The Note

I've always wondered how, exactly, people remember anything about wine.  Sure, I have a decent grasp of the basic tasting principles, but how on earth do you remember that '96 was a great year for the Bordeaux coming out of Chateau Quelquechose Impressive, and that it should be consumed in March of 2009?  I see gimcrack wine notebooks in every boutique-y kitchen goods store in the Bay Area, and I think I've tried to use them on two separate, ambitious occasions -- to no avail.  Perhaps that sort of resource is helpful if you frequent tasting rooms, but when I drink wine I am drinking wine and would rather not stop to dissect the experience, or memorize the production notes.  I also don't happen to frequent tasting rooms (although I do have an interview to work at one tomorrow -- wish me luck!)

Tyler Balliet at The Second Glass recently reviewed this unique solution to my conundrum: The Note, from Hinckley Cellars.  This is a clever metal device designed to help slip that curvy bottle right out of it's little label in no time flat.  Clever, or kitschy?  Maybe a little bit of both.  Instead of using The Note, Tyler takes photos of wine labels with his cell phone: I happen to find this notion nothing less than brilliant (thanks, Tyler).  But, if you're really into wine gadgets, check out the video below and get ready to fork over your $65.

One More Reason To Drink (Red) Wine

From the New York Times:

New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging

Thanks, Nancy

Links GALORE

I feel like I have finally made a real entrance into the food-blogging world, and as with all fun new things in my life it's turning into an obsession. In a good way? Here are some of the best food blogs I've run across, and am duly linking on the side bar -- I'm even adding a wine and beer section (come on, who didn't see that coming?)

_Still Life With, a great resource for anyone interested in food photography (looking or taking).

_Taste Spotting: My dear Allison always sends me the greatest links. I'm a sucker for pretty food photos, which is basically the entire layout of this site. It's also a great way to surf the network of food bloggers and share your own delights.

_Chocolate Shavings, artistically presented by Jenn, a Parisian studying at the French Culinary Institute in Montreal, and her boyfriend Oliver (I don't know how I mixed that up the first time around!).

_Cook Almost Anything At Least Once, an adventurous and pretty blog from down under.

_Eat NZ, a great portrayal of Kiwi cuisine via Chef Paul. Way to represent.

_Swirling Notions, on food and wine, and then a little more on wine.

_The Second Glass, "Your magazine for the new era of wine drinking." It's new-ish but doing great so far -- check out the front-page article on biodynamic wines.

_Musings Over a Pint, a pretty great blog on craft beer and a bit of foodie indulgence.

_Bigger Than Your Head, a fantastic overview of the wine world.

_Beer Blog with Roger Protz, a great way to stay up-to-date on the goings-on of the beer world.

_A Good Beer Blog. Need I say more?

Wine and Cheese Links

* Crushpad is a San Francisco winery where "you are the wine maker." Crushpad provides grapes from West Coast vineyards, an industry-acclaimed wine making team and a state-of-the-art winery focused on making wine in small lots. It sounds pretty great to me.

* Winemonger has an awesome "ULTIMATE CHEESE AND WINE PAIRING GUIDE." I find it quite thorough and informative -- check it out!

* One of my favorite parts of Fork and Bottle is their collection of wine maps and other great online resources. There's a LOT of information here -- I've just begun investigating.

Green Wine?

Is drinking wine bad for the planet? One conscientious oenophile conducted a study, measuring the amount of carbon resources it took to ship wine from California and from France. He ended up drawing the Green Wine Line featured on the map below: drinkers West of the line will leave the smallest carbon footprint by drinking wine from California, Oregon, or Washington, while wine enthusiasts East of the line will do best to indulge in European counterparts. The study didn't include data on shipping wine from the Southern Hemisphere.



You can also minimize the impact your drinking has on the environment by picking bigger bottles (yeah, magnums!) and saying "no" to bottled water (or at the very least choosing a local bottled water!).

Grower Champagne

A very good friend once advised me always to keep a bottle of champagne in my refrigerator. And thus began my love affair with sparkling wine.

As many readers may know, the term "Champagne" is reserved for wines originating in Champagne, France. There are 261 large-scale négoçiants and coopératives in Champagne. They produce 80% of the total output in Champagne, yet they only own 12% of the vineyards. This means in Champagne (France), there are 15,000 growers in the region who do not make their own wine! Large-scale champagne production involves extensive use of chaptalization (adding sugar), acidification, cultured yeast strains, enzymes, nitrogenous yeast nutrients and rapid temperature controlled fermentations. These houses account for over 88% of all Champagne exports, and this number rises to 97% of exports outside of Europe.

Small Growers, or “récoltant-manipulants,” may purchase only 5% of their fruit. The same people who grow the grapes ferment and blend the wine. This allows the grower/winemaker more interaction with the ingredients and more control over the final product -- terroir in the truest sense.

This week we did a blind taste test featuring one "large-scale" producer and one bottle of grower champagne. The former, Paul Goerg "blanc-de-blancs" (all Chardonnay), offered the typical characteristics of champagne: ripe pears and green apples, slightly bready and yeasty aromas, and a moderately sweet finish. The grower champagne featured a completely different and unique profile. My primary impression was the aroma of raw eggs and bread crumbs right before you bread some lucky food destined for frying. The fruit profile included nectarines and other stone fruits, with a very faint herbal quality on the finish. It was significantly more effervescent, with a complexity and depth unrivaled by the more traditional champagne. I'm honestly not entirely sure whether I liked it, but it was definitely a compelling experience -- I wanted more!

So how can you support grower champagne? As you're examining that bottle of champagne you'll be keeping in your refrigerator now, you may notice the letters NM, RM, or CM. NM denotes négociant-manipulants, the large companies that buy, blend and produce very large quantities of wine. RM are récoltant-manipulants, growers who make and sell their own wine, and CM are co-opératives-manipulants (the co-ops).

EDIT: The ad sent by Marc Hebrart, who makes the champagne we now carry, started, "Drink grower champagne if you've forgotten champagne is wine." I think that's quite apt. Way to go, Mr. Hebrart.

Wine-ing and Dining

Last night I made dinner for the roommates and a friend who broke her elbow (!). I'd been meaning to use up some of our dried goods, so I decided to make a risotto with mushrooms, peas, and fresh thyme. I didn't feel like salad but wanted something green, and concocted a lovely side of steamed kale with sauteed garlic, marinated cannelli beans, and Tomatoes Provencal. I didn't realize when I set out on this endeavor that Tomatoes Provencal are traditionally breaded and baked. I didn't have bread crumbs on hand, but I did have cornmeal and parmesan, which I blended with dried Herbes de Provence and fresh thyme and liberally sprinkled on halved roma tomatoes before popping them in the oven for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees. They turned out well -- I think this dish is a nice way to add a splash of color to a meal without too much work (or too much more food).

My roommate's contribution was a bottle of Meron Primitivo, which was fantastic. Originating in Veglie (south of Puglia), Italy, Meron is 100% Primitivo grapes, vinified in stainless steel tanks. The skins are left 7-8 days in contact with the must, resulting in a full body and hearty but smooth character. Plums and cherries dominate the nose, and the mouth feel is velvety and supple. Not as juicy and tart as Primitivos I've encountered, but really nice with the risotto and kale.

Produced by Azienda Vinicola Durante. Imported by Iatesta Imports, Philadelphia. 14% ABV.

Tinto Wine Bar, Philadelphia

Last night I had the pleasure of dining at Tinto in Center City Philadelphia. Jose Garcia, the executive chef at Amada (my favorite restaurant in Philly) opened Tinto last spring with the idea of a tapas and wine bar similar to Amada but focusing on the Basque cuisine indigenous to northern Spain.

I started with a glass of Castell Roig ("roych") Cava Brut, and my friend tried the Palacio De La Vega Navarra Reserva (Tempranillo), which was nice but a bit oakier than I/we expected. We selected five dishes (our server, Brett, recommended three per person, but we were planning ahead for dessert), and while we were waiting he presented a plate of Mahon cheese crisps with a fantastic smoked tomato coulis. Brett was incredibly helpful, friendly, and knowledgeable, and definitely contributed to the whole dining experience.

Our first plate was De Txanguro A La Vasca (pictured, left), a bruschetta with jumbo lump crab, avocado, and espelette chile. The mix of creamy and crisp was a lovely combination, and the crab salad was prepared so well. Next came the Bonito Bocadillo: I learned that "Bocadillo" means "sandwich", and we have Spanish bonito tuna on our menu at Tria. So this was a sandwich of marinated tuna with creme fraiche, red onion escabeche, and an anchovy, served on a croissant. My favorite part was honestly the anchovy -- anchovies really aren't used often enough, in my opinion. Just as we were finishing the last bits of croissant the runner presented Revueloto de Langosta, a round of lobster and asparagus shired eggs, served with an oyster cava cream and toasted baguette. The consistency didn't seem overwhelmingly appetizing, but the flavors and richness of the dish came through.

After the seafood rounds my Cava was running pretty low, and when the next two dishes arrived I knew it was time to switch to a red. First came the Patatas Asturianas. Patatas! Potatoes! Get it? These were fried and served on top of a tomato compote, and at the table the server doused them with a lovely La Peral cream. Just as we were starting to savor the combination of crispy, creamy, salty flavors, the Hongos a la Plantxa arrived -- wild mushrooms roasted on a plank, tossed with truffle oil, and served in a small cast iron skilled atop roasted potatoes and shallots. I downed the last couple sips of cava and we ordered two glasses of the Navarra Evohe (I believe the grape was "Garnatxa"?), which complemented the earthy notes of the food rather well.

That was our five, but we wanted one more taste before dessert. Brett recommended the Arroz con Almejas, a rice dish topped with clams and shaved artichokes, and served with a Mahon cream. This was r-i-c-h. It was practically dripping butter, and the tasty cream began to congeal as it cooled, shimmering with fat. It was delicious, but sort of reminded me why I enjoy living a low-dairy lifestyle.

So it's a good thing that for dessert we selected the Torta de Aceite de Olivia, a yellow cake made with olive oil instead of butter and served with vanilla marcona almond creme and housemade blood orange marmalade. The combination of cake, cream, almonds, and marmalade made for the perfect bite. We paired this with a glass of Pedro Ximinez sherry, which literally tasted like drinking a freshly-picked fig. Brett recommended drizzling it over whole-wheat pancakes, perhaps with some poached figs. YUM.

All in all I really enjoyed Tinto, but Amada still reigns as my favorite Philly restaurant. Basque cuisine seems to be a bit richer and heavier than other Spanish foods, and perhaps not quite as spicy. That said, I plan to find a recipe for olive oil cake a.s.a.p., and maybe a bottle of Pedro Ximinez, too.

[An application essay, of sorts]

Last Friday, amidst torrential rains and gale-force winds, I rolled into the Santa Barbara Amtrak station, concluding an eight-hour bus ride from the Bay Area. It was the sort of evening when one most wants a warm meal and perhaps a warming beverage, ideal company for watching the rain hammer against windowpanes for hours on end. I had the rain and the windowpanes but was left cold, tired, and hungry; the friend I was visiting planned on picking me up until her Californian car protested the unprecedented monsoon by decommissioning the windshield wipers. Thus, for the last leg of my journey I took a taxi from the station to 1522 ½ B. Street, where a world of culinary delights awaited me.

Feeling guilty for the automotive complications, R. prepared a feast of baked wild salmon: the outside of the fish, barely crisped under the broiler, was lightly saturated in a sauce of ginger, teriyaki, and sesame oil, with the inside retaining a moist, tender suppleness. The green beans were steamed to crisp-tender perfection, and liberally sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds that added crunch and flavor while complementing the Asian notes dominant in the salmon. As she was preparing the meal R. opened a bottle of Andrew Murray’s “Esperance” (Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvedre), a bold red balanced by berry and currant flavors; well-integrated oak; and a pleasant, subtle spice. The wine was quaffable but satiating, every sip satisfying enough to be the last but enticing further exploration. Furthermore, there was enough depth to hold up to the piquant marinade without overpowering the more delicate consistencies of the food. Traditionally, a full-bodied, slightly oaky white may have rounded out the meal with more precision, but given the inclement conditions and festive nature of the evening, a wintry red was in fact an ideal selection.

As the meal was winding down R. presented, with great and well-warranted flourish, a box of Godiva chocolates, a generous holiday gift that had remarkably been sequestered away for my visit. Now I’ve had good chocolate, and I’ve even had excellent chocolate, but I have never even dreamed of chocolate of this quality. Ranging from the exotic and enticing “Tasmanian Honey” to the relatively mundane yet beguiling “Bananas Foster,” every bite was exciting and compelling, from the moment my teeth sunk into the dense, smooth paste until the last morsel slowly melted down my throat. The flavors literally evolved on my tongue, unfolding a microcosm of tastes and recognitions. There was a “Peanut Butter and Jelly” that encapsulated, in one sweet bite, the pedestrian, familiar, but timeless joy of, well, a well-made peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. The “Apple Pie” relayed all the archetypal qualities of a Granny Smith apple pie: tart, zesty, and succulent -- a tribute to every apple pie anyone’s grandmother ever made.

To complement the sweets we warmed up R.'s new Nespresso machine and poured two decaf espressos and two shots of Knob Creek bourbon whiskey. To my palate, coffee and whiskey are two of the most fickle beverages. You can have really excellent coffee that brings a meal to a gratifying close, or really terrible coffee that leaves your mouth, and your memory of the meal, bitter and unsatisfied. Similarly, quality whiskey is invigorating yet calming, providing instant warmth and, dare I say, happiness, whereas inferior whiskey tastes cheap, sharp, tawdry, like supermarket pastries or dollar-store chocolate. With its rich amber color and smooth, toasty flavor, Knob Creek, part of Jim Beam's line of small-batch bourbon, was undoubtedly a worthy companion to our Godiva and Nespresso delicacies. At the end of the night our stomachs, eyes, and palates were unanimously satiated, the mark of a truly excellent meal.