We recently ate at San Marco, a Mario Batali restaurant at the Venetian Las Vegas. The food was good and the service wonderful but the real star was the encyclopedic wine list assembled under the direction of Joe Bastianich, Mario’s business partner and wine director of their dining empire.  

Angelo Mariani was a Corsican chemist who, like many Victorian-era entrepreneurs, was fascinated by the potential physical (and economic!) effects of a peculiar New World plant called Coca. In the 1860s, he blended red Bordeaux wine with coca leaves — and a legend was born. Now, as I understand it, ingesting cocaine produces two main metabolizing compounds, neither of which has any extreme physical or psychological effect.   

I'm often asked whether a particular bottle will "improve" with age. Of course, all wines change with time: Tannins resolve (or soften) while primary fruit characteristics fade, allowing subtle, complex attributes to show. Whether this evolution results in a "better" wine is largely a matter of personal taste.  

John McCain today did his best to try to halt Barack Obama's increasing momentum, arguing during the final presidential debate that the liberal senator will raise taxes, spread everyone's money...  

The very knowledgeable Evelyn Ignatow, certified sommelier and owner of Hyde Park Gourmet, recently invited me along as she assessed the value of an estate wine collection. Behind some creaky doors, we finally located an astonishing stash of old wine.