Slurping down Krug on 7-mile beach in the Cayman's.....I am the 1%.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-09/if-grateful-dead-s-music-were-red-wine-how-would-it-taste-elin-mccoy.html

Really?  Well, we already know the bouquet would be a sickening melange of cannabis, patchouli, and body odor.  We should probably also assume that one needs to already be high as a kite to find it at all palatable.  Is it a coincidence that the aim in this experiment is a sort of synesthesia, which just happens to be a side effect of LSD?  Really?

Maybe this is an indication that the winemaker needs to get out of his garage more often (or perhaps not at all).

Unfortunately, due to Kermit’s three-strikes policy, this means I’m cut off now…

Now if there were only cup holders that would accommodate stem-ware...

Enjoy this lovely poem, from the namesake of the bottle in question:

Here with a loaf of bread beneath the bough,
A flask of wine, a book of verse --
and thou Beside me singing in the wilderness-
And wilderness is paradise …
(The Eleventh Quatrain of the Rubáiyat by Omar Khayyám)

…now about the wine. 90% Pinot Noir and 10% Syrah…wait…WHAT??!!!…Pinot Noir and Syrah, yes. Two grapes from two different planets. Two grapes that have absolutely no business being in the same bottle. It presents a confused melange of light floral notes, bright sweet berry flavors, and smokey hung meat — much like what we could imagine our prehistoric ancestors might have proudly piled on an altar as an offering to the gods. This wine is recommended by the vintner as an accompaniment to light picnic or barbecue fare — which describes a scene similar to that of our ancestors around the altar. Imagine a group of cavemen in a woodland clearing, a stone firepit going with the corpse of some animal sizzling away, and piles of other gathered comestibles; now, replace the woodland clearing with a suburban back yard, the stone firepit with a gas grill, and the cavemen with palate-impaired philistines wearing baseball caps. Bingo. I think we know who this wine is for.

Rubaiyat is only available only at the winery; limiting distribution is a way to limit the brand-damage blast radius (see article on Trollinger below). To remove any remaining doubt, the vintner recommends serving this (red) wine chilled — which would mute the flavors — now why would they want to do that?

Two requests for Cakebread:

1. Please stop making this wine; the Pinot Noir and Syrah may be decent on their own, and if they can’t hold their own as varietals, have Germain Robin turn them into brandy. Whatever. Just stop the madness.
2. Admit this was a mistake that you keep making to present the illusion that it was deliberate. Limited distribution, recommendations to serve chilled with low-brow food, etc., support this theory, but it’s even evident in the blend percentages. I posit that the first vintage of this wine was a simple error in the barrel warehouse: you had nine rows of pinot noir barrels, and when you rolled them out for blending, someone lost count and you got a tenth row (of syrah) by accident. Hey, it can happen to anybody when the occupational hazards involve alcohol.

When dining out at a Japanese/Sushi restaurant, ordering “Omakase” is the way to get the best experience possible: entrust yourself to the Chef. Put yourself at the Chef’s mercy, and the results will be a culinary epiphany that will enrich your life. It is very likely that you will try something you have never had before, ingredients and/or combinations thereof. Unfortunately, applying this technique to other styles of cuisine is not as reliable, despite the trend of most high-end restaurants inviting this option with degustation menus. While many mistakes can be made with the food itself in these tasting menus, there is no mistake more common or egregious than the epic epicurian failure of poor wine pairings. I’m not going to single out a particular restaurant or particular degustation/wine-pairing menu therefrom, because I don’t want to get sued; I will instead presume the guilt of all restaurants with such menus, and make this desperate plea to their sommeliers: STOP PAIRING SWEET ALSATIONS WITH ASIAN FOOD — FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. Whoever started this trend should be impaled on a giant satay skewer and waterboarded in a vat of Trockenbeerenauslese. What grows together goes together, and you can’t get much further apart than Southeast Asia and Northern Europe. The cloying sweetness of tropical and stone-fruit flavors in that late harvest Gewurz doesn’t complement the heat of that Thai curry at all; it clashes like blue and orange, like fire and ice, like Metallica and frickin’ Joan Baez. Just cut it out — seriously — or I’m never setting foot in your restaurant again…yes you.