In doing some research for my most recent blog about food and wine pairings for a fun Oscar night, we came across some interesting facts.
Richard Nixon's favorite food was cottage cheese with ketchup. Yes. When we were kidding around with various nicknames for this dish - after all, he was Tricky Dic - blood-clot on a snowball? Make your blood curl? Ulcer settler? 57 curds? You get the point - yikes and ugh.
But, digging a bit further, we discovered that his favorite wine was Chateau Margaux. Ahhh. Such good taste...
And although the '68 and '69 vintages were really pathetic (disasterous was the word used by the Ch. Margaux site), the 1970 was a beautiful wine that was reviewed again as recently as November 2008.
From http://chateaumargaux.com
Château Margaux 1970
We find it hard to imagine today the excitement caused by this vintage, whose abundance and generosity appear all the more remarkable when you consider the complete disasters of the two previous vintages (1968 and 1969). Most of the wines produced in the Médoc stayed closed and quite hard for a long time. As with the 1975 vintage, it could have been a question of the Cabernet Sauvignon not being ripe enough when it was picked. In many estates, even in the greatest, the vat cellar equipment, in particular the number of vats, was not able to adapt to such a large crop. The vinification conditions therefore were not ideal. It was the case at Château Margaux, where the 1970 demonstrated the quality of the vintage very well, but lacked a little concentration and flesh. The nose is complex, well developed, deep, and quite harmonious. On the palate, it is fine, pleasant, but a little short and dry in the finish. We think this wine is ready to drink now. (November 2008)
If you make a parallel to what was going on when this wine was released (his resignation) and then the Frost Nixon debates (which are so well documented in the Oscar Nominated Best Picture film) - this was probably what "Dick" was sipping when he was thinking that he had so handily run circles around David Frost.
A bit of history - in a glass.
Enjoy your Oscar weekend - try the wine and food pairings that we've created for the Best Picture nominated films on http://womenwine.com.
Oh, and I'd skip trying this dish.
