EDSBS LIVE! ROBERT PARKER EDITION
Robert Parker is the dean of all wine critics, and is known for his colorful descriptions of vintages using such rococo terms as “finesse and elegance with near-beefy depth,” or “blue-tinged, almost like roasted lilacs,” or our personal favorite, “as ash-heavy and skunky as the carcass of a freshly flamethrown wildebeest.”*
Therefore, we borrow his mojo for some jarring flavor combinations of our own:
1. What type of wine is your football team? A Penfolds Grange: only madly popular after 1990 or so, ghastly screw-top aesthetics appalling the old guard, and ferocious quality despite the lack of mythos and Frenchified foofery. Also very, very good most of the time.
2. Your best vintage–year, and describe in wine-y terms. 2006: for the earthy, daring pepper of the defense, with solid fat body through the middle, a lacy tethering of high notes through the secondary holding the middle range accents of thorny brush, barbed wire, and heavy flavors of heated sledgehammer together.
3. Robert Parker reviews your arch enemy. Go. Florida State: like North Georgia muscadine wines, but with a more whorish saccharine edge; like lighter fluid devoid of it admirable flammable qualities and spunk. Aged past its prime since 2000 or so.
4. Describe yourself in wine terms. Oh, like cheap champagne: bubbly, dry, consumed best in small doses, and prone to blowing up when shaken. Works quickly and effectively, and also wears off in similar fashion.
See you tonight when you click here to listen at 9 p.m. EDT.
*Not actually true in fact, but in spirit it reads like Parker.
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OU
1. An 80/20 mix of cab sav and merlot. Like the cab sav, well known for its consistent excellence. Firm without being over-bearing, with many textural layers emphasizing the multiple depths of its flavor. But what’s that unpleasant aftertaste? That can’t-win-a-bowl-game taste left in your mouth? Ah yes, the merlot.
2. So, so many to choose from…let’s stay recent, with the 2000 vintage. After years of guzzling boone’s farm mixed with urine and gasoline, our 2000 Syrah shocked the world. Refreshing, though rich enough to maintain the excellence throughout a whole season, with a rich bouquet of fruits on offense and defense. This was back when Bob had balls and Dread Captain Leach was only a year removed, so, lurking just under the surface was a hint of spice. As it aged, it lost some refreshing fruit flavor, most notably Heupel, but became darker and richer and more over-bearing, to the point that Florida State couldn’t even score.
3. Texas is a French Bordeaux. Arrogant and pretentious with an overblown sense of self-worth based solely on location, without the results to back up the attitude. Sure, every once in a while you’ll get a great vintage, like in 2005, but for the most part, a Bordeaux never lives up to the hype. Like Texas, a Bordeaux has a great location, expensive grapes (recruits), and a dubious claim of being among the best; but like Texas, a Bordreaux, more often than not, is just slightly above mediocre, and never as good as you think it will be.
4. Valpolicella. Cheap, dry, and mild in flavor despite being robust and full bodied.
Comment by okiedomer — June 18, 2008 @ 9:05 am
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1. USC–A Cult California Cab (of course). Flashy, expensive and (usually) worth the high pirce. In the last couple of vintages, prone to unexpected tasting upsets to more reasonably-priced, under the radar wines from the left coast.
2. 2004. Potentially aggressive defensive tannins are well balanced by opulent fruit featuring exciting notes of long touchdown strikes. Needed time to develop, but once decanted was earning rave reviews from all critics and compared to first-growth Bordeaux.
3. UCLA: Flashy packaging and great vineyard location have not delivered consistent results. Weedy and thin in recent years, with a lack of excitement. New winemaker has brought promise, with results TBD.
4. Burgundy. Critics complain that it can be a bit thin, and not to everyone’s taste, but in the right situation it’s excellent.
Comment by Scott M — June 18, 2008 @ 8:54 am
14
Sigh…as a B11 guest, I’ll play tot the crowd here…
1) Some snooty Napa wine- well received, and capable of beating every other wine’s ass, until it’s compared to the best in the world, where it falls short.
2) Oh, some like the 2002 version, with its awards and such, but I prefer the 1998 vintage. Universally heralded as the best by far, until that unfortunate cork accident at the Spartan wine tasting. Fucking Sparty.
3) A good screw cap wine. Easily accomodating lately. Like a bottomless nightie. Oh, people will go out of their way to tell you it’s still quality stuff, but in the end they’re screwed.
4) Call me Kendall Jackson- always appropriate to bring to a party, consistent, and as exciting as Iowa’s offense lately (sorry BHGP).
Comment by Pants McPants — June 18, 2008 @ 8:21 am
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1) U.T. (Texas) — an Argentine Malbec. It has potential, is widely regarded as a consistently good — if not great — wine, and when the stars align can produce magic.
2) 2005 — the Malbec Argentino (Parker rating, 98 points): excellent terroir manifest in explosive notes, better than even its most highly touted competitors, a wine that impresses both the masses and the cognoscenti . . . and the finish is out of this world.
3) O.U. (Oklahoma) — is Royal Cola a wine? Sure, if OU is a worthy rival.
4) An Argentine Viognier — someday it may be very good, but today is not that day.
Comment by Allaha — June 17, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
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Holly, it’s definitely UT.
1) Traditionally it’s Absolut Vodka- never quite as good as advertised.
2) 1996 Arizona State is like Sierra Nevada Bigfoot- layers of exciting flavors yet an aftertaste more bitter than all of the aforementioned excitement.
3) U of Arizona? a fifteen year-old budweiser. You can smell it if you’re even close to it, and it ain’t good.
4) any type of alcohol will do. I’m fun in small doses but I can be downright destructive to your life if I’m constantly around.
*- I know jack and shit about wine.
Comment by Big Jon — June 17, 2008 @ 8:03 pm
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Describe yourself in wine terms:
“Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill” For a brief shining moment it offers endless possibilities of passion and joy, only to see the window of opportunity vanish in an instant, leaving only shards of promise unfulfilled and the stench of bile where the majorette puked in your Honda.
Comment by St. Daywalker — June 17, 2008 @ 7:47 pm