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true culinary stories and such.
Wine 101
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The Finest Selection of Used & New Mosicot Instruments IN THE UNIVERSE
No matter how egalitarian, no matter how
virulently francophobic, no matter how
down-to-earth the average Joe and Jane Six-
Pack may be, soonei or later they’re going to
find themselves confronting a special home-
cooked or restaurant meal that requires an
interesting wine.
Enter The Wine Avenger (Fi.eside/Simon
& Schuster, $11), a new mide to good wine
that promises to transtorm the reader into “a
wine/food genius in one hour." Though there
are other plain-talk wine guides on the mar
ket, this one caught the Restaurant Dope’s
eye because it’s so tiny, and thus easy to
hide when company is over (a wine guide on
the bookshelf might lead
them to think you’re the
sort of person who reads hi-fi
magazines, or has an interest in
yachting).
Author Willie Gluckstern
began his adventures in
wine by loading it off of a
truck. Eventually he
became a wine salesman
and is currently pur
chasing director at a chi
chi Manhattan wine shop.
Over 200 brisk pages, the
author attempts to speak
Mr. and Mrs. Six-rack’s
language — he likes to
throw the word “hell"
around to remind you of
his days on the loading dock — but when
you get down to it. Gluckstern is a wine
snob.
He’s also a wine snob w'ith a singular mis
sion: to wean Americans off of most
Chardonnay. To Gluckstern, Chardonnay is
the Danielle Steele, the Kenny G. the Hootie
of the wine world The vast majority of
.American Chardonnav is sweetened with oak
chips: the milci sweet results the author
says, ‘are popular for many of the same rea
sons as fast-food namhurgers The taste is
reliable, always tne same — not great hut no
surprises ’
Most interesting to the wine novice is
Gluckstern s straightforward debunking ot
many wine myths. Americans, he writes
“tend to equate the word sweet with sticky
sugared wines beloved by winos land high
school miscreants." Drier is not necessarily
better — in fact, the author argues, “frutier
wines enjoy a far greater variety of uses."
In fact, this book is guided by the practi
cal notion that most people these days drink
wine with a meal that’s made up of some
thing a bit lighter than Beef Wellington.
Steering folks away from “heavyweight, high-
alcohol wines" that are over-oaked and “tend
to land on the diner’s palate like an anvil” —
typically, Chardonnay, Cabernet ano Merlot
— he advises that diners stick with wines
that are light- or medium-bodied, medium in
sweetness, low in alcohol, oak-free, low in
tannins (the elements in wine that dry
the mouth) and high in acidity (the ele
ments that cause the mouth to water and
* release more complex
. ' tastes).
, • * • With that in mind, the
. . • \ # ' book offers a list of the
wines that go best with
food. For whites, he rec
ommends German Ries
lings, Chenin Blanc and
Sauvignon Blanc. (He’s
especially fond of meal-
friendly Riesling, which he
calls “the world’s most
important wine grape.’’)
For reds, he chooses
Cabernet Franc, Gamay,
Barbera and Pinot Noir.
Although few specific
wines are mentioned.
Gluckstern does give you the impression
that you’re not really going to find good wine
at less than $10 to S!5 a bottle from a non
restaurant retailer
If you're a student, or living sensibly in
Athens on Athens wages, this is not particu
larly good news, unless you're planning to
sell your soul in Atlanta or think vou ve got a
foolproof Powerball strategv. Still, it s a pret
ty good voiume to hide under your kitchen
cabinet Specific wines are recommended irr
the gamu: of tne worlds cuisines - tne next
time vou re impressing vour loved one with
a special ozechuan feast vou can turtiveh
consult this little book and confidentlv order
a light, trothy Moscato d’Asti as an accompa
niment. All in your suavest James jane
Bond, oi course 2
from The Wine Avenger
makes/years of
Tupper's Hop Pocket Ale ($7.49/six-pack) I
wrote about Tupper's Hop Pocket Pits last week.
This week, it's Tupper's Hop Pocket Ale, also made
by Old Dominion Brewing Co. in Ashburn. Va. Half
the profits from the sale of
this product arc donated by
Bob and Ellie Tupper to chari
table programs.
The ale is extraordinary
even without that. This unfil
tered brew is a close replica
tion of an India Pale Ale:
long-brewed, heavily hopped,
lavishly flavored, and dry-
hopped with Mt. Hood and
Cascade hops. India Pale Ale
was originally a stronger ver
sion of English Pale Ale,
brewed for shipment to troops
stationed in Colonial India in
the early 1800s. Expect such a
beverage to burst with hoppi-
ness: to ieao right into your heart and soul. This
one surely ooe^.
I managed to locate it on draft at Twain s in
Decatur. That was one fi-i-ine pmt! For more Deer
news, cneck my columns in Flagpole Online at
www.fTagDole.com. New r materia 1 , is added nearly
every week. Prosit: (30.)
© 1998 William Orten Carlton
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SEPTEMBER 2, 1998 FLAGPOLE E2