champagne taste on a Spaghetti-O budget
In your search for affordable, easy drinking wines, let others do the leg work for you. A good place to discover new wines is at restaurants that have designated "house" wines, which are usually selected for their good value, broad appeal and availability. Or, stay at home and experiment. The same $16 that buys the least expensive selection on a restaurant's wine list (make that $20 after tax and tip), can let you feel like a big spender in the wine section of your grocery store.
one is the loneliest number
Wine, like sex, can be enjoyed alone, but it's infinitely more pleasurable when paired with the right partner. Once you've lead yourself to the wines you like, dabble in the art of matching them with food. Eventually, you'll discover the combinations that work for you and gain the confidence to boldly go where no one has gone before. (My favorite fusion is a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon and chocolate cake.)
waiting to exhale
There's a lot of mystique attached to the ritual of letting wines breathe and the "art" of decanting. It's true that older reds tend to reach their full potential after they've been uncorked and left to stand for a bit. But for a wine to breathe properly, it must be poured out of the bottle, because the amount of surface area at the neck doesn't expose enough of the juice to the air. At home, I pour the first two glasses while I'm cooking. This simple version of decanting allows the wine to breathe to its heart's content in both the glass and the bottle. Even if you do nothing the wine will "open up" as you drink your way through the bottle. Becoming conscious of the subtle changes that occur as the wine breathes takes you to the next level of awareness.
don't swallow
Different parts of your tongue are sensitive to different tastes. The tip senses sweet, the sides acid, the back bitter and the middle salt. To fully appreciate the virtues of a wine, don't just swallow it in reckless abandon -- roll it all around your tongue and savor its characteristics. (For those of you with pierced tongues, try not to dribble.)
less is more
Sampling too many fine wines during the same dinner can lead to the this-is-great-but-I-can't-wait-for-the-next-bottle paradox. I've observed this phenomenon at many exclusive multi-chef, food-and-wine orgies. In many instances, the great wines cancel themselves out. Sharing a single bottle with one person gives you the opportunity to savor all of its nuances and provides enough elixir to leave an enduring imprint on your palate.
timing is everything
Avoid the temptation to uncork your treasured bottles at the end of a night of drinking -- despite the inevitability that the idea will seem inspired at the time. (And trust me, no one will attempt to discourage you.) Always serve the best stuff while the taste buds are sober.
hoarding is still legal in most states
Save your most treasured wines for those who will appreciate them. To weed out anyone who would've preferred a Bud but didn't want to inconvenience you, use the following multiple choice quiz: Cabernet is (A) a new Volkswagen convertible, (B) a piece of French furniture or (C) a desirable grape.
now is Zen
Confucius say, "He who holds out too long for 'the perfect occasion' may leave behind many unopened bottles."
it never feels like the first time
The company (especially a dream date), occasion, surroundings and accompanying food can have more influence on your lingering memory of a wine than the grapes themselves. To avoid disappointment, don't expect another identical bottle to ring the same bells it did the first time.
glass blowing
It's true that specially shaped (read: pricey) stemware can bring you closer to a state of oneness with a wine's bouquet. It's also true that the Concord gets you to Paris faster. Does that mean that you should take the Concord? Only when you can comfortably afford it. Paris is Paris. Stemware is stemware.
wineman's bluff
There's a proverb in the art world that says if a work of art isn't selling, double the price. In my travels I've been privy to conversations revealing that certain winemakers inflate their prices substantially, simply as a marketing ploy. Gaga reviews and over-the-top ratings by wine magazines can also drive the price of a wine well beyond its true market value. Abandon these "masterpieces," and search for a similar wine with an inferior publicist.
just drink it
Learn when to ignore everything everyone (including me) has ever told you about wine protocol. Sometimes wine drinking, like spontaneous sex on the kitchen table, is just more satisfying when you throw out all the rules. Back to top
Food Trends
Fourteen-dollar sliders, $50 bowls of macaroni and cheese, and $250 desserts aren't exactly common at upscale restaurants, but where they're offered, they often sell quite well and can create a lot of buzz.
"We sell gobs and gobs of those [sliders]," says Todd Miller, the chef who developed them but has since moved to Washington Square restaurant, which, with Barclay Prime, is owned by the Starr Restaurant Organization.
Miller's former sous chef, Jim Locascio, has taken his place, and he has kept the sliders on the menu, along with the $100 cheese steak.
Barclay Prime sells about seven of its $100 cheese steaks every night.
It features thinly sliced Kobe beef with caramelized shallots. They're topped with heirloom tomatoes when those are in season and vine-ripened tomatoes when they're not. Either way, they're sliced in a fine julienne, "so when they hit the meat or any kind of heat, they just melt," Miller says.
The meat is topped with a Tallegio cheese sauce along with half of a poached lobster sliced into medallions and warmed in butter. Black truffle tops that, and it's all served on four-peppercorn artisanal bread brushed with truffle butter mellowed out with a little lemon. A split of Champagne accompanies the cheese steak.
With the Champagne, the dish has a food cost of more than 60 percent, but it gets people talking.
Miller of Barclay Prime and Washington Square in the past has offered what he calls a "foie gras PB & J"
That's pistachio butter and fruit preserves — recently, apricots cooked with thyme and cardamom. He says it tastes like a "three- dimensional peanut butter and jelly." He sold it at Barclay Prime for $16.
"It was kind of an introduction for people who didn't know what foie gras was," he says. He notes that by combining it with food that people like and feel comfortable with, he makes it more accessible. Back to top
