Bourgie Wine TV

Sampling a Shiraz and Chardonnay from Yellow Tail of Australia. Shot “in the wild” at the Headshot Tweetup sponsored by Mindworks Multimedia of Durham, NC

Photo Credit: Murphy's Place, Dallas TX

What?

No I’m not being sacreligious, and yes you know what I’m talking about.

Ever since I first entered bougie-hood several years ago in Chicago, I noticed it is a tradition among bougies to have a bid whist or spades card party on Good Friday evening, after you went to Seven Last Words from the Cross service that afternoon.  The dilemma: what wine to bring?  If you are the go-to wine person in your crew, the party is depending on you. If you aren’t usually the wine point guard, you’ll shock your peeps to death, and crack them up at the same time.

Now, if you’re like a lot of folks, your wine selection strategy involves grabbing whatever’s on the end cap at the grocery store.  Nothing wrong with that, especially if its on sale, but you miss out on a lot of good wine that way.  Let me list a few tips below to help you break the white zinfandel habit.

• Wine is not Kool-Aid. I know we like sweet stuff. I do to. All wine shouldn’t taste like grape Kool-Aid you dumped a pound of sugar in, though.
• Always remember, match the intensity of the wine to the intensity of the food. So, if this year’s card party is going to be a fish fry, try a Sauvigngon Blanc, which is complex and can handle the hot sauce.  One of my favorites: Marquis de Chasse Bordeaux Blanc, which is a 50/50 blend of bordeaux and sauvignon grapes.  If its warm enough where you are to throw some ribs on the grill, try a Shiraz, which is a red wine with lots of fruitiness laced with a hint of smoke to match up with the smoke from the meat.  My personal favorite is Yellow Tail Shiraz; its one of my personal “house wines” for the summer. Yellow Tail is made in Australia, so given the intense climate, you get a lot of big bold-flavored wine from there without spending a lot of money.
• Skip the Wine Bucket, Chill It In the Sink Card parties should be as low-maintenance as possible, even with wine. For white wine, fill the sink with cold water, add a couple of handfuls of ice cubes, put the bottle in for about 20 minutes, and you’ll have a perfectly chilled wine.  Red wine is technically not supposed to be chilled for drinking, because it “closes up” the flavor.  However as I’m typing this I know a lot of folks aren’t having that, so you can follow the process above for your red wine choice.

Okay well that should be enough to get you through your first card party with wine. Drop me a comment and let me know what you chose, and how the crew liked it. And let me know if you ran a Boston, too.