So, my wife is suffering from pneumonia this holiday break. So, there is no travel for us. Making the best of it, we are celebrating Christmas Eve at home (and Christmas day with some friends). I had been planning an earlier celebration of the holidays one evening this past week for Julie and me, but we decided to move it to Christmas Eve.
So, what did I make? Well, of course, a roast goose. Coated in a citrus spice rub, with onion and lemon in the cavity. Into the oven until done, started at 425, down to 350. Did a cherry-brandy-port sauce to accompany it. Came out absolutely beautifully--crispy skin, juicy meat, and the sauce worked wonders. Since roasting a goose produces seemingly cups full of fat, it provided opportunities for nicely roasting some fingerling potatoes. Of course, a dressing is a must--did it with dried bread, plus pork-cherry sausage and poultry style seasonings. Gravy i a must, too. But the real hit were the Brussels Sprouts and roasted chestnuts--par-cooked and roasted first, respectively, then sauted in a bit of goose fat and finished with a bit of cream. It was absolutely delicious. In all, it was a most delicious dinner, and even Julie, sick as she is, enjoyed it.
But the real coup de grace was the wine pairing. I picked a 2005 Oregon Pinot Noir--Patricia Green's single vineyard bottling from Four Winds Vineyard. This wine comes from a rather coastal part of the Willamette Valley--west of Yamhill, even. There is not a lot of Pinot growing around this vineyard. But there sure should be more. It's one of the most burgundian, earthy, rustic Oregon pinots I've ever tasted. While it's definitely unique--very acidic, decent cherry fruit, balanced by tons of minerality and integrated tannins, violet flower nose, and tons of earth--leather, truffle, forest floor, it is perhaps most reminiscent of some Gevrey-Chambertin. The acidity cut through the fat of the meal beautifully. The fruit notes mirrored the cherry sauce well, and the rustic, gamy notes worked well with those flavors in the goose. As far as I"m concerned, this was perhaps the best new world wine I've had all year, and one of the best pinot noirs (Some from Bourgogne still eclipse this, but not by that much). The pairing was one of those things that just worked gorgeously--that rare moment where the pairing isn't just good, but where the food and wine really combine to make something far better than the parts alone. I love it when that happens-far too rarely for my personal liking, but what a treat when it does!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Cooking Marathon
Put mildly, yesterday was a cooking marathon for me. I generally think our cookware collection is excessive--we have more Staub and Le Creuset Dutch/French ovens than most people would need, and likewise, merging two households meant multiple stockpots. Now, I was thinking, gosh, we should really part with some of these. Yesterday convinced me that maybe it's not time for that.
This grew out of a combination of a half bushel of tomatoes, two chicken carcasses, and a lovely beef brisket. So, the planned main meal was a beef brisket carbonnade--essentially, a piece of beef braised in beer with a bunch of onions. This worked nicely--the sweet onions combined with a bit of balsamic, some mustard, the beer, and the beef to make a wonderful stew. Cooked in a dutch oven, in the oven, just large enough for the brisket, it was served with egg noodles cooked in a stock/pasta pot stove top.
Then there was the stock. I make my own stock--in this case, from the carcasses of two chickens--one broken down and made into a white stew, the other roasted, each over the last couple weeks. The bones, plus veggies, cook on low for hours on a back burner with filtered water, all in a big stock pot. Simple, tasty, great base for soups, stews, etc.
Finally, the "big picture"--the tomatoes from farmers market. We've just had a hard freeze, so this is pretty much it for getting a big batch of cooking tomatoes. Earlier in the year, I'd made batches of tomato sauce, and some tomato soup. But this was a really big batch. so, naturally, I made not one, but two, soups. The first was a spicy soup combining roasted jalapenos, poblanos, roasted tomatoes, and roasted garlic. Roasting makes peeling tomoatoes relatively easy. Onions, of course, served as a base for the soup, along with stock and some white wine. The result is a spicy soup that is enhanced by a dollop of sour cream, and perhaps a squeeze of lime. This is a truly fun soup to make.
My second tomato soup first involved peeling tomatoes after a dunk in boiling water. The soup then was built on a base of bacon and red onions. Sweet red peppers were used, along with thyme. The tomatoes cooked in stock and wine, and were again pureed. In the end, cream and milk brought added complexity. In all, very yummy! And a rather sweeter version than the first soup.
So, this all led to a big chest freezer full of soups and stock, set aside for the winter. A long tough day in the kitchen. But worthwhile and fun.
This grew out of a combination of a half bushel of tomatoes, two chicken carcasses, and a lovely beef brisket. So, the planned main meal was a beef brisket carbonnade--essentially, a piece of beef braised in beer with a bunch of onions. This worked nicely--the sweet onions combined with a bit of balsamic, some mustard, the beer, and the beef to make a wonderful stew. Cooked in a dutch oven, in the oven, just large enough for the brisket, it was served with egg noodles cooked in a stock/pasta pot stove top.
Then there was the stock. I make my own stock--in this case, from the carcasses of two chickens--one broken down and made into a white stew, the other roasted, each over the last couple weeks. The bones, plus veggies, cook on low for hours on a back burner with filtered water, all in a big stock pot. Simple, tasty, great base for soups, stews, etc.
Finally, the "big picture"--the tomatoes from farmers market. We've just had a hard freeze, so this is pretty much it for getting a big batch of cooking tomatoes. Earlier in the year, I'd made batches of tomato sauce, and some tomato soup. But this was a really big batch. so, naturally, I made not one, but two, soups. The first was a spicy soup combining roasted jalapenos, poblanos, roasted tomatoes, and roasted garlic. Roasting makes peeling tomoatoes relatively easy. Onions, of course, served as a base for the soup, along with stock and some white wine. The result is a spicy soup that is enhanced by a dollop of sour cream, and perhaps a squeeze of lime. This is a truly fun soup to make.
My second tomato soup first involved peeling tomatoes after a dunk in boiling water. The soup then was built on a base of bacon and red onions. Sweet red peppers were used, along with thyme. The tomatoes cooked in stock and wine, and were again pureed. In the end, cream and milk brought added complexity. In all, very yummy! And a rather sweeter version than the first soup.
So, this all led to a big chest freezer full of soups and stock, set aside for the winter. A long tough day in the kitchen. But worthwhile and fun.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
scallops, bacon, brussels sprouts... oh my.
Our local grocery store had dry-pack, frozen scallops on a ridiculously cheap sale. Suspicious, but willling to take a risk, we bought some. Thawed those babies out overnight, and got to cook them tonight. So... what to make with them? Well... we only had about 10 scallops--plenty as part of a bigger dish, but not a stand alone quantity, necessarily. First thing I thought of were some wonderful bacon-wrapped scallops I'd had before. Yummy. But that was an appetizer portion. I've had them seared in cream sauce before--served wtih pasta. That is always good, if a bit rich and "tried and true". Then I looked in the fridge--we had some brussels sprouts from the farmers market. Now, these go well with bacon, and they make a nice warm slaw when julienned and cooked in cream. So... could this all be brought together in one wonderful, glorious dish? I decided to experiment.
So, started some water, cooked penne pasta. Part 2 was the bacon-brussels sprouts in a cream sauce--basically, the pasta sauce. Started by browning about 1/3 lb. of bacon, threw in a finely diced shallot, and the julienned sprouts. With good stirring, seasoned with salt and pepper, this cooked up pretty nice. I then deglazed wtih some white wine, and cooked that down, then adding cream and grated parmesan cheese. All this was quite good, but a bit flat. The juice from half a lemon brightened it up beautifully. When the pasta was done to al dente, I added it to the sauce and cooked for another minute or so. Then, into pasta bowls.
Meanwhile, it was time to cook the scallops. I chose a very simple approach. Salt, a bit of pepper, a quick pan sear on each side for about a minute/side. When done, they went on top of the pasta.
The dish was amazing! The earthy sprouts, the sweet-briny scallops, the smoky bacon, the nutty cheese, the brightness from the citrus. It was a real flavor circus. Of course, I would not in any way call this a healthy dish--bacon, cream, pasta... but dang, it was good.
Now, if I make this again, and I probably will do something similar, I'll make a few changes, I think. Pancetta instead of bacon should add a bit of refinement. (or,, at least, a better bacon!) I think some toasted pinenuts or walnuts would be a nice addition. Otherwise, I think it's pretty much spot on.
Now, as to the wine: I paired it with a 2006 Dubois Vouvray. This is the 'classic' scallops wine, and it really sang with the food. This was not an expensive wine, by any stretch--just over $10/bottle. It is not what I'd call a high end Vouvray. But it was tasty, balanced, and paired wonderfully with dinner. The acid in the wine cut through the cream sauce. The slight sweetness in this demi-sec provided a good match to the sweetness of the scallops. The slight nutty notes highlighted the parmesan. In short, this was one of those really wonderful, serendipitous meals. I had no particular expectation that this would work out. I simply decided to "go for it", and see what happened. And, we were richly rewarded for that tonight.
So, started some water, cooked penne pasta. Part 2 was the bacon-brussels sprouts in a cream sauce--basically, the pasta sauce. Started by browning about 1/3 lb. of bacon, threw in a finely diced shallot, and the julienned sprouts. With good stirring, seasoned with salt and pepper, this cooked up pretty nice. I then deglazed wtih some white wine, and cooked that down, then adding cream and grated parmesan cheese. All this was quite good, but a bit flat. The juice from half a lemon brightened it up beautifully. When the pasta was done to al dente, I added it to the sauce and cooked for another minute or so. Then, into pasta bowls.
Meanwhile, it was time to cook the scallops. I chose a very simple approach. Salt, a bit of pepper, a quick pan sear on each side for about a minute/side. When done, they went on top of the pasta.
The dish was amazing! The earthy sprouts, the sweet-briny scallops, the smoky bacon, the nutty cheese, the brightness from the citrus. It was a real flavor circus. Of course, I would not in any way call this a healthy dish--bacon, cream, pasta... but dang, it was good.
Now, if I make this again, and I probably will do something similar, I'll make a few changes, I think. Pancetta instead of bacon should add a bit of refinement. (or,, at least, a better bacon!) I think some toasted pinenuts or walnuts would be a nice addition. Otherwise, I think it's pretty much spot on.
Now, as to the wine: I paired it with a 2006 Dubois Vouvray. This is the 'classic' scallops wine, and it really sang with the food. This was not an expensive wine, by any stretch--just over $10/bottle. It is not what I'd call a high end Vouvray. But it was tasty, balanced, and paired wonderfully with dinner. The acid in the wine cut through the cream sauce. The slight sweetness in this demi-sec provided a good match to the sweetness of the scallops. The slight nutty notes highlighted the parmesan. In short, this was one of those really wonderful, serendipitous meals. I had no particular expectation that this would work out. I simply decided to "go for it", and see what happened. And, we were richly rewarded for that tonight.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
I'm drowning in zucchini...
Not really. But we got a couple big ones in the farmers market, and had some left from a past week that weren't great, but needed used soon. So... what to do? Why, zucchini soup, of course. This made a wonderful lunch, paired with goat cheese and a baguette, and a gorgeous pinot blanc from Michigan.
The soup was uber-simple. Basically, dice up an onion (or 2-3, depending on how much soup you're making), some garlic. Sweat them down in butter and olive oil for about 5-10 minutes. Add coarsely chopped zukes--about 4X more in volume than onions, I'd say. Maybe a bit of celery, though that's optional. Sweat that all down for another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add some wine (white) if you want, and some chicken stock (homemade if you can; it's SO worth it). How much? Well, that depends on what you like your soup to be like. This chiefly determines whether you will have a thick, almost porridge-like soup, or a thinner item. More fluid = thinner soup. I like it thick and hearty. So I only did enough fluid to cover the zukes by maybe 1/2 inch. after 15-20 minutes in the fluid, take a stick blender to it (or puree it in batches in a blender, or whatever you like). Blend to a level you like for texture. Add cream to taste and health desires. If you really don't want to spend hte money, calories, and fat content on putting real cream in, you can get alot of the same effect by cooking a couple of potatoes into the soup at the start (add at the same time as zukes--and use starchy potatoes, not more waxy ones.) Adjust salt and pepper, and add some heat if you like from hot pepper flakes. At the end, I added a couple eggs, tempered in to prevent curdling. This helps hte texture, and thickens things up a bit. Yum!
with a soup like this, a baguette is almost a requirement. TOday, we added some goat cheese from a producer at the Farmer's Market. We get our goat yogurt from them, too. It's so good and fresh. Yum.
Finally, the wine... Left Foot Charley's 2008 Pinot Blanc. This is perhaps the most exceptional PB I've ever tasted. It outshines most from Alsace; it outshines most from Oregon. It's got a beautiful floral, minerally nose, with clover honey notes, an acidic palate, and an immense, mineral finish. There's more complexity and more beauty in this than you could ever expect, and the price is right at $18. Very deservedly, this wine won a double gold at the Michigan Wine competition, and sadly, the winery is virtually out of it. We've got 4 more bottles of it, and I intend to drink at least two more this year, and perhaps keep one for next year, and for grins, age one for a few years. I love its youthful fresh beauty, so I am reticent to age it, but I sense it's got the acid, minerals, and fruit to hold for a few years and perhaps become a real wonderful nutty aged white. So, we shall see.
The soup was uber-simple. Basically, dice up an onion (or 2-3, depending on how much soup you're making), some garlic. Sweat them down in butter and olive oil for about 5-10 minutes. Add coarsely chopped zukes--about 4X more in volume than onions, I'd say. Maybe a bit of celery, though that's optional. Sweat that all down for another 5-10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add some wine (white) if you want, and some chicken stock (homemade if you can; it's SO worth it). How much? Well, that depends on what you like your soup to be like. This chiefly determines whether you will have a thick, almost porridge-like soup, or a thinner item. More fluid = thinner soup. I like it thick and hearty. So I only did enough fluid to cover the zukes by maybe 1/2 inch. after 15-20 minutes in the fluid, take a stick blender to it (or puree it in batches in a blender, or whatever you like). Blend to a level you like for texture. Add cream to taste and health desires. If you really don't want to spend hte money, calories, and fat content on putting real cream in, you can get alot of the same effect by cooking a couple of potatoes into the soup at the start (add at the same time as zukes--and use starchy potatoes, not more waxy ones.) Adjust salt and pepper, and add some heat if you like from hot pepper flakes. At the end, I added a couple eggs, tempered in to prevent curdling. This helps hte texture, and thickens things up a bit. Yum!
with a soup like this, a baguette is almost a requirement. TOday, we added some goat cheese from a producer at the Farmer's Market. We get our goat yogurt from them, too. It's so good and fresh. Yum.
Finally, the wine... Left Foot Charley's 2008 Pinot Blanc. This is perhaps the most exceptional PB I've ever tasted. It outshines most from Alsace; it outshines most from Oregon. It's got a beautiful floral, minerally nose, with clover honey notes, an acidic palate, and an immense, mineral finish. There's more complexity and more beauty in this than you could ever expect, and the price is right at $18. Very deservedly, this wine won a double gold at the Michigan Wine competition, and sadly, the winery is virtually out of it. We've got 4 more bottles of it, and I intend to drink at least two more this year, and perhaps keep one for next year, and for grins, age one for a few years. I love its youthful fresh beauty, so I am reticent to age it, but I sense it's got the acid, minerals, and fruit to hold for a few years and perhaps become a real wonderful nutty aged white. So, we shall see.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Lamb, goat yogurt, ratatouille, and Rhone
Hmmm.. No, it doesn't really rhyme. But it's what was for dinner tonight. Lamb rib chops, marinated as usual in lemon-garlic-oregano, paired with a garlic-goat yogurt sauce (Yes, this is amazing stuff! And it's rather goaty! In the very best way!). But tonight, I paired it with ratatouille as a side. Now, what is ratatouille? Basically a stew/saute/casserole combining bell peppers, onions, tomatoes, zucchini and eggplant. Tonight, I roasted my veggies before adding them to the piperade of onion, pepper and tomato. It brought out an extra layer of flavor that was very nice, above and beyond sauteeing them in olive oil. Yum.
I had picked up a bottle of the Domaine de la Tourade 2007 Cotes du Rhone, and though I figured it might be young, I wanted to try it. You may remember reading my waxing poetic about this producer's 2003 Vacqueyras, and the CDR did not disappoint. It's incredibly big and complex for a CDR, tons of raspberry fruit, some garrigue, minerality, cocoa notes, roast meat, holy cats! I love this wine already, and it's showing well; it also has all the hallmarks of a wine that should last for years, maybe a decade or more. I intend to pick up at least 4, probably 6, bottles of this to watch it age over time. I also have a few bottles of their 2005 Gigondas, and a couple of their 05 CDR in the cellar. I'm just incredibly impressed by this producer. By now, you may have realized that I'm a Rhone freak--if I could only drink wines from one region fo the world for the rest of my life, I'd likely pick these--for their rusticity, their complexity, their diversity, their friendliness to food, their accessibility when young and the rewards of cellaring. (Burgundy would be a close second, but that's another post.)
Much as I expected, the wine and food also paired beautifully. First of all, lamb and Rhone tends to go well (for that matter, lamb and most red french wines go well...) together. Second, ratatouille comes from the same general region as Rhone wines (for that matter, so does lamb). Finally, there are the flavors and traits of the wine and food that really make it work. The tannins and acid in the wine nicely cut through the fat in the lamb. The fruit accentuated the sweetness of the lamb meat and the veggies in the ratatouille. In short, a lovely pairing.
I had picked up a bottle of the Domaine de la Tourade 2007 Cotes du Rhone, and though I figured it might be young, I wanted to try it. You may remember reading my waxing poetic about this producer's 2003 Vacqueyras, and the CDR did not disappoint. It's incredibly big and complex for a CDR, tons of raspberry fruit, some garrigue, minerality, cocoa notes, roast meat, holy cats! I love this wine already, and it's showing well; it also has all the hallmarks of a wine that should last for years, maybe a decade or more. I intend to pick up at least 4, probably 6, bottles of this to watch it age over time. I also have a few bottles of their 2005 Gigondas, and a couple of their 05 CDR in the cellar. I'm just incredibly impressed by this producer. By now, you may have realized that I'm a Rhone freak--if I could only drink wines from one region fo the world for the rest of my life, I'd likely pick these--for their rusticity, their complexity, their diversity, their friendliness to food, their accessibility when young and the rewards of cellaring. (Burgundy would be a close second, but that's another post.)
Much as I expected, the wine and food also paired beautifully. First of all, lamb and Rhone tends to go well (for that matter, lamb and most red french wines go well...) together. Second, ratatouille comes from the same general region as Rhone wines (for that matter, so does lamb). Finally, there are the flavors and traits of the wine and food that really make it work. The tannins and acid in the wine nicely cut through the fat in the lamb. The fruit accentuated the sweetness of the lamb meat and the veggies in the ratatouille. In short, a lovely pairing.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Salmon two ways, fruit, and sancerre rose
I was lucky enough to come by a reasonably priced salmon filet (full side), wild-caught, frozen on the boat at the grocery recently. This cut nicely into four pieces, and could've been five or even six. Bright red, beautiful piece of fish, not at all "fishy" smelling. So far, so good. I figured two days in row, we'd have salmon for dinner. But I didn't want the two days to seem like the "same boring thing"
Given that fruit is in season now here in Michigan, I decided to try doing fruit sauces with the salmon, and at that, two rather different ones. For Monday night, I made up a blueberry salsa the night before. It was a mix of whole blueberries, honey, half a jalapeno pepper, some shallot, finely diced, and lime juice. The mix blended nicely overnight, and made for a slightly sweet, blueberry driven sauce, with acidic notes from the lime and just a bit of heat from the pepper. It made for a great main course, and was a subtle accompaniment that highlighted the freshness and flavor of the salmon.
For the 2nd night, I figured the salmon might have lost a bit of its freshness, so I decided to go with slightly bolder Asian flavors. So, I did a teriyaki style light glaze for the filets. And, to top them, I made a stove-top Asian white peach sauce. This combined a banana pepper (hot), some shallot again, 4 white peaches, some maple syrup, ginger, and some Chinese rice wine. I cooked it down to a thick, pectin-driven syrup, almost preserves like. I got a big surprise--the banana pepper was far hotter than I'd thought it'd be. The peaches were well complemented by the ginger and rice wine, and the maple worked well with teriyaki. But overall, the sauce was rather too big and powerful for the delicate salmon.
We also had a very enjoyable wine with the salmon. It was a 2008 Reverdy Les Villots Sancerre Rose. This Loire wine was made from pinot noir grapes--so, it has much of that beautiful fruit--red cherries and strawberries. There also is good acidity, a bit of lemon-citrus in it, and deep minerality from the soils of the region. The 08 was very nice--but I'd argue no better than the 07 of this wine. That is in contrast with many of the other Sancerre wines, particularly whites, which tend to be more beautiful in the 08 than 07 vintages. Still, this is a very nice wine, even if it's price tag near $25 is on the high end for a rose. It paired well with the salmon, and was nice with the blueberry sauce, where the citrus and berry notes in the salsa and wine complemented one another. It was less successful with the hot peach sauce, where a sweeter wine would've been better at taming the sauce. But it remained a nice wine the 2nd night.
Given that fruit is in season now here in Michigan, I decided to try doing fruit sauces with the salmon, and at that, two rather different ones. For Monday night, I made up a blueberry salsa the night before. It was a mix of whole blueberries, honey, half a jalapeno pepper, some shallot, finely diced, and lime juice. The mix blended nicely overnight, and made for a slightly sweet, blueberry driven sauce, with acidic notes from the lime and just a bit of heat from the pepper. It made for a great main course, and was a subtle accompaniment that highlighted the freshness and flavor of the salmon.
For the 2nd night, I figured the salmon might have lost a bit of its freshness, so I decided to go with slightly bolder Asian flavors. So, I did a teriyaki style light glaze for the filets. And, to top them, I made a stove-top Asian white peach sauce. This combined a banana pepper (hot), some shallot again, 4 white peaches, some maple syrup, ginger, and some Chinese rice wine. I cooked it down to a thick, pectin-driven syrup, almost preserves like. I got a big surprise--the banana pepper was far hotter than I'd thought it'd be. The peaches were well complemented by the ginger and rice wine, and the maple worked well with teriyaki. But overall, the sauce was rather too big and powerful for the delicate salmon.
We also had a very enjoyable wine with the salmon. It was a 2008 Reverdy Les Villots Sancerre Rose. This Loire wine was made from pinot noir grapes--so, it has much of that beautiful fruit--red cherries and strawberries. There also is good acidity, a bit of lemon-citrus in it, and deep minerality from the soils of the region. The 08 was very nice--but I'd argue no better than the 07 of this wine. That is in contrast with many of the other Sancerre wines, particularly whites, which tend to be more beautiful in the 08 than 07 vintages. Still, this is a very nice wine, even if it's price tag near $25 is on the high end for a rose. It paired well with the salmon, and was nice with the blueberry sauce, where the citrus and berry notes in the salsa and wine complemented one another. It was less successful with the hot peach sauce, where a sweeter wine would've been better at taming the sauce. But it remained a nice wine the 2nd night.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Steak with blueberry gastrique
Dinner tonight involved rather inexpensive T-bone steaks from Busch's. Being as they were not top quality, I figured they could use some help. And, it's blueberry season here in Michigan. So... in spite of my wife's apprehension at the combination of blueberries and beef, I took the risk. And it turned out very well. I started by chopping up half a large shallot, sweating it in butter. In went a cup of blueberries. So far, traditional. Then, the "surprise"--throw in some maple syrup instead of sugar for the sweetness. I've never seen these together, but stood to reason they should go well together. And they do, it turns out. Added some port and red wine vinegar to the mix, and cooked it down. Yum! And, it turned out to pair well with a remarkably inexpensive merlot, the 2006 from Dona Sol. I normally American wines under $4, such as this one. So, I was surprised to find it drinkable, even pleasant. Now, complex and age-worthy it is not. but as a simple wine to pair with a lower quality steak with a fruit sauce, yes. It wasn't over-oaked, it had recognizeable fruit, and all in all, was a real surprise.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Menudo, other New Mexican cuisine, and New Mexico Wines
After probably 8 hours of heinous travel, I arrived today in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a conference for work. So, this trip is not really a vacation, and I'm traveling alone this time. Nonetheless, I'm trying to make the best of it and enjoy myself as much as I can and experience the local cuisine and wines.
Today, I visited three tasting rooms for New Mexico wines. Gruet, arguably New Mexico's best known winery, produces amazing sparkling wine. Their wines deserve their reputation, and the experience in their tasting room was extraordinary. Their still wines are OK, but not particularly to my taste. Two other wineries that I visited were, frankly, horrific. OK, the wineries themselves were OK. Their wines, not so much. Who got the idea of blending chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon?!? And why? How can a Rhone-style blend be "off-dry" with at least some RS? Who could manage to overdo a cabernet sauvignon more than California producers? And how on earth is a blend of syrah, cabernet sauv and tempranillo a "Spanish style red"?
Two Gruet sparklers just sang: a 2004 vintage blanc de blancs had all the classic acid, minerality and toasty notes you'd want. Their grapes grow in southern NM, on a bed of limestone like subsoil, so I gather that explains the slight chalky minerality that was so exquisite. The tasting room staff compared it to Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label; I find it far mroe exciting than the VC in recent years. This is some seriously good juice, at a reasonable price. And then there's their "old style" grand reserve, done in the Bollinger and Krug style with large oak vats and so on. So much complexity, tons of lemon and almond and a bit of toast--incomparably exciting. Their "baseline" blanc de noirs was excellent as well, as were their brut and demi-sec (which, thankfully, was not over-sweet). A vintage rose that blended still barrel fermented pinto with chardonnay was, in my mind, rather disjointed. It brought incredible fruit from the pinot, some oak-driven notes, the chardonnay richness, and yet a rather acidic crispness. All the components were there, but it just didn't, in my mind, work together.
Dinner tonight was some seriously local New Mexican cuisine from a diner type place. What an experience, in the best possible way. It's this small little "hole in the wall" in a rather industrial part of town, named Mary and Tito's. Now, it just seemed like the kind of place you might find some good, honest local "home-style" greasy spoon cooking. ANd it lived up to that, and then some. I thought I was ordering a small cup of menudo (something I have been itching to try), and a main of enchiladas. Well, each was an immense main course size serving by itself. So a lot of food did not get eaten. But if I could've, I'd have finished it all.
So, menudo is not one of those dishes everyone can easily get their mind around. It's a soup made from broth, I think created by the cooking of the meaty ingredients--two or three types of tripe (cow stomachs), sometimes cow feet, and hominy. Mostly, it's the stuff few of us seem to want to eat. In the case of this place, they topped it with your choice of red or green chili. Indeed, they top everything with red or green. And this is not chili as us northerners think of it--beans and beef with some chili powder and onions. This is chili made from peppers and perhaps tomatoes or tomatillos. The green that I had in the menudo was hot. Very hot. Indeed, I'm still sweating it out two hours later. But, oh, was it GOOD. There was very little of the funk you often associate iwth tripe. The broth was unctuous, the hominy an amazing textural contrast with the slightly sponge-like honeycomb tripe. The meat had cooked, and cooked, and was tender, but not rubbery. The chili spiced it up and took it to another level. Now, I think I might've liked it even better if the traditional accompaniments of lime, cilantro and so on had come with it. But still, WOW!
A real disappointment came in talking to my server, though. He was young, maybe just out of high school, 4 piercings in his lower lip. A really nice guy, and very talkative. And he positively hates menudo. So did a young woman working the floor. They think it stinks, can't stomach it. Only the old time greeter/owner (I"m assuming Mary) seemed to think that yes, in fact, menudo is great cuisine. I hope we are not seeing the disappearance of this wonderful, if odd, soup from menus in coming years, as the new generation moves toward more modern and arguably affluent choices in food.
The enchiladas were also well done. The amazing thing to me was the complete lack of gloppy, sticky sauce and cheese. These were onions, and beef, and an egg over easy, with red chili to top. It was good, it was incredibly filling, and there was nothing "americanized" about it that I found. The red is more flavorful and less hot than the green. Is the the wimp's chili? I'm not sure. Both were good, and worked wonderfully with their individual foods. I am SO glad I tried out this hole in teh wall. What a great experience. And, all for $12.
Today, I visited three tasting rooms for New Mexico wines. Gruet, arguably New Mexico's best known winery, produces amazing sparkling wine. Their wines deserve their reputation, and the experience in their tasting room was extraordinary. Their still wines are OK, but not particularly to my taste. Two other wineries that I visited were, frankly, horrific. OK, the wineries themselves were OK. Their wines, not so much. Who got the idea of blending chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon?!? And why? How can a Rhone-style blend be "off-dry" with at least some RS? Who could manage to overdo a cabernet sauvignon more than California producers? And how on earth is a blend of syrah, cabernet sauv and tempranillo a "Spanish style red"?
Two Gruet sparklers just sang: a 2004 vintage blanc de blancs had all the classic acid, minerality and toasty notes you'd want. Their grapes grow in southern NM, on a bed of limestone like subsoil, so I gather that explains the slight chalky minerality that was so exquisite. The tasting room staff compared it to Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label; I find it far mroe exciting than the VC in recent years. This is some seriously good juice, at a reasonable price. And then there's their "old style" grand reserve, done in the Bollinger and Krug style with large oak vats and so on. So much complexity, tons of lemon and almond and a bit of toast--incomparably exciting. Their "baseline" blanc de noirs was excellent as well, as were their brut and demi-sec (which, thankfully, was not over-sweet). A vintage rose that blended still barrel fermented pinto with chardonnay was, in my mind, rather disjointed. It brought incredible fruit from the pinot, some oak-driven notes, the chardonnay richness, and yet a rather acidic crispness. All the components were there, but it just didn't, in my mind, work together.
Dinner tonight was some seriously local New Mexican cuisine from a diner type place. What an experience, in the best possible way. It's this small little "hole in the wall" in a rather industrial part of town, named Mary and Tito's. Now, it just seemed like the kind of place you might find some good, honest local "home-style" greasy spoon cooking. ANd it lived up to that, and then some. I thought I was ordering a small cup of menudo (something I have been itching to try), and a main of enchiladas. Well, each was an immense main course size serving by itself. So a lot of food did not get eaten. But if I could've, I'd have finished it all.
So, menudo is not one of those dishes everyone can easily get their mind around. It's a soup made from broth, I think created by the cooking of the meaty ingredients--two or three types of tripe (cow stomachs), sometimes cow feet, and hominy. Mostly, it's the stuff few of us seem to want to eat. In the case of this place, they topped it with your choice of red or green chili. Indeed, they top everything with red or green. And this is not chili as us northerners think of it--beans and beef with some chili powder and onions. This is chili made from peppers and perhaps tomatoes or tomatillos. The green that I had in the menudo was hot. Very hot. Indeed, I'm still sweating it out two hours later. But, oh, was it GOOD. There was very little of the funk you often associate iwth tripe. The broth was unctuous, the hominy an amazing textural contrast with the slightly sponge-like honeycomb tripe. The meat had cooked, and cooked, and was tender, but not rubbery. The chili spiced it up and took it to another level. Now, I think I might've liked it even better if the traditional accompaniments of lime, cilantro and so on had come with it. But still, WOW!
A real disappointment came in talking to my server, though. He was young, maybe just out of high school, 4 piercings in his lower lip. A really nice guy, and very talkative. And he positively hates menudo. So did a young woman working the floor. They think it stinks, can't stomach it. Only the old time greeter/owner (I"m assuming Mary) seemed to think that yes, in fact, menudo is great cuisine. I hope we are not seeing the disappearance of this wonderful, if odd, soup from menus in coming years, as the new generation moves toward more modern and arguably affluent choices in food.
The enchiladas were also well done. The amazing thing to me was the complete lack of gloppy, sticky sauce and cheese. These were onions, and beef, and an egg over easy, with red chili to top. It was good, it was incredibly filling, and there was nothing "americanized" about it that I found. The red is more flavorful and less hot than the green. Is the the wimp's chili? I'm not sure. Both were good, and worked wonderfully with their individual foods. I am SO glad I tried out this hole in teh wall. What a great experience. And, all for $12.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Black currants and chicken
One of my most spectacular failures in recent cooking was making a black currant sauce to accompany chicken breasts. Now, mind you, I was actually combining a recipe I found online for this dish and one for black currant sauced duck breast, so I felt pretty good going into the dish. But, for some reason, the dish became very bitter and unpleasant. And, mind you, both Julie and I like black currants, as a matter of course. But this one was bad enough to require procurement of alternative food. Not good.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Red Currants
Red currants make a wonderful sauce for pork chops. Who would've thought? Tonight, I cooked some up in butter wtih a bit of honey, paired it with stove-top cooked pork chops. Nice, tasty, acidic. Not bad at all. In addition, we added quinoa and wax beans to round out dinner. A schuerebe wine from closeout at Wednesday group paired decently, but was a bit too sweet for the meal.
Northern Michigan, Day III
This was a shorter day, spent near Traverse city, and driving back to Ann Arbor. One winery, one restaurant, one hippie coffee shop.
Lunch: At Trattoria Stella, in the old mental institution, which is being converted to a series of shops. This was the best meal of the trip, hands down. We did an appetizer plate of seared beef, greens, olives, raspberries, strawberries, pickled ramps (man, they were garlicky!), hazelnuts. Yum. I did a cheese stuffed pasta in yellow tomato sauce--amazing--as my main. Julie had a gussied up nutella type sandwich with fruit. It was also good, though not to my taste. Dessert was amazing--I had gelato--a mix of blackberry and rhubarb, and Julie had panna cotta. We each did a glass of L. Mawby Talisman with lunch--a great pairing for everything.
Left Foot Charley: Modern tasting room, also at the institution, very knowledgeable, friendly staff, really good wines.
2008 Pinot Grigio: Strong acid, moderate pear and lemon fruit, some minerality, but a bit hot.
2008 Pinot Blanc - Island Vineyard: Amazing wine with great acid, minerality, green apple, lemon. Wow!
2008 Rose of Cabernet Franc: Classic cab franc notes of tobacco, herbs, with strong cherry fruit. well made, would compete with Chinon.
NV Murmur: Blend of pinot grigio, riesling, traminette. rather fruity and floral, a tad sweet, reminiscent of Alsatian Edelzwickers.
2008 Riesling Medium Dry. Floral and white peach notes, hints of sweetness, great balance.
2007 chardonnay: oaked, but not overly so.
2008 Riesling Seventh Hill Farm: Great dryish rielsling, balance of acid and fruit, substantial complexity, apricot; should age
2008 Riesling - Longcore Vineyard: Sweeter, has acid to balance. Not as much to my taste, but well-made.
2007 Red Blend: Mostly cab franc: Classic cab franc notes, but NOT overproduced; has good fruit, tobacco, but not over tannic, overoaked. Pleasant drinking wine.
In all, we had a great trip. Tried dozens of wines. Liked many of them, learned a ton about what Michigan wines are all about. And, at long last, the blogging on this is done!
Lunch: At Trattoria Stella, in the old mental institution, which is being converted to a series of shops. This was the best meal of the trip, hands down. We did an appetizer plate of seared beef, greens, olives, raspberries, strawberries, pickled ramps (man, they were garlicky!), hazelnuts. Yum. I did a cheese stuffed pasta in yellow tomato sauce--amazing--as my main. Julie had a gussied up nutella type sandwich with fruit. It was also good, though not to my taste. Dessert was amazing--I had gelato--a mix of blackberry and rhubarb, and Julie had panna cotta. We each did a glass of L. Mawby Talisman with lunch--a great pairing for everything.
Left Foot Charley: Modern tasting room, also at the institution, very knowledgeable, friendly staff, really good wines.
2008 Pinot Grigio: Strong acid, moderate pear and lemon fruit, some minerality, but a bit hot.
2008 Pinot Blanc - Island Vineyard: Amazing wine with great acid, minerality, green apple, lemon. Wow!
2008 Rose of Cabernet Franc: Classic cab franc notes of tobacco, herbs, with strong cherry fruit. well made, would compete with Chinon.
NV Murmur: Blend of pinot grigio, riesling, traminette. rather fruity and floral, a tad sweet, reminiscent of Alsatian Edelzwickers.
2008 Riesling Medium Dry. Floral and white peach notes, hints of sweetness, great balance.
2007 chardonnay: oaked, but not overly so.
2008 Riesling Seventh Hill Farm: Great dryish rielsling, balance of acid and fruit, substantial complexity, apricot; should age
2008 Riesling - Longcore Vineyard: Sweeter, has acid to balance. Not as much to my taste, but well-made.
2007 Red Blend: Mostly cab franc: Classic cab franc notes, but NOT overproduced; has good fruit, tobacco, but not over tannic, overoaked. Pleasant drinking wine.
In all, we had a great trip. Tried dozens of wines. Liked many of them, learned a ton about what Michigan wines are all about. And, at long last, the blogging on this is done!
Northern Michigan, Part II
Day two was Leelanau Peninsula. The peninsula is a lot bigger than Old Mission, and accordingly, has more wineries, if a bit less dense development.
1. We started the day at Chateau de Leelanau. The tasting room is removed from most of the rest of their operation, and is part of a building with other shops and hte local Chamber of Commerce. It was a rainy, cool day, and we were the only ones there, and the staff person was very friendly, if not all that knowledgeable about the wines. They were pouring a number of rather old wines, which may or not have been particularly age-worthy wines. Of note:
2004 Sur Lie Chardonnay: Lot of fruit and acidic, still fairly fresh for the age, surprisingly enough.
2004 Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay: Oak. All oak, and nothing but the oak.
2008 Dry Riesling: This was their standout, with petrol hints on the nose (Yes, this is a good thing), along with apple, lemon, pear, and great acid.
2005 Pinot Gris: Pleasat enough, not a stand-out.
2007 Bianca: Not a grape with which I'm familiar, was quite fascinating, if not stellar. Tropical fruits, includin mango.
2003 Semi-dry riesling: Cloyingly sweet, honeyed, floral perfume notes.
2005 Rose of cabernet franc: Tons of strawberry and raspberry, a bit over the hill at 4 years old.
2005 Pinot Noir: Surprisingly nice, fruit driven, with tobacco and pepper from judicious barrel time.
2004 Cabernet Franc: usual tobacco, tar, herbal notes, rather stemmy, tons of tannins. Lacked fruit to hold up to barrel time.
2005 Select Harvest Riesling: Tons of sugar, moderate fruit, low acid.
2. Willow Vineyard: Not a producer we were familiar with, perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the trip. Really a neat producer on a hill overlooking West Bay that has the best view imagineable. Wonderfully landscaped, great knowledge of the wines.
2007 Chardonnay: Oaked, but not heavily, rather burgundian in style, remarkable minerality.
2008 Baci Rose of Pinot Noir: Stellar pink. Reminded me of the subtlety of French Sancerre rose. Lovely wine.
2007 Pinot Noir: Great balance of fruit and oak, a tad sweet, cherry, tobacco notes.
2007 Pinot Gris: Hints of swetetness, big fruit, pear, peach.
3. L. Mawby: Focuses exclusively on sparkling wines in two lines. The first, and arguably better, are marketed as L. Mawby, produced in tradition champagne style method. THe second, M. Lawrence, are less expensive as a whole, less complex, and use a less traditional production method. They're intended to be fun, and a bit more "mass market", with names like "Sandpiper", "Sex", and so on. We mostly tasted from the traditional L. Mawby line, and were quite impressed. The tasting room staff was knowledgeable, able to accommodate everyone from the "fun" casual wine drinker to geeks like us, and were friendly and fun about it. Yay!
The wines:
Sandpiper: moderately sweet, good fruit, not to my taste.
L. Mawby Talisman: The best of the lineup in my mind. From vignoles, chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot gris. Quite dry, very complex, toasty notes, some fruit, huge, long, minerally finish.
L. Mawby Cremant Classic: From vignoles. Rather one-note in nature, well made, but not to my taste.
Jadore: Some age, a sweeter version than the others, balance of sweet fruit notes and acid.
Blanc de blancs: 80% chardonnay, 20 pinot gris. Light, minerally, lemon and acid, some steely notes. Well made.
Blanc de noirs: from pinot noir. Strong berry notes, fruit, cherry, not as austere as blanc de blancs. Well made.
Conservancy: "everything" blend, a bit sweeter and more complex than above two. I thought a bit muddled and undistinctive, but still well made.
4. Shady Lane: Rather busy, young staff, not particularly attentive or knowledgeable. We sampled two for free, and decided against staying to try more.
2007 semi-dry riesling: cloyingly sweet, lacking acid to back it up.
2006 pinto noir: Decent wine, oak a bit strong for my tastes.
5. Black Star Farms: One of the larger and more corporate operations. Friendly and knowledgeable if over-extended staff. Wines didn't impress as a whole.
2007 Bedazzled: Sparkling from chardonnay and pinot noir. Sweet fruit notes, somewhat flat, bubbles large, due to forced carbon dioxide rather than traditional bottle fermentation.
2008 Pinot Noir rose: Dry berries and minerality.. Not bad, not great.
2007 Pinot Gris: Crisp acid and minerality, one of their best wines.
2008 Arcturos Riesling: easy drinking, crisp acid with some residual sugar.
2008 Sur Lie chardonnay: Not bad, not distinctive, crisp notes, not malolactic.
2008 Barrel Age Chardonnay: Too much oak.
2006 Arcturos Pinot noir: Well-balanced between oak and fruit
2004 Isidor's Choice Pinot Noir: Fruit driven, rather over done.
2007 Cabernet Franc: Rough drinking without the complexity to make it worhtwhile.
2007 Isidor's Choice Terrace Red: Cab Franc, Regent grapes. Remarkably pleasant, but not all that good of value. Tobacco, fruit blend.
6. Chateau Fontaine. These guys weren't supposed to be open, but I called, and since it was rainy, they were working in teh tasting room and had opened it up. The room is run by the owners and winemaker, so we got to talk to the source. That matters a lot. It was VERY busy, but the owner managed to keep up with everything very well indeed. Really a fun place.
2007 Pinot Gris: Harsh, unpleasant finish
2007 Chardonnay: Hints of oak, but good fruit, some minerality. Not outstanding, but decent.
2008 Woodland White (Auxerrois): This is their best wine, by far. Crisp acidity, citrus, floral notes, very well made. Impressive, award winning wine.
2007 Gewurztraminer: Honest gewurz, floral notes, some lychee, subtle.
2007 White Riesling: Moderately sweet, perhaps not enough acid for balance.
2006 Pinot Noir: Fruit, showing very little oak, not bad
2006 Woodland Red: Cab Franc, cabernet Sauvignon, merlot, and syrah. Bizarre that cab sauv and syrah, in particular, produce this far north. The wine suggests that perhaps it's a stretch.
Cherry wine: NOt bad--off dry, well made, pleasant, FOR what it is.
2008 Off-dry Riesling: Great balnace of acid and fruit, lemon and apricot notes.
7. Bel Lago: A nice tasting room, friendly and knowledgeable staff. Good line up of wines. Got to try both 07 and 08 vintages of two of their white wines, and recommend the 08's highly!
2007 Pinot Grigio: More acidity and crispness than most PG's from NoMi.
2007 Auxerrois: Good fruit, floral hints, minerality
2008 Auxerrois: As above, but on steroids--crisp minerality, tons of complexity, wow!
2007 Semidry riesling: Good balance for vintage between acid, fruit, sweetness.
2007 Gewurztraminer: Lychee on nose, palate runs rather hot.
2008 Gewurztraminer: Again, as above, but on steroids, except not hot. Great perfume, lychee, classic!
2006 Pinot Noir: Pepper strong on nose, apparently from Dijon Clone 777. Reasonably well balanced.
NV Bel Lago Red: Cab Franc, merlot, regent, dornfelder, maruette, gamay, anything else tey can find. Core is 2005, a great red year, and it shows. Fruit driven.
2005 Tempesta: High end wine, intended for aging, cab franc based. Lots of tannins, but integrated already.
We did dinner at Tuscan Bistro. It was a disappointment. The carpaccio was acceptably good, and the homemade pasta was nice, if not spectacular. Our server was not terribly knowledgeable about wine, so we were on our own for figuring out pairings and so on. I had a chianti classico with a pasta bolognese, which worked ok, although the wine was rather new world in style, and Julie had a pinot grigio with a cheese stuffed pasta, again an OK pairing. Neither wine stood out.
1. We started the day at Chateau de Leelanau. The tasting room is removed from most of the rest of their operation, and is part of a building with other shops and hte local Chamber of Commerce. It was a rainy, cool day, and we were the only ones there, and the staff person was very friendly, if not all that knowledgeable about the wines. They were pouring a number of rather old wines, which may or not have been particularly age-worthy wines. Of note:
2004 Sur Lie Chardonnay: Lot of fruit and acidic, still fairly fresh for the age, surprisingly enough.
2004 Barrel-Fermented Chardonnay: Oak. All oak, and nothing but the oak.
2008 Dry Riesling: This was their standout, with petrol hints on the nose (Yes, this is a good thing), along with apple, lemon, pear, and great acid.
2005 Pinot Gris: Pleasat enough, not a stand-out.
2007 Bianca: Not a grape with which I'm familiar, was quite fascinating, if not stellar. Tropical fruits, includin mango.
2003 Semi-dry riesling: Cloyingly sweet, honeyed, floral perfume notes.
2005 Rose of cabernet franc: Tons of strawberry and raspberry, a bit over the hill at 4 years old.
2005 Pinot Noir: Surprisingly nice, fruit driven, with tobacco and pepper from judicious barrel time.
2004 Cabernet Franc: usual tobacco, tar, herbal notes, rather stemmy, tons of tannins. Lacked fruit to hold up to barrel time.
2005 Select Harvest Riesling: Tons of sugar, moderate fruit, low acid.
2. Willow Vineyard: Not a producer we were familiar with, perhaps the most pleasant surprise of the trip. Really a neat producer on a hill overlooking West Bay that has the best view imagineable. Wonderfully landscaped, great knowledge of the wines.
2007 Chardonnay: Oaked, but not heavily, rather burgundian in style, remarkable minerality.
2008 Baci Rose of Pinot Noir: Stellar pink. Reminded me of the subtlety of French Sancerre rose. Lovely wine.
2007 Pinot Noir: Great balance of fruit and oak, a tad sweet, cherry, tobacco notes.
2007 Pinot Gris: Hints of swetetness, big fruit, pear, peach.
3. L. Mawby: Focuses exclusively on sparkling wines in two lines. The first, and arguably better, are marketed as L. Mawby, produced in tradition champagne style method. THe second, M. Lawrence, are less expensive as a whole, less complex, and use a less traditional production method. They're intended to be fun, and a bit more "mass market", with names like "Sandpiper", "Sex", and so on. We mostly tasted from the traditional L. Mawby line, and were quite impressed. The tasting room staff was knowledgeable, able to accommodate everyone from the "fun" casual wine drinker to geeks like us, and were friendly and fun about it. Yay!
The wines:
Sandpiper: moderately sweet, good fruit, not to my taste.
L. Mawby Talisman: The best of the lineup in my mind. From vignoles, chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot gris. Quite dry, very complex, toasty notes, some fruit, huge, long, minerally finish.
L. Mawby Cremant Classic: From vignoles. Rather one-note in nature, well made, but not to my taste.
Jadore: Some age, a sweeter version than the others, balance of sweet fruit notes and acid.
Blanc de blancs: 80% chardonnay, 20 pinot gris. Light, minerally, lemon and acid, some steely notes. Well made.
Blanc de noirs: from pinot noir. Strong berry notes, fruit, cherry, not as austere as blanc de blancs. Well made.
Conservancy: "everything" blend, a bit sweeter and more complex than above two. I thought a bit muddled and undistinctive, but still well made.
4. Shady Lane: Rather busy, young staff, not particularly attentive or knowledgeable. We sampled two for free, and decided against staying to try more.
2007 semi-dry riesling: cloyingly sweet, lacking acid to back it up.
2006 pinto noir: Decent wine, oak a bit strong for my tastes.
5. Black Star Farms: One of the larger and more corporate operations. Friendly and knowledgeable if over-extended staff. Wines didn't impress as a whole.
2007 Bedazzled: Sparkling from chardonnay and pinot noir. Sweet fruit notes, somewhat flat, bubbles large, due to forced carbon dioxide rather than traditional bottle fermentation.
2008 Pinot Noir rose: Dry berries and minerality.. Not bad, not great.
2007 Pinot Gris: Crisp acid and minerality, one of their best wines.
2008 Arcturos Riesling: easy drinking, crisp acid with some residual sugar.
2008 Sur Lie chardonnay: Not bad, not distinctive, crisp notes, not malolactic.
2008 Barrel Age Chardonnay: Too much oak.
2006 Arcturos Pinot noir: Well-balanced between oak and fruit
2004 Isidor's Choice Pinot Noir: Fruit driven, rather over done.
2007 Cabernet Franc: Rough drinking without the complexity to make it worhtwhile.
2007 Isidor's Choice Terrace Red: Cab Franc, Regent grapes. Remarkably pleasant, but not all that good of value. Tobacco, fruit blend.
6. Chateau Fontaine. These guys weren't supposed to be open, but I called, and since it was rainy, they were working in teh tasting room and had opened it up. The room is run by the owners and winemaker, so we got to talk to the source. That matters a lot. It was VERY busy, but the owner managed to keep up with everything very well indeed. Really a fun place.
2007 Pinot Gris: Harsh, unpleasant finish
2007 Chardonnay: Hints of oak, but good fruit, some minerality. Not outstanding, but decent.
2008 Woodland White (Auxerrois): This is their best wine, by far. Crisp acidity, citrus, floral notes, very well made. Impressive, award winning wine.
2007 Gewurztraminer: Honest gewurz, floral notes, some lychee, subtle.
2007 White Riesling: Moderately sweet, perhaps not enough acid for balance.
2006 Pinot Noir: Fruit, showing very little oak, not bad
2006 Woodland Red: Cab Franc, cabernet Sauvignon, merlot, and syrah. Bizarre that cab sauv and syrah, in particular, produce this far north. The wine suggests that perhaps it's a stretch.
Cherry wine: NOt bad--off dry, well made, pleasant, FOR what it is.
2008 Off-dry Riesling: Great balnace of acid and fruit, lemon and apricot notes.
7. Bel Lago: A nice tasting room, friendly and knowledgeable staff. Good line up of wines. Got to try both 07 and 08 vintages of two of their white wines, and recommend the 08's highly!
2007 Pinot Grigio: More acidity and crispness than most PG's from NoMi.
2007 Auxerrois: Good fruit, floral hints, minerality
2008 Auxerrois: As above, but on steroids--crisp minerality, tons of complexity, wow!
2007 Semidry riesling: Good balance for vintage between acid, fruit, sweetness.
2007 Gewurztraminer: Lychee on nose, palate runs rather hot.
2008 Gewurztraminer: Again, as above, but on steroids, except not hot. Great perfume, lychee, classic!
2006 Pinot Noir: Pepper strong on nose, apparently from Dijon Clone 777. Reasonably well balanced.
NV Bel Lago Red: Cab Franc, merlot, regent, dornfelder, maruette, gamay, anything else tey can find. Core is 2005, a great red year, and it shows. Fruit driven.
2005 Tempesta: High end wine, intended for aging, cab franc based. Lots of tannins, but integrated already.
We did dinner at Tuscan Bistro. It was a disappointment. The carpaccio was acceptably good, and the homemade pasta was nice, if not spectacular. Our server was not terribly knowledgeable about wine, so we were on our own for figuring out pairings and so on. I had a chianti classico with a pasta bolognese, which worked ok, although the wine was rather new world in style, and Julie had a pinot grigio with a cheese stuffed pasta, again an OK pairing. Neither wine stood out.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Northern Michigan, Day 1
Julie and I are on vacation in the northern part of Michigan. To be precise, we're staying a couple days in Traverse City. Now, this area is known for a few things. A lot of water, massive tourism, a Cherry Festival, and, important to us, a lot of Michigan's best wine. As it turns out, our trip is largely centered around tasting wine. And taste we have. Yesterday, we went up Old Mission Peninsula, a strip of land maybe 15 miles long and probably no more than a mile wide. On the peninsula, there are probably 8-10 wineries. We visited five. This trip is a real way of seeing just how variable wines of a small region are, and just as important, how their producers approach not only making, but also selling, wine. So, here's a run down of the day's wineries:
1. Brys Estate: Their tasting room, rather pretentious, was peopled with a sort of "faux friendly" staff who either didn't know all that much about wine, or didn't want to talk about it. Their wines were a mixed bag--some good, some OK, and a few not so much. Unfortunately, they charge for tastings, and make you pick from among their wines to taste, so we didn't get to try nearly all of their wines. Here are some impressions:
2008 Pinot Blanc: A good example of p.b. from Michigan. Floral and mineral notes, some apple, quite charming.
2008 Pinot Grigio: Decent acid, moderate fruit, a rather bizarre finish that was a bit "salty" in nature.
2007 Rose of Pinot Noir: Decent minerality and creamy raspberry notes, the wine drank rather hot, especially toward the finish.
2007 Dry Riesling: One of their best efforts, petrol on the nose, tons of acid, lemony notes. Probably the best of their wines.
2007 Pinot Noir Reserve: A lot of oak, some fruit, decent peppery earth tones. Too oaky for my tastes.
2007 Late Harvest Riesling: One of the least impressive rieslings we tasted, for what it was supposed to be. This should have been comparable to an Auslese or so, I figure. Well, to its credit, it had decent acit, but it was just plain thin, without the fruit that should have been there to credit it as a late harvest. I got the sense they picked before they really should have, based on what they were trying to do.
2. Two Lads: One of the newest and smallest producers on Old Mission, they only had three wines to taste. But the winery is an ultra-modern, somewhat "green" facility. Their staff was mostly family, and they genuinely cared about the place and their wine. That showed through not only in the experience iwth them, but in the wines. That said, all of their wines are a bit "over-produced" in my view. They were talking about how their wines were "only" 13.5 or 14% alcohol. Personally, I don't want my pinot gris or rose to be at those sorts of alcohol levels, especially from Michigan, and I honestly don't quite know how they got the fruit so danged ripe. The run-down:
2008 Pinot Grigio: Well made, but I really wasn't sure I wasn't drinking a sauvignon blanc when I first tasted it. It was herbal, grassy, gooseberries, even a bit of cat pee (in a good way, believe it or not).
2008 Rose of Cabernet Franc: This isn't your granny's white zin, nor is it as subtle as many fo the beautiful french roses. The cab franc tobacco, and even tar, came through, along with orange notes. A bit big by my standards, rather alcoholic.
2007 Cabernet Franc: Big, tannic, I thought a tad overmade. Lots of oak.
3. Bowers Harbor: The best, most enjoyable winery of the day. Quite large operation, with a slightly rustic appearing tasting room. The staff was uber-friendly, quite knowledgeable of their products and processes, very willing to share information and passion with folks tasting. First free tasting, too. These guys make especially great rieslings, of a most impressive stature. The rundown:
2008 Block II dry riesling: Tons of petrol on the nose, minerals, crisp acidity, tons of complexity, a lot going on. I can see why it won a lot of awards already, and is promising for 2008 rieslings up here.
2006 Montana Rusa Riesling: Also some petrol, more well settled and rounded out than the newer vintages due to age, fruit not as big as the acid.
2006 Pinot Noir: Too much oak, some sour cherry notes. 06 wasn't a great year for reds up here, and the oak didn't help. Their weakest wine.
2005 Cabernet Franc, Erica Vineyard: Classic tobacco and tar of cab franc, well made, impressive already, could age.
2006 2896, Langley Vineyard: Blend of cab franc, merlot, and cab sauvignon. The cab sauv is amazing to me, as i didn't think it'd ripen well up here. Lots of chewy tannin, minerality, fruit, decent balance, will need age.
2005 Block II off-dry riesling: Great balance of acid and sweetness, lots of citrus notes. SHould age some still.
2007 Riesling Langley, off-dry: Floral notes pronounced, not as acidic as some others, probably too much fruit relativ to acid levels.
2006 Gewurztraminer Icewine: One amazing wine. Lychee, trop fruits, huge long finish, plenty of acid to cut the fruit and floral notes. Should age well. Not sure it's worth the huge price tag, though.
Blanc de Blancs Sparkling wine: 80% chardonnay, 20% pinot gris. Nice if not stellar sparkling, a lot of acid, toasty notes, some nuttiness. Well made.
Cherritage: A cherry wine, 2:1 ratio of tart to sweet cherries. More appealing than I expected, not that sweet, pleasant.
4. Chateau Grand Traverse: The mass-market NoMI winery. Staff not terribly knowledgeable, lots of visitors, little attention or discussion. Not worht the visit, in my opinion. Almost none of the wines were worth writing much about, and were rather unimpressive. But I will note three interesting wines. Surprisingly, their reds were really good news, particularly when they didn't "try too hard".
2007 Gamay Noir "Limited": I really doubt there was much limited about it, but it's an honest fruit-driven gamay with classic fruit notes and some pepper hints. Could've been a simple beaujolais.
2006 Pinot noir: Not bad, almost all fruit driven, some oak for balance and complexity.
2006 Gamay Reserve: This was one of the most disturbing wines on the list. They managed to make it both sweet-fruity and overoaked, all at once. Truly bizarre experience, and not at all pleasing.
5. Peninsula Cellars: Tasting room in an old one-room schoolhouse, great staff, friendly, moderately knowledgeable. Awesome tasting room, fun quotes and themes, reflected a lot of effort. Again, no tasting fee.
2007 Pinot Blanc: Floral, acid, pear and apple. Not bad, not great. A bit too floral for my tastes.
2006 Chardonnay: An amazing amount of acid, not so much on the fruit.
2006 Gewurztraminer: Petrol, some lychee, reserved
2006 Manigold Gewurz: Tons of expressive floral notes. Too much so for my liking.
2006 Dry Riesling: Lime and floral notes, strong acid.
2006 Semi-dry Riesling: More complexity than above, lot of floral notes, some apricot.
2007 Pinot Gris: peachy, very long minerally finish. NOt what I would expect for a P.G.
2006 Pinot Noir: Good balance of fruit and oak. Well done.
2006 Select Riesling: An auslese style that was made well. Complex, apricot, peach, sweetnees balanced with good acid. Their highlight!
NV "Homework" rose of pinot noir. Sweet, cloying, not so desirable
2005 Cabernet Franc: Has honest cab franc notes of herbs, tobacco, cherry fruit, not hugely complex, but good.
2005 Cabernet Franc Reserve: Much more complex than above, a bit overdone, perhaps, needs age still, oak, smoke, minerality. Interesting.
In all, good wines and wineries, not too many disappointments, a lot of nice people.
We went for dinner at Amical, a french bistro downtown Traverse City. I'd rate this as a very good, solid restaurant, with a few "issues". The good: Nice, friendly, moderately knowledgable staff. Fun atmosphere with eclectic art. Creative menu that reflects effort and thought. The not so good: The wine list was rather unusual, and not in a particularly complimentary light. It was a strange mix of good and bad, New and Old World, Michigan wines, and it was unclear how they fit together for coherence. My real beef, though, was with the "by the glass" list--which to their credit was pretty extensive. Not so good--they didn't list vintages. Now, if you have drunk much wine, you know--vintage matters. So, list it, dammit!
Specific food: We started with soup--Julie had a tomato soup iwth a bread crust over it. Amazingly good, and a HUGE crock of soup--too much food, but tasty as can be. I had an Asian chicken soup with cabbage and mushrooms--the cup was a great appetizer side, and pretty tasty. Not great, though. Entrees: I had a lamb shank braised in beer with a honey-beer reduction sauce and herbs de Provence. Very tasty, perhaps a bit too sweet. Pairedw ith a 2006 Bastide Cote du Rhone. Not a bad wine, good pairing. Julie had a veal puttanseca with spaetzle. Good taste, the puttanesca was awesome. The veal was overcooked, though, and the spaetzle was a weird pairing with the dish. IN all, a good restaurant, and a place I'd recommend, if not in the most glowing terms possible. Solid place.
1. Brys Estate: Their tasting room, rather pretentious, was peopled with a sort of "faux friendly" staff who either didn't know all that much about wine, or didn't want to talk about it. Their wines were a mixed bag--some good, some OK, and a few not so much. Unfortunately, they charge for tastings, and make you pick from among their wines to taste, so we didn't get to try nearly all of their wines. Here are some impressions:
2008 Pinot Blanc: A good example of p.b. from Michigan. Floral and mineral notes, some apple, quite charming.
2008 Pinot Grigio: Decent acid, moderate fruit, a rather bizarre finish that was a bit "salty" in nature.
2007 Rose of Pinot Noir: Decent minerality and creamy raspberry notes, the wine drank rather hot, especially toward the finish.
2007 Dry Riesling: One of their best efforts, petrol on the nose, tons of acid, lemony notes. Probably the best of their wines.
2007 Pinot Noir Reserve: A lot of oak, some fruit, decent peppery earth tones. Too oaky for my tastes.
2007 Late Harvest Riesling: One of the least impressive rieslings we tasted, for what it was supposed to be. This should have been comparable to an Auslese or so, I figure. Well, to its credit, it had decent acit, but it was just plain thin, without the fruit that should have been there to credit it as a late harvest. I got the sense they picked before they really should have, based on what they were trying to do.
2. Two Lads: One of the newest and smallest producers on Old Mission, they only had three wines to taste. But the winery is an ultra-modern, somewhat "green" facility. Their staff was mostly family, and they genuinely cared about the place and their wine. That showed through not only in the experience iwth them, but in the wines. That said, all of their wines are a bit "over-produced" in my view. They were talking about how their wines were "only" 13.5 or 14% alcohol. Personally, I don't want my pinot gris or rose to be at those sorts of alcohol levels, especially from Michigan, and I honestly don't quite know how they got the fruit so danged ripe. The run-down:
2008 Pinot Grigio: Well made, but I really wasn't sure I wasn't drinking a sauvignon blanc when I first tasted it. It was herbal, grassy, gooseberries, even a bit of cat pee (in a good way, believe it or not).
2008 Rose of Cabernet Franc: This isn't your granny's white zin, nor is it as subtle as many fo the beautiful french roses. The cab franc tobacco, and even tar, came through, along with orange notes. A bit big by my standards, rather alcoholic.
2007 Cabernet Franc: Big, tannic, I thought a tad overmade. Lots of oak.
3. Bowers Harbor: The best, most enjoyable winery of the day. Quite large operation, with a slightly rustic appearing tasting room. The staff was uber-friendly, quite knowledgeable of their products and processes, very willing to share information and passion with folks tasting. First free tasting, too. These guys make especially great rieslings, of a most impressive stature. The rundown:
2008 Block II dry riesling: Tons of petrol on the nose, minerals, crisp acidity, tons of complexity, a lot going on. I can see why it won a lot of awards already, and is promising for 2008 rieslings up here.
2006 Montana Rusa Riesling: Also some petrol, more well settled and rounded out than the newer vintages due to age, fruit not as big as the acid.
2006 Pinot Noir: Too much oak, some sour cherry notes. 06 wasn't a great year for reds up here, and the oak didn't help. Their weakest wine.
2005 Cabernet Franc, Erica Vineyard: Classic tobacco and tar of cab franc, well made, impressive already, could age.
2006 2896, Langley Vineyard: Blend of cab franc, merlot, and cab sauvignon. The cab sauv is amazing to me, as i didn't think it'd ripen well up here. Lots of chewy tannin, minerality, fruit, decent balance, will need age.
2005 Block II off-dry riesling: Great balance of acid and sweetness, lots of citrus notes. SHould age some still.
2007 Riesling Langley, off-dry: Floral notes pronounced, not as acidic as some others, probably too much fruit relativ to acid levels.
2006 Gewurztraminer Icewine: One amazing wine. Lychee, trop fruits, huge long finish, plenty of acid to cut the fruit and floral notes. Should age well. Not sure it's worth the huge price tag, though.
Blanc de Blancs Sparkling wine: 80% chardonnay, 20% pinot gris. Nice if not stellar sparkling, a lot of acid, toasty notes, some nuttiness. Well made.
Cherritage: A cherry wine, 2:1 ratio of tart to sweet cherries. More appealing than I expected, not that sweet, pleasant.
4. Chateau Grand Traverse: The mass-market NoMI winery. Staff not terribly knowledgeable, lots of visitors, little attention or discussion. Not worht the visit, in my opinion. Almost none of the wines were worth writing much about, and were rather unimpressive. But I will note three interesting wines. Surprisingly, their reds were really good news, particularly when they didn't "try too hard".
2007 Gamay Noir "Limited": I really doubt there was much limited about it, but it's an honest fruit-driven gamay with classic fruit notes and some pepper hints. Could've been a simple beaujolais.
2006 Pinot noir: Not bad, almost all fruit driven, some oak for balance and complexity.
2006 Gamay Reserve: This was one of the most disturbing wines on the list. They managed to make it both sweet-fruity and overoaked, all at once. Truly bizarre experience, and not at all pleasing.
5. Peninsula Cellars: Tasting room in an old one-room schoolhouse, great staff, friendly, moderately knowledgeable. Awesome tasting room, fun quotes and themes, reflected a lot of effort. Again, no tasting fee.
2007 Pinot Blanc: Floral, acid, pear and apple. Not bad, not great. A bit too floral for my tastes.
2006 Chardonnay: An amazing amount of acid, not so much on the fruit.
2006 Gewurztraminer: Petrol, some lychee, reserved
2006 Manigold Gewurz: Tons of expressive floral notes. Too much so for my liking.
2006 Dry Riesling: Lime and floral notes, strong acid.
2006 Semi-dry Riesling: More complexity than above, lot of floral notes, some apricot.
2007 Pinot Gris: peachy, very long minerally finish. NOt what I would expect for a P.G.
2006 Pinot Noir: Good balance of fruit and oak. Well done.
2006 Select Riesling: An auslese style that was made well. Complex, apricot, peach, sweetnees balanced with good acid. Their highlight!
NV "Homework" rose of pinot noir. Sweet, cloying, not so desirable
2005 Cabernet Franc: Has honest cab franc notes of herbs, tobacco, cherry fruit, not hugely complex, but good.
2005 Cabernet Franc Reserve: Much more complex than above, a bit overdone, perhaps, needs age still, oak, smoke, minerality. Interesting.
In all, good wines and wineries, not too many disappointments, a lot of nice people.
We went for dinner at Amical, a french bistro downtown Traverse City. I'd rate this as a very good, solid restaurant, with a few "issues". The good: Nice, friendly, moderately knowledgable staff. Fun atmosphere with eclectic art. Creative menu that reflects effort and thought. The not so good: The wine list was rather unusual, and not in a particularly complimentary light. It was a strange mix of good and bad, New and Old World, Michigan wines, and it was unclear how they fit together for coherence. My real beef, though, was with the "by the glass" list--which to their credit was pretty extensive. Not so good--they didn't list vintages. Now, if you have drunk much wine, you know--vintage matters. So, list it, dammit!
Specific food: We started with soup--Julie had a tomato soup iwth a bread crust over it. Amazingly good, and a HUGE crock of soup--too much food, but tasty as can be. I had an Asian chicken soup with cabbage and mushrooms--the cup was a great appetizer side, and pretty tasty. Not great, though. Entrees: I had a lamb shank braised in beer with a honey-beer reduction sauce and herbs de Provence. Very tasty, perhaps a bit too sweet. Pairedw ith a 2006 Bastide Cote du Rhone. Not a bad wine, good pairing. Julie had a veal puttanseca with spaetzle. Good taste, the puttanesca was awesome. The veal was overcooked, though, and the spaetzle was a weird pairing with the dish. IN all, a good restaurant, and a place I'd recommend, if not in the most glowing terms possible. Solid place.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Vegetarian Restaurant
Tonight was the start of "restaurant week" in Ann Arbor, and we decided to try out Seva, a veggie restaurant here in town. Now, typically, I find vegetarianism annoying and generally unpleasant, but I do think that some veggie cooking can be good, and this restaurant had a really innovative, well-aged wine list on their website. With a 3 course meal on a 2 for 1 deal with $25, this seemed a good idea. Well... the results were mixed, in my view.
The food itself was decent, even good. My spring roll was tasty, and Julie's cheese with honey and pistachios was downright amazing. We both had cheese-stuffed ravioli as our main, with a side salad of carrot and apple. The salad was good, with a nice ginger taste. The ravioli was OK, but rather lacking in flavor--it would've been amazing with a bit of pancetta on there. Both the sorbet and vanilla ice cream were a nice finish. So, decent points for food. Good, not great. And, the wine we ended up with, a 2002 Selbach-Oster Spatlese Riesling was well-aged, nicely made, and showing well. And, it was at a great price--only a couple bucks over retail. Indeed, the wine list attracted me to this restaurant more than anyting else--a bunch of older (5-20 year old) wines at really good prices.
Now, the problems begin. When we arrived, they had my name wrong on the reservation. Now, how hard is to spell "Lake"? OK, we figured that out. Then, I look at the menus, and they didn't bring out a wine list, only had the drink menu with "by the glass" wines. I asked the waitress for the wine list, which led her to point out the few "by the glass" wines. Now, this was not her fault in the least--she just had not been trained well enough to know this wine list existed. Bad restaurant management. Then, she finds it, brings it out, with a warning--the list may be a bit out of date, and they may not have everything. OK, that's horrible management--keep your damned menu up to date. So, we pick a bottle, which they don't have, but to the credit of the waitress, she suggests a different riesling (she called it a Weingut, which is equivalent to "Domaine" on a French wine, so again, crappy training) from the menu (but it was a 2006, a vintage I find lacking in complexity). Fortunately, there were 3 other rieslings on the "reserve" list, so I suggested they try that. Meanwhile, our apps hvae arrived. Now, the manager comes over with the two rieslings they could find--one of which was the spatlese we chose. Bizarrely, the wine goes back to the back for another five minutes until the waitress comes back with it and glasses. Again, just weird. Now, at the end of dinner, we had some wine left in the bottle--not a lot, not enough to take home, not enough to even get a mild buzz. So, I asked our waitress, who was a wonderfully friendly, attentive person, if she'd be interested in trying the wine, as I figured these probably didn't get opened real often. Knowledgeable staff would, presumably, make for a better sales staff, right? She was very interested, appreciative, but went to ask if it was OK. Apparently, this was seriously against the rules, and staff simply couldn't taste wine at work. So, what's the moral of the story? Great people working the floor, good food. And, at least tonight, the ability to show a complete lack of ability to manage a restaurant successfully. These guys advertise online a serious, aged, great value wine list. But they don't bother to do what they need to keep up the inventory, maintain an accurate list, or train their staff in what that wine is, or, for that matter, even anything about its existence. It's really a disappointment. I also am a bit amused at some of the list--there are 10 year old barolo, barbaresco, cabs, even a 20+ year old bordeaux. These are serious, great wines, and they're BIG. They go exceptionally beautifully with meat. I don't know that anything in the vegetarian menu works with that sort of wine. So, again, I'm not convinced that the management has thought through their list with their menu in mind, but my mind is open, and I'm impressed by the list still.
The food itself was decent, even good. My spring roll was tasty, and Julie's cheese with honey and pistachios was downright amazing. We both had cheese-stuffed ravioli as our main, with a side salad of carrot and apple. The salad was good, with a nice ginger taste. The ravioli was OK, but rather lacking in flavor--it would've been amazing with a bit of pancetta on there. Both the sorbet and vanilla ice cream were a nice finish. So, decent points for food. Good, not great. And, the wine we ended up with, a 2002 Selbach-Oster Spatlese Riesling was well-aged, nicely made, and showing well. And, it was at a great price--only a couple bucks over retail. Indeed, the wine list attracted me to this restaurant more than anyting else--a bunch of older (5-20 year old) wines at really good prices.
Now, the problems begin. When we arrived, they had my name wrong on the reservation. Now, how hard is to spell "Lake"? OK, we figured that out. Then, I look at the menus, and they didn't bring out a wine list, only had the drink menu with "by the glass" wines. I asked the waitress for the wine list, which led her to point out the few "by the glass" wines. Now, this was not her fault in the least--she just had not been trained well enough to know this wine list existed. Bad restaurant management. Then, she finds it, brings it out, with a warning--the list may be a bit out of date, and they may not have everything. OK, that's horrible management--keep your damned menu up to date. So, we pick a bottle, which they don't have, but to the credit of the waitress, she suggests a different riesling (she called it a Weingut, which is equivalent to "Domaine" on a French wine, so again, crappy training) from the menu (but it was a 2006, a vintage I find lacking in complexity). Fortunately, there were 3 other rieslings on the "reserve" list, so I suggested they try that. Meanwhile, our apps hvae arrived. Now, the manager comes over with the two rieslings they could find--one of which was the spatlese we chose. Bizarrely, the wine goes back to the back for another five minutes until the waitress comes back with it and glasses. Again, just weird. Now, at the end of dinner, we had some wine left in the bottle--not a lot, not enough to take home, not enough to even get a mild buzz. So, I asked our waitress, who was a wonderfully friendly, attentive person, if she'd be interested in trying the wine, as I figured these probably didn't get opened real often. Knowledgeable staff would, presumably, make for a better sales staff, right? She was very interested, appreciative, but went to ask if it was OK. Apparently, this was seriously against the rules, and staff simply couldn't taste wine at work. So, what's the moral of the story? Great people working the floor, good food. And, at least tonight, the ability to show a complete lack of ability to manage a restaurant successfully. These guys advertise online a serious, aged, great value wine list. But they don't bother to do what they need to keep up the inventory, maintain an accurate list, or train their staff in what that wine is, or, for that matter, even anything about its existence. It's really a disappointment. I also am a bit amused at some of the list--there are 10 year old barolo, barbaresco, cabs, even a 20+ year old bordeaux. These are serious, great wines, and they're BIG. They go exceptionally beautifully with meat. I don't know that anything in the vegetarian menu works with that sort of wine. So, again, I'm not convinced that the management has thought through their list with their menu in mind, but my mind is open, and I'm impressed by the list still.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Salmon and Rose
I am a fan of good fish, but finding it here in Michigan is not so easy. Busch's, our local grocery chain, usually has salmon and other fish, but alot of it is "fresh," meaning it is, in fact, often rather fishy and stinky by the time we get to enjoy it. So, paradoxically, the best fish is often that which has been vacuum-packed and flash frozen right on the fishing boat. Such was what we found this week--it was a side of wild-caught Pacific salmon--with beautiful color, still frozen and vac-packed. I broke it dow to four filet portions, and cooked up two, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. With some orzo and on a bed of sauteed spinach, and a squeeze of lemon juice, it was quite tasty. No fishy flavors, good classic oily salmon taste. Yum!
Best of all, though, we paired it with a Sancerre Rose wine. Now, a lot of people think of white zinfandel when they think of pink wines. Well, what a disservice to the beautiful old world roses! This, made from pinot noir, is a mix of strawberry, cherry fruit, with some floral notes, with a stark minerality and strong acid notes. It is an amazingly complex, fully dry, tasty wine. In no way is it the sickly sweet, nasty white zin we think of. So, don't fear the pink!
Best of all, though, we paired it with a Sancerre Rose wine. Now, a lot of people think of white zinfandel when they think of pink wines. Well, what a disservice to the beautiful old world roses! This, made from pinot noir, is a mix of strawberry, cherry fruit, with some floral notes, with a stark minerality and strong acid notes. It is an amazingly complex, fully dry, tasty wine. In no way is it the sickly sweet, nasty white zin we think of. So, don't fear the pink!
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Thai style curry
Tonight, I improvised a Thai-styled curry. Had some beef that needed used up (a sirloin roast), so cut it into nice strips. Browned it with Thai Red Curry paste, added onions, red bell peppers, garlic, and a sweet potato cut into thin slices. After sweating the veggies with the curry and beef, I added a mix of coconut milk, beef stock, fish sauce, lemon juice. Then, added some green beans (terribly non-Thai, but tasty in the mix). All this cooked, and was paired with simply cooked long grain Basmati brown rice. It was pretty good--not too hot, but good flavor. With a Brooklyn East India Pale Ale, yum!
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Pork Ribs
Tonight was a "comfort food" dinner. Picked up some pork spareribs from the farmers market, gave 'em a good rub with a coffee barbeque rub, and then braised 'em "low and slow" for about 4 hours in a white wine-garlic sauce. It was all quite tasty, and, paired with a market barbecue sauce (maple based--yum!) made for a nice dinner. Not quite smoked ribs or anything, but darned good, for easy, home cooking.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Italian Style pork chops
I had about half the bottle of wine left from last night, so I figured some additional Italian styling could be good. As it happened, I had thawed out some pork chops. So, I figured, well, how about some Italian style chops? And, thankfully, it worked. I started out browning off the chops. Then, sweated some onion and garlic, added drained whole tomatoes, then deglazed with some white wine. Added in the juice from the tomatoes, some caper berries, and tossed the chops back in to braise for a bit. Meanwhile, I cooked some orzo, and asparagus to accompany. Once the chops were cooked, I pulled them, and cooked down the cooking liquid to make a thick, dense sauce to go with the chops and orzo. In all, very yummy.
Also, a bit about butter. We'd recently bought some Tillamook butter from Village Corner through our wine program for $2.50/lb., which is competitive with store brand butter. I knew it was good, sweet, and tasty, but I didn't realize just how amazing until tongiht, when I used some of the other butter to season the asparagus. It tasted industrial, sharp, bitter, and thoroughly revolting after being used to the "good stuff". I'm hoping Dick has some more Tillamook at the good price, because I'm officially addicted.
Also, a bit about butter. We'd recently bought some Tillamook butter from Village Corner through our wine program for $2.50/lb., which is competitive with store brand butter. I knew it was good, sweet, and tasty, but I didn't realize just how amazing until tongiht, when I used some of the other butter to season the asparagus. It tasted industrial, sharp, bitter, and thoroughly revolting after being used to the "good stuff". I'm hoping Dick has some more Tillamook at the good price, because I'm officially addicted.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Spaghetti
Tonight was a late night, so I cooked simply--spaghetti with red sauce. But it wasn't ragu in a bottle. I browned up some hot Italian sausage, deglazed with some red wine, and added in some of my frozen home-made tomato sauce. At the end of last fall's tomato season, we bought probably 50-100 lbs of "seconds" tomatoes, and cooked them down into a sauce. We froze it up in our deep freeze, and have been enjoying it throughout the winter. The up-shot is two-fold. First, the taste is so much better than the jarred stuff. I get to decide what is in it, what it tastes like, how salty it is, and so on. That's huge. Second, it's actually cheaper to do that, by quite a bit, than to buy even moderate quality bottled sauce.
I chose to make it a very basic sauce that I could then add flavors to as I saw fit per individual container. That means I can use the same sauce for a garlic sauce, another with basil, a third with cheese, and so on. That's another big bonus. I'm not restricted to whatever the producer throws in the sauce. Finally, I'm just plain thrilled to be supporting local producers, even if I'm buying tomatoes at a dirt cheap price. They're unloading product that is not necessarily beautiful, but tasty and useful.
I chose to make it a very basic sauce that I could then add flavors to as I saw fit per individual container. That means I can use the same sauce for a garlic sauce, another with basil, a third with cheese, and so on. That's another big bonus. I'm not restricted to whatever the producer throws in the sauce. Finally, I'm just plain thrilled to be supporting local producers, even if I'm buying tomatoes at a dirt cheap price. They're unloading product that is not necessarily beautiful, but tasty and useful.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Rack of Lamb, Cairanne
To celebrate Memorial Day, the completion of hauling out our plants for the summer (no small feat), and the publication of one of my papers in Science, we decided to celebrate with a rather nice meal on Monday night. I roasted up a (half) rack of lamb, paired with orzo and sauted spinach. Now, I love lamb almost any way you can get it. But a rack of rib chops is something for a real special occasion. First, I trimmed it down--cutting off some of the extra fat, and "frenching" the chops--that is, cutting off the fat between the boney part of the chop. I rubbed the cut down with a mix of rosemary, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil, and roasted it for a short time in a very hot oven, just to a nice medium rare. The flavor was great, and the fat crisped nicely. The meat came from Hanewaald lamb, our farmers market lamb specialist--and it was just spectacular. It was from a young (or small) critter, so was both tender and mild flavored. My cooking did justice to the cut, if I may ignore false modesty. And the goat yogurt sauce with garlic (from the farmers market again) was a great, earthy, acidic pairing. The orzo was nice, and the spinach, sauteed in olive oil with a bit of garlic for about 30 seconds was nice and still a bit "al dente".
But the meal was really brought to fruition by the wine--a Domaine de Boisson Cairanne cotes-du-rhone Villages. I may have mentioned this wine--tasted as part of our Wednesday group--a few weeks back. It's a real southern Rhone beauty. We loved it so much (OK-I loved it) at the tasting that we split a case with a friend-getting it at a per bottle under $15. Now, I am a big fan of the "biggies" of the southern Rhone--notably, Chateauneuf du Papes. These are immense, earthy wines with a great blend of elegance and rusticity. To be truly appreciated, they need years, even decades, of bottle aging. Many also require a small fortune to purchase--top estates sell bottles well into 3 figures. This Cairanne has a lot of those same notes--not surprising, since the region is only a few miles from CdP. It's got a ton of minerality--hot rocks, slate--and a good fruit up front. But it also has the tarry, herbal, tobacco, garrigue-y notes that give southern Rhones so much complexity. By itself, this is a wonderful wine, though, as Julie reminds me, it is definitely better with food--as is virtually any well-made wine.
But, for me, the real beauty was the combination of food, wine, and of course, the reason for celebration. The fruit brought out the sweetness of the lamb, the tannins cut the fat, and the herb rub combined exquisitely with the herbal, garrigue notes in the wine. In short, this was a match made in heaven, or at least in the southern Rhone. The entirety of the meal was so much more than the sum of its parts, thanks to that wonderful synergy. It is not that hard to come up with decent, even good, wine and food pairings. Every so often, you bring together that magical combination of food and wine that is just transcendental. And, when you do, you'll never forget the experience.
But the meal was really brought to fruition by the wine--a Domaine de Boisson Cairanne cotes-du-rhone Villages. I may have mentioned this wine--tasted as part of our Wednesday group--a few weeks back. It's a real southern Rhone beauty. We loved it so much (OK-I loved it) at the tasting that we split a case with a friend-getting it at a per bottle under $15. Now, I am a big fan of the "biggies" of the southern Rhone--notably, Chateauneuf du Papes. These are immense, earthy wines with a great blend of elegance and rusticity. To be truly appreciated, they need years, even decades, of bottle aging. Many also require a small fortune to purchase--top estates sell bottles well into 3 figures. This Cairanne has a lot of those same notes--not surprising, since the region is only a few miles from CdP. It's got a ton of minerality--hot rocks, slate--and a good fruit up front. But it also has the tarry, herbal, tobacco, garrigue-y notes that give southern Rhones so much complexity. By itself, this is a wonderful wine, though, as Julie reminds me, it is definitely better with food--as is virtually any well-made wine.
But, for me, the real beauty was the combination of food, wine, and of course, the reason for celebration. The fruit brought out the sweetness of the lamb, the tannins cut the fat, and the herb rub combined exquisitely with the herbal, garrigue notes in the wine. In short, this was a match made in heaven, or at least in the southern Rhone. The entirety of the meal was so much more than the sum of its parts, thanks to that wonderful synergy. It is not that hard to come up with decent, even good, wine and food pairings. Every so often, you bring together that magical combination of food and wine that is just transcendental. And, when you do, you'll never forget the experience.
Catching up again; Asparagus is here
It's been too long since I've blogged. Way, way too long. Last few weeks have been very busy in the garden as well as at work. So, first of all, there hasn't been as much time to write, or for that matter, to cook a lot. So, we've eaten a lot of takeout. But I've also cooked a fair bit, and have neglected to tell you a bit about it.
The last few weeks, asparagus has been in season at the farmer's market. I think we've eaten asparagus in every imagineable form, many times. Cream of asparagus soup (twice), asparagus risotto, steamed, boiled asparagus, grilled asparagus, roasted asparagus. As a side, as an appetizer, as a main in bigger dishes. And, I'm still hungry for more. Now, if all you've ever eaten is supermarket bundled asparagus imported from California or South America or some other distant place, or, worse, from a can or freezer bag, you probably don't get what I'm saying. In season, locally grown, fresh picked asparagus is simply the most flavorful, tender-textured, beautiful thing you can imagine. Not much in the way of tough, fibrous woody pieces. No dried out, wilted looking spears. Of course, they're also not all the exact same size or shape.
So far, the only approach that I wasn't hugely enamored with was grilled--with steaks and potatoes on the grill. And that was my fault--I slightly overcooked it, and the flare up from the steaks created a bit more burn than desired. Ah, well, those that were good were very concentrated, so I'll try that again if I can.
Now, wine and asparagus are a notorious challenge, so you might think I'd be in trouble. But no, not so much. Sauvignon blanc is arguably the grape that pairs most beautifully with asparagus. I'm personally partial to sancerre, which produces these wonderfully minerally, gooseberry, chive and sometimes bell-pepper flavored wines (from the sauvignon blanc grape). This appellation within the Loire Valley of France is just amazing. Another decent pairing was chablis--a region of Burgundy that produces steely, minerally unoaked chardonnay. For me, that was a bit less lovely, still nice, but not great, with asparagus.
More soon on some food and wine encounters.
The last few weeks, asparagus has been in season at the farmer's market. I think we've eaten asparagus in every imagineable form, many times. Cream of asparagus soup (twice), asparagus risotto, steamed, boiled asparagus, grilled asparagus, roasted asparagus. As a side, as an appetizer, as a main in bigger dishes. And, I'm still hungry for more. Now, if all you've ever eaten is supermarket bundled asparagus imported from California or South America or some other distant place, or, worse, from a can or freezer bag, you probably don't get what I'm saying. In season, locally grown, fresh picked asparagus is simply the most flavorful, tender-textured, beautiful thing you can imagine. Not much in the way of tough, fibrous woody pieces. No dried out, wilted looking spears. Of course, they're also not all the exact same size or shape.
So far, the only approach that I wasn't hugely enamored with was grilled--with steaks and potatoes on the grill. And that was my fault--I slightly overcooked it, and the flare up from the steaks created a bit more burn than desired. Ah, well, those that were good were very concentrated, so I'll try that again if I can.
Now, wine and asparagus are a notorious challenge, so you might think I'd be in trouble. But no, not so much. Sauvignon blanc is arguably the grape that pairs most beautifully with asparagus. I'm personally partial to sancerre, which produces these wonderfully minerally, gooseberry, chive and sometimes bell-pepper flavored wines (from the sauvignon blanc grape). This appellation within the Loire Valley of France is just amazing. Another decent pairing was chablis--a region of Burgundy that produces steely, minerally unoaked chardonnay. For me, that was a bit less lovely, still nice, but not great, with asparagus.
More soon on some food and wine encounters.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Southern Rhone, and Illinois wines
Missed y'all... for two whole weeks of no blogging. Jeff is a bad blogger. :-( In my defense, I was in Fort Madison for a few days of family time, but still, I've been back for over a week.
So, I have some catching up to do.
Last Wednesday, I had the great joy of meeting the owner and winemaker from Domaine du Vieux Chene, a moderate sized producer from the Southern Rhone Valley of France. He, along with his son and importer, joined our wine group to taste through much of his product line up. All his wines range in price from $10-18, so are quite affordable. And not one is a dud; each is a beautiful reflection of the combination of terroir (the "land" piece) and cepage (the grapes used). While there is unquestionably a "house style" of sorts that is the stamp of the winemaker, it is a gentle stamp indeed.
So, let me tell you a bit more about these wines:
First, there were four white wines--1. a blend of southern rhone classic grapes (grenache blanc and the likes), which was nicely minerally and good fruit, hints of "green" in it, as it was a relatively cool vintage (2008); 2. a 100% viognier wine (a grape more known from the Northern Rhone), this was somewhat less elegant than the much pricier no- Rhone wines from Condrieu, but a nice example of what you can do in the south. It was much less of the quasi-sweet fruit bombs that we see in California viogniers, in particular. 3 and 4. The 2007 and 2008 vintages of a cotes du Rhone that saw a bit of oak. The 07 was beautifully complex and elegant, while the 08 was still a bit unsettled. Nice wines.
Then, 2 roses, from two different regions: The first, from a lower quality classification, was a bit thin and green for my taste, but reflected the cool vintage and the grapes well. the 2nd was clearly riper (from a somewhat hotter site overlooking the river), more fruit driven, with a lot of complexity and nice minerality.
Finally, the highlight of about 10 reds. These are mostly grenache-syrah blends, and ranged from relatively simple, fruit-laden vin de pays to exquisite 2006 and 2007 vintage wines from specific vineyards with unique characteristics. The two sites that provided a lot of the grapes are from river bluffs and from a plain (plan de dieu, or Plains of God) with a lot of hot stones in it. The first produces a more elegant wine with a good blend of fruit and minerals, while the 2nd produces a bigger wine with tons of garrigue (some weedy herbs of Provence) and minerals. Then, the vintages showed so differently-0-the 06's are more elegant, reserved, and pretty, while the 07's have more complexity and heft. I'd say the 07's have more aging potnetial overall, but both are nice.
While no single wine was awful, nor did any just jump out as an "oh my God" moment--each was very nice and interesting. But, the tasting as a whole far exceeded the sum of the individual wines. It was perhaps the best opportunity I've had to look within a single producer, single wine region, to explore simultaneously the blend of grapes, vintages, and specific site to see their impact on the final product. In addition, it is a great chance to talk to the producer and see how he thinks about wine and his grapes. Truly, if you ever get a chance to do something like this, you absolutely MUST take advantage of it. It's an experience second to none.
While in Iowa, I also visited Nauvoo (Illinois, just across the Mississippi from my hometown). There is an old winery there with a variety of grapes and resulting wines. Now, vinifera wines (those we associate with Europe and the West Coast of the US, for example) do not tend to do well in the climate of the Midwest. So, the grapes are usually either American varieties or hybrids between American and vinifera grapes. This means getting out of your usual mindset of what a wine should be, and thinking instead about what _IS_ in the glass. I decided to taste through a few of their dry wines (I find sweet wines, except for great European dessert wines, to usually be cloying and just downright disturbing). I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by some of their wines.
Perhaps the best surprise was the quality of their red wines. The Norton grape showed remarkably well with judicious use of oak for aging, while a blend of chambourcin and Chancellor was also interesting, if rather fruit driven. Their dry concord basically tasted like slightly less sweet Welch's grape juice--not a pleasant taste, and I cannot begin to think what to eat with it. But I think it was well-made; just not my style. Their whites were a bit vegetal and harsh, and not pleasing to my palate, at least at the time of my visit. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant surprise to see what was clearly a good attention to detail in a very honest effort at making wine the right way in a challenging environment.
So, I have some catching up to do.
Last Wednesday, I had the great joy of meeting the owner and winemaker from Domaine du Vieux Chene, a moderate sized producer from the Southern Rhone Valley of France. He, along with his son and importer, joined our wine group to taste through much of his product line up. All his wines range in price from $10-18, so are quite affordable. And not one is a dud; each is a beautiful reflection of the combination of terroir (the "land" piece) and cepage (the grapes used). While there is unquestionably a "house style" of sorts that is the stamp of the winemaker, it is a gentle stamp indeed.
So, let me tell you a bit more about these wines:
First, there were four white wines--1. a blend of southern rhone classic grapes (grenache blanc and the likes), which was nicely minerally and good fruit, hints of "green" in it, as it was a relatively cool vintage (2008); 2. a 100% viognier wine (a grape more known from the Northern Rhone), this was somewhat less elegant than the much pricier no- Rhone wines from Condrieu, but a nice example of what you can do in the south. It was much less of the quasi-sweet fruit bombs that we see in California viogniers, in particular. 3 and 4. The 2007 and 2008 vintages of a cotes du Rhone that saw a bit of oak. The 07 was beautifully complex and elegant, while the 08 was still a bit unsettled. Nice wines.
Then, 2 roses, from two different regions: The first, from a lower quality classification, was a bit thin and green for my taste, but reflected the cool vintage and the grapes well. the 2nd was clearly riper (from a somewhat hotter site overlooking the river), more fruit driven, with a lot of complexity and nice minerality.
Finally, the highlight of about 10 reds. These are mostly grenache-syrah blends, and ranged from relatively simple, fruit-laden vin de pays to exquisite 2006 and 2007 vintage wines from specific vineyards with unique characteristics. The two sites that provided a lot of the grapes are from river bluffs and from a plain (plan de dieu, or Plains of God) with a lot of hot stones in it. The first produces a more elegant wine with a good blend of fruit and minerals, while the 2nd produces a bigger wine with tons of garrigue (some weedy herbs of Provence) and minerals. Then, the vintages showed so differently-0-the 06's are more elegant, reserved, and pretty, while the 07's have more complexity and heft. I'd say the 07's have more aging potnetial overall, but both are nice.
While no single wine was awful, nor did any just jump out as an "oh my God" moment--each was very nice and interesting. But, the tasting as a whole far exceeded the sum of the individual wines. It was perhaps the best opportunity I've had to look within a single producer, single wine region, to explore simultaneously the blend of grapes, vintages, and specific site to see their impact on the final product. In addition, it is a great chance to talk to the producer and see how he thinks about wine and his grapes. Truly, if you ever get a chance to do something like this, you absolutely MUST take advantage of it. It's an experience second to none.
While in Iowa, I also visited Nauvoo (Illinois, just across the Mississippi from my hometown). There is an old winery there with a variety of grapes and resulting wines. Now, vinifera wines (those we associate with Europe and the West Coast of the US, for example) do not tend to do well in the climate of the Midwest. So, the grapes are usually either American varieties or hybrids between American and vinifera grapes. This means getting out of your usual mindset of what a wine should be, and thinking instead about what _IS_ in the glass. I decided to taste through a few of their dry wines (I find sweet wines, except for great European dessert wines, to usually be cloying and just downright disturbing). I must say, I was pleasantly surprised by some of their wines.
Perhaps the best surprise was the quality of their red wines. The Norton grape showed remarkably well with judicious use of oak for aging, while a blend of chambourcin and Chancellor was also interesting, if rather fruit driven. Their dry concord basically tasted like slightly less sweet Welch's grape juice--not a pleasant taste, and I cannot begin to think what to eat with it. But I think it was well-made; just not my style. Their whites were a bit vegetal and harsh, and not pleasing to my palate, at least at the time of my visit. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant surprise to see what was clearly a good attention to detail in a very honest effort at making wine the right way in a challenging environment.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Happy Birthday to me, Part II. Gifts
As you have probably just read, today was my 35th birthday. I am so lucky--I got some great gifts. Three especially notable things:
1. Julie got me a bottle of wine. Domaine Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape, 2005, Cuvee Reservee. It probably won't be drinkable for at least a decade, and I'm thinking it might be about right when I celebrate my 45th or 50th birthday. We had a bottle of their 1998 vintage last year at my birthday (at the Earle), and I've had a 2000 at a party. This is a very earthy, almost horsey, barnyardy wine, with a ton of complexity. 2005 was an utterly amazing vintage in the southern Rhone, and this should be a classic wine. Looking forward to the passage of years for this beauty!
2. My mother, in the spirit of free choice, sent me the most fungible of assets -- cash. I turned some of it into a splurge--on another 2005 chateauneuf, in this case, produced by Beaucastel. I got it at a relative steal--about 75% of its usual retail cost, from a local boutique grocery with a killer wine program (Think Whole Foods with reasonable prices, unpretentious staff, locally owned, and sane management.). I have never had a true Beaucastel -- they're not an everyday bottle, by any means. But I've had their 2nd wine (coudoulet, which is a technically a CDR), which is a really beauty, as well as a number of others produced by the Perrins (notably, Perrin & Fils, Vielle Ferme). They all seem to represent a certain "honesty" of approach to the grapes, a real finesse in winemaking. So, again, in 10 or 15 years or so, I'll be enjoying this beauty. Thanks, mom!
3. My inlaws sent me books. Both about food/wine. I'll focus on the food driven one--All About Braising. It's a lovely cookbook which is so much more than your average package of recipes. Sure, there are plenty of those, and they are mostly pretty appealing, complex yet approachable. But what I really like are the real descriptions of the dishes--from their history and tastes, to a certain rationale of why you do what you do, this is a serious book. And most recipes have suggested wine pairings, and many - most are Old World wines, which I happen to love. Thank you, Lyn and Debbie!
1. Julie got me a bottle of wine. Domaine Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape, 2005, Cuvee Reservee. It probably won't be drinkable for at least a decade, and I'm thinking it might be about right when I celebrate my 45th or 50th birthday. We had a bottle of their 1998 vintage last year at my birthday (at the Earle), and I've had a 2000 at a party. This is a very earthy, almost horsey, barnyardy wine, with a ton of complexity. 2005 was an utterly amazing vintage in the southern Rhone, and this should be a classic wine. Looking forward to the passage of years for this beauty!
2. My mother, in the spirit of free choice, sent me the most fungible of assets -- cash. I turned some of it into a splurge--on another 2005 chateauneuf, in this case, produced by Beaucastel. I got it at a relative steal--about 75% of its usual retail cost, from a local boutique grocery with a killer wine program (Think Whole Foods with reasonable prices, unpretentious staff, locally owned, and sane management.). I have never had a true Beaucastel -- they're not an everyday bottle, by any means. But I've had their 2nd wine (coudoulet, which is a technically a CDR), which is a really beauty, as well as a number of others produced by the Perrins (notably, Perrin & Fils, Vielle Ferme). They all seem to represent a certain "honesty" of approach to the grapes, a real finesse in winemaking. So, again, in 10 or 15 years or so, I'll be enjoying this beauty. Thanks, mom!
3. My inlaws sent me books. Both about food/wine. I'll focus on the food driven one--All About Braising. It's a lovely cookbook which is so much more than your average package of recipes. Sure, there are plenty of those, and they are mostly pretty appealing, complex yet approachable. But what I really like are the real descriptions of the dishes--from their history and tastes, to a certain rationale of why you do what you do, this is a serious book. And most recipes have suggested wine pairings, and many - most are Old World wines, which I happen to love. Thank you, Lyn and Debbie!
Happy Birthday... to me. Part I. Dinner
Today, I turned 35 years old. I guess that means I'm officially old now. Not feeling terribly different today than I did yesterday, but hey, that is a definite milestone. It's been a good day, too, all in all. Julie took me out for a nice dinner at The Earle, a good "continental cuisine" restaurant here in Ann Arbor.
The restaurant has very solid food, and one of the best wine lists in all of the Midwest. The list is probably close to 1000 different wines, and importantly, they have been appropriately cellared, and have had enough time to age really nicely. One of my biggest pet peeves about high end restaurants is the often overpriced list of high end, good wines from recent vintages. Many of them are absolutely wonderfully good wines--arguably, even worth the hideous markup, where they charge 2.2-3.0 X retail. If only they had been aged. But, sadly, holding wines for years is not good for the bottom line, and doing it properly actually costs money, too. So, you end up drinking those expensive, monster wines before they have the time to mature and gain their real complexity. But, The Earle is different. They have a talented, brilliant sommelier who is both a bit old school, and who loves and understands his wines. He's thankfully not pretentious, and he doesn't look down on your if you're not buying that $200 bottle. And, if you know something about wine, and talk about it with him, he likes that, and shares his insights and gives you suggestions on interesting things to try. When you pick an older bottle, in particular, a mid to higher end one, and especially one that may not have been seeing a lot of turn-over, a good sommelier will very much appreciate it if you offer him a taste. Why? No, he's not trying to get drunk on the job. But it helps him to know how a particular vintage of a wine is aging, whether he should be trying to get it sold soon, and what it would pair well with.
So, tonight, we decided on a northern Rhone wine from Crozes-Hermitage. These are dense, serious full-bodied red wines, made almost exclusively with Syrah (sometimes doctored with a bit of Viognier). The bottle was a 1999 Domaine Belle Cuvee Louis Belle Crozes-Hermitage. Crozes is one of the "lowest end" wines of the northern Rhone, a second sister to uber-powerful Hermitage. They typically don't age as beautifully or have the subtle complexity as the Hermitage; they don't come from quite as primo of vineyards in the best sites overlooking the Rhone River. That is not to say they're crappy wines at all--they are usually still extraordinarily complex and will outshine most American or Aussie syrah/shirazes--but they are relatively inexpensive (usually $25-45 retail, $40-90 in restaurant, vs. well into 3 figures for Hermitage).
So, about the Belle? It was a real "belle" of a wine. Upon opening, it had tons of mature plum and cherry, blackberry, tobacco, smoke, some pepper and spice, and tons of slaty minerality. It was very refined, smooth, complex and tasty. This was a very serious wine. As it turns out, the vineyards are apparently within a few meters of "true" Hermitage, and the vines are 80 years or more in age. That all showed in the wine. Now, my one complaint is this. As the evening progressed and the wine was able to breathe, it rather quickly lost some of its bright fruit. This suggests the wine is probably a year or so past "peak"--not a flaw in the wine at all, but this is one that probably better be drunk in the next few years.
As to food: for starters, I went with escargot in a vol-au-vent--a bread-like structure, with a butter-wine-garlic sauce. Tasty, but not great. And the snails were perhaps a bit overcooked. Julie had a chevre on a bed of greens, topped with sesame seeds and dressed an acidic dressing. Tasty. For mains: Julie had filet with roquefort sauce, potatoes and veggie. A very classic dish, it was well-executed, amazing texture on the meat, and a very smooth sauce. My entree, though, just blew me away. Duck breast, seared and cooked to medium-rare, wiht a port wine reduction sauce, strawberries and raspberries. Now, cherries are a classic pair with duck, not so much these berries. But they worked. The port sauce was beautifully reduced, with an unctuous demi-glace built in. Wow. And it was a solid pairing wiht the fruit in the wine. In all, a great dinner! Thank you, Julie!
The restaurant has very solid food, and one of the best wine lists in all of the Midwest. The list is probably close to 1000 different wines, and importantly, they have been appropriately cellared, and have had enough time to age really nicely. One of my biggest pet peeves about high end restaurants is the often overpriced list of high end, good wines from recent vintages. Many of them are absolutely wonderfully good wines--arguably, even worth the hideous markup, where they charge 2.2-3.0 X retail. If only they had been aged. But, sadly, holding wines for years is not good for the bottom line, and doing it properly actually costs money, too. So, you end up drinking those expensive, monster wines before they have the time to mature and gain their real complexity. But, The Earle is different. They have a talented, brilliant sommelier who is both a bit old school, and who loves and understands his wines. He's thankfully not pretentious, and he doesn't look down on your if you're not buying that $200 bottle. And, if you know something about wine, and talk about it with him, he likes that, and shares his insights and gives you suggestions on interesting things to try. When you pick an older bottle, in particular, a mid to higher end one, and especially one that may not have been seeing a lot of turn-over, a good sommelier will very much appreciate it if you offer him a taste. Why? No, he's not trying to get drunk on the job. But it helps him to know how a particular vintage of a wine is aging, whether he should be trying to get it sold soon, and what it would pair well with.
So, tonight, we decided on a northern Rhone wine from Crozes-Hermitage. These are dense, serious full-bodied red wines, made almost exclusively with Syrah (sometimes doctored with a bit of Viognier). The bottle was a 1999 Domaine Belle Cuvee Louis Belle Crozes-Hermitage. Crozes is one of the "lowest end" wines of the northern Rhone, a second sister to uber-powerful Hermitage. They typically don't age as beautifully or have the subtle complexity as the Hermitage; they don't come from quite as primo of vineyards in the best sites overlooking the Rhone River. That is not to say they're crappy wines at all--they are usually still extraordinarily complex and will outshine most American or Aussie syrah/shirazes--but they are relatively inexpensive (usually $25-45 retail, $40-90 in restaurant, vs. well into 3 figures for Hermitage).
So, about the Belle? It was a real "belle" of a wine. Upon opening, it had tons of mature plum and cherry, blackberry, tobacco, smoke, some pepper and spice, and tons of slaty minerality. It was very refined, smooth, complex and tasty. This was a very serious wine. As it turns out, the vineyards are apparently within a few meters of "true" Hermitage, and the vines are 80 years or more in age. That all showed in the wine. Now, my one complaint is this. As the evening progressed and the wine was able to breathe, it rather quickly lost some of its bright fruit. This suggests the wine is probably a year or so past "peak"--not a flaw in the wine at all, but this is one that probably better be drunk in the next few years.
As to food: for starters, I went with escargot in a vol-au-vent--a bread-like structure, with a butter-wine-garlic sauce. Tasty, but not great. And the snails were perhaps a bit overcooked. Julie had a chevre on a bed of greens, topped with sesame seeds and dressed an acidic dressing. Tasty. For mains: Julie had filet with roquefort sauce, potatoes and veggie. A very classic dish, it was well-executed, amazing texture on the meat, and a very smooth sauce. My entree, though, just blew me away. Duck breast, seared and cooked to medium-rare, wiht a port wine reduction sauce, strawberries and raspberries. Now, cherries are a classic pair with duck, not so much these berries. But they worked. The port sauce was beautifully reduced, with an unctuous demi-glace built in. Wow. And it was a solid pairing wiht the fruit in the wine. In all, a great dinner! Thank you, Julie!
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Dinner Party
We got together with some of our friends for a small and casual dinner party tonight. Now, most of our friends are wine and food sorts, so we can pretty much count on a tasty experience. But tonight was really exceptional. Our host is recently back from a month in Sardegna, working with a colleague at a university there. She brought back some wine and liquer from the island to serve as a foundation, and then we each brought some food and drink to supplement, for a 5 course (or so) meal of amazing flavors.
We started with sparkling wines (prosecco, a cremant de bourgogne--not so Italian, but a good rose, and a bottle from Lombardy that we brought) to pair with appetizers and snacks. That amounted to oil cured olives, a honeyed sweet tapenade, Felina olive oil with two types of bread, a focaccia "pizza" of sorts with sausages, capers, sage, tomatoes, pecorino and other delicious items. I was asked to do a risotto--essentially, the "pasta course", and our host suggested we cook at her place so it'd be good and fresh. Thatt worked out well. I did an asparagus risotto with some truffle salt. It came out very nicely, I thought, and it got substantially positive reviews, and we continued with the sparklers. Then, a salad course of arugula, mushrooms, and pecorino cheese with a balsamic and olive oil dressing. and more prosecco.
The host cooked the main course--beautiful t-bone/porterhouse prime grade steaks. They were exquisite, and paired very well with the three red wines she'd brought back, as well as with the 1995 Rioja and a Corsican wine both brought by guests. Both of those were nice, but the Sardinian wines were amazingly interesting. One was 100% monica grapes--rather rustic, fruit forward; the 2nd was a 3-way even blend of monica, grenache (called cannoneau locally), and a third grape I don't recall. The final wine was 100% cagnulari, a varietal with which I was not at all familiar. It was the most complex of the wines, a rather unusual variety with incredible herbal and fruit notes, and tons of minerality. The other two were somewhat simpler, but very beautiful, rather fruit driven, in a very good way. I would absolutely buy any of the three, were they available in the U.S. This is honest wine, made simply by traditional methods, and it was among the most interesting stuff I've drunk in a long while. Some of these local wines of Italy (and I'd be willing to bet of some other European nations) should be both more available and more appreciated. After all, variety is the spice of life, and this is some serious variety. I really don't need another over-extracted, over fruit-bomb, over-oaked California or Aussie "red wine" that could be cab, merlot, syrah, or whatever, as it all tastes pretty much the same. For the same price, give me something new, different, fascinating.
Dessert was a melon granita (AMAZING homemade stuff) and these almond-honey cookies. Yum. And, all of that was chased with a Sardinian liqueur. This was mirto. Now, I'd never heard of it before--and it is definitely something of an acquired taste. It's made from fermenting the berries, and sometimes leaves, of the myrtle plant. It has a big menthol, wintergreen, fruity taste, and was a great after dinner drink. I really loved the taste; Julie was not so taken with it.
In all, it was a really fun night. Perhaps even more amazing was that the host's hot water heater broke this afternoon, so there was no hot water. And, then, as I was finishing off my risotto, the electricity went out due to a substantial thunderstorm. So, we ate by candlelight. And, all the food, and all the drink was at least very good, if not great. And the company was amazing.
We started with sparkling wines (prosecco, a cremant de bourgogne--not so Italian, but a good rose, and a bottle from Lombardy that we brought) to pair with appetizers and snacks. That amounted to oil cured olives, a honeyed sweet tapenade, Felina olive oil with two types of bread, a focaccia "pizza" of sorts with sausages, capers, sage, tomatoes, pecorino and other delicious items. I was asked to do a risotto--essentially, the "pasta course", and our host suggested we cook at her place so it'd be good and fresh. Thatt worked out well. I did an asparagus risotto with some truffle salt. It came out very nicely, I thought, and it got substantially positive reviews, and we continued with the sparklers. Then, a salad course of arugula, mushrooms, and pecorino cheese with a balsamic and olive oil dressing. and more prosecco.
The host cooked the main course--beautiful t-bone/porterhouse prime grade steaks. They were exquisite, and paired very well with the three red wines she'd brought back, as well as with the 1995 Rioja and a Corsican wine both brought by guests. Both of those were nice, but the Sardinian wines were amazingly interesting. One was 100% monica grapes--rather rustic, fruit forward; the 2nd was a 3-way even blend of monica, grenache (called cannoneau locally), and a third grape I don't recall. The final wine was 100% cagnulari, a varietal with which I was not at all familiar. It was the most complex of the wines, a rather unusual variety with incredible herbal and fruit notes, and tons of minerality. The other two were somewhat simpler, but very beautiful, rather fruit driven, in a very good way. I would absolutely buy any of the three, were they available in the U.S. This is honest wine, made simply by traditional methods, and it was among the most interesting stuff I've drunk in a long while. Some of these local wines of Italy (and I'd be willing to bet of some other European nations) should be both more available and more appreciated. After all, variety is the spice of life, and this is some serious variety. I really don't need another over-extracted, over fruit-bomb, over-oaked California or Aussie "red wine" that could be cab, merlot, syrah, or whatever, as it all tastes pretty much the same. For the same price, give me something new, different, fascinating.
Dessert was a melon granita (AMAZING homemade stuff) and these almond-honey cookies. Yum. And, all of that was chased with a Sardinian liqueur. This was mirto. Now, I'd never heard of it before--and it is definitely something of an acquired taste. It's made from fermenting the berries, and sometimes leaves, of the myrtle plant. It has a big menthol, wintergreen, fruity taste, and was a great after dinner drink. I really loved the taste; Julie was not so taken with it.
In all, it was a really fun night. Perhaps even more amazing was that the host's hot water heater broke this afternoon, so there was no hot water. And, then, as I was finishing off my risotto, the electricity went out due to a substantial thunderstorm. So, we ate by candlelight. And, all the food, and all the drink was at least very good, if not great. And the company was amazing.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Lamb Riblets
We'd had some lamb riblets in the freezer for a few weeks that'd I'd been wanting to cook before it got too hot. And, as today was relatively cool and rainy, it was an ideal day to cook some meat low and slow. Initially, I was thinking maybe doing another take on barbeque, maybe even a curried barbeque style. But that just wasn't screaming out as what I was after. I was kind of thinking some Spanish flavors might be nice -- some smoked paprika, maybe, onions, maybe tomatoes? So, I used Google to good effect, and came upon another blogger who was rather taken with a Dean and Delucca recipe for Spanish lamb stew. Now, it called for cubed stew meat cut from lamb shoulder, decidedly NOT thin, flat riblets. On the other hand, the riblets have a ton of fat and connective tissue, making it good for a similar approach. So, I cut each slab into individual ribs with some meat, seasoned 'em, and browned them off. Then, I cut up some smoked sausage, browned that, added a couple sweet onions, sliced very thin, and garlic. Deglazed with wine, some sherry vinegar, and then some stock. smoked paprika and some marjoram and a couple bay leaves for seasoning, and in to cook. I added some garbanzo beans and served it all wth some couscous. Very yummy!
The wine pairing was a serendipitous event, indeed. A day or so ago, we'd drunk part of a bottle of Spanish wine from Navarra--a blend mostly of tempranillo wth some grenache. it's a tasty, fairly fruit driven wine, not hugely complex, but very nice. But, with this rustic dinner, it just came to life, and showed off amazing earthy complexity, and brought out the sweetness of the lamb. It was a really beautiful pairing--one of those, 'oh wow!' moments--and one I had no expectation of being so exquisite.
The wine pairing was a serendipitous event, indeed. A day or so ago, we'd drunk part of a bottle of Spanish wine from Navarra--a blend mostly of tempranillo wth some grenache. it's a tasty, fairly fruit driven wine, not hugely complex, but very nice. But, with this rustic dinner, it just came to life, and showed off amazing earthy complexity, and brought out the sweetness of the lamb. It was a really beautiful pairing--one of those, 'oh wow!' moments--and one I had no expectation of being so exquisite.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Flank Steak, Korean Food
Last night was time for a lovely grass-raised beef flank steak. Marinated with soy, hot pepper, garlic as primary flavors, it cooked up on the grill pan very nicely. What a great cut of meat! With some Israeli couscous and corn, and a nice fruit-driven Spanish wine, yum.
Tonight, we got lazy, and ate out. Korean food was the choice du jour. I'm a big fan of kimchee, that wonderful hot, fermented, pickled cabbage like product. The rice and beef be-bim-bop was tasty--made wonderful by the runny egg broken over the dish. And Julie had barbeque short ribs, which were wonderfully smoky, with lots of sesame flavors. In all, delicious food.
Tonight, we got lazy, and ate out. Korean food was the choice du jour. I'm a big fan of kimchee, that wonderful hot, fermented, pickled cabbage like product. The rice and beef be-bim-bop was tasty--made wonderful by the runny egg broken over the dish. And Julie had barbeque short ribs, which were wonderfully smoky, with lots of sesame flavors. In all, delicious food.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Pork tenderloin and blackberries
Tonight, we had the pork tenderloin with a blackberry sauce. This was a bit different from the last blackberry sauce I did--this time, reduced with brown sugar, red wine, and some balsamic vinegar. It came out pretty well. The wild rice was OK, the fresh green beans not so tasty or fresh. Paired with a simple bourgogne, not a bad dinner, and fast, but not terribly exciting, either.
Our wine group tasted through a variety of wines again tonight. None were hugely memorable, and about 5 were close to horrifically made. A couple of Rhone wines were pretty good, and there were two decent Chiantis. None were so amazing that I felt I needed to run out and order a case, though.
Our wine group tasted through a variety of wines again tonight. None were hugely memorable, and about 5 were close to horrifically made. A couple of Rhone wines were pretty good, and there were two decent Chiantis. None were so amazing that I felt I needed to run out and order a case, though.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Strip Steaks
By traditional thought, NY Strip steaks are among the most expensive cuts of meat around. It's not uncommon to pay upwards of $15/lb. for ready-cut steaks at the meat counter. Often, these are trimmed poorly, cut thin, or otherwise less than ideal. But, if you have a good slicing knife and a steady hand, you can buy the subprimal and cut your own. That has two big advantages: 1. it's cheaper--we can find it for as little as $3-4/lb. 2. You can cut and trim the steaks to your liking. I happen to like relatively thick steaks, so I can work these to my liking.
So, tonight, I cooked up strip steaks, did a mushroom-sherry-cream sauce, mashed potatoes, and some spinach flash sauted in garlic adn olive oil. The steaks were very nice, as always, the sauce a good taste, and the potatoes OK. But the spinach was a real winner. It came from the farmers market, so was very fresh. I heated a pan rather hot, added in olive oil, threw in the garlic, and the spinach. I tossed it quickly, for less than a minute, and pulled it off the heat and out of hte pan. That kept it from becoming just soggy. Yum.
So, tonight, I cooked up strip steaks, did a mushroom-sherry-cream sauce, mashed potatoes, and some spinach flash sauted in garlic adn olive oil. The steaks were very nice, as always, the sauce a good taste, and the potatoes OK. But the spinach was a real winner. It came from the farmers market, so was very fresh. I heated a pan rather hot, added in olive oil, threw in the garlic, and the spinach. I tossed it quickly, for less than a minute, and pulled it off the heat and out of hte pan. That kept it from becoming just soggy. Yum.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Pork tenderloin
Pork tenderloins are nice in two ways--they're a good "blank canvass" that are highly flexible for a variety of flavors, and they cook in about 30 minutes. Now, I think if I bought heirloom pork tenderloins, I'd probably get substantially more flavor and the like out of the cut of meat itself. This I would like to do from time to time. But on a day to day basis, these are a cheap grocery store meat for weeknight eating. Tonight, I used a "Bavarian-style" seasoning, along with salt and pepper, to season the cut, before browning and roasting. I used some cherry-balsamic sauce from Zingerman's for added flavor. Brown rice and broccoli rounded out the meal, with a Dr. Heyden Riesling Spatlese. Tasty, easy, good for a weeknight. As blackberries were on sale at the grocery tonight, we shall do a blackberry sauce with the other one. That might call for a pinot noir-bourgogne... or I reckon a riesling should work, too.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Easter Dinner
Cooking holiday dinners for two can be a bit challenging. To me, Easter calls for leg of lamb, roasted with rosemary and garlic. But, if I did a whole leg, we'd be eating lamb leg for weeks. Fortunately, I was able to find a partial roast from our Farmer's Market lamb vendor. Now, sadly, that meant it was boneless, but it was still a beautiful thing. First, I browned it up with just salt and pepper, then coated it with a paste of garlic, lemon juice, rosemary, olive oil, salt and pepper. Then I roasted it with Yukon Gold potatoes. The meal was really made, though, by the asparagus--which I assembled into bundles with cream cheese and wrapped in prosciutto. Coated in some olive oil, salt and pepper, and into the oven. Yum! Julie brought home some bread, and we had a "butter lamb" from Jaworski's, so that rounded out dinner. All, in all, very tasty.
Of course, a good dinner needs a good wine, and we had a 2003 Domaine de la Tourade Vacqueyras, Cuvee de L'Euse. That's a wonderful, racy red wine from the southern Rhone. This thing is a real monster, in a good way. It's rather rustic, tons of fruit and herbal garrigue notes, good minerality, earthy, brambly, in all, a big wine. And, as it's now 5 years old, it's mellowed a bit. I absolutely LOVE this wine. I'm also glad to have 3-4 more bottles in the cellar--it should continue to improve with age. It makes such a great pairing with the grassy, gamy lamb, plus the Provencal flavors of rosemary and garlic and lemon. These wines are sometimes viewed as a bit lower in quality than their much more refined cousins in Bordeaux, but dollar for dollar, these wines have so much more going on at a given price point, and are just such wonderful things. I like to think they reflect the more exuberant qualities of life in the south of France, but in reality, it's simply a reflection of the grapes, terroir, plus winemaking.
Of course, a good dinner needs a good wine, and we had a 2003 Domaine de la Tourade Vacqueyras, Cuvee de L'Euse. That's a wonderful, racy red wine from the southern Rhone. This thing is a real monster, in a good way. It's rather rustic, tons of fruit and herbal garrigue notes, good minerality, earthy, brambly, in all, a big wine. And, as it's now 5 years old, it's mellowed a bit. I absolutely LOVE this wine. I'm also glad to have 3-4 more bottles in the cellar--it should continue to improve with age. It makes such a great pairing with the grassy, gamy lamb, plus the Provencal flavors of rosemary and garlic and lemon. These wines are sometimes viewed as a bit lower in quality than their much more refined cousins in Bordeaux, but dollar for dollar, these wines have so much more going on at a given price point, and are just such wonderful things. I like to think they reflect the more exuberant qualities of life in the south of France, but in reality, it's simply a reflection of the grapes, terroir, plus winemaking.
Friday, April 10, 2009
chicken
The joy of chicken leg quarters! Versatile, tasty, inexpensive. Tonight, I decided on a spring blanquette-style stew. Browned the chicken, added in a sliced onion, several carrots, a bag of frozen peas, and some garlic. Deglazed with white wine, added some stock. At the end of cooking, added a bit of cream, and then a beurre manie to thicken. Served with brown rice. Yum. Easy, tasty, about 45 minutes to prep and cook. It's nice to be able to just pull these things together, sans recipe -- it keeps things interesting.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Sad occassion, happy results
We're just back from Cleveland, where Julie and I attended her grandmother's funeral. We miss her terribly, and this was a largely somber few days. However, we also wanted to take advantage of what Cleveland had to offer us during "down times". So, in that spirit, we sought out a good place for dinner last night, and also sought out some good Polish food to bring home to cook.
Dinner last night was at Lola -- a "high end" downtown restaurant run by Michael Symon, whom you may know from his frequent appearances on Food Network. So, the good, bad, and ugly. The food itself was good. Very, very good. We started with a charcuterie platter, some, but not all, of which were "house-made" by the restaurant. Amazing sausages and other cured meats. Julie had a smoked pork chop that was cooked to perfection--juicy, sweet smoky flavor--with polenta and assorted other goodies. I had squab (pigeon) with foie gras, sweet potato puree, etc. Very tasty, in both cases. Dessert was also good--I had a 'french toast with bacon-maple ice cream'--good, but not amazing, humorous combination, as it was served on a skillet shaped plate. Julie had a sweet potato smores sundae--sweet potato sorbet, chocolate cake, house-made marshmallows. THe flavors were good, but the textures really made the dish. So, really good, creative food. The not so good: The wine experience, and at the start, the service. After we were seated, it must have been 15 minutes before we even got menus. Then, our server seemed insistent that we needed cocktails right away. Well, no, not so much, and no apology for the delay. After that, though, our server was really good, by and large. We also wanted wine with dinner. Now, we weren't sure if we could find a good pairing for both our dishes to share a bottle, but my mind immediately jumped to Rhone, as the mix of softer fruits, earth notes, and herb tones might work with both smoky flavors and the roasted poultry. So, I picked a couple that seemed like good options. Our waitress first suggested we should instead go with an Argentine malbec--not my style of wine, not a very good buy, and honestly, better suited to steaks than poultry. But she did seek out input on the Rhone wines, and suggested another (cheaper) option that would be more fruit-driven and softer than the others we looked at, and sold it as a "Great buy". Now, it was a fine wine, and it paired fairly well. nothing exquisite, but decent. My issue was the misrepresentation of it as a good buy--the menu price was 3.5 X the retail price of the wine (usually, it's more like a 2X markup). I didn't know the specific wine, but the price was reasonable for the AOC (on the high end, but good wines do tend to command more $). I'd have been fine with the situation if either 1. we'd specifically selected this to start with, and 2. if we'd not been sold on it being a great deal. As it is, I felt somewhat taken advantage of, basically being sold something it wasn't (the others we looked at thatr would've worked well were more in line with the typical 2X restaurant mark up, and only about $4-5 more than what e ordered). So, buyer beware. My other overall complaint with the list was a large number of high quality, high price wines on the list. Is that bad, per se? No. The problem is, most were very young--much too young to be really good, in some cases probably down-right shut down in style. I don't really WANT to think aobut drinking a 2005 Chateauneuf in 2009--try me again in 2019. I understnad that it takes work and money and time to age wine properly. But to sell some of these things for hundreds of $ a pop for current consumption is just disingenuous. It might be fine for status seekers, but it'd be a real disappointment to drink.
This morning, we stopped by Jaworski Meats (see earlier post from prior visit), picked up more sausages, house-made sauerkraut, pierogis, and more. In all, many tasty goodies. The Easter loaf (a sort of Polish-seasoned meatloaf) was an especially nice dinner tonight. quick to cook, great tastes. Paired with cottage-cheese stuffed pierogi (seasoned iwth nutmeg) and sauerkraut, it was a nice dinner, indeed. And, very easy to fix!
Dinner last night was at Lola -- a "high end" downtown restaurant run by Michael Symon, whom you may know from his frequent appearances on Food Network. So, the good, bad, and ugly. The food itself was good. Very, very good. We started with a charcuterie platter, some, but not all, of which were "house-made" by the restaurant. Amazing sausages and other cured meats. Julie had a smoked pork chop that was cooked to perfection--juicy, sweet smoky flavor--with polenta and assorted other goodies. I had squab (pigeon) with foie gras, sweet potato puree, etc. Very tasty, in both cases. Dessert was also good--I had a 'french toast with bacon-maple ice cream'--good, but not amazing, humorous combination, as it was served on a skillet shaped plate. Julie had a sweet potato smores sundae--sweet potato sorbet, chocolate cake, house-made marshmallows. THe flavors were good, but the textures really made the dish. So, really good, creative food. The not so good: The wine experience, and at the start, the service. After we were seated, it must have been 15 minutes before we even got menus. Then, our server seemed insistent that we needed cocktails right away. Well, no, not so much, and no apology for the delay. After that, though, our server was really good, by and large. We also wanted wine with dinner. Now, we weren't sure if we could find a good pairing for both our dishes to share a bottle, but my mind immediately jumped to Rhone, as the mix of softer fruits, earth notes, and herb tones might work with both smoky flavors and the roasted poultry. So, I picked a couple that seemed like good options. Our waitress first suggested we should instead go with an Argentine malbec--not my style of wine, not a very good buy, and honestly, better suited to steaks than poultry. But she did seek out input on the Rhone wines, and suggested another (cheaper) option that would be more fruit-driven and softer than the others we looked at, and sold it as a "Great buy". Now, it was a fine wine, and it paired fairly well. nothing exquisite, but decent. My issue was the misrepresentation of it as a good buy--the menu price was 3.5 X the retail price of the wine (usually, it's more like a 2X markup). I didn't know the specific wine, but the price was reasonable for the AOC (on the high end, but good wines do tend to command more $). I'd have been fine with the situation if either 1. we'd specifically selected this to start with, and 2. if we'd not been sold on it being a great deal. As it is, I felt somewhat taken advantage of, basically being sold something it wasn't (the others we looked at thatr would've worked well were more in line with the typical 2X restaurant mark up, and only about $4-5 more than what e ordered). So, buyer beware. My other overall complaint with the list was a large number of high quality, high price wines on the list. Is that bad, per se? No. The problem is, most were very young--much too young to be really good, in some cases probably down-right shut down in style. I don't really WANT to think aobut drinking a 2005 Chateauneuf in 2009--try me again in 2019. I understnad that it takes work and money and time to age wine properly. But to sell some of these things for hundreds of $ a pop for current consumption is just disingenuous. It might be fine for status seekers, but it'd be a real disappointment to drink.
This morning, we stopped by Jaworski Meats (see earlier post from prior visit), picked up more sausages, house-made sauerkraut, pierogis, and more. In all, many tasty goodies. The Easter loaf (a sort of Polish-seasoned meatloaf) was an especially nice dinner tonight. quick to cook, great tastes. Paired with cottage-cheese stuffed pierogi (seasoned iwth nutmeg) and sauerkraut, it was a nice dinner, indeed. And, very easy to fix!
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Interesting Cornas
As you undoubtedly know, I'm a big wine fan. I'd not gotten a chance to write this up before, but last Wednesday, we met up with an importer, who showed 17 of his producers' products. Most were from the Rhone and Southern France, all were quite interesting, and some amazing. For me, perhaps the most interesting was a Cornas. It's a tiny appelation in the northern Rhone, where only Syrah (or, as the Aussies know it, Shiraz) is allowed. The entire wine region (comparable to say Napa Valley in definition) is just over 100 hectares in size--that's an area that is 1 km, or about 0.6 mile, on a side. If it isn't grown in that tiny area, it isn't a Cornas. This particular producer owns a tiny parcel within that appelation--specifically 0.6 hectares. That's an area roughly the size of two football fields (only the playing area, mind you). From that, he produces 125 cases, or 1500 bottles, of wine. Each of those contains 750 mL, so that translates to just over 1100 liters of wine, or about 250 gallons. And that's all there is of this unique beauty, anywhere in teh world. Pretty amazing! It's a rather elegant wine, for a Cornas, spicy, earthy, haunting in its beauty, yet rustic enough, and quite powerful. Thanks to the vines being old (planted soon after WWII), there's good minerality and depth. Now, it's pretty tannic juice right now, so it's going to have to age for a few years, but rest assured, a bottle of this true rarity is headed for my cellar.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Ground lamb, curry, bulgur, and beets do NOT mix well
Over the weekend, I tried a new recipe I found -- curried bulgur with ground lamb and beets. Now, I'm always game for new flavor combinations, and although this seemed a bit out there, I figured I should trust in the Washington Post food section. Well... not everything that is written should necessarily be followed. Don't get me wrong -- it wasn't HORRIBLE by any stretch. It was just odd, and not particularly congruent.
The idea of combining lamb and bulgur has thousands of years of tradition--as the backbone for kibbeh. While curry powder is a bit of a stretch on traditional spicing, it's still not out of the realm, by any means. The tomato paste in the bulgur is, again, traditional. Where I should've known I was going wrong was in adding the beets and the liquid contents of teh canned beets (yes, this was the recipe directions!). First of all, my intuition is to always be suspicious of a recipe that prefers canned over fresh (except for tomatoes--that's another whole story). But the "juice" seemed integral to the recipe, as it's what you use to cook the bulgur. So, OK, I follow the directions.
Well, this naturally turned the bulgur a highly unnatural shade of pinkish-red - which, combined with the tomato paste, created a most disturbing appearance. Then, the ground lamb, of a similar texture, but browned color, mixed in, made for an unappetizing appearance. But the real cruz of the problem was the mix of flavors--curry and lamb are great together. Lamb and tomato, and bulgur all work together. The curry would've been just fine. But the beets and beet juice was just the most odd addition--the earthy, sweet flavors just clashed terribly with the lamb and curry. Adding lime juice at the end (per the recipe) did brighten it up, but did little to bring this discordant mess together. So, here's a recipe to NOT use again.
On a personal note, my wife's grandma passed away over the weekend, so we will be back in Cleveland in the near future. We shall all miss Bea Weber terribly, but cherish our wonderful memories.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Kielbasa, challenging times
So, I've been a terrible blogger for the last nearly 10 days. I have an excuse, really! Busy time at work (manuscript revisions due imminently, undergrad research posters due), plus at home. Julie's grandma was moved to a nursing home recently, and we've been to Cleveland to see her... which brings me to happier news--tonight's dinner.
Cleveland, as you may know, has a large Polish-American community. And, having worked in politics nationally for a time, I got to know some of those Polish Democrats, including some from Cleveland. As it turns out, one of those friends' family own Jaworski Meats, the best butcher/meat market in Cleveland. Years ago, I was at a party at the family store in the old Polish village. When we tried stopping by a couple years ago, the store had been closed down due to crime in the neighborhood, and moved to some suburb. Lacking time, we didn't track it down. On Saturday, en route to a non-descript suburban nursing home in Cleveland, we exit off of I-71, and there's the store, on our right. Naturally, after the visit to grandma, we had to stop a the store. As it turns out, Nikki's dad was there, said "hi" to him, and he got me in touch with Nikki--who I hadn't talked to since probably 2003 or so.
Even better, we brought home 3 lbs. of homemade kielbasa and a bunch of handmade pierogi from the shop. Ate some of that tonight, in fact. It's the most lovely spiced kielbasa you could hope for. Lots of garlic, some juniper hints, I"d say, and goodness knows what all else. And the pierogi were among the biggest I"ve seen--some stuffed with kraut, some with potato and cheese. Yum! Had a nice beer with it, and life is good.
We also had to stop for dinner in Cleveland; we thought we'd try to get reservations at Lola, a top-rated place wiht an emphasis on pork products. Sadly, no luck on short notice. We tried to stop at their bar for seating, but also, no luck. So, we went across the street to Saigon, a nice Vietnamese restaurant, and I'm SO glad we did. Good prices, great food. Pork egg-rolls were just right, and the baked/stir-fried squid was simply amazing! What flavor! And pho for the main course -- that's beef broth with thin slivers of beef, rice noodles, bean sprouts, lime, peppers. It's the best I've EVER had -- subtle, delicate, WOW! And, best of all--they had "33" beer--a Vietnamese beer with fascinating fruit overnotes--lychee and guava, if you can believe it. No, it's not sickeningly sweet fruit beer--not even a fruit beer at all. Just a regular ol' beer with amazing flavor. Get it if you can.
Cleveland, as you may know, has a large Polish-American community. And, having worked in politics nationally for a time, I got to know some of those Polish Democrats, including some from Cleveland. As it turns out, one of those friends' family own Jaworski Meats, the best butcher/meat market in Cleveland. Years ago, I was at a party at the family store in the old Polish village. When we tried stopping by a couple years ago, the store had been closed down due to crime in the neighborhood, and moved to some suburb. Lacking time, we didn't track it down. On Saturday, en route to a non-descript suburban nursing home in Cleveland, we exit off of I-71, and there's the store, on our right. Naturally, after the visit to grandma, we had to stop a the store. As it turns out, Nikki's dad was there, said "hi" to him, and he got me in touch with Nikki--who I hadn't talked to since probably 2003 or so.
Even better, we brought home 3 lbs. of homemade kielbasa and a bunch of handmade pierogi from the shop. Ate some of that tonight, in fact. It's the most lovely spiced kielbasa you could hope for. Lots of garlic, some juniper hints, I"d say, and goodness knows what all else. And the pierogi were among the biggest I"ve seen--some stuffed with kraut, some with potato and cheese. Yum! Had a nice beer with it, and life is good.
We also had to stop for dinner in Cleveland; we thought we'd try to get reservations at Lola, a top-rated place wiht an emphasis on pork products. Sadly, no luck on short notice. We tried to stop at their bar for seating, but also, no luck. So, we went across the street to Saigon, a nice Vietnamese restaurant, and I'm SO glad we did. Good prices, great food. Pork egg-rolls were just right, and the baked/stir-fried squid was simply amazing! What flavor! And pho for the main course -- that's beef broth with thin slivers of beef, rice noodles, bean sprouts, lime, peppers. It's the best I've EVER had -- subtle, delicate, WOW! And, best of all--they had "33" beer--a Vietnamese beer with fascinating fruit overnotes--lychee and guava, if you can believe it. No, it's not sickeningly sweet fruit beer--not even a fruit beer at all. Just a regular ol' beer with amazing flavor. Get it if you can.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Pork chops with blackberry sauce
I promised you all I'd update you after I cooked my pork chops with blackberry sauce, and, as I did it earlier this weekend... it worked. Very, very well. Did a pan sear on the chops, finished with a braise stovetop. Short grain brown rice was nice, and the asparagus brought a spring-like note to the party. But the blackberry sauce was the real winner. After sweating some shallot in butter, I added the blackberries, then some wildflower raw honey. After a couple minutes, I deglazed with tawny port, and cooked it down to a syrupy consistency. Yum! Paired with some spatlese riesling closeout, and just a nice meal.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Rasteau and Lamb Chops
Tonight, it was lamb chops--mostly, my usual way--with lemon-garlic-oregano marinade, and a nice sauce. As usual, they were good. Paired with Israeli couscous, and some fresh spring asparagus, a yummy dinner.
But the real star was our wine, an amazing southern Rhone pairing, a Rasteau. It was an Ortas Tradition, Cave de Rasteau Cotes du Rhone Villages Rasteau. This wine, at $12, drinks more like a $25-30 bottle. It's a wild, rustic, big wine, with good fruit and tons of herb and garrigue. We've got a couple more bottles, and I think some age would provide a bit of nice mellowing, but it's nice now, too. Think about mixing raspberry, blackberry fruit notes, a ton of brambles, herbs, some stony minerality. This is the first 2007 southern Rhone that has blown me away, and I'm now reserving judgment on the vintage to try out some more of these slightly better wines.
For my dear readers (all one or two of you, if that?) who are confused by the long naming... it goes something like this: It's from the Southern Rhone wine region of France. Within the So. Rhone, you have the more or less "entry level" wines that follow national laws--the Cotes du Rhone. This is a village level wine, so that's a step up--in other words, around the village of Rasteau, there's enough unique about the region to give it a unique designation, but it's not at the level of its own AOC, such as a Chateauneuf du Pape or Gigondas (two of the best regions within the southern Rhone). Broadly within the southern Rhone there are 13 allowable grapes. This Rasteau is dominated by old vines grenache (40-80 years old) bringing tons of mineral notes and bright fruit, along with some syrah (or, if you got it from Australia, Shiraz), bringing spicy and peppery fruit, and some mourvedre, a deep, dense wine with more brambly, garrigue notes. That's a grave over-simplification, so be aware of that.
Anyway, a really nice dinner and wine pairing. Yay!
But the real star was our wine, an amazing southern Rhone pairing, a Rasteau. It was an Ortas Tradition, Cave de Rasteau Cotes du Rhone Villages Rasteau. This wine, at $12, drinks more like a $25-30 bottle. It's a wild, rustic, big wine, with good fruit and tons of herb and garrigue. We've got a couple more bottles, and I think some age would provide a bit of nice mellowing, but it's nice now, too. Think about mixing raspberry, blackberry fruit notes, a ton of brambles, herbs, some stony minerality. This is the first 2007 southern Rhone that has blown me away, and I'm now reserving judgment on the vintage to try out some more of these slightly better wines.
For my dear readers (all one or two of you, if that?) who are confused by the long naming... it goes something like this: It's from the Southern Rhone wine region of France. Within the So. Rhone, you have the more or less "entry level" wines that follow national laws--the Cotes du Rhone. This is a village level wine, so that's a step up--in other words, around the village of Rasteau, there's enough unique about the region to give it a unique designation, but it's not at the level of its own AOC, such as a Chateauneuf du Pape or Gigondas (two of the best regions within the southern Rhone). Broadly within the southern Rhone there are 13 allowable grapes. This Rasteau is dominated by old vines grenache (40-80 years old) bringing tons of mineral notes and bright fruit, along with some syrah (or, if you got it from Australia, Shiraz), bringing spicy and peppery fruit, and some mourvedre, a deep, dense wine with more brambly, garrigue notes. That's a grave over-simplification, so be aware of that.
Anyway, a really nice dinner and wine pairing. Yay!
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Last Night's Dinner Out
Last night's wine tasting turned into more of a full night out. We tasted 18 wines, and I actually rather liked more than half of them, and found a few rather spectacular--notably, the 2005 Guigal Crozes-Hermitage, as well as a low-price Nero d'Avola and three nice 2005 Bordeaux for under $20/each. Two of them were pretty "in your face", while the third was much richer, smoother, and refined. Not that one was better, just different -- in terms of grapes, and in terms of vinification techniques.
As we were preparing to leave, our host offered "a cocktail"--which, with him, is probably a dangerous proposition. This initially turned into a tasting of four buffalo grass vodkas -- some of which were amazing, and some rather artificial. Of course, we had to try three other vodkas for comparison (a Stoli in all its elegant glory, a smoky-earthy potato vodka from eastern Europe, and another wild one that was really fascinating). Then, we had to try an eau-de-vie (really, five of them)--including framboise, and two earth gentian-root ones. Then, a lichen-extract eau de vie, then an Italian grappa infused with juniper. And, as a coup de grace, a beautiful, unoaked corn whiskey from Scandinavia (I think--somewhat overwhelming lineup of alcohol.).
By this point, it was after 9 pm, and several folks decided to stop at Pita Pita in Ypsilanti for dinner. As I didn't particularly feel like cooking at that point, we joined in--and were VERY pleasantly surprised by their sampler platter. Some of the best Middle Eastern cuisine I've ever tasted, and great Turkish coffee. Yum! So, the pork chops are put off a couple of days--shall be on Saturday, I think.
As we were preparing to leave, our host offered "a cocktail"--which, with him, is probably a dangerous proposition. This initially turned into a tasting of four buffalo grass vodkas -- some of which were amazing, and some rather artificial. Of course, we had to try three other vodkas for comparison (a Stoli in all its elegant glory, a smoky-earthy potato vodka from eastern Europe, and another wild one that was really fascinating). Then, we had to try an eau-de-vie (really, five of them)--including framboise, and two earth gentian-root ones. Then, a lichen-extract eau de vie, then an Italian grappa infused with juniper. And, as a coup de grace, a beautiful, unoaked corn whiskey from Scandinavia (I think--somewhat overwhelming lineup of alcohol.).
By this point, it was after 9 pm, and several folks decided to stop at Pita Pita in Ypsilanti for dinner. As I didn't particularly feel like cooking at that point, we joined in--and were VERY pleasantly surprised by their sampler platter. Some of the best Middle Eastern cuisine I've ever tasted, and great Turkish coffee. Yum! So, the pork chops are put off a couple of days--shall be on Saturday, I think.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
St. Patrick's Day
means corned beef brisket, cabbage, and boiled potatoes. And beer. So, I cheated this year, went with store bought corned beef, rather than "corning" my own. Simply put, I didn't have the desire to put more than a week's worth of work into it, when store-bought is OK. I'm sure I could've consumed a lot less salt, and had marginally better flavor... but, c'est la vie. As I'm working on three manuscripts right now, plus a grant proposal, plus a talk for Thursday... plus working with four undergrads... all of whom have project results due soon...
Tomorrow, back to real food. Pork chops with fresh blackberries. I'm looking forward to how my sauce comes out. In fact, I'm wondering what I shall put in it, aside from blackberries. I'm kind of thinking a mix of some sweet-ish wine -- maybe port or marsala, and some honey. As it's getting to be spring, and blackberries are a very springy-early summer thing... I'm thinking asparagus would be a good pairing. Stay tuned for results.
Tomorrow, back to real food. Pork chops with fresh blackberries. I'm looking forward to how my sauce comes out. In fact, I'm wondering what I shall put in it, aside from blackberries. I'm kind of thinking a mix of some sweet-ish wine -- maybe port or marsala, and some honey. As it's getting to be spring, and blackberries are a very springy-early summer thing... I'm thinking asparagus would be a good pairing. Stay tuned for results.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Flank steak
Nothing too interesting tonight. Flank steaks just make a nice week-night meal. Quick cooking, reasonable price, lot of flavor. The secret to making this rather tough cut of meat really good is three-fold. First, marinate it -- I really like a mix of soy sauce, oil, brown sugar, tons of garlic, some hot pepper, maybe mustard. Overnight in that tenderizes it a bit, and adds a lot of flavor. Second, don't take it past medium rare. about 4 minutes on a side is about right on a grill pan, maybe five. More than that, and you're making shoe leather. Finally, you must, and I mean, MUST cut this across the grain to make thin strips. Yum. With a bit of Israeli couscous and green beans, a nice, tasty meal. And, as this came from the Farmers Market, it was locally produced, grass-fed cattle. We also finished off last night's wine -- the Aphillanthes vin de pays. It held up OK, but remained rather boring and simple. Looking forward to something better later in the week.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Lamb necks
Tonight, we enjoyed one of those "less-favored" cuts of meat--lamb necks. At first hearing this, you might say, "Ick". That would be most unfortunate for you. These bony cuts are ideally slow cooked in a braise, where they release all that lovely connective tissue into a wonderfully unctuous broth. We took four neck halves from Hannewald Lamb (the lamb vendor at our Farmers Market), browned 'em up with some salt, pepper, paprika and flour. Added in some bacon for smoky flavor, and to provide a better oil to sweat the onion adn garlic. Two large cans of tomatoes, some white wine, and some home-made stock rounded out the braise. Three hours later, I added lemon segments and a couple handfuls of black olives. Served with some simple couscous, it was just plain delicious. And, at $1/lb (very few people are brave enoguh to try this, I guess--their loss!), it's a downright steal. (Look at the menus of high end trendy restaurants, especially on teh coasts, and you'll find this cut commonly used in ragouts, etc. Guess who is coming out ahead on that!)
Sadly, our wine pairing, a Vin de Pays de Vaucluse from one of our local wine shops (in fairness, NOT our usual shop), was a real disappointment. It's not so much that the wine was _BAD_, per se. It just wasn't what I was hoping for or expecting. Because it's a VdP (vin de pays), the producer is free from most restrictions on the grape contents driven by French law. So, before I bought it, I asked the wine shop owner what was in it -- and they assured me that it was just classic grapes for the region, declassified. Well, when I tasted it, I knew they were wrong. Turns out that the producer threw in a bunch of merlot with their classic grapes (syrah and grenache). Don't get me wrong--merlot, when grown and vinified well, as in much of Bordeaux, is simply wonderful. In the hot climates of southern France, it becomes an oversimple, overextracted, fruit bomb. So, instead of the wild, racy, herbal notes of a wine of southern France, I ended up with a more New World, fruity wine that did not pair so well with the acidic, earthy notes of the lamb neck. It wasn't terrible, by any means. But not the wonderful pairing it could've been, either. Moral of the story: Ask your local wine merchant about your wine, but don't always trust that they know.
Sadly, our wine pairing, a Vin de Pays de Vaucluse from one of our local wine shops (in fairness, NOT our usual shop), was a real disappointment. It's not so much that the wine was _BAD_, per se. It just wasn't what I was hoping for or expecting. Because it's a VdP (vin de pays), the producer is free from most restrictions on the grape contents driven by French law. So, before I bought it, I asked the wine shop owner what was in it -- and they assured me that it was just classic grapes for the region, declassified. Well, when I tasted it, I knew they were wrong. Turns out that the producer threw in a bunch of merlot with their classic grapes (syrah and grenache). Don't get me wrong--merlot, when grown and vinified well, as in much of Bordeaux, is simply wonderful. In the hot climates of southern France, it becomes an oversimple, overextracted, fruit bomb. So, instead of the wild, racy, herbal notes of a wine of southern France, I ended up with a more New World, fruity wine that did not pair so well with the acidic, earthy notes of the lamb neck. It wasn't terrible, by any means. But not the wonderful pairing it could've been, either. Moral of the story: Ask your local wine merchant about your wine, but don't always trust that they know.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Edamame and Wednesday wine
Not together, thankfully.
Today is Wednesday, and that means Wednesday Group wines. 20 more wines this week -- mostly old world. Over half were young German wines left behind from the tasting -- ones we hadn't yet gotten to over the past weekend. Two stood out as exceptional -- and both were from producers who didn't necessarily grab my attention at the German tasting this weekend. I'm coming to realize just how diverse riesling is as a wine grape. In addition to the different harvest times and sugar levels refelcted by classification (ie, Kabinett, Spatlese, auslese), vintage and terroir both matter SO much to these wines. Get a California cab (or merlot, or zin), and you pretty much are drinking the same thing, regardless of producer, vintage, etc. (Yes, this is an overstatement, but not by all that much.). Rieslings, not so much. 2007 produced some of the most complex, big wines throughout Germany; 2006 were somewhat simpler, and less developed. Jury is still out on the 2008; the ones available are largely still rather unsettled from very recent bottling. And each region and vineyard has unique signatures. A few of the guys in our group could probably identify vintage, producer, and even vinyard within German rieslings. I could only wish to some day have a tenth that good of palate.
One other wine just blew several of us away -- it was the Castano Monastrell. This is a downright cheap wine--about $7/bottle--and it drinks with that violet-tar-fruit mix that just screams mourvedre (or monastrell--french and Spanish, respectively). This could age for several years without much problem, but is already drinking nice now, if a bit big and wild.
Now, to the edamame. Being that we wanted a quick dinner, it meant Sloppy Joe's tonight. We thought about making fries with it, but that was too much work. So we hauled out some frozen in-shell edamame (Soybeans) and boiled 'em up. I'd been telling Julie for months how good this could be. She's always been afraid of it, saying, "ick". Well, she tried 'em, and found them remarkably nice. Yay for me!
Today is Wednesday, and that means Wednesday Group wines. 20 more wines this week -- mostly old world. Over half were young German wines left behind from the tasting -- ones we hadn't yet gotten to over the past weekend. Two stood out as exceptional -- and both were from producers who didn't necessarily grab my attention at the German tasting this weekend. I'm coming to realize just how diverse riesling is as a wine grape. In addition to the different harvest times and sugar levels refelcted by classification (ie, Kabinett, Spatlese, auslese), vintage and terroir both matter SO much to these wines. Get a California cab (or merlot, or zin), and you pretty much are drinking the same thing, regardless of producer, vintage, etc. (Yes, this is an overstatement, but not by all that much.). Rieslings, not so much. 2007 produced some of the most complex, big wines throughout Germany; 2006 were somewhat simpler, and less developed. Jury is still out on the 2008; the ones available are largely still rather unsettled from very recent bottling. And each region and vineyard has unique signatures. A few of the guys in our group could probably identify vintage, producer, and even vinyard within German rieslings. I could only wish to some day have a tenth that good of palate.
One other wine just blew several of us away -- it was the Castano Monastrell. This is a downright cheap wine--about $7/bottle--and it drinks with that violet-tar-fruit mix that just screams mourvedre (or monastrell--french and Spanish, respectively). This could age for several years without much problem, but is already drinking nice now, if a bit big and wild.
Now, to the edamame. Being that we wanted a quick dinner, it meant Sloppy Joe's tonight. We thought about making fries with it, but that was too much work. So we hauled out some frozen in-shell edamame (Soybeans) and boiled 'em up. I'd been telling Julie for months how good this could be. She's always been afraid of it, saying, "ick". Well, she tried 'em, and found them remarkably nice. Yay for me!
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