Drinking Wine Like Grown-Ups

For the past couple of months, we’ve been touring the world of wine. We signed up for the weekly, introductory Wine Appreciation “mini course” at Northwestern University’s student center to start drinking wine like adults instead of college kids. Below is a regional run-through of what we learned, as well as descriptions of some of our favorite bottles, most of which cost under $15. This is by no means an exhaustive tour, but you have to start somewhere!

The Basics

• Hold the glass by the stem so your hand doesn’t warm the wine.
• White wines in this price range are better when younger (more recently bottled).
• The term “estate bottled” means the grapes are grown and bottled by the same vineyard. This ensures quality.
• Reserve (or reserva) means the producers kept it back a year or so to age before distributing it. Drink them right away; there’s no need for extra aging.
• Gewurztraminer is the current trendy choice in white wine. It’s hearty and aromatic, and is one of the rare few that goes well with Asian cuisines (BYOB, anyone?).

 

Sparkling and dessert wines at Wine Appreciation, by Karina for TKGO

 

United States: West Coast

Chardonnay is the most popular grape in America. Pinot noir originated in Burgundy, France, but also grows well in Santa Barbara.

• Geyser Peak Sauvignon Blanc 2008
• Bonterra Mendocino County 2008
• Turn Four Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley 2007
• Chateau Ste. Michelle Sauvignon Blanc 2008, Washington

France

You won’t be able to discern the varietal (or type of grape) from the label, which is a departure from wine labeling in the rest of the world. What’s important in France is where the grapes grew and the wine was bottled. French people themselves tend to drink wines from the Loire Valley.

• Muscadet Henri Poiron 2008, Loire Valley
• Cotes du Rhone Jean-Luc Colombo 2007

South America

Chilean and Argentine wines are famously delicious and easy on the pocketbook. Malbec is a varietal used in blends all over the world, but Argentina is the only producer to bottle it alone.

• Santa Ema Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 Reserve, Maipo Valley, Chile
• Terrazas Malbec, 2008 Argentina

Australia and New Zealand

Chiraz is the national grape of Australia. Though rieslings are often German, New Zealand makes some rieslings to reckon with.

• Yard Dog White Blend 2008 Australia

Sparkling/Dessert Wines:

Champagne is sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France. Anything fizzy made elsewhere is just called sparkling wine. In order from dry to sweetest, the classifications are brut nature, brut, extra dry, sec/dry, demi-sec and doux. Brut is most common, and it’s typically 60 percent pinot noir and 40 percent chardonnay.

• Method Champenoise Gruet Blanc de Noirs
• Heidsieck & Co. Monopole Blue Top Champagne Brut

Grab some bottles and start tasting. Cheers!

-Tara and Karina for TKGO

Q&A with Roxana Saberi

Roxana Saberi is an American foreign correspondent and former Iranian political prisoner. After her release in May 2009, she wrote Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran, released March 30, chronicling her experience in Iran and her five months in Tehran’s Evin Prison. I interviewed Saberi for The Rotarian, Rotary International’s U.S. magazine. To read the full story in The Rotarian, click here.

 

Roxana Saberi at Northwestern on April 13, courtesy of Hallie Liang for The Daily Northwestern

 

Tara: You made a rule for yourself not to cry before your release. Why was this so important to you?

Roxana: Not crying was a message to try to stay strong and to try to keep a positive mentality. I cried enough before that, it’s not like I was holding in my emotions. Enough is enough. It doesn’t help to think about the past, or the world beyond the prison walls. I should think about what I do have.

Tara: What are some of the greatest lessons you learned from the women with whom you were imprisoned?

Roxana: One is to try to change challenges into opportunities. Sometimes through suffering we can have an opportunity to become stronger. And even when you’re imprisoned you still have a power to control your attitude.

Tara: What aspects of your trials bothered you most?

Roxana: There are so many problems with both trials. The first trial I didn’t know was my trial until after the first 15 minutes. It was just a joke, it was a sham. I didn’t get the attorneys I wanted. I was threatened I shouldn’t take them and the attorneys I had, I was not happy with. I think they were under a lot of pressure from Iranian authorities, so much so that they have been intuited into sacrificing their own principles to have me as their client.

Unfortunately a lot of Iranians are falsely accused of crimes, including espionage, through the soft revolution or whatever charges they fabricate. In my case, in my false confession, they knew. ‘We know you’re not a spy’; they told me this in private. It made me wonder, do they knowingly falsely accuse people to tighten their grip on society and to silence people? In many ways it is not unique.

Tara: What message do you want readers to take from the book?

Roxana: What happened to me is happening to a lot of people who are still in Iran today. They are faced with many injustices. International support and media attention helped in my case. I think similar support can be given to them as well.

Tara: Do you understand Iran better now, after your imprisonment?

Roxana: I understand certain aspects of Iran better than before. One way, I’ve seen how certain people in power are so blinded by their want of power that they’re willing to go to almost any means to keep that power, including trampling on the rights of individuals. In the long run this only breeds resentment. Instead I think they should tolerate different ideas and allow for an exchange of ideas and try to tackle the roots of problems instead of people who speak about them.

Tara: Do you love Iran any less after being imprisoned? Do you love it differently?

Roxana: I love it just as much as before. In fact, I met some of the best Iranians I’ve ever met in prison; they were my cellmates.

Hungry for more? Listen to Roxana Saberi’s hour-long presentation to Northwestern students, detailing her experiences in Evin Prison:

-Tara for TKGO

Paris, Circa 2008

It’s been a rainy week in Evanston, and on top of that, it’s midterms season at Northwestern. After I found myself five episodes deep into the first season of True Blood (thanks to Comcast On Demand), I started thinking about better rainy weeks.

In March of 2008, I attended Northwestern’s weeklong International Media Seminar in Paris. We heard from the legendary former Life photo editor John Morris, correspondents and editors at the International Herald Tribune, editors at Libération, one of France’s leading newspapers, the chief press and information officer at the U.S. embassy and many other leading figures in international culture and politics.

Like this week in Evanston, Paris was overcast. And on days like that, there’s nothing better than romping around an old city with new friends.

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-Tara for TKGO

Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park

As graduation approaches (signaling the end of my time inhabiting the North Shore), I have been frantically searching for opportunities to cross items off my Chicago Bucket List. This past weekend my mom was in town, and with her rented car we drove southwest to Oak Park to peep displays of Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural genius — something I have planned to do for years.

We arrived at the Oak Park visitor center and, warned the Unity Temple was only open for about another hour, rushed over to the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house of worship on Lake Street. The Unitarian temple was the only of his masterpieces we entered, since all the other homes (with the exception of his personal home and studio) are private residences.

After exploring Unity Temple, we visited the architect’s nearby home and studio to rent headsets for the self-guided walking tour. We spent about the next hour walking around Lloyd Wright’s home neighborhood and pausing to learn about ten of his Modern residential creations with our super touristy — but very informational! — audio gear.

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The architect’s work, with its clean, straight lines and strong angles apparent in everything from the Unity Temple’s organ and light fixtures to his houses’ windows, is impressive even to the untrained eye. Learning about the thought process and intention behind Lloyd Wright’s designs reveals even more brilliance.

Here are some points I picked up and found helpful to understanding Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park architecture:

• The homes Lloyd Wright designed in Oak Park are from his Prairie Period, which was around the turn of the 20th Century: about 1892 to 1908.
• The Prairie Period is characterized by long, horizontal lines intended to reflect and work with the flat Midwestern terrain.
• Lloyd Wright considered the hearth the center of the home, symbolically and, in his designs, literally.
• The architect was fascinated with Japanese art and design.
• Lloyd Wright often obstructed or hid the front door; his homes aren’t designed to appear inviting to the outsider. He was more concerned with creating architecture that complemented nature and the surroundings.

My mom recommends the book Loving Frank as follow-up (or if you want, pre) education and entertainment to an Oak Park trip. I haven’t started reading the historical fiction novel yet, but the guy’s life did take some soap opera-worthy turns.

Also, if you happen to be at the Northwestern University Library, ask the archivists about original FLW documents we have somewhere in that massive structure.

-Karina for TKGO