A special Portuguese treat

Let me tell you how lucky I am: to enjoy wine and its journey that it takes you on is well enough, but to be able to sample great wines at the invitation of others is quite a bonus. Just a few days ago, I received an invitation from National Distributors to attend a special Portuguese wine tasting at 288 Fore Street. This was a small focused tasting with few attendees (probably more because of the ninety day than the exclusiveness) There were six tables showing three or four wines from Portugal with the actual winemakers showing there wares. I have learned that anytime you get a chance to talk to the winemaker you get real insight into the wine you are drinking, the culture and the business of wine.
Lynne and I drank white arinto, dao, duoro and red touriga nacional and some other grapes I cannot remember. The wines were elegant, displayed intense fruit character and sparkled with great color. We both were stunned by Donna Marie Arinto which was smooth, creamy with a soft fruit palate...ideal for seafood dishes. All I could think of was serving a Lobster dinner and pouring this wine. Casa de Santar showed a reserve dao white which was a touch oakey, buttery and sweet with a tingle of minerality, it was a jem, but it was not cheap either. I couldn't see my store selling it, but I could easily see myself drinking it. The reds were all served slightly chilled, this was to emphasize the fruity, berry like character. The CARM red blend vinho tinto smacked of cherries and blackberries and was so refreshing cool. Lynne and I found all of these wines to be easy to drink and dangerously so. It's a wonder why Americans do not take to Portuguese wines: their value price and drinkability alone make them irresistible. Perhaps it's their Old World lables with Casa de ... and Quinta de ..... and vinho verde and vinho tinto.
I feel if I could only get these bottles into peoples hands they would catch on like wild fire. Until then, I guess they'll hide in secrecy on my shelves waiting for the right adventurous drinker.
Before I leave, a quick note about Carlos from Casa de Santar. He is a pleasant middle aged man who looked more like a balding High School Principal than a winemaker, but Lynne and I enjoyed talking to him. I think he liked having people who were patient with his broken english. At one point he told us he had to go to Angola to tout his wines there and I blurted out..."oh, 'cause Angola used to be a Portuguese colony." and he just rambled from then on. He got quite excitable and insisted that I travel to Portugal and be guests of Casa de Santar for a week...you see how lucky I am...
Of course, all I have to do is get the time and money to do it.

Tempranillo Torres Style

One thing I have discovered that I am sure of during this journey into wine exploration: I LOVE Spanish wine. I was intrigued by it when I began to get serious about my education in wine and I continue to be enthralled by its flavor, body and adaptability. Perhaps it has to do with my affinity for the foods which crave the bravely fruity, yet mysteriously spicy and leather like wines I discover on a continuing basis.
At first, we all check out wine from Spain because of its enticing price point (most fall in the 10 dollar range and several top level choices can be had for under 30) but the journey can be difficult with many of the labels sporting the old world names, the Spanish language and the unfamiliar grape names. Miguel Torres is a world wide respected wine maker and his wines are an excellent start to a discovery of good Spanish wine. Sangre de Toro, his ordinary table version of Grenache is the most balanced and consistent wine we sell at Foodstop. Someday I will write a blog about that wine (its one of our top sellers), but today I'm writing about Torres' new entry. Banking on the name of Sangre de Toro, they have released a Tempranillo under that label. Tempranillo is the master grape of Spain and one of the giants in the wine industry. Very resilient and maleable in the hands of a good winemaker, Tempranillo (Temp*Rah*Nee*Oh)can develop well aged,blended or on its own. This particular bottle is quite simple; about 20% of it is aged in American oak and it is blended with unaged grapes. The result was a fruity, slightly structured red wine that was delicious upon first opening but then, as the oxygen opened it up, it became a full, jammy sweet wine...not my taste. I never seem to like the real fruity-smooth wines, like beaujolais, so I didn't finish the bottle. But I realize that there are people who like a relaxed red wine that is sweet and easy on the mouth. Ah well, I can't love 'em all!

Because all good things must

All good things MUST come to an end, and yesterday signaled the end of the wine tasting spree that began in earnest in March. Mariner Beverages hosted their first large format, traditionally styled wine tasting at DiMillo's Restaurant and managed to surprise and satisfy me. Not that I have anything against this wholesaler: in fact I find their approach to business fresh, young and energetic. But looking at their wine portfolio, I simply did not expect to find anything worth picking up this time around. I went into this show basically curious but really just wanting to show the flag and support Mariner's "Big Kahuna", Tim Wisseman.
Standout tables featured the Thunder Stone wines and its newer additon: Big Claw, a clean crisp white that features a Large Lobster Claw on its label...so you'll know what to pair it with. Crossroads wines from New Zealand also showed off the same old Sauvignon Blanc/Pinot Noir set, but they were surprisingly complex and defied the same old taste profile. When you go to shows like these and taste 35 - 50 wines, it's nice to be surprised sometimes...It's also nice to have your expectations met as well, so you really have to weigh a lot factors when tasting these samples. There is so much good wine out there that you begin to look for a definition of style that fits what you want to sell. For instance, I already have three excellent New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs that jump out like a basket of fresh grapefruit, now I can offer this Crossroads Sauvignon Blanc that is more mineral, grass and fruit...I guess I'm diversifying. The problem as a retailer becomes: But most customers have a profile in mind when searching for a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, so won't I just confuse them? Hopefully they will be adventurous enough to want to seek out the differences. Time will tell.
Finally, getting back to the show, there was a table of just Spanish wines, and all of the red wines were good, some were excellent, and all were enjoyable. Although we could have stayed another 45 minutes, after drinking those Spanish labels we unanimously decided to finish with some port and go home.
It was a great way to finish the tasting season and now I will have to wait until the fall for more opportunities.

A touch of Wine Snobbery

It was Mother's Day, after all, and I really wanted to make something special for Rhonda, so you will forgive my indulgence in an opulent choice of wine pairing.
But reader, let me tell you, this wine was a perfect pairing like Streisand with Redford, or Tracey with Hepburn. Let me rewind a bit and give you the menu breakdown so you can appreciate what I am talking about.
I worked Sunday from 6am until 1pm and from there I would go home and offer to cook dinner for Rhonda at any time she would prefer. Normally, she is an early eater and it was quite possible that she would ask for Sunday dinner @ 4pm, but today she was willing to eat between 5 and 6pm. Now I had already purchased everything I would need on Thursday, so I relaxed until 3:30pm when I finally jumped into action in the kitchen.
I prepared a salad which I have dubbed "Salad Rhondalaise" a romaine based light salad of Feta, pecans, craisins, with a touch of mushroom and cherry tomato with a splash of Balsamic Vinaigrette. This sweet and nutty intro was followed by the main course: Pan-seared Pork medaillions with Dijon mustard cream sauce supported by Red skinned mashed potatoes and fresh steamed green beans and soft rolls.
Talk about a classic French country meal, I was actually excited making the cream sauce and testing it out with pieces of pork (and so was my son, David)
Now to the good stuff. I had thought this out a week before, believe it or not, and decided to go with the French theme I had kind of come upon with the menu. I really wanted a red Burgundy and one that would shine with this kind of meal. I selected Joseph Drouhin's Gevrey-Chambertin. That's just a fancy way of saying: "I selected a French Pinot Noir that retails for about $44.00".
With Burgundy wine you will either drink white, which is solely Chardonnay, or red, which is solely Pinot Noir. But with few exceptions, you will not see the words Chardonnay or Pinot Noir printed on the label; instead, you will find the name of the village in the Burgundy region from which the wine was grown. With these particular wines I had the pleasure of attending a wine luncheon with Laurent Drouhin from the Joseph Drouhin family (you see why I called this post wine snobbery?) During this lunch we opened with the LaForet red, their basic table version of Pinot Noir and then followed it up with Chorey-les-Beaune, a twenty-three dollar Pinot and finished a rack of lamb with the Gevrey-Chambertin.
So I knew which one would pair well with the pork and deliver the knock-out punch for Mother's Day.
The Gevrey-Chambertin starts out with a strong, wooden feel on the tongue and then finishes with bright vibrant, almost too intense fruit. All of this is going on in a wine that is still quite delicate and light to the mouth. This created a devastating attack upon the pork entree and made the meat come alive. Again, Rhonda rose to the occaision and sampled the red although I held a Chilean Chardonnay in reserve, but she agreed that the Pinot Noir was delicious and she enjoyed the red grape with her dinner.
Dinner was a success and I logged it on my computer as a menu to save for future use.
If anything, I felt very confident in making the correct wine choice for a special dinner and to be able to do that for the love of your life is something worth noting. I hope you all try to find the "perfect pair" of food and wine and enjoy what a complete dining experience is all about.

South African Rose?

I worked a full day today and felt that I deserved a treat...I often do that. but to be fair, I also had a dinner plan in mind for my wife and I had an inkling of what to drink with it. In the end, my sense of "treat" and the feel of a summer day in the air led me to the cooler case in the wine room and I grabbed Juno Rose. Now, I'm not a big fan of rose, and I'm willing to bet you aren't either. Rose evokes bad wine advertisements from the seventies, bad porch parties with rebel ladies holding a pink wine glass and a Virginia Slim...."You've come a long way, baby!"
But truth be told, its Rose that's come a long way. There are many more options of rose to be sampled and some of them carry delicious notes of fruit and a touch of complexity that just add to the fun of drinking a chilled wine that almost goes down like Kool - Aid.
Kool - Aid was what I was craving, something refreshing and drinkable and not to complex, just fun. The Juno rose is actually made from the pinotage grape, that funky indigeonous grape of South Africa. If I explained pinotage to you it would take the entire post and it would leave you unsure about ever tasting it...it's just an acquired taste that I don't care for. But as a Rose? it's amazing! No soft watermelon strawberry wine here, this rose has character, a little dry, tart berry flavors and oh-so-easy to drink.
And did I say it's only 10 bucks?
Oh yeah, about dinner. I whipped up some crepes and added herbs to the batter. Made the crepes and rolled them with a duxelle paste, chicken and spinach. Topped those babies with alfredo sauce and served them with broccoli. The crepes were to die for, and the rose floated along for the ride, providing a light dry wash. It really got lost in all that flavor, so I really didn't do a good job pairing wine with the food, but that's what this neverending wine adventure is all about. Sometimes I miss, but I promise I will write about it all the same.
I am going to make this meal again, if anything, just to smell the duxelle cooking on the stove, and I will serve a full bodied French Chardonnay, like a Burgundy.
...but I will start the meal by serving the Juno rose to get the party started.:)

Starting over with a pizza

It has been a few days since my last post, and for that I apologize: a routine hernia surgery put me down for a few days, but more importantly, I was unable to drink of the vine and use the wonderful painpills the whitecoats prescribed me.
...that is until tonight. I actually worked for a few hours today and I have a couple of wine events scheduled in the next ten days, so I thought I might climb back into the saddle and have a glass (and skip the hydrocodone!) Now, I don't know about you, but when I have a real hankering for an easy glass of wine I think about pizza. After all, I have been making pizza for over 20 years and mediterranean wines pair so well with the ever versatile mediterranean meal we Americans have claimed as our own. On a regular evening I would have gone down into my basement and pulled a bottle of Sangre de Toro, or Renatto Ratti Dolcetto d'Alba, or any old Chianti to pair with a pizza, but since I am writing this blog and have recently added so many new labels to the store, well, I thought it my Merchant's Duty to select one of the new bottles and share. A good pizza wine, by my definition, is a red wine, dry perhaps, acidic enough to cut through the sauce, just fruity enough to bring out the tomato flavor, and a little spicy to give my meat toppings a "zing".
Oh, and the wine should be fairly inexpensive: cut off the price at 10 bucks, you're eating pizza folks, save the better juice for the better food!
Tonight I went Portuguese and drank a light, dry vinho tinto called Castello do Sulco Reseve Red. This blended red is part Tinto Nacional and Tinto Roriz, like most Portuguese vinho tinto's, but it also was 30% Syrah and that, along with 3 months aging in wood, gave it some spice and a nice finish. vinho tinto is always so light with bright fruit, maybe a little too tart, but PERFECT with a pepperoni hamburg pizza. The spicy fruit surrounded the pepperoni and made it last a lot longer in my mouth. And all that for $9.00. You'll find that Portuguese wines are very affordable and provide light easy drinking with surprising finishes.
So next time you think pizza, forget the beer, or the soda, and pick up an affordable red table wine and let your taste buds feel the pizza explode in flavor