Design Your Own Tasting of Old World Malbecs, RWB Ticket Discount

A few weeks ago we asked you, our readers, to design our next wine tasting.

Think about it a minute, we said.

We wanted you to taste the wines (Old World Malbecs from Cahors, France).

We wanted you to hear from the winery owner (Philippe Lejeune of Chateau Chambert).

We wanted you to go home with a better handle on Malbecs than you did when you arrived.

That's where we started. And that's where we'll end. What happens in between, was for you to tell us.

And so you did.

Quite the opinionated lot you are.

Conduct a blind (blindfold-optional!) tasting of Malbecs versus other wines, you said. Multiple winners allowed. (Naturally, we said.)

Give me a recipe so I could use Malbec in my kitchen, you said.

Tell me how the owner of the winery prefers to drink his wine, you said.

Make it fun, practical and personal, you said. And invite a starving artist musician to play.

All good, good, and good. (Especially for the contest winner, who submitted the best entry and won two free tickets to the tasting.)

We are already doing our best to use as many of your suggestions as possible, beginning with the time frame (you preferred earlier in the evening), the venue (central Boston location), the reasonable price (RWB readers get a special discount), and the post-tasting dinner (at Sel de la Terre in the Back Bay).

What's left is for you to grab your tickets, show up, and see your ideas in action.

Oh, and taste some killer Malbecs -- the original version -- while you're at it.


WHAT: Tasting of Old World Malbecs with Philippe Lejeune of Chateau Chambert
WHERE: Bulthaup Designer Showroom, 200 Boylston Street, Boston
WHEN: Saturday, March 6 from 5 to 7 p.m.
COST: Normally $25. $20 for Red White Boston readers with the Discount Code RWBCAHORS.

ALSO: Post-Tasting Dinner with Philippe Lejeune
WHERE: Sel de la Terre Back Bay, 774 Boylston Street, Boston
RSVP: Just let us know.


DAILY TIDBIT:

Old World Malbec is a little bit like the Marlboro Man, but without the nicotine. It's rugged. Long-lasting. Original. It does its own thing, current tastes be damned. "Current tastes," if you're a Malbec drinker, likely means the Argentinian iteration of the grape. Old World Malbec wines from Cahors, France, however, have been known since the thirteenth century as "the wine of popes, kinds, and czars."

Wine Week-End Wine. White and Red All Over.

What really is a Super Tuscan?

What really changes when a wine shop comes under new management?

How much better, really, is a wine shop at wine-food pairings just because it's an extension of the gourmet deli next door?

And what does it mean, after all, to be "Boston's most innovative wine shop"?

Pick one -- or all -- of these riddles to answer. Then follow them up at their sources, below, tomorrow afternoon.

The best part, other than (obviously) knowing the solution?

None of them will cost you a dime.


WHAT: Tasting of Super Tuscans
WHERE: Berman's Wine and Spirits, 55 Massachusetts Avenue, Lexington
WHEN: Saturday, February 20 from 3 to 6 p.m.
COST: $0

WHAT: Wine Tasting (of southern Italian wines) to Celebrate the Grand Reopening
WHERE: OurGlass Wine Co., 124A Broadway, Route 1 North, Saugus
WHEN: Saturday, February 20 from 1 to 5 p.m.
COST: $0

WHAT: Wine Tasting + Hors d'Oeuvres from Henry's Foods of Beverly
WHERE: Henry's Wine Cellar, 588 Cabot Street, Beverly
WHEN: Saturday, February 20 from 2 to 5 p.m.
COST: $0

WHAT: Complimentary Wine Tasting
WHERE: Vinodivino, 899 Walnut Street, Newton
WHEN: Saturday, February 20 from 1 to 5 p.m.

COST: $0


DAILY TIDBIT:

Compared to the year before, the sale of domestic wine increased 4.6% while imported wine declined 1% in the 52 weeks ending January 9, 2010. (Source: The Nielsen Company, as reported on WineBusiness.com)

Prix Fixe Menu (at Sportello) + Live Music (at the ICA) = Night Out

Dinner and a movie?

Nah.

Dinner and a live music performance?

Hmmm...

How about dinner (when it's prix-fixe at Sportello) and a live music performance (when the music is at the Institute of Contemporary Art from unconventional pianist Christopher O'Riley showcasing songs by R.E.M., Nirvana, the Cocteau Twins and more)?

Now that's much, much more like it.

Call it a night out on Boston's waterfront.

We call it art.

Of the edible and the performance varieties.


WHAT: Prix Fixe Pre-Theater Menu (exclusive to ICA performances)
WHERE: Sportello, 348 Congress Street, Boston
WHEN: Performances from now through May, beginning February 27 with Christopher O'Riley
COST: $35 (excluding beverage, tax, gratuity)


DAILY TIDBIT:

Wine blogger Tom Wark offers 50 suggestions for maintaining Facebook fan pages for wine businesses. They include:

4. Pictures of visitors to your winery that you recently met or hosted

10. Comments on what your business says about our economy

16. Recommendations on other wineries to visit and why

28. Public announcements when you've discovered a Fan did something great!

29. Link to a recipe you think would work with one of your wines

30. Expose Fans to your favorite charities

45. Tell Fans about a great "other person's wine" you tasted

50. Occasionally explain why you love making wine.

Wine Everywhere, Just Because It's Wednesday

Not sure if you've noticed, but Wednesdays have become the wine lover's highlight of the week.

Here, hypothetically, could be your itinerary on any given Wednesday, should you wish to pursue the pleasures of wine from one part of town to another.

All that's required: good friends, an open heart, and enough fare for the T ride home.


Start at 5 p.m. at Federal Wine & Spirits on State Street. The place is cavernous, the steps downstairs to the tasting are treacherous, and the wines they pour are always (always) worth the effort.

Between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m., make your way to Rialto in Cambridge. Wine Director Brad Nugent will hand you two tastings, one white and one red, gratis. (This week he's pouring a 2007 Furmint from Austria and a 2007 Cabernet Franc from the Loire.)

Hungry yet? Head back over to the Bristol Lounge at the Four Seasons and pull up a chair for their Burgers & Burgundy offering. Anytime between 5 and 10:30 p.m., order their super-special Bristol burger (with truffle fries, housemade pickles and Vermont cheddar cheese) with two half-glasses of Burgundy, all for $30.

Or try the three-courses-for-$18 Pasta Tour at Tavolo in Dorchester. They spotlight a different part of Italy each week -- this time around it's Roma -- and as for what to drink, just put your trust in the folks at the bar.

Then, for a light finish to the evening, try Sel de la Terre's Long Wharf location for oysters shucked fresh at $1 each from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Round those out with a crisp sparkling wine or a clean Sauvignon Blanc, and you've got yourself quite a nightcap.


DAILY TIDBIT:

The TImes of London reported yesterday that French viticulturalists are trying to generate new profits from the by-products of wine production that used to be discarded. Producers are developing medicines and supplements based on leftover materials such as grape seed extracts. One such product from the Loire is called Dionysox, a drink made from skins and other grape residue that is the non-alcoholic equivalent of two glasses of wine.

Drinks with Sticks, Food Too, at Casablanca

So maybe it's a gimmick, this drinks-with-sticks thing.

But it's a fun one, and if there was a restaurant to pull it off, it's Casablanca.

That's because both the drinks and the food at Casablanca are particularly skewer-worthy.

They call it the Skewer Menu.

We call it budget-friendly, as in $5 for three skewers and two sauces, and $8 for cocktails.

And limited-offer, as in dinner only on Mondays and Tuesdays.

As for the food, think kebabs: lamb, veggie, shrimp, beef, chicken.

As for the drinks, think candied lime (on a skewer, naturally) accompanying the Dark and Stormy. Cherries with the Manhattan. Antipasti with the Martini.

Puts a whole new twist on the swizzle stick, doesn't it?


DAILY TIDBIT:

In 1933 an engineer named Jay Sindler was looking for a way to get the olive out of his Martini without using his fingers. He invented the swizzle stick -- with a spear-point on one end -- and was awarded a patent for it in 1935.

Wine + Cheese : Fire + Glass, Diablo Glass School

Not at all sure what it is about the folks over at the Diablo Glass School in Roxbury.

But they have been bih-zee.

As in, signing on master glass cutter Mosehn Kazemi.

As in, providing studio space to students from MassArt and BU etc etc etc.

As in, giving local teenagers a place to go -- for vacation week, the summer, and all other times too -- and teaching things like flameworking, glassblowing, and casting.

And then there is the wine.

Once a month Diablo hosts a wine tasting and live glass blowing demonstration.

At the same time.

Here's what happens.

They pour you a glass. And it will not be some cheap wine either. It will be carefully chosen by an importer who specializes in small-producer French and Italian wines.

Then they begin the demonstration, from bowl to stem to base.

You are mesmerized. It's got to do with all that fire and all that heat emanating from the furnaces, plus the choreography of the process, plus oh yes the wine.

A few hours later you will leave, warm on the outside and on the inside too.

WHAT: Wine and Cheese Tasting + Glass Blowing Demonstration
WHERE: Diablo Glass School, 123 Terrace Street, Boston
WHEN: Monthly. Next event is February 27 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
COST: $35


DAILY TIDBIT:

Less than 12% of the US population drinks more than 90% of the wine consumed in this country. (In other words, not everyone loves wine but those of us who do, really really do!)

For the Love of Wine

"Where there is no wine there is no love."
--- Euripedes

"Never bring up your better bottles if you are entertaining a man who cannot talk. Keep your treasures for a night when those few who are nearest to your heart can gather round your table, free from care, with latchkeys in their pocket and no last train to catch."
--- Maurice Healy, Claret

May our love be like good wine, grow stronger as it grows older.
--- Old English toast

"Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need. A homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink. For thirst is a dangerous thing."
--- Jerome K. Jerome

Wine gives us liberty, love takes it away.
Wine makes us princes, love makes us beggars.
--- Wycherly

And we meet, with champagne and a chicken, at last.
--- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

I get no kick from champagne.
Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all.
So tell me why should it be true,
That I get a kick out of you.
--- Cole Porter

In water one sees one's own face. But in wine, one beholds the heart of another.
--- Old French proverb


DAILY TIDBIT:
Excerpts from Gayot's Top Ten Wines for Valentine's Day:

1. Champagne Jean Milan
Why: "Faintly sweet, feminine yet full-bodied."

2. Chateau Haut Marbuzet
Why: "The palate is voluptuous with an underlying note that's masculine, feral and sexy."

3. Deviation Dessert Wine from Quady Winery
Why: "Made with orange Muscat infused with damlana, a Latin American aphrodisiac herb."

4. Tandem Chardonnay
Why: "It has an almost salty quality that just makes the mouth water for more."

5. Taylor Fladgate 30-Year Old Tawny Port
Why: "It balances sweet with tongue-teasing freshness... Its finish is long and seductive, with toffee, chocolate, and roasted nuts."