Merlot - the Ralphie of wines no more?

There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal's Food & Drink section about the resurgence of quality Merlot. That the varietal has taken a bit of beating is not news. Over the past years, it built a reputation as a plodding, “meatloaf kind of wine, easy and unfussy, round and fairly soft”. In the 1990s, its popularity surged as Americans lapped up the approachable wine in an ironic attempt to be more French (the word got out about the “French Paradox” in a 1992 episode of 60 Minutes and red wine sales increased by 44% within four weeks).

Then, a familiar story takes shape. Rationality and quality control get neglected during rabid consumption of a product built up on hype. A lot of wine drinkers gradually realized how cloying and simple most Merlot is when compared with other wines, and its bubble finally popped with Sideways providing the final jab. As WSJ notes, the 2008 US Merlot crop is down to its lowest levels in more than eight years.

Yet, Merlot is still the third most popular wine in America after Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. And on top of that, the WSJ wine writers conducted a blind tasting of several cheap Merlots and found some gems, even in the $10 range. The budding wine snob in me is inclined to be cynical. Who would want to dole out the liver space and money for a bottle of Merlot, when there are more enticing wines out there? But, I’m sentimental too. Merlot was the very first wine I tried. It was the wine that started me on liking wine probably because of its inoffensive sweetness and roundness. Thus, I'm not inclined to disparage it too much. It's like having a first crush before a series of more serious romances, one which you look back on with a shrug and a sense of sheepishness as you get less naïve about things. The WSJ article makes me want to try it again, though. I think the best thing to do is to buy one of their suggested Merlots and bring it to a potluck dinner with friends. At least we can all lambaste the wine if turns out to be yawn-inducing, and there’ll be an eager group ready to share a back-up bottle of something a little punchier.
Click here for the WSJ article, “Merlot Makes a Comeback”

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Satisfaction

The essential question – what makes a dining experience great? What are the elements that make a dinner out truly memorable?

It’s pretty clear that taste is subjective and while one person may love a restaurant’s food, another will hate it. Context is important too. What would be the point of going to Michael Mina if your enjoyment of the tasting menu is hampered by a horrible blind date? It could mar your experience of the restaurant forever. On the flip side, even the most inarguably dire establishments can seem great, depending on how you came to know it. Sizzler will always hold a special place in my heart and I’m not afraid to admit it. The less said about the food there the better, but I have happy memories of going there with my parents as a kid (childhood fulfillment was attained through some excessive swirling at the frozen yogurt self-serve bar). So, what makes a dinner truly satisfying can be a frequent bafflement for the even mildly food obsessed.

A few weeks ago, my friends and I took advantage of a “Dine About Town” deal in San Francisco and ate at Foreign Cinema. Everything about the restaurant is enchanting - the soft lightening in the warm patio, the French film being projected in the brick courtyard, the refined food, aromatic wine, the white linen tables. We had a great meal…save one thing.

The appetizer and dessert portions were tiny. A starter of crab cakes arrived as two 3 inch patties with a sprinkle of frisée on the bottom. We also split many of these dishes so we could try everything, leaving us each with just one or two little bites of each thing. A hefty sounding short rib, the heaviest starter option, was a small parcel of meat eventually divvied up into a forkful per person. However, the entrees were good and we all thought the food was delicious. We left the restaurant largely happy, yet with still a sense of hankering.

Being fortuitously situated in the Mission District, Foreign Cinema is surrounded by taquerías and when we eventually made it out of the restaurant, the temptation proved too strong. Not less than fifteen minutes later, the whole lot of us found ourselves at Taquería Cancun lining up for super carne asada burritos and carnitas tacos with the works. Everything was accompanied by a mound of chips and salsa. There was something about greedily biting into our massive burritos, all of us crammed together sitting on rickety stools in the noisy taquería gleeful at our abject gluttony, that was truly satisfying.

Would Taquería Cancun have been as tremendously fun (and appreciated) if we hadn’t had that meal at Foreign Cinema right before? Perhaps not. Maybe it was the contrast of the two, and the combination of both, that made the night memorable for us.

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To Start

Before I decided to start this blog, I asked myself whether cyberspace needed another outlet of foodie self-expression. The internet is already saturated with personal musings about food, pictures of dishes taken on the sly in restaurants, and foodie threads that go on for pages.

I was thinking about this while I was at work, as I often lapse into daydreaming about food related things while sitting in my grey cubicle. After a while, my mind then wandered to my lunch earlier that day. I ate at my desk again, staring at my computer screen while mechanically shoving salad into my mouth. I suddenly realized, to my dismay, that I couldn’t remember exactly what I ate. The squidgy green stuff in the salad could have been a piece of avocado or pieces of pesto pasta. My lunch – what I ate and how I ate it – was utterly forgettable.

Even worse, looking back, I probably didn’t care. I had a tight deadline that afternoon and I simply had to plow through my lunch so I could return to having two functioning hands to type. Then, my thoughts started to spiral outwards to focus on my life in general. How did it come to be that since I started working, the “food as fuel” approach was quietly and steadily becoming more of a norm rather than an exception? For a person who loves to eat, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to consider this fairly devastating.

I needed to actively change this path and blogging seemed like a good way to do it. Through writing about reviving the joy I get out of cooking and eating, I hope I can add a little more balance in my life and connect with people who feel the same way. For many of us, our waking hours are filled with commuting, work, deadlines, and stress and we often forget how to use our senses. Food is one of the most elemental and simple pleasures that we have at hand, and yet it’s often de-prioritized given everything else we’re juggling. Of course, in reality most of us aren’t able to enjoy a gourmet bender during every meal or snack we eat. But, by adding a just a little more epicurean bravado in our lives when we can, we can hopefully enjoy it a little more.
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