Drinking Honeyed Sunlight -- Sauternes

Close your eyes. Picture standing in the middle of a field of honeysuckle. Breathe in that scent. Now, imagine someone’s picked all of the flowers and drained the nectar into a glass, added a little apricot essence, and gave it to you to drink. Sip. Taste it. Let it sit on your tongue like a honey comforter. Swallow. Let the honey and fruit dissolve in your mouth for the next two or three minutes. Focus on the blissful. Then look at the bottle of Sauternes you’ve dropped some serious coin on and smile.
I really didn’t expect to spend $70 on a bottle of wine. Really.
I’m in the midst of putting together a three-part series of columns on wine and cheese, as you know. (If you’ve not read the entries on soft cheeses or hard cheeses yet, follow those links.) I was starting on the third – stinky cheeses. The Sweet Partner in Crime and I had the luxury of a rare free weekend during this crazy part of the year, so we had the opportunity to take an afternoon, relax, and gorge on wine and cheese. The cheeses we picked were Taleggio, Stilton, and Roquefort.
I have a great book, What to Drink with What You Eat, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. We call this our “Book of Armaments” for wine pairings. There have been a few times I’ve disagreed, but for“classic” pairings, they’re spot-on. They made some suggestions – the Taleggio called for an Italian red, which I didn’t want, so I went with Riesling; the Stilton’s classic was port; and the Roquefort – labeled in bold, all-caps, with an asterisk (translation – make sure to try before you die!) – was Sauternes.
I gulped a bit. Sauternes is a sweet, white wine made in Bordeaux from Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Muscadelle grapes. Because of the climate in this region of France, there’s a fungus called Botrytis cinerea (also known as “noble rot”) that attaches itself to the grapes, causing them to partially raisinate while still on the vines. There’s not nearly as much juice. An entire vine might yield enough juice for a single glass of wine. The wines taste sweet and have basic flavors of apricot, peaches, and honey.
Because the yields are so small from the concentrated juice, Sauternes and other “botrytized” wines are ridiculously expensive. A bottle of Château d'Yquem (the most famous Sauternes producer) will set you back $200+. More “pedestrian” versions can be had for around $70.
Considering the high costs, just realize this wine exists because some lazy winemaker with baskets full of moldy grapes said, “Screw it…let’s press these bad boys and see what we come up with!”
I had no intention of purchasing a Sauternes. I’d consider a bottle a ridiculous luxury, since I’m not a huge fan of dessert wine. I couldn’t imagine dropping that kind of coin on a bottle that I wouldn’t just drink. I went back to the Book of Armaments and found that Riesling & late harvest Zinfandel were acceptable with the Roquefort.
A’wine-shopping I went. Picked up Riesling and headed over to the dessert wine aisle to get a bottle of tawny port. I snagged it and happened to glance at the next rack of bottles. There they were, the Sauternes, beckoning. The lowest price was $50 for a half bottle. I must have stared at these bottles for ten minutes until the epiphany came:
“Go big or go home.”
I picked out a bottle in the middling price range. Chateau Clos Haut-Peyraguey 2001 1er Cru Classé Sauternes. 2001 was the year the Sweet Partner in Crime met yours truly, so I was hoping that would be good karma.
There are maybe a dozen bottles of wine that have left me utterly speechless. The SPinC called it an “Apricot-honey flambé.” I simply closed my eyes, slowly rolled my head side to side like Stevie Wonder, contemplating the fruity silk explosion rolling across my palate.
I expect sweet wines to be syrupy. The Sauternes was certainly thick, but because the viscosity is from glycerol (a product of the noble rot) rather than excess sugar, it’s the sheer power of the fruit flavors themselves that create the sweetness.
We were both stunned but said that we couldn’t imagine just drinking a bottle of this by itself. Along came the cheeses and assorted noshables that were to complement the cheeses & the wines. The Roquefort and the Sauternes were every bit as heavenly as I thought it would be. Roquefort is a powerful blue cheese, but the Sauternes was strong enough to hold up solidly, deepening and accentuating as the thick wine and the creamy cheese worked together as a delightfully melty experience. The port was listed a classic pairing with the Stilton, but something about the combination of the Stilton & pears with the honey of the Sauternes was one of the most unique, wonderful flavor combinations I’ve tried.
Then came the topper. The “perfect pairing” with Sauternes is foie gras, which is goose or duck liver paté. Not exactly something you can snag at Kroger, but I was able to find a substitute that was slightly less expensive and close enough. I first tried it spread on a cracker, but the flavor was cut too much – then I tried it again…just a big hunk of the paté, followed by the Sauternes. I almost fell over in delight.
The combination of those flavors – sweet, savory, salty, bitter, sour, fruit, meat, depth. Like perfectly cooked steak and cabernet, the sensation cements the fact that I can’t be a vegetarian. This pairing was nothing short of sexy, causing me to blurt out:
“Holy crap! That tastes like sex feels!”
This was a major moment of blissful exaggeration, and I’m lucky not to have received a well-placed backhand from the Sweet Partner in Crime. Seriously, it tasted naughty. Foodgasm.
Sauternes isn’t going to make my regular wine rotation anytime soon. We go through a lot of wine, and Sauternes is too delicious to be anything but savored. I also have no idea where this Sauternes ranks on the “absolute scale of Sauternes,” and I don’t care. We wrapped ourselves in unexpected decadence for a glorious evening.
More please.

Wine and Dinner of the Month Club – October 2010

Well, I’ve had a good run with the monthly dinners, but at some point good fortune runs out. That’s pretty much what happened with this month’s entrée. I would still recommend trying this dinner and the wine was excellent. Just give yourself plenty of time and don’t get frustrated, like I did.

• Menu
  Shrimp Cocktail
• Chesapeake Bay Classic Crab Cakes with Smoked Gouda Béchamel
• Steamed Asparagus and roasted sautéed red potatoes
• Pumpkin Cake with Apple Cider Glaze

2007 Lily Chardonnay

First, a little context. Due to Christine’s travel and some of our other commitments the only night available to make the October meal was Sunday, October 31. This was Halloween, and in our neighborhood that means about 300 kids traipsing by our house between 6 and 8 pm. I didn’t want to wait until afterwards for dinner, so I decided to make it beforehand. This put me under a little time pressure. The shrimp cocktail was easy enough. I just boiled fresh, deveined shrimp for about three minutes and then removed the shells. I put some ice in Margarita glasses with cocktail sauce and arranged the shrimp on the rim of the glass for a nice presentation.

On to the crab cakes, where my troubles began. The recipe was easy enough to follow, but I did not do a good enough job emulsifying the oil in the mayonnaise to keep the crab meat together so when I drenched them in the bread crumbs, they just fell apart. I got a little (okay, a lot) frustrated and finally just mixed the crab meat and bread crumbs all together like a loaf. The result was that, instead of a nice bread coating on the outside of the cakes, there was about four times as much bread crumbs as necessary mixed all the way through the cakes. I also had to add another egg to keep the cakes “glued” together. The result of course was cakes that were dry and a little tasteless, though they did look okay. However, the smoked Gouda béchamel turned out well and was particularly good on the asparagus, which I steamed. The potatoes I boiled whole for about 10 minutes and then sliced and sautéed them in olive oil with dried rosemary. One other issue I encountered was timing everything to be ready at the same time, and I think I used every pot, dish and inch of counter space in our kitchen, as you can see from the picture.

The dessert actually worked out well and was super easy. Just mix a can of pureed pumpkin with a box of yellow cake mix and bake. That’s right, just those two ingredients. No eggs, no milk, no water, nada. Once it is cool, mix up the glaze and drizzle over the cake. Both Christine and I were amazed how moist it was without any extra liquid or eggs. Enjoy, and we’ll see if things turn out better next month.

TNV’s Guide to Wine and Cheese – Part II (hard cheese)

Last time, we looked at where cheese comes from and looked at a few soft cheeses. I thought we did a pretty decent job of reviewing the cheeses, but my Uncle Alan is a big fan of Brie de Meaux – which I panned. As he put it, “Grasshopper, you have learned much about the grape, however your understanding of the mysteries of God's other great gift is f’d up.”

He may be right, and he’s got free rein to put together his brie recommendations in this space. (Seriously.) Still, it takes different strokes to move the world, yes it does, and as I’ve always said, let your palate be your guide.

This time around, we’ll look at some hard cheeses. As we discussed last time, the basic process of cheesemaking is to allow milk to sour and curdle, allowing the solids to settle out into curds, leaving the liquid whey behind. The curds are then pressed into balls, blocks, or logs; the whey is drained off; and you’ve got cheese.

A cheesemaker will sometimes add a complex of enzymes called rennet to the curdling milk. Rennet can be found in the stomach of any mammal. It greatly speeds up the coagulation of the solids in milk, allowing the body to begin working on digesting the proteins and fats. The rennet added to cheese is normally harvested from the stomachs of kid goats or cow calves.

When rennet is added to a batch of curds and whey, the curds form more quickly and more tightly. The whey is then drained away and the curds are put into molds for pressing to extract more water. When the water is gone, the bacteria still in the cheese actually act as a preservative, allowing aging. As a cheese ages, the flavors gain complexity.

We looked at a range of cheeses from semi-firm to hard. Again, we tried to pair with wines that were suggested as “classic pairings.” For this tasting, the Sweet Partner in Crime and I invited our friend, The Hanging Chad, to assist us with our tastings. Our cheese board:

• Mild cheddar (pairing: oaky California Chardonnay)
• Sharp cheddar (pairing: young California Cabernet Sauvignon)
• Gruyère (pairing: French extra dry sparkling wine)
• Parmesan (pairing: Super Tuscan – blend of sangiovese and merlot)

Let’s get it started:

Cheddars: Not to be confused with the TGIFridays-esque restaurant chain – cheddar is one of the more ubitquitous cheeses. It was originally made in England in the town of…wait for it…Cheddar. Cheddar Cheese differs from many other forms of cheese because of the “cheddaring” process, in which the curd is kneaded with salt and then sliced into large blocks, which are left to age anywhere from a few weeks to a few years.

In general, the longer the aging, the sharper the Cheddar. Mild cheddar is usually only aged for a couple of months, while sharp cheddar can be aged for over a decade.

Do not confuse actual cheddar cheese with various “cheese foods” like Easy Cheese (“Fromage Facile” if you want to be hoity toity) labeled with the name. Cheddar cheese has a somewhat pungent flavor which gets amplified as the cheese ages. Cheddar cheese is normally either white or very pale yellow. Those bright yellow cheeses you see all have additives – usually annatto or paprika

Starting with the mild cheddar, which just tasted like…well…cheese, the addition of the chardonnay was a good one. The wine brought out the full flavor of the cheese, which includes some smokiness. The smokiness was mellowed with some cream and the fruit emerged in the wine. The two went well together. The cabernet was also a pretty good pairing. The flavors were certainly complementary, but in a more full way. The sparkling wine was just OK. As Chad said, “The sweet dullness of the cheese thumps through the bubbly, but doesn’t do much else.” As for the Super Tuscan – it tastes like one of those “wine/cheese balls” you can get. Not particularly interesting.

The sharp cheddar with the cabernet was a mixed bag among us. I really liked it. I thought it made the flavors meld pleasantly, while both Chad and the SPinC thought it was considerably worse than the mild cheddar and cabernet. The chardonnay simply made the cheese and wine go “flat.” It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t much of anything else. The bubbly made a combination that was much too pungent. As for the Super Tuscan, it amplified everything. Or, as the Chad cribbed, “Too much tang in the ting tang, too much zing in the zing zang.”

Gruyère: Gruyère is a hard cheese made from cow’s milk. Gruyère originated in Switzerland. Interestingly, Swiss Gruyère is a solid cheese, while French Gruyère is governmentally mandated to have holes. (The cheese from Switzerland that traditionally has holes is Emmental.) After Gruyère is pressed, it’s brined and then ripened at room temperature from two months. It’s then cured for between 3-10 months. It’s often used in cooking, as its flavor typically amplifies flavors in foods without overpowering them. It does have a somewhat distinct “funk,” which adds an earthiness to food.

With the sparkling wine, the cheese gave up the noise and gave up the funk. The flavors all blended nicely. Or, as Chad so nicely put it: “It made a great cheese sauce in my mouth.” With both the Chardonnay and Cabernet, the experience wasn’t as good. We all thought the Chardonnay clashed badly. I noted that it was an “absolute waste of alcohol” to mix these two, and I thought that the cabernet forced the cheese to submissively go belly up on my palate. Similar comments came from Chad and the SPinC, but mine were funniest. With the Super Tuscan, we all agreed that it was ok but unspectacular. About as neutral a pairing as you could find.

Parmesan: Parmigiano-Reggiano is actually the name of this cheese, if you want to be most accurate. Parmesan is the French bastardization of the word, but has come to mean most Italian-style hard cheeses that are cooked rather than pressed. Cooked? When this cheese is made, once the rennet is added and the curds have dropped out, the temperature of the vat in which this occurs is raised to about 130 degrees, further speeding up the curdling process. The curds are then drained, heavily pressed, and put in a brine bath for about three weeks. After brining, the cheese is aged for 10-36 months before it is deemed ready for consumption…and we consumed it.

With the recommended Super Tuscan, we thought it was OK, but not fabulous The strong flavors in both meshed reasonably well, but it didn’t blow any of us away. With the Chardonnay, the SPinC simply said, “Clash. Ugh.” Chad and I concurred. The Cabernet was too sharp. Chad found it particularly problematic, saying that his mouth was on “dessicative fire.” The bubbly didn’t work, either. The flavors seemed to fight. Bottom line, it’s great with pasta or in various foods, and drizzled with balsamic vinegar it’s pretty good – but find another cheese for board purposes.

Next time, we conclude with the stinky cheeses.

TNV’s Guide to Wine & Cheese – Part I (Soft Cheese)

(Note: This series goes out to Dr. Randa. Here’s your daggone wine & cheese column…)

Mmmm…cheese.

Wine and cheese are inextricably linked. Both are the delicious products of well-managed fermentation. Both can be found at almost any gathering where noshables are present. And there are darned near endless varieties of each.

(The two are also at the core of one of my favorite sports quotes of all time. The immortal Sam Cassell called the assembled at UNC-CH’s Dean Dome a “cheese and wine crowd” during his Florida State days. It’s an apt descriptor of the usual level of crowd noise there.)

An important note of irony – as much as we think of wine and cheese going hand in hand, it’s exceedingly difficult to “perfectly” pair wine and cheese. There’s so much variation in individual wines and cheeses that it’s nearly impossible to say with confidence, “This type of wine always works with this type of cheese.” This difficulty gets compounded when you have multiple cheeses with a wine. Still, in the name of science, let’s press on.

There’s a basic process in most cheese production. Milk is allowed to ferment (sour) at room temperature. Certain kinds of mold and bacteria can be added during the fermenting process to impart more distinct flavors. The milk then separates into solid curds and liquid whey. The whey is drained off, the curds are pressed and often salted, and there you have it -- cheese. (Specifically, at this point, it’s cottage cheese – which was Little Miss Muffett’s “Curds and Whey.”)

For firmer cheeses, an enzyme called rennet is added to the fermenting milk. This accelerates the curd separation process. The curds are then often cut into small cubes and pressed into balls or logs. Soft cheeses stop here. Harder cheeses are pressed into molds and squeezed tightly, forcing out more of the whey and creating a firmer, drier product. This, in turn, allows the cheese to cure for a longer period of time. The harder the block, the longer a cheese can age.

Cheese can be classified in any number of ways – by location (much as many wines are); by texture; by flavor; by price; and so on. For our purposes, I’m going to use a three part classification: soft cheese, hard cheese, and stinky cheese. I’ll pick some cheeses for each category that you should be able to find without too much difficulty, along with what is normally considered the “classic wine pairing” for each. Just for fun, we’ll try each cheese and each wine together. Let’s start with soft cheeses. We chose these three:

• Fresh mozzarella (pairing: Chianti)
• Brie (pairing: extra dry sparkling wine)
• Chevre (pairing: Sancerre)

For information’s sake, Sancerre is a delicious, minerally sauvignon blanc from the Loire in France. It’s a little on the pricey side, but I was in the mood to splurge for this experiment. You could substitute a less expensive French sauvignon if you wanted. Extra dry sparkling wine usually works better than brut in my experience. The Chianti should be young. Aged Chianti will lose its complexity. How did things work out?

Fresh Mozzarella – While Mozzarella can be made from cow milk, it’s traditionally made from the milk of the domesticated water buffalo. Until I met the SPinC, I thought you only found mozzarella in baked pastas and on pizzas. I was used to seeing it shredded, imprisoned in a plastic bag instead of fresh, capable of being eaten alone. It’s a “clean” tasting cheese – which is to say that it doesn’t have much of a flavor in and of itself other than “milky and slightly granular.” With the Chianti alongside, it was OK. The cheese calmed the acidity of the wine a bit. It was decent but lacked something, so we ended up making little sandwiches with bread dipped in balsamic vinegar and olive oil, some fresh basil, and hard sausage. (Basically, we used all the things Chianti tastes good with.) It didn’t disappoint. With the sparkling wine, the yeasty flavor of the sparkler came out, but it wasn’t all that interesting. The Sancerre showed as far too acidic. There wasn’t enough flavor in the cheese to balance the wine and the gentle flavor of the wine got lost. Recommendation: mozzarella is a much stronger complimentary player. Consider serving it Caprese salad-style – with basil, tomatoes, and really good balsamic vinegar – instead of just by itself. Stick with Italian reds if you want to pair it.

Brie – The best known soft “party platter” cheese. You’ll usually see this cow’s milk cheese with a white rind, which is the product of the addition of rennet to the curd. The rind is edible if you’re so inclined. The cheese has a lasting, creamy, buttery flavor with a little bit of funk to it. Sparkling wine is the recommended pairing. The bubbles cut the fat & funk and mellow the flavor of the cheese. It’s pleasant. The Sancerre makes the cheese more funky, and the complexity of the wine is completely lost. The Chianti was a disaster. The chalkiness and acidity of the Chianti was as complementary towards the cheese as your average Kentucky basketball fan is towards Christian Laettner. Recommendation: like you need another excuse to bust out a bottle of bubbly.

I made an initial bobble with the brie. I initially bought a chunk of “Brie de Meaux,” an aged brie. When brie is aged, it gets very strong flavors – including ammonia (which is created in the fermentation process.) It’s supposed to be good soaked in café au lait, but I’m not that brave. It was disastrous with all the wines. Stick with the cheaper brie. Brie de Meaux…Neaux.

Chevre – Chevre is French for “goat.” Goat cheese has a tarter flavor than most cow’s milk cheeses because of the makeup of the milk itself (which is actually close to human milk). It often reminds me of buttercream frosting in consistency. There’s a little funkiness to it, but it’s largely a smooth, creamy experience. Sancerre is the pairing here for good reason. There’s something about the makeup of the two together. Fruit, creaminess, tartness, minerality – all balanced and working together as a heavenly, fluidly balanced combination. While there may be no “perfect” pairings, this is close. The sparkling wine was interesting. The thick buttery consistency initially gets stripped away by the bubbles and a blast of minerality & yeast, leaving sweetness and cream behind. An interesting, lively combination. As for the Chianti, my first comment was, “That’s really kinda nice!” An acidic vs. buttery contrast, but still pretty decadent. Recommendation: If you’re doing a soft cheese on a platter and you don’t know what kinds of wine you’ll have, you can’t go wrong with chevre. Easily the most interesting, wine friendly cheese that we had.

Next up – hard cheeses.

For Mooch.

 

“Do you like dogs?”

The Sweet Partner in Crime and I had been dating for a few weeks when she invited me to swing by her place for some food and a glass or three of wine. My family had had dogs while I was growing up, although my sister was much more interested in them. I like pooches, though, and since I had some obvious ulterior motives, I answered in the affirmative. She continued:

“Well, I’ve got two of them, and they’re pretty big.”

Yeah, yeah – so what? Big dogs? I can handle big dogs. I came to the front door, knocked, and heard them bark. The Sweet Partner opened the door and my life changed forever. Before I could take a step, I was nearly bowled over by 70 pounds of fast moving black fur. Paws to chest, face to face, and major greeting kisses. A relationship was born. The SPinC eventually warmed up to me, too…

(Side note: I was also bowled over by Jessie Red, who had no less of an impact…)

The SPinC got Mooch from the county animal shelter when he was a few months old. He’d been turned in twice, so finding my sweetie probably saved Mooch from an early dirt nap. He was a handful -- willful, listened when he felt like it, and always on the prowl for some kind of mischief. (As the SPinC said recently, “A quarter of the words I said to him were “NO, MOOCH!”) He was an unrepentantly bad boy who had a sense of duty and honor that would draw salutes from many Marines. He saw his life’s purpose in perimeter patrol wherever he found himself, protecting all in his sight from the hellborn threat of cats and squirrels.

Mooch didn’t look like any other dog I’d seen. He was a strikingly handsome mutt – the neighborhood bitches couldn’t get enough of him. Some posited that he might have had some golden retriever blood, but we didn’t buy that. Retrieving wasn’t his thing. But if a cat found its way into the yard? Mayhem. Mooch knew trigonometry. When he chased a cat, he’d run them towards the highest fence in the backyard. The critter would invariably try to jump the fence and end up sliding back down. Mooch was ready. When the cat hit the fence, rather than follow, he immediately calculated the precise end of the cat’s unfortunate parabola – and he’d run straight to that spot and wait, mouth open. We figured him for a German shepherd/Australian shepherd mix. Where the jet black came from? Anybody’s guess.

He earned his name with his somewhat unconventional yen for people food. Our kitchen needed constant Moochproofing. We like good food, and Mooch developed a refined palate. Mooch would turn his nose up at table scraps. He wouldn’t eat fat cut trimmed from any kind of beef or pork. Ham held little interest for him. But bring seafood anywhere within a block of the homestead, Mooch goes nuts. Salmon skin was his closest touch of heaven. We could never get him to stop playing our heartstrings for fish. (And it occasionally worked.)

Anything on the counter was fair game. I diced some tofu for a stir fry, left the room for a second, and came back to the sight of Mooch, both paws on the counter, face down, going to town on a pile of soy protein. I also have clear memories of watching Mooch effortlessly snag a roast beef sandwich from the unsuspecting hand of my father (an easy target for such subterfuge).

The Sweet Partner and I usually end our day with some two-bite brownies and some good red wine. We really enjoy them – you know who else does? Mooch. We made the mistake of leaving some of these brownies on top of the sofa. This was in Mooch’s older days when he wasn’t getting around very well. He’d not climbed any of the furniture in several years. This time, though, we came back to an empty brownie container and an old dog with a new craving after he answered the brownies’ siren song.

I always joked with the SPinC that her adoption of Mooch paved the way for my entry into the family. When you get right down to it, Mooch and I were a lot alike. We’re both somewhat obnoxiously alpha, a bit twitchy, always keeping eyes out for a million things, and with attention spans that a fish can put to shame. We also try to make sure everyone’s safe, show a great deal of passion, love fiercely, and will do just about anything for a good scritch. Mooch was the first dog that I ever really understood. He was the one who made me really understand what a “dog person” was. I think we ended up training each other.

We put Mooch to rest a few weeks ago. His first, well-deserved break after fifteen years of constantly protecting the family. We buried his ashes in the patch of hostas where he used to love to flop while we were on our patio. (We’d also been keeping his big sister’s ashes, but we decided to put the two of them together. They’d always been inseparable.)

Mooch was the Sweet Boy and the Smoocher -- the eternally mobile speed bump in the kitchen. He greeted us every morning with bright eyes and furiously wagging, blackflowing tail that looked like it could have been on one of the squirrels he kept away. He always appreciated the chance the Sweet Partner gave him to show that he’d be a good part of a family. Just as I appreciated being a part of Mooch’s life. He taught me so much.

I was lucky enough to be scratching him behind the ears when he passed from our world.

Goodnight, sweet prince. And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

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

Bad Dog Ranch 2005 Petit Sirah – A pretty easy call to look at this wine. Big nose of prune and cedar. Lots of dark fruit on the palate, but the flavor slides away a little quickly. Interestingly, the fruit returns on the finish along with some very solid but well-balanced tannins. A solid value petit sirah.

Boekenhoutskloof 2009 “The Wolftrap” Red Blend – Who knows? Maybe Mooch was part wolf? This red blend is from South Africa. Made up of syrah and mourvedre, with a little viognier thrown in for good measure. It has an unexpectedly vanillaish nose and was quite tart initially. Although it was lighter bodied and more acidic than I expected, this wine went exceptionally well with the aforementioned two-bite brownies.

Magnificent Wine 2008 “Fish House” Columbia Valley Sauvignon Blanc. We raised a glass of this to him over a pot of shrimp, mussel, & asparagus risotto. The wine went perfectly with the meal, but we would have had a difficult time eating this if Mooch had been around. He’d have been at the table, smiling broadly, asking for a bowl of his own.

Wine & Dinner of the Month Club – September 2010

This month’s entry heads to South America for both the main course and the wine. Only one recipe was found online, so I will try to reference the other sources and describe how they are made.

Menu
Fried Green Tomatoes

Churrasco (Beef Tenderloin) with Three Herb Chimichurri

Green Salad and Oven Baked Potatoes

Sweet Cherry Cobbler with Chocolate Truffle Crust

Wine
2007 Bodega Goulart Malbec

The wine this month is from Argentina and for a food pairing Mike at TNV suggested the following – MEAT! MEAT! MEAT! As an alternative he also suggested MEAT! But if you’re vegetarian you could go with lamb (see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, 2002). I was trying to find a good recipe and found one in How to Grill: The Complete Illustrated Book of Barbecue Techniques by Steven Raichlen (© 2001 by Steven Raichlen). The grilling was pretty straightforward, but the preparation was a little involved. You start with center cut beef tenderloins, slice them thin and then pound them to a quarter inch thickness between pieces of plastic wrap. This process tenderizes the meat and also is a great way to work out any frustrations from your day at the office. You then marinate the meat in a three herb chimichurri made up of parsley, cilantro, mint, garlic, olive oil, white vinegar, salt and pepper, and water. The recipe for the marinade is also in the book How to Grill. Place the meat in the chimichurri and let it sit in the refrigerator for about an hour. Reserve some marinade for serving later.

I next started the potatoes. I cut these into French fry size pieces, coated them in olive oil and herbs (rosemary, sage, marjoram or whatever else you want to use) and put them on a baking sheet. Cook these at 475 degrees for about 20 minutes, turning them a couple times to cook evenly. Watch these closely so they don’t dry out.

While the potatoes cooked I make the appetizer, fried green tomatoes. These are really simple. I took green (unripe) tomatoes from our garden and cut them into slices. I coated them in cornmeal and fried them in olive oil until golden brown on both sides, seasoning with salt and pepper while cooking. I served these with a homemade aioli, which I made by mixing some olive oil, salt and pepper, and lots of garlic with some mayonnaise. Simple and delicious!

While the potatoes were finishing cooking I grilled the meat. On a hot grill cook the meat about four minutes on each side, depending on how rare you like it. I did ours about medium. I plated it with the potatoes and a green salad with ripe homegrown tomatoes. We had some of the meat left over, which made for great steak salads the following night.

I had made the dessert before and it is always a hit. The recipe is for 12 servings but you can always cut it down to whatever number of servings you want. Usually you would top this with ice cream but we used whipped cream. Mmm, mmm, good!

As for the wine I can honestly say, wow! It had very luscious berry and cherry flavors and I think when I poured it I thought I got just the slightest whiff of tobacco. The color was a deep ruby red. This was definitely a food wine, as I don’t think I could sit around drinking this by itself. It went great with all the courses of the meal, nicely offsetting the garlic in the aioli with the fried green tomatoes, complementing the steaks and herb chimichurri, and, because of the berry/cherry flavors in the wine, it also went surprisingly well with the dark, sweet cherry and chocolate flavors in the cobbler. I would definitely buy this wine again, especially to go with steaks off the grill. Thanks to Mike for another great recommendation.

Box Wine II – Electric Boogaloo

You may remember back in the late aughts when my dear neighbor Christine the Pie Queen challenged me to write a column on box wines. After some careful thought and consideration, we ended up throwing the First Annual Box Wine Extravaganza.
Somewhat embarrassingly, a couple of years have passed. A lot of wine has been poured across the alley during that stretch, but we hadn’t managed to re-extravaganzize. This year, though, a solid confluence of events stacked the boxes clearly in our path. We were back in business. We coupled the box wine tasting with a reprise of her hubby Jeff’s ribs and let the good times roll.
A quick refresher on box wines. Yes, you can still get your sugar-water box of Franzia or Vella if you really want to make huge batches of sangria, but box technology has improved greatly over the last several years. Advances in production have allowed winemakers to put wines in these containers that can last weeks if not kept cool and months in the fridge.
For a long time, winemakers used box wine as a way to get rid of some of their inferior juice – and there are still clearly cases of that, like the aforementioned Franzia. A couple, however, latched onto the idea that putting halfway decent table wine in boxes for easy consumption was a winning strategy. Three years ago, you’d struggle to find anything other than cabernet, merlot, chardonnay, Riesling, and white Zinfandel in boxes. Now you’ll find malbec, sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio, and any number of other varietals. Europe has long “boxed” table wine, and some of those are making their way to American shelves as well. As more wines appear on the shelves, quality tends to rise. (Although we have a cautionary tale below.) Prices range from $15-20 for most boxes.
So, in hopes of finding some decent wine, we cracked open four at the Extravaganza:

• Pinot Evil Winery Pinot Noir
• Folonari Pinot Grigio
• Bota Box Chardonnay
• Red Truck “Mini Barrel Red”

I have different expectations for box wine. I wasn’t looking for any kind of thunderously outstanding vino. When I pour box wine, I want something I can drink pleasantly without thinking too hard. I approached the judging in a very simplified manner. I made a few scoresheets with the following statements:

1. 1) This wine tastes good.
2. 2) This wine tastes good with food.
3. 3) I’d drink this wine at home.
4. 4) I’d recommend this wine.

People simply checked “yes” or “no” for each statement and added comments if they wished. Each “yes” gave a wine one point. The totals were averaged to determine an overall score. The results?
Folonari Pinot Grigio – Score: 4. The winner of the day. Straight yesses on the scoresheet. “Unassuming, but very pleasant” was one comment. Another noted that it went “very well with the potato salad.” This particular potato salad, interestingly, had olives in it. In retrospect, it makes sense why an Italian wine would be particularly good there. I thought that it was exceptionally drinkable, especially on a warm day. For a setting like our little shindig, it was the right wine for the right time. Around $20 for a box. Folonari also makes a Pinot Noir of which I’ve read some positive reviews. It’s on the list for down the line.
Pinot Evil Winery Pinot Noir – Score: 3.75. Personally, this was my favorite of the four. I didn’t know how well pinot noir would translate to this form. Most inexpensive pinots I see are domestic, but this was a French import. Regardless of ancestry, I thought this was a very solid, lightly fruity summertime option. “Very good. Dangerously drinkable.” was one comment (with which I totally agreed). More than one person mentioned that it was peppery. Also works well with a slight chill. A nice choice for either the patio or living room. Around $18.
Bota Box Chardonnay – Score: 3. Bota Box (along with Black Box and Angel Juice) was one of the first “quality” box wine producers that I started seeing regularly. They’ve won awards for their Zin and their Shiraz, and I was curious about their whites. The results were positive, but not overwhelmingly so. “Drinkable, but not that great” was one comment, balanced by “Me like it!” I thought it tasted like someone made a basic, semi-fruity white wine and made “adjustments” to make it taste more like a traditional chardonnay. A hint of butter and oak are certainly in evidence, but they tasted like afterthoughts. There was also some sweetness that I didn’t think belonged there. Still, folks seemed to like it enough to drink it up, so it’s got that going for it. $17.
Red Truck “Mini Barrel Red” – Score: 0. Nope. That’s not a typo. The scoresheet was a universal sea of “no” answers. “Cute packaging. Too bad the content doesn’t measure up.” That sums it up nicely. The packaging was certainly interesting: a small metal “barrel” that’s not obtrusive or unattractive with “feet” that make it stand up. The downside – the wine inside was…well…not good. Somewhat sweet with a vinegary edge. For cooking wine – maybe, but this wine was at least $10 more expensive than the other wines we tried, and the quality was nowhere close. Very disappointing. Box wine is supposed to be economical. Unless there’s a real reason to spend more, why? I think many people saw this wine on the shelf and thought the same. Assuming the wines are of similar quality, why pay $30 for red in a slightly cuter package when you can pay $20 and get something just as serviceable. I suspect that the “cask” I bought had been on the shelf for quite some time and had gone over. If they bring the price point down to a more competitive level, this might be workable. Until that happens, make sure you check the date on the wine and ask your wine store how long those containers have been there. Buyer beware.
And a little something for the kids:

Planet Bordeaux (Syndicate, Fool!)

Mike Wangbickler of Balzac Communications recently gave me the opportunity to get a first look at “Planet Bordeaux” – the new marketing project by winemakers in the Bordeaux region. The project’s mission is to help people realize they can afford Bordeaux wines of quality without either leasing their first-born or slugging the scrapings from the bottom of fermenting tanks. “Folks can afford Bordeaux as an everyday wine. It doesn’t just have to be for collectors,” said Mike.

First off, a quick review of Bordeaux wine. Bordeaux is arguably the most famous French wine region (the argument would come from their Burgundian neighbors). Some of the most expensive and sought after wines in the world call this slice of France home. Red Bordeaux is always a blend of cabernets sauvignon and franc, merlot, petit verdot, and malbec. White Bordeaux is a blend of sauvignon blanc and semillon.

Red Bordeaux, even though they’re a mix of some varietals that we may think of as heavy, tend to be lighter-styled, tannic reds. Even inexpensive Bordeaux can have complexity to the flavor. There’s usually an earthy or “cigar box” aroma and flavor along with the dark fruit, and finishes that are long and tannic. White Bordeaux usually are quite acidic, minerally, and have floral or herbal scents and flavors. They’re also usually very light in color. The deeper colored whites have more Semillon and tend to be heavier.

The mystery, allure, and frustrations of Bordeaux can often be traced back to the caste system for wines. In 1855, a “ranking system” for French wines was developed based on terroir, winemaking quality, overt and covert bribery, etc. The “best” single vineyard chateaux were classified into five “growths” – the Premier Crus are Chateau LaTour, Chateau Margaux, Chateau Haut-Brion, and Chateaux Lafite and Mouton Rothschild.

Below these are the AOC wines – wines from a certain region. These are your regional wines – Chateaux that can call themselves “Bordeaux” but aren’t in the “growth” rankings. The grapes must be grown in Bordeaux, but they come from one chateau or commune’s holdings, although they’re not necessarily single vineyard products. These tend to be a step below the “classed growths,” but are still considered from reasonably to really good wine. You know you’re looking at one of these wines if you see the following words on the bottle:

• Bordeaux Rouge (Red) AOC
• Bordeaux Supérieur Rouge AOC
• Bordeaux Rosé AOC
• Bordeaux Clairet (Dark Rosé) AOC
• Bordeaux Blanc (White) AOC
• Bordeaux Supérieur Blanc AOC
• Cremant de Bordeaux (Sparkling) AOC

Below AOC is “Vin de Pays” – a region’s “table wine.” Vin de Pays simply means that the grapes are grown anywhere in that region, but they can be from anywhere therein.

So, the top grade goes for hundreds of dollars a bottle. Collectors hoard these. Thus, there’s always a demand. The vin de pays can be found anywhere. It’s inexpensive. Thus, there’s always a demand. The AOC wines, trapped in the middle, were faced with quite a quandary. These wines are quite a cut in quality above the vin de pays, but many aren’t much more expensive. Imagine you’re a winemaker and you’re putting together quality product, could make a profit with a relatively low price point, and are still a really good deal in any case. If you could only get the word out – people would snap it up, right?

Enter the Byzantine (or would that be Gallic?) world of French wine law. There are restrictions on marketing. Chateaux and communes cannot partner to market their wines. They have to work individually, for the most part. So, not surprisingly, the Chateaux with the most cash get the most run in the press, since they can afford the publicity. The best selling AOC red Bordeaux is Mouton-Cadet – a little side project of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. You can find that Bordeaux almost anywhere. It’s almost as ubiquitous as Duboeuf’s Beaujolais.

So, along comes Syndicat Viticole des appellations controlees Bordeaux et Bordeaux Supérieur, also known as the Bordeaux Syndicate (not to be confused with Rhyme Syndicate). The entire region figured that since they can’t market against each other – they’d market alongside each other! “Planet Bordeaux” (online at http://www.planete-bordeaux.eu/) followed.

Thanks to Mike and Balzac, I was able to procure a few of the Syndicate’s samples. We had three bottles – one white and two red. Thoughts? First up, the white:

Château Thieuley 2009 Bordeaux Blanc ($14) – We opened this one weekend afternoon when we just needed something good to sip on. I was surprised at the nose on this wine. I expected more citrus, but I got a lot of melon scents and some yeast. The taste – it’s a nicely balanced flavor of thick citrus and mineral. The finish is soft and lingers for a bit with a touch of acidity. This wine probably deserved a dinner pairing, but hey – we were thirsty! “You can tell it’s not top line white Bordeaux, but it’s very drinkable,” commented the Sweet Partner in Crime. We moved on to the reds:

Château du Lort 2006 Bordeaux Rouge ($13)

Château Mirambeau Papin 2006 Bordeaux Supérieur Rouge ($20)

The difference between Rouge and Supérieur Rouge? The latter come from older vines as a rule, and they also must be in bottle for at least a year before release.

One tip: Bordeaux Reds MUST be decanted. The young ones need decanting to smooth their edges. The old ones need it to open up all of their potential yummy goodness. The contrast in both these wines was pretty remarkable once we let them sit for a bit. We tried them on their own first.

The “standard” had only a slight “Old World funk” on the nose -- more of a fresh-cut wood and some blackberry. The body starts almost tartly and hangs in there before transitioning into a tannic, graphite like finish that’s moderate. Not very earthy, if you like that kind of thing. The Supérieur had much better balance. The extra time in barrel smoothed off some of the tartness and gave it a “broader” nose – some earth, some fruit, some wood. The taste was quite pleasant, not too powerful or earthy, and with a nice transition of blackberry and cherry into tannins that hang in gently for awhile.

With some lamb loin chops, the standard red actually did quite well. The lamb calmed down the tannins and cut down on the edges of the tartness. The flavor became brighter and fruitier and turned into a nice contrast. After a few sips and bites, the Supérieur emerged as a dark, fruity sidecar.The Supérieur’s subtler flavor merged much more as an “alongside” flavor than the “standing out” flavor of the standard red.

After a couple of hours, they continued to evolve. The regular became “brighter” – with almost a floral bit on the nose. The Supérieur became deeper and darker, adding plums and tar to the nose, The regular red’s sharp edges smoothed and the wine balanced much more. Even so, I personally thought the Supérieur was a better wine all around.

Marketing or not, I think anyone who’s really interested in learning about wines owes it to themselves to form a decent idea of a region’s style and flavor. These AOC wines from Bordeaux give a nice window into those profiles, so these would all be good “starter” wines to help you develop a true sense of a) whether you even like these wines and b) whether you want to explore some more.

Technorati Tags: Bordeaux

Italian Indigenous

As you might remember from our Italian Wine Primer, there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,000 grapes indigenous to Italy. Variety may be the spice of life, but that much variety makes the initially-confusing Italian wine nomenclature a straight must to keep the musts straight.

(Yes, yes. I know you’re not supposed to explain your own puns, but in case you’re wondering, “must” is WineSpeak for “freshly pressed grapes.”)

Luckily for us, there are only a few dozen commonly used grapes in Italy, so the major grapes aren’t usually that difficult to keep straight. Most of the others are grown in relatively small quantities and used in local table wines. However, as winemaking technology improves and becomes more and more available to smaller growers, some of these lesser known varietals – each with their own unique characteristics – are starting to find their way off the Boot.

If you’re looking for a change of pace, some of these wines can make very interesting alternatives. I suggest speaking to your local wine guy or gal about them. Also, since they’re not as well known, they tend to be pretty good values for some reasonably tasty juice. Here are a few that I’ve tried recently:

Mustilli 2008 Piedirosso Sannio – Sannio is a subregion of Campania, situated northeast of Naples. Piedirosso is the grape, used almost exclusively in this region. The wines made from Piedirosso tend to be on the lighter side. On a warm summer evening as I was whipping up some marinara from garden tomatoes to serve over some gnocchi, this seemed like a pretty good match to me. I wasn’t disappointed. It is indeed very light – about on the level of a Beaujolais-Villages. In fact, I’d certainly throw this out as a substitute if you like that sort of wine. I’d recommend a slight chill on it, just like a Beaujolais. It’s got a very nice cherry/pomegranate flavor with only a hint of tannin. There’s a little bit of that Chianti-ish “chalk” flavor as well, but only a hint. With I may have “over-basiled” the sauce a little (if such a thing is possible), and it was able to tame that flavor without getting overwhelmed by everything else. A really nice light red alternative with any kind of tomato-ish dish. $13.

Feudo Arancio 2008 Stemmari Grillo Sicilia – Sicilia, obviously, is Sicily. Grillo is a white wine grape. Stemmari is…well…the name of the product line. Sicily has extremely hot growing conditions and Grillo works well in those climates. Grillo is best known as one of the grapes used to make Marsala. (Marsala is a place, not a grape…surprise!) Hot weather grapes often have very strong flavor profiles. It’s quite aromatic with strong floral and lemon aromas. I thought it started just a bit sweet and then tails off into a moderately citrusy flavor. There’s a bit of oiliness to it similar to Viognier. The finish is semi-dry with a few lemony flavors on the aftertaste. It’s a pleasant enough quaffing wine. It held its own with a pseudo-vichysoisse that we created one night and served alongside some “everything” bagels with smoked salmon. A very flexible food wine. You’ll find it for under $10 – an extremely solid value.

Cascina Gilli 2006 Freisa d’Asti – Freisa is a lesser-known red varietal in Piedmont. It’s overshadowed by Nebbiolo, from which Barolo and Barbaresco come; and by Barbera & Dolcetto, the more common “drinking wines.” Freisa yields a tannic, acidic wine like Nebbiolo, but it lacks the power and fullness you’ll see from that grape. This isn’t a bad thing. You end up with a wine that can stand up next to fairly heavy food without being heavy and overpowering itself. Case in point, I recently made eggplant parmesan – one of my specialties. It calls for a muscular wine. The Friesa reminded me of a light Zinfandel with a little Chianti “chalk” thrown in. It pointed up the pepper and the garlic in the sauce while still cutting through the earthiness. I would imagine it would also pair nicely with anything Zinfandel would work with – like barbecue or ribs. Besides, any grape varietal that Robert Parker describes as “totally repugnant” is worth a try in my book. $15-18.

Wine and Dinner of the Month Club – August 2010

This month’s entry includes the meal and wine description, but also a surprise visit that I describe at the end, so make sure you read all the way through. Is this just a cheap trick to get you to read the whole article? Sure, but I’m not above a little gimmickry for the benefit of the greater good.

Menu

• Tomato and Basil Bruschetta
• Seared Tuna Steaks with Peach and Onion Salsa
• Vodka Infused Watermelon

Wine
2006 Tavel Vin Rose

Originally I was going to go with either pork or duck based on a recommendation from Mike’s (of The Naked Vine) Sweet Partner in Crime, Pam. Unfortunately, earlier in the month I had some gum surgery that precluded me eating certain meats. The tuna steaks were a good alternative.

I prepared the steaks by coating them with olive oil and rubbing on some grated lemon peel and spices per the recipe. These I put in the refrigerator and then made the simple salsa which included peaches, onion, cilantro, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and also put this in the fridge.

To make the bruschetta I sliced a baked French batard and brushed both sides of each slice with olive oil and garlic. I toasted these in the toaster oven and then loaded them up with diced tomatoes and basil from our garden, a little drizzle of olive oil on top, and a dash of salt and pepper. I had already opened and poured the wine so Christine and I sat on the back patio by the pond enjoying the appetizers and the wine, which was immensely drinkable and food friendly. Mike told us this was the case and he couldn’t have been more right.

While Christine relaxed with a fresh glass of wine, I prepared the tuna. Tuna steaks are usually cooked rare so it doesn’t take very long to prepare them. I threw them on the grill for two and a half minutes for my steak and three minutes for Christine’s steak because she prefers them more thoroughly cooked. Once I took them off the grill I plated them up with the peach salsa on top. I completed the meal with a simple green salad and some cherry tomatoes from our garden.

The steaks were good, but both Christine and I thought the salsa make the meal. The sweet and sour aspects of the salsa really complemented the fish. The wine lived up to its billing and went nicely with the steaks. The wine had good texture but did not overpower the fish. Christine commented that it wasn’t very tannic and was very easy drinking. I highly recommend giving this wine a try.

After dinner we sat around the table and finished off the bottle of wine. We were pretty sure it wouldn’t go with dessert since dessert was watermelon that had been soaking in vodka all day. This dessert was super simple to make. I cut up watermelon into bite size pieces and put it in a shallow serving dish. I then poured in a mixture of lime juice, sugar, mint (from our garden again), and plain vodka. I poured in enough of the mixture to just cover the watermelon, put a lid on the dish and set it in the refrigerator the morning of the meal. To serve I simply spooned pieces of watermelon into bowls and poured a little of the remaining liquid over them.

You could certainly taste the vodka in the watermelon, but it wasn’t overwhelming and at the end you had a little watermelon flavored vodka shot at the bottom of your bowl. I think it might be interesting to try this with flavored vodka just to see what combinations you could come up with.

I alluded to a surprise visit earlier. Well, it wasn’t that we had a visitor, it was who we visited. I don’t know if it was the wine, or the vodka or both, but it was a pleasant evening and Christine felt confident that Mike of the TNV and Pam his Sweet Partner in Crime, who happen to be our back alley neighbors, would be sitting out on their back patio so she decided to go over and offer to deliver some of the vodka watermelon. Good friends that they are, they indulged us and Mike even gave us a sneak peek at their newly refinished basement with full on man cave and wine storage under the staircase for about 150 bottles of wine. That’s a lot of wine, but is there ever really enough storage for good wine?

As is usually the case when the four of us get together another bottle of wine was cracked open. Mike picked out a lovely dessert wine from Adelaide by d’Arenberg called The Noble. It is a blend of Chardonnay and Semillon grapes that have been infected with botrytis mold which results in high sugar content in the juice and high residual sugar in the wine. [Ed.note – a very tasty faux Sauternes!] Between the four of us we finished off the bottle, but it was only a 375 ml bottle and the alcohol content of the wine was only 9% so we didn’t really feel any ill effects as we toasted the renovated basement.

It was another great wine meal with the added benefit of ending it in the company of good friends. We loved Mike and Pam’s refinished basement. If you get a chance to visit it in person, you might find yourself with an inexplicable hankering for a burrito and some chips and guacamole. Just ask Mike to pick a nice wine from the cellar to go with it.

The Naked Vine Italian Wine Primer

Ah, Italian wine. Love it. Love it. Love it. As the foodie that I am, I’m hard pressed to come up with wine that goes better with a meal than Italian wines. After all, one of the few things that Italians do better than making wine is cooking, and because they’ve been making wine as long as they have, winemakers in each region have been tailoring wines to cuisine for centuries.

As such, each region’s wine varieties tend to be fairly consistent as far as the basic flavor profile goes. I wouldn’t choose to drink a lot of them on their own for one reason or another, but line up some steamed mussels next to an Italian pinot grigio or a Sangiovese with marinara-sauced pasta and you’ve got yourself a little slice of heaven.

The trick, though, is figuring out which of these heavily vowel-labeled bottles is the right wine. Like France, Italy’s gotten a little bit better about putting the names of grape varietals and/or descriptive blurbs in English on the bottle for the “ordinary American consumer.” For the most part, however, the traditional convention still holds. The names on the bottle are generally the producer and the region. The grape is often nowhere to be found. As I’ve mentioned before, I spent most of my pre-Vine life thinking that “Chianti” was a grape varietal instead of a region in Tuscany.

Further confusing matters are exceptions to this rule. Some Italian wines do put the name of the grape on the label as a matter of course. The name of the grape is usually followed by the name of the locale, so you’ll see wines like Moscato d’Asti, Barbera d’Alba, etc. The first one, for instance, translates as “The Moscato (grape) from Asti (the town).” You’ll even run into “Montepulciano d’Abruzzo” vs. “Vin Noble di Montepulciano.” The first is a fruity, easy-drinking table wine made from the Montepulciano grape. The second is a somewhat complex Sangiovese-based wine from the town of Montepulciano.

But why? Why stick to an antiquated, confusing system of nomenclature, especially now that the world has grown much more wine savvy? Why not just label the bloomin’ bottles with whatever the heck is in there?

The answer?

Two thousand.

There are at least 2,000 indigenous grape varietals in Italy. Gaining an encyclopedic knowledge of all the grapes in the Boot that go into their bottles of yummy would be next to impossible. So, how do you know what you’re getting?

The Italian government simplified matters for us a little. They created a classification system somewhat similar to the ones in France. If you look at most bottles of Italian wine, you’ll see “DOC” or “DOCG” somewhere on the label. Without going into too much detail, the DOC/DOCG designation shows that a wine was made in a certain region using pre-determined methods containing certain grape varietals. This usually aligns with the geographic region, but a grape will sometimes be included in the designation if the varietal is a specialty of the area – like the aforementioned Moscato d’Asti, et al.

In my experience, Italian wine is an experience where you largely get what you pay for. This isn’t to say that there isn’t really good inexpensive wine from Italy. Think about it this way -- if you blindly choose $30 Bordeaux, there’s a chance that you’ll end up with a wine inferior to the $10 dollar one on the rack nearby. Italian? $15 Chianti will be perfectly drinkable, but also usually consistent with its brethren of the same price point. If you splurge on a $30 bottle, you can usually tell a difference in quality (although you may not feel that difference was worth the extra moolah).

There are hundreds of DOC/DOCG growing regions, but many of them are extremely small and you probably won’t run into them very often. Here are some of the more common regions and DOC/DOCG designations you’ll run into at the local wine stores for your reading and drinking pleasure…

Region: Campania
Common wines you’ll see: Taurasi, Fiano, Falerno
Major grapes: Aglianico, Piedirosso, Primitivo (red); Falanghia (white)
General info: Campania is the region around Naples. The best known wine from there is a robust red called Taurasi made from the Aglianico grape. Fiano is a seafood-loving white and Falerno is another big wine made from Primitivo (Zinfandel). Much of the rest of the wine from there has traditionally been known as fairly generic, although it’s improved greatly in recent years.

Region: Tuscany
Common wines you’ll see: Chianti, Brunello di Montalcino, Vin Noble di Montepulciano, Rosso di Montalcino, Rosso di Montepulciano, IGT Toscana
Major grape: Sangiovese (red – not many whites in Tuscany)
General info: Ah, Tuscany – home of some of the most famous reds wines in Italy. Most Tuscan reds are backboned by the Sangiovese grape. Brunello di Montalcino is also Sangiovese, but a specific clone of that particular grape. There’s also “Vin Santo” – a sweet dessert wine. You’ll also find “super Tuscan” wines that are bigger and heartier. These are almost always Sangiovese blended with a non-indigenous varietal like merlot or cabernet, often to please an American palate. If you see “IGT Toscana” on the label, it’s probably a Super Tuscan of some stripe. The wines tend to be very flexible, since Tuscan cuisine is some of the most varied (and delicious) food in the world. However, in my opinion, these wines are not the best to drink by themselves. They need food to show their full potential.

Region: Piedmont
Common wines you’ll see: Barbaresco, Barolo, Barbera d’Alba, Barbera d’Asti, Dolcetto d’Alba, Dolcetto d’Asti, Moscato d’Asti, Gavi
Major grapes: Nebbiolo, Barbera, Dolcetto, Moscato (red); Cortese (white)
General info: Piedmont is the mountainous region in the northwest corner of the country. The bulk of Italy’s hearty reds come from this region – especially Barolo and Barbaresco. They’re some of the most famous of the world’s wines. Barbera is a big, juicy red and Dolcetto is a lighter, acidic red – both of which make excellent everyday wines in their “generic” form. The versions from “named” places (like Barbera d’Alba for instance) have more complexity. Gavi is a crisp white made from the Cortese grape (not to be confused with Dan Cortese) which makes an interesting contrast. Piedmont wines are built to stand up to heavier meats and sauces. Even the whites handle cream sauces easily. There’s also Moscato d’Asti – a low alcohol, sweet sparkling wine which may be the best brunch wine in the world.

Regions: Sardinia & Sicily
Common wines & grapes you’ll see: Cannonau (red); Malvasia, Vernacchia, Verdicchio, Moscato (white)
General info: The islands of Italy usually end up putting the names of the grapes on the label, so you can generally run with those. Both islands, especially Sardinia, produce quantities of dry, crisp white wines made from Vernacchia, Malvasia, and Verdicchio that go perfectly with shellfish. Sicily produces a huge amount of dessert wine. The most common red is made from Cannonau, which is currently getting a great deal of publicity for its hypothesized life-extending properties. Cannonau is similar to Grenache and often makes for powerful wines, but on the islands, they’re made in a much lighter, more aromatic style.

Region: Veneto
Common wines you’ll see: Bardolino, Valpolicella, Soave, Prosecco
Major grapes: Corvina, Sangiovese (red); Prosecco, Garganega (white)
General Info: The region around Venice cranks out a huge amount of wine. The reds are usually blends backboned by the Corvina grape. These reds tend to be some of the lightest bodied in the country. Many are often served slightly chilled, much like Beaujolais. There’s actually a “Bardolino novello,” made in a similar style as Beaujolais Nouveau. The whites, like Soave are usually fruity and more or less dry. The Valdobbiadene district is the home of Prosecco, Italy’s most famous sparkling wine. It resembles Spanish cava in many ways. Interestingly, with all the light reds produced in Valpolicella, it’s also home to the most powerful red wine in Italy: Amarone. Amarone is made from raisinated grapes, which yields a concentrated, potent (upwards of 15% alcohol), tannic, tasty wine.

There are 14 other major wine growing regions in Italy and literally hundreds of DOC & DOCG designations. It’s worth it to explore. Ask for your Italian wine expert at your local store. There’s usually one major “Italophile” in every shop. They’ll usually steer you correctly. But for basics, this should take care of you for right now. Hope it helps!

Kinkead Ridge gets some notoriety

Our friends of the Vine at Kinkead Ridge Winery get some well-deserved international kudos:

Internationally-recognized, award-winning Kinkead Ridge Winery will be featured in Opus Vino, an illustrated wine reference book ($75) which will be published in the US, UK and Australia in November 2010, with foreign language editions in 2011 and 2012. Only two Ohio wineries are featured in this book, which features 4,500 international wineries.

The winery (904 Hamburg Street, Ripley, Ohio) will re-open for the release of the 2008 red wines on Saturday September 4 and Monday September 6. The vineyard will also be open to the public (4288 Kinkead Road) on these dates, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The new releases are the 2008 Kinkead Ridge Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petit Verdot. The winery will also be open on September 11 from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., and will then close for harvest until the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

For more information, visit the website at http://www.KinkeadRidge.com or call 937-392-6077.

Festival of the Vine

(To be published in the Dayton City Paper.)
The demand for red wine in Lincoln Park was low this weekend.
Fraze Pavilion’s annual Festival of the Vine always brings out a crowd for sampling wine, kicking back to some cool jazz, and enjoying a shady afternoon. This year, however, with humidity approaching Evergladesian levels and heat indices to make Carl Nichols rethink his retirement, most of the crowd at the festival looked to be avoiding big mouthfuls of tannin.
However, the heat couldn’t stop the groove. A passing thunderstorm caused a brief scramble for shelter at one point, but for most of the afternoon, a steady diet of cool jazz and cooler wine kept the laid back attendees as comfortable as possible in the shade.
This year’s Festival of the Vine mirrored the previous ones. “Like in previous years, we want folks to get a chance to try a bunch of different wines, and hopefully they’ll find something that they like,” proudly stated Kevin Bratton of Heidelberg Distributing, provider of the 35 or so wines available during the evening. “We want to make sure that people get a chance to try things from everywhere. We’ve got New World – largely North American wine,” said Kevin, “We’ve got Old World wines and a sparkling wine tent. And we’ve got an Italian tent because of Claudio.”
This is a good strategy. With that many options, people will probably find new favorites. Festival of the Vine isn’t the kind of event where someone will be able to really *taste* different wines. What they will do is find out what wines are good to slug on a hot day, and that’s a good idea. On a 90 degree day, discussing nuances of torrontes vs. sauvignon blanc isn’t going to be a conversation I’ll want to have, but a “Yep. This helps me forget the heat for a second.” is.
The aforementioned “Claudio” is Claudio Salvador, importer of all the wines in the Italian tent and chief winemaker of Firelands Winery in Sandusky, Ohio. The same weekend as Festival of the Vine was “Toast of Ohio,” another wine festival in Northern Ohio. “I’ve got my crew up there taking care of that. I wanted to come down here!”
Claudio told me that he wanted to showcase some of his wines that were probably unfamiliar to many of the folks at the festival. “We like bringing wines in that people don’t necessarily know. They’re going to know them very soon. Everyone has Pinot Grigio, but with the whites, people haven’t usually tried Gavi or Grecho. Grecho, for instance, is originally from Greece. The Grecho is a very aromatic varietal. People think that it’s the ancestor of Sauvignon Blanc and such.”
Claudio said that he is planning to return to Dayton in November with some of the winemakers from the wines he was showing. “We’re going to do some dinners, which will all be just fantastic. We’re still figuring out exactly where we’re doing them.”
At Claudio’s recommendation, I gave the La Balle Grecho Basilicata a try. One a day like this, the crispness was a welcome respite from the heat. Fruity, acidic, and with a little bit of honey – I could certainly have imagined myself under one of the trees, wrapped around a bottle of the stuff.
I sampled a few of the other wines around the concourse as well. The Monticello Albarino was a refreshing quaff, as was the Grenache-based Belleruche Blanc, a white from the Rhone region in France. I also snagged a glass at one point of the Barefoot Brut sparkling wine. Despite the good banter at the tasting table – the conversation far outstripped the bubbly. The music outstripped both. 
Besides, doing heavy wine tasting isn’t the point of an afternoon like this. I’ll definitely lean towards relaxing and good jazz. As my newest friend “Ron from Atlanta” put it, “The wine doesn’t matter to me. I’m here for the music, man. I came up here for a family reunion. I heard [Nate White] was playing, and I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss him. He’s smooth!”
“Oh, and this weather y’all are having? It’s like springtime! I feel right at home.”

Wine Festivals -- a couple to choose from...

In case you're looking for something to do this weekend in the state of Ohio (or thereabouts), you've got a couple of options.

First off, Fraze Pavilion in Dayton is hosting the annual Festival of the Vine on Saturday the 14th. The festival starts at 1:00 in Lincoln Park, just outside the Pavilion itself. A free jazz concert runs until 7:00. There will be  over 30 wines for sampling and purchase by the glass. A ticketed concert featuring Jeff Golub, Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum and Peter White begins at 7pm. Your intrepid wine columnist and the Sweet Partner in Crime will also be wandering the grounds. For more information, click here.

For those of you in the more northern reaches, the Toast of Ohio Wine Festival is this week from Thursday through Saturday in Sandusky at the Sandusky Bay Pavilion. The event "features twelve Ohio wineries, gourmet food, live musical entertainment and an artist's showcase." Admission to the event is $5 -- which includes a souvenir glass and two tastings. For more information, click here.

Cincinnati’s Hidden Gem – The Summit

(Cross-posted at The Man Who Cooks.)
“I don’t think this is the second floor.”
The Sweet Partner in Crime and I were wandering the halls of a Cincinnati State classroom building, looking for The Summit – the restaurant that’s the centerpiece of the Midwest Culinary Institute at Cincinnati State where we were going to meet our friends Mike and Shelley. Music and the laughter of students having some kind of event on a Saturday night (which was cool to see at a community college) filtered down the hall, but there was no sign of a restaurant.
We discovered that we’d accidentally pulled up a floor short, so we climbed one more flight of stairs and found a small sign pointing us down a hall past a closed-up snack bar area typical of what you’d find in just about any student union on any college campus in the U.S. The hall was lined on either side with darkened (but impressive looking) test kitchens. Around another corner and there we were.
So, what is The Summit? It’s a fine dining restaurant largely run and managed by the culinary arts students. As such, it’s located in the academic building on Cincinnati State’s campus where the students get their training. We arrived and were greeted with a smile by the manager, Donna Schmitt, who poured us our first round of Albariño while our table was prepared.
We were lucky enough to be seated at the “Chef’s Table” beside a large window opening into the kitchen, so we could see this eager bunch of twentysomethings honing their skills. Having spent decades in the world of the academy, I know how important it is for students to get real-world, hands-on experience. Even though I’d heard really good things about the place, I still had it in the back of my head that these were chefs-in-training. I wondered just how good a student-run high-end place could be.
I don’t wonder any more. It’s good. Real damned good.
What the place lacks in décor, it more than makes up for in service and quality. The Summit’s dining room is little more than a large open room with 30-40 tables. There’s not a lot in the way of fancy décor – but we were there to eat after all, not stare at pictures or admire faux paint. Our server (name) informed us that the menu was left intentionally vague so that patrons would ask questions so as to give the waitstaff practice in discussing the ins and outs of each course. (There was only one minor bobble in the service – we had to ask for water.)
We also had a visit from the chef de cuisine, Matt Winterrowd (a former compatriot of both Jean-Robert de Cavel and David Cook of DaVeed’s), at one point. He gave us a unique experience. Have you ever been dreamily devouring a course at a restaurant and asked about the details of the preparation? Most chefs I’ve met are more protective of their recipes than mama wolves are of their pups. When the chef came to the table, we asked him about the preparation of this insanely good morel mushroom appetizer that three of the four of us ordered. Instead of being vague, he basically walked us through the entire progress – starting with the two stocks (mushroom and chicken) that he used as a base for the sauce and moving step-by-step through the prep. (Needless to say, there will be some replication attempts as soon as I find some good ‘shrooms.)
So, what did we have? Three of the four of us had an appetizer of morel mushrooms creamed in an Idiazabal cheese sauce with shallots and fresh oregano. Orgasmic, off the charts good. The SPinC was the outlier with a very solid choice – probably the best soft shell crab I’d tasted outside of Baltimore. It was presented with a salsa of black beans, lime juice, avocado, and chilis.
For entrees, Shelley and the SPinC had sockeye salmon topped with a parsley-based pesto in a roasted tomato sauce with roasted fennel and potato gnocchi. The SPinC greeted her meal with reverent silence for several bites, which is far from the norm for her while diving into good food.
Mike had handmade pappardelle pasta in a cream sauce with prosciutto, parmesan, and baby peas. As simple as the dish was – the freshness of the ingredients made the entrée memorable. Mike said it was “about best tasting pasta” he’d ever had. I hold Mike’s cooking skills in high esteem, so this is serious praise.
As for myself, I tried the “teres major,” which was a cut of beef I’d never heard of, much less tried. It’s sometimes called the “shoulder tenderloin,” and isn’t used often. It’s from the front of the cow rather than the rear. It looks like a very small filet and it’s sliced thin. Served up next to a cauliflower and porcini mushroom mash, grilled asparagus, and an absolutely scrumptious sauce that I embarrassingly cannot remember, I certainly enjoyed myself.
The four of us split a delicious artisanal cheese plate for dessert. There was a Tuscan Pecorino, a “Humboldt Fog” goat cheese, Mahon (another hard cheese) from California, and Maytag Blue – a delicious stinky number from Iowa.
Additionally, the SPinC and I split a “black and blue” – a blackberry/blueberry cobbler with browned butter topping some handmade ice cream. Mike and Shelley had angel food cake stuffed with strawberries and thyme with a buttermilk icing. By this point, we were beyond stuffed, but we were floating on a culinary cloud of goodness. And the cost? For the entire meal plus wine (they’ve got a very solid wine list, too), we got out of there for under $70 a person, including tax and tip.
This was one of the best dining values that I’ve experienced in Cincinnati – but there were less than a dozen tables occupied over the course of the evening that we saw. My guess is that the setting – finding one’s way through a college campus to get to the restaurant – discourages a number of people. It shouldn’t.
If you’re someone who needs five-star décor to go with your food, then the Summit isn’t for you. If you’re someone who appreciates good food and would enjoy a relaxed evening with friends where conversation and food can be the centerpiece, then you really owe it to yourself to give this place a try. Go. Quiz the servers, ask a bunch of questions, and enjoy. I can almost guarantee you a good experience.