Hairy armpits and the guilty pleasures dinner
the hairy armpits
Back in February I had a guilty pleasures dinner at my house with some of my foodie blogger friends. We had so much fun that we decided to do it again. Bibendum Dan (aka The Boy) and I got to chatting about what wines we should bring along. At first we had visions of Blue Nun and pricy claret but then Dan was hit by inspiration – why not bring some esoteric wines, mix it up a bit. What about some of those crazy, extreme, ‘hairy armpit’ wines – you know, the ones made with grapes gone wild, no rows of vines, no filtering, no sulphur, just pure old grape juice.
So, armed with two of the hairiest armpit red wines I could find in Artisan&Vine, I showed up at Eatlikeagirl ‘s doorstep one wet and wild nite.
We sampled the Contadino #5 2005 from the slopes of Mt Etna – about as natural a wine as you can get. Made by the winemaker, Frank Cornelissen, this one is unsulphured and a bit unstable. Retail £16.50
And from La Casot des Mailloles, the La Poudre d’escampette ’07. Alain Castex farms his vines on the slopes of Banyuls and let’s his vines run wild amongst the herbs and wild flowers of the hills. It’s all in there. This wine is given a dose of sulphur on bottling but it’s still pretty wild. Retail £19.90
What did we think……
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- Purists for Purity – Louisville Juice - [...] notes that the influence of what Denise Medrano calls “hairy armpit” wines is spreading even to relatively mass produced products.…
- Cabernet’s Turn in the Barrel – Louisville Juice - [...] into preppie and punk; wine will likely factionalize between elegance and the primitivism of what Denise Medrano calls “hairy armpit [...]
- Twitter Trackbacks for Hairy armpits and the guilty pleasures dinner « The Winesleuth [thewinesleuth.co.uk] on Topsy.com - [...] Hairy armpits and the guilty pleasures dinner « The Winesleuth thewinesleuth.co.uk/2009/09/28/hairy-armpits-and-the-guilty-pleasures-dinner – view page – cached Back in February…
In my humble opinion, I can’t abide that 16.5p/c Contadina – the guy who imports it is absolutely brilliant at rhetoric (or hypnosis)… Right, going to watch your film now.
That Contadino is a tricky one – some days I like it, other days can’t stand it, so I know what you mean. But if you’re looking for a different wine tasting experience, it can’t be beat!
ps. the contadino is not 16.5 though, i checked and it was 13%
It feels like 16.5p/c though
Great video, Denise – loved it.
It would have been even funnier if I could have gotten the foodies on camera but they were all being shy that nite, except Niamh but she was mixing up a batch of cocktails when we were filming. Hope you can make the next one! 🙂
I love it (hairy armpit wines)!
I have a v-blog, too, about wines. And I’m trying to bring some down-to-earth qualities to the wine world. I see you have done a fair job of that already. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
If you’d like to visit, I’m at pardonthatvine.com
Glad you liked the video, I just like to have fun with wine and think everyone else should as well. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂