The Zen of dental mindfulness

Drinking wine is bad for my teeth. Well, maybe not my real teeth, but certainly for my ultra-pricey porcealin veneers. Despite an encouraging study that led researchers to conclude that components found in red wine can help in the prevention and treatment of gum disease, my mouth has funky wine karma.

Shortly after moving here in 1996 when I labored under the delusion that I had money to burn, I decided that my horribly embarrassing, noticeably eroding teeth enamel was no longer acceptable. I put my money where my mouth was and invested in ten upper porcelain veneers. I drove to Santa Fe for all the work and had I one inkling of the number of hours I'd log in the dental chair and the sheer stress of the stress of it all, not to mention the pain, more stress, and the remainder of the pain, I never would've done it. But I done it. And while my smile does rock, I have itsy bitsy veneer flipping issues when I drink wine and try to eat low carb. (Again with the low carb food issues.) The wine makes me more reckless, I suppose, weakening the hyper-vigilant mindfulness that I bring to my bite when sober. I don't operate my car while drinking; I should probably stop operating my mouth.

Back in 2000 I lost a side veneer to -- I kid you not -- a very stale Y2K stockpile granola bar (the second one I seemed compelled to enjoy that evening.) Two years ago I flipped off a front tooth veneer while biting into an overcooked Atkins frozen low carb pizza (again with the Atkins anger issues). Last week the enemy was a rice cake smothered with chunky peanut butter. The very same upper front veneer bolted from my mouth and stood proudly, a little white soldier, upright, at attention, in the rice cake. I came to as I was about to throw the half-eaten offender in the trash, extracted the veneer, mercifully still intact, washed it, and wrapped it up for safe keeping until I could get to the dentist for the reattachment. Talk about your buzz kills. Surely God's clever way of telling me to lay off low carb foods, right?

Speaking of buzz kills, I know I'm always harping on the importance of vintage and year-to-year variations in some of my beloved wines but there is good reason for this. It matters! Wines that I adore one year can taste so different in the next that they are hardly recognizable. It's crucial when you read wine reviews that sound appealing that you seek out the precise vintage the reviewer has critiqued. More often than not the shelf talkers in liquor stores boasting the rave recommendations of notables like The Wine Advocate or the Wine Spectator pertain to a vintage no longer in the rack. A few months back I found the newly-released, handy purse-size (1.5 liter) 2005 Beringer White Merlot in a store and quite liked it. I ran into another store and noting the bottle in the front of the cooler was a 2004, I asked the store's employee: "If you had the 2005 in stock, where would it be?" Her response was neither educated nor caring and implied that the new release was not yet in the store. I walked over to the floor display rack and found the 2005. Only my dentist and I get paid to care about what I put in my mouth.

After James Robinson bemoaned his inability to find the Laurel Glen Reds in a recent column, I went right out and found it for him. I was all set to walk into the Sun and leave it for him with a pithy little note attached: "Drinking new world wines and thinking are not mutually exclusive" until I realized the bottle I found for him was the 2004. My positive rantings about this wine in a previous column involved the 2003. While I was tempted to bet my life on the 2004 as I've never met a Laurel Glen Reds that I didn't love, it was simply incumbent upon me to taste it. To risk my already shaky, non-thinking, new world wine drinking reputation required that I be confident I could stand by my wine. And man was I glad I sampled it first. I finally met a Reds I did not love. It was bitter. Just bitter. In service to James, I will try it again once the autumn leaves turn just to be sure that I did not get a bad bottle but there is no reason to seek it out now, in my opinion.

Two other recent disappointments include the Kenwood 2005 Sauvignon Blanc and the Montevina 2005 Pinot Grigio. Here again, I can't recall a Kenwood SB I've not enjoyed until two weeks ago when I tried the 2005 ($12). A very grassy and herbaceous nose paved the way for a tart green apple rush with bracing front-of-the-mouth acid. Refreshing lime peel and lemon rind flavors combined with a tropical fruit aftertaste and intense minerality. It was a very complex and mutli-layered bottling with a lot going on, exploding upon the palate with every sip. There was a distinctive tobacco finish that became undesireable after the second glass, almost too powerful for some reason. I concluded my tasting notes with: "Consult winemaking notes. Did it touch wood?" Sho' 'nuff. I consulted Kenwood's web site: "The lots were fermented at cool temperatures in stainless steel to retain the natural fruity flavors of the Sauvignon Blanc grape. A small portion was aged in 2000 Gallon French oak tanks to mellow the wine without adding oak character." I beg to differ.

The 2004 Montevina Pinot Grigio rocked my world a few months back. Eager to see what delights the 2005 held, I found very promising lime and tropical sweet fruits on the nose with pronounced layering of citrus fruit flavors. Candied lime and a full array of exotic fruits like lychee and kiwi were there along with a strong vegetative aftertaste. This wine is very intense and focused. The 2004 is still around and I'd be inclined to snap that one up as it was a far more enjoyable bottle, but for $11 the 2005 will not disappoint.

When money is a consideration (days ending in "y") and I want maximum grape pluck for my wimpy wine buck, I grab my Beringer White Merlot 1.5. But this gets old toward the end of summer and the benevolent gods of cheap wine smiled down on me last week when a liquor store employee pointed me toward the 2005 Citra, saying his wife loved it. I love it! For $9.99 you get a 1.5 liter bottle of Italian Trebbiano juice, the second-most planted grape in the world. The wine is very light in color and style with soft, refreshing acidity and pleasing citrus flavors. No French oak, no vanilla chips, no acid reflux. Just a very quaffable, value-driven white wine. Citra: my new best old world wine friend.