I became acquainted with hip wine educator Courtney Cochran of the wine website and tasting club HipTastes.com when I started writing for WineCountry.com, where her work is also regularly featured. I’m a fan because her approach to all things vino is unusually fun and fresh, not that snooty, dry jargon that makes you want to skip the highfalutin hoopla and crack a beer. Besides, what’s not to love about a pro who pairs wines with PB&J?

Courtney was kind enough to pop the cork on a guest blog that should get you reaching for your wine glass pronto. And why not? It’s party Thursday.

Take it away, Courtney!

–Erika Lenkert

Courtney Cochran’s Guest Blog

When Erika asked me to do a guest blog for Glam.com it didn’t take long for me to figure out what to write about – Glam wines, of course!

But what DID take me a while to wrap my head around was what, exactly, makes a wine “Glam.” Drawing upon my trusty roots as a corporate marketer (yes, I actually had a “real” job before I took up this writing thing), I pulled together the following short list of adjectives that come to mind when I think of the word “Glam”:

Flashy – Luxe – Rare – Plush/Soft – Gorgeous
First off, I feel the need to explain the “Plush/Soft” thing. Glamour, to me, invariably invokes fashion – meaning high-end fashion, which usually involves fabulous fabrics, many of which are plush and soft. Take shearling, for example: très soft. Suede and buttery leather also spring to mind as quite plush. Okay, ‘nough said.

Connecting these attributes – especially the plush/soft thing! – to wine takes some work, I’ll admit. Still, as a sommelier who also loves fashion, I’m hard pressed to think of a more appealing challenge. So, with no further ado, read on for my list of top Glam wines, broken out conveniently by the Glam attributes listed above.

Flashy wine
The ultimate flashy wine would have to be Hundred Acre Winery “Gold” Chardonnay Blend, an inventive mix of Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer and Viognier that includes consumable flecks of real 24k gold in the bottle. The posh blend comes from cult Cabernet specialist Jayson Woodbridge of Hundred Acre Winery in Napa, California, and is a product of his cross-continental collaboration with sister vineyards in Australia. It doesn’t get flashier than consumable gold flecks, folks. About $25.

Luxe wine
Since Champagne is the haute couture of the wine world, it makes sense I’d choose one of these bubbling beauties as the luxe wine of the bunch. With its designer pedigree, Piper-Heidsieck “Dressed By Jean-Paul Gaultier” is a no-brainer here. Clad in a red peep-through corset, the bottle is as delightful to look at as it is to quaff (those in doubt need only look to its 91-point rating). The collaboration between the venerable Champagne house and flamboyant French designer is spot-on luxe, with a price tag to match. About $100.

Rare wine
Whether it’s an exquisite antique or super limited-production bottle of wine, a rare thing is a glamorous thing, without a doubt. In terms of rare wines, there are few more hard-to-find (or afford) than top Bordeaux from the superb 1961 vintage. Few mere mortals will ever have the opportunity to sample the wildly rare 100-point-scoring 1961 Château Latour Pauillac, a brooding Cabernet Sauvignon-based beauty that prompted Wine Spectator to rhapsodize, “Got to love this…Will it age forever?” About $2,420.

Plush/Soft wine
Tannin, a natural plant-derived material found in every wine, is one of the key things responsible for making up a wine’s texture. Depending on the amount of tannin in a wine (whites usually have less than reds), it can make the wine taste mild and soft, chewy and aggressive, or somewhere in between. Pinot Noir, the lovely red grape made famous by wine geek Miles in Sideways, is known for its incredibly soft tannin and correspondingly plush texture, making it a shoe-in for this category. I highly recommend Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir from cult California Pinot producer Flowers Winery. About $45.

Gorgeous wine
At the end of the day, there are few wines I enjoy looking at more than the stunning sweet wines from Brachetto d’Acqui in north western Italy’s Piedmont region. These gorgeous ruby-colored bubblies are made in the Acqui sub-region from the Brachetto grape (so it’s not just a cute name), and are the perfect thing for pairing with chocolate and berry-flavored desserts. Plus, they’re super-low in alcohol (they clock in at just about 5.5%), making them a guilt-free indulgence as well as a lovely one. Cheers to that. Try reputable producer Braida’s Brachetto d’Acqui, about $30.

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