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I will be traveling to europe and am wondering, which wines (or beers..:P) should I try? Im a wine novice and love muscato d'asti, though dont mind trying other types. So I will be going to:
amsterdam berlin vienna prague rome barcelona paris
Mussels on the half shell are as exotic and flavorful as they are inexpensive.
(serves 6)
6 basil leaves 2 T fresh thyme, remove and discard stems before measuring 2 T fresh tarragon, remove and discard stems before measuring 3 garlic cloves, minced 1 shallot(s), minced 3 lemons, 1 * zested, 1 /2*juiced, 1 - 1/2* cut into wedges and reserved for garnish 1/4 cup fresh Italian parsley sprigs, remove and discard stems before measuring 1/2 t celery salt 1/4 t freshly ground black pepper 3 T butter at room temperature 1 lb. cultured blue mussels, rinsed, and debearded with a quick tug
1. . Mix all ingredients except the butter and mussels in a small food processor or blender or dice finely and mix by hand in a small bowl.
2. . If using a processor or blender add the butter. Otherwise, add the butter to the mixture in the bowl and blend thoroughly with a spoon.
3. . Place a vegetable steamer in a large pot and add 1 inch of water Bring water to a boil. Add the mussels, cover and steam for approximately 40 to 60 seconds, or just long enough for the shells to open (this is the sole object of the exercise). Remove opened shells and continue steaming any closed shells for I minute. Discard any mussels that have not opened by this time.
4. . Allow the mussels to cool. Remove the top shell.
5. . Set the mussels on a baking sheet (facing up) and spoon 1/4 teaspoon of the butter/herb mixture over each.
6. . Place the pan under the broiler on the level closest to the element or flame. Broil for about 2-1/2 minutes, or until butter is melted and the mussels just begin to brown.
7. . Serve on the half shell.
le secret. .Do not oversteam or overbroil mussels.
the adventure club . .Add a few droplets of Pernod (a licorice-flavored liqueur) to each mussel just before cooking.
garnish . .Lemon wedges.
suggested accompaniment . .A martini.
alternatives . .i) Butter may be replaced with an equal amount of olive oil. ii) This recipe also works with oysters, but you will have to pray for a pearl in order to finance the difference in price.
notes . .Buy the mussels from a reputable fishmonger on the day of the dinner. Select only mussels that are closed. ii) Keep mussels refrigerated. iii) Mussels are best washed and cleaned just before using. They begin to dry out once the beard is removed. iv) Don't worry if you are missing any one of the herbs. v) If you open a mussel and it looks questionable, give it the smell test.
guest assignment . .Mussel debearder.
hints for advance prep . .The butter mixture may be prepared days in advance and refrigerated or frozen.
cooking apparatus . .A baking sheet, a large pot, and a vegetable steamer.
serving apparatus . .A large serving plate, a plate for the empty shells and cocktail napkins.
99-100 Parker: "Domaine de Pegau?s magical 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee da Capo is a magnificent offering. Tipping the scales at 16.1% alcohol, it boasts a blockbuster nose of dry vintage port intermixed with pepper, herbes de Provence, and roasted meats. Frightfully concentrated with layers of glycerin and fruit, it should prove to be one of the appellation?s greatest classics. More backward than either the 1998 or 2000 Capos, it is an enormously endowed, hugely concentrated, exhilarating effort that will last for three decades or more. It is a strong candidate for the ?wine of the vintage.? Anticipated maturity: 2010-2035+. When I asked Laurence how she would describe this beauty, she said, ?It consists of 80% of a great vintage of Chateauneuf du Pape, 20% a vintage port, and the rest some Syrah and other things we throw in for complexity.?
I enjoyed the exchanges about my 1 as much as any and want to address a couple of questions, queries and, perhaps, concerns. We know our reviews carry weight and we take that responsibility seriously. Most wines in the Napa office are tasted twice and by two people.
Jack tasted wines from a dozen Italian wineries imported by Empson USA. The wines from Conterno Fantina, Bellavista, Bongiovanni and Ca Rome impressed him the most.
This lightly golden Bordeaux smells like a wonderful Riesling or Gewürztraminer on first sniff and then evolves quickly to a Sauvignon Blanc blend. Peaches and grassy notes are very nice on the swirl with flowery bouquet.
This wine is 40% S. Blanc 50% Semillion and 10% Muscadelle and it tastes precisely like what it is. This wine comes in at $7.50 and is food friendly, and okay as an aperitif. Raise a glass to be sure.
Summer tried to dip its toe in the water this weekend - it looked a little like summer and it was pretty much the right time of the year - but the shorts stayed in their cupboard! Today it also looks like summer, but my jacket remains on - so far. Chickening out of firing-up [...]
St. Helena, Calif. -- As wine consumption in the United States reached an all-time high in 2007, wine producers celebrated the long-awaited arrival of a "wine culture" in America. But according to an 18-month study commissioned by Constellation Wines U.S., a large segment of the consumer population is still "overwhelmed" by wine. The results of "Home & Habits," the second phase of Constellation's "Project Genome" study, were released March 7 at a press conference.
"Our industry needs to do more to become more customer focused," said José Fernandez, president and CEO of Constellation Wines North America.
The original 2005 study of 3,500 wine drinkers was one of the largest consumer research projects ever conducted by the wine industry. The new study examined the purchases of 10,000 premium-wine consumers--defined as those who purchased wine priced at $5 and higher--over an 18-month period. While the first Project Genome study asked online survey participants to recall their wine purchases during the last 30 days, the Home & Habits study tracked the actual purchases of Nielsen Co.'s Homescan® consumer purchase panel, which employs in-home bar code scanners and surveys to map consumer buying behavior across a demographically balanced sampling.
Nielsen measured consumer attitudes and purchase behavior within multiple purchase channels, including warehouse clubs, supermarkets, mass merchandisers, drug stores, liquor stores and wine shops. The scan data were supplemented with online interviews to classify consumers by Project Genome consumer segments identified in Constellation's original study: Enthusiasts, Image Seekers, Savvy Shoppers, Traditionalists, Satisfied Sippers and Overwhelmed.
I'd like to point you readers to an interesting post by Clark Smith, at his GrapeCrafter blog, about Natural Winemaking (yes, capitalized) and the role of yeasts in the winemaking process.
Clark spent some time recently at a wine industry event where panelists and the audience discussed the definition of what Natural Winemaking actually is. It comes as no surprise to me that the group couldn't achieve consensus around a concept that remains, as far as I am concerned, a broken metaphor (vinegar is natural, wine requires technological intervention).
One particular sticking point arose out of a discussion surrounding the use of commercial yeasts. Many proponents of Natural Winemaking, including those that practice Biodynamic winemaking eschew commercial yeasts in favor of the yeasts that are found on and around the grapes, citing their role in the concept of terroir. Some do not.
Smith, in particular, seems to favor commercial yeasts for all the reasons that winemakers usually do: they prevent stuck fermentations, they allow the winemaker more choices in how, where, and at what temperature the fermentation process takes place, and finally they avoid the sometimes nasty odors and flavors that can be byproducts of some natural yeasts.
Smith goes on to make quite an interesting argument, however. He alleges that those concerned with the expression of terroir are actually better served by commercial yeasts than by so called "wild yeast" or "native yeast" fermentations. By virtue of eliminating or reducing the aromas and flavors that are merely byproducts of the yeast itself, Smith argues, the terroir is more likely to shine through. The implication being that native yeasts actually obscure terroir more than they create it.
I'm entirely ambivalent about commercial yeasts in winemaking. I've had phenomenal wines made both ways. Frankly, most of the time I (and I would venture, most wine lovers) don't know what kind of yeasts were used in the wine I'm drinking. I recognize that 50 years ago, there were no commercial yeasts on the market, but I also accept that there were an awful lot of wines full of Brettanomyces and other uglies that made for unpleasant drinking.
What do you think? Yeast as terroir or yeast as tool?
Michel Rolland, the most influential enologist of the world : " 75 % of the Chilean wines is green "
The most important and polemic flying winemaker of the world does not agree with the commentary of the Chilean critics who say that the wines are falling down in a style "On I mature". In sole right, it conversed with "Revista del Campo" of his acid vision of the enology and of the specializing journalism.
Over May 13th, 14th and 15th 2007, thirty wine writers, sommeliers, and industry professionals from across Canada and the U.S. met in Windsor, Ontario to judge the 27th annual All Canadian Wine Championships. More than 850 wines were submitted from...
My second organic wine pick for this week involves Pinot Noir--which still seems to be everyone's favorite red variety. There's a lot to like about it, so it's not surprising. They're flavorful, rich without being heavy, and pair well with a wide variety of foods.
So when the folks at Cooper Mountain asked if I'd like to try their latest vintage of Pinot Noir I said yes. Cooper Mountain Vineyards are in the Willamette Valley, perched on the slopes of an extinct volcano in Oregon. Robert and Corrine Gross started the vineyards in 1978 and began bottling their own wine in 1987. Robert Gross always explored alternative methods of treating his medical patients--he's a psychiatrist, a homeopath, and an acupuncturist--and his fondness for the road less traveled in his career can also be seen in his wine work. Within a few years, Gross became interested in sustainable, alternative farming and began to convert the vineyards to organic methods. They were certified organic in 1995 (the second vineyard in Oregon to achieve this status), and four years later received their biodynamic Demeter certification.
The wine I sampled, the 2006 Cooper Mountain Vineyards Cooper Hill Pinot Noir, was a light bodied, cheerful wine with excellent QPR. ($15-$17 through online merchants) Made with organic, biodynamic grapes, the wine tasted very pure to me, with lots of cherry and raspberry aromas and flavors that were intense and lively. The wine had Pinot's distinctive silky character, and after you swallowed down all those fruity flavors there was a nice fresh taste in your mouth that reminded me of the smell of a wet garden. Like most Oregon Pinot Noirs that I've tasted, this wine is not opulent and rich but cool and restrained--like Grace Kelley. It's a young wine, with refreshing acidity at its core and I found that the cherry had turned to black cherry and the raspberry to blackberry after I recorked it and left it on the counter for 24 hours. This suggested to me that this is a wine that will continue to develop with age. But it's delightful right now, so you shouldn't wait to try this one. And the price is amazing for a wine that is organic, small production, and so darn tasty.
We had the Cooper Mountain Pinot Noir with some BBQ shrimp and cheese grits made with shrimp tossed in some homemade red sauce with bourbon and spices and some creamy grits laced with extra sharp cheddar cheese. The acidity really cut through the red BBQ sauce, and the purity of the fruit flavors didn't clash with the spices. This summer, if you've got plans to BBQ, get yourself some of this wine.
Cooper Mountain makes a wide range of organic, biodynamic wines including Pinot Gris, Malbec, and several different Pinot Noirs. If you want confirmation from another blogger that Cooper Mountain is a winery to watch, check out Jeff Lefevere's review over at Good Grape. This is a winery that may not be on your radar screen, but it should be. Their wines are further proof of the numerous affordable, delicious choices that are out there if you would like to make organic and biodynamic wine choices.
Insiders know that many of British Columbia?s most tantalizing food and wine experiences are found in the Fraser, Cowichan and Okanagan valleys. So wine, dine and taste your way through these food-centric areas. Discover boutique wineries, savour Aboriginal cuisine, feast...
As part of my desire to enjoy better white wines, here's the 2005 Joseph Drouhin Chablis from the Chablis region of France near Burgundy. Around $20.
A nose that is slightly reminiscent of buttered popcorn, but not overly so. Overall a very bright, sunny wine, with flavors of crisp pears and green apples, with a touch of citrus on the finish.
I served this with another preparation of whole rainbow trout roasted in aluminum foil, this time with red bell peppers and pineapple. The touch of sweetness and caramelized sugars was quite nice. In the past I've used chayote squash and other ingredients, but the pineapple is a great pairing.
Despite the kazillion posts of tastings these days, it's not something I get to do nearly as often as I like. Sure, I do a lot of in-store tastings where I pour a couple of my wines to innocent by-standers, but a full-on tasting with some sort of reason to it is somewhat rare. It's for that reason that I get so! stoked! when one comes along.
Betty's, one of my favorite restaurants in Buffalo, is looking to expand their wine program. I spoke with Carroll, the owner, a few weeks ago about a staff training to go through their entire list and explain the differences between grapes and styles and what foods to pair them with. This was a pretty monumental task; everything they have is by-the-glass, and they have about 20 or so wines to get through. This may not sound like a lot, but since the staff was bent on not spitting, you can see the potential for mayhem. Anyway, I was over there last night and the chef prepared nibbles to go with the tasting. Predictably, the room got exponentially louder as we made our way through, but hopefully it was a good exercise to taste them all side-by-side, if for no other reason than to taste how awesome Sauvignon Blanc and goat cheese are together.
This wine is wild and untamed! It has an exotic taste of berries and herbs, and is still quite tannic. After decanting, the wine softened a bit but continued to be chewy and dense. It also has a striking dark purple color, that looked beautiful in the decanter.
From a tiny region in Southern France, Bandol is made primarily from Mourvedre. The grapes are extremely ripe, but there's an underlying herbal tone that makes some of these wine taste almost wild and this is no exception.
I paid $32 for the bottle, and have seen it for as much as $40. If you're ready to do some exploring in France's lesser-known regions, look for a Bandol. And raise a glass!
In 2006, while I was teaching Spanish bankers how to chat up a beautiful woman in English (hey, how else do you get students interested in learning a second language?), Ryan was slaving away at the computer, inventing new and creative ways to involve wine lovers from around the world in Spanish and Portuguese wine. After many creative attempts, he stumbled upon a zany idea he called, the 2+1 Iberian Wine Survey. Sent to a handful of bloggers and wine geeks, the survey asked them to answer 2 questions about Iberian wine, and in return, they could ask 1 of us.
However, at the time, we weren’t entirely confident the idea would work. Having only been in the wine blogging scene a year, we didn’t know if our readers would be interested in hearing about a wine blogger’s selection of Spanish wine in Canada, or whether a blogger based in the UK enjoyed the unique and diverse wines coming out of Portugal. It was a crap shoot, but indeed, it worked! Why we didn’t continue the idea? I don’t have a clue, but we are now!
We’re bringing back the 2+1 Iberian Wine Survey, and over the next few weeks, you’ll be hearing not only what other bloggers are experiencing with Iberian wine, but also some of the pressing questions they’ve had about Spanish and Portuguese wine mulling around in their heads. Let’s cross our fingers that we can make up a convincing answer
In addition, we’d like to include everyday folk who are simply interested in wine, like you! So if you’re simply a wine lover, or an uber geek interested in chiming in your ideas on our blog, let us know so that we can get a survey out to you asap. All the collected surveys will be posted on Catavino beginning on June 1st.
And to get you in the mood, I’ve included a series of questions asked of Catavino way back in 2006 when we were all still green to wine blogging!
Andrew Barrow of Spitton “Is sherry destined to go the way of Marsala and be relegated to cooking use only?” We sure don’t think so!
Erin and Michelle of Grape Juice “We?re very curious about Basque wines. Are the wines as unique as the language and culture, and if so, what sets them apart from the typical Spanish wines we?re likely to encounter? Do you yourself enjoy them? Are there any that you would recommend us trying for an introduction? I realize that?s actually about four questions, but we?re very nosy people, so I hope that?s okay.” Txakolis are typically misunderstood and under appreciated.
Tim Elliot of Winecast “I’m reading quite a bit about how good Portuguese red wines are and would like to explore this region for one of my podcasts. What 3 wines, $25 USD or less, would you choose for a tasting that would give me an idea of the quality of these wines?” Here are our suggestions!
It appears as if we saved the best for last when it came to reviewing three wines from Old Mill Estate, their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon being the pick of the bunch.
Aromas of ripe blackberry, plum, choc mint and a bit of alcoholic heat, the palate shows slightly tart blackberry fruit, spicy oak and a hint of liquorice. A round mouth feel with fine drying tannins, the wine also has enough acid to lead into a well balanced finish.
This young Cabernet was surprisingly approachable as a drink now proposition, however it did take some time in the decanter before the aromas and flavours really opened up. That being said, it should improve with bottle age over the medium term.
Score: 90/100 Price: $24 Closure: Screwcap Alcohol: 15.5% Other Opinions: Torbwine, Wine Without Wank Would I buy this wine? Yes, worth putting a couple of bottles in the cellar
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The 2004 vintage of this wine received a bronze medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year (2006). I’ve only been able to find the 2005 vintage in Belgrade wine shops. It has an intensive and complex aroma with hints of flowers. Dominant tastes are those of melon and slightly of apricots. However, I wasn’t impressed, perhaps I expected more due to all the hype. Or perhaps there’s a significant difference in the two vintages. We should note that this winery has a good reputation. The Simcic Sivi Pinot 1990 was awarded the Cordon d’Excellence; their Chardonnay has won two gold medals at the Ljubljana Wine Fair and the 1994 vintage was declared Champion by the Knights of the Burgerland-Pannonian Order.
A magnificent Malbec! It picked up a trophy at the inaugural Wines of Argentina Awards held in Mendoza in 2007, having wowed the international panel of judges - included among them wine expert Jancis Robinson, who gave it an impressive 17 out of 20. This mulberry and spice-flavoured red wine was made by Herve Fabre, who was originally involved in the Bordeaux wine trade, before he and his wife fell in love with Argentina and moved there to establish a boutique winery. Herve's experience in producing top quality wines shines through in this tremendously rich, silky-smooth wine. Ripe blackberry and bramble aromas merge seamlessly with spicy oak and vanilla flavours. Full bodied, yet seriously smooth and warming. This 89 Parker point wine is sure to survive for many years to come. Definitely a wine to enjoy with fine food ... try it with rare roast beef or a juicy steak.
"Wonderfully succulent, rich berry fruit with hints of spice box." (Parker). A must-have wine from this superb estate, once provider of the second wine of Cos d'Estournel. "Blackberries ... herbs ... hints of spices." (Wine Spectator)
Tecnorati
It appears as if we saved the best for last when it came to reviewing three wines from Old Mill Estate, their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon being the pick of the bunch.
The 2004 vintage of this wine received a bronze medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year (2006). I’ve only been able to find the 2005 vintage in Belgrade wine shops. It has an intensive and complex aroma with hints of flowers. Dominant tastes are those of melon and slightly of apricots. However, I wasn’t impressed, perhaps I expected more due to all the hype. Or perhaps there’s a significant difference in the two vintages.