SLINGING JUICE

COCKEYSVILLE, MD - Noted man of influence, Robert M. Parker, was spotted at Casey’s Coffee with what appeared to be a medium cup of joe.  As he approached the tricolor of sweeteners, all waited with baited breath.

He chose the sky blue sweetness that is Equal.

The press and bloggers alike littered their bandwidth with the news, which eventually made its way upstream to the trading floor, where shares of Pepsico, the parent company who owns Merisant, who owns Equal, jumped in price on the news.

Rumor has it Parker may leave Casey’s and stop at an intersection that has a McDonald’s AND a Jack in the Box.  Which will he choose?

We’re actually quite jealous of the simple genius of this one… thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com - friends first, lawyers second.

Grateful Palate’s attorneys will be contacting you shortly…  thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com - remember, they’re friends first, lawyers second.

Mmmm, now you can drink Lance.  A Bill Harlan joint.  And we always thought LA would be a no-brainer spokesman for UniBall pens… Thanks to our buddies at bevlaw.com for this one.

Doesn’t bode well… thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com

A wine that holds the claim of the oldest winery in both North and South America. I guess nothing helps convert the natives to Christianity like alcohol. Forget rice Christians… Chardonnay Christians? But I digress. An oaked chardonnay endeavor, but well balanced and a surprise over the past vintages of this wine. Typical tropicals both floral and fruit oriented (lilies, honeysuckle, pineapple, and some sort of guava/papaya thing), not a cool climate or Chablis style by any stretch of the imagination. But those who like oak, and a bit of malo, this wine will deliver in spades at a price more akin to garden-variety grocery store plonk. This kind of steady upward mobility as it were makes the Baja Mexico appellation one to take note of.

SANTA MARIA DE LAMAS, PORTUGAL - A recent study released by the Miroma Labs has shown that extended and prolonged exposure to wines that employ screwcaps as a closure lead to a 66% increase in the instance of impotence among the male members of the study over those who drank wine that was closed with cork.

Dr. Anayanse Obrigado, who chaired the independent study, reports: “First and foremost I would like to thank Corticeira Amorim for their gracious endowment towards our brand new Miroma Labs facility here in Portugal. We are very pleased to help in the fight against screwcaps, and the damage they are causing not only to our environment, but to our greatest natural resource, our people.”

The report entitled: “Screwcaps: Putting The Cap on Your Screwing,” a 1,024 page document, outlines the controlled study of 1,000 men, ages 17 – 86 who were then divided into two groups, half of them drinking wines closed with screwcaps, the other half drinking wine sealed with cork. The results, in graphical form, are to be found on page 598, a copy of the graph can be seen below:

When asked to explain the data, Dr. Obrigado simply stated: “Explain what? It’s all right there. We even had it printed in color. Okay, look, if that graph doesn’t help, try this one on page 601…”

When our reporter couldn’t make hide nor hair of the graphs, Dr. Obrigado intervened: “No? hmm. Can I ask you a question? Do you drink wine from a screwcapped bottle yourself? You seem to be having some cognitive issues, we’d like to include you in an upcoming trial…”

Page 332 of the study reveals the wines used: the cork closure wine being a 1990 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti la Tache, whereupon enough bottles of the wine were sourced for this test by appealing to the Domaine itself as well as some of Europe’s most diligent cellarhounds. While the screwcapped wine used for the study was a jug of Carlo Rossi Hearty Burgundy from the same year. Dr. Obrigado states: “We felt for the integrity of the study, we should adhere to the strictest of scientific guidelines and keep the varietal and the vintage the same, lest one closure receive an unfair advantage over the other by virtue of the wine itself.”

Dr. Obrigado continues: “We are also very interested in some of the ancillary findings we discovered during the course of this study. We found that children of parents who drank screwcapped wines were less likely to become professional athletes, that those who drank wine with cork closures were ten times more likely to have a working knowledge of Credit Default Swaps, and most damaging, among those who drink wine with screwcaps, there were 145 documented homicides at the hands of masked gunmen with a decidedly Portuguese accent. Coincidence? We think not, though we are having difficulty in finding another thousand men to volunteer for a study that “targets” this specific phenomenon.”

Shameful… thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com

Another great deal of a drinker from South America, Chile to be precise. All roses are gateway drugs to bigger and better things in my experience, most cut their teeth on white zin, and roses like this one get them to thinking about tannins, acidity, and the lack of residual sugar as positives, or at least as poosibilities. This wine is pretty dark in color. Don’t let the 2008 fool you, their fall (harvest) occurs in our northern hemisphere’s spring, so the wine is pretty young, but not just days old. Real pretty bright raspberry and strawberry notes, like a Gamay, or a nice Provence rose. Kiwi. Yeah, kiwi – its in there, I promise you. Surprising acidity, not too tart, but an amount that begs for food. This rose will handle a lot more than just the poolside.

You can’t say that!  Or at least you won’t order it for the table for Mother’s Day brunch…  thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com - remember, they’re friends first, lawyers second.

Okay. We are big fans of stainless Chardonnays. We were stainless when stainless wasn’t cool my friend. But it seems we have hit a threshold when this kind of wine gets churned out. And before you roll your eyes, we tasted this wine twice, in two different area codes no less. The nose? I swear to you it was mayonnaise. Egg and oil and all things wrong. A touch of sulphur, something just off. This was both times, from different cases and different distributors no less! Tasted twice.  made a decent egg salad with it.

From the “wishful thinking” file… thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com - they’re friends first, lawyers second.

Another example of all that is wrong with Pinot Grigio. Again, we are spoiled, but this is just barely wine. The color is reminiscent of silver rum, or tap water. The nose is cool and steely, with little to no fruit at all. Unusually high acidity (although in reality probably an acceptable level had there been some fruit and weight to the wine) that only makes you lament that it isn’t in fact tap water despite appearances. Tasted twice. Watered plants with it. They lived.

Because nothing says chard like a carp and a topless polynesian…  thanks to our friends at bevlaw.com - they’re friends first, lawyers second.

If you forgive the horrible play on words (Cono Sur), you find a rarity among wine: A cheap Viognier that doesn’t taste like peach nectar and nail polish suspended in 30 weight motor oil. This wine is very forward in its Viognier-ness, with apricot and peach being unmistakably present. Clean and bright despite the weight of the grape, there is some of that oily feeling when you drink this wine, which is typical for the varietal. Honeysuckle is back in full force, and the melon aspect is there towards the finish. Some acidity, not enough in our opinion, but still, for the price, you cannot beat it. A great wine probably best paired with a glass and little else…