WINE
After years of drinking more wine, and more expensive wine every year, Americans are reacting to the economic downturn by drinking at least as much, but cheaper wine, shop owners say.
WINE
To hear Michel Chapoutier talk, you might think he's a maverick. ''I'm not trying to make the best wine possible,'' he says. ``I'm trying to create the best expression of the soil.''
NEW PRODUCT
The mojito, that seductive rum mint julep from Cuba, has taken over the cocktail scene (though technically, it's a highball, not a cocktail). So it was only a matter of time before those wily folk at Bacardi would come out with a pre-mixed version: the Bacardi Classic Cocktail Mojito.
As Passover approaches (its first night is Saturday), Jewish Americans turn their attention to kosher products. The Nielsen polling people say this season will see purchases of:
WINE
Festivals, festivals. This time it's the Miami Wine and Food Festival, pouring wines last Thursday from 60 makers in the courtyard of the elegant shopping mall Villages of Merrick Place in Coral Gables. The walk-around tasting had a marvelous selection.
CLINK!
Victoria's Secret wants you to wear the word across your bum. Now romantics can drink in the P.I.N.K., a caffeine- and guarana-infused vodka that Pamela Anderson and Eva Longoria have been seen sipping.
MIAMI WINE AND FOOD FESTIVAL
Christopher Zoller, real estate exec and amateur chef, had a ready explanation for why six feet of flames shot up from the skillet of scallops he was cooking.
On Jan. 15, 1920, the night before Prohibition was to begin, a handful of stalwarts gathered at Johnny Schrader's Feed Store in Fort Lauderdale for a final few public drinks and what the local newspaper would primly describe as ``highjinks.''
WINE
Alex Trebek: Sparta and Troy, Harvard and Yale, Napa and Sonoma. Contestant: What are history's eternally enduring rivalries? It's true. Napa and Sonoma, two neighboring northern California counties, each making some of the world's best wine, have a spirited competition that's quickly apparent to all who visit.
CLINK!
Who says cocktail lovers can't have their spirits and antioxidants shaken and stirred in one glass? Those looking to keep themselves healthy and energetic just need to add a dash of Purple into their alcohol of choice. The beverage combines seven high-antioxidant fruits. And, according to researchers, adding alcohol to the fruits boosts their antioxidant count. These cocktails are making a splash at Miami spots such as DeVito's and the Essex House Hotel lounge in South Beach.
WINE
As I hope you've noticed, I spend a lot of time writing about inexpensive wines, which these days means $20 or less a bottle. Unlike buyers of $12 wine magazines, a lot of newspaper readers are casual wine fans, unlikely to spend $40 for something to drink with dinner. I hope that gives me the credibility to write once in a while -- like today -- about expensive wines.
CLINK!
In Key Biscayne, they're serving up an ace -- the Sapphire Ace, a bright orange cocktail created for tennis fans at this weekend's Sony Ericsson Open by the makers of Bombay Sapphire Gin.
WINE
It had to happen. Wine consultants survey the country and find that 21- to 35-year-olds prefer wine to beer. And, while they like wine, they know little about it, and have no strong brand loyalties.
ON THE WEB
If there is a go-to wine guy for today's twentysomethings, he's Gary Vaynerchuk. His daily Wine Library TV video blogs at tv.winelibrary.com, part of the retail website for his parents' Springfield, N.J., wine shop, are a hyperkinetic mix of serious wine knowledge and irreverent critiques -- never mind that his family sells the same wines.
CLINK!
Fleming's Prime Steakhouse and Wine Bar's Sonoma Fog is a ''vinotini'' -- a martini made with grape-based vodka and white dessert wine and topped with a sweet froth.
WINE
Winemakers who create the world's fine sauvignon blancs probably never will agree on how it should be done. This is a good thing in that it guarantees a wonderful variety of styles, and a bit of a drawback in that, as Forrest Gump would say, you never know what you're going to get.
CLINK!
''The Troubles'' may be a thing of the past in Northern Ireland, but a liquid legacy of those tragic times is still a hit on college campuses and at Irish bars.
When hard-charging former Texas Instruments exec Kathy Charlton offered Bordeaux winemaker Benoit Murat a job in her new winery on the Pacific Ocean side of Seattle in 1999, he wondered if she was serious.
WINE
Chardonnay remains the chameleon of grapes, infinitely malleable depending upon where the grapes are grown, when they're picked and how they're made into wine.
CLINK!
At Andú Restaurant & Lounge, open about a month in Miami's Brickell neighborhood, they're forgoing the muddled mint found in countless cocktails for snappy cilantro.
WINE
A ticket to the Grand Tastings at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival in Miami Beach last week went for $187.50, and was offered by scalpers on eBay for $400 and more. But even fans willing to pay those prices don't drink $50 wines every night at home.
WINE
The Vinturi Essential Wine Aerator is not exactly a kitchen essential, unless Frasier and Niles are dropping by, but it's a nifty item for wine lovers and gadget hounds.
MY KIND OF TOWN
Anthony Bourdain prefers San Loco for the burritos. Mario Batali enjoys Las Vacas Gordas. And Paula Deen is a fan of Joe's Stone Crab.
UP FRONT | WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL
The four-day South Beach Wine & Food Festival, culminating Sunday with a brunch honoring British chef Jamie Oliver and a second day of Grand Tasting excess under oceanside tents at Lummus Park, may seem like one more celeb-filled, alcohol-fueled excuse to party for a town that patented the form.
I'm writing from the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, where it seems impossible to leave hungry -- or thirsty. For buyers of a $187.50 ticket to the Grand Tasting Village on Sunday, the adventure begins at check-in.
Impressed by Padma Lakshmi's decolletage, my table neighbor at the $500 Jean-Georges Vongerichten tribute dinner Saturday night at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel went to have his photo taken next to the celebrity chef, Salman Rushdie's ex-wife and the event's hostess. The evening had other delights.
WINE & FOOD NOTEBOOK
Friday's by-invitation ''trade'' tasting yielded this advice for wine fans with tickets to the South Beach Wine & Food Festival's sold-out Grand Tastings on Saturday and Sunday:
Fun & Fit as a Family, the first-time South Beach Wine & Food Festival event aimed at combating childhood obesity, brought Food Network stars Rachael Ray and Jamie Oliver to Jungle Island Saturday.
Going to the Sunday Grand Tasting? Here are tips from one Saturday reveler: The second tent is better than the first, with superior food choices all around ( Ritz Carlton, Pura Vida, The Diplomat, STK, to name a few). The Verizon Wireless area is lively and engaging, and the wineries are a tad better.
Paul and Leanne Sutton of Davie didn't get their hands on tickets for Saturday's sold-out Grand Tasting until just before the gates opened. They paid a broker $225 each (list price was $187.50 plus tax and fees), but they weren't complaining.
When we caught up with Jamie Oliver, one of the honorees at Sunday's tribute brunch, in the green room at the Grand Tasting Village, he couldn't stop raving about a meal he'd had the night before at Michael Schwartz's Michael's Genuine Food & Drink in the Design District.
Saturday's record-breaking, 89-degree heat didn't go unnoticed at the Grand Tasting. ''I'm wilting,'' Rachael Ray moaned during her cooking demonstration. But still, she turned off the huge fan for the audience Q&A.
Take your pick: live cooking demonstrations by Food Network stars like Rachael Ray, cocktail lessons by master mixologists or a chance to sample hundreds of wines and gourmet foods from top purveyors and chefs.
Food Network superstar and official event host Rachael Ray had husband John Cusimano in tow at Thursday night's Burger Bash, the kickoff event for the seventh annual South Beach Wine & Food Festival.
So you can't exactly afford Emeril Lagasse's $125-per-head Sugar Shack party at Raleigh Hotel (10 p.m. Friday, 1775 Collins Ave.) or the $200, 3 ½-hour Wine Spectator seminars at the Miami Beach Convention Center (10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1901 Convention Center Dr.). Don't worry, there are plenty of relatively cheap events to check out.
Even if you're not headed to the Wine & Food Festival, you can feel part of the Epicurean extravaganza. Alternatives to the official event include wine tastings and chef appearances -- many of them free.
Grand Tasting Village: 13th Street and Ocean Drive, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (culinary and lifestyle seminars), 1 to 5 p.m. (grand tasting), Saturday and Sunday.
MY KIND OF TOWN
Giada De Laurentiis, the upbeat, photogenic Food Network star (Everyday Italian and Giada's Weekend Getaways) makes cooking seem like the most fun thing in the world.
SOUTH BEACH WINE & FOOD FESTIVAL
Aaron Traxel, an Aventura investor and wine fan, isn't going to the Grand Tastings at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, which kicks off Thursday in South Beach. ''They raised the ticket price by $50. That's ridiculous,'' he said.
WINE
Who blogs about wine? Well, I do, now, on a blog called ''Wine Beneath the Palms'' at MiamiHerald.com/Wine. What kinds of people blog?
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