Vacationing Around the Island

A Spooky Manhattan for 2021!

Hello friends, far and near. Here's hoping your 2021 is off to a decent start. I mean, 2020 set a pretty low bar, but what can you do.

Since we couldn't travel this year, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I tried our best to recreate a version of a culinary-themed vacation here at home. Our "Island vacation" was around our stove, but we still managed to have a pretty good go at it.

If you'd like to follow along, I've got a Twitter thread of our various meals and recipes going here.  

If Twitter isn't your thing, you can read all the tweets in a single page at this link. 

I think we've done pretty well for ourselves. We are so very fortunate!

Cheers! Happy New Year!

In Time for the Holidays -- The Naked Vine Guide to Champagne and Sparkling Wine

Champagne. Sparkling wine. Spumante. Bubbly. It’s that time of year.

Dom Perignon, the monk who popularized the concept of carbonated wine apocryphally stated, “Come quickly, I am drinking the stars!” upon opening a bottle in the wine caves of his monastery, and generations thereafter have shared that particular sensation, especially around this time of the year, when the loud pop of a cork accompanies celebrations large and small.

As party season cranks up, you might get called on by your friends to “pick up some Champagne” for your next soiree. The word “Champagne” is, for all intents and purposes for most people, a stand in term for all sparkling wine – much like “Coke” in the South translates as “any kind of soda/pop.”

“Champagne,” remember, is not a grape varietal or type of wine. It’s the region of Northern France where this style of wine originated, and where the most famous and most expensive versions of this sparkling wine -- like Veuve Cliquot, Moet & Chandon, and the aforementioned Dom Perignon -- are produced. If you go to the wine store and ask for “Champagne,” you might get steered over to this rack, where you’ll be staring at a bunch of French names and pricetags starting at forty or fifty bucks.

“Waitaminit!” you say. “I’ve seen Korbel Champagne in the store! Isn’t that Champagne?” Nope. It’s sparkling wine made in California that was labeled for years as “Champagne” as a marketing ploy. In 2006, a trade agreement outlawed labeling US wines as “Champagne” unless they’d been using that as a traditional trademark – but they were required to relabel their wines as “California Champagne.” Sparkling wine that’s not from Champagne, whether from California or elsewhere, is now generally labeled “sparkling wine.”

Getting back to the French stuff, and getting down to brass tacks – in all honesty, Champagne can be a real ripoff. Yes, Champagne is wonderful. I’ve had the opportunity to try a few high-end champagnes, and they’re delightful. They’re flavorful and sensuous…and completely overpriced for my semi-educated palate. I say this since, if you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re likely not going to be doing vertical tastings of high enders like Krug or Pol Roger anytime soon. Still, why are these wines so damned expensive?

Simply put? Brand loyalty.

We pay a premium for these wines because of the name on the label – no different from buying clothes, cars, or headphones. In some cases, the quality of actual Champagnes might be slightly higher than other sparkling wines, but at 11:59 on December 31^st, are you really thinking about doing a Parker-esque pull-apart of the various flavors? I thought not. If you’re opening vintage Champagne at midnight on New Year’s, you’re either showin’ off, or you’re at a ritzier party than I’m ever getting invited to.

That said, there’s nothing quite like the ritual of cracking open a bottle of celebratory bubbly. Good news! Consumption of sparkling wine has increased sharply in the first half of this decade. (We must be in a collective mood to get down!) Because of this increased demand, there are many options to allow you to have a good experience while still maintaining a grip on your fiscal sanity.

A couple of quick things to consider about buying sparkling wine. Unlike most reds and whites, many sparkling wines do not have vintage dates, as they’re often made from blends of wines from different years to produce a consistent product. Vintage wines often command higher prices, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re better.

Also, remember that the wine’s sweetness level is on the label. The traditional French nomenclature for sparkling wine is more or less the standard. The ones you’re likely to see are, from sweetest to driest: Doux (sweet) → Demi-Sec (semi-dry) → Sec (Dry) → Extra Dry → Brut. Yep. Brut is “drier than dry.” There are actually another two, even drier, levels -- Extra Brut and Brut Nature, but you’re unlikely to come across those.

What you will come across, however, are plenty of alternatives to higher-end stuff. Here are a few that you’ll be able to find without too much trouble:

Crémant – We’ll start in France. Crémant (pronounced cray-mahn) has come to refer to French sparkling wine produced outside the Champagne region. Most Crémant is produced with the same methode Champenoise process that Champagne is, often with the same grapes. The big difference? These are more “everyday” French sparkling wines, and usually can be had for between ten and twenty bucks. The best known will be labeled Crémant d’Alsace, Crémant de Bourgogne, Crémant de Loire, and Crémant de Jura. All of these make excellent alternatives if you’re trying to look classy by putting a bottle of French sparkling wine on the table at your next party. Are they as high quality as high-end Champagne? No. Is that quality difference worth $50 or more? You be the judge.

Cava – Over to Spain. Cava is my go-to inexpensive sparkling wine. This sparkler, produced in the area around Barcelona. The name “Cava” stems from the caves in which these wines were originally stored and aged. These wines are also produced in the same method as Champagne. I find most Cava to be crisper and somewhat more acidic than the creamy gentle bubbles in the French versions. The extra acidity, in my opinion, is what makes Cava perfect for tapas – allowing it to go alongside almost any kind of food. Cava is also quite inexpensive. For a typical bottle of Cava, if you’re spending more than $15, you’re overpaying.

Prosecco & Moscato – The Italian sparkling entries. Prosecco is the more “traditional” version of sparkling wine – and you’ll typically find it nestled next to the Cava in your local wine store. I find it to be fruitier and slightly sweeter than other sparkling wines, which I think makes it a better option for an early evening palate cleanser or morning-after mimosas than for cracking at the end of the year, but your mileage may vary. Moscato, whose popularity boomed in the early 2000’s, is a sweet, peachy, low-alcohol sparkling wine that – as a wine-savvy friend once put it – “you could drink for breakfast.” Produced in both sparkling and still versions, Moscato is a favorite of brunch aficionados and high school shoplifters everywhere.

United States Sparkling Wine – While some more expensive versions of “California Champagne” are decent (for instance, President Obama celebrated his inauguration with a special version of Korbel Natural), in general, they’re best used for christening boats or hosing down your friends after winning the sports contest of your choice. That said, there’s no shortage of high quality bubbly within our own borders. In my experience, the highest quality stuff comes from Northern California, and can be every bit as expensive as its French counterparts. However, there are many of these California products you’ll find in the $15-20 range that are very serviceable for any occasion. Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico are producing very good sparklers at bargain prices.

Bottom line – unless you’re really wed to the idea of having “traditional” Champagne for whatever your occasion may be, you’ll have good luck finding alternatives that won’t break your bank. So snag some bottles and pop your corks. You deserve it.

The End of the Bottle. The End of the Year.

I get reflective when the calendar flips to this chunk of the annum. I like it – and I think it’s healthy. It makes me appreciate how nothing happens in isolation. And how the interplay of circumstance and happenstance creates our day to day lives.

I believe it’s a natural time to do it, considering how our society looks at the calendar. We talk about the changing of the seasons, but not many folks are out there celebrating Beltaine or Saturnalia. Our collective point of annual reflection is the last week of December, culminating in the concrete marker of New Year’s, with its resolutions and promises sometimes kept.

What does a semi-professional wine reviewer reflect on during this time of year? Open a magazine, go online, or just read the rest of the issue where this column appears. You’re going to run into Best of 2013 lists, Top 10 lists, Bottom 10 lists – we love our lists. We collectively enjoy putting things into categories.

I thought about doing something like that, but I quickly realized that my own experience isn’t broad enough to put together a proper spread. I’ll leave that sort of thing to some of my other compatriots in the wine world.

When people I meet discover that I’m a wine writer, the countdown begins to the inevitable, “A wine writer? What’s your favorite kind of wine?” I’ve learned, in the spirit of Bull Durham’s Crash Davis, to have my clichés ready. “Whatever’s open!” is my usual quip.

That usually earns me a couple of weak chuckles and I can move on to other topics. Why? Because if I try to answer the question honestly, I fall to stammering. An honest definition of my favorite wine is my “one hand clapping.” It changes and slides, depending on the season, the day, even the hour. When I try to think of the best juice to cross my palate – I can’t conjure a singular image.

That doesn’t mean I can’t try. When I do, little vignettes play across my cerebral cortex of times that I’ve tried this wine or that. I can recall opening a shipping box to pull packing material from a particular wine I’ve been waiting for, or the memories of a particularly good meal that the Sweet Partner in Crime and I put together to go alongside a bottle we’d bought on one of our travels. I can sometimes close my eyes and remember the music I was listening to when I experienced a certain wine. I still, however, can’t definitively identify a favorite.

While I may never be able to come up with a singular answer to that seeming simple question, meditating on it a bit made me consider why I like wine as much as I do – and I’ve come up with an answer that, for me, is good enough:

Every glass of wine, whether from a jug of cheap plonk or a thousand-dollar bottle of Bordeaux, tells a story, and wine tells more stories than any other beverage. Wine comes from earth, air, water and sun. (And yeast.) A glass of wine communicates the soil the grapes were grown in; how they were harvested; how long ago they were bottled. There’s a direct, unadulterated line from the seed through the harvest past the winemaker to the glass. And that’s pretty astounding, if you take the time to think about it.

Other alcoholic beverages require additional work. Beer requires mashed grain. Whiskey, vodka, rum, tequila – they need to be distilled. You can brew a craft beer in any of the 50 states and it’ll taste like a craft beer. I’ve seen bourbon from New Jersey and scotch from Washington. But pinot noir won’t grow in Maine. You’re not making good sparkling wine in South Florida. Each glass of wine communicates something unique. Scent. Taste. Flavor.

I don’t have an extensive wine cellar, but there are some pretty good bottles down there. Many of those bottles came from trips that we took. There might have been something about the description of the wine that resonated with me – be it a detailed description of the terroir or just an interesting tale about how the winemaker came to follow that trade.

For instance, I have a number of bottles of pinot noir from a winery we discovered in Oregon called Libra. We tried these wines on the back deck of the home of the winemaker, Bill Hanson, at the end of a beautiful day. We swapped tales. We drank wine and watched the sunset. Is it the “best” pinot in the world? Who knows? But every time I open one of those bottles, I flash back to that deck, and it’s glorious.

In fact, the night I wrote this, I was doing dinner prep. Roasted duck breasts on sweet potato puree with wilted greens. I asked the SPinC what pinot she thought would go best. Without skipping a beat, she said, “One of the Libras.” She said later, after she read this column, that she’d pictured that moment on Bill Hanson’s deck before she made the suggestion.

Every civilization lives through its stories. Stories connect the present to the past; demonstrate place and longevity; and connect an individual to something larger. The story, the ritual -- that’s what keeps me coming back, and that’s my favorite thing about wine.

*************************

So as not to leave you empty handed on Christmas or New Year’s – you might need a bottle of sparkling wine before heading out this time of year. If you’re looking for a bottle under $10, you can’t go wrong with my old faithful – Freixenet Extra Dry Cava. In the black bottle. Simple, basic bubbly that’s good with just about anything, food-or-occasionwise.

If you’re thinking under $15, consider Da Luca Prosecco. This Italian sparkler was the bottle we cracked as an aperitif when my family came calling for Thanksgiving. Prosecco makes you happy, and it goes delightfully with almost any appetizer that you might want to throw down.

And if you want to spend up to $25 for a bottle to ring in 2014, I’d be hard pressed to find anything better than Mumm Napa Brut Prestige. Extremely elegant, flavorful, and appropriately celebratory. I think you’ll like it very much. If you don’t – I’ll be happy to take any unopened bottles off your hands.

And with that, The Naked Vine closes the books on 2013. Thanks for continuing our mutual wine explorations. May your year be full of good health, much happiness, and excellent times.

Later days.

Mod Ozzfest 2013 – A New Year's Taste of Australia

Another orbit of ol’ Sol is complete, bringing us back once again to the reasonably-annual Naked Vine New Year’s Feast & Festival of Sloth!

Ground Zero for the festivities

This year has been challenging around Vine HQ, personally and professionally. The Sweet Partner in Crime and I decided we needed to get away for a couple of days to unplug. For both logistical and financial reasons, we decided to stay close to home. We rented a cabin near Natural Bridge State Park and Red River Gorge for a couple of nights and decided to take our cooking show on the road.

Last year’s Feast ‘n Sloth (interrupted slightly by an exploding car radiator during an ice storm) focused on the cuisine of NewZealand. We cast about for ideas and decided to stay in that corner of the world. Australia hadn’t been on our list of “interesting cuisine destinations” until we discovered…Mod Oz!

The lineup.

For most of its history, Australian cuisine revolved around aboriginal cooking and the meat-pie-and-Vegemite imports from Great Britain. These comfort food-ish recipes lacked something in the “zing” department. Over the last 20-25 years, the increasingly multicultural population has begun harnessing Australia’s riches of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as its panoply of proteins. Modern Australian cuisine, better known as “Mod Oz” cooking, is a mashup of these traditional recipes with a crazy train of Thai, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, French, German, Lebanese, Vietnamese and Mediterranean cuisines. Intriguing? You bet.

One of the hallmarks of Mod Oz, aside from the lovely sounding combinations of flavors, is the relatively quick cooking time. Australians, it seems, love to eat but don’t want to spend a lot of time pent up in the kitchen. Right in our sweet spot! We found some recipes, hit the store, stocked up on a number of Australian vino selections, packed up Jessie Louise (Queen Diva of all Beagles) and headed for the Cliff Eagle Chalet.

Just getting warmed up.

We arrived mid-afternoon. We didn’t want to just show up at the cabin and start cooking, so we bopped into a nearby Subway for a salad to split as a snack. We got our keys, unloaded our groceries, split the salad, and opened our first bottle of wine – the D’Arenberg 2012 “The Broken Fishplate” Sauvignon Blanc ($16). A “fishplate” is part of a grape harvesting mechanism on a tractor, apparently. The salad – sweet onion chicken teriyaki, if you’re wondering – hit the spot, raised our blood sugar, and actually went well with the wine. (As an added environmental bonus, we ended up repurposing the salad container for all subsequent courses.) The Fishplate was grapefruity and crisp. We found this sauvignon blanc much less grassy than many its New Zealand counterparts. Very clean drinking and tasty. We saved most of the bottle for later.

Chicken & Kumara Curry

Our hunger slaked for the moment, we settled in for a bit, tested out the hot tub, watched a little TV, and eventually got around to starting work our first “official” recipe for the trip: Chicken & Kumara Curry. (Recipe links will take you over to The Man Who Cooks for further instructions.) “Kumara” is the Down Under term for “sweet potato.” We paired this with the Frisk 2012 “Prickly Riesling” ($10). The “prickly” refers to a slight effervescence in the wine – very similar to a Moscato d’Asti. The flavor is also reminiscent of an Italian Moscato, although not quite as sweet. Plenty of peach, tropical fruit, and melon flavors packed therein. The little bubbliness cleaned up the sweetness, creating a friendly quaff that was also a very nice pairing with our fabulous curry.

[Subway container repurposing: prep bowl for sweet potato. We also provided a beagle treat with each course. This time: sautéed chicken scraps.]

Pleasantly full, we slipped quickly into full flop mode for the rest of the evening. Come the morn, we took it easy for our breakfast course. We started our day about as simply as we could: Nutella on toast with a banana on the side. We wanted to ease into the goodies to come…because, boy howdy, was there some good stuff coming down the pike.

What's not better with Nutella?

The good stuff started with brunch, my favorite meal of the day. However, brunch usually doesn’t come in the form of King Prawn Salad with Peas, Asparagus, and Sweet Almond Dressing. One simply cannot do a set of Australian meals without throwing some shrimp on the barbie and these critters were grilled to perfection. We paired this loveliness with Wishing Tree 2009 Unoaked Chardonnay ($11), a creamy concoction packed with green apples and a little vanilla. On its own, pleasant enough, but when the creaminess of the wine met the richness of the prawn meat, what emerged was a little slice of heaven. We picked and slurped and made yummy noises for a good long while.

[Subway container repurposing: transport tray to and from the grill. Beagle treat: a few steamed prawn shells.]

Mmm...prawns!

After watching some basketball, the out of doors came calling. The weather was chilly but pleasant. We started the marination of a future course, bundled up, and headed to the Rock Bridge Trail in Red River Gorge – one of the loveliest short hikes in the United States. The beagle was in fine fettle – setting a blazing pace, attempting to clear the woods of rabbits, and working on clearing brush with her frantically wagging tail.

Beagle in gear!

After a record-breaking turn of the circuit, we returned to the Cliff Eagle for a float in the hot tub and the preparation of our next creation, Mussels in White Wine & Garlic Sauce with Pepperoni and Yellow Pepper.

Swimming in the broth is permitted.

What started off as a pretty standard steamed mussel preparation turned quickly into a headfirst dive into the pile of shells. Greedily, we pulled the mussels from the shells and let them float in this rich, delicious broth so that we could simply spoon it all up, bouillabaisse style. We had this with the rest of the bottle of Broken Fishplate. While the spice from the pepperoni made a bit of a funky pairing initially, the meshing improved as the course went on. Delicious.

[Subway container repurposing: shell graveyard. Beagle treat: a few pepperoni slices.]

More relaxation time ensued. Time passed. The sun dropped below the horizon. As night came on, we removed the final course from the fridge to allow our marinating meat to come to room temperature. As it warmed, we did a side-by-side tasting of two bottles of Aussie Shiraz: Mitolo 2010 “Jester” McLaren Vale Shiraz ($14) and Elderton 2008 Barossa Shiraz ($20). I can’t recall ever doing an Australian Shiraz regional comparison. We tried them with a couple of cheeses – an aged Gouda and a Parmesan-esque hard Italian cheese.

As a rule, Barossa Shiraz tends to be bigger, fruitier, and higher in alcohol, whereas McLaren Vale Shiraz tends to be somewhat more subtle in its brawny nature. These two bottles illustrated that very rule quite nicely. The Jester’s main flavors were cherry, bittersweet chocolate, and slate. It was full flavored without being overly heavy. It brought out some nice flavors in a rindy, Parmesan type cheese. The Elderton was darker. There was more of a rich plum flavor with thicker, heavier body and tannin. It was a better match for the aged Gouda we brought along.

Meat! Meat! Meat!

I was very curious how the wines would go with our “main” course, Lamb Kabobs with Mike’s Garligorge Sauce.  Our meal contained almost two full heads of garlic between the marinade, the garligorge, and the side salad we made from the leftover rocket, caramelized onions, shredded Italian cheese and sweet almond dressing. We discovered that the Jester may be one of the best wines to accompany garlic The Jester cut through the garlic and went well with everything, but…deer lawrd…the Elderton and the lamb were nothing short of utterly awesome, and I nearly wet myself after smearing the garligorge on the lamb. MOAR SHIRAZ!

[Subway container repurposing: Grill transport. Beagle treat: trimmed lamb fat.]

With full bellies, we settled in to watch what remained of a couple of bowl games and eventually New Year’s Eve festivities (but no bone movies). As the clock neared midnight, we broke out our last bottle, the Paringa 2008 Sparkling Shiraz ($13), to toast in 2013. The countdown began and I worked on the bottle. The ball dropped just as I worked the cork out.

Pfft.

The cork was flawed. There was no carbonation whatsoever, rendering the wine a sweet, vinegary mess. Oh, well – we’d more or less had our fill by that point anyway. We improved, filling our flutes with what was left of the Elderton, toasting in the new year with big ass red wine and a Lindt truffle. A rainstorm started outside and we crashed not long after, listening to the drum solo on the roof.

Bacon and beans. How can you go wrong?

New Year’s Day dawned. We were a bit bleary both from wine and from the random staccato the rain devolved into as the night went on. We had one more meal at the cabin before departing. An Australian “Fry-Up” – which is very much along the lines of your usual bacon and eggs – except instead of a side of potatoes or grits, the Aussies start their day with a side of baked beans. (“Our beans come from a can, as God intended” one Australian cooking website helpfully instructed.)

[Subway container repurposing: Bowl for dog food. Beagle treat: BACON.]

Replenished, relaxed, and ready, we bid adieu to the Cliff Eagle and said hello to 2013, with a newfound curiosity for Australian wines in our hearts and palates. We already have something interesting planned for next year’s jaunt, so watch this space around this time in 2014. It’s gonna be a doozy.

Happy New Year, everyone! 

New Year’s, New Zealand

Welcome to 2012, everyone! May it be an excellent year for us all. This year’s started off with a bang here, thanks to the welcome return of the Naked Vine New Year’s Feast & Festival of Sloth.

For the last couple of years, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I haven’t been able to prepare our usual table. For the uninitiated, we usually pick a theme or region of the world, get a bunch of wine, hunker down, and cook a raft of recipes to pair with them. This year, we decided to do New Zealand. Why?

Well, aside from the whole notion of discovering new cuisine, I’d picked up a couple of relatively high-end New Zealand pinots in my wine-shopping “travels” a year or so ago, and I wanted a good excuse to do a side by side tasting. So, armed with this notion, we took to the reference sources to find foods and to the wine stores to collect other wines. Here they are:

We quickly discovered that New Zealand hasn’t historically been a big contributor to international cuisine. New Zealand is historically known for the “boil-up,” a Maori dish of boiled pork, squash, and whatever else is lying around. Since we both prefer low country style if we’re just going to boil meats and such, we needed to be a little more creative. Thankfully, the invasion of hobbits also brought along some very interesting Asian & Australian fusion cuisine, so we decided to approach it from that angle. (Maybe not completely authentic, but hey…it’ll be tasty…)

New Zealand, of course, is known for sauvignon blanc. They make unique versions. Many of the commonly found ones are from the Marlborough region, although there are more and more available domestically from Hawkes Bay and Wellington. (Together, these latter two are called “East Coast” wines – and they are the “first grapes to see the sun each day” because of their geographic location.)

Another difference this year…the advancing of years first gave us the idea to do our little culinary adventures in the first place and do an all-day feast. The still-advancing years (and our wildly successful “Channiversary” celebration) had us stretch New Year’s Eve into a full weekend’s better-paced gluttony. So, away we go…

Friday – New Year’s Eve Eve

Our first course was a “New Zealand Fish & Chips.” Baked sweet potato fries alongside some mussels, steamed in a red vermouth and garlic sauce. (No real recipes for these. The sweet potatoes were cut into strips, coated with olive oil and tossed with salt, pepper, and garam masala. The mussels were – well – steamed up with the aforementioned sauce.) Next to this little bit of yumminess, we put Cloudy Bay 2011 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. ($20) The Cloudy Bay was a very pleasant, mineral-laden sauvignon blanc with a strong lime-citrus flavor. Just before I served the mussels, I added some parsley to the sauce, and that worked nicely, playing off the traditional New Zealand-y herbal flavors in the wine. We kicked our little adventure off with a bang, to be honest.

Next up was a roasted red pepper soup with seared scallops, paired with Villa Maria 2009 Cellar Selection Marlborough Riesling. ($17) This is the first New Zealand Riesling that I can remember trying. Based on my experiences with the sauvignon blancs, I expected this to be a big, fruity Riesling. I couldn’t have been more off. This is a lean, aromatic wine that really reminded me more of an Alsatian Riesling than anything else – although it had a wee bit of sweetness there. Actually, this became a theme with the non-Sauvignon Blanc wines we tried. Most of them were lean and minerally, regardless of varietal. As for this one, I found lots of lime and lavender on the nose. “Crisp and cool” was my note.

The food pairing note I have was simply “OH MY GOD IS THIS GOOD.” This was easily the best pairing of the whole weekend and was honestly one of the best hand-in-hand food and wine pairings that I’ve had in the last year. I can’t begin to explain why. It just works. Trust me. It’s an easy recipe, too. Try it. Trust me!

Saturday – New Year’s Eve

A lazy New Year’s Eve in front of us, we spent the day relaxing on the couch, watching crappy bowl games, as is our tradition, and we started getting peckish. For Christmas, we’d been given a Hickory Farms-style sampler, and one of the cheeses was something called “Brick Cheese.” Turns out it’s a cross between cheddar and swiss, and one of the recommended pairings is Chardonnay.

I braved the crowds and brought back a bottle of Oyster Bay 2009 Marlborough Chardonnay ($11) from the store to go alongside. This was a really interesting wine. As we were discovering, this wine was full of crisp citrus and mineral flavors, but the oak gave it a little bit of butterscotch. with a little butterscotch from the oak. Again, lime was a major flavor in the mix. We decided that, had it been from anywhere else in the world, we would have thought it to be a sauvignon blanc. It reminded us of Sancerre (a French Sauvignon Blanc) a little. You know, it actually went really nicely with the Brick.

The dinner hour came near, and it was time for what I thought would be the main event, cracking open these two pinot noirs from Pyramid Valley Vineyards. These pinot noirs, called “Earth Smoke” and “Angel Flower” are from adjacent vineyards, one of which faces north – the other facing east. I was curious to see the differences. These were both from the 2008 vintage, so they may have been a little young. Still, I thought it would be tasty. We decided to pair them up with grilled beef medallions with a cauliflower-broccoli hash, but we wanted to try these wines first.

These may have been the two lightest pinot noirs I’ve ever tried. They looked almost watery, but they were fully-formed, although super-delicate wines. I think they were definitely young – probably a couple of years away from full maturity. They were…well, like nothing I’ve ever had. I started with the Angel Flower. My note says, “I have no frame of reference for his wine. Smells like wind blowing across a meadow and pond. Delicate and fascinating. A wine to be drunk rather than paired.” That said, there really wasn’t much else to this wine other than the interesting delicateness. There were some spice and some berry flavors, but nothing overly strong. The SPinC said that the smell reminded her of the “Divinity” dessert from Stuckey’s that she’d long ago sampled on the byways of  the Midwest on the drive to Grandma’s house.

The Earth Smoke had, as implied by the name, a little bit of a smoky, earthy undertone – as well as some strawberry but still, the delicacy of the flavors were hard to catch. The SPinC said that these wines “don’t taste like anything in the world, and I don’t  know if they’d pair with anything in the world.”

Still, we tried. We put together the meal – and, not surprisingly, even something as simple as the grilled beef overwhelmed it. We pulled a random Australian pinot noir from the rack, and it was a better match. I didn’t regret opening the wines at all to assuage my curiosity, but I’m glad I have a couple of other bottles in the cellar to stash for a couple of years.

After that, we had a fire in the backyard, then popped a bottle of bubbly as 2011 came to a close…

Sunday – New Year’s Day

We slowly recovered from our revelries and finally got the energy up to do some exercise. By this point, it was mid-afternoon, so we decided to split our last day’s meals up. We figured we’d be fine with one dish for the day. This time, we went with a Kim Crawford 2008 East Coast Pinot Grigio ($12) to go alongside a spicy ginger ground pork in lettuce wraps. Something a bit lighter, you know. Turned out to be a very nice pairing. The pinot grigio was quite tasty, full of apples and pairs, again with a backbone of that lime and mineral. Cooled down the heat of the pork nicely and just made for a nice little meal.

For that evening, we decided to just have some leftovers and relax. We figured that we’d do the last pairing the next night. Well, you know what they say, “life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”

Monday – Black Ice

I had to go to work on Monday. My office doesn’t have windows, so I didn’t realize that while I worked away that afternoon, the roads were slowly becoming covered with a bizarre black ice event. There was a 30 car pileup on the interstate, which I didn’t hear about until after I almost fell on my ass going to my car. On the way home in bumper to bumper traffic, my car overheated. (The mechanic told me later that my radiator had actually exploded -- a “baseball-sized hole” in the top of the radiator qualifies as an explosion in my book.) I was stuck for three hours in 20 degree weather on the side of I-275, waiting for a tow. Needless to say, I didn’t feel much like cooking when I got home. So, we strung things out for another day.

Tuesday – The Finish

I make a killer risotto. And one of the recipes we’d found during our research on New Zealand cuisine was a Mediterranean-inspired risotto with asparagus and mint. Now, this would have been a more appropriate meal for springtime, but hey…it’s summer in New Zealand, right? Since I had feeling in my extremities, I cooked this up for us to enjoy to close out the feast. We had this with the And Co 2009 Sauvignon Blanc – an SB from Hawkes Bay. It had a fascinating top – it was sealed with a beer cap. (Which, honestly, would be the best way to seal any wine for longevity.) We took one sip and just looked at each other for a second. 

It’s unlike any other EnnZedd sauvignon blanc we’ve ever tried. It bills itself as “old world wine in the new world” and it certainly tastes more like a white Bordeaux than a Marlborough sauvignon. The nose is full of almonds and apples. It’s medium bodied, braced with more apple and pear flavors and just a hint of herb. There’s barely a trace of bitterness. Seriously, I felt like the “bitter” taste buds on the back of my tongue were taking a rest. Then came the meal. The asparagus risotto couldn’t have found a better pairing. Since asparagus makes most wine go bitter, the complete lack of bitterness allowed everything to mesh – the creamy risotto flavors and the milder fruit went hand in hand. This was a strong runner up pairingwide to the soup.

Automotive strangeness aside, I’d chalk this up as a success – and I would definitely recommend trying New Zealand whites other than their famous Sauvignon Blancs – especially if you’re a fan of minerally offerings like you’d find in Oregon or France.

Happy New Year, everyone!

#NakedVineNewYear

Happy New Year, everyone!

We've stretched our New Year's celebration over a few days, so follow the feast on Twitter at #NakedVineNewYear...