I have to drink wine before I go on stage. That is still part of the ritual, the ceremony. I usually go for a Cabernet or a Merlot. You're at the mercy of promoters who try to cut corners, so you don't always get the best wines in the world. But I look at the wine as being medicinal. It's not there to be enjoyed, it's part of my preparation for a show.
When I started trying wine, I started drinking merlot, and that's all I had. I would go to dinner, and I'd see people drinking wine, and if I ordered anything, it would just be a merlot.
The wine world is so big. Yes, there are styles of wines I don't like. Orange wine, natural wines and low-alcohol wines. Truth is on my side, and history will prove I am right.
What's important in a cellar is having wines that have a broad range of drinkability, which California Cabernet does. Wines with a broad range of drinkability give you a lot of flexibility; they are the sort of wines that make me feel secure. I think of my wine cellar as security - if the apocalypse comes, I can just go down to the cellar.
Hmmm... cooking with wine? I usually drink wine while cooking... I do a good braised short ribs with cabernet, though. We're big red wine drinkers here. All that research showing that it's good for you takes the guilt away.
My ritual it's kind of an involuntary ritual. I lie awake the night before, worrying about award ceremony. Try and think of something to write in case I actually get up there. I write it at the very last minute like either in the car on the way to the ceremony or, you know, in the bathroom before the show starts. It's all of jumbled mess written on a napkin or a piece of toilet paper. That's my good luck ritual. It's just like being in college waiting for the last minute to do everything.
It's nearly impossible to believe just how provincial the wine world was in 1978, the year I launched my journal, 'The Wine Advocate.' There were no wines exported from New Zealand and virtually none from Australia (including Penfolds Grange, one of the greatest wines in existence).
I used to drink wine. This girl asked me, "Doesn't wine give you a headache?" "Yeah, eventually, but the first and the middle part are amazing!"
The first wine I drank, a Chateau Haut-Brion, I was 22, it was my first glass of wine, and I discovered voluptuousness. From there, I started tasting French wines, then Spanish wines, then Italian wines.
I would like a wine. The purpose of the wine is to get me drunk. A bad wine will get me as drunk as a good wine. I would like the good wine. And since the result is the same no matter which wine I drink, I'd like to pay the bad wine price.
There are many great wine producers from all over the world making fantastic wines. Italian wines especially are making an enormous comeback after sometimes being labeled as inexpensive jug wines.
It's a part of hip-hop, rave culture. But moving on from whistles, in the future we want to release Greco-Roman wine. Our friends are getting too old to go clubbing, but they will still have to buy our wine if we release it.
When I was on the Knicks, and I'd have a drink - my drink would be either a Manhattan or an Old Fashioned - businessmen would be drinking only wine. As I continued to go to business dinners with successful businessmen, my drink has now also turned into wine.
Here is a tip for all you young people drinking wine. With pasta, drink white wine. With steak, drink red wine. And if you're vegan, you're annoying.
I don't know why but I love this kind of project, when it's a little difficult and when you have a history. The beginning of the story of viticulture was in the Middle East, and it was a different generation than the science and logistics of today. My passion is to go into the past to make wine. Wine is something cultural, not only something to drink. I always try to find the identity of the place.
Bottles of wine aren't like paintings. At some point you have to consume them. The object in life is to die with no bottles of wine in your cellar. To drink your last bottle of wine and go to sleep that night and not wake up.
Halloween is tomorrow. A group of wine experts has actually come up with a list of the best wines to pair with Halloween candy. They say, "White wine goes great with Skittles, red wine goes great with Twix, and ... we're alcoholics, aren't we?