Rhiannon Red Wine & American Horror Story: Coven

“You drink my torment like wine.” – Papa Legba

What better way to spend a cold winter’s evening than with a bottle of red wine and something spooky to binge watch? The only better way might be brewing up a potion and practicing spells in your lair, but in lieu of that we’ll do the wine thing.

American Horror Story is especially good for binge watching because each season can be watched as an individual and complete show. It’s great because you can go in any order, you can watch just one or all three current seasons. This particular season, the third, centering around a coven of witches in modern day New Orleans was the most anticipated and according to some critics the most disappointing. Coven certainly had a lot of promise and also a considerable amount of failures. The plot seemed to wander and fell apart at the end of the season and the character and theme development only made it half way to where we wanted them to go… BUT. I want to talk about the things that I loved about Coven.

#3: HATS. But seriously, the fashion in this season is incredible. Inspiring. From the glamorous diva looks of Madison Montgomery (Emma Roberts as pictured above) to the morose teenage styling of Zoe Benson (Taissa Farmiga) to the straight up coo-coo looks rocked by Myrtle Snow (Frances Conroy), the looks are over the top in just the right way. Not to mention Jessica Lange’s tempting succubus character: Fiona Goode. If I keep talking about this, I’ll write all night.

#2: Bitchcraft. This is not just the name of the pilot episode of the season. Even though the final catfight between Misty Day and Madison went a little off message from the show’s original girl power spirit, we all enjoyed the bitchy banter and stone cold one liners that the show delivered. When Madison woke up (from being dead that is) and said, “I need a cigarette,” I laughed so hard wine came out my nose.

#1: A different kind of creep. Season one of AHS was spooky like a ghost story should be: a classic tale of a haunted house. Season two was down right terrifying, gory to the point of being visually sickening and fascinating at the same time. Season three however has something different. The things going bump in this season are the characters own wills and desires, the things that scare us the most: greed, lust, the desire for power.

#0: This is too important for a number. Stevie Freaking Nicks. The White Witch joined the cast as a guest star, showing up in two episodes and starring in a trippy, fantastical musical number that opened the finale. Stevie, in all of her shawl twirling glory, has still got it. The Fleetwood Mac heavy soundtrack leads me to the wine that was the perfect pairing for this season…

Rhiannon, a 2011 California Red Wine, comes to us from Rutherford, the Family Owned Winery of the Year 2012 (New York International Wine Competition). The incredible, perfect, fitting name aside, the spirit of this wine is in the exact right place. The label tells us that it is a tribute to the family’s Welsh roots, named after and inspired by the Welsh goddess Rhiannon. A blend of Petite Sirah, Barbera and Zinfandel, this wine is as smooth as Fiona Goode’s lies. Be careful, because it will put the devil in you before you even notice. Rhiannon tastes how I imagine that magic works, subtly yet powerfully. I definitely wouldn’t call it sweet, but there is nothing hard about it. I can imagine it rolling around on my tongue with no sharp corners. There is a little bite, a little something underneath that I can only call complexity, but none of the bitter after taste that some reds have. As the bottle says, it is indeed, “divine.”

Pairing Notes: Drink and watch this combo when you’re in a dark and mysterious mood. Be sure to light white candles to keep away evil spirits, wear all black and gather your sistaaaaahs (said in the style of Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus) around you.

Movie Facts from IMDB.

More wine information here. 

[yellowtail] Pinot Noir and Frances Ha

“We’ll take the most expensive bottle of vodka you have and… everything that comes with it… You’ve got this, money wise, right?”

This movie was so good that it brought about a revival of my blog. Yeah I said it. This is something that Matt & Kim have previously been known to refer to as The Rad Shit Factor. When you see something amazing and it makes you want to create something amazing and so on and so forth. Anyway, Frances Ha is a film that has been referred to as a love letter from Noah Baumbach (Director) to his girlfriend, Greta Gerwig (who plays Frances). It is a part of the Mumblecore movement, which is a whole other thing. It is also entirely shot in black and white.

The major point that I want to make is that this movie is everything that we wanted the show Girls to be. The film manages to capture not only what real girls are really like but also what it is really like to be real girls. It's encouraging to see a portrayal of people in their twenties who don't have a real plan or whose plans just aren't working out that are somehow both realistic and not totally depressing. 

SAT Practice Time: 20-something women are to now as wise-beyond-their-years-teenage-girls were to the 90’s.

We have been satirized and iconographied within an inch of our lives recently. For whatever reason, the spotlight is on us in all of our post-college-pre-real-life glory. And everyone that was not a part of Frances Ha is doing it wrong. 

It’s hard to explain the film beyond an IMDB-type synopsis saying that Frances is struggling and she is struggling hard. Although there’s certainly an arc of self-discovery, the actual plot is a rambling series of events in Frances’s life. The other characters drift in and out of her life in a way that is utterly believable, making you miss them when they aren’t around like they're your own friends. Frances herself is charming, stubbornly flawed and deeply likeable.

Now, let’s talk about [yellowtail]. You’ve seen it. It’s seen you. The row of bottles with simple labels depicting a cute, orange kangaroo representing just about every variety of wine known to the casual wine drinker has likely caught your eye more than once. (Fun Fact: It’s actually a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby.) [yellowtail] advertises itself as the Go-To Brand  and this is completely reasonable. When you pick up a bottle of this you can expect a certain level of quality for just under ten dollars. I chose a Pinot Noir tonight because that’s just what you pick when it’s snowing out and your best friend is cooking chicken noodle soup for when you get off of work.

This wine is dry but not too dry just as Frances Ha is sad but not too sad. This isn’t strictly a comedy, but it’s funny. This isn’t a sweet wine, but it’s sweet enough. Like the finish of this Pinot, the resolution of the movie is satisfying, but it leaves you wanting more. In fact, Frances Ha is a Go-To Movie. 

Pairing Notes: Watch it over and over again. Watch it while you sip [yellowtail] with your best friend, watch it while you cook dinner, watch it while you dance around in your underwear. Try it with each variety of [yellowtail] in fact! 

Wine info from: http://www.yellowtailwine.com/

Movie info from: http://www.imdb.com/

Screenshot at top from Frances Ha via Netflix 

Sequin Rosé and New Girl

“Pink wine makes me slutty.”

I know that technically my stated goal for this blog is to pair movies with corresponding wine, but this time I’ve chosen a TV show. With websites like Netflix, programs like HBO Go and their less-than-legal counterparts like Side Reel and TV Links EU on the rise, watching a season of a favorite show can feel a lot like watching a long movie. I don’t know that the people I know are watching more TV, but I would definitely say that they’re watching it in a different way. Before I booted the television out of my bedroom in favor of late nights spent with two side-by-side Safari windows open, it would have been weird to sit down to watch a specific show with a glass of wine. (FYI: Right now I’m watching Mad Men in one and writing this in another.) A half hour show with commercial breaks is barely enough time to get started on a glass, let alone a bottle! Now, receiving a newly released DVD of a full season is an occasion for celebration, a chance to have friends over for a night in. (By the way, if you haven’t started planning your Arrested Development release party costume, you’re doing it wrong.) The point is, now you can grab a bottle (or two), set up whatever watching device you prefer for continuous play and enjoy.

Whether you watch it online or on Fox, you should send New Girl straight to the top of your queue. Now, stick with me boys... New Girl certainly looks like a fluffy, poppy vehicle for Zooey Deschanel’s widely beloved brand of quirky-cute, but there is so much more below the be-polka-dotted surface. Here are just three of the many reasons to watch:

1. The Story: New Girl tells the tale of Jessica Day (Deschanel) as she faces the ups and down of being a twenty something teacher, adrift in L.A., her only anchors her model best friend and her three male roommates, found on the Internet. The best friend is the beautiful model and down to earth tough girl Cece (played by the stunning Hannah Simone). The roommates are the often-flamboyant wannabe playboy Schmidt (Max Greenfield), the utterly loveable Winston (Lamorne Morris) and the scruffy mess of a bartender Nick (Jake Johnson). The problems that the five main characters face are not always realistic; this season alone they have captured a rare lionfish, survived an overdoes of absinthe and gotten out of a shady deal gone wrong involving a race horse. However, the feelings are surprisingly genuine at the end of each slapstick adventure. Real problems slip through the cracks: the sticky situation of owing a friend money, how to deal with the death of a parent and falling for a friend/roommate/room-friend, to name a few. If we’ve been waiting for a comedy that falls between married-with-kids-coms and a high school dramas, it has finally arrived. Twenty something’s rejoice, you don’t have to cry your eyes out while cursing Lena Dunham to feel that you’re part of a target audience. (I like GIRLS, but sometimes I want to get away from the depressing truths and insanities that are life in our twenties.)  

2. The Laffs: This show is funny. Period. (Speaking of which, in one episode Winston actually gets his period. Go ahead and pretend you don’t want to know more.) I don’t think a show has made me laugh aloud this often since middle school. I can’t even explain why the shenanigans of the cast are so funny unless it is because they remind me of my own friends. Seeing a Nick-Miller-Style-Freak- Out (second in the comedy hall of fame only to a Charlie-Style-Freak-Out via It’s Always Sunny) may be one of the last pure joys in life. You will be tempted to make your own Douchebag Jar for your most Schmidt-like friend. (If you actually do this, you might as well go ahead and put $10 in there right off the bat.)

3. The Inevitable Crush: You will fall in love with one or all of the characters… although there is a 90% chance that it’s going to be a combination of Nick and Jess. Their awkward, bug eyed, panic moonwalking, often angry chemistry is irresistible. I want to say more on the subject but I won't because I don't want to spark yet another in a series of intense debates about the future of their budding relationship. Schmidt is a metrosexual show-off with an always semi-visible heart of pure gold. I know plenty of people who have trouble not falling for real boys this impeccably groomed and hopelessly romantic, let alone their king. Cece, who seemed like just a side kick in season one has actually developed into a complex character dealing with an arranged marriage in a surprisingly realistic way. And that brings us to Winston. The thing is… Ol’ Winny might sometimes get overlooked because he is not linked to one of the constantly shifting love-triangles enveloping the other four members of the show’s fab five but, take note: While he has his fair share of freak outs, Winston is the anchor of the group, giving wise council and snort-laughs in equal measure and he is so sweet that it will knock your socks off.

Sequin has pretty much every box checked on a girls night in wine list. The Rosé is pink, “Delicately Bubbled”, brightly (and cutely) packaged and sweet sweet sweet. I got together with my best friend Shelby to test it out, along with the latest episode in New Girl’s second season. 

We also grabbed a couple of sheets from a “Rate That Wine” notepad that I gave my parents as a gift last year. These tablets are a great gift or conversation starter for any wine-based get-together. You can get yours at Knock Knock Stuff (http://www.knockknockstuff.com/catalog/categories/pads/kk-pads/rate-that-wine-pad/) or occasionally at Anthropologie, where they also appear to stock most of Zooey's wardrobe from New Girl. 

The ratings that Sequin pulled fell somewhere in the middle ground, overall our biggest problem with it was the extreme sweetness. This may be less of a problem for other drinkers, but we tend towards dryness above all else. Unlike New Girl, what you see here is what you get. Sequin is bright, sweet, bubbly and little else. This is still a great pairing. If you’re going to laugh until wine comes out of your nose, it better not be expensive. At $9.99, you can be prepared to sip, swill and spill with abandon.

Pairing Notes: Pair with your best friend. That’s all you need, except maybe snacks and a fluffy comforter and to laugh yourself to sleep on the couch.

This post is dedicated to the lovely Shelby Parenteau. May we go to tin-finity and beyond.

Pro Tip: For more comedy in this vein, see Happy Endings, starring Damon Wayans Jr., who played a roommate named Coach in the New Girl pilot. 

Wild Horse & Wanderlust

“Nudist Winemakers: Just The Grapes”

For this post I have gone above and beyond my usual wine expectations… and well below my movie standards. This wine is drinkable yet complex and the movie is exactly the opposite: watchable without being complex in the slightest. I’ll come back to that… but first, let me tell you about Wild Horse Winery’s warm and delightful 2008 merlot.

The winemakers at Wild Horse made their, “first wine in a plastic tub. Stirred it with a baseball bat.” But, they have come a long way from that college extracurricular project, becoming one of the leading luxury wineries on California’s Central Coast.

This specific wine, from vineyards at Paso Robles, is rich and relaxing. It gives an overall impression of warmth and comfort, perhaps due to the warm daytime temperatures that make the Templeton Gap the ideal place to grow the grapes that make it. Cooler night temperatures in this area provide structure and finish to the taste of this wine. I would be interested to taste the Cabernet, which is grown in adjacent vineyards and is said to have a more direct fruit flavor. The scent is delicious and seems to have an echo of cinnamon (although that could just be me). This would go very well with a rich meal, red meat or pasta. A review on the winery’s website recommends drinking it with a cheeseburger and I have to agree that it would be a decadent accessory to that American favorite.

This is a great special occasion wine on a budget. It runs between $17 and $20, depending on the shop. I usually try to keep my picks for this blog under $15 (I’m not made of money!), but this was brought over as a birthday treat.

Wanderlust (David Wain 2012) is a film starring Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd as a couple fleeing New York City for financial reasons and landing accidentally at a hippie commune. There are antics aplenty along their quest to figure out their lives and their relationship. And… that’s about it. The plot and the gags are fairly predictable and the film falls short of being truly exploratory and doesn’t stand up to the level of comedy that’s come to be expected in films with Judd Apatow as a producer. There were some enjoyable moments, for example a scene where Anniston partakes of ayuhuasca tea in a “truth circle” (my compliments on the unconventional choice of hallucinogen). However, successful jokes were outweighed by a number of cringe-worthy jokes that drug on for far too long.

Wild Horse Winery produces wine with a purpose that has obviously come to fruition (wine jokes!) after a long journey. This seems to be the opposite of the sentiment embodied by Wanderlust, which leaves me wondering… Why did the cast and crew, many of whom are associated with a long list of successful projects, do this movie at all?

Pairing Notes

#1: This wine is far too nice to be chugged at an appropriate rate to make this movie enjoyable.

#2: Do not watch this movie with your family… or really in the presence of anyone you respect (… or really at all). There is an abundance of casual nudity, without enough humor to smooth over the awkwardness. Although, (nudity fun fact!) I did find it quite hilarious that Joe Lo Truglio wore a false penis while playing the role of a nudist winemaker.

#3: However, drink this wine with someone you love, someone who you can watch a terrible movie with and not mind, while snow falls outside.

Wine info from Wild Horse Winery’s website: http://www.wildhorsewinery.com/

Movie info from IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655460/

Back Off The Wagon

I have been surprisingly sober for the last few weeks (okay months...) and thus, haven't been posting. In lieu of an apology, here is a link to a really great post about How To Drink Wine from the wonderful blog, A Cup Of Jo. It has some great little tips in it and the illustrations are fantastic!

http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/2011/12/wine-etiquette.html

To me, wine etiquette is important insofar as it is useful. Most wine etiquette, if not all, stems from (wine glass humor!) practices that make wine taste better. Try out some of these tricks on your favorite vintages and see what a difference it can make! Some wine rules can seem archaic and not make sense for anyone or just for you specifically. (I hate people who swish and hmmmm and sniff all while obviously focused on whatever film I have so expertly selected or the conversation at the next table over. If you're here to drink... own it and drink, already!) Keep in mind that rules are made to be broken!

Expect a new pairing in the next few days! (And don't forget to check out other great posts from A Cup Of Jo here: http://joannagoddard.blogspot.com/ )

Brunn Grüner Veltliner 2011 & The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

"No, Captain! That's Cedric. He's a friend." 

"Merci, Cedric. Remind me, we'll send him a Red Cap and a [bottle of Brunn Grüner Veltliner 2011.]" 

As I wrote in my last post, I picked this bottle up on a whim from my favorite coffee/wine shop, mostly because I liked its soda pop-style-red and white cap. The bottle is a promising bright green and the label is simple and ambiguous; there is no description of the wine shown. I was intrigued by this small mystery and then delighted when I got home, did a little digging and discovered that the winery is in the Kamptal, an Austrian wine region, along the Danube! After living a few tram stops from the river in Budapest for a semester, I am an enthusiastic fan of all things Eastern European. I was understandably excited to have a night off to taste this family-grown wine and I was not disappointed.

First Sip Thoughts: Hot DAMN, that is delicious.

Seriously though, this may be my favorite white wine that I’ve ever tasted. Until this summer I was a red wine drinker, through and through. Then, the hot weather this year inspired me to drink about 20 gallons of Pinot Grigio a week (most notably anything with notes of green pepper). Although I’ve come to love white wines, I always fall back on something warm and red and dry as a rule. Brunn might have just changed my go-to, the same way that my go-to movies became Wes Anderson movies the first time that I thoroughly watched The Darjeeling Limited (Anderson 2007). It’s full without being too heavy, well balanced, but it has a kick. A slight tartness that makes your tongue tingle and your very back teeth ache for a second. I finally understand what they mean when they say that a wine has “mineral” flavors. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like I can, less taste, and more sense the earth that these grapes were grown in, stoney and a little metallic.

In case you haven’t seen it, (seriously though, see it.)  The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, tells the story of Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) beginning at the lowest point in the arc of his oceanographer/explorer celebrity. The focal relationships in the film are those between Steve and his possible son, Ned/Kingsley (Owen Wilson), his estranged wife (Anjelica Huston), his best friend and “B Squad Leader” Klaus (Willem Dafoe) and the journalist writing a story on his latest film (Cate Blanchett). The picture is a study of one man’s creative angst, egotism and eventual redemption.

Sweet but not too sweet, just like life, that’s how this wine and this movie are. Like all of Anderson’s movies, Life Aquatic features a vivid, beautiful aesthetic and romanticized premise undercut with familial tension, death and ugliness. It’s like… you’re going to have fun and you’re going to laugh… but you might also cry. In fact, my only possible criticism of this wine is that it might not have the complexity to match the corresponding film. The advertised citrus notes are evident but the taste, while it intensifies, does not reveal as much as I would like upon the second and third glass. The bonuses are that this bottle will make you feel as great and adventurous as the film and that it comes with its own, red, little Team Zissou cap. 

To me, these two are a great match. Take them or leave them, but if you don’t like them, “get your ass the hell off of my boat.”

Pairing Notes: Drink a glass of Brunn Grüner Veltliner (garnished with a Crayon Pony Fish) and watch The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with a friend who feels like family.

Note: This isn’t a technical study or an in depth analysis of this film. There are plenty of those, already. This is really just me editorializing on the relationship that I found between this wine and this movie, because I think that that’s more interesting. This will probably apply to most future posts, unless the movie is really not well liked or known.

Credits:

Top Image: http://mzellmer.tumblr.com/post/32369641588/awesome

Film Info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362270/

Wine Info: http://theartisancollection.us/BRUNN.html

Brunn - Just a Sip

Today I bought the next wine I'll be trying out at one of my favorite places on earth, Play It Again Sam's in Chestertown, MD. If by some twist of fate you're ever on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, going to Sam's for an Alaskan and to pick up a bottle of wine is essential. Here's a little visual taste of the next bottle...

While enjoying this oddly warm day downtown, I also checked out the latest addition to a series of junk shops that are always popping up around town. These shops are usually historic (or just old) houses with each room just filled with... stuff. Everything from old bicycles to awesome, metal granny sunglasses. The twist on this sort of thing at this particular shop seems to be that all of the odds and ends are intended for actual use. There is a cork board covered with working vintage corkscrews (weeeee!) and all kinds of other trinkets looking for a new home and a fresh lease on life. Now let me tell you what, they don't make drinking accouterments like they used to. I've been looking for real, legit, fancy champagne glasses for ages and today was my lucky day... 

These are rimmed with what I'm told is real gold leaf... honestly they may not be safe to drink out of but eff that. Let the white and/or sparkling beverages flow, baby. My biggest regret is not having these on hand for a recent Great Gatsby themed party... I guess we'll just have to do that one all over again. I can't stop picturing pink champagne pouring over a pyramid of these, they're just so decadent and they came wrapped in this beautiful mint green tissue, bonus!

Anyway, I bought this wine based on the bottle because its very minimal and mysterious and a beautiful shade of green and has a red and white cap that makes me think of the words SODA POP. I'll have to do a little researching to find out more about it: check back for the review and the movie pairing this week!