Getting To Know Wine

What's a great wine to have around the house?

For special occasions, there are wines you should really have. We live in Southern California. Where you live has a whole lot to do with it, but at the very same time as we're doing this, this is the center of the universe. Hollywood. We set trends. Our lifestyle is about husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend or whatever. There's not a lot of time. And we entertain alfresco. We sit outside. We enjoy outside. We throw things on a grill or whatever. We need wines to go with that. The solution is the south of France, the whole Mediterranean situation. Serrat, Serrat, Serrat, Grenache. These are wines that are big and wonderful. You sit down, you have a glass. You go straight to screwed up, and you know what? Food gets in the way. But you work really hard, and you should enjoy. These are wines that are relatively inexpensive. You're looking at a Grenache, a Serrat coming from a very warm climate area, Santa Barbara up to Napa Valley. These wines should never cost you more than $15 a bottle. They're great! The emotion that they generate. As a wine expert, I will tell you, when I have a wine from the Rhone Valley, from Santa Barbara that's a Grenache, it gives me pleasure, incredible pleasure, and they never disappoint.

What new wines should I incorporate into my life?

If you're looking for the offbeat wine, if you're looking for something that just is going to show that you are aware, that you are intellectual, that you are liberal, that you are capable of exploring and discovering, there are two areas that are just diametrically apart. Cabernet Franc, absolutely exciting, coming out of Argentina. You're talking about seven dollars a bottle. This stuff is semi-bittersweet chocolate. You bite into this, it's like jumping on a old Triumph 1964 Bonneville. You get in there, let me tell you something, you feel like putting on a T-shirt, you think you're Steve McQueen and any girl can ride on the back of that thing with you and you can just burn them up and it's wonderful. There's not a piece of animal that has four feet that it doesn't go well with. It is just absolutely fantastic. Flipped over the other side, if you're into the little people that are gnomes and whatever and Lord of the Rings, you want to go to Alsace. Alsace is the just exciting, Gewürztraminer, it's hard to pronounce, but the smell. Let me tell you something, it's a kaleidoscope, looking into that. All of these flavors just explode. Timothy Leary is still with us when you have a Gewürztraminer. And what does it go with? It goes with everything that seems to be healthy. It is the wine that you want to have.

What wine should I get to treat myself?

If you really wanted to splurge on a wine, you turn me into Gora Videll, I'm cynical, I have taste and I want you to know I come from the Eastern establishment. I want something with age, I want something that is interesting, I want a woman that loves pearls still and she's kind of touching them as I'm telling her all the finer points that there are. I want someone that kind of appreciates that I don't have to raise my voice. I need a wine that has some age. And let me tell you something, it's not going to be something very youthful. I don't want a sixteen year old Paris Hilton. I want something that I can have a conversation with who is intellectual and I don't care if it has Coke bottles for glasses but who can talk to me. I want an old bordeaux, I want an older burgundy, I want even a California wine that was made before all the technocrats got in there and did what they did because old Louie martini cabernets that come from the sixties are just too good. And you can find them, and it isn't going to bankrupt you.