Smithsonian.com

Full-color vending machine. Image courtesy of Flickr user Straws pulled at random.

The old method of getting goodies from a vending machine is being revamped by the Pepsi Corporation with its new Social Vending System. Dispensing with clunky slots for coins and bills in favor of a touchscreen that allows you to look at the nutritional information of the products therein, this new species of machine is also hopping on the social networking bandwagon: people can use the machines to send drinks to friends, complete with personalized text and video messages. (The recipient gets a message on a cell phone and they have to go to a Social Vending Machine and enter a code to redeem the gift.) But because you have to enter telephone numbers to use the social features of the machine, questions arise about how personal data is stored and used, an issue inherent in all social media. At this time, Pepsi says that personal data will not be stored unless the user grants permission.

Is this the next logical step in our ongoing quest for convenience or does it make accessing foodstuffs more complicated than it should be? Corporate efforts to create glowing vending-machine eye candy have a long and sometimes ridiculous history. (If you have the patience, this mid-century video walks you through the ins and outs of vending machine salesmanship.) Would you go to a machine for any of the following things?

1. Lobster

This variation on the claw machine arcade game may very well be the greatest visual pun in food marketing. That’s right: you use your gaming skills to catch your own live lobster; however, if you are fortunate enough to nab one of the skittering crustaceans, you may find yourself in a bit of a pickle. Apparently takeaway bags aren’t a standard part of the machine rig, so you may need to bring your own.

2. Eggs

Farmers who sell their eggs directly to consumers can pop a vending machine at the entrance of their property and passersby can drop in their money and walk away with a tray of farm fresh goods. Some famers have even noticed an increased demand for their products since installing the machine. The German branch of PETA offered its own variation, placing live hens in the machine to make a statement about the living conditions of these animals on farms.

3. Wine

In 2010, Pennsylvania unveiled two wine vending machines—however, users have to swipe their ID and pass a breathalyzer test before they can lay their hands on a bottle of vino. And if you have wine aficionados for friends, would you ever tell them that you’re serving them something that came from a vending machine?

4. Pecan Pie

The Bedroll Pecan Farm, Candy and Gift Company in Cedar Creek, Texas offers its wares via a vending machine, from a 9″ Pecan pie to pecan brittle.

5. An entire mini grocery run

The Shop 2000 allows users to buy toiletries, milk, snack items and other convenience store fare. In 2002, one of these machines was installed in D.C. near the intersection of 18th St. NW and California St. under the name Tik Tok Easy Shop. (It no longer existed as of 2003)

And for more on unique vending machines, check out Around the Mall blogger Megan Gambino’s piece on the Art-o-Mat, which sells you works of art out of a revamped and refurbished cigarette machines.

Wine glasses, image courtesy of Flickr user smaku

Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a “One-Hour Wine Expert” seminar at Lake Placid’s Mirror Lake Inn with Kevin Zraly, author of the best-selling Windows on the World Complete Wine Course and the 2011 recipient of the James Beard Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. I don’t know if the seminar turned me into a wine expert, but I did learn a few things and was thoroughly entertained in the process.

Zraly was the wine director at the Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the World Trade Center that, before it was destroyed in the terrorist attack of 2001, sold more wine than any other establishment in the country. Since then he’s been focused on wine education as a roving connoisseur, raconteur and probably some other French nouns. But his high-energy presentation is purely American, delivered with equal parts Jay Leno–style witty audience banter and Tony Robbins zeal (there was even some tongue-in-cheek “what-your-favorite-wine-says-about-you” analysis).

Zraly shared some interesting tidbits about American wine consumption and how it’s changed over his four decades in the business. “This is the golden age of wine,” he said, explaining that there is more good, affordable wine available now than at any time in history. And we’re drinking a lot more than we used to. In the 1970s, the domestic wine industry had yet to really take off, and Americans were far behind Europeans in their wine consumption. In 2010 the United States overtook France as the world’s biggest consumer of wine, according to a recent report from Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that we are the largest per capita consumers of wine—not by a long shot. That distinction goes to the Vatican city-state, followed by Luxembourg, according to the Wine Institute’s latest report, from 2009. Zraly noted that 40 percent of Americans don’t drink any alcohol at all, and many more prefer beer or spirits.

But those of us who do drink wine are quaffing it in larger quantities, and in ways that surprise and possibly dismay traditionalists, i.e. frequently without food. The practice of pairing wine and food comes from centuries of European tradition, where wine is an essential component of leisurely meals. That lifestyle doesn’t exist for most people in the United States. Earlier this week the New York Times wine critic Sam Sifton Eric Asimov wrote about a recent survey of 800 Americans who drink wine frequently; it found that only 46 percent of the wine they drank was consumed with a meal. The rest was paired either with snacks like nuts and crackers, or without food at all. Sifton, Asimov, who wrote that he considers wine “a grocery item” (despite the fact that New York law prohibits wine sales in grocery stores), added that he found “the idea of divorcing food and wine unsettling, to say the least.”

Personally, I’m not surprised by the survey results, because those percentages correlate almost exactly with my own wine consumption; I like a glass with dinner, but I will just as frequently drink it in place of a cocktail at a party or to unwind after work. I’m admittedly no wine expert—even after an hour with Zraly—but I imagine the industry doesn’t care how people are drinking their product, as long as they’re drinking more of it.

Pot from Cyprus. Courtesy of NMNH

A question for the end of the  year, a time to look back: What’s the oldest kind of wine still in modern production?

If you answered “Commandaria,” I’m impressed. I had never heard of such wines until a few weeks ago, when I attended a Smithsonian Resident Associates lecture about the cuisine of Cyprus. It’s a sweet dessert wine, with a dark amber to light brown color, and an intriguing taste that starts like honeyed raisins and figs and ends like coffee. It reminded me somewhat of Hungarian Tokaji wine, while the woman next to me said she found it pleasantly similar to Portuguese Madeira.

I learned that Commandaria’s history dates back at least 3,000 years, although it was called Mana for much of that time. The ancient Greeks drank it at festivals celebrating Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who, according to myth, was born from the sea foam on the shores of Cyprus. The wine’s modern name can be traced to the 12th and 13th centuries, when the Knights Templar and Knights of St. John established a headquarters (commandery) in the growing region and began to produce and export the wine commercially. Commandaria proved so popular with European palates that it is said to have been served at King Richard the Lionheart’s wedding, and to have won what was perhaps the world’s first wine-tasting competition in France.

Commandaria is made from two kinds of native grapes which I’d also never heard of before—white Xynisteri and red Mavro—which are partially dried in the sun to concentrate the juices before pressing and fermentation. By law, Commandaria wines must be aged for at least two years in oak barrels, but many of the best are aged for a decade or more. (I sampled a phenomenal 30-year-old vintage, Etko Centurion, although at $100 and up a bottle I don’t expect I’ll drink it again. But younger versions are also excellent, and much more affordable at around $20.)

Although its international popularity faded in the centuries after the knights lost power, Commandaria has been staging a comeback in recent decades. The name has been given “protected designation of origin status” in the European Union, the United States and Canada, and there is an official Commandaria wine region in southern Cyprus.

To learn more about the history of Cyprus, currently the subject of an exhibit at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, read this Smithsonian magazine piece.

The vinters at Channing Daughters press this year's ramato harvest. Photo courtesy of the vineyard

Some people prefer red wine. Some swear by white. A few like rosé. Personally, I like ‘em all (or at least some kinds of each color). And I just discovered another color to add to my wine palette: orange.

So-called orange wine is not made from oranges (although, apparently, some people do make such a thing). It is the name frequently used to describe white wines in which the macerated grapes are allowed to have contact with the skins during part of the fermentation process. Although this was once, centuries ago, common practice in Europe, it fell out of favor in the 20th century. But in the past few years some adventurous winemakers—with a concentration in the Friuli region of Italy, near the Slovenian border—have been experimenting with orange wines.

So, how is orange wine different from rosé wine? Standard winemaking practice is that red wines are made from red or purple grapes (e.g. pinot noir, cabernet sauvignon, merlot), with the skins left on during fermentation. White wines are usually made with white grapes (Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling), although they can also be made with red grapes with the skins removed (one example is Champagne, which often uses a blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier). Rosé is generally made with red grapes with the skins are left on for only part of the time.

Orange wines are made the same way as reds or rosés—allowing some skin contact—but since they use white grapes, the skins only color the wine a little, ranging from a light amber to a deep copper. But they also add tannins, the compounds normally associated with red wines that give it a slight bitterness and structure. The wine editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, Jon Bonné, wrote a good article on orange wines last year, including a history of the “mini-movement.”

I got my first taste of an orange wine last week, when I attended part of the Food & Wine Weekend at Lake Placid Lodge, an upscale Adirondack hotel. One of the sessions was a New York wine tasting with Channing Daughters winery of Long Island and Hermann J. Wiemer, from the Finger Lakes region. Channing Daughters is one of only a handful of wineries in the United States experimenting with orange wines. We tasted Envelope (so named because they are pushing it, explained the winemaker, James Christopher Tracy), a blend of Chardonnay, Gewurtztraminer and Malvasia bianca grapes.

It was nothing like any other wine I’ve tasted—aromatic, almost floral, fairly dry, with none of the acidic zing that many white wines have. I’m not a very practiced taster, but I thought I noticed a little of a citrus-rind flavor. According to the winery’s description, there are notes of “quince paste, apples, brown spice, roses, lychee, guava and dried papaya.” Tracy said the wines pair especially well with earthy fall foods.

Judging by the reaction in the room, orange wines can be polarizing. But I found the one I tasted intriguing—not something I’d want all the time, but every once in a while. I’d be interested in trying others. Since they are still relatively uncommon, though, it may be a while before I cross paths with an orange wine again.

Quick, think of a wine from Argentina.

I bet I can read your mind: Malbec?

That’s the first thing I think of, and the first thing I see in wine store displays these days. There’s a reason for that: It’s consistently good, and often a bargain. Argentine malbec is my go-to red wine in the $8 to $15 range, and although I like some bottles more than others, I’ve never encountered one I truly disliked. The best ones are rich and smooth, full of dark fruit flavors livened by a peppery zing.

Cover of Vino Argentino, a new book about the Argentine wine industry by Laura Catena.

But did you know malbec is originally French? The malbec grape was once a backbone of Bordeaux blends and is still grown widely in France’s Cahors region. It’s a fairly recent immigrant to Argentina, where other wine varietals (mainly criolla) have been cultivated since the 1500s.

According to Vino Argentino, a new book by Laura Catena, malbec was introduced to Argentina in 1853, when the government hired a French agronomist named Michel Aime Pouget to establish a vine nursery in Mendoza. He brought cuttings of several French varietals, including malbec, which thrived in the semi-arid, high-altitude vineyards.

Not long after that, malbec was hit hard on its home turf by a phylloxera epidemic. Catena writes:

Some 6.2 million acres (2.5 million hectares) of vines in France were destroyed by the disease, caused by an aphid-like insect, from 1875 to 1879. At the same time, in Argentina…Malbec was being propagated through the province of Mendoza by new immigrants from Italy and Spain. The dry climate and sandy soils in Mendoza inhibited the propagation of phylloxera, and Malbec plants are almost never affected here. The grape ripens beautifully.

Though beloved domestically, it took more than a century after that for Argentine malbec to gain international renown. I can remember when I first tasted it—only two years ago, in 2008, which is roughly when its popularity seemed to explode in the American mainstream. That’s due in part to economic factors, but it’s also due to a lot of hard work in recent decades by Argentine winemakers and promoters, including Catena and her family.

Catena’s father, Nicolas Catena, was born into the wine business—his Italian-immigrant father had been making malbec in Mendoza since the 190os—but he was troubled by the turn the country’s wine industry took during the financially turbulent 1970s. Price seemed poised to trump quality.

In the early 1980s, Nicolas Catena spent time in Berkeley as a visiting professor and was inspired by the exciting developments in the California wine industry at the time. Napa Valley winemakers were still glowing from their victory in the Judgment of Paris tasting, and maverick geniuses like Randall Grahm were just getting started.

As Laura Catena writes, her father returned to Argentina “obsessed with the quest for quality.” He spent much of the next decade studying the soils and microclimates of Mendoza, consulting the experts and developing a rigorous winemaking methodology. By the mid-1990s, Catena wines were garnering critical praise from the likes of Robert Parker, and foreign wine luminaries like Michel Rolland were dabbling in Argentine vineyards. International investors took heed. The U.S. mainstream, however, was still largely oblivious.

“I can remember when I was first selling Argentine wine and no one had ever heard of it,” Laura Catena said at a panel discussion organized by the Smithsonian Latino Center earlier this month. “Now, selling malbec seems so easy.”

She attributes this in part to the devaluation of the Argentine peso in 2002, which made the wines much cheaper on the international market, and thus more attractive to importers in the United States, Canada and Britain. Consumers were drawn in by the price, then hooked by the quality. Between 2001 and 2005, Argentina’s global wine exports doubled in value to $300 million, and had nearly doubled again to $553 million by 2009.

By now, malbec and Argentina have become so closely linked in the public’s perception that the grape’s heritage is all but forgotten. France seems to know it, says Washington Post wine writer Dave McIntyre, who spotted this slogan on a booth representing malbec’s homeland at an international wine expo last year: “Try Cahors—The French Malbec.”

Of course, as that Smithsonian panel featuring Catena, McIntyre and others emphasized, there’s also much “more than malbec” to Argentine wine. There’s also bonarda, a bright, often earthy red, and torrontes, a wonderfully fragrant white, along with better-known varietals like syrah and merlot. Even cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay, the proverbial king and queen of the wine world, have been persuaded to rule there.

There’s more than Mendoza, too—although that region accounts for some three-fourths of the country’s total production, it’s just one of seven main wine regions in Argentina. I was intrigued to learn that grapes can even prosper in the distant deserts of Patagonia, in the regions of Neuquen and Rio Negro. (At the tasting after the lecture, I especially liked a red from the aptly-named Bodega del fin del Mundo, which means “winery at the end of the world,” in Neuquen.)

When the panel’s moderator, Argentine wine promoter Nora Favelukes, asked if anyone had ever tasted a wine from Argentina, nearly everyone in the packed auditorium raised a hand.

“Twenty-something years ago, had we asked a big room like this…we might have seen only two or three hands,” Catena said. “That really touches my heart.”