A case where “higher-quality” wine isn’t necessarily better wine

Carignan is a grape that’s used in a higher proprotion in wines from the Languedoc than from the Rhône valley. Its intensity can pose interesting technical issues for winemakers.

In my last post, I promised I’d write about the AOC wines from the Languedoc, which I tasted in April as part of a group invited by the wine producers of the region.   While I enjoyed many of them, and am considering buying a few, my overall impression — both as a wine merchant and a wine drinker — was disappointment.

You know I’m not shy about telling you when I don’t like something (sometimes at great length).   In fact, I have been (gently) chided in the past for approaching nearly any situation looking for things to dislike.  But honestly, I was excited to try the Languedoc AOC wines.  As I explained before, the Southern Rhône Valley and the Languedoc AOCs use most of the same grapes:   Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Mourvèdre, and Cinsault for the reds, and Viognier, Clairette, White Grenache, Marsanne, Roussanne, and Bourboulenc for the whites.  I love Rhône wines and was particularly looking forward to tasting wines that had a higher percentage of Carignan and Mourvèdre than their Rhône counterparts, where those grapes usually only make up five to 10% of the total blend.  Plus, as I mentioned before, the Languedoc is a paradise for growing wine grapes, so I was interested in seeing how that would play out.

Unfortunately, I can taste greater variation in wines from two of my Rhône producers making wine a few kilometers from one another in the same appellation than I could in most of the Languedoc AOC wines I tried on the trip.  And the few of those upper-echelon AOC wines that did stand out to me were more expensive than I can afford as a merchant, because they’d have to sell for more than I think most of my customers would be willing to pay for them.

I’ve admitted to a bias toward Rhône-style wines many times, so I was leery about jumping to a verdict too soon.  But last week one of my fellow Languedoc travelers wrote a blog post that said pretty much the same thing I was thinking about Languedoc AOC wines.  Trevor Bernatchez manages one of the stores of the Boston-based wine shop Urban Grape, and he probably tastes a wider variety of wine in a week than I do in a few months.  So I think I can say that my prejudices aren’t at work here, and can discuss the good and the not-so-good about the week’s tasting.

Pic St. Loup, the mountain that gave its name to an AOC Languedoc designation. (Photo courtesy of bilingue.iesvegadelturia.es)

First, the good.  My favorites among the AOC wines were the appellations of St. Chinian and Grès de Montpellier, followed by the Pic St. Loup wines.  In general, they had the nicest balance between fruit, earthiness, and astringency (from the tannins).  When I looked back on my notes, I also found that these were the red wines that had the least amounts of Carignan and Mourvèdre in them, and were majority Grenache and Syrah.

So this is the point where I have to devolve into winespeak, because the use of Carignan and Mourvèdre in the Languedoc isn’t necessarily straightforward.  They’re pretty intense grapes, both in color and tannins, plus they can have distinct flavors of clove and allspice (at least in my opinion).  They play a prominent role in wines from some of the AOC designations like Corbières and Fitou.  While you can find 100% Mourvèdre and Carignan wines from California, where they have a kind of Zinfandel character, they taste completely different than their French counterparts.  French Carignan and Mourvèdre require special handling to soften them up, whether by aging or other means.  The results can be brilliant — we tasted some Carignan from 110-year-old vines that one of the winemakers had aged for five years and bottled to give us an idea of the grape’s potential.  I’d happily drink that again anytime.

But you can imagine how expensive a wine made with old-vine, barrel-aged Carignan can be and how long it would take from harvesting to bottling to sale.  Instead, many producers in the region use a technique called carbonic maceration to extract more fruit and soften up the tannins much more quickly than by conventional fermentation and aging.  (Carbonic maceration is an interesting and sometimes controversial topic, and I’ll discuss it further in my next post.)

Thinking back, the carbonic maceration probably accounts for my impression of less variety in the top-of-the-line wines from a lot of the appellations, particularly Corbières.  I suspect the process generates flavors I’m particularly sensitive to that mask other flavors in the wine.  (And perhaps it’s just vanity on my part, but carbonic maceration also produces wine with an intense purple color, leaving us all looking like wine zombies with intensely purple teeth at the end of each day.  Not a good look )

There’s no need to buy novelty purple zombie teeth for your next party — just drink some wine made by carbonic maceration.

But the really unfortunate thing, as far as I’m concerned, is that it’s not even as effective as it’s meant to be.  Many of those 2010 and 2011 reds we tried weren’t ready to drink yet, even with the carbonic maceration.  At first I thought maybe this was just a fluke of those particular years.  But some of the winemakers brought their 2007 – 2008 vintages as an example of the aging potential of the wines, and they were better, with more individual character.   I guess the winemakers have decided it’s worth doing the carbonic maceration, but I’m not so sure how much time and expense they end up saving.

Either way, as a wine merchant, I can’t buy wine to store it for at least three years before selling it.  And the other issue was price — even if I could afford to cellar the wines, they’re too expensive to begin with.  I figure I’d have to sell them for $30 and up even if I could sell them right away.  That’s fine for an occasional splurge, but most people I know want to keep their splurges under $25, and their everyday wines under $15.

I think there’s promise in the Languedoc AOC wines.  I don’t want to be presumptuous, but perhaps it’s not too far out of line to suggest that some of the 2007 rules that created the higher Languedoc AOC classifications might need tweaking.  The older wines I tasted suggest to me that there’s the potential for something very good.  The trick is going to be balancing producing those wines and ones that can generate more income for producers right away.

Many of the 2010-2011 red Languedoc AOC wines I tasted weren’t ready to drink yet, particularly the wines from Corbières. The 2007-8 vintages were much more drinkable, and showed more individuality too. (Photo courtesy of CIVL.)

In the meantime, as I mentioned in my last post, there’s plenty of wine made that’s outside the top  AOC designations that costs a lot less — much of it made at wineries that also make those cru wines.  Sometimes it’s because the winemaker wants to use grapes not allowed under the AOC rules.  But other times, the winemaker has AOC-approved grapes that come from land not approved by the AOC.  It may be because the soil isn’t quite the same as on other parts of the winemaker’s land, or because the vines are younger and the yields per acre are higher.  Still, they’re getting the good winemaker treatment and who can object to that?

Almost every producer we met at the tastings had some of these wines for us to try “under the table” since the purpose of the trip was specifically to try their AOC wines.  Many of these Vin du Pays wines were excellent.  It’s kind of fun that the Languedoc, the region that gave rise to the Cathar movement that challenged Catholicism back in the 12th – 14th centuries, is also home to winemakers who are looking to do their own thing.  I’m making decisions now on wines to buy, and I hope to bring a little bit of heresy over before the end of the summer!

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One of the joys of living in DC is that we can go to programs and events that the embassies and international cultural institutes put on for the public.  Cy and I live around the corner from the Mexican Cultural Institute, which hosts great art exhibits, concerts, and lectures.  Last week we went to a cooking demonstration and dinner there presented by Pati Jinich, host of Pati’s Mexican Table on PBS.

If you’ve seen Pati’s TV show, you know that she’s a master at explaining Mexican dishes and ingredients, as well as traditional and new cooking techniques.  And she does it in a way that makes you believe that nothing would make her happier than to have you make and enjoy her recipes.  I’m happy to say she is every bit as friendly and entertaining in person as she is on the show.

Cy with Pati Jinich at the Mexican Cultural Institute in DC. Pati is the official Chef there, and is also the host of “Pati’s Mexican Table” on PBS.

In 2007, Pati started Mexican Table, a series of culinary programs including talks, cooking demonstrations, and tasting dinners, at the Mexican Cultural Institute, where she’s the official Chef.  She’s doing three programs this year, and last week’s was titled “The Asian Influence in Mexican Cooking.”  We don’t necessarily think of Asian flavors as part of Mexican food, but like all world cuisines, Mexican cooking has changed and adapted, incorporating ingredients from lots of other countries and regions.  With Mexico as the central stop on the Spanish spice trade route to Asia, it was only natural that there would be an exchange of ingredients and techniques, a process that accelerated in the 19th and early 20th centuries as people followed along with their foods.

One of the dishes Pati showed us how to make was a chicken cutlet with an ancho chile and tamarind dipping sauce.  The sauce is phenomenally good, and you could use it with turkey or pork, as well as grilled hearty fish like swordfish. I asked Pati for permission to reprint her recipe here, and she graciously agreed.

Tamarind is an ingredient used in Latin American and Asian cooking, it’s tangy and fruity.  Ancho chiles are dried ripe poblano chiles, and they’ve got a little bit of chocolate-y richness to them, along with very concentrated fruit flavor.  The combination of the two gives you sour, sweet, and bitter components, which, combined with the salt and sugar in the recipe make for a great taste experience.

Try the sauce with chicken, turkey, pork, or fish — and serve Cave la Romaine Viognier ($16) with it.  The wine’s floral component adds another dimension to all the flavors in the sauce, plus it’s got just the right crispness to be refreshing.  There are French influences in Mexican food too, so why not have French wine with your Mexican-Asian meal?  Fusion doesn’t have to come just from the food itself, after all!

Bon Appetit!

Tom

Ancho Chile and Tamarind Sauce

Recipe courtesy of Pati Jinich.  For more recipes and information, see www. patismexicantable.com

2 to 3 ancho chiles, stems and seeds removed (small sharp scissors work well for this)

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup finely chopped white onion

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1-1/2 cups Latin style tamarind syrup (see recipe below)

1/2 cup chicken broth (see note below)

1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt, more or less to taste

Heat a large skillet over medium heat.  Place the ancho chiles in the hot skillet and let them lightly toast for about 20 – 30 seconds per side.  Place them in a bowl and cover them with boiling water and let them rehydrate for 10 to 15 minutes until plumped up and meaty.  Drain and chop.

Reheat the skillet on high and heat the oil.  Add the onion and cook, stirring constantly for 5 to 7 minutes until wilted and the edges begin to brown.  Add the garlic, stir and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds or so.  Add the chopped ancho chiles and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, until they incorporate with the onions and start to dry a little.  Pour in the tamarind syrup and chicken broth and cook at a medium simmer for about 10 minutes until the mixture is thickened like syrup.  Taste and season with more salt if needed.  Let it cool slightly and puree in a blender or food processor.

Note:  The chicken broth adds a savory component to the sauce, so if you want to use vegetable broth put in a teaspoon of soy sauce along with it.

Latin-Style Tamarind Syrup

Recipe courtesy of Pati Jinich, from her book Pati’s Mexican Table:  The Secrets of Real Mexican Home Cooking.

Latin-style tamarind syrup is different from Asian tamarind concentrates or syrups — it’s thinner and has sugar in it.  This recipe can be used to make the Latin-style syrup from unsweetened Asian tamarind concentrate.  You can use the syrup in drinks and in many different sauces where you want sweet and tangy components.

To make a cup of Latin-style tamarind syrup, combine 3 tablespoons Asian or Middle Eastern tamarind concentrate or paste, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/2 cup boiling water.  Mix until the tamarind and sugar are dissolved.  It will keep, refrigerated, for up to 6 months.

A Cool Idea for Leftover Pasta

Usually when we have pasta left over we’ll make a baked pasta dish by layering the cooked pasta in a baking dish with marinara sauce, cottage or ricotta cheese, mozzarella, and whatever cooked vegetables or meat we have on hand.  Bake it in a medium oven for about 45 minutes or so until it’s heated through and bubbling.

Make this pasta salad and you’ll stay fresh as a daisy!

But it is just too dang hot for that today!!  Try a pasta salad.  If they leave you cold (no pun intended) , I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you try the one below.  Serve it over spicy salad greens like arugula or young dandelion and give it a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and a couple of twists of freshly ground black pepper just before serving.

What wine to pair with this, you ask?  Well nothing says summer like rose!  Try any of First Vine’s summer pinks – they’re fruity yet dry and just the thing to cool you off on a hot June day.

 New (& Improved) Pasta Salad

Ingredients

2 cups cooked short pasta (ex: macaroni, rotini, etc)

3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

1 cup diced celery

1/4 cup diced red bell pepper

2 tablespoons diced green onions

1/2 cup mayonnaise

Tin of high quality tuna, packed in oil, not drained

Salt and freshly cracked black pepper

Juice of ½ lemon

Directions

Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Cover and put into the refrigerator until ready to serve.  Serve over greens and pass extra lemon wedges and black pepper.

A Refresher Course in Why I Like Wine So Much

The “Languedoc 11″ at dinner the night we actually sorta dressed up. The photo comes courtesy of Sarah Penn, who is third from the left in the front row.

Reading this blog, it doesn’t take long to figure out that I’m fascinated by a lot of aspects of wine.  Scientific issues for sure, and of course the interactions of food and wine.  But I also enjoy some of what people might consider the more mundane rules and regulations, like labeling and how wines are classified where they’re made.  The trip I recently took to the Languedoc in southern France was a great education in how regional wine classifications are developed and how they can potentially be used to promote regional wines.   I knew a little about the wines of the region before I got there, but got to learn a lot more.  Oh yes, and taste a lot of them, too.  I left a happy man!

My journalist friends tell me it’s a good idea to get disclosure out of the way as soon as possible, so here it is:  I was invited on the wine-tasting tour in the Languedoc by one of the associations representing the region’s wine producers.  For six days in April, 11 of us were wined and dined, housed on a beautiful estate (seriously, check it out here) and taken through a lot of gorgeous countryside.  We got to meet and talk with winemakers, which is always a treat, and visit spectacular places.

So as I was drooling over the itinerary of the trip before I left, I started to wonder why it is that the producers had to go to all this trouble and expense.  After all, they had to figure that we winos already knew that the Languedoc produces more wine than any other region in France, and it is probably the most ideal place in the country for growing wine grapes.  It has everything going for it.

The climate is warm and the sun shines more than 300 days per year, which makes for optimum ripening conditions and consistent vintages.  The Tramontane winds come from the northwest most of the year and keep the grape leaves dry and free of fungus, which means that there’s less need for chemical intervention.  At times during the growing season the Marin winds also blow in from the Mediterranean Sea, bringing just a little humidity to intensify the aromas and maturity of the fruit.  The topography — between the Pyrenees to the south and the Massif Central to the north — creates a natural basin that funnels the not-too-abundant rain into natural underground reserves for use by the vines.  And the stony soil of the region means that heat gets absorbed during the day and released at night, preventing huge temperature swings.

The result is a whole lot of wine, and a lot of really good wine, too.  And plenty of it gets exported to the U.S.  Most of you have had some.  But as I discovered during the tour, only about 10% of the wines produced in the region have legible words on the labels indicating that they came from the Languedoc, which means that most people drinking the wines could have no idea where they come from without a magnifying glass and an atlas.  (Contrast this to all the wines labeled as Côtes du Rhône in the adjacent wine region, which lets you know where the wines come from.)  Those officially-designated wines were the ones that the Conseil Interprofessioniel des Vins du Languedoc (or CIVL) brought the 11 of us over to taste.

Only 10% of the wines produced in Languedoc are AOC wines. (Chart courtesy of CIVL.)

As I’ve explained before, a lot of wines in France are named for the place where the grapes are grown, whether a region (like Côtes du Rhône or Bordeaux) or a village (like Gigondas in the Southern Rhône Valley or St. Emilion in Bordeaux).  If a wine is allowed to be named for a place, there are rules about what grapes that wine can contain and how it’s made.  These are called AOC wines, short for Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée. (It sounds nicer in French than saying “controlled origin,” doesn’t it?)  While it’s confusing at first to have wines not named for the grapes in them, when you drink a wine with a place name on the label in large letters, you at least know where it comes from.

If a French wine doesn’t have a place as its name, but is named for the grape it contains — like most of the wine produced in the U.S. — then in general it has a lower classification in the French system.  The wine can be classified as Vin de Pays (VdP) or Vin de Table (VdT) depending on where and how it’s made.  The rules are more relaxed as far as yields per acre, composition of grapes, and production methods (the exception is wines from Alsace, which are a higher classification even though most are named for the grapes.  Since the region went back and forth between France and Germany, the wines have more of a German naming convention).  According to data from CIVL, 80% of the wine produced in Languedoc is either VdP or VdT.  (And while some of the VdP wines of the region are labeled “Pays d’Oc,” shorthand for the land of Oc or “yes” in the local Occitan language, many people don’t know they’re associated with the Languedoc region — which literally means the language (langue) of yes, which refers to Occitan.  But that’s another story altogether…)

In order to have the word “Languedoc” on the label in a font size that doesn’t require a magnifying glass (or the name of a village or sub-region of the Languedoc), the wine has to conform to the AOC rules.

There are now three AOC levels for these wines.  The broadest of the three is the AOC Languedoc classification, which has the most relaxed rules and even allows single-varietal wines to be named for the grape (as long as it’s an approved grape of the region).  This designation was created in 2007 to help raise the profile of the region by creating a so-called reference base for official Languedoc wines.  This is actually a big step — sort of equivalent to the Côtes du Rhône designation in the southern Rhône valley.  While there used to be a Côteaux de Languedoc  classification, it was far more restricted in scope.  The new classification means that many more bottles now have the word “Languedoc” on the label than before.

Next up the scale is what CIVL calls the “Fine Wines of Languedoc,” 22 classifications with names based on villages or Langedoc regions, like Minervois (around the village of Minerve), Corbières, St. Chinian, etc.  This is more or less the equivalent of the Côtes du Rhône Villages level of wines, a level between the regional base and the finest wines.  While some of these had AOC designations before 2007, more were brought up in status since then.  This level used to be the top designation of the region, but the 2007 changes created a new level above it.

Top of the heap now are the “Cru Wines of Languedoc,” all red wines and named for villages and sub-regions, in some cases more specific than the Fine Wines.  Minervois-La Livinière, Corbières-Boutenac, and St. Chinian-Roquebrun are three examples.  There is also one cru, Grès de Montpellier, that’s named for the soil type (grès means limestone in French), and one (Pic St. Loup) that’s named for a mountain.

The official AOC grapes are very much the same as those for the AOCs in the Southern Rhône Valley.  Grenache, Syrah, Carignan, Mourvèdre, and Cinsault for the red wines, and Marsanne, Roussanne, Viognier, White Grenache, Clairette, and Bourboulenc for the whites.  There are a few other white grapes, like Muscat, Maccabeu, and Picpoul that are allowed for particular wines as well.  The rosés can contain any of the red grapes, but usually are mostly Cinsault.

So what have we been drinking that we didn’t know was from the Languedoc?  The region produces a bunch of wonderful Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc (all allowed under VdP rules), and many of those wines make it to the U.S. with the grape names as the wine names on the label.  Jean-Baptiste Pietavy, our producer of Domaine de Mairan wines, makes VdP wines with many of these grapes.

It wasn’t all wine tasting all the time, we did get to do a little sightseeing — like the view from the Mediterranean Garden in Roquebrun.

There are also plenty of wines that have fanciful names in English that don’t give a hint of where they’re from.  Over the past 15 years or so, the region has seen an influx of people from the U.K. (and the U.S., to a lesser extent) looking to make wine.  They are taking advantage of the kick-ass growing conditions and more relaxed rules for VdP and VdT, making what they like and calling it what they want to.   (And since they speak English and use English names they have an easier time reaching out to the U.S. market.)  There are plenty of French winemakers taking advantage of the freedom, too.   From a rosé that’s 100% Merlot and named for the winemaker’s cat to a kitchen-sink blend of Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and even Sangiovese that changes each year and is named for the local old guy who plays the accordion in the village square on Sundays (with his photo on the label), you definitely get the impression these folks are having fun.

This isn’t to say that the AOC winemakers aren’t having fun and that they don’t engage in whimsy themselves.  But so far, at least among the top-of-the line AOC wines, they’re a little more straight-laced about the names on their labels.  I think this may be part of the effort to highlight the region, or maybe the thought is that they have to appear more serious in order to be taken seriously.  For now, you mostly see just the AOC designation in large letters, like you do in villages like Châteauneuf du Pape — and you definitely won’t see an old accordion player on the label of those wines.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, CIVL brought us over to taste the AOC wines, and we did — probably 100 of them a day.  I’ll discuss those wines in my next post.  For now, I’ll just say that I finished the tour amazed, as always, at the variety you can find in wines that seem on paper to be pretty much the same, but aren’t when you taste them.  More than anything, that’s what keeps me excited about the wine business (along with getting to drink a lot of wine).   This trip was a great reminder of just how much fun wine can be, and how great it is to share with others.

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One of the food highlights of the trip was the strawberries.  Strawberry season starts in April in the Languedoc, with the Fraises de Garrigue — small, very sweet berries, and proceeding to the Fraises de Carpentras; larger, just as sweet, and perfect for slicing.  Both are wonderful in strawberry soup, a dessert I had three separate times on the trip.

I have to admit that I used to look down on strawberry soup.  Partly because, as someone who likes to bake, it seemed a little too simple to call dessert. (Even though you don’t want to cook great strawberries, there are plenty of pastry-y and cream-y ways to gussy them up without cooking them.)   And even though it was simple, why bother if the strawberries were really good? Why not just eat them plain?

As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve come to appreciate the beauty in its simplicity.  I find that as we now have greater access to delicious, locally grown food, dishes like strawberry soup enhance the intrinsic flavors of these foods without much to get in the way.  You can also use those strawberries that are just on the edge of becoming over-ripe.  You know which ones I mean, they have deep red spots on them and the red comes off on your hand if you touch them.  If you’re Martha Stewart, you’ll make jam out of them for dozens of your closest friends.  For the rest of us, there’s strawberry soup.

The strawberry soup at Restaurant Le Faitout in Berlou. It was served with fresh strawberries and a little lemon ice cream.

The best one I had on the trip was at Restaurant Le Faitout in Berlou, a village near St. Chinian.  Most of the strawberry soups I’ve had in the U.S. had some sort of dairy mixed in.  I suppose the dairy covers for some less-than-wonderful strawberries, and allows you to puree the heck out of it in a blender or food processor — both of those devices add air in and make the strawberry puree turn pink, so keeping it pink with added cream or yogurt is fine.  Le Faitout’s version was topped with a crème fraîche- enhanced whipped cream, but the soup itself was strawberries and very little else.  I thought I tasted a little bit of orange juice, a splash of lemon juice, a little mint, and a splash of Crème de Cassis liqueur.   The color was bright red, as you can see in the photo, so Frédéric Révilla, the chef, used a food mill to puree the strawberries, or maybe an immersion blender if he was careful.

The strawberry soup recipe below seems a little elaborate (would you expect anything else from me?) but I think great strawberries deserve the extra care.  I use superfine sugar because it dissolves easily, if you can’t find it, run a half cup of regular granulated sugar in the food processor for at least three minutes.  (You don’t need a half cup for the recipe, but if you don’t have enough in the food processor it won’t work properly.)  The ingredients are basically to taste, which accounts for the way it all gets assembled.  But in the end you’ll have the soup just the way you like it.

One of the AOC wines we had at dinner one night was Crémant de Limoux, a sparkling wine that’s made with Mauzac.  Our Domaine la Croix des Marchands Méthode Gaillacoise ($18) is virtually the same wine — the same grape made the same way, not very far away.  Lightly sweet, with a little green apple flavor, it goes perfectly with the strawberry soup.

Bon Appetit!

Tom

Strawberry Soup with Whipped Cream

Serves 4 – 6

1 quart excellent, beautifully-ripe strawberries

1 teaspoon superfine sugar, plus more if needed

Freshly-squeezed lemon juice

1 large orange

1 teaspoon (or more) Crème de Cassis

Confectioners’ sugar

4-6 mint leaves, depending on size and taste

2 tablespoons sour cream, very cold

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream, very cold

Equipment:  A large bowl big enough to hold ice, a smaller bowl that will fit inside the bigger bowl filled with ice, a food mill fitted with the fine disk, or an immersion blender.

Fill the large bowl with cold water.  One at a time, dip the strawberries in the water to rinse, then set them on a plate lined with paper towels to dry a little.  Carefully hull the strawberries, cut them in half, and place them in a different bowl.  Toss gently with the teaspoon of superfine sugar and let the strawberries sit for a half hour to soften.

Once they’ve softened a bit, puree the strawberries in the food mill or use the immersion blender.  If you’re using the immersion blender, do short pulses and make sure the head of the blender is completely immersed in the strawberries — you don’t want to add air into them.  Empty the large bowl and fill it with ice.  Scrape the strawberry puree into the small bowl that fits inside the larger ice-filled bowl.  Add a half-teaspoon of lemon juice to the strawberry puree.

At this point you have to start tasting and adding what’s necessary.   The puree will be pretty thick and you want the soup to be, well, more like soup in the end.  Juice half the orange and add it, a tablespoon at a time, to the puree until it gets to the consistency you like.  You can juice the other half of the orange and add it if you like.  Add the teaspoon of Crème de Cassis.  Taste it for sweetness.  If you’d like it a little sweeter, take out 1/4 cup of the mixture and add a teaspoon of superfine sugar to it, stir to dissolve, then add it to the rest.  Add more lemon juice if you think it needs a little zip, or more Crème de Cassis (you don’t want to taste the liqueur per se, but the Cassis makes the soup seem richer).

When the soup tastes the way you want it to, put the bowl in the ice-filled bowl and let it chill for a half hour.   Using a mixer, beat the cream and the sour cream together with about a tablespoon of confectioners’ sugar until the cream makes soft peaks.  Then chop the mint leaves very finely and stir them into the soup.  (The mint leaves can turn brown if they’re left too long.)

Serve the soup in balloon glasses (stemless balloon wine glasses are perfect for this), top with the whipped cream, and serve immediately.

Occasional Cookbook Reviews: Recipe Rehab

Recipe Rehab is a food makeover TV show airing weekends on ABC.  Each week, a family asks for help lightening up a favorite recipe, and two Recipe Rehab chefs give it a go.  The family makes both recipes and picks a winner.  What makes the show fun is that these family recipes look great — no fast food here.  So the chefs have a real challenge to make something that tastes good but with less fat and calories than the original.

A companion cookbook was released last week, and Tom reviews it on Lauren DeSantis’s Capital Cooking blog.  The recipes mostly look good and seem easy to make, but the premise of the book — that you’ll be able to use these recipes as a guide to helping you remake your own family favorites — doesn’t really pan out.  Not because the recipes aren’t necessarily lower in fat and calories.  But the chefs had to cut out a lot to get the dishes below 500 calories, and what they cut is mostly the size of each portion.  Do that yourself and you might not need the book at all.

Historic preservation through winemaking

The giant wine casks in the church at the Abbaye de Valmagne

I have to admit that I get to see a lot of beautiful places as a wine importer.  People don’t go on reverently about the South of France for nothing, after all.  For most of first vine’s producers in the southern Rhône Valley and other southern parts of France, though, the beauty of wine touring is natural rather than architectural.  The scenery is gorgeous, but the wineries are in buildings that are nice but weren’t designed to be showplaces.

That was my thought up until a couple of weeks ago, when I got to visit a historic winery that is gorgeous.  Part of the reason you haven’t seen blog posts in a while is that I was invited on a trip for wine buyers to the Languedoc region of France.  More than 100 wines a day for five days and a lot of time traveling from place to place, so some of the tastings are a blur.  Not the one at the Abbaye de Valmagne, though.  It’s hard to forget a winery that’s partly inside a 13th century church.

The Part des Anges, or Angel’s Share — the solids from wine that evaporates from the casks and leaves residue on the walls around it. Particularly appropriate for a winery in a church.

The abbey is northwest of Montpellier and was started in the 12th century.  By the 14th century it housed as many as 300 monks, members of the Cistercian order.  Local landowners bestowed money and land on the monks, including a small vineyard, and the monks became excellent grape growers and winemakers.

Things went downhill around the mid-14th century, though, with the black death coming through the region.  While the abbey continued to function through the 16th century, a seemingly endless array of religious wars  and looting left the property uninhabitable.  Even the church, which dates from 1257, had all of its windows shattered in 1575, rendering it unusable.  In the 17th century, some minimal preservation work to keep the structure intact was begun, and the property’s use as an abbey started again.

As you’d expect, the French Revolution brought more looting and wreckage.  The Abbaye and its land were taken over by the state, and the last three remaining monks fled the site in 1790.  A year later, the whole package was sold to M. Grainer-Joyeuse, who was left with a bunch of large, virtually unusable buildings and a big problem.

The Abbaye de Valmagne has one of the few octagonal lavabo structures still in existence.

The problem was that most old structures were considered to be quarry material by local citizens.   (Understandably, the need for shelter and good building materials outweighed potential tourism opportunities, especially in areas of widespread poverty.)  Grainer-Joyeuse had to find a way to keep the place together — literally — and so he turned his attention to producing something that everyone wanted:  wine.

Of course, the monks at the abbey had continued making wine through all the disruptions (they were monks after all).  Wines from the Abbaye de Valmagne were exported as far as Mexico through the 18th century.  But winemaking had taken place in outbuildings rather than the abbey itself, and in increasingly limited quantities.  From the beginning, M. Grainer-Joyeuse used the church and other parts of the abbey buildings for wine storage.  In 1820, he went whole-hog, installing massive wooden vats throughout the church, and greatly increasing production capacity.  I’m guessing the wine was either good or cheap enough to convince the locals to keep their hands off the stone — no small feat when there was likely a lot of wine around to begin with.

Grainer-Joyeuse died in 1838 and the Abbaye was sold to the Comte de Turenne.  His descendants have owned the Abbaye de Valmagne since then, and have done massive restoration.  While the church is no longer used for wine storage and the winery has moved to another building, the vats are still there, a truly unique sight.  In the right light it looks as though time has stopped — and the people making wine there stepped out for lunch.  While there has been obvious repair, the family has kept much of what was there during the church’s wine storage heyday.  Even the “Part des Anges” or Angel’s Share, the airborne dust that comes from wine evaporating from the wooden vats and stains the walls around them.  (A great name, especially when it’s in a church…)

A view of the church bell tower through the top of the lavabo. The structure is covered in vines that provide shade when the leaves are out.

I’m not going to talk specifically about the wines from Abbaye de Valmagne in this post, since I plan on writing more about the trip and the wines.  I get excited, though, when I get to try varietals I’ve never had before, and the winemaker makes two reds with Morrastel, a local grape.  The best way to describe the flavor it imparts is clove and a little funkiness, unusual but nice.

In addition to the big wine casks in the church, the rest of the Abbaye is worth visiting as well, and includes one of the few octagonal fountain cloisters (called a lavabo) that still has all its surrounding structure, and relics of mosaics from the original 12th century construction.  The open stonework covering the lavabo is laced with grapevines — they hadn’t leafed out yet while I was there, but it’s easy to see how it would provide a welcome bit of open-air shade in the summer.  You can also walk through some of the beautifully appointed rooms used by the owners in the 19th century.  There is a walled medieval garden outside, a “model” vineyard with vines of each of the grapes used at the winery, and a vineyard restaurant. And, of course, you can taste and buy the Abbaye’s wines there, and attend concerts throughout the summer.

If you’re near Montpellier, the Abbaye is great place to spend a couple of hours, and a truly beautiful sight.  It’s fun to think that wine saved a national landmark.  This may not be the only example of alcohol leading to historic preservation, but it has to be one the most impressive!

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We didn’t eat at the Abbaye restaurant during the tour, but did eat at one just up the road, at Côte Mas, a huge modern vineyard/winery/restaurant complex.  It’s a lovely place to eat, and has a roof terrace with a great view of the surrounding hills.  The meal was very good and one of three entrées in particular was simple yet spectacular:  slices of barely-seared tuna served with a horseradish whipped cream.

The original tuna appetizer that was the inspiration for this week’s recipe is on the right.

The presentation was beautiful, as you can see in the photo — on the left are two round portions of foie gras, one coated in a red wine gelée and the other in honey.  Then a terrine of rabbit in the center, and the tuna on the right, served with rice noodles and roasted seaweed, and coated in something like a pesto.  The loin of tuna was first cut into a square cylinder two inches on each side, then seared, coated, then sliced, and served.  My version leaves off the noodles and the garnish.  Since most of us can’t afford to buy a tuna loin to cut it up this way, I came up with a less beautiful but tasty alternative.  Searing two two-inch-thick tuna steaks, then brushing the tops with a puree of basil and parsley in olive oil, slicing the steaks across the grain 1/4-inch thick, and serving with the horseradish whipped cream will make a lovely starter for six people along with a salad.  The tuna at the restaurant was beautiful and fatty, you may not be able to find something like it, but use a good-quality tuna and cook it as little as possible.

The inside of one of the big wine casks.

My version of the cream uses whipping cream and crème fraîche, which is sort of a French version of sour cream.  The one made by Vermont Butter and Cheese is very nice, and if you buy a small container you’ll definitely find other uses for it.  The cream at Côte Mas didn’t have any onion in it, but I think a little diced shallot is a good addition.  The amount of horseradish is up to you, start with the minimum and add more if you want, just be sure to fold it in gently.  Different brands of prepared horseradish have more or less vinegar in them, so add a little lemon juice if you think the cream needs it.

You’ll want a nice crisp wine that has a little more going on to serve with it, so try the Traslagares Verdejo ($13).   Traslagares doesn’t have the history of the Abbaye de Valmagne, but they make great wines.  And you have to eat and drink something to get enough energy to preserve all those relics, right?

Bon Appetit!

Tom

Seared Tuna with Herbed Olive Oil and Horseradish Whipped Cream

Serves 6 as a small appetizer

2 small tuna steaks, cut 2-inches thick, about 1/2 to 3/4 pounds in total

Flavorless vegetable oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

A small handful each of basil and Italian parsley

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 cup chilled crème fraîche

3/4 cup chilled whipping cream

1 small shallot, minced fine

1-2 tablespoons prepared white horseradish

Fresh lemon juice (optional)

Combine the cream and crème fraîche in a medium-sized bowl, add a bit of salt and pepperthen beat with an electric mixer until the mixture is a stiff whipped cream.  Gently fold in the shallot and one tablespoon of the horseradish and taste the mixture for heat, seasoning, and acidity — you can add more horseradish, salt and pepper, and a little lemon juice if you think it needs it.  You don’t want the cream to taste lemony or acidic, just so that it leaves a little tingle on your tongue.  Put the cream in the fridge until you’re ready to serve it.

Using a mini-food processor, grind up the basil and parsley with a tablespoon of olive oil.  Add a little salt and pepper.  Add another tablespoon of oil and process again, the herbs should be nicely pureed.  If they won’t puree, add  little more oil and process again.  Set the herbed oil aside.

Film the bottom of a small skillet with vegetable oil, and heat on high until you just barely see a whisp of smoke coming from the pan.  Salt the tuna on one side and put it salt-side down in the pan, sear for 30 seconds then turn it over and sear it on the second side.  Put the steaks on a plate and let them rest for 5 minutes, then brush them with some of the herb oil.  You should have a lovely thin layer of green on the top of the steaks.  Transfer the tuna to a cutting board and slice them across the grain 1/4-inch thick with a very sharp knife.  Put a dollop of the horseradish cream on each plate, then arrange the slices of tuna on and around the cream.  Serve immediately.

Welcome to DC’s new online spirits store, and an adult version of black jelly beans

Brace yourselves — this post isn’t about wine.  Shocking, right?  But it is about alcohol and buying it online.

Toulouse Red Absinthe from Atelier Vie Distillery in New Orleans. Just one of the fine American craft spirits you can now buy online from Federal Spirits in DC.

I’m pleased to introduce you, our First Vine customers and blog readers,  to Federal Spirits, an online-only purveyor of American craft spirits.  Owner Charles Benoit is an international trade attorney who did some work for the American Distilling Institute.  In the process he got to know some of the craft distillers, many of whom didn’t sell their product outside the states where it was produced.

Does all this sound familiar?  It’s pretty much the story of how we started First Vine.

Federal Spirits is now the second internet-only alcohol business in DC, offering delivery to your door (provided you’re over 21, of course).  First Vine and Federal Spirits are both lucky to be selling at a time when people are more interested in how their food is produced, where it comes from, and the people who make it.  Just like with our wines, each producer has a story that helps customers feel a connection to them and to the spirits they make.

Cy and I met Charles a few weeks ago.  He reached out to let us know that learning about First Vine had made it easier for him to set up Federal Spirits, and he gave us a bottle of Atelier Vie Toulouse Red Absinthe from New Orleans as a thank-you.  It just happened that Cy and I had been planning a New Orleans-themed dinner, so we were happy to have the makings of a welcome cocktail.

I looked on Atelier Vie’s website for drink recipes and found the Toulouse Red Sazerac, a version of the official cocktail of New Orleans (declared by the Louisiana State Legislature in 2008) made with Toulouse Red.  The cocktail is famous not only for its flavor but for the way it’s made.  Instead of measuring a specific amount of absinthe into the cocktail, you pour a splash of absinthe in the glass and swirl the glass to coat the bottom and sides, pouring out the excess.  Then you add the other ingredients (whiskey, simple syrup, and bitters).   This gives the drink a little more character than mixing the absinthe right in, you get the different flavors at different points in your ship.

(The Sazerac is a wonderful cocktail — think of the absinthe flavor as a grown-up version of all those black jelly beans most of us wouldn’t eat as kids.  The licorice flavor and herbs are just the right accent for the sweetness and the whiskey.  If they ever make this into a jelly bean flavor, it’ll be on my wish list.)

I e-mailed Jedd Haas, President of Atelier Vie, for food pairing ideas.  He suggested that since fennel is one of the predominant herbs in Toulouse Red, a savory fennel appetizer would be a great accompaniment.

Eric and Brett’s Fennel-Parmesan Dip, along with the Toulouse Red Sazeracs (served in our fine 1950s red pheasant barware, which makes everything taste better)

We’re lucky to have the kind of friends who take food ideas and go with them.  Our friends Eric and Brett made a dip with fennel and Parmesan from a Martha Stewart recipe, and it was great with the Sazerac.  They didn’t puree it, which gave it a nicer texture.  I’ve simplified it even more, since Martha puts the dish in the oven to roast — if you’re making this in warm weather (and I hope you will), you may not want to use the oven if you don’t have to.  And if you’re not in the mood for a cocktail, you can pair the dip with Bodega Traslagares Sauvignon ($13) or Cave la Vinsobraise Grenat ($13).  (I know I said I wasn’t going to talk about wine, but I can’t help myself…)

Cheers!

Tom

Fennel-Parmesan Dip

(Makes lots of hors d’ouvre-sized servings)

3 fennel bulbs

1 large onion, peeled, and cut into 1/2-inch dice

3 garlic cloves, chopped fine

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Salt and freshly-ground pepper

Water, beer, or vegetable stock

Trim the stalks of the fennel where they meet the bulb, and trim off a little of the root end.  If there are fronds on the fennel, finely chop 2 tablespoons of the fronds and set them aside.  Go over the outer part of the fennel bulbs with a vegetable peeler, removing the tough parts and any discolorations.  Then cut the bulbs in quarters through the root end and cut out the core from each piece.  Cut the fennel into 1/2-inch pieces.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large non-stick skillet that has a lid.  When the oil is shimmering, add the onion and fennel, along with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and some pepper.  Stir for a minute to coat everything.  When it’s all sizzling, put on the cover and turn the heat down to low.  Cook without touching it for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove the lid and stir in the garlic.  The onion and fennel may be starting to brown a little, that’s OK.  If there’s a lot of browning and you see a lot of brown bits sticking to the bottom of the pan, then add a couple of tablespoons of water, beer, or vegetable stock and stir everything up.  Get it all back to sizzling, put the lid on, turn the heat down and cook for 15 to 20 minutes more, until it’s all very soft.

Remove the lid and turn up the heat to medium-high.  Get everything nicely browned, and then add a little more liquid to the pan and stir to get up the brown bits and moisten it all.  Turn off the heat and stir in the cheese. Put the lid back on for a minute to let the cheese melt.  Stir, taste for salt and pepper, and transfer to a serving dish.  Let it cool for a couple of minutes, then drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle the chopped fennel fronds on top.

Toulouse Red Sazerac

(makes one cocktail)

Ingredients:  2 ounces whiskey (preferably rye whiskey), 2 dashes bitters (preferably Peychaud’s, since they’re from New Orleans), 1 tablespoon simple syrup (bring equal volumes of sugar and water to a boil, stir to dissolve, and let cool), Toulouse Red Absinthe, ice, twist of lemon

Equipment:  2 rocks glasses, strainer

Fill one of the rocks glasses with ice and let it sit for at least 5 minutes.  Then, combine the whiskey, bitters, and simple syrup in the other rocks glass and stir.  Pour the ice from the first glass into the whiskey mixture.  Add a splash of absinthe to the chilled glass and then, over a bucket or the sink, swirl the glass to coat the bottom and sides with the absinthe.  Pour out the rest.  Strain the whiskey mixture into the absinthe-coated glass, then add the twist of lemon.

A Belated St Patrick’s Day

So maybe you bought the cabbage but never got around to the whole corned beef , cabbage and potatoes thing.  And that head of cabbage is still sitting in your produce drawer (taking up a ton of space I might add)!

Cabbage makes a great easy side salad – just pull the outer leaves off, rinse, dry and shred as much of the cabbage as you think you’ll need.  You can easily shred a head of cabbage or lettuce by cutting it into quarters then finely slice each quarter so that thin strands fall away.  Add grated carrot for color and/or any other raw or lightly cooked vegetable you have around, chopped finely. Then just dress it with your favorite salad dressing.

If you’d like to get slightly fancier, braised cabbage with bacon makes a nice hearty side dish and also works as the centerpiece dish with a side of boiled potatoes and whatever other dribs and drabs you have hanging around the kitchen.

A simple dish like this calls for a simple sturdy wine.  First Vine has a great selection of light- to medium-bodied “Everyday reds” .  They can also go very well with things like roast chicken, salmon, barbecue, pizza, and red meats or with cheese. Give them a 20-minute rest in the fridge just prior to serving and they will be the perfect temperature.

Braised Cabbage with Bacon

Ingredients

4 slices of bacon, diced

1 medium onion, diced

1 head of cabbage, shredded

1/4 cup water

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Core and clean cabbage. Shred into thin, long pieces.

Add diced bacon to a large, heavy-bottomed skillet or Dutch oven. Cook over low to medium heat until bacon has lightly crisped. Remove bacon to a bowl while cooking cabbage and drain off bacon drippings, leaving 3 tablespoons in the skillet or Dutch oven for cooking.

Add diced onion to skillet or Dutch oven with bacon drippings and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Add chopped cabbage to onions and add water. Cook for about 12-15 minutes until cabbage is tender, stirring occasionally.

Add the bacon back to the cabbage and stir gently to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste.  A dash of apple cider vinegar to brighten things up, added just prior to serving, would not hurt at all

Tasty sweet wines from Fabbioli Cellars, and a great event space at Vida U Street

When we started this blog we thought we’d be doing some short posts on things going on in DC along with posts about wine and recipes.  That certainly fell by the wayside, didn’t it?  Part of the problem is that we can’t bring ourselves to write about places where we eat because we’re not very good at it (there’s a reason we’re not restaurant critics), and let’s face it, we’re kinda old now and don’t get out that much anyway.

But we should make the effort, particularly when we come across something good.  Cy and I got invited to a wine tasting by Fabbioli Cellars, a Leesburg, Virginia winery, that was held at Vida Fitness on U St. NW back in January.  The tasting and the event space were interesting, so here’s a recap of both.

We met the winery owner back in 2010 at the DC International Food and Wine Festival, but hadn’t tried Fabbioli wines since then.  There were seven on offer at the tasting, and four were paired with little bites of food — the experience you’d get at a well-run tasting room.

Fabbioli makes both sweet and dry wines and the tasting order had us try two “off-dry” wines first, then three dry wines, then two that I’d classify as sweet.  I’m not sure that was the best way to do it, going from a lightly sweet wine to a dry one without resetting your taste buds makes the first dry wine seem a little bitter, at least to me.  I think this put the 2010 Cabernet Franc at a disadvantage.  By the time we got to the second one our palates had reset a bit.

On balance the sweeter wines showed better this tasting.  Una Pera, a 100% pear wine, was really delightful ($16/bottle).  The Raspberry Merlot is one of Fabbioli’s best known selections and it’s very good, especially with the dark chocolate they served alongside it ($22/375 ml, $39/750 ml).  The Rosa Nera, a fortified black raspberry wine, is a nice alternative for dessert, it has more body than dessert wine but not quite the kick you get from port ($36/500 ml).   I’d recommend any of them as a good dessert wine.  Among the dry wines, I liked the 2010 Tannat best, it has the earthiness I like in French wines and should keep for easily a few years if you want to put it away ($45/bottle).

Now for the space — the tasting was held in the Innerspace Studio, which is used for yoga and pilates.  I was told that this was the kind of thing that Vida would like to have out by the rooftop pool, but this was January so it was inside.  Even so, the studio is a great event space.  It can easily hold 60 people and, since it’s on the fourth floor, looks out high enough over U Street to the north and east for a good view.   Brick walls, high ceiling, big windows, and a dark wood floor.  I can easily see it being used for summer events.  Around here, a good-looking, mosquito-free zone is a must for evening events.  (And since it’s used as a fitness studio, we can be pretty sure the air conditioning can handle a crowd.)

I asked James Kameen, the Marketing Manager, for some information about renting the studio and he told me that it’s available Friday nights from 7:30 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 4 pm.    There are still some details to work out.   The studio rental fee is based on food and beverage minimum charges, but hasn’t been set yet.  All food and beverage served have to be purchased from Vida.  This is the way Vida currently handles its pool club event rentals, but the pool food and drink menu is geared toward poolside parties rather than fancier events.  Mr. Kameen told me the catering menu will be available in April, and, as a wine merchant, I hope it includes more than the “house” red and white wines currently on offer poolside, or the minimal list of wines by the bottle.  E-mail Vida’s event coordinators at rentals@penthousepoolclub.com if you’re interested in more information.

So, a couple of things worth checking out!  Now the trick is going to be for us to post more of these.  Who knows, perhaps it’ll be the thing that gets us out of the house…

Cheers!

Tom

First Vine News Roundup

As you’ve been reading our musings on girl scout cookies and “perfect” wine pairings, you’ve no doubt been wondering, “What’s up with First Vine anyway?”  We assume you meant that in a good way, of course, and there’s plenty going on.  Here’s a brief roundup (brief for me, anyway…)

E-commerce is convenient, but sometimes a calculator and a piece of paper would be easier than all the programming.

New Website

Before our website first went live nearly six (gulp) years ago, we had researched e-commerce packages and quickly realized that the basic online “shopping carts” weren’t going to work for us.  So on the recommendation of our website designer, we signed up with a local e-commerce provider because at least we could meet to discuss what we needed.  The sales system wasn’t designed specifically for wine, so we still had to ask for custom programming for a lot of the features on the site, like our six-bottle packages and monthly delivery maximums for states like Virginia.  This worked reasonably well for a while, and was still better than commercial packages.

In the intervening years, though, as states passed laws allowing direct shipping of wine to customers, the world e-commerce for wine started growing.  Not just for sales behemoths like wine.com, but for small wineries that could now ship to a bunch of states.  So all the things that you could get from a winery — recurring orders, wine clubs, scalable discounts, and the like — had to be available for customers online.  A new mini-industry of wine-based e-commerce providers stepped up to fill this need.

In the next few weeks, firstvine.com is going to migrate to one of these new providers with a winery-based e-commerce platform.  The homepage will look almost exactly the same, (what can I say?  We like it!) but every other page will be different.  The first thing you’ll notice is that instead of a tiled presentation of wines three-across, each wine will now be presented in its own horizontal block.  This allows some room for a teaser description of the wine and the ability for you to add it to your shopping cart without going to the detail page for the wine.  So if you’re on the everyday reds page and want to order Cave la Romaine Rouge Volupté (an excellent choice!) you’ll be able to save a step by adding it to your cart right there.  You’ll also be able to get back to the page you were on from your cart rather than going back to the homepage.

But what’s really new here is that you, the customer, have a lot more flexibility:

• If you’d like a recurring delivery, you can set it up for three months, six months, or a year.  You can customize the whole package yourself, or leave it to us to pick the wines.  Then, if you like something you received and want to make sure you get it again, you’ll be able to note that and we’ll make it part of the package.

• You’ll be able to place orders for all of the 17 states we ship to directly from firstvine.com.  Previously, you had to go to our associated page on a third-party shipping site to ship to 13 of them, but now you’ll be able to do it all from our site.

• Once we get our thousands of old orders into the system, you’ll be able to see all the orders you’ve made.  If you want to duplicate an old order, that’ll be a one-click operation.  You’ll also be able to give yourself reminders of what you liked and didn’t.  You’ll also be able to store credit card information on the site if you want to.

• By the end of 2013, you’ll also be able to leave reviews for each wine on the site.  If you liked something and want to recommend it to others, you’ll be able to share your recommendation on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.  Maybe even Google+ if we can bring ourselves to do it

The new system will also allow us to make offers that we couldn’t before.  For example, let’s say we have arranged a Thursday-evening delivery with a customer.  We can then automatically contact all our customers who live a certain distance from that customer’s home and offer a discount if they’ll be home that evening to take delivery too.

We’re in the final setup and QC phase right now.  We hope everything will be ready by the end of March, and we’ll keep you posted.

A new First Vine Selection: The Crianza from Bodega Hiriart!

New Wines

While we were managing the website transition, we also got a couple of shipments of new wines.  They’ll be available for sale on the new site, but in the meantime, here’s a teaser.

A new Crianza and rosado from Bodega Hiriart:  You know (and love) the Hiriart Roble and Lágrima Rosado.  We’ll be offering Hiriart’s Crianza, which I like to call the “adult” version of the Roble.  They’re both 100% Tempranillo, aged in oak, but the vines for the Crianza are at least 40 years old (as opposed to 10 – 20 for the Roble), meaning more concentrated fruit.  And by regulation, wines called Crianza have to spend a year in oak and at least a year in the bottle before release (while it’s six months in oak and six months in the bottle for the Roble).  The new rosado is called Sobre Lías — on the “lees” in Spanish.  Hiriart’s rosados are made with a little Verdejo for flavor and acidity, and in this one the wine is allowed to age on the residue (or lees) of the Verdejo grapes — skins, pulp, yeast, etc., for extra flavor.  Since Verdejo is a white grape the wine doesn’t get extra color, just more flavor.  It’s a little more mature-tasting than the Lágrima, although still very fresh.  You can think of it as your winter dinner rosé as well as a wine to pair with salads and seafood.

A new Red to Impress from Cave la Romaine:  A few years ago, Cave la Romaine started offering wines from vineyards in villages nearby with the Côtes du Rhône Villages appellation.  These villages had met the AOC’s requirements for a promotion in quality.  To make things interesting, the winemaker at the cave decided to blend and vinify these wines exactly the same way, 70% Grenache and 30% Syrah, aged in concrete.  We’ve already offered the red from Séguret, and it’s a big seller.  Now we’ll also have the red from Puyméras.  Although the two villages are only about 10 km apart, you can taste a difference in the wines — and since they’re otherwise the same wine except for where the grapes are grown, it’s an interesting comparison.  There’s no better way to learn about wine tasting than with wines like these!

Another Wine Commercial

I got a lot of e-mails about my post on my favorite wine commercials.  And recommendations for a few I’d missed, mostly because they were earlier than the 70s and 80s.  So to end the non-recipe portion of this post, here’s a commercial recommended by my Dad for Italian Swiss Colony Wines.  The clip below is two commercials together, both led by a man who could be Chef Boyardee, except that he’s wearing lederhosen and sounds like Mr. Magoo.  (Played by Ludwig Stössel, who portrayed a German Jewish refugee in “Casablanca.”)  And then there are the sappy jingles, done with guitar and tremulous voice.  (“It’s love that makes the wine grapes grow, love that tends the vines…”)  Don’t miss the homage to Joanna Spyri with the recreation of Heidi and Peter’s wedding, too, or the cheesy image of making rosé by dropping rose petals into a glass.  Best of all, though, is the mention of “The Land of Italian Swiss Colony,” which makes you think of Lugano, maybe?  Nope, it’s Asti, in Sonoma County, California.  How did I not know that California had its own Land of Lederhosen and Yodeling?  Definitely on the list for my next visit!

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I have a confession to make:  I have a giant pile of cookbooks on the floor on my side of the bed.  I’m always on the lookout for cookbooks, since I read them in bed like magazines.  While I will splurge on things like the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook (hard to read in bed since it’s so big and heavy, if I fall asleep it’ll land on my face), I also like remainder and used book sales.  Including Amazon’s Kindle version of the remainder books that they offer every once in a while.

This is how I got The Italian Slow Cooker Cookbook by Michele Scicolone.  It’s a reasonably good slow cooker book with some interesting recipes.  The one that caught my eye was pork loin braised in milk.  I tried it and it was delicious, but it’s also a recipe that only cooks for four hours and there’s no indication that you can leave it on the “keep warm” setting.  I suspect that it’s because the pork loin will dry out, but this means it’s not really something you can do on a weekday while you’re at work, either.  Or on a weekend day when you’re not around to tend to it.

So I decided to try the recipe with chicken thighs instead of pork loin.  The thighs cook for longer and won’t dry out.  Since the chicken has less flavor than pork, I added some garlic and dried thyme.  And although it’s a real pain to brown food before you put it in the slow cooker, I think this recipe needs it.  Luckily, you can get the vegetables ready while the chicken is browning, so you won’t be standing at the stove the whole time.

The chicken and milk combo cry out for a little acidity and some floral notes, so try it with Bodega Traslagares Verdejo ($13).  Since you can’t get the wines in the commercial anymore, this way you can make your own Italian Spanish Colony at home anytime you like. (Hey, at least “Spanish” starts with “S.”)  No lederhosen required!

Bon Appetit!

Tom

Slow-Cooker Chicken Thighs Braised in Milk

Serves 4

8 bone-in chicken thighs (about 3 pounds), skin removed

2 carrots, peeled

2 celery stalks

1 large onion, halved and peeled

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

2 cups whole milk (or a combination of milk and a little cream, but don’t use low-fat milk)

Salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Melt a tablespoon of butter with a tablespoon of olive oil in a large non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Dry the chicken thighs with paper towels and sprinkle them with quite a bit of salt and pepper. Brown the chicken thighs for at least five minutes on each side.

While the chicken is browning, turn on the food processor and drop the garlic cloves through the feed tube.  Turn off the machine, then cut the carrots into large chunks and put them in.  Pulse four times, then cut the onion and celery into large chunks and add them to the carrots.  Continue pulsing until everything is very finely chopped but not pureed.

Remove the browned thighs from the skillet and put them in the bottom of the crock of a large slow cooker.  Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and oil to the skillet, then add the minced vegetables, the dried thyme, and some salt and pepper.  Sauté until lightly browned.  Stir in the milk and bring to a simmer, scrape up the bottom of the skillet with a wooden spoon, then pour the milk and vegetable mixture over the chicken.  Put on the cover of the cooker, and set it to low power for 6 hours.  The chicken should be completely tender.  You can leave it on the warming setting after that.

Stir everything up well before serving.  Serve the chicken over noodles or rice with plenty of sauce.

A Different Kind of March Madness

Even if you don’t have a girl scout actually living under your roof the way we do, you can’t miss them.  Girl Scout cookies.  Love them or hate them, they are EVERYWHERE now.

Cookie sales began as—and still are—a means for troops to fund activities and programs. The earliest known cookie drive was organized in December 1917 by Muskogee, Oklahoma’s “Mistletoe” Troop (Girl Scout troops are all numbered now, I really wish they still had names). Instead of being sold door-to-door, they were sold in a local high school cafeteria.

Interesting Data About Girl Scout Cookie Sales

In July 1922, The American Girl magazine, published by Girl Scout national headquarters, featured an article by Florence Neil, a local director in Chicago, Illinois. Miss Neil provided a cookie recipe that was given to the council’s 2,000 Girl Scouts. She estimated the approximate cost of ingredients for six- to seven-dozen cookies to be 26 to 36 cents. The cookies, she suggested, could be sold by troops for 25 or 30 cents per dozen.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Girl Scouts in different parts of the country continued to bake their own simple sugar cookies with their mothers, using Miss Neil’s recipe. These cookies were packaged in wax paper bags, sealed with a sticker, and sold door to door for 25 to 35 cents per dozen.  Here is Miss Neil’s original girl scout cookie recipe, from Girl Scout USA’s website:

Girl Scout Cookie, circa 1922

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar plus additional amount
• for topping (optional)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and the cup of sugar; add well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired.

Bake in a quick oven (375°) for approximately 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Makes six- to seven-dozen cookies.

By the mid-1930s, commercial bakers were being approached to produce the cookies, and by 1951, the line included three varieties: a sandwich cookie, shortbread and a chocolate mint, now known as Thin Mint cookies, which currently account for 25 percent of all Girl Scout cookie sales. Currently there are two bakeries licensed to produce eight varieties, and your access to certain cookies depends on your location.

Some cookies have gone extinct, varieties that didn’t sell well and were consequently retired—including a savory cracker with the terrifying sounding moniker  ”Golden Yangles” !!  Sounds to me like something you’d need a prescription creme to get rid of.

Today you see all sorts of creative ways to sell the cookies, including social media campaigns, direct marketing and cookie stands set up absolutely *everywhere* – from street corners to farmer’s markets to malls to supermarket parking lots.  But I must say the most interesting idea I’ve seen was a Friday evening “Wine and Girl Scout cookie Pairing”.  Because the only thing better than girl scout cookies is girl scout cookies and wine!

So what girl scout cookies pair well with what wines?  Tom had a few ideas:

Try one of Viogniers – either 100%  Viognier , such as Cave la Romaine Côtes du Rhône 2011 Viognier ($16), or else a Viognier blend like our  Chaume Arnaud  La Cadène Blanc 2008 ($15) with any of the coconutty cookies.  Mango Cremes or Samoas.

With the lemony varieties, Savannah Smiles or Lemonades, we have a terrific crisp and citrusy Spanish Verdejo - Bodega Traslagares Verdejo 2010 ($13)

Our soft sparkling Domaine la Croix des Marchands “Methode Gaillacoise” ($18) would pair wonderfully well with either Thin Mints or the plain shortbread style Trefoils.

Finally, try our Cave la Romaine Rouge Tradition 2011 ($10) with Thanks A Lot cookies (shortbread dipped in fudge) – it’s an everyday red that goes with just about anything and is very nice with chocolate.

Enjoy!

PS  You didn’t think you’d get away without being asked to buy some girl scout cookies, now did you ?  If you’re one of the rare few with no girl scouts on your block or parents/aunts/uncles of girl scouts in your office, post a comment and I’ll follow up with you directly