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Welcome to SaucyJoes for Summer 2010, where the bbq smoke, spirits, sauces and sippin never end. Well, we do sleep occasionally, but not before enjoying our day and dinner. Peruse the site, pick your favorite recipes, wines & gear and have some fun! Reminder, this site is updated regularly, so if you want daily updates visit our Saucy Blog... Click here to review This Month's Feature>

For more SaucyJoes articles, recipes and reviews from months past, see our SJ-Archives.

New web site delves into real wine and food
gourmets and experts
By Elaine Rogers
It looks like our friends at GuruTrack are preparing a feature on the Women of Wine for their debut issues (including some tips and bits from two of our favrites, Natalie MacClean and Amy Mumma) this January. Their site is new, but they are promising to give us "backstage access" to the experts we love, and we're rooting for them to pull it off.

We see so many press releases and social media missives about the experts and their breakthrough moments in 2009, it will be good to hear more table-talk opinions and down to earth comments from those making food and wine mojo this year. One note, the

GuruTrack site is just opening so expect changes and maybe some "coming soon" placements. Membership is still free though, and even if you subscribe, it is a three-tier build up and you won't pay full boat until month three. Pretty cool. They're also looking for more guru nominations, so if you have someone you'd like to see interviewed, go to their "sneak peek" page and send them a lead.

New book tells full story of Napa
wines' grand moment
By Laurie Daniel
Special to the Mercury News
By now, much of the story of the Paris tasting of 1976, a.k.a. the ``Judgment of Paris,'' is well known. At a blind tasting in Paris pitting California chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon against their French counterparts from Burgundy and Bordeaux, a panel of French experts judged the top wines to be a 1973 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay and a 1973 Stag's Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon.
The results might have gone unnoticed -- the French almost certainly wouldn't have publicized them -- except for the lone reporter in attendance, George Taber of Time magazine. His 400-word account, published deep inside the June 7, 1976, issue, created a stir and put California wines squarely on the map.

Nearly 30 years later, Taber has expanded that brief account into a fascinating book, ``Judgment of Paris: California vs. France and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine'' more> 

Some Wines Age Better Than Wine-Lovers
Rod Phillips
The Ottawa Citizen
A couple of weekends ago, I attended the annual Wine and Food Festival at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel. It's a real occasion, consisting of 21/2 days of wine tastings led by winemakers or winery owners. It includes great meals and plenty of opportunity to chat with the hundreds of people who come to the festival from across Canada and the United States.

The highlight of the weekend was a tasting of Bordeaux from 1961. That year is considered one of the greatest of the 20th century in Bordeaux; the weather conditions eventually combined to produce a small harvest of almost perfect grapes -- grapes that had just the right balance of flavour, acidity and tannins.

So there we were, the lucky 75 who got to taste one ounce of each from seven iconic chateaux such as Leoville-Las Cases, Pichon Comtesse and Palmer. The tasting cost $400, so each ounce cost almost $60. Pro-rate that and you get a per-bottle cost of almost $1,500. (I noticed that, unlike later tastings, there were hardly any spit-cups for this one!)... more>
more from Rod Philips>

WIne X Magazine
This magazine is geared to the younger wine buyers and connoisseur wannabees. They have numerous events, tastings, ratings and a lot of refreshing attitude -- not the oh-so-stuffy snobbery normally found in wine-dom.

The Private-Preserve System
If you could preserve each bottle you opened -- but didn't finish -- and have the vino taste just as good as the first sip, what would you pay? Surprisingly little, and with so little effort, this system is how the pros keep unfinished bottles fresh, and it's our favorite.

The Winery Web Site Report
Note: This is a top-notch wine industry guide, but it also has a comprehensive listing of winery websites. Mike Duffy is one smart cookie, and he's helping numerous wineries be better marketeers.

Wine Spectator Online
Well, what can we say. This has long been regarded as one of the best in the wine industry... lots of helpful info, but it comes with a price, i.e. subscription required and pretentions abound.

SeaBear Smokehouse
OH MY GAWD, is this good stuff. Sea Bear offers such a rich array of smoked and prepared seafood -- try their chowders and thank us later.

100 wines rated 90 pts plus. 
All under $20 
Good selections, very conveinent and fun to shop, the folks at Wine.com get it. We do not always find what we're looking for, but that's no different than our local shops. If you are not close to a good wine shop, save some time and click to get what you crave.

50 States of Cheese 
Wisconsin has nothing on the fine folks at iGourmet. We always order when we visit and we always want more. Good selections, great service and shipping. Go there, now. Come on, you know you want to, go ahead. Go.

The Wine Messenger

Looking for Home Bar Supplies?

The New Outdoor Selection at Target.com 

 

BBQ Times Two
Seattle Heats Up With Some Truly Saucy Takeout...
By Sara Dickerman
A mastery of smoke is one of the things that separates humankind from monkeys. It's too bad, then, that there's been a distinct lack of wood smoke in Seattle restaurants.

Still, one of the advantages of Seattle not being an established barbecue town is that Northwestern lovers of fire and meat don't get pinned down chasing a canonized regional barbecue tradition, like they do in North Carolina, or Memphis, or Texas.

Northwest restaurateurs have the freedom to sell whatever kind of barbecue reminds them of home (or even an imaginary home down South), and in my endless quest for the perfect takeout dinner, I've recently checked out two new entrants into Seattle's growing barbecue scene.

Since barbecue joints often serve as scouts in underrestauranted areas, I wasn't surprised to see that one of the first restaurants in the "new" South Lake Union was Slo Joe's, a pert barbecue shop owned by Joe Jeannot, who is also, improbably, both a sommelier and a hot dog vendor.more>

Great Spanish Chefs Talk
Food and Wine at Gourmet
Right now, Spanish cuisine is the most influential in the world. As a laboratory for groundbreaking food, Spain is unmatched, and in the past few years, its restaurants and chefs have conjured up a constellation of Michelin stars.

Like Spanish wine, Spanish food is crossing borders. For some American chefs, the ultimate mark of distinction is a stint in a kitchen in San Sebastian, Madrid or Barcelona. Even more common is the Spanish flair evident on American restaurant menus, where you’ll discover ingredients, techniques and presentation that reflect the mark of the Spanish masters. In a fortuitous symmetry, American restaurant wine lists are showing off their newly polished Spanish accents as well, building on the popularity of flavorful, top-quality Wines from Spain. That’s what we call a perfect Spanish Translation.
See the entire sections at Gourmet