White Bordeaux

Dry white Bordeaux is one of the most overlooked wines. And, frankly, the winemakers in the region probably have themselves to blame.  Much is produced as $10 daily drinking wine in the Entre Deux Mers, and at it's best, it's a nice wine of moderate acid that pairs fine with a wide range of Tuesday nigh fare. Within Graves, the big names make some impressive wine - but often throw it in a lot of new oak and make big, unbalanced wines. And for many producers, it's secondary to their red wines. And, a number of producers in the Sauternes region (arguably the world's best/most complex "sweet wines" come from here) do a dry white wine. Again, these are usually not their primary focus, but where part of their fruit (often the younger vines, subpar fruit) end up.

Well, tonight proved my doubts about the region very wrong.  We opened a 2013 Clos des Lunes Lune d'Argent. At six years of age, it's still quite young and primary. Made of 70% semillon and 30% sauvignon blanc, the winemakers found an exquisite balance between the mineral weight of the semillon and the bright, acidic fruit of the sauvignon. They used some oak, but it was seamlessly integrated. The fruit was extensive, as was the seawater/mineral nature. The mouthfeel of waxy semillon was clear, and it seems it went at least partially malolactic, but that only resulted in a creamier mouthfeel and increased complexity without imbuing it with the buttery and yogurt notes that mar many a wine. Priced in the high $20's, this is not a cheap wine - but nor is it in the three figures like many of its higher-browed cousins.  Get as much as you can - and enjoy it with a range of food, including chicken, seafood, pork, and cheeses.

Brisket done right with a nice Rhone

Brisket can be one of those amazing cuts of meat - good beefy flavor, chewy texture, nice fat cap to keep it moist. It is also painfully easily messed up.  Braised, it too often gets soggy and disgusting wallowing in its own rendered fat. Smoked, it often dries out or loses its beef notes to the overwhelming spice and smoke mix. So, today, I tried an experiment - roasting it slow and low with a healthy rub of salt, pepper, and European herbs and spices. Tented with aluminum foil, it stayed nicely moist, and raised above its rendered fat, it didn't get soggy, but instead kept good texture.  I made a sauce out of shallots, mustard, garlic, red wine and beef stock reduction.  That paired well, along with horseradish. Veg were a mix of roasted turnips, watermelon radishes, potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

All this was paired wonderfully with a 2011 Domaine Sainte Anne Cotes du Rhone Villages. Not known for their great complexity, this "Villages" wine far exceeded its "station".  It was complex, showed strong black fruits, a healthy dose of Provencal herbs (garrigue), minerality, and integration. Although it was 14.5% alcohol, it wore it very well, showing great balance, and an adequate acidic level to keep the wine fresh and interesting. This producer hits well above its price point and level on a consistent basis, even in a "poor" vintage such as 2011. And, this wine's earthy, deep fruit paired beautifully with the deep earthy tones of the brisket and root vegetables.

Fall is for food...

Winter arrived thoroughly in Michigan this week.  We had four or so inches of snow on Monday, temperatures in the single digits Tuesday, and this weekend, the snow remains on the ground. All of this says it's time for some nice, slow-cooked comfort food.  That is exactly what happened - to much happiness.

Saturday was time for a beef a la carbonnade, or Belgian beef stew.  There seem to be as many recipes for this as there are people in Belgium, but the basics are all the same.  Some kind of tougher cut of beef cooked for a long time with a ridiculous amount of onion with some beer make up the backbone of this hearty dish. Serving it over noodles is de rigeur. For my version, it was a nice grass-fed piece of chuck roast, cut into 1.5 inch cubes, well seasoned and browned in oil.  I used three gigantic onions from one of my favorite growers at Farmers Market, along with a whole head of garlic and a couple immense shallots.  A slightly past prime brown ale served as the beer, and some chicken stock added body (I was out of beef stock).  The real secrets for my version, though, is the spicing - I add a liberal amount of thyme, 2 bay leaves, about 3 TB. of mustard, and finish with some balsamic vinegar.  Made for a tasty, if simple, dinner.

With a beer-based sauce, you would think beer would be "to drink" - but I prefer wine, so off to wine it was.  We had opened a Morgon a day or so earlier, so one o us finished that off, while I opened a 2011 St. Joseph from Louis Cheze as well.  The Morgon's brighter fruit and mineral notes were a better pairing than the more earthy, bloody St. Joseph, as it turns out.

Today was bean soup - made with some heirloom beans from a local producer, bacon ends to sub in for ham from another local producer.  Carrots, celery, onion, and garlic rounded out the soup, along with fresh made chicken stock I brewed up while cooked the carbonnade.  It was very "right" for the night - if not at all gourmet.  A small bowl of collard greens with some organic cider vinegar accompanied nicely.

All this was paired with a gorgeous and inexpensive Austrian Pinot Noir rose from Buchegger.  It's amazing how much cherry and strawberry fruit could combine with acid and a sharp edged mineral finish in a $12 bottle.  This is a great estate making honest, food-friendly wines that don't break the bank, and while they won't garner 95+ scores from the critics, are just incredibly well-made.  I understand the owner of this estate recently passed away, and I am sorry to hear the loss of such talent and do hope the estate is able to continue, and to continue producing such wonderful wine.

East by Northeast

A play on the inspiration for dinner tonight.  Started with flank steak--simple prep of salt, pepper, medium rare on a grill pan.   It's peak produce season (or a good time, anyway), so we have a ton of good fruit and veggies.  Decided first to do a blueberry sauce for the steak.  I ended up adding  fresh garlic, wine, and butter, along with dark (read slightly sweet, viscous) soy sauce and cinnamon.  It made for a slightly Asian flavored sauce that had nice balance of sweet, salty, and acidity.  For starch, I parboiled some new potatoes and two Hakerai turnips right out of our garden, and then roasted them with a few spring onions and some chopped garlic.  And the veggies--that was the best--green beans, blanched, and then sauteed with shiitake mushrooms and more young garlic, and finished with a touch of regular soy sauce.  One of the best (and most complex) things I've cooked lately.

Goat

Yes, Goat meat.  It's what was for dinner tonight.  Goat shanks, to be exact.  A lot like lamb shanks in texture and flavor, but a bit sweeter, a bit leaner, and overall, maybe even better.  Or at least, different.  We cooked them in a long low braise, a Jamaican curry.  That meant curry powder, some jerk powder, a ton of allspice, some coconut milk, thyme, honey, and of course, some hot pepper.  It came out remarkably well, paired with fingerling potatoes and Christmas Lima beans.  Yummy.  I want to cook more goat.

Cassoulet

Tonight was a classic "duck dinner"--as in, cassoulet. Seven of us got together for a fun dinner and wines. We started with some vintage champagne from 1998 and 2000 vintages. We then shared in this beautiful dish, paired with 1998 and 2004 Rhone wines, and a 2005 Madiran. We followed this with a salad course (very European), paired with a 1999 German Riesling Kabinett. Dessert was a chess pie, paired with an AMAZING 1969 Tokaji Aszu. What a dinner! And great company. I gained a number of fascinating insights tonight from all of this.

First, duck confit, pork belly, and sausage, paired with beans, baked for a couple hours with copious duck fat is downright amazing. And, perhaps, requiring some statins... :-) It pairs extraordinarily with a 2005 Madiran, which is still a baby. The 2004 Ste. Anne CDR-St. Gervais was beautiful, lighter, more acidic, and rather "feminine", if you can really use that to describe a wine. The 1998 Cotes du Rhone shows that a good vintage and a good producer (Grand Prieur) can lead to amazing aging on an inexpensive wine such as this.

Second, this riesling was amazing--it had such a nose of petrol/gasoline (in a very good way), and a crisp, acidic cut, with a long mineral finish. This blew me away.

Third, drinking a 43 year old sweet wine is an experience of unforgettable proportions. This goes down as a 10 most memorable wines of life. This Hungarian wine had incredible acid (STILL), great minerals, a somewhat oxidative note of good dry sherry or Madeira, nutty, sweet, mild fruit, and an ongoing finish.

I am fortunate enough to get to taste and drink a lot of good wine--even quite a bit that borders on great. But I am seldom so surprised by so many bottles in one setting; I seldom learn as much in one setting; and, rare indeed is a bottle that I will be remembering for years to come. To find two of those in an evening--that is extraordinary. Now, most of my favorite wines come from France, as do virtually all of my most memorable wines. So, to have two in a row that were NOT from France--surprising as can be.

Lamb Cheeks

Last night, I managed to cook up a meal that is near the top of all time in my view. Now, my wife was not a fan of this for flavor and texture reasons, so universal praise was not part of the picture here... But here's the scoop:

Sparrow Market, an Ann Arbor classic grocery and meat market, had lamb cheeks on sale. Now, who has ever eaten lamb cheeks? Well, I've had pork and beef cheeks, and I find the texture and strong flavors enticing, so I figured, what the heck, let's try this out. I didn't come home with any particular plan, other than figuring I needed to braise them for a couple hours. A classic sauce with a variety of lamb dishes is a Provencal style sauce--so I built on that theme. After browning the cheeks stove-top, I sweated mirepoix (onion, carrot, celery) plus garlic, added a couple tablespoons of tomato paste, and cooked that for maybe 5 minutes. I deglazed with white wine, added some lamb stock tossed in a bay leaf, a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, supplemented with a dash of Aleppo Pepper. After bringing to a boil, the cheeks went back in, and the whole cast iron Le Creuset business went into a 325 degree oven for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, I needed a side dish--and risotto seemed the perfect choice. So, out came some chicken stock, some Arborio rice, a bit of butter and shallot and Parmesan cheese. This is such a yummy, but easy, rice dish, I don't know why people are so afraid of it. Yes, you spend 20 minutes stirring a lot. Yes, you add stock gradually, deciding when the rice is at a doneness you like. Is it technically hard? Not at all. No fancy knife skills. No balancing 8 pots cooking at once. Just a bit of patience and attention to what you're doing.

As the risotto finished up, I removed the cheeks from the cast iron, strained the sauce to remove veggies and herbs, and reduced it by about half. I finished it off with a pat of butter, rewarmed the cheeks in the sauce, and sat down to a delicious dinner. I got out a 2006 Tourade Vacqueyras to accompany. It worked pretty well, although I think the wine is in a bit of a closed, awkward phase right now--there's still a lot of structure, fruit buried under it, and I think it'll be a very pretty bottle in a couple years. Right now, it's not bad at all, but not showing gorgeously yet. So, 5 more bottles to watch over 3-8 years.