Deacon Dr. Fresh Wine Newsletter

A Wine Newsletter With An Edge - Definitely NOT your typical white bread, mofo, cracker, peckerwood, jank, peckercracker wine newsletter! If this info is too advanced for you, check out my other newsletter: Wine for Dix at http://winefordix.blogspot.com

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Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

World's Lurchest Wine Writer - The Gangsta of the Grape - The Sultan of Shiraz - The Buccaneer of Burgundy - The Prince of Pinot Noir - Yellow Tail's Bane - Locus of the Ladies' Focus - Wielder of the trousered Hammer of Thor - I have arrived to rescue the wine world from overly-serious, rigid, deconstructionist, rooster juice peckerwoods who'd never dream of gettin' a tattoo or crackin' a smile. I am without a doubt, the smartest, funniest and toughest sumbitch in the entire wine industry. And I aint goin' away. All disputes will be settled bare-knuckled in the Octagon. You heard me. Oh, and by the way...Bite me crank!

Monday, April 16, 2007

The Deacon Lunches at Midi Bistro!

Yo Fanz and Foze!

Only 5 days to the Ontario Wine Awards at the Ultra-Lurch Queen's Landing, and your humble Deacon's first Official Event!

So many of y'all have written to me, tryin' to get free tickets to the event of the decade that your Deacon has been forced to delete screens full of pleading emails unread, just to save time.

Anyway, y'all are here, so Wassup?

...And lest we forget to greet all of you Birkenstock wearing, salamander shankin', lobe-finned, coelacanth cookin', blister water, triple-parked DIX who aint got a frickin' clue what I'm on about, but return again and again and again and again!

Toast my baguette!

Anyway, I wanted to give a plug to a really lurch little restaurant, namely Midi Bistro at 168 McCaul Street. I went there for lunch last week with Peninsula Ridge Estate Winery's Saskatchewan Brain Boy, Jono Kuhling. It was difficult to get there ontime, as the Black Freighter kept getting mired in the construction on Dundas Street and I had to pull the sails down and switch on the twin 500 horsepower Pratt and Whitney turbine engines. We made pretty good speed and drove the construction workers, who were laying streetcar tracks, out of our path with a blast over their bows. Hilarious to see the peckers run :)

Cannons are AWESOME!


Midi Bistro is a very lurch little establishment. Jono ordered for us, and we had French style ploughman's lunches, consisting of super-fresh salads with grated cheese, tiny pickles, bread, and some of the best pate this side of Paris, all washed down with some 2005 Peninsula Ridge Inox Chardonnay that was as perfect a combo as you can imagine. Salad's hard to match with any wine, but Jono got it right. The place is very cozy too, expeshully on a rainy afternoon, and has picked up the ambience of a truly French bistro without going overboard. You know how you can try too hard, the way some "English pubs" are full of Tiffany lamps and brass and resident dix? Well Midi Bistro doesn't try at all. They effortlessly succeed. The service was prompt and I'd love to check it out for dinner some night with the Deaconess, on the frickin' house of course!

I reached for my Amex Black Card, but Jono paid and wouldn't let me participate. Thanks Jono. You be lurch!

Y'all check it out at this link: Midi Bistro

Tell them the Deacon sent you. You won't be dissapointed in the food or service and the babe you're with will be suitably impressed so you can go back to her place and spend the rest of the evenin' boppin' in the beater!

Here's Peninsula Ridge's link. Y'all check them out too.

You heard me.

Deacon Dr. Fresh

Always stuffin' his face for the sake of culture...


Saturday, April 07, 2007

Only 2 Weeks to the Ontario Wine Awards! Get Ready...

Happy Easter to all my Dear Frenz and Fanz!

Do you realize it's only 2 weeks to the ultra-lurch Ontario Wine Awards that your Humble Deacon is gonna co-host with the Dean of Wine, Tony Aspler? This is your chance of a lifetime to meet and greet the Deacon and have your picture taken with His Excellency, decked out in full regalia!

After the ceremonies and dinner, it's wine, wine and more wine, and then off we go to "visit" and "converse" with the locals in Niagara on the Lake (last years' fun and frivolities shown in photograph). So polish up your finest blade and practice your chokes cause it's gonna be AWESOME!

And no, I didn't forget my usual hilarious greeting to all you dolphin wagglin', Calomine prepuce paintin', sugar glidin' Titus Andronicus semi-professional cartographers out there who tune in like a frickin' cesium clock whenever your Deacon puts electrons to screen!

Bite my javelin!


Next week we got an important upcoming event: No less a kwality personage than Colorado's mega wine-babe, Jennifer "Chotzi" Rosen is gonna be visitin' with the Deacon for an exclusive interview, so stay tuned for that one.

I got a couple of emails this week from huge fanz axin' me how they can tune in to my personally selected radio station, so here's how...Just click on the link and it will take you to my 24/7, zero commercial, and totally free Deacon Radio. It's fantastically relaxin' at home and perfect for the workplace!

Now to the Deacon's Male Bag:

Dear Dr. Fresh: I keep hearing about Malbec. What's the deal? Always a fan.
David Hepple, Tonawanda, New York

Yo Dave! Call me Deacon. Good question...Malbec is one of the official Bordeaux grapes, but came into its own when it got planted in South America, expeshully Argentina. It's fallen into decline in much of France, where it's can be a pretty austere style. In Argentina it makes a fantastically lush, dark and fruity wine that ages well too. Y'all get some! It's a real bargain. And try one of the Patagonian variants if you can find it.

Yo Deacon: I'm into splashing down at that Ontario Wine Awards event. How do I get tickets for the dinner and wine? Love your stuff!
- Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Plot: Section 3, Lot 2503-E, Grid Q-15/16, Arlington, Virginia

Greetings Gus! Here's the number:

Call Sandy Kurbis 416-398-3335. She'll take care of you and tell you where to park your capsule.

You heard me.

Deacon Dr. Fresh
Because the countdown has begun...




Thursday, April 05, 2007

It's Official! Tim Atkins is a Pecker!

Yo Homeys! Wassup?

I'm so frickin' irritated that I'm actually skippin' my usual hilarious and extended greeting.

Here's a bit of interesting news...Observer Wine Expert Tim "Pecker" Atkins (shown in a future photograph on right) is apparently the most pompous, arrogant, jank-monkey in the frickin' universe!

A few days ago, this professional R-sole received an award in Verona Italy at the VinItaly event. The problem is, Tim "Pecker" Atkins went on a self-aggrandizing explication. He directly compared American wine writers to "mass market branded wine" and European writers to the "noble wines of terroir and a sense of place" bla bla bla. Apparently, we all need the remarkable British wine experts to steer a course through all this arcane and recondite knowledge. My homeboy, John Szabo was present, and unable to find a bag to vomit in, wound up leaving the event; as did others I might add. In fact Johnny (a normally peaceful man) was so angry that he contacted Jancis Robinson (The younger, better-looking, Margaret Thatcher of wine) in order to get "Pecker" Atkins' personal email, to set the record straight.

Well here's the bottom line, homeys...When y'all anger one of my family, you just done angered the Deacon hisself! I simply cannot let this lie, and so I'd like to announce a Challenge:

If this mofo, pecker-mofo, mofo-cracker, mofo-mofo thinks he knows so much about wine, let him respond to this...

I challenge Tim "Pecker" Atkins to join me in the Octagon for a bare knuckle fight and see who really "knows" frickin' wine! No eye-gouging or biting, but small-joint manipulation is legal and groin strikes are de rigueur. A good triangle-choke can change your state in a hurry, so come out and play, peckerdine...We'll see how much you really know. And rest assured, we'll take your refusal to fight as a tacit apology.

When I'm done with you, you won't know whether to wind your ass or scratch your watch!


You heard me Pecker.

Deacon Dr. Fresh
I always got my Canadian homeys' backs...

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Happy Birthday Angus! But what wine goes with AC/DC?

Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Shiraz!

A few days ago, the World's Greatest Rockstar (according to Kerrang! magazine) just celebrated his 52nd birthday!

Diminuitive Scottish rock-guitar wizard (and possibly the most important and significant person on earth) Angus Young has been wearing his psychotic schoolboy uniform for over 35 years in the most energetic and kickass live band in the history of the world: Australia's AC/DC!

By the way, before I forget:

Hello fanz and fanettes of the Deacon and a hearty "Bite my wand!" to all you crackerdine, sheep-dippin', musically moronic Survivor watchers, who think U2 and Bono are somehow "artistically important" and "will save Africa".

Now as the world's foremost authority of wine and music pairings, your Humble Deacon has some recommendations for the AC/DC fest you're no-doubt planning to celebrate and make the centrepiece of 2007. Here are the songs and vino I've chosen just for you:

Thunderstruck - The greatest piece of music ever written! The best wine for it is without a doubt a Daniel Lenko Syrah or Henry of Pelham Baco Noir! Or better yet, drink a bottle of each with the song on endless replay. You'll thank me.

Highway to Hell - What can I say about this frickin' song that's not already been said by the Christian Right? The funny thing is, it's nothing to do with Satan or Hell, but is about AC/DC having to tour the US in a bus back in the 1970's before they all became gizzilionaires. The best wine is a really over-the-top Chilean Carmenere, or an overdone California Chardonnay with enough oak to build a summer cottage.

Moneytalks - This iconic riff-driven masterpiece needs something ironic. I highly recommend an ice-cold Cave Spring Riesling served in a huge martini glass, or any Jackson Triggs Gewurtztraminer! 6 bottles should do the trick.

When you're winding the evening down and need to quiet your brain for sleep, listen to some Black Sabbath accompanied by a couple of bottles of Peninsula Ridge Estate Winery wild yeast Cabernet Franc.

Now crank up the volume and get celebratin'!

Deacon Dr. Fresh

Musicologist to the Malbec set

The Deacon meets the Count of Graves!

Greetings All and Sundry!

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville... and could someone... anyone... explain to me what that stupid commercial means?

But I digress...

Today we're rappin' bout Bordeaux and other lurch stuff! But first the mandatory greeting to all my homeys, newcomers and fellow sojourners under full-sail, through the grapish night: Wassup?


And let's not ever forget all you radish eatin', Royal Arch raisin', fingernail clippin', pouch scratchin', election riggin' bunch of DIX that is still with me, despite all the brilliantly creative names I call you! Thanks for comin' back again and again and again...

So here we go...

On Monday last, your Humble Deacon responded to one of the many invites I get from the wine industry and big players out there, and attended a small, ecks-kloosive, wine-tasting at Beckett Fine Art in sunny and wealthy Oakville Ontario. (And if you have to axe why you weren't invited, you won't understand the answer...) As you can imagine, a huge star like the Deacon gets invited to approximately 4 or 5 events per day, but only attends the critical ones, 'cause I don't like to spread myself too thin. Well anyway, when my homeboy, The Wine Baron invited me and the Deaconess to sample some fine (and I do mean fine) Bordeaux, we couldn't refuse.

What made this event so kool, apart from the legendary hospitality of the Baron and his lovely wife was the dude they had visitin' them: No less than M. Emmanuel de Pontac of the Chateau des Jaubertes (seen in the photograph). The table was spread with pate, grapes and tiny, delicious, roast beef sandwiches that I immediately attacked and put out of their misery. We knocked back a few bottle of delicious Bordeaux Blanc (that's a white wine for those of you in Keswick) that was mostly Semillon with about 20 points of Sauvignon Blanc. These grapes are grown on some nasty, gravelly soil, which actually makes great wine. (Contrary to popular opinion, you don't grow grapes on the kind of soil you get in Holland Marsh.) It was great stuff with just a kiss of oak, rather than the groin-kick of oak you get from some whites (and I won't say anything about Yellowtail. Not a damn thing.) It was really nice, but the red really blew our sox off! How about it was a 2005, which for a red Bordeaux is about 20 minutes out of the birth canal, it's that young. The tannins were not overwhelming though and the wine tasted delicious with the roast beef. Your Deacon believes this wine will be unbelievable in about 3 years! If memory serves me well, the de Pontac family founded Chateau Haut Brion, which got the first Grand Cru rating in all of La France.

I hung around with Emmanuel de Pontac, whose family actually lives in that frickin' castle they call a chateau, and I wasn't joshin' y'all when I said he's a Count. He's actually a frickin' Count! Once I got used to protectin' my jugular vein, I kept calling him Monsieur le Compte, as we conversed effortlessly in French; your Deacon being a polyglot and all. He was a really friendly dude too, and it turned out there was no need to drive a stake through his heart, once I realized he was unperturbed by the daylight.

So here's the bottom line crackers: The Wine Baron and the Count are planning on bringin' this excellent Bordeaux into Ontario at bargain basement prices. The wine fascists at the LCBO won't be carryin' it, so you got's to buy it directly. We're lookin' at 35 bucks a bottle, and you have to buy at least a case. If you're a collector or just want to wow your peckerdine friends, contact The Wine Baron at: (905) 719-7030

You're gonna be seeing Chateau des Jaubertes wines in fine restaurants, but why not beat them to the punch? I'd like to see John and Zoltan Szabo get onboard with this one...

You heard me.

By the way, thanks again to all of y'all who actually believed my brilliant April Fools Day joke about bein' forced offline by Yellowtail. I appreciate all your unnecessary rage and weepy condolences. Next time: check the date mofo!

To get regular updates from the Deacon hisself, drop me a line at deaconfresh@rogers.com

Deacon Dr. Fresh
Always promotin' the best

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