The Blind Wine Taster who really is blind

A lovely photostory from the NYT

http://nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html?hp&hp#/alexandra_elman

Bi Rite Case Sale

I'm sure many of you folks saw this already, but thought I'd mention Bi Rite is having a %20 off any case of wine sale May 14-16.

Pictures of Sweet Dreams Wine Night

Thanks everybody for a tip top evening!








Even though I had to take a sleeping pill to counter the effects of the biggest sugar rush since Fair Oaks Street on Hallowe'en.



Amazing food, company and wines! Thank you all.

The skinny on sweet wines.

Winos

The structure of Sweet Dreams was inspired by this feature on my favourite (defiantly with 'u') wine blogs: The Wine Doctor

http://www.thewinedoctor.com/author/sweet.shtml

This guy is 10 times more eloquent then I am.

He has a lot of detail on the science and practice of stickies.

Tangerine Sorbet

Tangerine sorbet is really easy to make if you have an ice cream maker like mine. All it takes in terms of ingredients is: 

• a bag of tangerines
  
• a lime
  
• a quarter to a half cup of sugar
• zest from a few tangerines and the lime

I believe the lime juice sharpens the flavor nicely. The sugar is used more as a spice to bring out flavor, rather than as a sweetener. If your tangerines, or satsumas or mandarins are at their peak of flavor you could probably omit the sugar altogether.  Tangerines tend to be very easy to juice. Just slice them crosswise, and squeeze them by hand. About a quart of juice expands to a quart and a half of sorbet.  

Once you have the sorbet, it goes nicely with a dessert wine. Or you can make a very nice tangerine mojito by combining a scoop of sorbet in a glass of ice with a shot (or two) of rum and slice of fresh ginger and a splash of soda water.  Mint works instead of ginger too.

For regular mojitos I make a lime sorbet with just lime juice and lots of sugar (no water). 

The power of sublimation

For those interested in ice wines, Wikipedia has a good explanation of how freezing dehydrates foods in the entry on Freezer Burn. 

The power of sugar

Ever since I was little sugar has affected me like a drug. I know everyone gets a little buzzy from sugar, but for me it's at another level. After a few "incidents" as a kid I was usually forbidden sweets before long car drives. As I got older and it became less acceptable to run back and forth yelling "Here come the Vikings! We will kill you!", the drug mostly expressed itself in uncontrollable verbosity, a pounding heart and the inevitable sugar-crashed endlessly drawn out fight with whoever was standing nearest. Unlike the goal of most recreational drugs, I don't actually like that feeling much. But...I do like sweet things! So mostly I make up for it by eating things laced with agave nectar or other unrefined sugars which at least slow down the rush.

All of this is to say that this is why I have always secretly loved dessert wines. Until hanging with these winos, it was really the only kind of wine I ever wanted to drink. I would get both the sweet kick and the mellowing alcohol, a perfect mixture. So despite the overload, tonight's tasting was a little bit of heaven (well, actually, a lot).

As a special bonus, a couple snippets of overheard Margaret wine poetry for the night (I awkwardly paraphrase):

This wine is like one of those dull kids who always says the wrong thing at the wrong time. Really tries hard to have fun with everyone but can't quite do it. (I think this was actually her favorite wine!)

This is like a guy who's hitting on you and is too confident. Knows he has lots of power and everything and expects you to be blown away. Well, fuck him.

And Cati:

It's like a paddle studded with diamonds that spell out "Sweet", and I keep getting hit hard with that paddle until it leaves "Sweet" imprinted in my skin.