I had a little trouble with this Wine Blogging Wednesday assignment. I’ve never been much of a daytime drinker, and though I can’t say for certain why, it might have something to do with my upbringing that exposed me to wine about once a year, during the annual Passover Seder (always after sundown!). For those of you who aren’t familiar, the Seder has its participants drinking four cups of wine over the course of the evening.

In my family, however, the four cups of wine were more like four sips, my finger getting more of a taste of the stuff than my mouth, during the recitation of the ten plagues, in which one’s pinky marks a drop on a plate for each epidemic, infestation, and outbreak leading up to the exodus. I actually think we should add an eleventh plague, a drip acknowledging how wretched the Concord Grape wine is itself, but that’s another story.

I won’t draw conclusions about my larger cultural background having to do anything with my lack of daytime drinking (though I think it’s probably not a stretch to say that “my people” aren’t known as big drinkers). But my heritage indeed led me to my menu for this WBW, as my meal consisted of Scrambled Eggs with Lox, a very Jew-y kind dish. I could only muster breakfast-for-dinner if wine were involved, and I hope that’s not too much of a cop-out.

The wine I paired wtih my Lox ‘n Eggs was the 2007 Michel-Schlumberger Pinot Blanc “La Bise,” a dry white that has ample fruit and acidity to balance both the saltiness of the salmon, and the creamy/dairy aspects of the egg dish. I hadn’t looked at the winery notes before selecting this, but find it amusing that they consider this their “brunch wine,” and a great substitute for sparkling wines.

The pairing worked out well. I think next time I’ll take a walk on the wild side and try some wine with breakfast-as-breakfast. Maybe I’ll be truly adventurous and do steak and eggs with a red…well, that’s probably pushing goyishe extremes. I’ll probably start out with some more Lox ‘n Eggs, before noon. Baby steps!

A big thanks as always to Lenn for creating Wine Blogging Wednesday, and to El Jefe for hosting this month. Cheers!

A group of bloggers — 170 or so of us — is currently in Santa Rosa, California, at the first ever Wine Bloggers Conference. It’s incredibly geeky and so far fun. I’ll be updating a few times this afternoon.

First taste of the day will be the 2005 Bink Pinot Noir, Weir Vineyard. Three clones, vinified separately and blended before bottling. Here’s a picture of it. Yay for multimedia! Tastewise, it’s a nice, medium-bodied Pinot that’s not pretending to be Syrah, which I appreciate greatly.

Update: next up is Clos La Chance — 2005 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon. About 1200 cases, $30 retail. That’s Dr. Debs of Good Wine Under $20 drinking it with Russ Beebe, the Winehiker in the background.

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There seems to be a battle brewing online this week for the most talked about wine(s) in the blogosphere. A few weeks back, it was all about the Rockaway (just Google that, we’re too lazy to find the myriad links). Now, it’s all about two unlikely competitors: Loire Valley/Beaujolais bargains from France vs. Twisted Oak’s new River of Skulls Mourvédre, the first “mailing list” allocated wine for the much blogger-celebrated winery.

It’s not quite a West Coast vs. East Coast match-up of bloggers, but the Loire Lovers do seem to reside on the Eastern seaboard. The River-dancers are more scattered about, geographically speaking!

Go here, here and here for more on the Loire wines…and here, here and here for just a few of the many River of Skulls reviews. Click here if you want to sign up for the mailing list.

Now, we realize that Twisted Oak sent samples out to bloggers…but we know of no such effort on the part of French Gamay producers (or Louis/Dressner who imports many of the wines). We do wonder, though, if Asimov, Brooklynguy and Dr. Vino might have dined together recently!

FYI, we’ve yet to try the River of Skulls but look forward to doing so. We had a chance just yesterday to taste the ‘06 Spaniard, and it was delish. So elegant and balanced, without going overboard with oak in a Jorge Ordonez kind of way. This leaves us very excited to try the Skulls. Also, check back soon, as we’re going to be stocking up on some of the Chermette Beaujolais which we agree, for the money ($16), is pretty much an unbeatable bargain.

Nobody does the Spanish varieties in California as well as Twisted Oak. We happen to be offering the 2004 Calaveras County Tempranillo for a song, at about 30% off the regular price (now just $15.99). This is one to jump on!Yeah, tempt me with some Tempranillo!