A Day In Paris

So, my flight was leaving at 9am from Paris to New York…I am ready, heading out the door of the hotel when my cell phone rings. It’s my wife, calling to tell me that Delta just called the house to inform her/me that the flight has been delayed until 6PM that evening. So here I am, dressed and ready to go with a full day in front of me (I had arrived the evening before so did not get an opportunity to sightsee). So immediately I hop on my laptop and go to the website for the Louvre Museum to see what the hours are. I have time for breakfast and then decide to go and see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo (among other treasures).

After breakfast, I head down to the concierge and ask for walking directions to the Louvre. I make the mistake of mispronouncing the word “Louvre” (I pronounced it “loov”). The concierge stares at me blankly and tells me he does not understand what I am looking for. We clear that up, and I head on my way. For what it’s worth, the people outside of Paris are truly wonderful, friendly and gracious.

Anyway, I walk over, and the place is truly massive. It would take days, if not weeks to truly take advantage of everything that the museum has to offer, but I am on a mission and head straight for the Mona Lisa. Well, here she is. It’s funny, I have always heard that it is much smaller than one might think, but I did not find that to be true. It was surrounded by people and security and you were kept at an arms length by ropes, but everyone got a chance to see what they came to see.

Then off to the Venus de Milo, which seemed like about a 3 mile walk! I wanted to see the Eiffel tower as well, so I was short on time….more soon. – Lance Cerutti – www.suburbanwines.com

Michael In Austria, Part IV

I’m seen here with Wilma Tinnacher of South Styria’s Lackner-Tinnacher. She and her husband Fritz create dozens of different varietal wines in their state-of-the-art winery, which is seated neatly into a duct-like section of their hilltop property. They have done remarkable things with grapes like Muskateller, Grauburgunder, Roter Traminer and Morillon, and their wines were amongst the most urbane of the entire trip. A superb equilibrium of fruit, terroir and varietal character is what they exhibit, and if I were to choose my desert island Austrian wine, it would be one of their bottlings.

A view of Lackner-Tinnacher’s spaceship-like winery…..a marvel of modern European architecture. Everything from sensor lighting to massive gliding doorways make this polished , sterile facility self-contained. Even their product packaging is cutting-edge…..they have successfully adopted the Alcoa Vino Seal glass insert as a closure for all their wines, and I have to say that I’m totally sold on it. It is more expensive than cork and screwcaps, and will potentially require a recycling campaign, but it’s the purest, most functional and most elegant alternative, and is the prime candidate for the future of wine bottle closure. - Michael Koehler - www.suburbanwines.com

WINE WITH DINNER – A practical use for leftover red wine

Just as I serve wine with all of my evening meals, so do I also regularly cook with it. For example, instead of adding a few tablespoons of water to the frozen veggies I am microwaving, I substitute some leftover white wine from the refrigerator. Even when I thin out salad dressing, I do it with wine – white with cream dressings and red with ketchup-based dressings. Red or white wine, whether leftover or from a bag-in-the-box, is such a versatile cooking ingredient, that I would no more cook without it than I would without salt or pepper.

For instance, one great use of leftover red wine is to add flavor to meat dishes and help get rid of fat. Next time you are frying up some ground beef or sausage for an Italian meal, start off with olive oil, onions and garlic, add mushrooms if you like, and then dump in the meat. Fry until the meat is almost done and the onions translucent. Then add a cup or two of red wine. Bring just barely to a boil (to evaporate the alcohol and infuse the meat with wine color and flavor) and then strain everything into a large Pyrex measuring pitcher. Dump the strainer full of meat and veggies back into the pot and proceed with whatever you are making while letting the fat rise to the top of the Pyrex container.

Then use a gravy separator to get rid of the fat, which you can pour into small containers and freeze in the wintertime for the birds. If you follow this procedure when making spaghetti sauce, a stew, or a soup, you can add back all of the liquid you separated to give some added flavor to what you are preparing and you will end up serving a very tasty, but relatively low fat meal! - Jay Roelof - www.suburbanwines.com

Michael in Austria, Part III

Picture Perfect: A few hours after visiting Graz, I found myself motoring through the countryside of South Styria, a groomed and visually-striking wine region with countless vines tucked into steep hillsides. Green rolling hills, topped with manicured homes, are divided into crus planted exclusively to white varieties in Austria’s southern-most viticultural zone. The shapes of the hills are irregular with erosion, indicating that the region was once under ocean…..it is said that there is still salt and shell lime in the soils. The geological-uniqueness and intense visual breadth of South Styria are, to me, second only to that of Spain’s Priorat.


Into the Eclectic: Ever hear of a grape variety called Rotgipfler? How about a Zierfandler? Neither had I until being introduced to them by Florian Alphart, assistant to his father, the owner and winemaker at K.Alphart in Thermenregion. This family is perhaps single-handedly responsible for maintaining the status of these and other noble, indigenous varieties. The terroir and other conditions in Thermen are known to be similar to that of Burgundy, and the character shows in the wines, young and mature. Needless to say, Alphart also cultivates Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with astonishing results. I tasted through a hefty flight of ‘06s, which included all of these varieties in addition to Gruner Veltliner and Neuberger, and preferred the classiness and complexity in the local Rotgipflers and Zierfandlers to the monolithic style of the others. In this photo, Florian (22) takes me through a vineyard (July 22, ’07) that has also suffered the consequences of erratic and atypical weather patterns. He explained that 30% of the ’07 crop had already been lost due to hail damage. –Michael Koehler- www.suburbanwines.com