Drink and a smoke
February 19, 2009
Barefoot Moscato: Easy-sipping California dessert wine
By Matthew Jackson
My first experience with a moscato (also called muscato) was at a vineyard in Napa Valley. Our sommelier insisted that we try this sweet dessert wine to conclude our wine tasting, and I immediately fell in love.
Moscatos are sweet, typically fortified wines made of the Muscat grape. California’s San Joaquin Valley is an ideal location to grow the orange and black variety of these sweet grapes. Interestingly, their musky flavors are paired with a high concentration of antioxidant flavanoids, meaning that if red wine isn’t your ‘cup of tea,’ a moscato offers just as many heart-healthy benefits.
Characterized by a crisp, fruity sweetness, moscatos usually bear distinct fruitiness — the delightful variety I experienced in California tasted creamy and of sweet oranges. Sadly, this vineyard doesn’t ship their wine outside the surrounding area, exclusively supplying restaurants and tourists — and making them a poor recommendation in the Northwest.
However, an equally delicious wine readily available in Seattle grocery stores is the Barefoot Moscato from California. The label says the wine is “deliciously sweet,” and I can hardly argue.
To be honest, I selected this wine over my favorite Sutter Home Moscato on a whim, attracted by its aqua-colored label and foil wrapper, as well as the wine’s pale ice-green color. While the Sutter Home tastes of peach and orange, the Barefoot Moscato is juicy and lush with peach, apricot, orange and cream, finishing with a bright, crisp sparkle.
The winemakers take pride in this “easy-sipping” wine, just as they do their beachy California roots.
Barefoot claims to have originated as a “garage wine” back in the 1960s, but after a re-launch of the brand in 1986, established itself as an approachable, affordable winemaker, enjoyed by amateur wine drinkers as well as aficionados.
This wine pairs best with Asian cuisine, and the fruity sweetness goes especially well with Thai-variety spiciness. While many might feel this wine is too sweet to drink with dinner, I highly recommend giving it a try, though it is also good for dessert — or rather, with dessert.
Try it with fresh fruit, light desserts, or mild cheeses. The creaminess of the wine goes beautifully with brie, and the well balanced acidity plays well with buttery and fruit-based desserts. However, it’s just as nice by itself.
Available at QFC for under $10, Barefoot Moscato is an excellent sweet wine.
Reach reporter Matt Jackson at arts@dailyuw.com.
Machine-rolled roundup : Four stogies and a Master
By Maddie Hall
Photo by Daniel Kim.
Dollar cigars from Tom's Smoke Shop on the Ave.
In celebration of our 16th president’s bicentennial birthday last week, I grabbed a fin, pocketed my ID and headed down to Tom’s Smoke Shop on the Ave.
My plan was to get a moderately priced cigar, puff on it for a while on my favorite bench and then artfully commit its essence to newsprint. But while another customer was checking out, a certain display case caught my interest. The cabinet housed clearance tobacco products, and I couldn’t help but take a closer look.
Between the boxes branded by names I’d never heard of and the crisp-leaved castoffs, I was able to pick out a selection of smokeables for one low, low price. For $5 plus tax, I left the store with a Ziploc filled with five cigars, ready to begin my cautious exploration of the bottom of the humidor.
It probably goes without saying, but when I got home and spread out my purchases, it was hard to distinguish one from another. They smelled alike, had a similar, ominous give when gently squeezed and all were wrapped in the same medium brown, natural tobacco leaf. They were also of similar length and ring gauge, save one in a slender cylinder with a wooden mouthpiece.
No recently purchased cigar is supposed to come unwrapped and crumble of its own accord, but don’t tell that to Fox Brothers, the company behind this first smoke of the afternoon.
Lighting up and pulling at this thing also gave me my first experience with black and brown ash — a hallmark of poorly packed, fast-burning tobacco. The flavor, at least, is consistent. I couldn’t expect my hot find to have any sort of flavorful complexity, so the uniform, earthy smoke did not come as a disappointment.
The next of the quintuplets to touch my lips was a simple cigarillo in a smart red tagboard box. As a courtesy, and to keep my refined, girly lips from touching any masculine leaf, Hav-A-Tampa Jewels had added a streamlined birch wood tip to the business end of my tobacco tube.
The packaging told me I was in for a sweet smoke, unlike one of Jewels’ vanilla or regular variety. But there was nothing sweet about the thick, harsh smoke that streamed from either extremity. My tongue burned as quickly as the tobacco did, bringing this nasty experience to a speedy end.
To mix things up — and after drinking lots of water and taking a breather — I peeled the clear plastic from a specimen within the tried and true Swisher family. This offshoot, King Edward S&S, is a line of tobacco products with smoke that is as overpowering as its namesake.
The bitter taste I sensed at the beginning of this marvel soon became sour, then almost muddy. In the end, the S&S Original was dry and alarmingly full of paper and other non-tobacco material.
Thus I moved on, with some hesitation, to another familiar name: White Owl. Mild yet skunky, this cigar almost bored me. Impressive, though, was the impeccably rolled quality of this cigar. It was tightly wrapped, and the ash was more favorably colored than its mottled, murky competitors.
By this point, I was just feeling foolish. I thought my selection had no chances for redemption. Then I had my first ever Dutch Master. Honey flavor coated the wrapper and laced the balance of this cigar. It was the size of a standard Churchill but had a strangely tapered end with a hole straight through. This was certainly the most tolerable of the lot, and I was happy to finish my sampler on a pleasant note. Easy pulls, a distinct flavor and moderately well-packed filler made this the shining star among a bunch of rejected butts. For $1, a honey-flavored Master is a bargain, but still only makes this the best of the worst.
If you’re lucky enough to hold a piece of paper backed by the U.S. government and graced by Abraham Lincoln’s face, do spend it all in one place — on one decent cigar instead of many from a number of shoddier options.
Reach reporter Maddie Hall at arts@dailyuw.com.
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