Gilbert Gottfried Has a Hidden Wine-Tasting Talent
In “Sip, Savor, Spit," our Executive Wine Editor Ray Isle has guests to play a drinking game, serving three different drinks and asking them to rank their favorites. The “sip” ranking denotes a drink that’s fine, savor is terrific, and spit is “not so good.” Chef Alex Guarnaschelli recently appeared to sample margaritas; actor Kyle MacLachlan also tried cocktails made from “damn fine coffee,” the drink of choice for his Twin Peaks character Agent Dale Cooper. The latest guest is actor and comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who joins Isle to rank different wines and cheeses and guess which ones are the most and least expensive.
The three different wines are hidden in marked bags—one is cheap, one is less cheap, and one is really, really not cheap, he says. As they drink, Gottfried asks some questions about the proper procedure for wine tasting (“do you have to stick your nose in the glass?”) and decides that one of the wines has a “wine-y taste to it."
After Gottfried does a dramatic reading of a wine review, he and Isle shift to play “Which Is the Cheap Cheese?” After all, Isle says nothing is better with wine than cheese—“I’ve always said that,” Gottfried says. While Gottfried’s not a naturally gifted cheese taster, his wine-tasting guesses were spot-on—as Isle jokes, he could always be a wine writer “if this comedy thing doesn’t work out."
