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The end of the Colonel Sanders curse

This has nothing to do with wine, but it's a great story you won't see in the U.S. media.

The Hanshin Tigers are the Cubs of Japan -- a team with a great fan base but a long history of failure. Despite having a good budget as the main team from Osaka, Japan's second largest city, the Tigers have only won the Japan Series once, in 1985.

Celebrating that achievement, the crazed fans had a lookalike of each player jump in the Dotonbori River near the stadium. But they had a problem: none of the locals looked like their leading hitter, American slugger Randy Bass.

A Bartman-like fan decided that the Colonel Sanders statue outside a nearby KFC looked a lot like Bass -- also bearded, and a foreigner. So fans tossed the statue in the river.

Since then, Hanshin has had nothing but failure. As the legend of the Curse of Colonel Sanders grew, Tigers fans mounted dive expeditions into the river to find the statue, but always without success.

The Tigers have the coolest theme song (I like the Denki Groove version), the best logo and the most loyal fans, but the Curse of Colonel Sanders has continued to bedevil them, fans believe.

Until today. At long last, divers found the Colonel and winched him to the surface. He had drifted 250m, and his legs are still missing, but more divers are searching.

Look out Yomiuri, the curse is on its last legs.

What "US wine" means to the rest of the world

What does the rest of the world think when they hear "U.S. wine?" The answer is very different from what U.S. consumers think.

The Wine Institute announced last week that U.S. wine exports topped $1 billion in 2008. Congratulations to Gallo and Constellation Brands, far and away the drivers of this trend.

For the most part, foreign consumers see U.S. wines in the "premium" price range -- roughly $7 to $10. Shipping and grape costs keep U.S. wineries from competing below that, while there isn't all that much interest in wines priced higher, given competition from the luxury brands of France.

Pricey U.S. wines that do sell well overseas are completely different from wines that consumers flock to here.

Sometimes there's a country-specific explanation. For example, Calera and Ridge are both popular in Japan. Ridge has a Japanese pharmaceutical magnate for an owner, which eases distribution challenges. Calera was featured in a popular wine manga as a sommelier retold the story of owner/winemaker Josh Jensen smuggling cuttings from Domaine Romanee-Conti, and is often seen there as a prudent woman's DRC substitute.

But in Europe, where 48% of U.S. wines go, there's a clear verdict on which of our wines are good -- and it's a lot different from the domestic opinion.

I ran through all the 45 U.S. wines currently available at Tesco, the gigantic UK supermarket. With one exception, they were big company wines. That exception was a McManis Family Vineyards Chardonnay. Bully for the McManis family, longtime farmers who decided to make wine because they couldn't make profits selling their grapes.

Here's what the Tesco website says about U.S. wine (italics are mine):

"When we say USA, we’re really talking Californian wine. The Golden State is still in love with Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon where it dominates the vineyards - producers Robert Mondavi and Gallo show how could (sic) it can be. Merlot and Zinfandel are popular too, and winemakers are producing increasing amounts of Syrah, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier. Zinfandel is California’s very own red grape variety and is often used for the refreshing off-dry white zinfandel rosé wines as displayed in Blossom Hill’s example."

Does that sound like an endorsement of Chardonnay and Cab as the best we have to offer? Not really, especially considering that this is PR copy meant to convince you to buy some wine. It might be a coincidence that the webmaster couldn't properly type in "good" -- or maybe it represented what she was thinking.

If you wanted to buy a non-Constellation, non-Gallo wine in the U.K., you might visit Berry Bros. & Rudd, whose Heathrow Airport shop was a pre-9/11 must-stop on the way out of the country.

BBR pays respect to U.S. wines with 77 labels online, the fifth most of any country (France 1864, Italy 149, Germany 102, Spain 86, USA 77, then Australia 67). More than half cost more than 20 quid, but keep in mind that London is now the world's center of prosperity.

BBR has great wine buyers and I found their selections fascinating, both for what they have and don't have.

They like wines that are iconoclastic here: Qupe, Bonny Doon Vineyards, Au Bon Climat, Frog's Leap, Tablas Creek, Ridge, Andrew Will. Almost their entire selection comes from these wineries.

What BBR noticeably does NOT have is the bulwark of every U.S. wine shop's pricey section: Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. They have a couple, including Dominus and Opus One. But the British wine buyers seem to be thinking that if someone wants a Cab (or Merlot, for that matter), they'll buy a Bordeaux.

Right now the rest of the world often changes its winemaking style to attract the U.S. palate. Wouldn't it be interesting if it were the other way around? Go exports!

Foie Gras ice cream!

Foie Gras ice cream goes on my Kiliminjaro food list: stuff I had to try just because it is there. As with braised fruit bat and scorpion toast, I ended up enjoying more than just the novelty.

All credit to Humphry Slocombe, the creative San Francisco ice-cream shop, for pairing its creamy, savory product to its best advantage.

Most of Humphry Slocombe's outrageous flavors, like Salted Licorice (my fave so far) and Balsamic Caramel, are available by the scoop or pint. But the Foie Gras -- only occasionally available (maybe when the geese are flying?) -- is sold only in an ice-cream sandwich cookie ($4) made with ginger snaps.

The beautiful and helpful shopkeeper (how will she ever keep her figure there?) let me try the ice cream by itself after I announced my purchase, but before I handed her the money. She also didn't appear disheartened when I immediately reduced the number of sandwiches I wanted.

By itself, Foie Gras ice cream was a little unnerving -- very rich and like all of Humphy Slocombe's flavors, accurate. It tasted so much like chilly, milky foie gras terrine that I wondered if I would encounter chopped-up bits of liver (on my mind because I just read this excellent Japanese noir novel.)

The crunchy, slightly sweet ginger snaps make a perfect counterpoint, both in flavor and texture. You get the rich, creamy, meaty taste initially, and then just as your brain is starting to scream "liver, liver!" the ginger snaps take over. You need to crunch them in your teeth to finish the bite, and that's the final textural impression.

Now I can't want to try the Government Cheese flavor, which the shopkeeper tells me will only be served with an apple tart. Few patrons of pricey ice-cream boutiques know what government cheese actually tastes like, so the shop will have some leeway.

By the way, if you're a foie gras hater, you might feel more comfortable at this silly website where a vegan tells us nobody should eat meat because she has this pet that feels really nice when it lies next to her. Seriously. There are lots of great arguments for vegetarianism; this one has to be the worst I've ever heard. Lucky for her Humphry Slocombe doesn't do lapin a la moutarde ice cream. Yet.

The wine world will miss the Chronicle

The news that the San Francisco Chronicle might not make it through the year was predictably greeted with hootin' and hollerin' from the freeloading trolls who visit the sfgate.com website every day to complain about the quality of the free news they read there.

If noticed by the wine blogging community, it will also undoubtedly unleash a tide of "who needs 'em" posts.

But the wine world would suffer without The Chronicle, even though the newspaper has ended its weekly wine section. Most bloggers don't want to admit it, but there are certain functions a newspaper plays that blogs cannot substitute for.

Here's a key one: people who weren't even thinking about wine might, in their search for the TV listings or Dilbert, stumble upon an article about Austrian Riesling. That does not happen with blogs. You have to actively search for Austrian Riesling. Or, failing that, you have to be visiting an excellent blog like vinography.com, where you find an article about Austrian Riesling -- in which case you're clearly already interested in wine.

General interest newspapers are one of the few media that get people who aren't currently interested in wine to pay attention. Nobody surfs randomly through the Internet and happens upon Steve Heimoff's blog. But people do flip through a newspaper, when they're done with the sports section, and spot an article about value wines from Argentina. Maybe that's in the back of their head when they go to Safeway to buy tortillas and anti-perspirant, and they pick up a bottle. Maybe that's the bottle that gets them hooked. THEN they read Heimoff and Vinography every day, not before.

Go ahead and mock the traditional media for all its stodgy adherence to the 20th century. Few industries currently get better free publicity from anyone than the local food and wine industries get from The Chronicle. Considering the tiny budgets in the wine industry for outreach to newbie drinkers, the wine world will miss the paper more than any other industry.

Are "special" wines really all that?

Last week I got a mailer offering me the unique opportunity to spend more than $100 a bottle for yet another limited-production Napa Valley red wine.

Here's how this wine was described: "a blend of three vineyards in the St. Helena appellation which (are) planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The unique terroir of each site is apparent in the complexity of the blend. The backbone of the wine is from a rocky, highly elevated parcel east of St. Helena. Two additional vineyards in the western hills complete the blend; one parcel is north of St. Helena planted in dusty red soil, the other is nestled against the base of Spring Mountain amongst decomposed river rock."

I do not see the point of this wine. I'm not averse to wineries charging more than $100 a bottle -- they have every right to make as much money as they can. But what exactly is this product?

It's not an expression of terroir because the grapes come from such different places. It's not a dramatic blend of valley-floor Cab with nearby hillside Merlot, for example.

It's a Frankenwine that might possibly be three great lots of purchased grapes blended into a delicious beverage. But with a glut of expensive wines on the market, who needs another delicious beverage? If the producer of this wine spent so much money for these grapes that he needs to charge $115 a bottle, he overspent. They need to stand on their own in that price range or go into a cheaper bottle.

The luxury wine market will survive the downturn because people of means will keep paying a premium for name recognition and quality. But there's going to be a shakeout, and I hope wines like this, without a purpose, are among those to go away. A three-vineyard blend is perfectly fine, even expected, in the value section of the wine shop. It's insulting at this price.

Tasting Christian Brothers Cab from the 1960s

Last night I had the opportunity to taste something really interesting: a non-vintage Christian Brothers Napa Valley Cabernet.

The wine was bottled in 1967, but did not list a vintage year. Christian Brothers commonly made multi-vintage blends, but this may have been their top of the line and they might have ignored the vintage out of modesty. I guess most of the grapes were from 1965 but there was no way to know for sure.

The bottle read "Select Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon" on the front label, and on the back it said the grapes were from "a hillside vineyard." Single-vineyard hillside Napa Valley wines today regularly sell for $150 or more, but this wine was probably about $2 on release, and WAIT till I tell you what it costs now (below).

A religious fraternal organization, Christian Brothers was a major force in Napa Valley in the 1960s, making a variety of very affordable table wines as well as brandy and sacramental wines. Their winemaker, Brother Timothy, frequently made public appearances on behalf of Napa Valley wines, giving a good-humored, pious face to the industry in a country that was just a few decades removed from Prohibition.

One of their winemaking facilities, Greystone, is now the impressive home of the Culinary Institute of America. The Christian Brothers had access to some great vineyards back and despite being a religious organization, they also had serious winemaking talent: Justin Meyer was a member of the order, and he had not yet left to found Silver Oak.

The 40-something wine was drinking great last night. Had I tasted it blind, I would have guessed it was aged Bordeaux, perhaps Pauillac. I also would have guessed that it was a bit younger -- maybe the early-mid '70s -- because there was still some pretty good cherry fruit, along with the characteristic flavors of age like leather and orange peel. The balance was outstanding. This was a wine that went fabulously with food, though I tried to clear my palate completely for each precious sip. Some older wines are more intellectual pleasures; this was a wine fully fit for drinking, and it disappeared quickly.

Nine of us enjoyed this wine with dinner at the CIA, bringing it home at last. I'm sure Brother Timothy, were he looking down from heaven, would have been happy to see the good cheer and fellowship his wine brought us. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

The punch line is the price: My benefactor said she acquired this wine in the last month from K&L Wine Merchants for ... $15! I was going to race to the store in question but she said she wisely bought every last bottle. But it does make me wonder what other treasures lie forgotten in the far recesses of stockrooms.

My wine tax proposal

Wine might be subject to additional taxation soon. Let's get out in front of posturing politicians and propose ways to raise revenue that cause the least pain.

Here's the background: California is nearly bankrupt. The California legislature finally passed a budget today, but a single Republican Senator -- a wealthy broccoli farmer -- was able to shoot down a 12 cent-per-gallon gas tax. And you can bet there won't be a broccoli tax.

Early versions of the budget included a $1.48 per gallon tax on wine -- up from the current $0.20 -- that would have ended Two Buck Chuck.

Would that be a bad thing? Before you get outraged, think on the issue.

Government policy blesses some products -- corn -- and curses others. Government can enrich agribusiness with subsidies or force wind-energy firms to fend for themselves.

European governments get deeply involved in making choices for the wine industry, favoring certain regions and grapes.

The U.S. government is more removed, but not completely. For example, wines over 14 percent alcohol are taxed at a higher rate. This hasn't prevented ultrapremium wines from rising in alcohol, but it's the reason that most "fighting varietals" have their alcohol reduced below the limit. Is this a bad thing? I would say no, it's not.

So how would you structure wine tax policy to raise revenue while simultaneously improving the wine on Californians' tables?

I don't like hiking the tax on all wine; why should Two Buck Chuck and Screaming Eagle be taxed at the same rate?

My first proposal echoes U.S. policy: Much higher taxes -- maybe 10 times higher -- for wines with alcohol percentages over 14.5 (the higher number reflects the reality of California terroir). Wineries can continue to make ultraripe Zinfandels and Cabs and people can pay $30 for them instead of $27. Such a change would barely affect daily-use wine at all. But it would encourage wineries in the beginning of the premium price range -- $12 or so -- to stay below 14.5.

Second: A "luxury tax" on wines with wholesale prices over $30 a bottle. The state could charge as much as $5 a bottle on the luxury Cabs of Napa and consumers of these products would hardly notice. However, we would suddenly see a lot more $50 retail Cabs, and a lot fewer $75 retail Cabs.

Third: A slightly higher tax rate for wines made from grapes outside the region where the winery is located. This will make producers howl, but it would also create jobs. European countries demand that wine be made in the region where the grapes are grown, and that has led to many tiny wineries instead of one big factory where all the grapes are brought. Each of these tiny wineries needs a certain number of workers.

I'll stop there. But think about it -- how would you use tax policy to influence the wine industry? If it's going to be done, wine lovers should run the debate instead of what usually happens with government wine policy, which is listening to whatever Gallo wants.

America vs. acidity

We all know the American market prefers a different taste profile of wine than the European market -- people often mention the U.S. preference for bigger bodied, more fruit-forward wines.

What's not talked about as much is that Americans seemingly don't like acidity.

I got to thinking about this a couple days ago as I enjoyed one of Bronco's wines, a 2007 Harlow Ridge Lodi Sauvignon Blanc. With its suggested retail price of $10, this is one of the most expensive wines in the portfolio of the 4th largest wine company in the U.S.

Bronco didn't get to be as big and successful as it is by misunderstanding the American palate. Its wines are competently manipulated to produce the taste profile it wants. (This wine is only 12.5 % alcohol, which is great, but obviously reduced -- show me a non-manipulated Lodi Sauvignon Blanc at that level of brix and I'll show you some unpleasantly underripe grapes.)

I come to praise this wine, not bury it. You can find it in stores for under $9 and it's good value at that price. It's simple, but easy drinking -- straightforward grapefruit flavor, very clean finish. The one thing that's noticeable to a wine aficionado is the low acidity.

Personally I found that a little offputting; I like Sauvignon Blanc to be mouth-puckeringly crisp. But I'm not the average American drinker. A wine that Bronco obviously fussed with -- at the very least to adjust the alcohol -- was carefully crafted to taste this way.

Some of my friends were horrified by the idea, but I'll take Bronco's side here. They need to sell wine, not take philosophical stands. Plus, this treatment of Sauvignon Blanc is far less oppressive than tarting it up with oak, as was the fashion a mere 15 years ago, to become a poor man's Chardonnay substitute. This wine still tastes like Sauvignon Blanc, sort of. It's food-friendly. It's certainly pleasant.

This wine's low acidity says more about us as a wine-drinking nation than it does about Bronco, or about the wine itself. We've come a long way, but if "acidic" is still pejorative, there's still a ways to go.

Wine doesn't go with chocolates!

This is not the first or last time I'll say this: the whole idea of pairing wine with chocolate is a myth, perpetuated by the wine industry as a way to stay in consumers' minds.

In almost all circumstances, wine and chocolate are a terrible match. The reason is simple: most chocolate is sweet, and will make dry wines taste sour.

The wine world is full of "yeah, buts ...", so this is for you: if you're planning to give your sweetie a bar of plain 87% cacao chocolate for Valentine's Day, that would go pretty well with Port, vin santo, or most sweet wines. You're so romantic!

But filled chocolates, the kind that come in those pretty heart boxes? They're a nightmare for wine pairing. They simply do not go with wine, and there's no reason why they should.

But, but ... all the wineries I visit tell me this Merlot or that Zin goes with chocolate? Are they lying to me?

Well, um, yes. Most people who visit tasting rooms are not tasting their first wine of the day and their palate is compromised. But they can still taste sweet stuff. Put a chockie in their mouths and they're putty in your hands. This is one thing wineries talk about when they have seminars on increasing sales in tasting rooms.

I understand why there are so many stories on this topic every year. Editors need something to assign. Writers need something to write about. February is pretty dull. Though it would be more useful, who wants to write (or read) about wine pairings with in-season root vegetables?

So Valentine's Day wine-and-chocolate is one of those perennial wine stories, like pink wines in spring and crisp whites in summer and hearty reds in fall. Unlike those others, though, it's an old wives' tale that won't go away. But there's always hope -- remember when food writers regularly recommended substituting margarine for butter because it was so much healthier?

You want something romantic for V-Day? Nothing beats pink bubbly. In this economy, I'm a big fan of Cremant de Bourgogne, sparkling wine made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the traditional method, but cheaper because it's from Burgundy instead of Champagne. Think about it -- Burgundy is acknowledged as a world leader in still wines made from those grapes. Think they don't have a few good ones to pick early for bubbly?

The Louis Bouillot Cremant de Bourgogne Rose is widely available, $14 at K&L Wine Merchants. It's delicious and very affordable. And it's French, so it sounds romantic.

If you want to buy something domestic and romantic, Schramsberg is one of my favorite U.S. bubbly makers. Their 2005 Brut Rose is $41 but well worth it. Sometimes it helps your cause if you spend a little more. Tell your sweetie that Schramsberg has been served at the White House by every administration since Reagan, and it might be what Barack and Michelle enjoy on Saturday. (BTW, guys, when are you getting the kids that puppy you promised them? If you make them wait until the economy improves you might no longer have the big White House lawn for a puppy to romp on.)

So here's what you do: open the pink bubbly. Chat, snuggle. Do what, you know, you were hoping to do.

Then eat those yummy sweet filled chocolates. When the bubbly's gone, and you need a sugar rush. The perfect ending to a perfect evening -- especially as you didn't ruin your 10-year-old Cabernet with a Turtle Chew.

Wine & dog judging: Does the general public agree?

As someone who judges wines, I was bothered watching the extreme power wielded by judges at the Westminster Kennel Club. They can pick or eliminate any dog they want, and there's never any explanation or discussion.

There's no panel of judges -- just one individual. And the fawning USA network commentators never questioned why decisions were made.

Is this how wine judging looks to the general public?

Moreover, is this how wine judging actually is?

I'm sorry to say that in my experience yes, it is. I looked at a dog show and saw myself. It's nice to be a trusted expert.

But it's a wakeup call to watch an expert I don't know or trust act arbitrarily, and realize that's how wineries submitting wines to anything I judge must feel when they see the results.

Some organizations -- notably, Wine Spectator -- make an effort to explain not only their ratings standards, but their individual ratings. But even Wine Spectator relies on individual judges who wield tremendous, unappealable power. If James Laube doesn't like a wine, it's bad. Period.

Then there are competitions like the California State Fair. You sometimes see a comment from an official about the Best in Show wine, but the dozens of winners in individual categories -- best Chardonnay, etc. -- are presented with no explanation whatsoever.

The one thing I can take away from this moment of reflection is a renewed commitment to vigilance, in never letting my standards drop, as well as to humility.

That, and the fact that the puli got hosed. He was far and away the coolest of the finalists. Damn that judge!

Wine should be judged like dogs

If wines were judged like dogs, Cabernet Sauvignon would not rule the world. We'd all spend less money for wine and enjoy greater diversity.

Conversely, if dogs were judged like wine, a Dandie Dinmont Terrier might be Best in Show every year. Is there anything cuter?

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show -- great entertainment if you like dogs -- inspired this realization. Dogs are judged not by which is the best overall, but instead by which is the best representation of the ideal of its breed.

Thus when choosing between an Irish Wolfhound and a Samoyed -- Paul Draper's dog -- the judge doesn't automatically pick the much cooler one (sorry Paul).

Think about the implications for wine. A Sauvignon Blanc has never been Wine of the Year for a major publication. But why not? Just about everyone who loves wine loves this food-friendly varietal. The only way it gets big ratings, though, is when it's gussied up with too much wood into a "serious" wine that's no longer great with dinner.

Meanwhile, run-of-the-mill Napa Valley Cabernets routinely get 90-point ratings because that flavor profile is considered superior to almost every other. Look at a list of ratings from any major ratings organization -- Spectator, Parker, Enthusiast -- and you'll see that the 25th best Napa Cab of the year is rated higher than the very best example of most other wines.

Why? Why can't a superb pink wine -- delicious, refreshing, clean finish -- get 98 points for exemplifying near-perfection in its category?

We have so much to learn from dogs.

$15 buys a lot of dead man's food in Oklahoma

One of my favorite blogs is Dead Man Eating -- a list of last meals requested by prisoners on death row.

Who hasn't had that fantasy? You have one meal left on Earth. What's it gonna be?

For me, steamed blue crabs with Old Bay, a pizza (plain cheese if I can get the crabs, anchovies if I can't), fried potatoes, some fresh fruit in season, and fruit pie for dessert. I'm hoping Alice Waters has the San Quentin concession if I'm ever in there.

Anyway, on Jan. 22 the state of Oklahoma executed a guy named Darwin Brown. For his last meal he apparently got barbecue ribs, chopped beef, hot links, baked beans, plain potato chips, coconut doughnuts and chocolate milk.

I can't fault his choices: Barbecue ribs might be my replacement for the crabs. But here's the thing: Dead Man Eating reports that prisoners are limited to $15 for food that must be available near the prison.

Wow, that's a lot of grub for $15! That makes it harder to understand why people like Brown need to hold up convenience stores ... Anyway, if you're going to commit a capital offense, you might consider Oklahoma as an alternative to Texas, where prisoners always seem to request the relish tray. Could Texas relish really be worth dying for?

Happy Monday!

I have nothing new or interesting to say about A-Rod

But unlike the hordes of "shocked, shocked" sportswriters, Doug Glanville does. So read him.

Wine tastes strange after dental work

Yesterday my partner had to have a new crown put in. She got more than the minimum amount of novocaine, apparently asking for more a couple of times.

She had a late afternoon appointment and I was enjoying a glass of Columbia Valley Merlot when she came in. I poured her some and she complained that it tasted bitter -- like lemonade without the sugar -- with a bad aftertaste. Ugh!

She grabbed a ripe banana to cleanse her palate, but discovered that bananas also tasted bitter. Poor her. She fretted, "What if my taste buds are permanently damaged? I don't want to live in a world where bananas taste bitter." She didn't mention Merlot -- I guess that's easier to give up.

I insisted that she keep tasting the Merlot every 30 minutes until our impressions of it became similar. It was a fascinating experiment, and I wonder if taste scientists have done this sort of thing.

The first "normal" taste to come back for her was oak -- she tasted vanilla, and wood, about an hour before she tasted cherry.

She also said she noticed cherry as an aftertaste about 30 minutes before she noticed it on first sip. But she thought that might have been because she could smell the cherry fairly strongly, even though she couldn't taste it.

I don't know that we learned anything important from this, other than "Don't open expensive wines after dental work." But I guess even that's worth knowing.

Cheap wines should not have corks

If you're buying wines under $15 to drink now, you should rejoice when they have screwcaps or synthetic corks.

Moreover, you should let everyone know that's what you want: your wine shop, the wineries you patronize, wine importers, the wine media. In Australia, where people drink lots of great wine, screwcaps are widespread. The only reason they aren't common here is because the industry thinks consumers don't want them.

But you should.

Here's why: Natural cork always carries a risk of ruining your wine with TCA, a compound that can at best suppress the natural freshness of the flavor, and at worst can make your wine taste like moldy wet newspapers. You don't have that risk with synthetic corks or screwcaps.

Instead, with non-cork closures, you risk that the wine will not age gracefully. What makes corks so great is that they allow the tiniest bit of oxygen, microscopic amounts, that allow the wine to develop mature, complex flavors.

Synthetic corks and screwcaps are new enough -- and the technology is changing quickly enough -- that we don't know how well they will perform over 20 years.

But if you're going to drink the bottle this year, why do you care?

With its future at stake, the cork industry is spending a fair amount of money researching the problem. And it is making an impact. There are no accurate figures for percentage of cork tainted bottles, but some who have tried to calculate how many cork tainted bottles are found at wine competitions estimate a figure of just under 5%. Even a decade ago, the number would have been closer to 7% -- that's a significant improvement.

But it's not 0%. Wines sent to competitions should be the very best bottles a winery has. I've never been to a competition where none of the bottles were corked.

Cork advocates will point out that some screwcaps are so effective at preventing oxygen from entering that they occasionally trap sulfides in the wine, giving the wine a "reduced," sulphuric aroma upon opening. But this goes away with exposure to air, whereas cork taint just keeps getting worse.

In sum: if you're buying $100 wines to drink in 2019 or later, corks are still the way to go, despite the risk. But if you're buying $15 wines to drink now, it's time to change.

Why some good wines start tasting bad

Have you ever opened a bottle of wine that was lovely for 30 minutes or so, and then the fruit became to fade?

This happened to me yesterday during the Super Bowl with a bottle of 1999 Havens Bourriquot Napa Valley Red Wine, a 67-33 blend of Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

Wow, this was nice at first. Lovely ripe cherry and cherry tobacco, some raspberry, leather, some dried herbs: I loved just smelling it. It was also nice on the palate, with raspberry fruit and well-managed tannins. But the finish was more leather and earth, and perhaps that was a warning sign.

I thought I detected a hint of brett in the beginning, but not enough to detract from a wine that seemed to be at its peak: mature, but still lively.

Within 30 minutes, though, the fruit was all gone, and all that remained was must and dust and maybe a little old leather.

So what was the cause? It could have been:

* Brettanomyces, better known as brett. This is my number one suspect because I think I smelled it, but without lab testing I can't say for sure. If true, the brett really took over fast.

* TCA, better known as cork taint. Corked wine does get worse as you drink it. But my previous experience with cork-tainted bottles is that they were never as lovely as this was to begin with.

* Possibly the fresh fruit flavors simply evaporated. This is only an outside possibility because, while this can happen with very old wines, a decade is not that long, and the fruit didn't seem delicate or fragile at first.

At the end of the day, I'm guessing it was brett. Havens Wine Cellars has taken pride in pronouncing itself "old-world" in style, and to be frank, I've never been a big fan of its wines. Many French wineries tolerate a level of brett in their wines that American wineries have tried to eliminate. I suspect that's what happened here.

But that's the problem with deconstructing a wine: without a lab, you can't be sure.

The experience also reminded me that wine is like a cherry blossom: a temporary beauty. If I had merely enjoyed a half-glass of this right after opening and then moved on, I would still have a delicious memory of it.

Fancy Food Show highlights

Hot dogs made from wagyu ("Kobe") beef, coffee berry juice, spicy Thai-flavored shortbread -- must be the Fancy Food Show.

There's no way any one person could taste 5 percent of the foods offered at last week's show, a three-day extravaganza at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It's a foodie paradise, even if it is a little heavy on cheese and chocolates. But still -- you walk by a huge table offering hundreds of different cheeses, any of which you can just stick a knife into and sample. If only you could bring some home!

I started off looking specifically for wine-related food products, such as the fine savory cheddar shortbreads from Canada. (I don't actually recommend the spicy Thai, but the rosemary was nice.) That's how I found the Iron Chef wine. Irrashaimase!

Ahem. An interesting product for wine lovers was BBQ Bath, a brine concentrate from Texas that's used to marinate meat before grilling. It adds flavor and allows you to skip the barbecue sauce, a good thing because most BBQ sauces are wine-unfriendly (vinegary, spicy, sweet -- all problems.) I liked the Lime Jalapeno and Smoked Habanero flavors.

And about that "Kobe" beef hot dog -- yum! It's from Snake River Farms in Idaho, which raises the same breed of cattle, Wagyu, used in Japan to make Kobe beef. They also raise a breed of Japanese pig, Kurobuta, but I wasn't as impressed with the ham made from it.

But with so many great (and not-so-great) food products to sample, I soon lost my focus, instead just nibbling at things that looked yummy.

A few more goodies: green chile stew mix from New Mexico, coffee and Earl Grey flavored shortbread from Washington, juice made from coffee plant berries from Los Angeles. I loved these traditional Greek olive oil cookies sweetened with orange juice and this Bulgarian rose nectar drink.

I couldn't eat anywhere near enough chocolates to tell you which was best, but two I enjoyed for very different reasons were Valerie salt and pepper truffles and DeFranco's espresso secrets.

A few other tidbits of knowledge: Olives vary tremendously by quality. If you don't love the brand you use now, move on. I had sooooo much prosciutto and it varied from great to really great.

And a note to show promoters: If you're peddling a wine-friendly product, take care about the wine you pour. Some guy was trying to sell savory cookies that supposedly go with different specific varietals. I asked to try the one that goes with Cabernet, and he poured me Charles Shaw Cabernet. Mmm, delicious -- not. That's why there's no link here to his product.

Sorry for the delay in posting this. Wine rocks, but my home computer does not :(.

Pardon Barry Bonds

Baseball writers and political analysts have speculated that George W. Bush might pardon Roger Clemens for lying to Congress before leaving office.

That would be a mistake; Clemens asked for the Congressional hearing so if he lied at it he has nobody to blame but himself.

Instead, Bush should pardon Barry Bonds. By doing so, Bush would be correcting his own mistake as President.

The ongoing prosecution of Bonds has been a costly witch hunt at taxpayer expense, and it all came because the Bush administration made steroids in baseball one of its issues with which to divert the American people's attention from more serious problems.

The Bonds case has dragged on for more than five years. The real villains in the Balco case -- the people who ran the company and provided steroids to athletes -- are done with their sentences.

Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, spent more time in prison -- more than a year -- for refusing to testify against Bonds than Victor Conte, founder of the company, did for all of his crimes. Conte was sentenced to four months in prison and four months of house arrest.

Here's what Bonds is charged with: lying to a grand jury about using steroids. He was subpoenaed to appear to testify in private, along with a mere handful of other players.

From what we now know, if every player in MLB had been required to appear, we would have learned of hundreds of steroids users. But Bonds was the big fish for the Bush administration -- the arrogant, media-hating asshole who was about to break the home-run record.

Last year -- more than four years after his alleged false testimony -- Bonds was a free agent, but with the indictment hanging over his head he got not one contract offer. Considering his success as a hitter, it seems clear that some team would have wanted him for the minimum salary -- $400,000. Maybe Tampa Bay would have won the World Series with Bonds instead of Cliff Floyd.

Anyway, the indictment has already cost Bonds at least $400,000, not counting incentive clauses, playoff money, a contract this year, etc. Is that worse than the 4-month prison sentence Victor Conte got? Ask yourself: Would you rather spend 4 months in prison or pay a $400,000 fine? Keep in mind that their offenses are not at all equal: Conte founded a company to create designer drugs for athletes and mask them from detection. Bonds was a client of that company.

The indictment was so poorly written that it had to be refiled. This case has already cost US taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, and taken investigators and prosecutors away from more serious crimes.

Bush has always been responsible for this. With one stroke of his pen he can end it.

I am NOT arguing that Barry Bonds is a good guy. But for what he's accused of doing, he has been punished enough. So have the American people.

Would you drink wine in your football team's colors?

I stumbled upon this video on the Internet today, in which a Baltimore Sun writer shows us how to turn beer Ravens purple.

The resulting beer looks very wine-like -- like sparkling Zinfandel, albeit with a bigger mousse than you'd expect. It actually looks more delicious to me than in its original yellow color, but that's because I'm a wine guy, not a beer guy.

So that begs the question: Would you drink wine in your team's colors while watching a big game?

Obviously it depends on the team. Oakland A's fans can have golden Chardonnay, perhaps with a stick of celery. But what about Raiders fans? Malbec served in a silver goblet?

How about San Francisco Giants fans? I've seen some orange wines, but generally they're flawed by oxidation. A few drops of red food coloring in your Sauvignon Blanc, then, with perhaps some olives on the side?

If you're a big enough Philadelphia Eagles fan to drink wine colored green and white -- stay away from my cellar with that stuff.