Cool Video Series about Wine on Le Creuset website

  • Posted on: 1 November 2013
  • By: Jay Oyster

Le Creuset Wine Video Series with Andrea RobinsonI just noticed today that Le Creuset has a very nice wine video series started on their website. For those of you who don't know, Le Creuset is a French company (obviously) that makes these gorgeous enameled cast iron cook pieces.  I also like to cook, and I have the same stupid weakness for expensive tools in that avocation as I do in woodworking. Le Creuset pieces are not cheap, which is why we currently only own one, a very nice red skillet I found in a factory outlet store in Ellenton, Florida about three years ago. Currently, I'm lusting after one of their Dutch ovens, but at a list price of more than $250, that one will have to wait.  (It's funny to note that they don't actually call their Dutch oven a Dutch oven. In typical Franco-centric fashion, they call them French ovens.)  Or perhaps a nice, large cocotte.  A Le Creuset store is as dangerous for me as is a Lie-Nielsen road show.

But to the topic at hand, the wine video series they've produced. Hosted by Andrea Robinson, a Napa-based sommelier, the imagery is gorgeous and the topics are treated quickly and with good humor. Aside from some rather sloppy ADR work in the intro video, it also seems to be very professionally produced, as you might expect. At this point, the series has two topics in small 5 minute chunks: Choosing a bottle of wine, and how to open a bottle of wine. Obviously intended as a marketing tool to encourage 'fine dining', the videos are not comprehensive, but they are sort of fun. (For instance, in the 'Opening a Wine Bottle' video, they don't even mention the basic corkscrew, nor the winged corkscrew so common in modern kitchens.  The percent of time spent on the 'waiter's friend' cork remover hints just a bit at an elitism I suspect they were trying to avoid.  This latter is slightly evident, as well, from the initial episode, which provides a lits of the 'Big 6' wine types that everyone should know. Andrea goes through each of them and identifies from which part of France they come. (No, no wine outside of France can be a foundational wine. The French did, after all, invent wine. Over 4,000 years ago . . you know, even before the Romans. (eyeroll) )No, the six 'important' wines are three whites (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay) and three reds (Pinot Noir, Syrah, and of course, Cabernet Sauvignon). 

Now personally, I'd argue that Merlot shouldn't be considered one of the big 6, but to leave out Malbec and Pinot Grigio is just a horrible sin. I also have a prediction for the next important grape . . . in a hundred years, Bonarda will be as important as Cabernet. I know . ..radical, right? If I'm wrong, you can always dig me up and yell at me. 

But ignore these quibbles. I like these videos. I'm going to bookmark this site and check back occasionally just to see if there are any new topics, if for no other reason than to look at the gorgeous wine country scenery and to lust after the artfully placed cookware visible everywhere in the back of the shots.