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Mike Ditka's wine meets the tasting panel, Gordon Ramsay in New Orleans and fashion models switch to Riesling (if they can figure out how to work the wine dispenser)

Posted: Wednesday, January 31, 2007

• It's almost Super Bowl Sunday and the Chicago Bears haven't mussed their jerseys in a championship game for more than two decades. Accordingly, Windy City NFL fans are hunting for any excuse imaginable to kick off their revelry a little early. Earlier this week, four sportswriters at the Chicago Sun-Times staged a blind taste-off to gauge how a bottle of former Bears coach Mike Ditka's Kick Ass Red wine stands up against the competition. Ditka's red--a blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Sirah served at his restaurant, Mike Ditka's Chicago--proved evenly matched with its competitor, a bottle of 1998 Chateau Montelena Cabernet Sauvignon, rated 87 points by Wine Spectator. "It's round, it's well-balanced in fruit tannins and body," said one pro-Ditka taster. Another, however, found the red to be less inspiring than the football legend's heavy-handed coaching methods. "It's not that it's a bad wine, it's just a little pricey for what it is," said tasting overseer Janet Rausa Fuller. "We let the bottles aerate for half an hour, and even the Cab's bouquet implied there was more to it than the Ditka wine." The tasting panel's final score: 2-2. If nothing else, at least the Sun-Times was fair ... and didn't taste Ditka's wine against one from the Colts' home of Indiana.

• We here at Unfiltered generally like to think of wine as something that helps us to slow down and appreciate life. Dating service Fastlife, however, takes a bit of a different approach: Speed dating with wine. On Feb. 13, the Australia-based Fastlife will team up with online matchmaking service lavalife.com and Vintage New York--a Soho-based wine shop that deals exclusively in New York State wines--for the New York City premiere of their speed-dating events geared for wine lovers. Ten men and 10 women will circulate on eight-minute mini-dates with each segment paired with a glass of New York wine or an "aphrodisiac hors d'oeuvre." Fastlife's Liv Judd claims that more matches have been made at their wine-related events than at, for example, their Broadway musical lover's speed-dating nights. We're betting that has to do with the eight "tasting-sized pours" of wine served to the speed-daters. But good news for those who end up loving the wine a little more than their dates: At the end of the night, Vintage New York will offer a special discount on bottle purchases. You may need another glass or two after this.

At least Colgin's melchiors will someday go to a good cause.

• Ever hear of a melchior? Turns out it's an 18-liter bottle, the equivalent of two cases of wine. As in, you better have a lot of friends around when you open one. And you better have a lot of money if you want the five melchiors of Colgin Herb Lamb Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from vintages 1992 (the first) through 1996 that will be auctioned by Hart Davis Hart in Chicago this Saturday. Offered as a single lot, the quintet is estimated to fetch a stratospheric $400,000 to $600,000. Only two such sets were bottled, according to winery owner Ann Colgin, and the other set remains in her cellar. "Colgin Cellars makes large-format bottles each vintage, primarily for charitable donations, which have so far raised over $3.5 million," Colgin told Unfiltered. But we sensed a certain disquiet on her part at this offering. Could it be that Colgin would have preferred to see the melchiors donated to charity instead of being auctioned off for insane bucks? "Sure, I would rather see the sale of these bottles raise money for a good cause," she said, "but if they bring a huge price, it increases the value of the set I have in the Colgin Cellars Library."

• Flush with even more Michelin-star success, Gordon Ramsay may be taking on his greatest challenge yet. The foul-mouthed, Scottish celebrity chef just picked up two more stars in the new UK Michelin guide, released on Jan. 26, bringing his star total to 10. Never satisfied, though, Ramsay is now set to start shooting his Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares TV show in the United States next month. Unlike the culinary boot camp of Hell's Kitchen, this show has seen Ramsay turn around failing UK restaurants, using a heavy pinch of F-words and a large dollop of butt-kickin'. The show's producer, Fox, has been tight-lipped about where in the U.S. Ramsay will be starting off, but Unfiltered couldn't help but notice an ad on the New Orleans Craig's List website. The ad, which isn't confirmed, offers failing restaurants the most mouthwatering of dishes: "GORDON RAMSAY-Acclaimed Chef, Culinary Expert & Award Winning Restaurateur IS LOOKING TO HELP RESUSCITATE & FIX YOUR RESTAURANT ISSUES!" the ad declares. With all that capitalized shout-typing, Unfiltered is beginning to think the big man may have written the ad himself.

The wine dispenser may be too complicated for the models to figure out, now that we think about it.

• Move over, Champagne. A new white is vying for the spotlight at New York City's annual Fashion Week, starting Feb. 2: German Riesling. The wine will be poured--actually, dispensed--inside the main tent at Bryant Park, where an Enomatic machine will squirt out free tastes of Riesling and other German whites (such as Weissburgunder, Grauburgunder and Silvaner) to anyone who cares to press the button and put their plastic cup beneath the spout. Participating wineries include Müller-Catoir, Leitz, Tesch, S.A. Prüm and Clüsserath. Beth Von Benz, wine director at Porter House New York, sees Riesling as the perfect fit for Fashion Week, saying, "Riesling is like the little black dress of wine varietals." Uh, OK. We have no idea what that means. But what really makes us scratch our heads is that Riesling is such a food-friendly wine ... and models don't eat. But at least the wine won't stain the models' teeth purple. We hear that color is sooo, like, 2006!

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