Ah spring, rebirth, the flowers are blooming and the air smells like orange blossom (well it does somewhere, here in NYC it smells like pee and exhaust) and the weather is getting good and an overwhelming sense of optimism grips me like Hellboy's fist.

I am an optimistic person by nature but for some reason right now it's on ten. I've got so many things coming to fruition right now, new Anthrax record, Pearl's debut record, my Lobo book for DC, kicking ass at poker on Ultimate Bet (I fucking won their 200K Sunday tourney two weeks ago can I get a fucking HELL YEAH!!!) and of course eating and drinking like a maniac. I love that word, maniac. It's hilariously descriptive. Willard Scott is a maniac. That just kills me.

One of the definitions of maniac is an obsessive enthusiast and I guess you can say that I am an obsessive enthusiast over everything I do so when I was approached to be a part of a wine pairing where wines are going to be paired with Led Zeppelin songs, I maniacally answered yes. The event is taking place in NYC on May 2 at City Winery, which is an amazing wine bar/restaurant/live music venue.

My friend Joe Bastianich (restaurateur, winemaker, guitar player and headbanger, he co-owns Babbo, Osteria Mozza, The Spotted Pig etc etc with Mario Batali) came up with this concept a few months ago and asked me what I thought about it. At that moment I realized Joe was a maniac like me and I told him I thought it was a great idea. I wasn't sure how he would pull it off but I loved his passion for it. To take Jimmy Page's riffs and figure out what wine would go best with let's say "Kashmir" or "Whole Lotta Love" was a leap only an obsessive enthusiast could make.

Well, he did it. He tried it out at a restaurant called Becco in NYC and the event sold out instantly. Now he's taking it up to another level and flying in the best Zeppelin cover band in the world, Six Foot Nurse from LA (as well as yours truly) to be a part of this one. They've paired six amazing wines with six Zeppelin songs. Joe and wine writer David Lynch are going to explain the reasons why each wine goes with each particular song and then The Nurse is gonna blow your head off.

You don't have to be a wine aficionado to understand that you're gonna get drunk on killer booze and hear the closest thing to Zeppelin circa '74. I am going to jam three songs with The Nurse as well and I expect it to be an amazing evening. Talk about your viticultural mash-up!! Click HERE for more info.

A couple of weeks ago I got invited to a wine tasting dinner at The Harrison in NYC thrown by my friend Evan Yurman. Evan's another maniac. A maniac about metal (actual metal, not musical metal), stones, design, wine, food and real muscle cars. He's got a Mustang with an 800HP NASCAR engine in it. It's louder than ten Harley's. When he starts it every car alarm in lower Manhattan goes off. It's the most evil looking car I've ever seen, all matte black. It makes Kurt Russell's car in Death Proof look like the Griswold's wagon in Vacation. The wine tasting was all California Cabs from 1987 which was a great year for those wines and now is the time to drink'em if you got'em.

Of the fifteen (!) wines poured my favorites were the Opus One which was really light, more Pinot-ish, the Heitz Martha's Vineyard which had hints of eucalyptus, berries and tobacco all making a really drinkable wine, the Abreu which even though it was corked still tasted great, the Joseph Phelps Insignia which had notes of coffee and chocolate and was super soft, my second favorite actually. My favorite wine of the evening was the Chateau Montelena. Perfectly balanced. I give it three sixes.

We drank some crazy old Cognac after all that wine and then went to the Brandy Library, a real fancy pants joint where they will ask you to leave if you order a Jack and Coke. I wouldn't order one but I was in a happy ball-busting drunken state and was tempted to ask for Southern Comfort or even better some Malibu. Someone in our party magically produced three bottles of Chateau Margaux and I did my best to finish it.

Wow was I hungover the next day. And the day after that. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

All this talk is making me thirsty.

Off to the Spotted Pig for a pint of bitter.

Cheers,
Scott


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Scott Ian is SuicideGirls' monthly Food Coma columnist. Click HERE for more of his musing on sustenance and libations. He plays guitar for revolutionary metal band Anthrax and also for Pearl.