Most of us want simple answers to the questions that perplex us. Take wine appreciation for example. I am often asked to describe the most important qualitative aspect in producing good wine. Well, unfortunately there is no simple answer, but there are two basic conditions that must exist for good wine to be made.

The two most important influences in the cultivation of grapes are the geographic location of the vineyard and the weather. Assuming these two variables are in place, then other influences such as soil composition, topography, orientation of the vineyard to the sun and a whole host of additional esoteric factors come into play.

You don’t have to be a horticulturist to know it’s impossible to cultivate a vineyard at the North Pole, in Death Valley or at the top of Mount Everest. We all know that grapes require a moderate climate in order to grow and ripen to full maturity before being turned into wine.

What, then, is more critical to the production of good wine? The vineyard location or the weather? The obvious answer is both, but reality is a bit fuzzier. For example, take the world famous appellations of Bordeaux and Burgundy in France.

The best wines from these two regions are among the most expensive on earth, some of which cost more than a thousand dollars for a single bottle. The French proclaim loudly that wines produced in these places are superior because of the soil in the respective geographic locations.

What they don’t tell you is that less than five out of every 10 vintages is average to awful in quality. Why? Simply put: Mother Nature. Weather in both Bordeaux and (particularly) Burgundy can be less than ideal for grape growing.

A perfect year can quickly morph into disaster when a sudden hailstorm in the spring or torrential rains during harvest wreak havoc on the vineyards. Just this past vintage, weather reduced the Burgundy crop by almost 70 percent.

Conversely, wine makers and growers in California and Southeast Australia tout the consistently good weather as the reason for the outstanding wines they produce. It is not often that weather causes problems in these regions. Yet, too much of a good thing (e.g. long, hot growing seasons) can result in a vintage of out of balance, insipid and overly alcoholic wines.

So how do winemakers in the most prestigious appellations around the wine world deal with an imperfect geographic location or intemperate weather conditions? A lot of different ways actually.

Let’s look at how some deal with the issue of location. For years, wine makers in California struggled to make decent pinot noir and consistently failed. It was widely held that the state was just too warm to successfully produce this fickle grape which requires a long, cool growing season.

Then along came wineries such as Calera and Acacia who began planting the grape in cooler locations and using rootstock from Burgundy. Consequently, by adapting their vineyard practices to what the grape required, California has been making excellent pinot noir for the last thirty years.

In Bordeaux and Burgundy, growers and wine makers now use advanced weather forecasting to protect their vines and to know exactly when to harvest. In addition, they employ new world techniques in the winery to improve the quality of their wines. And Voila (That’s “hot damn” in West Virginian), they are able to mitigate some of the most vexing problems.

If you are still reading this and just about to fall asleep, the take away is to do a little homework before you go on a wine-buying spree. Check out vintage reports and tasting notes for the wines you are interested in, particularly those, like Burgundy, that require a serious investment. You can also use Google, Ask.com or any Internet search engine to get the latest information.

In the meantime, you might search your local wine shop for this gem. The 2011 Borsao Tinto ($11) from Spain is one of the best inexpensive wines I’ve tasted in a long time. Rich and full of blackberry and cola flavors, this grenache (85%) and tempranillo (15%) blend is delicious and would pair very nicely with braised beef short ribs in a bath of red wine onions and mushrooms.

With the dawn of a new year, it is not uncommon for many of us to experience a touch of melancholy, guilt or both. Melancholy – in my case – because I cannot physically or fiscally sustain the incessant consumption of excellent food and wine ad infinitum.

But even if I had the wherewithal to keep it going, my old companion – guilt – is always present to remind me that my wanton appetites are approaching cardinal sin status.

So, I suppose it’s time to back it off a bit, bite the bullet and adopt a more ascetic lifestyle. No more multi-course meals with multiple wines (for a while). After all, Lent is only a month away and I’ve got a plan.

Now don’t get me wrong- there is no cold turkey on this menu. And, I will allow myself a sip or two of that purple or golden elixir we all love. But moderation is my new mantra this winter.

Eating the appropriate food is key to any successful lifestyle modification, and I know just the food to get me on the straight and narrow. Menasha (pronounced men-nay –sha) is a dish that my grandmother, mother and aunts prepared with great regularity, particularly in the cooler months of the year.

The dish is also known as minestra and is a cross between a soup and a stew. The main ingredient is any type of green vegetable. Our family used everything from spinach, dandelion greens, kale, and cabbage, to green beans, broccoli and collards.

They also flavored the dish with a piece of meat boiled in water. Now don’t gag, but it was not uncommon for Grandma to use a pig’s foot, chicken feet or even a pig’s ear in Menasha. Sounds strange, I know, but the resulting dish was delicious and nutritious.

The recipe below uses a more acceptable pork part, but you may eliminate the meat completely and make this  vegetarian if you like. To spark up the dish, I also always add hot vinegar pepper rings to the bowl right before serving.

To complete this hearty and warming meal, pair it with a big, rough around the edges red such as Marietta Old Vine Red, Antinori Santa Cristina Sangiovese or Martin Codax Tempranillo to name a few of my favorite vinous accompaniments.

So if you’re feeling a little fat and guilty about now, try on my recipe for New Year’s Menasha.

The Ingredients

Two pork ribs with bone (optional)
One-half pound of cleaned kale
One head of Napa cabbage
Two medium onions chopped in large pieces
Three cloves of garlic
Three tablespoons of olive oil
One tablespoon of fennel seeds
One teaspoon of red pepper seeds (optional)
Four medium potatoes quartered
One tablespoon each Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
One quart of water

The Cooking

Sauté the ribs in a large pot with one tablespoon of olive oil until brown
Add one quart of water to the meat and allow to boil for 15 minutes
Add all the vegetables, salt, pepper, red pepper and fennel to the pot
Sauté the garlic in two tablespoons of olive oil in a separate pan until lightly brown
Discard the garlic and add the olive oil to the pot.
Cook for approximately 45 minutes or until the potatoes are fork tender
Serve in large bowls with crusty bread and enjoy

Is this fun or what? The holiday season, I mean.

It’s not often you get a pass to cast prudence and caution to the wind and plunk down some serious green for a little red or white.

I‘ve already been perusing the shelves of my favorite wine shops (and online too) in search of that special bottle. The good news is that there is an incredible selection of wine from all over the world available in any number of price ranges to meet just about any budget.

And giving the gift of wine, particularly to someone close to you, can have its own reward since there is a good likelihood you’ll be invited to sip along with the giftee once that special bottle is uncorked.

And of course whenever I consider a wine, I always ruminate over what type of food will present the best opportunity for gastronomic synergy. In my particular situation, I’m thinking about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals and the wines that will make the feasts memorable.

In my household, my wife and I divide up responsibility for the two meals. I take Christmas Eve and she is chef de cuisine for Christmas Day. As one who was raised in a Catholic Italian family, I will spend all day Christmas Eve preparing and cooking seafood (ala the feast of the seven fishes).

After five or six hours of frying, boiling, steaming, smoking and poaching fish, I will be worn out, cranky, smelly and in serious need of a sip or two of wine. My choice to soothe my weary body and reinvigorate my spirit is Champagne or sparkling wine which is also an excellent accompaniment to all manner of seafood.

On Christmas day, my wife will prepare a more traditional American holiday meal featuring a standing rib roast. After working her culinary magic for a couple of hours, she will emerge from the kitchen smiling broadly, full of Christmas cheer, and smelling of lavender. Of course, this meal demands a big red wine such as cabernet sauvignon or even a Christmas Claret (Bordeaux).

So today, I’m going to share a list of wines I would love to find under my Christmas tree and which just happen to include bottles that would go particularly well with our holiday meals. I think you would like them too.

Cabernet sauvignon /Bordeaux Red or Bordeaux -style blends (i.e., blends which might consist of any combination of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, Malbec, or petit verdot):

2005 Chateau Lynch Bages; 2007 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon; 2008 Joseph Phelps Insignia; 2007 Dominus; 2005 Harlan Estate The Maiden; 2005 Chateau La Dominique; 2007 Groth Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve; 2000 Chateau Brainaire Ducru; 2008 Merryvale Profile; 2005 Chateau Cos d’Estournel; 2007 Saddleback Cabernet Sauvignon; 2009 Pontet Canet; 2005 Leoville Las Cases; 2008 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon; and 2007 Ornellaia.

Champagne and Sparkling wines:

Nicholas Feuillatte “Blue Label” Brut; Mumm Napa Cuvee (sparkling); Paul Bara Brut; Veuve Cliquot Brut; Roderer Estate (sparkling); Krug Grande Cuvee Brut; Perrier Jouet Grand Brut; 2003 Taittinger Comptes De Champagne Rose; Iron Horse Russian Cuvee (sparkling).

Happy Holidays!

At dinner the other evening at a local restaurant, I asked the waiter if he could decant the rather full-bodied red wine that I had selected to accompany our meal. One of my tablemates looked quizzically at me and inquired why I felt the wine needed to be decanted.

To air or not to air. That is the question I am often asked by perplexed wine lovers. No, I’m not referring to one’s wine-stained undergarments here, but to the somewhat controversial practice of decanting wine.

The air we breathe can be both friend and enemy to the wine we drink. Depending upon the wine type and its age, oxygen can transform a tight, tannic, young wine into a mellow and more appealing nectar, or it can turn an old, valuable, complex wine into salad dressing.

Most of us will agree that before we open a bottle of old wine, we should stand it up for a day and then decant the wine so that the sediment (which is a natural by-product of the aging process, particularly in red wine) can be left in the bottom of the bottle. The burning question here, though, is how long we should allow the wine to “breathe” before consuming it.

Most wine makers will tell you that their wine is ready to drink right out of the bottle and they’re probably right. What they don’t tell you is whether or not the wine will actually improve after an hour or so in a decanter.

And hey, you don’t need a crystal decanter to aerate your wine. I’ve used a fruit pitcher. As long as the decanter is clean and free from off tastes or smells (hint: don’t use a pickle jar), any open container will do.

Some “experts” suggest that merely removing the cork will suffice in allowing enough oxygen for the wine to benefit. That’s patently ridiculous since only a miniscule amount of air actually touches the top-most surface of the wine.

Knowing when to aerate the wine (allowing air to interact with a substance) by decanting it into a larger, more open container is a matter of judgement and experience. Generally, I think that young red wines (under 10 years old) benefit from being decanted.

With older wines, I will also generally decant the stuff right before serving to preserve the delicate flavors and complexity that have been bottled up over time. I’ve had the unfortunate experience of allowing an older wine (a 30-year old California cabernet) to sit in a carafe for as little as 15 minutes and have literally tasted the wine lose its flavor.

On the other hand, I once mistakenly allowed a 25-year old Barolo to sit for 18 hours in a decanter and the result was a wine with an aroma of violets and spice, and flavors of chocolate and currants. Go figure.

So, here are three factors to consider in weighing whether or not to aerate your wine: the type of wine; the age and vintage date; and the manner in which the wine was stored.
Most fuller bodied red wines such as cabernet sauvignon (to include Bordeaux), zinfandel, Rhone varietals such as syrah and mourvedre along with Italian reds like Barolo, Barbaresco, Brunello and Amarone will benefit from at least an hour’s worth of decanting.

Decanting white wines is a little trickier. Some white wines such as chardonnay, young sauvignon blanc and Alsatian varietals such as gewurztraminer, pinot blanc, riesling and pinot gris will also improve from a half-hour to an hour in a carafe or decanter. But delicate whites such as pinot grigio are better left undecanted.

One other factor to consider when contemplating decanting is the particular vintage year of the wine. If wines from a specific vintage were known to be fuller-bodied, for example, they might require even more aeration than ones from lesser vintages (see my example regarding Barolo).

Finally, the conditions under which the wine was stored will have a great bearing on how well the wine will stand up to air. Poorly stored wines will generally accelerate the aging process and thus be less tolerant of aeration. One quick clue to how a wine is stored is to check the level of the wine in the neck of the bottle. If the level is lower than normal, that could mean the wine has not been stored properly.

One fun way to test whether or not a wine benefits from aeration in a decanter is to purchase two bottles of the same wine, decant one for an hour and then open the other and evaluate the wines.

To breathe or not to breathe: you be the judge.

I’ve proclaimed this many times before, but it bears repeating: Thanksgiving is truly a wine lover’s holiday!

Why? Simply put, it’s the culinary versatility of the Thanksgiving dinner and the way turkey and all the “fixins” can be successfully paired with just about any type of wine.

The turkey by itself possesses meat that has a variety of different flavors, colors and textures which can match nicely with any medium to full-bodied white or red. And, when you add the dishes that traditionally accompany Thanksgiving dinner, things really get interesting.

Whether you use a light, slightly sweet German Riesling or Alsatian Pinot Gris, a fruit forward Gruner Veltliner or an herbal and dry Sauvignon Blanc (which pairs nicely with a sage-flavored bread dressing) or a rich and full-bodied chardonnay, you will find that oven- roasted turkey will pair nicely with each of these white wines…

However, what surprises so many folks (particularly those who adhere to the rigid view that you should only pair white wine with white meat) is how well turkey matches up to big red wines, particularly when the “national bird” has been charcoal -grilled or smoked. Full bodied reds like syrah, cabernet sauvignon, Chateauneuf-du-Pape or even zinfandel go especially well with smoked or grilled turkey.

Oven-roasted turkey is also very nicely accompanied by medium-bodied reds such as Chianti Classico, pinot noir or tempranilo from Spain. Several years ago, I even opened older Bordeaux to celebrate the holiday.

But this year, I’m not going to cook “no stinking, ordinary oven-roasted bird.” No siree Pancho! I’m going for a semi-smoked, charcoal -grilled turkey.

Here’s how I’m doing the National Bird this year. After soaking my 15 -pound turkey in a brine of kosher salt, brown sugar, water, apple cider and beer for about three hours, the bird will be stuffed with bread dressing to which Italian sausage, chestnuts, onion and celery will be added.

I’ll prepare a charcoal fire, move the coals to either side of the grill, place an aluminum pan half filled with water between the coals and then place the bird directly above the water and grill for about three and a half hours.

There will also be the usual Thanksgiving dinner accompaniments of mashed and sweet potatoes, giblet gravy, peas and mushrooms and pearl onions along with freshly baked rolls and pumpkin pie. Of course, cranberry relish will also make an appearance as will the following special wines.

To get everyone in the proper mood, I’ll open a bottle or two of Domain Chandon Blanc De Noirs as an aperitif. Then I will decant into separate carafes a 2007 Schulmberger Alsatian Riesling along with a 2008 Domaine Serene Evenstad Pinot Noir to accompany the meal. I think it’s fun to experiment with both wines and discuss the relative merits of each with various components of the meal.

For a dessert of pumpkin pie, I will open a bottle of 2005 Two Hands For Love or Money (a late harvest semillon from Australia). This wine rivals the storied Sauternes of France and is infused with apricot and honeyed sweetness and just a touch of the “Noble Rot” so sought after in great late harvest wines.

By the way, all of the wines mentioned here were purchased locally.

After such a meal, it is prudent to take a slow walk around the neighborhood before plopping down on the couch in a tryptophan- induced coma to watch football or old James Bond movies.

Happy Thanksgiving.

One of the state’s premier food and wine events will once again be held in beautiful Tucker County at Canaan Valley Resort. The “Wild, Wonderful Wine Weekend,” which has become an annual gourmet extravaganza, will be held this year from November 9th thru 11th. Once again, I will have the privilege of selecting the wines for the event and providing commentary on those delectable sippers throughout the weekend.

I’m in the process of choosing wines from some of the world’s greatest wine regions to be paired with a cornucopia of culinary delicacies prepared under the direction of Canaan Valley Resort’s Food and Beverage Manager Lawrence Walkup.

It’s always fun to work with culinary professionals in pairing wines with their scrumptious creations, and the folks at our state’s most scenic resort always hit the mark at this signature event.

The weekend begins Friday, November 9 at 7 p.m. with a “taste-around reception” where more than 20 wines can be sampled with matching culinary treats from food stations featuring a wonderful selection of foods upon which to graze (see below).

On Saturday, there will be a tasting featuring wines that I recommend with the upcoming Thanksgiving dinner celebrations. Guests will also be treated to a four-course wine-paired luncheon led by yours truly. After lunch, guests will be free to hike, bike, nap (what I plan to do) or just enjoy Mother Nature’s purple mountain majesty!

The menus below should precipitate a surge in endorphins and get your collective palates watering in anticipation. I haven’t completed selecting all the wines at this writing, but you can be assured that I will do my best to make you happy.

Guests have the option of attending the entire weekend for a package price ($290 for a single attendee & $499 per couple inclusive of room, taxes and fees) or choosing to participate in individual events ala carte (see prices below). For additional information or reservations call 800-622-4121 or visit online at www.canaanresort.com.

Friday Reception ($40.00 per person)

Chicken En Croute
Bacon Wrapped Bread Sticks
Smoked Trout Dip with Crostini
Smoked Pork Stuffed with Savory Meatloaf
Fish Tacos
Mini Potato Cakes with Crème Fresh
Marinated Cheese Trays and Antipasti
Artisan Chocolates
Chocolate Fondue Fountain

Lunch with Wine Pairings ($35.00 per person)

Spinach, Apple, and White Cheddar Salad
Trout Cake with Lemon Caper Butter Sauce
Blackened Chicken Pasta
Carrot Cake with Maple Crème Cheese Icing

Demystifying Wines for Thanksgiving ($20.00 per person)
I’ll share my picks for “National Turkey Day.”

Grand Gourmet Dinner with paired wines ($75.00 per person)

Sliced Pork Belly and Apple Fritters
Potato Ramp Soup with Cracklin’ Bread
Black and Blue Pear Salad
Filet Mignon with Gnocchi topped with a Morel, Tomato, and Herb Ragout
Pumpkin Crème Brûlée with Caramelized Maple Sugar