Wine Spectator manages to screw up pairing wine with steak

I've seen some weak articles on wine and food pairing, but I think one in Wine Spectator's Nov. 15 edition about pairing wine with steak -- the food nearly every red wine maker seems to want on the menu for its wine-pairing dinners -- is the worst ever.

Here's why.

1) It's completely worthless to the reader for practical advice.

2) In four pages of copy, only three wines are mentioned, costing $175, $70 and $90 retail.

3) The article emphasizes failure, i.e., "None of the three had the balance or grace that were needed." So buddy -- pick other wines! Maybe one that costs $20?

4) It's a product placement for Del Frisco's Restaurant Group, which is the only steakhouse mentioned in all four pages. Explain to me again why the FTC wants bloggers to divulge freebies, but not magazines.

This article is an extreme example of what's wrong with many food-and-wine pairing articles: not enough care about the reader. Instead, as with this article, many writers just want to brag about their own experience.

Moreover, they make it seem as if there's only one wine in the world that can possibly work with a dish, and that other wines are simply failures.

I don't want to go to the other extreme. Wine pairing matters, and you can easily prove it to yourself with some goat cheese, a Sauvignon Blanc and a Chardonnay. One wine will taste good with the goat cheese; the other will not. (Hint: if you can only afford one, get SB).

But that is a carefully chosen example of a food with an extreme taste-texture combination that isn't friendly to many wines. Most foods are not like this.

Steak is certainly not like this. Go to Bern's Steak House in Tampa, Florida, home of perhaps America's best wine list, and chat up one of the sommeliers. The last time I was there, I was in an aged Cab mood, but they convinced me to have Burgundy instead and the wines were lovely. Our neighbors were drinking Petite Sirah; others in the room had a Merlot. I'd have a hard time saying any of those is a lousy match. (Maybe that's why I'm not at Wine Spectator.)

My favorite local takeout place is Good Frikkin' Chicken, which makes a superb rotisserie chicken with Middle Eastern spices. Since I eat this relatively often, I have had great matches for it with Chardonnay, Viognier, sparkling wine, sake, Pinot Noir, Grenache, rose, cider, Chateauneuf du Pape, Albarino, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, and other alcoholic beverages I'm probably forgetting. Maybe my all-time favorite pairing with it is slightly toasty, non-malolactic Chardonnay with decent acidity. But as you can see, I don't start weeping if I don't have such a bottle chilled.

Here's the thing: People reading about wine and food pairing are, generally, anxious. Maybe they're having a dinner party and they want it to go perfectly. Maybe they are just learning about wine.

It's no service to these readers to increase their anxieties. People writing about wine and food matches should tell us what works, in general terms -- not like Wine Spectator claiming that only a specific $175 wine goes with filet mignon. Are Del Frisco's steaks really that unforgiving?

Writers should also tell us what doesn't work. Sweet foods and dry wines, that's troublesome. Salty foods and high-alcohol wines is another toughie. There, that's more useful advice in two short sentences than Wine Spectator doled out in four product-placed pages.

Too often, I read some star-struck writer who got a free meal somewhere say, "The single-vineyard Gewurztraminer (only 24 cases made) with the river fish flown in from Japan in a sauce of wild-picked chanterelles was divine!" As if that's going to help someone who's planning to cook trout and wonders what bottle at BevMo will go with it (hint: try a floral and/or fruity white).

This article goes down a similar route: the food expert showing off. Here's a paragraph:

Many things influence beef flavor, including breed, feed, cut, marbling and aging method. Always check a steak's marbling, the fat within the muscle of the meat; more fat tends to mean the meat is more tender, flavorful and juicy. Another consideration is whether the steak is wet-aged or dry-aged. Wet-aged meat is put in vacuum-sealed plastic bags and aged in its own juices. Dry-aged meat is exposed to air for weeks, while enzymes in the beef break down the muscle fibers, tenderizing the meat and adding distinctive mineral and game flavors. The meat loses about 20 percent of its weight in the process, contributing to the higher cost of dry-aged steak.

That would be really helpful if the writer would tell us what kind of wine goes well with dry-aged steak -- but he doesn't. Instead, all it does is make me worry that if I don't know what the cow was fed, I can't possibly choose the right wine.

Articles like this are a disservice to wine and food lovers. Thank you for reading my rant.

New wine science: A camera that sizes up grapes

Here's the latest technological breakthrough in winemaking: an optical scanner that sorts out grapes of the wrong size, color or shape.

I saw this device in use in Bordeaux last month and it was amazing. Everyone who had one said, "There are only 10 in the world," but I saw four and Christian Moueix told me he has one both in France and at Dominus in Napa Valley.

By next year, there will be a lot more. It's just that great.

Here's how it works. The winemaker shoots a photo of what he considers an ideal grape: size, shape, color. He adjusts the scanner's parameters so that any grape that doesn't measure up will be blown off the belt by a puff of compressed air.

Harvest workers then dump their loads of grapes into the destemmer. The grapes that emerge speed by at 55 mph through the optical scanner. The rejects are blown out faster than the human eye can see. The red vat in the photo is full of reject soup.

I watched this process several times and it's not absolutely perfect -- a few crushed grapes make it through. But I didn't see any stems, miscolored grapes or raisins make it past the scanner. The final sort was more than 99% perfect.

Of course, a traditional sorting table with enough workers can also deliver that kind of quality, possibly even 100%. But that doesn't make the traditional sorting table better for one key reason -- speed. No humans could ever sort grapes this quickly. It's much better to get the grapes destemmed and into fermentation tanks, rather than have boxes of picked grapes back up and warm up while waiting to be sorted.

All the wineries where I saw this machine were delighted with it, and why not? It saves labor, it has huge processing capacity and it does the job. Don't cry for the jobs eliminated -- sorting grapes is only a few days of work per year anyway. Instead, cry with joy for the greater quality wines that will be produced with this thing.

Funny story of man vs. machine: Chateau de Pressac in Saint-Emilion was the first place I saw this thing in use. Owner Jean Francois Quenin said it had just started working again. I wondered if the new machine had malfunctioned.

"A tractor driver drove into it with the year's very first load of grapes," Quenin said. "I guess he didn't expect it to be there." Quenin called the manufacturer and they immediately sent a repairman, who fixed the damage.

A fellow vintner asked, "What happened to the tractor driver? Did you fire him?" Quenin said, "Oh yes." With emphasis. Just like in Terminator, the machines win again.

What causes your red-wine headache?

Almost certainly, sulfites are not causing you to have "red-wine headaches."

I made that comment briefly in this Los Angeles Times story this week, but didn't have the space to elaborate, so I will do so here.

The reason is simple. If you are allergic to sulfites, you wouldn't call them "red-wine headaches." White wines generally have much higher levels of sulfites than reds. There's a technical reason for this: reds have tannins to protect them from prematurely losing their fresh fruit flavors, while whites don't.

So if you can drink white wine, sulfites aren't your problem. You can test this theory by eating some dried fruit -- that has higher levels of sulfites than wine.

It's important to make this point up front because so many people mistakenly believe sulfites are some sort of evil chemical addition to wine, when in fact they naturally occur in grapes, and are crucial in keeping wine good-tasting and long-lasting for the more than 99% of us who are not allergic to sulfites. Some people are allergic to sulfites, and that's why the U.S. government requires wine labels to show "added sulfites." But sulfites are not the cause of headaches that occur only after drinking red wine.

So what is?

Every time I have interviewed doctors on this question, they tell me that people ignore the first and most obvious answer: Alcohol. Red wines are generally higher in alcohol than whites, often significantly so. Many people can't process alcohol well.

Can you drink a double shot of straight whiskey without a headache? If not, look no further.

If alcohol is your problem, the obvious solution is to drink red wines that are lower in it. That's a challenge in this era of big and bold wines, but it's not impossible. Try Beaujolais, Austrian reds, reds from the Loire Valley. Look for the alcohol percentage on the label and ask about it at restaurants before ordering.

For a cheap alternative, consider the Charles Shaw "Two Buck Chuck" wines. They're reduced down to 12.5% alcohol, which is pretty low for reds these days.

What if alcohol isn't the problem, and sulfites aren't the problem? Then what?

Unfortunately, then it gets complicated. Red wines soak on the grape skins for days or even weeks, and a variety of natural chemical compounds enter the wine in far higher quantities than in whites.

Check your sensitivity to tannins first, mainly because that's an easy allergy to work around. Black tea has tannin, particularly if you let it steep for a while. If that gives you a headache, you've got your answer.

While all red wines contain tannins, some contain far less than others. Grenache (Garnacha in Spain) is notably low in tannin; 100% Garnacha wines from Spain are often delightful. Other low-tannin reds include Gamay (Beaujolais again), Dolcetto and Barbera.

Avoid anything that says it was fermented or aged in new oak, which contains tannins of its own.

Merlot and Pinot Noir aren't naturally high in tannins, but you have to be careful to avoid the new-oak treatment.

Sulfites, alcohol and tannin are the three easiest problems to test for. What next?

Red wine is full of naturally occurring histamines (thanks to Jon Bjork for pointing this out in a comment). You might try taking an antihistamine before drinking red wine. That's a rather extreme solution, because antihistamines combined with alcohol can make you drowsy. Perhaps if you have other allergies acting up and are taking antihistamines anyway, you might try a glass of red that night.

Suppose histamines aren't your problem. Then what?

I wish I had a good answer for you, but I don't. Red wines are full of chemical compounds, and while corporate wines have a few added ones (like "mega-purple," a grape-based dye that makes wines darker), the overwhelming majority are naturally occurring. None of these chemicals are required to be listed in material anywhere, so even if you could figure out what compound bothers you, you can't know which wines contain it.

This is why some people claim they can drink one type of red wine and no others. Wine lovers sometimes say that well-made reds won't cause headaches, but there's no evidence of this, and I've never heard a doctor say it (and I've asked). Basically, if you find you can drink one brand of wine but nothing else, consider yourself lucky and keep drinking it.

Before giving up, though, I recommend trying biodynamic wines. Not "organic wines," which have no added sulfites.

Brief explanation: "Organically grown grapes" are a good thing. "Organic wine," in the U.S., is not. Without sulfites, wine quickly oxidizes and bacterial contaminants can make it taste nasty within months. The European Union allows sulfites to be added to "organic wine," but the U.S. government listened too much to some self-righteous, self-serving marketers of bad wine and wrote a bad rule forbidding this.

Thus most "organic wines" on the U.S. market are indifferently made wines from lesser growing regions that exist to serve a self-righteous but under-informed market (including, but not limited to, white people in dreadlocks.). If you like the aroma of fermented sock sweat, go ahead and enjoy them. Just don't kid yourself that they're better in any way. You have been successfully marketed to.

Biodynamics is as much superstition as science. That said, I've had enough readers tell me they can drink these wines without headaches, but not others, that I have to listen to them. I must point out that biodynamic wines tend to be lower in alcohol than others, and often don't have new-oak aging, so the answer might be contained above. But what the heck, just because a placebo is a placebo doesn't mean it doesn't work.

To summarize, before giving up on red wine, try testing your sensitivity to alcohol, then tannin. You might try taking an antihistamine. Then try biodynamic wines. But if you can drink whites, don't blame sulfites. And be happy that you still have half the world's wines available to you.

I'm sorry if this post doesn't solve your problem. Let me tell you something that might make you feel better. All my life, I have been allergic to tomatoes. I have had Italians ask me, "How do you live like that?" Quite happily. I don't mourn bolognese any more than a middle-class person should moan about not having Romanee-Conti every night. Instead, I just order pesto.

Tasting Chateauneuf du Pape with Robert Parker

Robert Parker is not what you think he is.

The most common misconception of Parker -- the world's most powerful critic -- from both his acolytes and his detractors is that he always rates highest the biggest, most powerful wines on the table. I had the opportunity last week to taste wine with Parker for the third time, at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, and can say this is simply not true.

Parker has real affection for wines made in traditional ways: whole-cluster fermentation (with the stems) in cement tanks. He spoke repeatedly about how he likes Grenache that never sees oak. And he praised elegance in wine and encouraged the Napa vintners in the crowd to pursue it.

"I'm sorry to serve all these wines that are not made in 100% new oak and overextracted," Parker said. "It might not help my reputation."

Parker chose 2007 Chateauneufs du Pape for this year's tasting because, he said, "This is the greatest vintage I've ever tasted in the southern Rhone."

"The interesting thing is, 2007 is not a great year in France," he said. "But in the southern Rhone, it's extraordinary. This was a warmer than normal vintage, but it had the coldest nighttime temperatures of the last 40 years. I think that's why the freshness was preserved."

While the wines we tasted were expensive, Parker also said, "The $12 and $15 wines from the Rhone from '07 were the best I've ever tasted. It was virtually impossible to taste a bad wine at any level from the southern Rhone from 2007."

Parker said he believes Chateauneuf du Pape is "the epicenter of great Grenache in the world," and he has a number of theories on making great Grenache, some that conflict with his public image and some that reinforce it.

He's dead-set against new oak for Grenache, saying something that would shock his haters: "People talk about Romanee Conti and La Tache as great wines. But they're 100% new oak. So what you're tasting is often the oak. What would they taste like without the new oak? (With most Chateauneuf du Pape) what you're tasting is the juice from the old vines. I don't think you can do that with Cabernet or Shiraz. They need the oak, they need the oxidative process of the oak."

"I call them naked wines. There is no makeup."

But he also said this: "It's almost impossible to make good Grenache unless you pick it over 25 Brix. We're talking 14% alcohol and up. It's almost impossible to find good Grenache at 13% alcohol. It needs to be picked very ripe. I think Grenache is a much more difficult grape to make great wine from than Pinot Noir. You have to pick it very ripe, very late."

That said, he does not believe big = good.

"The great wines of the world are wines of exceptional concentration, but they're not heavy," Parker said.

Parker says that he's not the first to notice the great qualities of the '07 vintage in CDP.

"I've been going at the end of August to the Rhone for more than 20 years," he said. "I have never seen more Danes, Dutch, Swedes and Belgians than this year. They were like locusts, filling up the trunks of their cars with these wines."

Given the quality of the wines we tasted, I can see why.

A few more notes about Parker: He has an impish sense of humor. He was amused by tasting Chateauneufs du Pape in the heart of Napa Valley, mostly with highly successful Napa Valley wine people, and said he planned to send the mayor of CDP a letter describing the event. He's also a charitable guy, as the proceeds from the event go to culinary students for wine-education scholarships.

He's so enthusiastic about wines he likes that he had to be prodded several times, because he wanted to linger and tell stories while tasting some of the great ones.

He must not be a sake drinker, because he told of taking Chateauneufs du Pape to Masa's in New York to have with sushi and sashimi. "Even Masa thought I was crazy," he said. On this issue, sorry Bob, but I'm with Masa.

As for his palate, you can agree or disagree with his preferences, but his descriptions are very accurate.

Last week I told an editor I'd tasted with Parker and he shared this story: "I remember defending him at a very drunken dinner with some wine friends, and as a joke, they decided they’d pull the Parker reviews for those wines and compare them to what they were tasting. They came away very humbled."

"Humbled" isn't the word I'd use for my experience; I have done this before, and besides, I'm already aware that I'll never be better than the 2nd best wine writer from Maryland (though you may judge for yourself which of us, above, is better-looking).

"Impressed" is more like it. The man's bold and full-bodied, but with great longevity, surprising balance and natural elegance.

Tasting notes

Chateau Rayas Reserve Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Wow. Made from 100% whole-cluster (with stems!) Grenache, this is the best current-vintage wine I've tasted so far this year, and I've had some big names. So lively and interesting, it's elegant enough to taste great and complex enough to fascinate. Peppery, with nice red cherry fruit, notes of tobacco and licorice and lip-smacking acidity on the finish. Delightfully aromatic; you can smell the famous "garrigue" of the region. The tannins are so soft you don't notice them, but Parker says, "The '83 and '85 are still in fine form. It's an incredibly long-lived Grenache." I'll give it 99 points, which means anything I want to give 100 this year has a high bar to cross.

Les Cailloux Cuvee Centenaire Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Made from 80% Grenache with 10% each of Syrah and Mourvedre, the latter two aged in new oak. You can smell the oak, but you don't taste it; instead it's quite spicy, with cherry and cinnamon intermingling, voluptuous tannins and a silky yet cinnamony finish. Parker calls it "a big wine with elegance." Not heavy at all. 94

Bosquet Des Papes Chante Le Merle Vieilles Vignes Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
80% Grenache with 10% each Mourvedre and Syrah. Red and black plums, allspice, clove, pepper, cinnamon and a little lavender on the spicy finish. 93

Domaine Giraud Grenaches De Pierre Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
100% Grenache from 110-year-old vines. Parker said, "This is a wine I never really liked until 2006. In 2007 it's beautiful." This one feels big, with cherry and kirsch liqueur, very soft tannins, and notes of lavender. 90

Domaine Olivier Hillaire Les Petits Pieds d'Armand Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Aromatic, but I think this one's overripe -- I smell raisin in addition to cherry, green herbs, spearmint and "garrigue" (think scrub pines and lavender). The fruit is quite ripe, the tannins are soft, and it's raisiny on the finish. 88

Clos du Mont-Olivet La Cuvee Du Papet Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Parker says, "This is as traditional as it gets. The father, son and wife all look like 100-year-old vines." Ba-dum-dum. It's 80% Grenache with 10% each Mourvedre and Syrah. This cuvee is only made in good years, three times so far this decade ('01, '05, '07). Cherry with eucalyptus, spearmint, allspice, clove, pepper and lavender; spicy on the finish. 92

Domaine Charvin Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Parker says, "I find it the wine that comes closest spiritually to Rayas." It's all whole-cluster fermented, with the stems. It's 85% Grenache, with the remaining 15% taken up by Syrah, Mourvedre and "mixed blacks" -- 13 grapes are authorized in CDP, but many wineries now use only three for their reds. This wine tastes like Christmas: spicy, with red plum flavor, a little kirsch on the midpalate, lavender and scrub pine, allspice and clove. Very aromatic and interesting, though the finish is a little hot. Parker says, "This is atypically rich and big for Charvin." It's excusable. 94

Domaine Font De Michelle Cuvee Etienne Gonnet Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
A "modern-style wine," Parker said, of 70% Grenache with 15% each Mourvedre and Syrah, some of which spent time in small new oak barrels. There's a pure, ripe, sweet black cherry fruitiness that I like, but only a tingle of pepper on the tongue and a hint of garrigue in the aroma tells its origins. 88

Domaine La Barroche Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
100% Grenache from 100-year-old vines. Though aged in old wooden foudres, it still tastes New World: syrupy cherry with Concord grape and a little licorice. Rich and silky, with jammy fruit. Parker said, "It's almost like a liqueur of Grenache." A nice beverage, but I don't know if I'd be happy with it if I ordered Chateauneuf du Pape and wasn't warned. 89

L'Accent De La Roquete Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
90% Grenache and 10% Mourvedre. Dense cherry fruit with kirsch notes and silky tannins and just a hint of lavender in the aroma. 89

La Bastide Saint Dominique Secrets de Pignan Vieilles Vignes Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Concentrated ripe and rich cherry with kirsch liqueur, but also spearmint and eucalyptus notes. Interesting green mango scents lift an aroma that, with all the eucalyptus, is slightly medicinal. Dense and rich, but interesting. 91

M. Chapoutier Barbe Rac Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
This is the wine where my taste and Parker's most diverge. From 100% Grenache planted in 1902 in "an area that's not considered one of the best areas," Chapoutier created a wine about 16.5% alcohol about which Parker said, "I think that's a really strong wine from Chapoutier. It's a big, big wine." Nice cherry and kirsch flavors with some peppermint and lavender on the finish, but it's huuuuge, and I can't imagine drinking it with dinner, or even finishing a full glass of it. Hot on the finish. 86

Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
Always one of the most controversial wines in the region, this was the only wine in the tasting that wasn't mostly Grenache; instead it's 60% Mourvedre with 20% each of Grenache and Syrah. The question is always whether that dusty, earthy aroma is Mourvedre or brettanomyces, and if the latter, whether it's spoilage, as UC Davis claims, or an element of terroir. A tannic, austere wine that smells to me like brett, with nice cherry fruit, kirsch and some stemminess. 89

Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe La Crau Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
65% Grenache with a wider range of other grapes than most. Parker said, "They think the 2007 is the greatest wine they've made since 1978. I think this is going to be a wine to forget for 4 or 5 years." That said, one of the most elegant, balanced wines of the tasting. Nice cherry fruit with pepper and lavender and an excellent long finish with nice sweet cherry on it. I'm sure it will be more complex and better overall in 2014, but I could enjoy a bottle right now. 94

Le Clos Du Caillou Reserve Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
60% Grenache with 20% each of Mourvedre and Syrah, the latter two aged in new oak. In 2001, Parker gave 100 points to this wine. He said of this vintage, "I think Cabernet fans would like this wine." Hearing that, I wanted not to like it. It's really, really ripe -- blackberry, vanilla, alcohol. In fact, it smells like Barossa Valley Shiraz, and I doubt I could even guess the continent in a blind tasting. But it has prickly acidity and some pretty black raspberry on the finish, and I won't deny that it's delicious. 92

Domaine de Saint Prefert Collection Charles Giraud Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
60% Grenache, 40% Mourvedre. Parker said this estate made bad wine until sold in 2002, the worst vintage in 70 years because of a catastrophic flood (that also submerged his rental car). Imagine taking over a winery and immediately being hit by that. They recovered to make this interesting wine with black cherry fruit, tangy acidity and notes of raw meat, green herb and garrigue. 92

Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
65% Grenache with 20% Mourvedre and "mixed blacks." Parker says this winery makes CDP with "a Burgundian sensibility. It's rich, concentrated and structured. But it's fresh and it's elegant." That's all true: Very nice cherry fruit, some kirsch, aromatic notes of licorice, pepper and horehound. Nice light-medium body, nice acidity, wonderful balance. I love the brightness of it. 95

Domaine Pierre Usseglio & Fils Cuvee de mon Aieul Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
95% Grenache, 5% Syrah. A New World wine but a nice one, with ripe and rich blueberry flavors, some licorice and coffee and pretty raspberry on the finish. 93

Domaine Grand Veneur Les Origines Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
50% Grenache, 30% Mouvedre and 20% Syrah, the latter two in 100% new oak. Parker said, "This has as much new oak as any wine in the tasting." The aroma is closed tight, but there's nice blackberry fruit on the palate with decent acidity, a hint of Concord grape and some Cabernet Franc-like herbaceousness. Tannic on the finish. Though all these wines will probably be better in 5 years (or more), waiting on this one is mandatory. 90

Domaine De La Janasse Vieilles Vignes Chateauneuf du Pape 2007
85% Grenache with 15% Syrah, the latter aged in small new oak barrels. Over 16% alcohol. Parker said, "It's the most powerful wine of the day. It's a hippo with a ballerina dress on." I liked it better than that image, and better than most of the other hippos. Really ripe and rich blackberry fruit with a hint of chocolate. Soft, syrupy tannins. There is more elegance here, like a hippo bathing in blueberry pie. Daintily. 91

Dinner at a French winery

What's it like to eat dinner at a Bordeaux winery? I recently did this several times on a visit and, since all had very similar aspects, thought I'd share the basics.

First, you chat standing up in an antechamber of some sort, while having either a glass of bubbly or white wine, or even possibly an aperitif cocktail. One -- only one -- type of hors d'oeuvre is served. Whether you have been tasting wine on official business for an hour, or you just arrived at the door, this standing-making-polite-conversation step is never skipped.

Then, you move to the dining room. You stand and wait as the hostess (or host, if there are no women, which happens), assigns seats. The French aim to break up friends and partners so that people will talk to strangers.

Once seated, you have a beautiful plate in front of you. This will be whisked away nearly immediately. Not being a cultured guy, I don't understand the need for this decorative "don't touch" plate. But it's always there.

The first course is brought out and always served to the women first, guests or hosts, then the male guests, then the hosts. The first course at winery dinners is quite often foie gras (right), both because French love it and it represents luxury. But it might be some other style of meat, or it could be fish or pasta -- we had outstanding homemade pasta with truffles a couple of times. You'll get a single crusty piece of baguette (or possibly a roll), and if you eat it, somebody will give you another from a silver tray.

Wine service is very formal; it's very hard to convince Bordeaux winery people to let you pour your own. Again, women always get filled or refilled first.

Speaking of formal, this is a rich part of the world and many people actually have servants, though the majority hire servers for the night. White gloves are common. They're universally good about refilling your water glass, which makes me happy. But I can't joke, "Pass the foie gras," because nobody passes anything -- you ask, and a servant brings.

The main course is invariably meat, but even in Merlot-Cabernet country it's not a fait accompli that it's beef: we also had duck, veal, lamb and poulet, which was outstanding because the French like free-range young chicken with flavor. You almost always get green vegetables on the side, and possibly potatoes as well. Most French cooks are good with meat, but I found their skill with vegetables varied a lot, from carefully sauteed to boiled flavorless. Sauces, the hallmark of classic French cuisine, are such work that they have become uncommon.

When I did volunteer work in France nearly 20 years ago, I used to eat rapidly, and Pierre, our French leader, admonished me, telling me something I've never forgotten: "You Americans eat like it is a contest. Well it is, and the person who finishes last, wins." His point was to savor every bite. I often hear Pierre in my head at dinner, but apparently his message is 20 years old; the French people almost always ate faster than the Americans, rapidly working through their meat. The French rarely leave anything on the plate, whereas I almost always did, as portions are generous -- though not as enormous as, say, a Midwestern restaurant.

Usually after everyone is done or mostly done, the servants will recirculate with a meat-and-veggies plate for seconds. Once I took a second piece of meat but didn't finish it, and while everyone was polite I got the impression that that's usually not done.

Conversation continues throughout the meal, but actual controversy is carefully sidestepped. This is very different from my experiences dining with French people in foreign countries, who always seem to want to question U.S. foreign policy. Wineries are entirely too polite for that.

I had one green salad out of 15 meals in France, and it was such an event that the hostess went into detail about her effort to procure the greens for it. That said, I love and try to emulate the French style of dressing a salad, on those rare occasions when they provide one: tossing it with very good vinegar and oil and carefully removing the excess dressing, in contrast to Americans, who seem to spray on dressing with a garden hose. I might have to beg for a green salad in France, and it's likely to come with crispy pig ear or roast duck kidneys, but at least I never have to ask for dressing on the side.

On those red letter days when you get a salad, it comes between the main (meat) course and the cheese. The idea is to refresh your palate as well as your digestive tract, and I agree. I like salad after the main much better than the American restaurant way of serving it first and not bringing your main course until you eat every last leaf.

After the mains are cleared away, you're soon brought exactly 3 cheeses. After seeing this 15 times in a row, I felt Monty Python-esque: "Three will be the number of the cheeses, and the number of the cheeses shall be three." It was almost always one goat's milk cheese and two cow's milk, a soft and a hard, though there was some variation. Surprisingly, while the French NEVER drink any other country's wine (with the exception of Port, which they drink as an aperitif), they are open to cheese from Spain and Holland at least, and possibly others as well. Usually you're brought three smallish slices of cheese but occasionally you can slice your own. You always, invariably, get one piece of nut bread.

After the cheese course, there's dessert. Always both, unlike some restaurants that offer one or the other. French still have a way with chocolate. You're offered coffee about halfway through dessert and I was surprised at its consistency -- it's like an Americano, supposedly espresso but not as concentrated as I have become accustomed to. Even though you may still have dessert on your plate, you always get a small sweet, usually a commercially made one (a wafer cookie, for example), with your coffee.

Afterwards, you leave the table and retire to another room. If it's dinner, you're likely to be offered one glass (but only one) of a digestif, which might be Cognac, Armagnac or even Scotch. I did not see Pastis served even once; it's too low class for the genteel set.

People generally do not smoke at the table, even those who smoke like factories. Thus the post-prandial digestif room can get hard to breathe in. But generally the French will step outside to smoke, though that may have been because they were hosting Americans.

French people incorporate real art, not posters or prints, into their homes and offices much more than Americans, and if you didn't get a tour before dinner, you might get one now. I was constantly impressed by the variety and daringness of the art we saw. This is a cultural thing at all levels, as some of my old French backpacking buddies have hand-me-down furniture but real paintings on the walls.

That's it, that's the dining-in-a-French winery experience. Was it vicariously good for you too?

Why Bay Area wine lists hate our freedoms

Many snobbish Bay Area wine lists have downplayed or excluded California wines for several years. This week we were treated to two stories on the issue, by the New York Times' Eric Asimov and the San Francisco Chronicle's Jon Bonne.

Why two stories this week? My theory is that Asimov was out here working on a story for the Times' new Bay Area edition, and Bonne got wind of it and wanted to publish first. The funny thing is, do you ever read either of these guys praising California wines in their regular columns? But I digress.

An issue neither one addressed is the political aspect of wine drinking.

Unlike food, which may be stylish but is also sustenance, wine is often a personal statement. Some people express wealth through the wine they order; others (the middle-class "Two Buck Chuck" crowd) express pride in their down-to-earth refusal to put on airs.

Some wine geeks are truly interested in dry Hungarian furmint (guilty!). There are also many young drinkers who express counter-culturalism through ordering wine they've never heard of; it's not so different from looking for music from bands that aren't seeking a hit single.

I often talk to people who express a great interest in one country's wines: Italy, Spain, France, and yes, the US. For them, wine is inextricably tied with culture. Maybe they lived in Italy and loved the food culture. Maybe they love flamenco music. Maybe they're into NASCAR and they're patriotic.

As any honest person who lives here will tell you, the Bay Area is full of anti-Americans. They're not as loud now that George W. Bush is finally retired, but they're still here. I live near a park where they assemble frequently on weekends, bearing placards equating the Stars and Stripes with a swastika or calling our military racist. Sometimes it seems like San Francisco is in a perpetual state of protest, and Berkeley is even more so.

I'm an international guy; I lived 10 years abroad. But I'm a patriot, and a locavore. I have often asked sommeliers at the restaurants with few or no California wines why they don't carry more.

The first answer is usually, "They don't go with the food," to which I sometimes reply, "Are you sure you've looked hard enough?" Sometimes I recommend a food-friendly wine I've had recently.

The conversation then often turns social/political, with an underlying theme that California wines represent American culture in ways the wine buyer doesn't like (i.e., too loud, too extreme, no finesse, no terroir, no respect for tradition, etc.)

Of course this is crap. There are plenty of California wines that are balanced, food-friendly, and a product of their terroir. You just have to look for them. Those that refuse to do so are making a political statement, and it's a statement that finds many anti-American advocates here.

I'll say it again: I'm a patriot and a locavore. Restaurant wine buyers who refuse to carry American wines are stipulating that they are neither. The first won't upset them. But the second?

If you have an Italian restaurant and you want to offer only Italian wines, fine -- that's a theme. But if you have international cuisine and wines from various countries, then you need to have several good choices from your local area. I would believe this if I lived near the wine regions of New York, Virginia, Texas, Michigan or Missouri, and I believe it even more strongly since I live within two hours' drive of the best wine regions on the American continent.

So please, Bay Area sommeliers, don't kid yourself that there aren't any American wines that can match your precious cuisine. Have you never had Schramsberg or Iron Horse bubbly? Donkey and Goat Chardonnay? Siduri or Black Kite Pinot Noir? How about Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc -- that's under $10. None of these fits your rarified palate?

It's OK to hate this country we live in; freedom to protest is one of the things that makes us great.

But you don't hold our farmers' nationality against them, do you? Then why do so to our winemakers?

At least be more honest with us, and yourself, about it.

Maybe you can put on the wine list, "We don't carry California wines because we don't believe in the Guantanamo prison camp." It's the same message, just more overt, and in Berkeley it would probably help increase traffic. You might even make Glenn Beck cry.

Vegan wine: For Vegans only

Recently I've been drinking a lot of natural wines: wines made from biodynamic or organically grown grapes, fermented with natural yeast. I like them because they taste pure and wild, like true products of their terroir.

I never gave any thought to vegan wines until I read this excellent article by Katherine Cole in The Oregonian.

I'll summarize in a way Cole does not. "Vegan," for wine, says nothing about how the grapes are grown, which is the most important aspect of wine. It says nothing about the key decisions in winemaking -- type of yeast, barrels or tanks, time spent on the lees.

"Vegan" applies only to an aspect of winemaking so unimportant that it's optional -- "fining," in which some sort of protein is added to the wine to precipitate out particles that can make it cloudy.

Personally I like wine unfiltered and unfined, which would be vegan by definition. But most commercial wines are fined, often with egg whites. This adds no flavor; if anything, it removes flavors (particles do have flavor). It's not a nefarious new technology: the Romans fined their wines. I suspect few Romans were vegan.

The point is, it's really easy for an industrial wine to be vegan. Grapes can be grown on a factory farm anywhere, with the vines irrigated and fertilized and dusted with all manner of herbicides. The grapes can be harvested by machine and fermented in giant steel tanks. As long as the wine is fined with algae extract or bentonite instead of egg whites, it's vegan. Whoopee!

There's no reason to be against vegan wines; as I said, I prefer my wine unfined anyway. But just because a wine is vegan is no reason to give it any extra credit at all -- unless you're vegan. So you vegan folks just enjoy those wines; I'm going to leave off now because it's time for dinner, and we're having salmon and Pinot Noir. I can almost hear the fish crying.