The French Paradox, 20 Years Later

Call it preaching to the choir if you want, but a few days of scientific presentations earlier this month at the 6^th International Wine and Heart Health Summit confirmed the belief that there are many health benefits associated with a glass of wine at dinner, at least for this attendee.

Dubbed the French Paradox two decades ago by Serge Renaud, famed researcher at the University of Bordeaux, the phrase refers to the strikingly decreased rate of heart attacks and deaths due to heart disease among the French, despite a diet rich in saturated fats, cheeses and assorted high-calorie treats.

CBS correspondent Morley Safer concluded a 60 Minutes broadcast on November 17, 1991 that investigated what might account for the paradox by posing a question: Could the answer be found in the propensity of the French to wash down fat-laden meals with a glass of red wine? The broadcast sent shock waves through the research community as well as the lay public, causing red wine sales in the United States to jump by nearly 40%, and ushering in an era of increased red wine consumption among Americans.

This year's Wine Summit brought together some of the most prominent researchers in this active field. Held at the magnificent Allison Inn & Spa in Willamette Valley, Oregon, the panelists included Arthur Klatsky, MD, and Curtis Ellison, MD (featured in the original 1991 broadcast), as well as young researchers currently investigating other ways in which wine may enhance our ability to combat or stem other diseases from periodontal disorders to dementia. Ralph Brindis, MD, President of the American College of Cardiology also examined historical and political issues surrounding alcohol use and abuse.

Presentations covered a lot of ground. Winemaker David Adelsheim traced the brief, yet red-hot trajectory of Oregon winemaking while Wine Spectator and Oregonian columnist Matt Kramer shared his take on finding wine values. Event host Donald Olson, MD of Torii Mor Winery moderated a spirited panel discussion among Oregon winemakers that included founders from Bergstrom, Ken Wright Cellars (with single-vineyard soil specialist Ken Wright himself), and Jim Bernau of Willamette Valley Vineyards. Bernau told an intriguing story about how he was about to get the US Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau (TTB) to allow WVV to include resveratrol content of Pinot Noir on their wine labels.

In the two decades since the broadcast, studies have pointed to a range of health benefits associated with not only moderate amounts of wine but also moderate intake of other alcoholic beverages. In case you were wondering, moderate consumption, as defined by the USDA 2010 dietary guidelines for people who choose to drink, means one 5-ounce glass of wine at 12% alcohol daily for women (or two 5-ounce glasses for men) or 12 ounces of regular beer or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.

While this story is still being written, we're placing bets on a healthy lifestyle that includes wine to come out on top. You don’t just have to take our word for it. Here's a look at FAQs from the Centers for Disease Control that answer a few more questions you may have. This link will take you to a recent CDC report that notes how certain low-risk behaviors – never having smoked, following a healthy diet, getting enough physical activity and moderate consumption of alcohol – can help you live a longer, healthier life. Salute!

A Rosé for Rosé-Haters

Girlie rosés, move over. The new gal in town hails from Crios, the second label from Argentine winemaker Susana Balbo. The Crios line includes a lovely Torrontés, an easy-drinking Chardonnay and three approachable reds: Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and a Syrah-Bonarda blend. 

The trio of handprints on the label represent Balbo and her two offspring, or crios. 

Then there's the Crios 2010 Rosé of Malbec, perhaps the gutsiest wine in the lineup − and certainly the most fun. Balbo uses the saignée method to bleed off the first-pressed juice from old-vine Malbec grapes. The result is a darker, richer rosé with spiced black raspberry and wild strawberry flavors that stomp the palate to take note of its surprising complexity, like an exuberant child showing off new tricks on the trampoline.

Crios shows a burly edge that sets it apart from delicate Old World rosés. At 13.9% alcohol content, it's easily a fuller-bodied rosé any red wine lover can embrace. In-your-face flavors and aromas are sure to win over a few rosé-haters and seduce wine enthusiasts who haven't yet been dazzled by rosé's singular charms.

Screwcapped and priced around $10 at Dan's Wine Shop in Palm Desert, it's a no-brainer to have on hand any time of year, and a wine we look forward to snapping up every vintage.

If you're already thinking turkey day, look no further. Broad-shouldered and juicy with a spice-packed palate, Crios makes a terrific Thanksgiving wine. It's a crowd-pleaser that can sail through the entire meal, from earthy first courses through to turkey and the trimmings. Give it a good chill and let the party begin.

White Wine Essentials

Last week's White Wine Essentials guided tasting was the first in our new wine education series, Wine Essentials at Cooking with Class. The sellout group of wine-curious attendees tasted their way through the three top-selling varietal wines in the country: Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay.

By tasting two wines styles or expressions of each grape, the group was able to pick out what made the two wines smell, taste and feel different by harnessing their senses in a more focused way. Tasting the two styles side-by-side helped each person better understand their own wine palate and discover which style they preferred − and why.

Each taster received a complete tasting sheet that described the wine's scents, tastes, style, food pairings, alcohol content and region. They also learned about each winery and were given ideas for other types of wines they might like if they enjoyed that particular style of wine. Surprise giveaways were awarded to those whose questions or comments heightened everyone's wine appreciation.

The fun continues at Red Wine Essentials at 6 PM on Thursday, November 17 and again with Sparkling Wine Essentials during the holiday week on Thursday, December 28. Sign up online or by calling Jane at 760.777.1161 as seats as going fast. All sessions are independent and open to all levels of wine enthusiasts. Whether you're new to wine or an experienced taster, you'll learn more about your palate in a way that will broaden and deepen your wine enjoyment for years to come. 

The six wines we tasted at White Wine Essentials are given below. All are available at Cooking with Class or can be ordered for you to pick up. Together, they beautifully demonstrate stylistic variations that make wine tasting a constant challenge and a thrill:

Pinot Grigio

Vigneti Pittaro, 2009 (Friuli, Italy) and Montinore Estate 2009 Pinot Gris (Willamette Valley, Oregon)

Sauvignon Blanc

Spy Valley 2010 (Marlborough, New Zealand) and Cannonball 2010 (Sonoma County, California)

Chardonnay

Los Vascos 2010 (Colchagua Valley, Chile) and Samantha Starr 2008 (Monterey County, California)

For those of you who want the complete food- and wine-pairing experience, our next Food & Wine Tasting dinner at Cooking with Class in on Friday, October 28 and next month on November 11 at 6:30 PM. We'll feature two whites and two reds with four exciting dishes paired to perfection and created by Chef Andie and her talented crew, plus a special dessert.

See you soon!

Get Fresh with Barbera

Who doesn't want fresh? Just-picked, farm-to-fork and catch-of-the-day freshness are easily understood when used to describe produce, eggs or the local fish catch. But freshness also applies to wine, despite being bottled and aged. For wine, as with food, fresh is the ultimate compliment.

Say fresh to describe a white or pink wine to a wine lover and their mental switchboard lights up with sensory images. Fresh may conjure a racy, kiwi-scented Sauvignon Blanc or a watermelon-cool rosé that rouses the palate with waves of pure, clean flavor. Another might recall the ripe peach perfume pops from a frizzante Moscato d'Asti or a blast of sea salt in a sip of Muscadet.

So does freshness also come in red? It sure does, and it's a quality to seek out and appreciate in warmer weather.  

To this taster, fresh flavors in red wines are vibrant, pure and focused. A fresh-tasting Syrah unfurls berry-licious flavors seasoned by exotic perfumes that waft from a juicy basketful, plucked at the height of season. While a more developed Syrah may show a more nuanced berry profile, perhaps with aromas and tastes that recall a favorite aunt's fresh-baked pie, fruity freshness remains its calling card.   

Pinot Noir is known for fresh flavors of bright red or dark cherry fruit. Even when layered by mushroomy notes or floral aromatics, Pinot's energetic red fruits dance across the palate with vigor, sending out a wake-up call that has us smacking, sniffing and coming back for more.    

Italian Barbera is another fresh red wine with flavor traction worthy of more than just a summer fling.  Bright red cherry flavors streaked with clean minerality unleash a flavor-burst that not only satisfies the senses but also leaves the palate primed for another savory sip.  Despite 14% alcohol, the 2008 Vietti Barbera d'Asti Tre Vigne retains its muscular vitality. With a scent of earth after a sun-shower, the wine shows dimension that pairs well with grilled ahi tuna topped by a barely cooked sauce of chopped ripe tomatoes and black olives. Nearly raw, fresh—and gone.

More often than not, fresh-tasting notes shine brighter in wines that are lighter in oak, higher in acidity and lower in tannin and alcohol. These wines tend to feel more angular than round in the mouth. They're not the brooding wines we so enjoy in cooler weather, nor are they the heavily extracted fruit bombs that assert their place at the table and in the cellar, too.

With hotter-than-July August around the corner, give your palate a blast of freshness in the color of your choice, at least for a few more weeks.

Summer Reds

As thermometer-busting temperatures climb day into night, it's no exaggeration to call desert summers extreme. Adding insult to injury for red wine lovers is the thought of months in white-wine-and-rosé exile. Instead, take these tips for choosing summer reds to help keep cool at the dining table or poolside get-together.

Tame the tannins

Mmm, a beautifully charred steak with a tasty, tannic Cabernet Sauvignon. While that combo is a food match made in heaven in cooler weather, it's hardly so during the Hades heat of summer.

As much as beefy proteins mute Cabernet's mouth-puckering tannins, a drying mouthfeel is downright unpleasant in parched, hot weather. Save the Nebbiolo and age-worthy Cabs for autumn. Now's the time to switch gears and seek out lower-tannin reds instead. Think Pinot Noir, Dolcetto, Barbera, Valpolicella, Loire Cabernet Franc, Beaujolais, fruitier Merlot, Syrah and many Côte-du-Rhône blends. Still miss your Cab? Try cooler-climate Australian Cabernets that offer bold and juicy fruit with tannins that are less harsh. The fun-loving group at last night's food-and-wine tasting at Cooking with Class enjoyed the Four Sisters Cabernet from Central Victoria. Its currant and blackberry fruit laced with a hint of mint was lip-smacking delish, with not a dry mouth in the house.

                                                                                   

Similarly, at last month's summer wine dinner, the popular closer from half a world away was the Val de L'Ours 2008 by Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafite). The famed house of Bordeaux purchased an abandoned estate in the Languedoc-Rousillon region of southern France in 1999, now replanted with many of the traditional Corbières grapes. This 75% Cabernet, 25% Syrah blend is vinified in traditional Bordeaux style yet approachable now, with aromas of anise, spice and dark berries and rounder tannins on the palate. Ripe flavors of plum, currants and dark cherry ride out with a peppery kick on the finish. Try this palate pleaser with steaks, barbecue, pizza and spicy pastas.

Watch the Weight

Stay ahead of the heavy, sinking feeling that comes with oppressive heat by choosing foods – and wines – that are lighter in weight, both in terms of body and alcohol content. Medium-bodied Pinot Noir does double-duty as a favorite low-tannin choice to make it ideal for a range of lighter summer food preparations. Pinot Noir goes especially well with foods that don't take well to tannins, as in lighter meats such as pork, veal and chicken, as well as most fish.

At our summer wine tasting, we served 2009 Pinot Noir by Block Nine, a winery expressly created in response to an American market pining for Pinot. The medium-bodied Pinot by this small California producer clocks in at only 13.5% alcohol. On the nose, it is fragrant with violets, strawberries and dark cherries.  Silky on the palate, the wine sends out cherry and cola flavors layered with a touch of earthiness and sandalwood. You'll want to bring on the mushroom, savory and woodsy dishes for this one, perhaps a cherry-sauced pork or fisherman's-style grilled salmon.

The Dashwood 2009 Pinot Noir savored at last night's tasting event hails from Marlborough, New Zealand, a site better known for Sauvignon Blanc and home to more than half of the country's vineyards. The Dashwood blend of Pinot lots from two Marlborough valleys is light on its feet, with bright cherry fruit, crisp minerality and gentle tannins. It made a tasty match for Chef Andie's potato-crusted salmon with pomegranate beurre rouge and 'cousotto,' her risotto-styled couscous creation with basil and goat cheese.

So go ahead and lighten up your red wine palate this summer. You won't miss the mouth-coating heaviness of fuller-bodied wines in stifling heat while you'll still enjoy a range of seductive aromas, delectable flavor profiles and the layered complexity red wine lovers adore. And, at less than $20 a bottle for these winners, you'll stay within your summer budget as well. The school's July food-and-wine tasting falls on Friday, the 22nd. See the online calendar, make your reservations or call for event information and wine availability: 760.777.1161.

Summer Wines

What makes a wine a winning partner for warm-weather foods? We tasted our way through four different answers to that $64,000 question at Friday's summer wine dinner at Cooking with Class. 

 

Turn down the heat

Choosing lower-alcohol wines is one way to keep summer heat in check. These wines don't feel as hot in the mouth as high-octane wines, a sensation you might enjoy by the fire in winter but not so much on a hot desert night. Stay cool with wines that clock in under 13 percent. If you have trouble finding lower-alcohol wines in your wine shop's domestic section, venture over to the Loire, northern Italy and Germany for more choices in the 11 to 12.5% range.

Leave oak in the forest

The fresher flavors and lighter weight of summer foods can make wines with overt oakiness seem heavy or clunky. While the toasty flavors imparted by oak can play up to the smoky flavors of barbecue and outdoor grilling, all that wood can clobber the palate. Instead, try lighter-oaked styles or blends with neutral-oak aged or unoaked lots in the mix. If you can't find clues to a wine's oak ageing on the label, ask your wine merchant. More Chardonnay producers are trumpeting their no-oak or less-oaked wines with label terms such as oak-free, unoaked, naked, virgin or references to steel or metal. Whites that are often unoaked include dry Muscat, Torrontés, Riesling, Albariño and most Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

Take a wine vacation

Summer is a perfect time to sample the un-chardonnays of the white wine world. Lighter sauces and breezier preparations call out for wines with bright acidity, fresh fruit flavors, delicate or floral aromas and a solid core of minerality. White wines from cooler climates deliver the goods. Look again to the Loire Valley of France for whites that seem made for summer salads, shellfish and lighter meats, as in Muscadet, Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. Gotta have red? Loire Cabernet Franc is a versatile match for picnic and warm-weather foods, including herbed vegetables and white meats, salmon and grilled ahi.

Soave from the Veneto region of northeastern Italy has made giant leaps in quality since it unleashed oceans of watery, thin wines last century. Labels that bear a classico designation on the label are good bets for elegance, lemony and mineral flavors, smooth texture and hint of almond on a clean finish. Further south, sharper Vermentino from Sardegna is a lip-smacking tart white that cries out for seafood and acid-based dressings.

Stateside, the cool northwest is producing whites that are big on value and flavor. Oregon Pinot Gris has just the right amount of weight and citrusy verve to pair well with summer vegetables, appetizers, fish, poultry and lighter meat dishes. Venture into Washington wines too – their Rieslings are getting better and better.

So what did we serve Friday? We began with Guy Saget Les Clissages d’Or 2009 Muscadet de Sèvre et Maine, a 100% Melon de Bourgogne lovely from the Loire. Aged on its lees for a lush, creamy texture, this Muscadet offers food-friendly refreshment with a salty tang. Adorned in les clissages d'or, the handwoven gold threading on the bottle, it was also the prettiest bottle of the night.  

For the second course, the nod went to Italy's Veneto and the Filippi 2008 Soave made from 100% Garganega. Its lemony freshness and medium body made it a lively pairing for Chef Andie's version of shrimp scampi with creamy polenta.

Next up, we'll tell you about warm-weather reds and the two that brought our summer wine dinner to a grand finale – one by a single-minded California newcomer and the other a surprising debut from southern France by a storied winemaker .

Tantalized by Torrontés

If the beauty of a wine's perfume makes you giddy, point your sniffer to Torrontés, the signature white wine of Argentina. Swirl a cool glass of Torrontés to breathe in a lei-stand of lofty scents, all tropical flowers and exotic fruits.

The 2009 Zolo pictured here made last summer's pool party all the more fun.

Ampelographers and grape geneticists have pegged the Torrontés grape as a cross between the Mission grape brought to the New World by the Spaniards and Muscat, specifically Muscat of Alexandria. Known for exotic, heady aromas of orange blossom, honeysuckle and jasmine, Muscat is perhaps the oldest wine grape used in modern wines. Versatile Muscat can be vinified into a wide range of wines, from delightful sparklers such as Moscato d'Asti to dry still wines (Botani from southern Spain is a favorite pick), off-dry and sweet versions, such as the honeyed Beaumes de Venise.

As a dry white wine, Argentine Torrontés makes a great warm-weather choice. Flowery aromatics typify Torrontés from higher elevations in northern Argentina's Salta province while Torrontés from more southern La Rioja can be richer in tropical fruit flavors. Both are low to moderate in acidity, which makes these lively wines delightful aperitifs or a breezy choice with lighter fare.  

For a small gathering of wine-savvy friends, we chose 2009 Torrontés from Bodega Colomé. Located in the mountainous Calchaquí Valley of northern Argentina, Bodegas Colomé is the country's oldest winery and, at 7,500 feet, one of the highest in the world. Now owned by Swiss financier Donald Hess, the location is so remote that Hess built schools, housing, a place of worship, roads, a medical facility and other structural elements to make the operation self-sufficient. Word is he bought it for a million dollars – and then spent ten times that amount to bring it online in a first-rate manner.

Despite a rocky start, Bodega Colomé is now known for a wide portfolio of outstanding wines. The 2009 Torrontés is crafted from hand-harvested grapes plucked from 30-to-60-year-old vines. Seductive floral aromatics give way to juicy nectarine and guava flavors. So easy to enjoy by itself, it will also go well with lightly spiced Asian dishes. Or, do as they do in Argentina and savor Torrontés with empanadas.

We treated another private party to Zolo 2010 Torrontés, this time at Cooking with Class in La Quinta. Made from lower-altitude 10-year-old vines in La Rioja, nearly halfway between Mendoza and Salta, grapes for Zolo pass through a pneumatic press at the winery's über-modern facility. This method employs a blanket of inert nitrogen to insulate grapes from exposure to oxygen and preserve vibrant floral aromatics. Although our guests were new to Torrontés, they were won over at first sip by Zolo's delicate scents and limey, tropical flavors accented by starfruit and papaya. Chef Andie played off the wine's exotic notes with a seared scallop creation finished with a tangy garlic-basil yogurt and avocado-mango crudo. Sound awesome? It was.

Try Torrontés at your next get-together. It's delectably different and sure to please any crowd – including the guys, in case you were wondering. Just don't keep it around too long. Torrontés is best consumed young, probably no more than two years or so after the vintage date. Get to know this Argentine beauty and tango your way to Torrontés all spring and summer long. Find Zolo at Cooking with Class and Bodega Colomé at wine shops around town.