Thankful for wine?

It's that time of year when we are all getting ready to freak out, spend a ton of money, and hope to not lose our minds with good cheer. If you're like me, every holiday meal is another chance to pull the cork on something special and get some reward for all the insanity. Thanksgiving is only a few days away so we're all wondering "hmmmm, what should I drink with the one meal that is sooo good that I only eat it once a year...?"

See, I like turkey, but I'm pretty sure that I like it for the reason that I like Corn Flakes, and that's because it's simple and comforting. Creamy mashed potatoes, green beans swimming in cream of mushroom soup, stuffing, and an infinite number of similar dishes mean that, for most people, Thanksgiving food isn't the most exciting culinary experience- so no need to waste the good wine.

Pairing wine with simple food shouldn't really be hard but because it seems too easy, we often think we should put more effort into it. For me, I have 2 choices when I am picking out which wine to bring to Thanksgiving: I can sit and analyze the menu and think about what would best compliment or contrast each dish; or I can just realize that the food is the same as it always is and pick something that I really want to drink and screw it if it isn't a golden pairing.

If you're trying to find a good match, focus on wines that have some solid fruit, low tannins, and medium body. Its pretty hard to find a white wine that doesn't agree with turkey meat and herbs n' spice flavored bread chunks so grab what you want as long as it has some nice fruit to stand up to the sweetness of sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce, and some acidity, so the flavors stay bright and clear. Unoaked white wines with bright appley flavors like young Chardonnay and Riesling are top matches since they compliment the Fall-ish flavors of the food while still being refreshing. Other good choices are Gruner Veltliner, Pinot Gris, or lots of indigenous Italian varietals with bright fruit and aromatics like Verdicchio, Grillo, or Arneis. For reds, stick to something light and fruit driven with maybe a hint of spiciness. Beaujolais Nouveau is the seasonally hyped, and often overdone choice, but feel free to go with something else that screams freshness like a simple Grenache from Spain or a Barbera D'Asti, zippy with acidity. Just don't go for the big, fat, extract monster wines like Australian Shiraz, California Petite Sirah, or wines that have a ton of oak on them since those will totally overpower and obscure the flavors of the meal or end up tasting dried out and flat.
If you're not concerned about matching the food with the wine, just go for what you like and concentrate on finishing your glass.

Best wine memories of last year by Mark!

2008 was a year full of wine, in fact, chock full of wine. So chocky that I actually cannot remember most of the bottles consumed... Of course this is to be expected when you taste so much wine every week but then there are always the truly great wines that upon first smell or taste assume a permanent position in your mind. It is narcissistic, of course, but sometimes tasting wine can feel a little like looking in a mirror, and when you see something you like you tend to remember. So without further ado, my list of ravishing, captivating, sensual, tasty wines of 2008: 2005 Terlano Pinot Bianco Vorberg Riserva - outstanding acidity and mineral component with great length, I grabbed a few for my tiny cellar. This is a really a time machine wine, that is, a wine that make me want a time machine so I can travel back and forth drinking old vintages and aging new ones. Man, I really want a time machine. 2001 Inama Soave "Vigneti Di Foscarino" - A bottle that I sold to a customer a couple years ago showed up mysteriously with "Italian white 20" written on the front in marker ended up being mine. Just when I was sure it was past its prime and would end up being dumped out, I popped the cork and discovered it was magical. Flowers, honey, and lemons. wish I had more... 1999 Pichon-Longueville - A beautiful wine that took several hours to open up, revealing layer after layer that was enchanting and intriguing. A nice insight into the world of the Bordeaux collector. 2004 Le Fonti Chianti Classico Riserva- one more bit of proof that 2004 was a great year and that I should have bought more. This took about 5 hours to open up without a decanter. Great acidity, depth and persistence of flavor with a refreshing finish that begged for pork loin. 2004 Felsina Chianti Classico Riserva "Rancia"- I had the opportunity to taste the 04 before I even had a chance to buy any which was really annoying because it rocked the house. I am now sure that I have had many more compelling wines from Chianti Classico than Brunello- does that even make sense? Whatever, I like, liked it. 2006 Librandi Ciro Bianco- I never expected this wine to be this good. I love the Ciro Rosso from Librandi, but this blew my mind. It was like drinking a great Fiano di Avellino with a little bottle age. All honey and floral aromatics on the nose with a little nuttiness and, of course, plenty of acidity...perfect for, say, arancini. 1971 Huet Vouvray "Clos du Bourg"- part of an insane, half remembered dinner that included 3 wines that were cumulatively 90 years old. The cork was black and looked like huitlacoche and the fill was low but the wine was beautiful. Absolutely singing. Totally ridiculous. Made me feel like a child on a swing for the first time. NV Mionetto Sergio Rose- a nearly perfect food wine- extra dry in style with bright bouncy fruit and crisp acidity. I think I am going to arrange to have this one come out of the faucets. 2006 Ceci Lambrusco "La Luna"- I have repeatedly told customers that this might be my favorite wine ever, a pretty bold claim since I hate favorites in general. I like to think of this a Italian wine in its purest sense, you have acidity, pure, unoaked fruit and bubbles that make you want to eat a pile of food. My only complaint is that it makes your mouth look like you have been eating fountain pens all day. 2005 Biondi "Outis" Etna Rosso- this was a revelation for me, tasted among 200 other Italian wines, it made everything else shrink away and stood alone like a beacon shining in the night, or something. Actually, just really interesting, earthy, scary wine. 2007 Ca Dei Frati "I frati" Lugana- another wine that make me salivate just by thinking about it. This is another time machine wine, but I can settle for decanting it for young drinking. Chock full of minerals, acidity, and layers of fruit- very chocky indeed. I bought a couple bottles so we will see how the wine ages. One reason I hate "favorite" lists is because I never really have favorites, just things that I like at the moment. So let's just say that for now, I really REALLY enjoyed drinking those wines last year and I can't wait to see what will make the list next year.td>

holy wow!

this is a test!

Arancini!!!

I've seen them in Italian cook books, websites, menus, and even tried them a couple of times but the fact is, until yesterday, I have never successfully made arancini, the delicious Sicilian specialty with a million variations. At their heart arancini are basically little balls of risotto that are stuffed with a filling of choice, then deep fried and served crispy. Traditional sicilian recipes call for a stuffing of peas, tomatoes and beef but the basic soft-and-gooey-on-the-inside, crispy-on-the-outside formula applies regardless of the details. They make a ridiculously irresistible snack but the preparation and time spent making them is more on par with a 3 course meal so it takes some real dedication to make them your self.

Since summer has been fading into chilly, windy fall I have been getting some serious cravings for risotto. Couple that with a bottle of the new 2006 vintage of the Produttori del Barbaresco Langhe Nebbiolo, and I knew it was time. The recipe I picked featured arancini stuffed with gorgonzola and spinach, definitely a Northern spin on a Southern dish, and definitely perfect for nebbiolo. After spending at least an hour making the risotto, it was 11pm and I was ready to give in and just eat it as it was- and it totally would have been good- but I kept seeing visions of little gooey, crispy arancini on a plate laughing at me for my lack of follow through, and I knew I couldn't let them win.

Finally, 2 hours after I started, they were done:

I included the wine and glass in the picture to prove what a nerd I am. I have to say it was totally worth it- they were perfectly crispy on the outside, and soft and gooey on the inside, and perfect with the bright flavors of the nebbiolo. Now I just need to find a couple of hours to make some more.

People need to eat more polenta!!!

Since my last trip to Italy I have been fiending for some serious polenta. Here in the US the closest thing we have to polenta is grits, a ground corn product that is purportedly eaten for breakfast in the South... Up in Chicago grits entered my life via My Cousin Vinnie, where it played an important role in the tangled plot, and made me realize that Italians were not alone in being proud of their ground corn. In Italy polenta is prepared a number of ways, the preparation varying mostly on the geography and/or regional preference of the chef. When I was in Venice last February I was in a small tavern and behind the counter I saw what looked like little sandwiches piled up with the common theme being that all the "bread" was polenta. Each sandwich consisted of 2 pieces of polenta with it's own filling: one was herring, another Gorgonzola, and yet another was Prosciutto, and so on. After ordering a selection the whole thing is pressed in a panini machine and served hot. The result is, of course, magical, in a sort of I-am-abroad type of way, but needs to be shared.

Almost 3 months later I decided to make some polenta sandwiches. After cooking and cooling the polenta I sauteed up some garlic, shallots, shrimp, and Dover Sole, flavored with white wine(Tocai Friulano). I only made a couple since this was a test run so this is what I came up with. 2 "wiches filled with shrimp and the one in the foreground was the Dover Sole.
Here goes:
After cooking with your broth/flavoring of choice, and then cooling the batch, cut the polenta into little squares, then throw it onto a hoooot cast-iron griddle until you have burn marks, then flip over, fry briefly, then assemble each sandwich for each person. It is a bunch of work but it is sooo good.
I used Tocai for cooking the food but for eating with this meal there is nothing better than a glass of Bardolino- a wine very similar to Valpolicella. Mmm. I cannot wait to go back...
Mark!

More tasty memories...

I received a bunch of samples from a local importer and decided I had to make some stuffed yellow peppers. Most of the wines were from Northern Italy but a couple of the whites seemed to brighten up this Southern Italy dish of yellow peppers stuffed with day old bread softened with olive oil and mixed with olives, capers, garlic, parsley and cheese. Two things that I am now sure of: 1) that Friuli has a great potential for the production of exquisite white wines, and; 2) Tocai Friulano, in particular, is a seriously underrated wine that will soon find its way into the mainstream. That's all.

Pictures of fun times

MMM, handmade potato dough pizza topped with zucchine, yellow peppers, capers, and olives paired with Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. I think the wine wasn't a bit too cool-climate for the food, but both are still a couple of my favorites.

Vouvray and the test of time

If you know me you probably know by now that I enjoy a good amount of acidity in wine. It is no surprise of course, that I love the incredible whites from the Loire valley from lean, minerally Muscadet to decadent sweet Moelleux (pronounced mway-le)Vouvray. These wines, thanks to their acidity, are legendary for their potential to age and wine lovers will often tell tales of drinking astonishingly old vintages. I had my first experience a couple of years ago when I tasted a 1990 Vouvray from the Domaine du Viking. Though I don’t remember exactly when it was, I know that the wines was at least 12 years old and it the way it tasted amazed me. It was bright, full of fresh acidity, but time had given it nuttiness and a depth of flavor that I hadn’t ever experienced in Vouvray- all this from a producer that I hadn’t even really heard of, and haven’t really seen lately in our market. Looking at the great labels of Vouvray on the shelf at work from producers like Huet, Foreau and Nicolas Joly, I wondered how wines considered benchmarks for their appellations -symbols of quality and dedication in the vineyard- would fare after some extensive aging.

After some searching on the internet and around town I ended up procuring a bottle of 1971 Domaine Huet Clos du Bourg Vouvray from a friend with an extensive cellar. As soon as I got the wine I planned a dinner and started prepping by doing some reading about what I should expect and if the wine might even be over the hill. With the night of the tasting upon us I started wondering if drinking a 37 year old white wine might be too good to be true. Maybe people just write about drinking insanely old wines because it is exclusive and they end up fooling themselves into liking them…maybe. The level of the wine was definitely lower than a young bottle and I could see, holding the bottle up to the light, that the color was surely different from any other I had seen. Removing the capsule, I really got nervous when I saw that the cork was covered in thick, black mold, no doubt the sweet wine had started to seep through the cork and became food for mold. Pulling out the cork was tough since it wanted to crumble and fall into the bottle, but we couldn’t let that happen! Finally the moment arrived and we poured our glasses. The golden color was inspiring and I could smell fresh apples…I suspected we were about to taste magic.

Absolutely magical.

The flavors and aromas mingled like colors in a pile of leaves, there were fresh appley scents as well as apricot, honey and then some butter, and of course, bright acidity framing the whole thing. After tasting several times I decided I didn’t even want to have any food with it, it was enough to just appreciate the wine by itself, unadorned in all its glory. How amazing it must have been, the first time somebody tasted a wine this old and expected it to be bad. Imagine the thrill of being a winemaker and realizing what your wine is worth 37 years down the line. I get a chill just thinking about how in the past 37 years seasons have come and gone, people have been to the moon and back, people are born, other people die, and all the while the wine is resting peacefully under ground, evolving slowly, revealing layer upon layer. For all this I have one word: amazing!