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Unlike our impossible food-wine pairings, pizza is one of those very possible wine pairings. But not in one country: Italy.

Jeremy Parzen pointed out this shocking claim in the comments of a recent post on his blog : “…no one pairs wine with pizza in Italy! I’m sorry, they just don’t…” He added later via email, “like Italians’ aversion to dairy and fish, or coffee and savory, the pizza/beer pairing is relatively sacred… they never pair pizza with wine… wine lists in Italian pizzerie are for tourists.” (Let’s hope they’re not pairing the lackluster Peroni with that pizza.)

Forbidden as it may be in Italy, prove the Italians wrong and tell us what is your preferred pairing for a pizza margherita? Are you in the light red (Barbera, Chianti) camp or the full-bodied (Nero d’Avola, Shiraz, Zinfandel) camp? I prefer reds with higher acidity to cut through the protein and fat of the cheese and stand up to acidity in the the tomato.

I suppose if we really wanted an impossible food-wine pairing, there’s always deep dish pizza.

We’re back with Part Deux of our interview with John Gilman, author of the newsletter A View from the Cellar (part one is here). John has offered a free issue from his backlist to any Dr. Vino reader so surf on over to his site and check it out. In this part of the Q&A, I had intended John to give a quick thumbs up or thumbs down on a number of hot-button issues in the wine world today as well as some things that I’ve heard him express unusual views about. In case you thought you were done gorging during the holidays, you can now feast on John’s 7,000+ words in this second part. So buckle up and get ready to hear his thoughts on what’s wrong with Riesling from Austria and Australia, screwcaps and their problems, the Loire, California cab then and now, indigenous yeasts, roto-fermenters, small oak barrels, wines over 14% alcohol and why he uses scores!

German Riesling
To my mind this is clearly the most singularly misunderstood and underappreciated region for great wines in the world. Read more…

On Wednesday I went on Fox Business–for the second time in a week! The video for this segment is available (see it by clicking on the image at right).

We continued the discussion of “trading down” that we started last week, this time with a focus on bubbly, as the day demanded. Since I didn’t get a chance to actually mention the Dibon cava brut reserve (about $11; find this wine) on the show, I’ll do so here: it’s some really easy drinking stuff, great for parties, or to accompany coconut fried shrimp, as I did recently (it sure beat Lipitor, which could have also worked for that dish). I brought the tasty Roederer Estate brut NV on the show as well (find this wine). And for those who really didn’t want to trade down–or simply prefer fine Champagne in the winter, as I do, economic climate be somewhat damned–I brought the Larmandier-Bernier, brut, premier cru, blanc de blancs (about $45; find this wine). It’s a fantastic example of a grower Champagne and one of my favorites.

So here’s the big mystery question: since they didn’t allow us to pour wine on the set, what bubbly was actually in our glasses at the end?

Yes, even though the economy is down, some people are not out!

For exhibit A, we turn to an anonymous clubgoer who, according to the blog Guest of a Guest, spent $20k on a methuselah (six liters) of Armand de Brignac. Yes, Ace of Spades, so 2006! But still going strong, apparently. NY mag’s Grub Street terms this bling spend an example of “douchebauchery.”

For exhibit B, we turn to the Charles de Gaulle airport, where an anonymous Christmas eve shopper (desperate for a gift?) dropped 46,423 euros ($65,013) during a wine spending spree! Bloomberg details what he brought the the register: “a Cote du Rhone [sic] La Tache from 1991 and several bottles from the Bordeaux region, including a Lafite Rochschild bottled [sic] in 1947 and a Chateau Latour from 1976.” Paper or plastic? Seriously, this dude needed to think of structuring his gift so the recipient could spend the $65k at auction, where all the deals are!

[Before launching into this post, be sure to get a laugh with this spectacular, poppin' Champagne video from Japan, posted here earlier this year!]

“We’re selling a lot of Prosecco,” a leading Manhattan retailer told me recently as he has observed consumers trading down from Champagne this fall. Not only are people trading down within grape bubbly, Starwood hotels forecast that beer would be the bubbly of choice for the holidays this year. Say it ain’t so! Here are a few grape bubblies worth seeking out.

In my quest to provide bubbly at every one of my events, I have, indeed, had to trade down from Champagne several times. I’ve had the Col Vetoraz (find this prosecco) and the Bisson (find this prosecco), two slightly off-dry versions of the simple and fun Prosecco under $15. (The Bisson could fake people out before opening since it doesn’t have a large cork akin to most bubbly.)

At the most recent meeting of a local wine tasting group I belong to, the theme was bubbly and we poured the sparklers not from Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, the traditional grapes of Champagne, in one flight, blind. The Cremant d’Alsace from Lucien Albrecht (about $18; find this cremant) won by a mile with its good acidity and fine bead.

In the domestic sparkler category, I approached the Gruet with trepidation after a previous experience that fell quite, um, flat. But the rose ($15; (find this sparkler) got a thumbs up.

In the Champagne flight, more serious bubbles in the glass and in price, I was surprised that the Taittinger brut La Francaise (find this champagne) came out on top. Although it’s an excellent nonvintage wine, it’s a lighter style that I thought would be trumped by the the richer and fuller and delicious Bollinger Cuvee Speciale (find this champagne), which came in second. Gosset (find this champagne), another fine champagne, came in third.

Let us know what you plan to pop tonight! And whatever it is, may you have a happy new year!

“Merry Christmas!” I said to my aunt as she greeted us at the door for our annual wintry get together with my cousins. “Here’s 24 liters of wine!” Although I had told her that I would bring the wine, I hadn’t mentioned that it was eight three-liter boxes of wine. Season’s greetings!

So my relatives were the latest involuntary recruits in my effort to find the best box wines of 2008. You might think that the best box wine is kind of like being the tallest resident in Gulliver’s Lilliput. And you’d mostly be right. But since I called for more wine to be put in box format for economic and environmental reasons earlier this year, I thought that I owed it to you to do a quick survey of the landscape. I still think they make sense economically since they pack in the same amount as four regular bottles and mostly sell for around $20 (although the most expensive one I tried was $40).

What I like best about the packaging is the ability to squeeze off a glass a night for an extended period of time, thirty days or more according to the producers.

Standing tall
1. Yellow + Blue Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina (about $11 for one liter; find this wine)
This organically grown red from Argentina sees no oak, is shipped to North America in a tanker where it is packaged into a Tetra Pak–think juice boxes for adults. I’ve poured this wine, introduced for the first time in 2008, many times to groups this year, often blind and from a decanter, and it has been almost universally praised. And when I tell them it’s the equivalent of $8 a bottle, they usually wonder where they can get a case.

2. “From the tank,” Estezargues, 2007. Cotes du Rhone (about $40; find this wine)
This big blend of grenache, syrah and carignan, has that ripe, juicy quality from many of the wines of the region. New to the US market this year, it’s organically grown and has a complexity that you really wouldn’t expect from a three liter, bag-in-box format. One word of caution: I found that this wine depreciated a week after opening so it may be best at parties, rather than nursing it over a whole month.

The best of Lilliput
Underdog Wine Merchants is a relatively new unit of The Wine Group, a boring sounding company that is actually the third largest producer of wine in America. They know a thing about box wine too since they make the dreaded Franzia, which has stigmatized the box format almost single handedly. But with Underdog, they are generally cranking quality up a notch, appealing to specific demographics with various brands, which can more often than not, seem to be trying a bit too hard with cutesy names or text on the packaging.

The best of their offerings, in my view, are the BOHO Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay (about $20 for 3L; find this wine). You won’t mistake the Cab for a St. Estephe in a blind tasting but it seems to have something approaching on structure, without excessive flab that many super-low-priced Cali Cabs have from oak chips. The Chardonnay is also restrained in it’s oak effect, a good thing in my view.

Honorable mention
Darling Hills, Ovation, South Africa (about $20 for 3L; find this wine): a 50-50 blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Cinsault, the workhorse grape originally from the South of France. It has a smoky note–think chipotle–that some that I served this absolutely adored, others hated. One thing’s for certain: the wine changed for the worst after only a couple of weeks of being open, so drink up.

Killer Juice (about $20 for 3L; find this wine): Another wine from Underdog, this wine is packaged with a Harley aesthetic and the dramatic proclamations about the “killer” quality. While I found it a little two brawny and low in acidity, it was a favorite at my aunt’s house as my cousins kept squeezing off pours from this one. A crowd pleaser.

I look forward to reviewing box wines again in 2009. Three liter box wines have been a strong growth segment for the past few years and consumer attitude, as least on this site, are ready. So I’m raising a glass in the hope that more producers will continue to see better wines in this format.

The other day I gave a friend a bottle of red wine as a gift, complete with a Santa wine bag that I got on sale after last Christmas. As I was slipping it in the bag, I saw that the wine was closed wit a screwcap, not a cork. Suddenly, I thought that it diminished my gift. But it was too late to give it a second thought as we were already out the door.

What do you say? Even if you like screwcaps for your own wine, have screwcaps gone mainstream enough that they’re not a stigma for gift wine? Let us know using the snazzy new poll software!

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I have no idea if this photo is real or if it is Memorex. But it looks like not the best way to open a bottle. (That damn Rabbit is so hard!)

Hit the comments with your caption!

(click photo to enlarge; via reddit, ht Mark)

John Gilman is one of the people who I have enjoyed getting to know in 2008. He started his career in wine retail, later worked as a sommelier with a soft spot for Burgundy, and now has embarked on the foolhardy notion of writing a bi-monthly wine newsletter, A View from the Cellar. Except maybe he’s not so foolhardy since, unlike a blog, he actually charges for his newsletter! Started in 2006, John has quickly won the respect of collectors and the people in the trade. He’s often provocative and not afraid to call things as he sees them; one of my favorite parts of his newsletter is the “roadkill” section where he discusses bottles he’s tried recently that were over the hill, mostly prematurely since they were made to attract attention in their youths but have failed to mature.

To give you a flavor of his preferences and picks, I asked him several questions via email. I broke it up in to two postings. In this first posting, John discusses what would be in his cellar if he were starting collecting today, what he drinks at home on a Tuesday night, the most underrated wines for aging, where Lafite 2005 will be in five years, and what would be his “desert island wine.” Onward!

If you had no collection and were going to put $1,000 into, say, at least two cases of wines available now for drinking 10+ years from now, what wines would you include? Read more…