer wine with food in general, there are certain times that I turn to beer instead. One of those is with spicy food, especially Asian. I have tried many different beers with spicy food and the style I have found that consistently pairs well is Belgian Blond Ale. I often hear people recommending hoppy beers, like India Pale Ales, with spicy food. That's never worked for me. I find that strong hops flavors tend to dominate whatever you pair them with. In contrast the malty sweetness of Belgian ales in general is a great balance to the spicy and often salty flavors of various Asian cuisines.

Beyond that, I have narrowed it down to two in particular that I like the best. One is the Maredsous Blonde, an Abbey ale (meaning monks oversee the brewing process). Slightly darker than most blondes, it is an almost amber color. It has great complexity of flavor with notes of fruits, grains, bread and yeast, and floral aromas. Better in my opinion than the more popular Delirium Tremens ale.

The second is the blonde ale from Achel. Achel is an abbey ale brewed by one of the Trappist monasteries, an order of Benedictine monks. You may have heard of the more famous Chimay Trappist Ale, or possibly Westmalle. Achel tends to be harder to find as they don't brew as much. Their blonde is on the pricey side but really outstanding. You will be surprised by how strongly flavored this beer is for its light color. I had this last night with a noodle stir fry I made and it was delicious.