I was on Today this morning, mixing up some Labor Day cocktails with Hoda Kotbe and Kathie Lee Gifford. It was, as is usual for the fourth hour of the show, a rather, um, freewheeling segment. We didn't exactly make it through both drinks, though I did get kissed on the lips by KLG, much to my surprise (this was cut from the video on the Today site, but a number of friends emailed right after it happened with comments like "OMG!", so evidently it did air). ANYWAY.

The cocktails we actually demo'd were a very pretty one from our 2008 Food & Wine Cocktails book (buy it here) called the Belle de Jour, which was invented at Eastern Standard in Boston. It's a Champagne cocktail—a touch of Benedictine (I subbed B&B at home last night practicing it, to no ill effect), Cognac, grenadine and lemon juice, then top with Champagne. Then we did a white wine and sparkling cider sangria from Steven Raichlen, which is great for parties; it's floating around in our summer drink slideshow. Both are tasty, and if you increase the proportions on the Belle de Jour, you can actually whip out quite a few of them quickly, a key requirement for Labor Day cookouts and whatnot.

Yes, back from a vacation in Maine and once more able to breathe the fumes of New York without all those pesky ocean breezes and pine trees and whatnot messing things up. But, because research must always continue, even while sitting on a dock with a lobster in front of you, I have two things to note:

1. Lobster is very, very cheap right now. The Boston Globe reported on this in depth, and I'm here to report on it very shallowly: $7 a pound, two days ago. (For a live lobster, soft-shell, though I saw hardshells advertised at nearly the same price at another place.) This to me is a mighty fine thing. 

2. Lobster tastes very good with the 2006 Ramey Russian River Valley Chardonnay ($38). It's a pricey bottle of Chardonnay, but Dave Ramey manages to balance classic Russian River apple and cream notes with exactly the right level of lively acidity, or at least manages to grow grapes that do that and then doesn't get in their way. Terrific white for rich seafood. Now, if only I could leave town again... 

Tasting Room will be on hiatus until Monday, August 25.

For a rainy Friday (at least in New York), a couple of sunny South American Sauvignon Blancs that won't capsize your bank account. Both are from Chile, the first from the Central Valley and the second from the Limarí Valley. And, if they make you so full of zip that you find yourself awake at 7:44AM tomorrow (eastern time), I'll be on the CBS Early Show, waxing poetic about how to make a great cup of coffee. Oddly, it won't involve dosing the stuff with wine.

2008 Santa Rita 120 Sauvignon Blanc ($8) No wild complexity here, but definitely a loveable, zesty white: peppery and intense, with lots of gooseberry fruit. Great cookout wine.

2007 Peñalolen Sauvignon Blanc ($12) This is more robust than the Santa Rita, with ripe orange and grapefruit flavors and a little hint of green pepper to remind you that yes, this is Sauvignon. The flavors last nicely. Also a great cookout wine. 

I got a call day before yesterday and within a couple of hours was over at the NPR studios (conveniently located two blocks from our offices) weighing in for All Things Considered on the Italian Ministry of Agriculture's decision to allow DOC wines to be sold in "alternative" packaging, e.g. bag-in-box. You can listen to the clip here, should you be so inclined. It is, I hope, somewhat more lively than the topic would seem to allow.

I love Spain. Seems a scientist there has invented an electronic "tongue" which uses sensors to determine both grape variety and age in wine. What the Science Daily article doesn't go into is what, exactly, an electronic tongue looks like. Regardless, this tongue is a definite advance over earlier electronic tongues that could taste cholesterol levels in blood or cocaine in urine, much less pleasant jobs. And it makes a fine companion piece to the electronic nose, too.

Well, I attended a screening of Bottle Shock last night. The movie, which will be in limited release around the country in a couple of weeks (see this article in the NY Times about the troubles it's had picking up a distributor), is a fanciful recreation of the events leading up to the famous 1976 Paris Tasting, in which American wines bested the best of France in a blind tasting judged by a variety of powerful French wine-folk. The movie concentrates on Chateau Montelena, whose 1973 Chardonnay won the white wine side of the tasting. And, in the movie, it does win. So that's nicely accurate.

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