It's Not the Heat, It's the Humility

I was frying an egg on my coconut the other day, weighing my options; over-easy, or sunny side up?

Thanks to a persistent Hungarian heritage, my flat skillet head makes such breakfast choices possible. Though, this was late-afternoon, with temps hitting 99 degrees. Not exactly bacon and eggs time.

However, the BTUs emanating from my stove-pipe were less from the scorching heat than the assault on my palate from an over-oaked Chardonnay, a wine I was sipping in hopes of cooling down the system. But, chard-no-way.

I will neither insult nor flatter the producer of this atrocity by divulging its name, but only say it hails from a state known for over-oaked Chardonnays (rhymes with ‘shall-I-mourn-ya’).

So, there I was, egg on my face, fuming, when I realized I had the means, within reach, to thermo-regulate; in the person of Kramer Vineyards, 2006 Dijon Clone Chardonnay, $16. What a delightful rebound. As with vintages past, I pretend to detect a bit of Chassagne-Montrachet in this wine. That is to say, light and lean texture, with lemon, green apple, and pine nut flavors. And yes, okay, there’s some spicy oak, but restrained. In comparison, anyway.

Compared to what? Well, Les McCann, try to make it real with the Chateau St. Jean, 2007 Belle Terre Vineyard Chardonnay, $25. After picking the splinters from my tongue, I scribbled notes of butterscotch and caramel (New Oak!). But once you wiggle your sensory percepts between the shards of wood, you will find some elegance in texture, and pretty citrus notes. Nice stuff.

Speaking of white Burgundy (Chassagne-Montrachet), longtime readers of this blog (hahahaha) will remember (keep scrolling down, Baby!), that I often extol the virtues of Saint-Aubin, great wines at (relatively) low prices. And the Louis Jadot, 2005 St. Aubin, $40 is exceptional. Note the vintage. From most any other wine region, a Chardonnay of this age would be on the slippery slope downhill, if not already toast. But, dude, this is Burgundy, and the wine is just coming into its prime. Big, rich, yet austere and elegant. Brr. Gun. Dee.

While we can stand in awe of the above wines, let us admit, they’re high-falutin’, with higher falutin’ price tags. What if yr just hanging out, chillin’ with yr home skillet? Take a step down to a nice, simple refreshing wine, the Cupcake, 2008 Yakima Valley Riesling, $14. Nothing to ponder over, no lofty exaltations, just a nice humble wine. It’s the perfect expression of Washington fruit, more apple than apricot, more rich than lean, and plenty tasty. Chill.

And as for those 99 degree temps? Well, vanished, vamoosed, gone. Which means, the yolk is on me.

Backblog

E-mail, Facebook, blogging, Kindling, texting, and now Twittering –I have all the e-neurological diseases.

And why? Hey, dude, I’m networking (the host disease for which all these other things are merely symptoms). But what the heck am I ‘networking’? Myself? My wine writing? The Ridgefield Farmers Market? All the above.

I text people to get them to my tweets, which draws them to Facebook, so that they’ll find my blog, where they’ll stumble upon my Kindle (‘A Ruminant on Spudders Crest; Part I’), which they’ll buy, and I’ll become rich and famous, and every newspaper editor in the country will clamor for me to return as wine columnist. But I’ll tell them, nah, I’d rather run the farmers market.

Where I can tell people about this, my blog.

And I know, as some have pointed out this has lain dormant for about two months. I’ve got my excuses –Amsterdam, Bruges, Brussels, Paris, returning to a wildly overgrown vineyard, moving from Bellwood Heights back to Spudders Crest, unpacking, starting a farmers market, running the kids to piano, clarinet, tennis, soccer, basketball, volleyball, bottling a lovely viognier, and a somewhat less lovely Rosato Negra- phew!

Forget all that. I’m back. So, both feet, let’s jump in. Starting with Pinot Gris, a wonderful summertime wine, and specifically the Kramer Vineyards, 2007 Oregon Pinot Gris, $15. Apropos of the vintage, this is a lean, almost minerally version, with pretty peachy flavors and just a touch of grassiness. In fact, close your eyes and you might imagine a Sauvignon Blanc (hey, Trudy, ever thought of doing a Sauv B?). Very refreshing, and a nice food wine, with say, shellfish, or –how about vineyard designated dolmas.

Next up, from King Estate, Next. Yup, Next is the Washington label from the Eugene area winery, and the Next, 2008 Washington Riesling, $12, is the perfect expression of Washington fruit. It’s a rich and succulent wine, with floral and lemony aromas, and flavors of lime, lemon, and a note of apricot, with justajustajusta hint of RS (that is, residual sugar). Miss the acidity? Me too, but it’s sure a luscious wine.

And now, back to Pinot Gris, and its finest expression; Alsace. Don’t get me wrong, I love Oregon Pinot Gris, and when I’m not in a grumpy mood you might even catch me saying something nice about Italian Pinot Grigio. But frankly, Alsace is where it’s at.

Witness the superb Lucien Albrecht, 2008 Cuvee Romanus Pinot Gris, $19. The rich, viscous texture alone conjures up visions of the vine carpeted hills of Alsace. Bursting with flavors of pear, apple, brown spice, with lingering notes of citrus in the background, this comes on strong, and yet there is finesse, a subtlety about it. How do dey do dat? O, forty-year old vines might help.

Extra bonus wine: Lucien Albrecht, NV Brut Blanc de Blancs Cremant d’Alsace, $20. If I could afford it (go Kindle, go!), this would become our house bubbly. Furious bubble action, fine, creamy texture (this is a cremant?!), lovely apple aromas and flavors. De Wine is Divine.

Lucien Albrecht rocks!

Hemingway's Notebook -Found!

Last night I lifted up a copy of The Three Musketeers from my night stand, and there it was; my review of King Estate, 2007 Domaine Oregon Pinot Gris, $25.

No way anyone would remember this, but some months ago I wrote about this wine, all the while admitting I’d lost my tasting notes (okay, Anthony Broadbent I am not).

And so just like Groucho finding his steak (a joke for those who tweet -you can find me under ‘wineiconoclast’, natch), shazam, there were my post-it notes with this sterling review: ‘peach, spice, lean, good acidity, lemon, a food wine through and through. Tremendous balance, with flavors, acidity, structure, all rowing together for a one great joy ride.’ (Also noted this on the flip side of the page, ‘the Wreckonomy’-hmm, must’ve been in a weird mood that night).

And now that that mystery is cleared up, I have yet a more current review, and guess what –no tasting notes. You know why? We had this Clos du Chateau, 2005 Viré-Clessé, $25, the other night with dinner and it was so awesome, I couldn’t stop raving, not even long enough to reach for a pen. Rich, succulent, big, busting with flavor. So good, who needs tasting notes?

I only discovered Viré-Clessé, a region in Burgundy’s Macon, when dining at a one-star in Tournus some years ago. I bought several bottles over there, and every now and again I’ll find a Viré-Clessé stateside, and for old time sake, purchase it. The grape is Chardonnay, and typically lean, and crisp, a big step-up from Macon-Villages. But this one is so incredibly explosive it’s in a different universe. Availability? Well, I got this in San Diego, and skate-boarding the web I can’t find any reference to it here in the Northwest. So you might have to hop a flight south (or way east) to find it.

Okay, let’s venture out into the middle of the muddle that is my vineyard. After a slow start (I didn’t do my first spray until May 20, almost a month after bud-break), suddenly we had two weeks of uninterrupted great weather, mostly in the 80s every day, and suddenly -Wow! the vines went nuts. Not only that, but this is by far the best opening salvo to a growing season I’ve ever seen. Every shoot has at least two clusters (one has 4!), and they’re beautiful, well-formed, and already verging on bloom.

And then the bad news; just as predictions of thunderstorms were seeping in, I did my second spray, and wisely added a fungicide to the mix. Then all day yesterday we had some faint mist, hardly a sprinkle, but it worried me all the same, as temps were in the 80s. Wet, heat -sure fire recipe for mildew. And then last evening, right at about 5:30, it hit. Torrential downpour.

All of this will probably revise my spray schedule, as we shift into a different gear once bloom comes, and with higher mildew pressure, and all of this on top of the fact I’m heading for Europe in a week, makes everything a little trickier.
Sure wish we had those dry, 80 degree days back.

Finally, let’s return to Groucho, The Three Musketeers, and tomato slices. One might wonder why it took several months for me to find my review of Pinot Gris. Well, truth is, I’m not getting on very well with The Three Musketeers. Pretty much a romance/swashbuckling novel, that, despite its girth, is exceedingly light weight. So I only read it sporadically. And just as I’m about to doze off.

That, and I’m not exactly Anthony Broadbent.

Feeling the Bleus

(The following post was supposed to end up on my WordPress site, but for some reason -stupidity?- I can't get on my own web page. So here it is.)

I’ve been feeling kinda bleu lately, so I thought I’d have some wine to cheer me up.

Okay, cheesy opening, but fitting, as my bleu-ness comes not from ennui, but from the likes of Roquefort, St. Agur, Stilton, Shropshire, Gorgonzola, and Oregonzola. Great cheeses all.

And, as I was entering the final episode of a three-part class on pairing cheese and wine, I wanted to go out on a high note. With blue cheese.

As per usual, whenever I go to round-up cheeses for a class, the array of choices is nearly paralyzing. But eventually I pared it down to these four: St. Agur and Shropshire, both from Freddies. And Herve Mons Persillé Chevre du Beaujolais, and Neal’s Yard Stilton Colston Bassett, both from Whole Foods. And as back-up, Société Roquefort, Oregonzola, and Blue d’Auvergne, none of which we got to.

They weren’t needed. Because, aside from the cheeses by themselves, Mary Karen made a Roquamole. And just to show off the versatility of blue cheese, I whipped up an incredible (no brag, just fact) Gorgonzola Cheesecake.

Mary Karen followed this Nigella Lawson recipe, and it was awesome. For my recipe, cf. below.

So, what wines match well with blue cheese? Well, the authorities claim either a big muscle red, or, in a complete spin-about, a sweet dessert wine. Let’s start with muscle, in the form of Twisted, 2007 California Old Vine Zinfandel, $8. Now, I’m not a big fan of California Zin, in particular, this style. Overblown, sweet, all flash, no subtlety. And yes, I know, this is the style (and price) that many people love. To be perfectly fair, it was a good match with the St. Agur, and the Shropshire. It did, however, turn that Herve Mons into a bitter hunk of mold.

Primitivo may be the same grape as Zinfandel, but it’s not the same wine. Italians prefer food friendly wines, and tend to pick grapes earlier, leaving a bit of acidity, and giving the wine some leanness and earthiness. Perfect example, the Caleo, 2005 Salento Primitivo, $9. To highlight the difference, the Caleo is 13% alc., while the Twisted is 14%. All of which adds up to the Primitivo faring much better all around with the cheeses. Especially with the Herve Mons and the Stilton.

But then you go back to 15% alcohol with the Napa Cellars, 2006 Napa Valley Zinfandel, $22, a big robust wine, with bright berry and cigar box aromas, and sweet berry/cherry flavors, almost Port-like. While a far better wine than the Twisted (commensurate with the price difference!), it drew almost the same results when paired with the cheeses. Okay, but not great.

And then a real treat, Alison, god love her, brought a bottle that had been hiding in her cellar for a long time, the Viansa, 2002 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon, ??, and it was terrific. Starting with the simple fact it was perfectly aged. All the raw, gangly, aggressive notes of a young Cab are sanded down, and smoothed out. Still plenty of tannin though, indicating it still has some aging potential. But for our purposes, it was wonderful with all four cheeses.

And then the big cliché -o yawn- Sauternes and blue cheese. Of course it’s going to work! Isn’t it? Well, let’s start with the fact the Chateau de Cosse, 2005 Sauternes, $26, is a marvelous wine –rich, flavorful, earthy. I’m not even going to bother with superlatives. So good, one of our tasters, Dan, insisted that it was a terrible match with the cheese, because nothing you put in your mouth could pair with the intensity and succulence of this wine.

I certainly sympathize with Dan’s point (just drink the damn wine!), but the other side (mine), it was truly remarkable with all four cheeses. I use a 4-point system (my own private voodoo) and the match with St. Agur got 4 ½ points. Can’t get any better than that.

What about that other cliché -Port and blue cheese? Well, we had a little snafu, as two of us each thought the other was bringing a Port, and it turned out neither of us did. But wait a minute, I still have that Roquefort, Oregonzola, and Bleu d’Auvergne waiting in the wings…reason for another class?

Gorgonzola Cheesecake

Somewhere, stuffed in the dusty coves of the Mind-Blogging Archives, is a piece I wrote on La Bottega's fantastic appetizer Gorgonzola Cheesecake. I had tried on several occasions to duplicate it at home from a CDKitchen recipe (no longer available), with good, but not great results...until now. For a wine/cheese pairing class I prepared this rendition, and stopping short of breaking my arm patting myself on the back, it was awesome...don't take my word for it.

Try this:
Gorgonzola Cheesecake

Make a batch of polenta, with 1 ½ cups of water, ½ cup of cornmeal , two garlic cloves, chopped, salt, cook covered for fifteen minutes. Add ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese and a couple leaves of chiffoned fresh basil (the recipe called for dried basil –horrors!). Set aside to cool.

In a small ramekin, roast a head of garlic with lots of olive oil drizzled over, in a 400 degree oven for half an hour. When cool enough to work with, strip cloves from the shell, and set aside. Turn oven to 325.

1 pound of Costco special Gorgonzola, mild stuff, but just fine for this. Now, instead of sitting around for weeks waiting for this to be workable, I put crumbled cheese in the microwave for 45 seconds. But it seemed like it was getting a little rubbery, so I put the cheese in a stainless steel mixing bowl and into the oven for about 5 minutes. That just barely started to melt it.
Then I used only 3 packages of 8 oz. cream cheese (recipe called for 5), and one at a time softened them in the microwave, about 30 seconds each. Add cream cheese to the warmed Gorgonzola in the bowl, whip it all together. Add 4 eggs, one at a time, and stir away until it's all very creamy.

Grease (or butter) a 10-inch spring form pan, and spread polenta over bottom. Pour in the cheese filling, spreading it around, trying to remove all air bubbles. Place garlic cloves on top at the ends of imaginary wagon-wheel spokes at the edge of the cake.

Cook for 1 hour. Do the ole toothpick trick to make sure it’s done. Then let cool for at least an hour.

The texture was creamy, the flavor fantastic, and everyone in class gave it two YUMs up. For wine pairing check out The Wine Iconoclast.

La Bottega serves this as a ‘starter’ in a pool of tasty tomato sauce, with lots of crusty bread.

The Big Stink: Part II

Who put the PU in puer? The washed rind cheese, that’s who.

Epoisses, Munster, l’Ami du Chambertin, Reblochon, Maroilles, Pont l’Eveque, Taleggio, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk –put all these in one room, and you’d build a stench so strong it would rival a pigsty, with dirty gym socks, and cigar butts thrown in for good measure.

And so you ask: Is that a good thing?

Yes. These are some of the most incredible cheeses in the world (and o by the way, since many washed rind cheeses are French, I thought I’d toss in the French verb puer, which means ‘to stink’).

I once held a wine/cheese tasting at a restaurant with many of the above cheeses, and the smell was like Sue Storm’s Force Field, the wait staff bounced off it like ping pong balls.

What gives them that good stink is the process -the washed rind. After molded, the young cheese is bathed in a brine with either eau-de-vie, wine, or beer, encouraging the growth of certain bacteria, which produces the stink –and makes the taste so amazing. A cratered-like rind forms –from orange to brown- some edible (e.g. Epoisses), some not so much, like Taleggio.

Of the washed rind cheeses, by the far the strongest is Maroilles, which is impossible to find (legally) in the states, with Munster, Epoisses, and l’Ami du Chambertin, close behind. The American Red Hawk is right up there, as well. The milder ones, Pont l’Eveque, Livarot, Langres, and Taleggio (the lone Italian in the group), while still fairly strong, are fine entry-level washed rind cheeses.

The texture of most washed rinds is creamy to semi-soft, with young ones almost runny. The deep flavors are earthy, gamy, sometimes nutty to caramel. The Parisian cheese shop, Marie-Anne Cantin, ages an Epoisses that more than one savvy taster insists is like peanut butter!

So okay, what wine are we going to pair with these powerful cheeses? You’d think first, a muscle wine. A big Cab, for instance. Some authorities recommend Chardonnay. But since the finest of the washed rinds (in my humble opinion) are Epoisses and especially l’Ami du Chambertin, and as both are from Burgundy, I’m thinking a good Burgundian Pinot Noir.

So on to our tasting class. To minimize the risk of the Rubik’s Cube factor, I pitted four cheeses –l’Ami du Chambertin, Berthaut Epoisses, Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk, and Taleggio- against four wines -o, actually five, as I –dubiously- added the Joseph Drouhin, 2007 Bourgogne Laforet Chardonnay, $12. Not surprisingly, while a lovely wine, the cheeses beat up all over it.

To minimize cost (I was already three-times over my budget just with the cheeses), I put in 3 wines from my own Spudders Crest label -two Cab/Merlots from Red Mountain, and a Pinot Noir from Sunnyside Vineyards, which is across I-5 from Willamette Valley Vineyards. I also tossed in an over-the-transom California Cab, about which the less said, the better.

I wasn’t so sure the Big-on-Big would work, but as it turns out, the Spudders Crest, 2005 Red Mountain Vineyard Cab/Merlot, was by the far the class favorite. Red Mountain churns out some big wines, and this is right up there with them. The 2006 Cab/Merlot, which is a little oakier than the ’05, didn’t fare as well, though I personally thought it was the best match with l’Ami du Chambertin (a very hard to find cheese, but Elephant’s Deli in Portland had it).

As for the Spudders Crest, 2007 Sunnyside Vineyards Pinot Noir, which I think of (in my wildest dreams) as rather like a young Savigny-les-Beaune, a little brambly, with real pretty Bing cherry fruit, it paired only okay with the cheeses. I think the prettiness of the fruit was a bit overwhelmed by the aggressive flavors of the cheeses.

Maybe a more raw and earthy Pinot –Pommard?- might’ve worked better. But in the meantime, I’ll go Big-on-Big.

Next up: Am I bleu?