Birthday prequel

It has been a few days since my last post due to a combination of Memorial Day weekend, increased business at the store and my birthday...yeah, I know, at my age it's really not a big deal, but I do get to enjoy my family more and I always get cool surprises.
Before I describe the birthday weekend I will quickly recap the wines I tried during the interlude. I enjoyed a little red blend called Lodi Red, a not very inventive name, but it was a delicious red gem for eleven dollars. It had some Cabernet Sauvignon and some Syrah and some other grapes I don't remember...it was just a yummy, touch of oak, spritz of fruit kind of table wine. A real powerhouse wine that I tried was Tobia Seleccion from the Rioja in Spain. Some time later I will pour out my love and knowledge of Rioja Tempranillo, but this wine was dynamite: cherries, spice, earthy loam and lingering finish; a classic Spanish profile, but it was very upfront with it's flavors and still had a light body that encouraged thirsty drinking.
Finally, continuing on my discovery of Portuguese wine, Rhonda and I cooked up an Iberian storm so that we could try a vinho tinto chilled for the warm Saturday afternoon on the 30th. I worked on a Spanish style pasta dish made with Orechiette (pigs ears) pasta (actually, I thought the pasta looked like little World War I helmets). While the pasta was cooking I heated oil in a fry pan, tossed in some crushed red pepper and sliced onion. When the onion was browned I added chopped garlic and prosciutto. Then after a few minutes I added Broccoli Rabe (It was kinda like Kale or Spinach, I guess) olives and squeezed lemon juice over it. By now the pasta was perfect, so I scooped a cup of the water (just teeming with starch from the pasta) and drained the pasta. I then poured the pasta into the fry pan with the starchy water and cooked it down for a few minutes. Finally you toss the whole mix into a bowl that has chunks of Feta just waiting for it to blend...let me tell you,it was fragrant colorful to look at. All during this time, Rhonda was pan searing a rack of Lamb to perfection with oil, salt, pepper and rosemary. We had fun and to top it all off, the chilled red wine complimented the meal nicely. Quinta de Alorna Vinho Tinto. If you recall,vinho tinto simply means red wine and this one was a blend of four grapes (which I have since forgotten) but it was bright and fruity, not soft at all, but showing a nice edge that cut through the olives and the Feta while enhancing the Pan seared Lamb. I strongly urge you to lightly chill your favorite red wine, especially if it is a more delicate wine, like,say a Pinot Noir. You will have an entirely different experience with a wine you thought for sure you knew very well. We ate that night on the deck (I live a charmed culinary life for sure)and I dreamed of cooking dinners like this every night. It was a perfect combination of being creative, being with the love of my life and enhancing it all with fine bottle of wine. What more could you ask for in life?

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.

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