A glass of wine and a good story

On a trip to visit my brother in the Bay Area in 2004, I tried, and thoroughly enjoyed, a couple of bottles of excellent California wine.  I didn't really have a true appreciation for wine, however, until I moved to Europe, and specifically to Romania, in 2007.  I've always been more of a beer girl than a fan of hard alcohol or wine, and still generally tend to lean more towards consuming beer, though the balance has started to shift.

I've had the pleasure of living near some of the world's top wine-producing regions: La Rioja, Spain; Bordeaux, France; and the Western Cape, South Africa.  That's certainly helped in developing a palate for fine wines, and mostly reds.  I'm also generally very impressed with Italian wines (though I don't know a lot about them), and have tasted some phenomenal Austrian and Romanian wines as well.

Cutting grapes at the Jurancon Winery near Pau, France

Blind Taste-Test- Vienna, Austria

One of many glasses of unbelievable red wine during a recent trip- Monza, Italy

Traditional Romanian Wine Crama- Bring your own container!

A typical Romanian backyard

Although Romanian wine is not world-renown, it has all the qualities of a fine European wine.  For me, however, it's not so much the wine itself, but the Romanian culture, customs, & tradition surrounding wine, that I adore.  First, Romanian wine is affordable.  You can buy a bottle for a dollar or two in any grocery store around town, so you can drink a bottle with every meal if you want, which is exactly how is should be.  Second, Romanians frequently buy "fresh" wine straight from a barrel (i.e. before it's officially been bottled.)  It's not uncommon for someone to show up to a typical wine store, which are called "cramas" here, with an empty 2-liter 7-Up bottle (with the label still on it) and ask the clerk to fill it up with a dry or sweet red (or even a semi-sweet, which involves filling it half full with sweet and half full with dry and giving it a good shake.)  Third, as the days become colder, you start to see more cafes and street stands selling "vin fiert" or mulled wine, perfect after a brisk walk or while shopping at an outdoor market.  Finally, there are a lot of Romanians who still make their own wine, and it's common to show up to a party at someone's house where they're serving jugs of "homemade wine," either made by their families or friends' families.  I love that the wine tradition is deeply embedded in the Romanian culture, and I think that's exactly why I'll always equate my appreciation of wine with my years living here in Romania.

As for my all-time favorite wine, though, the go-to bottle that I would recommend to anyone looking for a dependably great wine to serve at a special event would have to be a French Bordeaux that I "discovered" about a year ago: Paillet-Quancard, Premieres Cotes de Bordeaux 2006.  (And surprisingly, we've actually found it available in Pennsylvania wine & liquor stores for about $14 a bottle.)  If you can't find that one, my humble recommendation would be to look for any red wine from Cotes du Rhone, France, since I've never been disappointed with wines from that region.

But finally, as promised, a good story, wine-related, of course:  During the Gold Rush in California, circa 1848, new immigrant groups headed West across the U.S.  Legend has it that French immigrants brought grape vines with them, which they planted, thus starting the California wine industry.  A decade later, in the late 1850's, an epidemic, known as "The Great Wine Blight" spread across France, destroying the grape crops that had supported entire wine-producing regions like Bordeaux for centuries.  Hundreds of small wine growers tried, and failed, to eradicate the blight using chemicals and insecticides.  Finally and thankfully, a process called "reconstitution" was developed and the French wine industry was saved.  And what do you think the term "reconstitution" meant for a 19th Century Frenchie?  It's just a fancy word for bringing grape vines from California back to France.  So, before you drink your next glass of Cotes du Rhone, give a little "cheers" to the U.S.  Yeah, maybe we were in the right place at the right time, but the French can't deny that we contributed a little something to that absolutely perfect bottle of delicious red wine.