Posted by Gregory on August 24, 2009 under Food, Partnerships, Snooth | 
Wine fascinates me on so many levels and has added so much to my life but I would have to say that my most emotional connection to wine is its bond with food, mealtimes, and convivial conversation.
My earliest experiences with wine were at my uncle’s table in Trentino, Italy. From an early age I spent my summers there and from an early age I enjoyed a bit of wine with my meals. In the beginning it was no more than a drop of wine in my water but over the years it passed through more minimal stages of dilution until I was allowed to drink pure, unadulterated wine with my meals.
Even in its pure unadulterated state the wine we generally drank was pale and low in both alcohol and tannin yet high in zesty acidity. That acidity made the wine the perfect compliment to the foods we ate. It also set me up for a lifetime as what is known as an “acid freak” in the rarified world of wine geeks. But most importantly it served as my foundation for understanding how wine and food work together.
My love of food and wine saw me through many stages of evolution. From my earliest forays into dinner parties for my friends, at age 16, to nearly 2 decades in the restaurant industry, I never lost interest in the intricacies of food and wine pairings.
Fast forward to today and we may be seeing the culmination of all my accumulated experience: Snooth’s food and wine pairing algorithm that is being used to power the wine pairing widget on our latest partner’s site www.MyRecipes.com.
MyRecipes.com has one of the greatest collections of recipes on the web, sourced from the myriad titles in Time Inc’s portfolio. Some of my favorite recipes seem to consistently come from Cooking Light and Health magazines.
For example, I love jerked foods, that smoky, spicy specialty of Jamaica. I will tell anyone who’ll listen that one of the best pairings I’ve ever come across is Petite Sirah and Jerk Chicken! So what does one do when one wants to jerk something else? I found this great recipe for Jerk-Spiced Shrimp on MyRecipes.com and checked to see what types of pairings I thought this would work with. I know, it sounds a little weird but I’ve also been checking to make sure everything is working as it’s supposed to!
Well things look pretty good since the pairings are the correct bright aromatic white, fruity, rich rose and a rich, medium-bodied white. The actual wines that may appear for you might be different than what I am seeing since availability is a criterion we are using to choose which specific wines to display.
While I have chosen the styles of wines, trying to make sure to offer a pair of more familiar choices plus a geeky choice for each recipe, the actual wines that get shown to the user will change based on availability and how highly the wines are rated on Snooth.
Our rating system combines the input of professional tasters with that of our user to generate a unique Snoothrank for each wine. If a wine gets rated favorably, its Snoothrank goes up, increasing the likelihood that it will show up in the recipe pairing results.
Not only have we selected specific styles of wines that work with each dish but we are also filtering our huge database of wines to show you the preferred wines within each category. No other wine site brings you the sort of in-depth, intelligent food and wine parings that Snooth does. Our massive database, the largest on the web, gives us a unique advantage to offer this added value to our partners and our users.
Beginning tomorrow you’ll also be able to see the MyRecipes.com database of recipes displayed on Snooth. Each of our wine detail pages lists three dishes to pair with each wine. It’s a great way to get ideas for your next meal and will make planning your next successful dinner party a breeze.
I hope you enjoy using our recipe pairing widget on MyRecipes.com as much as I enjoyed creating it. It really was a labor of love and I look forward to tweaking it and making sure the results are not only good, but take advantage of our ever growing and improving database to continue to bring you compelling, interesting and varied wines to pair with your favorite dishes.
And now to see what might pair with a nice roast lamb dish and peppers from my garden…
Gregory Dal Piaz
Community Manager
Snooth
Posted by Dan on July 29, 2009 under Food, Guest Bloggers, wine |
I spent my summer vacation in New York City and Cape Cod eating and drinking with friends. I don’t have many sublime bottles to report on, but more times than less the idea of sharing good times with a glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail is all that you need to have an enjoyable vacation.
I kicked it all off with a family affair. Not a lot of booze was thrown around. Just a bottle of Larkmead’s 2008 Tocai Friulano. This wine was bottled back in May and it is drinking superbly at the moment. The 2008 white wines, (of those I have tasted from Napa) in my opinion, are a little loose, less focused than the razor sharp 07’s. But the oily, tropical character of the Tocai with its underlying liquid almond character was quite appealing as it finished with great lemon, lime zest acidity.
The next couple of days found me in and out of restaurants and the homes of friends. I drank well sometimes and overdrank in others. A couple of highlights from the trip - First, I visited one of Brooklyn’s top new, hip restaurants, from the Freeman’s folks. New Yorker magazine has written this spot, The Vinegar Hill House, up as the prototype of a museum if a museum of hip and cool actually were to exist. I would agree, but then anything in New York City these days is hipper than my farmer/winemaker chic. [Ugh.] After a disappointing bottle of Southern Italian white wine, I made the executive decision that we finish the meal, the entrees and dessert with a bottle of champagne. Here’s the thing – Champagne is utterly and completely underutilized. Champagne should not be relegated to celebratory events, colleague ‘pours’ or cheap aperitifs. Champagne needs to be explored more, paired more, enjoyed more often. And it was on this trip. See below.
First, I felt obligated to recoup the failure of the Southern Italian white wine and when meeting a dear old muse in my life, at il Gottino in Greenwich Village, we shared a bottle of Valle dell’Acate’s Il Frappato, 2007. I hadn’t tasted this vintage and on a hot, sticky, oppressively humid summer evening, there is no better wine then the chilled Frappato. The wine sings with bright strawberry and rose petal notes; it is the best alternative to a Rose that I have ever tasted. And when it warms up in the glass, it even offers a little spice; I guess you can call this Pinot Noir-lite.
Following the Champagne theme, when I got together with a bunch of buddies from Business School to play poker and after a couple of Campari and Sodas (another staple on this trip - a refreshing, icy, bittersweet way to beat the heat), I went on to polish off, almost single-handedly a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. I have not spent a great deal of time drinking Veuve and have told myself I should read the book recently published, Madame Clicquot. Well, I must say, the most recognizable wine label in all the world, doesn’t over-deliver or excite me. At forty-or-so-bucks a bottle, Veuve offers a little less elegance in the glass than I would expect from such a cost. Playing poker and drinking Champers while my buddies drank beers, I felt a little sophisticated; I thought it would be a worthy complement to my card playing strategies. It wasn’t. Maybe I would have had better luck with a $10 bottle of Procesco or $2 beer.
My next stop was Locanda Verde, Andrew Carmellini’s new place in the Greenwich Hotel. The day prior to my visit Frank Bruni at the NY Times gave the spot a solid review and two stars. Not sure if any chef/owner would consider two stars a good review, but I debated a friend whether or not a person should (or does a person) in NYC live, breath and eat by Bruni’s reviews? I was curious. Let’s think about the demographic profile of the New York Times reader. I’ll pass on projecting my views, and just give you them right from the online media kit from their website; Median age 50. Individual Earned Income, $71K. The latter is an interesting number considering, according to the NY Times, 68% of their readers own their own homes. Can that be in NYC or the Tri-State area if the earned individual income is $71K (or the average HHI is $114K)? Maybe I have been away too long, but I thought real estate was expensive in NY!?!? I digress. Anyhow. Enough of the Times audience profile.
The restaurant, wholly Italian, from apperitivi to amari, from banquet to bar, it looked and feeled like a popular French Bistro cut out of the American imagination of what a French Bistro should be, but instead of French food, it served Italian. After living in Italy for a year and eating and drinking my way around, I will say, I approached nothing that looked like this place. But this is New York, and New Yorkers live with a certain expression that goes beyond the realities of the world (and good for them for that). Anyhow. I arrived at 5 pm and by departure at 7 pm, the place was wall-to-wall, its fair share of tourists, hotel guests, business suits and stylish types filled the seats and ate the modern take on crostini and such. I waffled on what wine to order, passing on a white from Quintarelli to linger over a bottle of Vie di Romans Flor di Uis - a massive white blend that is seductive on the nose, textured on the palate and refreshing on the finish. After looking it up online, the wine contains (Tocai) Friulano, Reisling and Malvasia. It is a serious white wine. And an aspirational wine when I think about the white blend I will be producing this year that has its influences in North East Italy.
I was off to Cape Cod next and spent three days visiting old friends while putting back some Sam Adams, more Campari and Soda, a few rum based drinks, vodka and soda as the nights drew long and a little white wine here and there (did enjoy a 2007 La Cream Chardonnay, a high-quality, value Chardonnay hitting all the tell-tale characteristics as the wine warmed up in the glass). When the weather is warm and humid and the smell of sea salt is in the air, chowder, cod cakes and lobster adorn your plate; it is way too hard to think about drinking red wines. And as noted by the choices above, you can see that I didn’t drink much wine at all. It was a good escape.
However, upon returning to Brooklyn before shuffling back to California, I convinced myself to wine well over my last supper in the City. I write this on the plane, with last night’s dinner in Brooklyn lingering on the mind. I visited Franny’s with my mother and friends. Franny’s is exclusive Italian pizza and wine. I brought a bottle of Kerber Friulano with me, only to be confronted when I popped it on the bar that it was already on the restaurant’s list. The bartender was gracious enough to let me know we could definitely open it for a $25 corkage fee (and the waitress was later thanking us for bringing an “Italian” wine; well I had to thank my friends for gifting it to me a week earlier when we ate at Vinegar Hill House). So, I wasn’t going to let the restaurant staff’s graciousness down by just consuming our wine. I picked out an aperitif wine, a 500mL bottle of Edi Kante Chardonnay, 2005.
I was excited to try this wine, been reading about Kante for some time but never experienced his wines in full. I will say the Chardonnay was subtle, was shy and stony, was on the knife-edge of elegant, rusty, honeyed ageiness. I kept sticking my nose in the glass and tried to extract more from the wine and the wine responded, drawing me deeper and bottoming out; enticing me to come back another time. This is the essence of a great wine - it lingers and leaves you with a desire for more. Unfortunately, 500 mL and four people doesn’t account for much, but I will be back. Onto the Kerber. Here’s the thing I have learned with some artisanal white wines from Friuli (and I should have taken this learning into account), there tends to be a period after bottling, what I have found to be about two years, that could be considered a ‘dumb’ period in the wine. The wine is completely shut down, a bit backward and turning in on itself. There is no fruit, just creamy, reductive characters and shyness. I am baffled by this and need to explore it further; and when I have the ‘winemaker’s’ answer, I will report in full.
After sharing four or five appetizers from eggplant with golden raisin and pine nuts lathered in oil to artichoke crostini, we moved on to our pizzas and a bottle of 2006 Cos Cerasuolo di Vittoria “Pithos”. The Pithos is made in terracotta amphora housed under ground and goes after all the ancient Roman winemaking techniques via the Sicilian grape varieties – Nero d’Avola and Frappato. The wine jumped out of the bottle immediately with spicy red licorice wrapped in barnyard meat and funk. There was a touch of dried herbs, a la vermouth in the mouth and again a spicy, bitter cherry finish on rather soft tannin and good acid backbone. The wine, which I haven’t consumed since I lived in Sicily, was quite a treat and a good value considering a bottle of Radikon or Gravner made in similar style will cost you almost double on the retail shelf.
So, that is it. My plane is on descent into San Francisco airport. And I am happy to be back in California, counting the days until harvest has me knee deep in red and white wine grapes. T-minus….
Dan Petroski is Assistant Winemaker at Larkmead Vineyards in Napa Valley. Dan has an MBA from New York University and worked as an Ad Exec in New York for several years, before switching it up and trading his suit for a move out west
Posted by Gregory on June 30, 2009 under Food, Snooth, wine |
Now don’t gt me wrong, I love wine, I love overindulging in wine. I gotta a felling that’s gonna come back and bite me! I love intense, complex enveloping experience with wine, but sometimes I just want a glass of wine. Something satisfying yet simple.
Case in point, a few weeks ago I had made plans to meet my brother at my father’s house to make some order. We had a real mess on our hands and some major cleanup was called for. Long story short, brother didn’t show. so I was stuck cleaning this mess myself.
Now the truth is most of that stuff is my crap. No question about it, ton’s of restaurant equipment left over from my restaurant days but you know it wasn’t easy manhandling the 180lb TEC searmaster grill or ice machine compressor and that 3 door lowboy refer, how was I supposed to get that in the barn? Sheer force of will that’s how. I actually threw out the swoopy black mid-century chair, which was painful but the truth is I found it in the trash so no great loss and we now have two newer, and larger grills so that piece of crap found the bottom of the dumpster as well. It took about 6 hours, and I should have taken a picture of my bloody hands but eventually the yard looked like a yard again and the barn was, dare I say it, organized!
So what does this have to do with wine. Not much except when you consider how beaten I was by the end of the night. I had stopped by the butcher, ok it’s the supermarket but they have a decent butcher there, and got a perfect 1.5lb sirloin steak for myself earlier in the day. That and some mushrooms, shallots and potatoes made for the fixins of a decent meal. All I needed wqas a bottle of wine. What I wanted was something satisfying, with a bright acidic spine. Nothing to complex yet complex enough, aged enough to ring my bell without any effort from me. I ended up choosing a 1982 Gigi Rosso Arione Barolo. Now this should have been exactly what I was looking for.
1982 a great vintage in its prime.
Arione a grand vineyard in Serralunga.
Gigi Rosso an underachiever if there was one but I was hoping that the vintage and vineyard would trump whatever Gig had mastered to ensure mediocrity in his wines.
I was right, barely.
This was no doubt a great bottle of the 1982 Arione. The cork was tight as can be and that near perfect seal held this wine in good stead. Typically pale and borderline oxidized apon opening this freshened up in the glass revealing a moderate core of sour cherry fruit with lovely, subtle tar and anise notes all backed by the mouthwatering acidity I was after.
Truth is it was a perfectly good wine. I scored it a solid 87 points, barely sellable in today’s point beholden marketplace but PERFECT for me this evening. It was exactly what I wanted, what I needed to salve my wounds and nourish my soul and anything better, richer, or more complex would simply have been lost on me, a waste on a wasted man.
I ate my dinner and drank my bottle, exhausted, and now slightly drunk I made my way to bed happy. Oh so happy.
You see sometimes less really is more.
Sometimes 87 points are better than 90 points.
Sometimes you want to drink the wine and forget about the points.
Ponder that this holiday weekend and have a great Fourth of July!
Yeah that steak is pretty perfectly cooked, thanks for noticing. Hardwood charcoal in the dark, but I used to do this for a living.
Gregory Dal Piaz
Community Manager
Snooth.com
Posted by philip on April 2, 2009 under Food, wine |
The things us folk in the wine industry are forced to endure…
Earlier this week I was invited to a dinner organized by Deussen, who represent the Vins d’Alsace. For those that don’t know my tastes yet, I’m a big fan of Alsatian wines, and considering my Germanic roots, the fact that the whole dinner was built around asparagus pairings was pretty exciting.
Asparagus is a real tricky one to pair - primarily due to the sulfurous amino acid Methionine that can make a wine taste vegetal - consequently I’ve seen many restaurants actually tell diner’s to simply drink water until that course is over.
We were not so easily deterred.
Alsatian wines are a good match for asparagus - particularly the wines with a little residual sugar. Their oily, fruity aromas complement the vegetal nature of the asparagus, the sugar hides any bitterness and the acidity cuts through the rich sauces that asparagus is often served with.
The full menu, with links to the reviews is here:
Dirler-Cade Crémant D’Alsace Pinot Blanc 2005
> Toro of New Zealand, wild Hiramassa, white asparagus, and grapefruit
Mann, Albert Pinot Blanc Auxerrois, 2007
> Lobster medallion, sweet breads and green asparagus.
Domaine Weinbach Riesling Schlossberg Cuvee Ste. Catherine 2005
Riesling Grand Cru Hengst, Barmes-Buecher 2005
> Roast Guinea hen, Carpentras white asparagus, and morel mushrooms
Kreydenweiss, Marc - Pinot Gris Lerchenberg Les Alouettes 2006
Albert Boxler Grand Cru Brand Pinot Gris White Wine 2005
> Warm apple strudel, cheddar, and calvados cream
Trimbach Gewürztraminer Cuvée Des Seigneurs De Ribeaupierre 2000
The Boxler was my wine of the night - with 45g of residual sugar the wine had a rich, sweet, nose that exuded complexity. Sweet on the tongue too - beautiful, concentrated and intensely complex, a wine of real character and depth.
If you prefer something drier, then the Kreydenweiss would be my recommendation - very dry, very mineral, with a really nice oily, petrol character. A good deal at a little over $20.
Posted by AdamL on March 30, 2009 under Food, Snooth, wine |
500 wines, 30 restaurants, and some nice background music spread out over 5 floors at the War Memorial. It would have been real tough to taste everything, so it’s a good thing I didn’t try. It was a ton of fun just getting to roam around the War Memorial, let alone taste some great wine and eat some delicious food. Overall, what I really liked was that the event was crowded enough so wineries weren’t standing around with no one to talk to, but not too crowded where if you wanted to try something you didn’t have to throw too many elbows. The ability to grab a bite of food and take it over to a table and try it with a wine is not something that happens at every tasting. You could make up your own food and wine pairings or get hints from the people on the other side of the table.
From an Austrian Blaufrankisch to a New Zealand SB on to a Canadian Ice Wine and everything in between, there was lots of variety and quality wines at TOTT. There was a huge range of styles and price points so I had a chance to try some wines I have wanted to try for a while such as the Mionetto line-up and Hall Wines line-up. There were also a lot of familiar brands and new brands I had never seen before. There were also importers, distributors, and trade organizations represented. The Monterey County Vintners and Growers Association table was interesting in that they had about 10 Pinots from the appellation so you really got a sense of what makes these wines different. Looking back through the tasting book they handed out I’m noticing a lot of wines I wish I had come across while there. Oh well, next year.
My only complaint about the night was that it was too successful and a handful of the restaurants ran out of food early.
Upcoming events are Atlanta on April 16, Chicago April 30, and NYC on June 15. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.wineenthusiast.com/toast/ Enjoy!
Posted by Gregory on March 3, 2009 under Food, Partnerships, Snooth, wine |
After much anticipation Snooth’s OTBN was apon us! We were meeting in the wonderfully elegant Deco Room at North Square Restaurant here in New York City to celebrate, well, celebrating! That is, of course, the point of OTBN. Begun a decade ago precisely in order to give people the reason to celebrate and open that special bottle that had always seemed to warrant a more celebratory occasion. We were fortunate to have partnered up with Wilson Daniels this year and participated in their Twitter taste Live virtual tasting of four great wines but more on that later! Here I am opening THAT bottle!
Well I can’t think of a better time to open a great bottle than having the opportunity to share it with 22 generous winelovers! And so it was that we filled the bar with treasure after treasure as we began a night of modest excess. It all began with a glass of Schramsberg’s wonderful 2005 Cremant Demi-sec. The theme for this years OTBN was after all exploration and discovery and this was a chance for people to learn more about the Flora grape and one of it’s parents, Gewurtztraminer. The Cremant was wonderful with gentle floral notes and a wonderfully fresh yestiness that recalled fresh brie. The sweetness was just perceptible and balanced well by brisk acidity.
We moved on to our 2 starter whites, generously provided by Wilson Daniels. Up first was the 2005 Marc Kreydenweiss Kritt Pinot Blanc with it’s sapid acidity and soil inflected juicy white fruits it was a mouth-watering start to our dinner service. We followed this up with the 2006 Pierre Morey Bourgogne-Aligoté. Bracing as Aligoté can be but with a wonderfully ripe citrus quality and firm mineral tones on the finish it was a fabulous aperitif wine and I wish I had gotten the Tuna tartar to pair with this!
We then moved on to the pair of reds supplied by our friends at Wilson Daniels beginning with the 2005 Marc Kreydenweiss Costières-de-nîmes Domaine Des Perrieres . This Alsatian producer has expanded into southern France with this biodynamic offering and it’s a great little wine with classic tobacco and earth tinged raspberry fruit and just a hint of funk adding depth. As good as the Kreydenweiss was the 2006 Campo Di Sasso Insoglio Del Cinghiale blew it away. With a hugely aromatic nose redolent of black minerals, rosemary stems, and rich, perfectly ripe black fruits this was captivating. It’s a polished wine that is elegant yet richly flavored with great purity on the palate.
From here on out it was a bit of controlled chaos as people went searching for their wine. Actually it was not entirely a free for all as people “pimped” their wines for a short while but once the food began to arrive all bets were off! I worked my way through the wines trying almost every one and it went something like this:
1991 Eyrie Chardonnay Willamette Valley Reserve – This was such a treat and in incredibly fine shape with gentle fruit and perfectly proportioned soil and wood spice tones adding complexity. The acidity has kept this wonderfully vibrant and delicious. My white wine of the night!
1999 Verget Chablis Grand Cru Bougros – I would have guessed this was new world and the Eyrie old if I had to! Lovely crisp apple fruit is winning the battle with the oak and this is in a bit of a strange place right now as the wood is still adding a bit of sweetness but that acid and minerality powers through on the crisp, cleansing finish.
2003 Pfaffenheim Muscat – Wow, can you smell the Key Lime pie? Redolent of fresh lime zest and cut grass this smelled sweet but was dry and rich on the palate with nice lemon drop fruit.
2007 Dönnhoff Kreuznacher Krötenpfuhl Riesling Spätlese – Insane! This is my third time with this wine and it’s as impressive as ever with real power and superb balance. Great Reisling. Nuff said! Tied for my second place white WOTN!
1994 Gunter Steinmetz Mülheimer Sonnenlay Riesling Spätlese – As much as I loved the Donnhoff, and I love Donnhoff, this took things to another level with diesel, mineral and honey notes on the nose that made you think this was mature but an amazingly rich, vibrant, and drippingly fruited palate that let you know this zesty wine has years of life ahead of it.! Tied for my second place white WOTN!
With the whites out of the way I moved on to the reds and this is really were all hell broke loose. No matter how many glasses I had I always seemed to be one or two short but I did my best to keep up with the overwhelming flow and this is how I did it.
1983 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon Stag’s Leap Vineyards Napa Valley- From magnum this was just great with all the complexities one can get from older California Cabernet and the classic dusty velvet texture that makes these wines so much fun to drink. I loved this wine and for me it was Wine Of The Night!
1993 Lucien Boillot Volnay Les Caillerets – This had a wonderful tension in the mouth between bitter cherry fruit and a lovely gamy, nutty nuance. As expected it got lost a little between all the big fruit and tannin bombs but was memorable for it’s elegance.
1993 Armand Comte Pommard Clos des Epeneaux – from magnum – This on the other hand was pretty damn powerful, and a bit tight and short on the palate but it had an effusive perfume of sweet spice, woodsy aromas and black cherry fruit. I’ll check back in on this in 5 years if I can!
2003 Beaux Frères Pinot Noir Beaux Frères Vineyard – I thought this was a little older than 2003 but it was still captivating with a gentle yet sweet nose and a lovely, lithe feel that is almost impossible to find in domestic pinot. I want to find more of this!
2006 ROAR Pinot Noir Santa Lucia Highlands - I tasted this just briefly and it had some spritz so I put it aside to let it dissipate but II never got back to trying it. Darn!
2006 Moric Neckenmarkter Blaufrankisch – This was crazy good wine. Delicate yet precise with such detail and balance. I loved it and can’t wait till the next time me and this wild blackberry beauty have a chance to get to know each other a little better. Tied for my second WOTN!
By this time my lamb had arrived so fortunately I had a foil for some of the larger scaled wines to come. And boy did I need it! One after the other great wines appeared only to be replaced by another set of great wines. I was in heaven!
1987 Kistler Cabernet Sauvignon Sonoma Valley Kistler Vineyard – I have never smelled such a floral California Cabernet before and this was captivating. Great green olive and cassis notes as well and with the seductive texture only aged California Cabernet can have!
2004 Joseph Phelps Cabernet Sauvignon Backus – This was a bruiser but beat you with the proverbial iron fist in a velvet glove! Great iron flecked crème de cassis fruit in a seamless velvety package. A great wine from one of my favorite vineyards!
2002 Vergelegen Estate Red – This was just gorgeous on the nose with smoky, green chile, cassis and oak tones all layered and in balance. It’s a bit simple still on the palate but this flagship South African red has the stuffing to turn into something special!
1991 Carmenet Vin de Garde Reserve Selection - This was a bit peppery and stern and reminded me a bit of 1986 Bordeaux with it’s powerful expression of tobacco tinged fruit. This is an old style of California Cabernet that one rarely encounters today. Can you say Dunn Howell Mountain?
New world? Old world? The lines can get blurry sometimes and nowhere is that truer than in Spain these days. I’ll be posting my impressions from an old Rioja tasting soon and along with the notes is my take on Tempranillo these days. I go off on a lot of producers who are trying to make Tempranillo in to something it’s not and while I genuinely believe that sometimes the results make me reconsider my position, for a little while at least!
2004 CVNE Pagos De Viña Real – No mistaking this for anything but a huge, modern Rioja but the black raspberry and vanilla tones are in balance and the wine is big yet so smooth and polished that you can’t help but like it, just give it a few years in the cellar.
2004 Buil & Giné Montsant Baboix - This is another decidedly modern Spanish bruiser and it’s packed with lovely herbal, mineral and spice tones embedded in rich cassis and blackberry fruit. It’s intensely spicy and really deserves something rich and spicy to cut through!
As modern as the last pair was I moved back into two classics from France, Bordeaux and Chateauneuf. Both were real treats and matched perfectly with my lamb chops.
1989 Clos du Mont Olivet Chateauneuf du Pape la Cuvee du Papet – Who wants the funk? Bring on the funk! And black olives, leather, lavender, mushrooms, you got it all on the nose and while the palate was wonderful with lovely truffly edges this had started to thin out a bit but was still fabulous.
1982 Château Grand Puy Lacoste – Classic freaking Bordeaux! This had that restrained power and endless layers of flavor that only Bordeaux can offer. As much as I love the texture of mature California Cabernet the elegance and complexity of Bordeaux can bring things to an entirely different level. Tied for my second WOTN
And then I was left in my happy place; surrounded by Barolo! As you might know Nebbiolo to me is magical and while none of the Barolos tonight made it in to my top five wines I was thrilled to be ending my night with them!
1997 Paolo Scavino Barolo Rocche dell’Annunziata Riserva – And as much as I love Barolo I didn’t feel the love here. While the nose offered up nice mushroom, rose and licorce scents there were loosing the battle with the spicy wood. Pretty much the same in the mouth, the fruit was intact and nice but all the complexity came from the wood so I didn’t get much depth here.
1982 Brovia Barolo Rocche Dei Brovia – This was great in it’s own way. A very good wine, but just a great glass to drink at the end of the night. Lacking some complexity as well, but just so bright and balanced with fine red berry fruits and a slightly gamy twang on the finish. I was refreshed!
1989 Marchese di Barolo Cannubi Barolo – While I preferred the Brovia to this I can’t say one is better than the other, just different. This had more complexity and deeper fruit but was a bit less elegant and refreshing. It’s still a delicious glass of big black cherry fruit.
We spent the night trying to Twitter our notes as we participated in Twitter Taste Live with our virtual drinking companions but it was not with much success. Connectivity, in the virtual sense, was limited in the dining room but that didn’t prevent us from trying!
There was one bottle that I missed the 2005 Turley Howell Mountain Zinfandel. Can anyone let me know what it’s like? And with that I was left with the 2 dessert wines. First up was the rather crappy bottle of 1985 Warres Port. Alcoholic, disjointed and volatile it’s only redeeming feature was that it was marginally sweet and smelled faintly of fruit. I chose to move on an end my night with the fairly remarkable 2005 Feiler-Artinger - Ruster Ausbruch Essenz. Intense and intensely sweet yet with such incredible acidity that this never became cloying and the mineral notes on the finish cut right through the remaining fresh fruity sweetness so it never became over-powering or boring either. Simply a great sip with which to end a brilliant evening.
I want to thank everyone who helped make this evening so special.
Thanks to Wilson Daniels for their support and generous contributions
Thanks to North Square for taking such good care of us.
And thanks to everyone who made this such a special evening with their generous contributions and brilliant company. I can’t wait to do this again. Do you really want to wait an entire year? I know I don’t!
Gregory Dal Piaz is the Community Manager at Snooth, an avid Wine Geek with a passion for things Italian, and a long suffering Mets fan.
Posted by John on January 26, 2009 under Food, Guest Bloggers, Snooth, wine |
I admit it; I love to go out for dinner. I love it even more someone else pays. So when it came time for the annual Loxton Cellars winery dinner, I made sure I was available. I get the best of both worlds, I get to go to a good restaurant, the El Dorado Kitchen in the town of Sonoma and the winemaker paid.
Not only did he pay, he pulled some wines from his personal collection to pair with what we were going to have. In addition to great food, we were going to sample the great wines listed here: 2004 William Selyem Hawk Hill Chardonnay, 1992 Galah Sparkling Shiraz, 2002 Rochioli Estate Pinot, 1985 Bordeaux & 2006 Peller Estates Riesling Ice Wine.
Pre-Dinner: 2004 William Selyem Hawk Hill Chardonnay.
While we were winding down the day in the tasting room we opened a bottle of William Selyem Hawk Hill Chardonnay. What was very intriguing about this wine is the fruit is sourced from a vineyard we get Chardonnay from as well. The styles are different but similar … if that makes any sense. The Hawk Hill Vineyard is very close to the Pacific Ocean which means a long growing season. Typically these grapes are harvested in November, much longer after a lot of red varietals are harvested. What does this mean? A lot of sugar. High sugar means high alcohol. And with the William Selyem example … this is true … 15.1%. This high level of alcohol was exhibited in a lot of heat in the wine. It didn’t feel very balanced and the finish was a bit odd. Knowing William Selyem to be a high quality producer I had to wonder (out loud) how this could happen. It appears for this particular year, the wine maker was in Baltimore when the grapes should have been harvested resulting the grapes were picked too late resulting in very high alcohol. After the Chardonnay, we closed up the winery and headed out to the El Dorado Kitchen. 5 people squeezed into my little car and off we went.
Appetizers: 92 Galah Sparkling Shiraz
Sparkling Shiraz is definitely an Australian specialty. Yes, other countries do sparkling red wines but for some reason, for me, I associate sparkling red with Australian. I can honestly say that this wine was probably the hit of the night. All the sparkling Shiraz I have tasted had some sweetness like a demi-sec champagne. This wine was big and bold. Apparently, it had been aged for five years and an 8 year old port was used for the dosage. The wine had a big mouth feel, tannins, and lots of flavor. For an aged sparking wine it showed incredible structure and paired incredibly well with appetizer we had.
house made charcuterie
smoked paprika cured pork loin - meyer lemon, shaved parmesan
cabernet sauvignon cured beef eye of round - caperberries, pickled red onion
fennel sausage - olive & pepper tapenade, fennel pollen
pork terrine - cornichons, whole grain mustard
duck rillette - endive & orange marmalade
crispy baby artichokes - onion rings, garlic confit, meyer lemon, sweet carrot puree, fines herbes aioli
Second Appetizer: 2002 Rochioli Estate Pinot
Next up was a great wine from one of the greatest cult wine producer in Sonoma. We had a nice aged estate example. The estate wine is a blend of the different vineyards and blocks. Once again I had high expectations which weren’t quite met. It was a very good wine but not great.
prince edward island steamed mussels - creamy sauvignon blanc broth, tarragon, crispy fries
Main Course: 1985 Bordeaux
Okay, I know I should have taken better notes but I forgot. All I can remember it that this 85 came from a super second (growth). Had a great aroma that got better as the wine opened up. Leather, cedar and smoke. It was robust with great tannin. One problem with having one wine to try and pair with every main course is that it doesn’t work. Below are the entries that were ordered.
red wine braised short ribs - truffle fries, horseradish crème fraiche
liberty duck trio - seared duck breast, leg confit, pate, sunchoke, fresh organic huckleberry sauce, benziger family ranch biodynamic braised greens
bacon wrapped pork tenderloin - spaetzle, brussels sprouts, whole grain mustard sauce
Since the Bordeaux was aged nicely it had softened up quite a lot but it still have some strength. The surprising thing was that it didn’t hold up to the short ribs. It didn’t overpower the pork or the duck. It actually complimented very well.
Dessert: 2006 Peller Estates Riesling Ice Wine
By this time there wasn’t much room for dessert … but I wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass me by. I really wanted to try the ice wine / crème brulee paring. I picked this one:
orange crème brulee - infused orange peal, chocolate shortbread
As it turns out, this works pretty damn well. The acidity in the wine balanced off the creaminess of the dessert. I am very happy that I made room for dessert. And just like that, the night was over.
John Andrews is a software product manager during the week and is a professional Tasting Room staffer at Loxton Cellars in Glen Ellen, CA on the weekends.
