Wine Truth: by Michael Dominic

My fiancée Ting (Tingzilla because she’s tall for an Asian girl) was stuck in her home country of Taiwan without a visa to return to the US. After nine months she finally got her visa and came home on June 5th. Saturday night I threw a welcome home party for her. I have a Weber Baby Q portable gas grill that I keep on my fire escape. When I cook I just open the window and lean out. In preparation for the party I went to Costco and bought stuff to grill. Burgers, potato salad and asparagus that I marinate in lemon salt and olive oil. Next to Costco in the same building, is a wine shop. It seems to me that it’s affiliated with Costco, because the prices are the same as the Florida Costco and the price signs are the same. They say no, but I don’t buy it. Somethings fishy. I bought another bottle of the 2005 – Masi Campofiorin, Ripasso ($12) that I paid $17.so for a day earlier, two bottles of 2005 – Columbia Crest, Washington State Merlot ($9) and six bottles of 2005 – Big House Red, California ($7).

Friday afternoons Ting and I go to visit my 98 year old Great Grand Aunt in the nursing home in Queens where she lives. I’m the only family she has now, so we are the only visitors she gets. The home is awkwardly located, so it takes two trains and a bus to get to it. The traveling coupled with the fact that it was hot, made the trip exhausting this week.

By the time we get back into the City it’s almost 6 pm, start time for the weekly Friday evening tasting at Astor Wine. They were tasting two Portuguese and one Italian wine. The wines were 2006 – Tinto da Anfora, Herdade das Anforas ($10), 2007 – Vinho Verde, Provam ($7) and 2006 – Arneis, Funtanin ($12).

I took Ting out for Indian food tonight. Every night this week I came home from work to a cooked meal. I’m most definitely not used to that. We went to a great place on 6th street called Brick Lane. The food in this place rivals that of any Indian in London. Brick Lane has a decent mix of wines on the menu. Someone there is paying attention. But, I decided to wait. I had a bottle of 2002 DuChamp Estate – Syrah ($25) waiting for us at home.

I sort of tasted this wine at a tasting at Astor Wines a month or so ago. When I say sort of, lets’ just say some people at Astor are stingy with the vino. With the few drops of it I had the flavor stayed with me, so a few days ago I bought a bottle.

Montinore Estate seems to have changed their label this year from one that sucks to one that really rocks (pictured left). Unfortunately, the 2006 Montinore Estate – Pinot Noir ($20) from Oregon’s Willamette Valley made with “sustainably grown grapes” doesn’t rock, but it doesn’t suck either.

I had high hopes for this wine when I opened it Tuesday night. I bought it on recommendation from Keith, the owner of Alphabet City Wine Co.. He assured me that this wine would “blow me away”. It didn’t, but for sure this wine is unique and very pleasurable, albeit lacking.

Wine is good for you. A Yale study says that drinking as much as three glasses of wine per day can reduce the risk of heart disease. It can also help with the circulation in your legs.

It can also get you piss drunk.

I would open a bottle every night but for the fact that I don’t want to get fat. Wine contains between 85-100 calories per 4 oz glass. A 750ml (25.360517 oz.) bottle contains around 600+ calories. I moderate and go to the gym to keep thin. When I open a bottle for myself or with my fiancée, I often will drink it over more than one night. I found that just sticking the cork back in the bottle doesn’t always work, leaving the wine spoiled the next day. Oxygen, in the longterm, is the enemy of wine causing oxidation.

One of the more difficult tasks for me when I decided to start buying and cellaring more expensive wine was figuring out where and how to keep it. I live in a bantam one bedroom apartment with a four flight walk-up in a tenement building in the East Village of New York City. Space is always an issue.

Keeping a few bottles of table wine that would be drunk in the near future was not a problem. I would keep them in the coolest spot in my living room on their side. As I read more about wine, I started salivating over better and better bottles. I decided if I was going to buy good wine, the floor would not do.

Ting and I went to visit my closest friends, Rob, Amanda and baby Mina in the wilds of Brooklyn (two stops out of Manhattan on the L train) yesterday afternoon. The weather was hot and dry, so I decided to bring something cold and dry. A bottle of 2007 – Gianni Gagliardo, Fallegro ($19). I bought this wine at a tasting a few weeks earlier. I was pleased to find a white that I actually like. I usually stick to dry reds and find most white to be sickly sweet.

We arrived at their apartment about 3pm. I stuck the Fallegro in their refrigerator to keep it cool. My friends handed me a bag. Inside was a box with a beautiful Bormioli Rocco decanter. I was moved that they had given me a gift for my birthday, and one to compliment my newest obsession.