I had the chance to interview Brian Boitano about his new cookbook, “What Would Brian Boitano Make?“. You can read the highlights on Foodista. Brian was very generous with his time but, in the interest of not having a blog post longer than War and Peace, I couldn’t include everything. So here’s a few more tidbits from my conversation with Brian, focusing on wine.
Like all of us who have been drinking wine for a while, certain things fall in and out of favor. Our moods, what’s on our plate, or maybe where we are (literally) at in our lives can influence what we choose to pour into our glass. As Brian told me, “I don’t know about you, but I find that every two years I change my tastes.” In his 20s, Brian drank Amarone, the most famous wine of Italy’s Veneto region. It’s made from partially dried grapes that produce a most concentrated, flavor-saturated red wine. Fast-forward to the present and Brian is now “really into light, crisp wines, white wines.”*
While I, too, am a fan of the refreshing crispness of easy-drinking white wines, I thought it notable that we’ve both rediscovered the enjoyment of California’s most famous white wine grape. “And now I’m getting back into Chardonnays,” Brian revealed, “which I wasn’t feeling like drinking.” I’ve certainly made my thoughts about returning to California Chardonnay clear. Maybe uncomfortably clear. But while speaking with Brian I was reminded how once you have some years of wine-drinking experience under your belt, reconnecting with a former pleasure is one of the joys of uncorking a bottle.
Image courtesy Rina Jordan.
*Especially Vermentino from Liguria.
