Welcome to all our new subscribers over the past few weeks! Especially those who signed up thanks to the Orange Wine article from earlier this week. That one got a fair bit of activity on it, so thought it best to officially give a new “welcome” shout out to y’all!
This post is our weekly podcast drop. We always pair wines with a different work of entertainment every week. Today, in honor of the San Diego Comic Con happening as I type, it’s the criminally forgotten 2015 graphic novel CONRETE PARK by screenwriter and political artist Tony Puryear and award-winning acrtess Erika Alexander!
Tony Puryear is known as the screenwriter of the Arnold Schwarzenegger blockbuster ERASER and as a key artist on Hillary Clinton's political campaign!
Erika Alexander is of course the award-winning actress known for The Cosby Show, Living Single, Wu Tang: An American Saga and most recently American Fiction.
The two were married for twenty years (!!) and even though they divorced in 2019, they still remain close and active creative partners. Three cheers to that.
Their comic, Concrete Park, was released in 2 volumes via Dark Horse Comics in 2014 and 2015. Co-written by Puryear and Alexander and additionally illustrated and lettered by Puryear, this book is something else, folks!
Think of it as an urban sci-fi Game of Thrones. And a sort-of retelling of the white man coming to Australia, but in this case it's a multiracial group of "criminal" outcasts sent to an alien prison planet! A planet that, um...*might* still be populated with the natives!
The free edited version of the show can also be found at any of the below:
UNCUT vs FREE (Paid vs. Free)
If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ll see the FULL UNCUT episode above. If you’re a free subscriber, you’ll see only the shorter episode, that is available across the entirety of the winecast-o-sphere (now a word.)
UNCUT version: 82 minutes (15 minutes of very intelligent* additional chat!)
Free version: 69 minutes (Oh no, you don’t even know what you’re missing! ;P)
(*your subjective opinion differing from my plainly biased one will not entitle you to a refund. Unless you’re mean about it. I’ll probably break if you’re mean.)
THE WINES
Dave's Wine Pairing:
Slice (or "SLCE") Skin Contact White Field Blend, Paso Robles, California
Grapes: 34% Chenin Blanc + 18% Pinot Gris + 12% Colombard + 9% Xarel.lo + 8% Verdelho + 6% Vermentino + 3% Gewurtztraminer + 3% Semillon + 3% Trousseau Gris + 2% Riesling + 2% Malvasia Bianca
A wonderfully budget skin-contact white aka orange wine field blend. Bottled and released by the same group that does the "Field Recordings" wines, this is currently in Trader Joe's stores for a mere $11.99! Very, VERY much worth that price and your time. Medium-low tannins, medium-high acidity.
Tasing Notes: Apricot skins, persimmon, goldenberry, marzipan, almond skins, and lime. Scents of orange blossom honey, carnations, cinnamon, and light brown sugar.
I had to do some online spelunking to discover what this wine was, since it’s a Trader Joe’s / “white label” kind of wine. Turns out its the same folks who release the “FIELD RECORDING” field blends! But this one’s even better! And even cheaper! WHAT???
Also quick shout out to the grape called “Xarel.lo” I had to look up why there was a dot in the middle of the name, and apparently this is called the “punt volat” or “flying full stop”. We don’t use it in English, but the Catalans do, and Xarel.lo is one of the key grapes used in sparkling Cava. The dot is supposed to be in the middle of the horizontal plane (Xarel·lo), and not the bottom like a period. But our keyboards don’t do that, so we put it on the bottom, or use a hyphen. But basically, a double “ll” would be a different sound in Catalan, so if you want it to sound like “el” then “el” again, you have to use the punt volat.
Lernin’ things here!
Dallas’ Wine
2021 Hugo Mendes 'Lisboa' Branco White
Grapes: Fernão Pires (45%), Arinto (45%) and Vital (10%)
Hugo Mendes originally trained as a biomedical engineer, but in 2004 he worked his first wine harvest and decided to entirely change his career. He became a winemaker, and for 11 years worked in cellars and consulted all over Portugal. In 2016 however, tired of making wines to other people’s specifications, he decided to strike out on his own. A weightier white from a blend of Portuguese grapes that age briefly in old oak. Dallas calls this “sour and sweet”, a somewhat challenging white blend that nevertheless goes down easy once you’ve acclimated to it!
Th-th-that’s all for this week folks. Look for our next movie pairing dropping next week! FIRST MAN starring Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy! What do you pair with an arthouse look of the first landing on the moon?
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