Last week I was back on Roger Hedgecock’s TV show pouring three Syrah based wines, Cabot, Big Basin and St. Cosme. I so enjoy sharing my favorite wines with Roger’s audience. I hope you have as much fun watching it as we did filming it!
Click on the image below to view the Syrah wine show:
Well, it’s that time of year, so in the spirit of the season, for my monthly wine segment I brought some bubbly for us to drink. There are plenty of $40 meh options out there, so I thought it would be fun to try to prove that you can spend less and get a great glass of sparking wine. Instead of the names that everyone recognizes, what I did was bring some bottles that might not be so well-known but that have a lower cost than that one that rhymes with Groove Plookoe (no need to name names!) . We talked about the history of champagne, how to correctly open a bottle of bubbly, AND a little bit about sparkling wines around the world.
Click on the picture below to watch the clip from Roger’s show.
As most people know, I’m on a one-woman crusade to move my friends away from oaky, buttery California Chardonnay and over to the more elegant style of White Burgundy, which shows off the true beauty of this ever-so-popular grape. So when I did my little TV gig this month, I brought three examples of whites from France that actually taste like Chardonnay and not like pencil shavings dipped in Crisco. OK, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but you get the gist of what I’m trying to do …
All three of these wines are readily available and as “starter burgs”, an added bonus is that they are all under $20. That said, many of us Burgheads would rather drink them than Cali Chard that costs twice as much!
Click on the picture below to watch the white Burgundies clip from the TV show.
Pouring White Burgundies on the Roger Hedgecock TV Show
The wines poured this month:
Louis Jadot Pouilly Fuissé ($18)
Louis Latour Grand Ardeche ($13)
William Fevre Chablis Champs Royaux ($17)
If you try these wines and find that you enjoy them so much you’d like to sample some higher end White Burgundies, see below for links to wine stores in SoCal where they can help you find the ones that fit the flavor profile that you prefer. The next level of quality, 1er Cru, tends to be priced at $30-$80, and the highest level (Grand Cru) is typically $100-$300. But any wine lover that has had Grand Cru from a great vintage will tell you that they can be life-changingly ethereal. Really. Hey, I wouldn’t have chosen it for my crusade if I wasn’t serious about this, would I?
http://www.vintagewinessd.com (Vintage Wines, San Diego)
Rex Picket joined me on the Roger Hedgecock TV Show to talk about his play Sidewayss, opening at the La Jolla Playhouse later this month. I really enjoyed the production when I saw it last year at the Ruskin Theatre in Santa Monica. It’s based on Rex’s novel so that even if you’ve seen the film multiple times (like most of my wine geek friends!) it’s quite different with both an additional poignancy and one hilarious scene that didn’t make it into the movie.
So in honor of all that Rex has done for Pinot Noir, I brought three different ones for us to try. The picture below is of Roger doing his impression of Sandra Oh hitting Jack with her motorcycle helmet (if you saw the movie, you know that he deserved it!) See if you can catch my major gaffe in the first minute of the show:
Click below to watch Rex Pickett & Robin Stark on the Roger Hedgecock TV Show
To learn more about the La Jolla Playhouse production:
Last week I was on Roger Hedgecock’s TV show pouring High Quality-to-Price Ratio Cali Cabs. We were having too much fun for a Friday morning! Check out our California Cabernet show…
I’ll be doing these wine segments on a monthly basis and I’m open to suggestion for future shows
Robin Stark & Roger Hedgecock present Great California Cabs – Click below to watch