I didn’t bother getting an attractive shot because this argentine malbec brought out pain where there was none before.

The food in Argentina was actually not spicy that I remember. Charred meats and tangy empanadas.
Spanish food isn’t generally hot either. Paella sure isn’t so I spose that would explain the rioja barely working with Indian. I’m certainly reducing my options to cooler climate grape varietals as we’re coming up on D-day.

Man I totally pussed out last night. Had french cuisine and thus rather lovely but opus one-ish Chateau Palmer (bordeaux, of course).

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR

Had this fantastic Spanish wine with Indian food. Oh no has he gone totally bonkers or what’s up. Well the wine shop was closed and this was a stroke of luck at a Korean bodega amidst a small arsenal of eight to twelve dollar napa cabs and chards. This was the only bottle.
100% tempranillo and old world as a guillotine this wine actually didn’t do so well with the pain factor. The mild dishes couldn’t have paid for a better wine to be paired with but it amplified the vindaloo. “I’m gonna burn the hell out of your mouth”-ness a little.

Still I may try blending it just to see. Oak aged tempranillo is a beautiful thing.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR

Alrighty, here’s a pic from Austin. We tried four wines and I got drunk. This means that I don’t understand what few notes I took nor do I remember any details about these bottles.

This bubbly worked but I’m not sure what grape it was. At one point a rather dark red one wasn’t werking particularly well but I think it may have been a blend of several grapes so useless to our cause here. I’ll do some research.

Hey look at this. The Paul Dolan Zin was the red. NOT a blend at all. I remember that it didn’t amplify the pain but it wasn’t like magic or anything. I did drink most of myy glass. Perhaps a Zin with maybe a thinner skin, less tannin will do the trick for keeping my wine red. I’ll see if there’s a cooler climate zinfandel grape being grown somewhere I’ll have access to. And hopefully fairly cheaply.

Okay this is some progress.

Also, so far my only spicy food pairing has been mexican. We are now in Atlanta and there’s a famous Indian restaurant here that I’ll try to get to before sndchk. Hope they have a hell of a wine list.

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This was an Austrain red and it was AMAZING with the spicy dishes. I really didn’t want to do anything pinot noir because its spendy and kinda cliche but this was apparently a pinot/zweigeld (sp) hybrid grape. I actually wasn’t too into the fruity nose on this guy, it reminded me vaguely of cheap wine, and wouldn’t really dig it but for the sake the mission (remember: Mexican and Indian). But I dug in and took one for the team. Of course.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR