Saturday Night – Kim cooks up a storm – Part 4

Click here for Part 1

For dessert Kim did a cheesecake with fresh strawberry coulis. Kim was undecided on exactly what dessert would be when we talked, so for a dessert pairing I went with a bottle of 2007 Trius Vidal Ice wine. My thinking here was that the Ice wine would be as sweet or sweeter than any dessert Kim was making so it would be least an OK match.

"Cheesecake and Strawberries"

My notes by this point in the evening started to get a little fuzzy due to my consumption of the prior wines and it was fun trying to decipher them for this article.

The nose on the Ice Wine was very mild for a Canadian dessert wine. Usually you can easily smell an Ice wine or late harvest wine without even bringing your nose to the glass, with the Trius you had to get close to the glass to catch the faint aroma of peach, nectarine and petrol. I was pleasantly surprised by the taste as I’m usually not a big fan of Ice wines as they tend to be cloyingly sweet; the Trius had enough acidity and sharpness to help cut through it The main flavour of the Ice wine was under ripe nectarine. The Trius ended up being a good pairing for the cheesecake.

"Sweet but enough acidity to make it very drinkable"

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 86, Mark - 89, Kathy – 87, Amy – 88, Overall – 87.50

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

04 Trius Vidal Icewine VQA (HILLEBRAND)

VINTAGES 137687
375 mL bottle
Price: $ 49.55
Wine, White Wine,
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : 17
This is a VQA wine
Made in: Ontario, Canada
By: Hillebrand Estates Winery Ltd
Release Date: N/A

* The LCBO is listing this as 04 whereas the bottle reviewed here is a 2007. This is the only listing for Trius Ice wine on the LCBO’s site so I’m assuming that the 04 part just hasn’t been updated.

I’d like to thank Kim and John on behalf of all of us as the evening and the food were both first rate. I don’t think I have eaten that well or that much in quite awhile!

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – Kim cooks up a storm – Part 3

For the main course, Kim (and John working on the BBQ) did BBQ salmon filets with sundried tomatoes, tomatoes and feta, with skewers of spiced shrimp and scallops, with asparagus, potatoes and Béarnaise sauce.

"Awesome Salmon"

For this course I thought a California Merlot would be a good pairing with the salmon. I picked a bottle of Joseph Phelps 2001 “Napa Valley” Merlot as it a personal favourite and we hadn’t had any Joseph Phelps wines in a bit.

The dinner looked awesome as it was all plated up and I couldn’t wait to try it but did manage to hold of long enough to pour out the wine and makes some notes.

"Grilled Shrimp and Scallops"

The cork on the wine side had this stunningly dark purple hue as I inspected it after opening. The nose is a combination of plum, spice and cedar or as Mick puts it “smells like California Merlot”.

"...Now with 15% more c^%k flavour!"

Looking over my tasting notes for this wine I had written – Like heaven in a glass, perfectly balanced, inviting taste, blackberry, plum… and to my surprise when reading over the notes the next day, Amy tacked on to the end of the notes “, tastes like Joseph Phelps has his cock in Mark’s mouth”.

She must have added that after we did the ratings when I went out for a smoke. Speaking of ratings…

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 89, Mark - 94, Kathy – 88, Amy – 88, Overall – 89.75

As you can see my rating was quite a bit higher than everyone else’s ratings and Amy’s little addition to my notes is her subtle way of telling me that she thinks I’m out to lunch with my rating. I will justify my rating as this, in my humble opinion, is my ideal of a perfect Merlot and I have never had one better. I will say that the wine and food pairing wasn’t perfect, at times it was very good but certain foods did throw the pairing.

There is no LCBO rating for this wine as it was purchased down in the US for $44 ($71 CDN after duty, taxes and exchange).

The main course was really good. Mick mentioned that salmon with sundried tomatoes, tomatoes and feta was not a combination he would have thought of but was impressed how well all the flavours work together.

Click here for Part 4

Saturday Night – Kim cooks up a storm – Part 2

The second course of the evening was an Asian pear salad with spiced walnuts and creamy poppy-seed dressing. On this one I decided to go with a sweet to semi sweet German Riesling as I was concerned the sweetness of the pears and the dressing would reek havoc with a dry wine. I looked at a couple of Kabinett Rieslings but worried they wouldn’t be sweet enough and then saw a 2007 Selbach Oster Spãtlese Riesling and went with it instead.

"John getting Ethan started early on the wine... Disclaimer - no babies were consuming wine in or during the making of this photo."

Mick, as we were discussing the wines and menu on the way over, thought that the Spätlese Riesling would be way too sweet and that I should have gone with a Kabinett instead.

Opening and pouring out the wine, you got a nice nose of pear, peach and nutmeg. I was surprised at tasting the wine as it as you got a frizzante like feel in the mouth but there were no visible bubbles in the glass. The main flavours on this were honey and green apple. The structure of this wine was impressive as it carried a fair amount of sweetness but the acidity balanced the wine out perfectly. It was a really good match for the salad.

"Asian Pear Salad"

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 89, Mark - 89, Kathy – 87, Amy – 86, Overall – 87.75

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

SELBACH-OSTER RIESLING SPÄTLESE 2007

VINTAGES 970368
750 mL bottle

Price: $ 28.95

Wine, White Wine,

11.5% Alcohol/Vol.

Sugar Content : M

Made in: Moselle, Germany

By: J.&H. Selbach Weinkellerei

Release Date: Nov 22, 2008

Tasting Note - Medium straw with aromas of slate, crabapple, key lime, peach and apricot. This medium-in-sweetness wine, with balanced acid, is an exceptional example of young German Riesling. Remarkably full-bodied for a lighter alcohol wine, its finish is extremely long and wonderfully balanced. Cellar it up to 20 years or enjoy it with grilled prawns. (VINTAGES panel, Sept. 2008)

Note – the LCBO is listing the alcohol as 11.5% but the bottle is listing at 8%.

"Bubbles?"

Mick was a big enough man to admit that the wine was a great match for the salad and this again was another bottle that we were sad to see empty.

Click here for Part 3

Saturday Night – Kim cooks up a storm – Part 1

We had a change of venue this Saturday as Kim and John had the four of us over for dinner. I offered to bring the wine as our contribution to the dinner. Kim and I talked about the menu so I’d know which wines to bring.

"Cheese and Crab goodness!"

This pairing of the food and wines was an interesting exercise as usually I’m pairing wines to foods that I’m cooking. The advantage to doing the pairing when you are doing the cooking is you know exactly what is in each dish versus just have a vague idea of what the dish might be. The key to good food and wine pairing is taking a deeper look at the recipe to see what might or might not throw the wine pairing a curve ball.

Here is an example – let’s say Kim told me she was doing chicken as the main dish. There are lots of wines that would pair well with chicken, the trick is taking it to the next level. A chicken with mango salsa would be a nice pairing for a semi-sweet Riesling but a terrible match for a dry Chardonnay whereas a chicken in parmesan cheese and butter sauce would not be so great for the Riesling but would be good for the Chardonnay.

"Pitas for dipping"

The first item on the menu was a baked crab and cheese dip with blue organic nachos and pitas. For this I was going to grab a bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay as I wanted a big buttery oaky California Chardonnay and the KJ is nice reliable one. The problem is I’ve covered this wine a number of times and the blog content has been sparse recently. I decided to go with a bottle of 2005 Benziger “Los Carneros” Chardonnay instead ‘cause that is just the type of crazy out-on-limb risk taker I am. OK, it was still a California Chardonnay so it would be big and oaky but at least this was a wine that’d I’d never had before.

The crab dip was rich and creamy and so good with either the nachos or the pita but I preferred the nachos by a small margin.

"This wine loves crab dip"

The nose on the Benziger is dominated by vanilla with notes of mango, apples and cloves. Tasting the wine on it own, you’ll notice green apple and vanilla flavour and moderate oak. The structure of the wine was off a bit as the acidity at times seemed high and there was a sharp note in the mid to late palate but the wine did have a nice lingering finish. I wasn’t blown away by it but it wasn’t bad on its own. With the crab dip though, completely different story; the richness of the crab dip mellowed out the sharpness in the wine and the two were a wonderful match.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 87, Mark - 89, Kathy – 88, Amy – 87, Overall – 87.5.

There was no LCBO information the wine and the Wine Spectator didn’t review the 2005 version of this wine. This wine was purchased in NY state and the price point on the wine was about $15 US so about $25-27 CDN after duty, taxes and exchange. At that price point on its own I’d say there are better California Chardonnays out there but with the crab dip it was worth every penny. Mick and I were both looking at the empty bottle longingly, as we were finishing off (going back for seconds or thirds) our crab dip, and hoping that another bottle would magically appear.

Click here for Part 2

June Wine Club – Torrontés

The Zippy Sauce blog has been a little quiet for the last couple of weeks. Father’s Day weekend prevented us from getting together with Mick and Amy and the week before that we each had separate plans. Thankfully this weekend we will be getting together and we’ll get back to reviewing some wines. In the meantime, Wine Club got together last Thursday to try a couple of new wines.

The meeting was about the 24th one that we’ve had and with a mandate to try as many different grapes and regions as possible we are starting to get more and more out of my comfort zone. This month’s wine was a good example of that as we tasted two wines Torrontés from Argentina. I had never had Torrontés before so I was nervously looking forward to it.

"Two Torrontés from Argentina"

Let’s start with the LCBO information for both wines –

ALAMOS TORRONTÉS 2007

Stock Number – 81539
750 mL bottle Volume
Price: $ 13.95 (+$.20 Deposit)
Wine, White Wine,
13.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: Argentina, Argentina
By: Catena
Release Date: Mar 28, 2009

Tasting Note - Alamos Torrontés 2007 Argentina is a great value example of modern Torrontés ... Torrontés characteristically has a particularly exotic grapey aroma with something floral about it. This example is all that, but it is so rich aromatically that it almost smells like toffee. However there is so much racy, tingling acidity on the palate that it could happily be served with strongly flavoured salads and pasta dishes, although I think it would probably be best as an aperitif. (Jancis Robinson, MW, www.jancisrobinson.com, July 29, 2008)

LABORUM TORRONTÉS 2007

Stock Number – 82404
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 16.45 (+$.20 Deposit)
Wine, White Wine, 13.5%
Alcohol/Vol.Sugar
Content : D
Made in: Argentina, Argentina
By: Bodegas El Porvenir de Los Andes
Release Date: Nov 8, 2008

Description - Hand-picked from vineyards planted at a dizzying 1750 metres above sea level, this fresh and aromatic Torrontés would be a delightful match to baked red snapper in a chutney sauce. It's dry, medium-bodied with floral and juicy fruity aromas and flavours leading to a lengthy finish.

"The comparison bottle."

The Alamos Torrontés was the bottle everyone took home and the Laborum Torrontés was the comparison bottle. Uncorking both bottles I was surprised that the Alamos which was the less expensive of the two wines used a real cork where as the Laborum used a synthetic one. My next surprise was the nose on the two wines; the Alamos had a much more aromatic nose to it then the Laborum.

"The take home bottle."

The nose on both was driving me nuts as there was a super familiar scent profile to both that I’d recognized but couldn’t place. Both had big inviting floral notes and the Alamos had orange on the nose whereas the Laborum had no orange aroma but there was a lime note there. One of the Wine Club members was laughing at my frustration as he knew exactly where this aroma profile could be found. After letting suffer for a moment he simply said “Gewürztraminer”. As soon as he said I realized that he was dead on, the nose on the two grapes were extremely close.

Tasting the wines, both were close in flavour profiles as they both had nice fruit to start, a narrow mouth feel with a touch of oiliness on the mid palate and a quick finish. The Alamos had more lively acidity to it than the Laborum but other than that they were almost identical. I tried to think of other white wines that they were like and the closest I can come up with is a fruit forward New World Sauvignon Blanc with some Viognier blend in but lighter in body than both of those grapes would be.

We had three cheeses with the wine - a Danish Blue, a white cheddar and a goat cheese with brushcetta. The Blue and the cheddar were not bad with it but the goat cheese and the hint of spice it had was really nice with it. I suspect that this wine would be a good pairing for a dish with some spice to it.

I wasn’t overly enamored with Torrontés but with its light and easy drinking style would make a nice summer patio wine. At $14 a bottle the Alamos is at an easy to swallow price point which is a nice break on your wine wallet.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – Riesling vs. Chardonnay

Mick and Amy were coming by on Saturday for our usual weekly dinner and I decided to try out a couple of new recipes –

Fresh Corn Soup Topped With Roasted Corn Guacamole -
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Fresh-Corn-Soup-Topped-with-Roasted-Corn-Guacamole-352975

And California Chicken Salad –
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/California-Chicken-Salad-352249

"Fresh Corn Soup Topped With Roasted Corn Guacamole"

The downside (or upside depending on your point of view) to new recipes is finding a wine pairing that works with them. I was leaning toward a Merlot with the soup and a Chardonnay with the chicken salad. After doing a few Internet searches, I settled on a Riesling with the soup but stayed with the Chardonnay with the chicken salad. Since I’d never done either recipe before and still was unsure about the pairings I thought it might be fun to try both the Riesling and the Chardonnay with each course.

"Not the greatest example of a Riesling"

For the Chardonnay, I went with an old favourite – a 2005 Kendall Jackson Founder’s Estate Chardonnay. I have covered this wine before a number of times and we all rated it the last time we had it so I won’t go into great detail again -

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2009/01/saturday-night-its-chardonnay-time-part.html

"California Chicken Salad"

For the Riesling, I went one that I’d never tried before – a 2005 J.M. Sohler Riesling from Alsace. I’ve had this bottle on the rack for awhile and can’t remember the price off hand. It was purchased at the LCBO, so a did a quick search of their inventory and came across this –

Frey-Sohler Riesling 2007

Vintages 107151
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 16.95
Wine, White Wine,
12.0% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : XD
Made in: Alsace, France
By: Frey-Sohler
Release Date: Mar 14, 2009

Tasting Note - Classic Riesling aromas, including peach, petrol, honeycomb and citrus. Dry and very fresh, with good replays on the palate. A wonderful palate refresher, or match it to grilled salmon steaks with salsa. (VINTAGES panel, July 2008)

- But I’m not 100% sure if this is the 2005 version of the wine above or not.

"Year after year consistantly good!"

The nose on the Riesling is pretty similar to the description from the LCBO where we found lime, petrol and floral (lilac?) aromas. I liked the nose on this wine, too bad the taste didn’t measure up the same way. Green/under-ripe apple was the main flavour to this wine which really needed more fruit, the acidity on the wine was ‘fuzzy’ and not the crisp, razor sharp acidity that you’d expect in a good Riesling. The wine finished in an awkward way that lingered but not in a nice way.

Here is the group rating for the wine -Mick – 85, Mark - 83, Kathy – 85, Amy – 84, Overall – 84.25.

The wines with the foods –

The KJ Chardonnay with the soup was brutal; reminded me of a toothpaste and orange juice like combo. It was so bad that Kathy was convinced that there was something wrong with the wine/it couldn’t be KJ Chardonnay. The nose and colour of the wine was right so I was sure there was nothing wrong with it and that it was just the pairing that was throwing it for a loop. The Sohler Riesling wasn’t a bad pairing with the soup though it could be tart at times. An off-dry Riesling would have been a better pairing vs. the dry/extra dry that the Sohler was, as the sweetness of the avocado was messing with this wine a bit.

For the main course, the chicken, bacon, pine nut and honey mustard sauce combination was stunning with the KJ Chardonnay. It is actually one of the better wine and food pairings that I’ve had in awhile. Kathy, with the main course, agreed that it was KJ Chardonnay and there was nothing wrong with it. The Riesling with the chicken, etc, was a pretty bad match, not hideous but certainly not anything near good.

Some comments on the two dishes –

The Fresh Corn Soup was excellent; really good flavour from both the soup and the Corn Guacamole. The two issues I had with the soup was 1. There wasn’t a heck of a lot of soup, recipe says 4 to 6 servings and I’d argue that it barely served 4, though the portion sizes on the Corn Guacamole were perfect and 2. It was a fair amount of work to do this recipe, as I have had Corn soup recipes that required half the work and were just as good.

The California Chicken Salad was a nice meal, I wasn’t blown away by it and thought the side corn, tomato, asparagus could have used a nice oil based dressing to perk them up a bit. The honey mustard sauce that was part of the recipe was a bit over the top in flavour and need to be toned down a bit.

In case anyone is wondering why this article is one large one vs. two or three smaller ones like usual, the answer is simple – there was only one wine fully reviewed. I will break up article into as many pieces as there are wines reviewed. The reason I do this is so when you are using the Wine List to find a wine, it will take you straight to the wine article and you don’t have to wad through one or two other reviews before finding the one you want.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – It’s a Surprise – Part 2

Click here for Part 1

For dessert I purchased a Chocolate and Cream cake which we all lovingly refer to as ‘Cab’ cake as it makes a really nice pairing for Cabernet Sauvignon.

"Cab Cake"

To pair with the dessert I picked a 2003 Wente “Livermore Valley” Cabernet Sauvignon. I have had this bottle on the rack for awhile and kept meaning to try it as I hadn’t tried any wines from Wente and I always like trying new wineries out of California.

The nose consisted of loam, cherry, coffee, tobacco and eucalyptus. Tasting the wine you were greeted by three flavours – cherry, coffee and mint. The wine came across as being very dry with little tannin and a very acidic finish. With the cake the cherry and mint flavours disappeared and the coffee flavor dominate the entire mouth. The sharp acid finish didn’t change with the cake either. It wasn’t a great pairing with the cake to say the least.

"Something new"

I was trying to figure out what this would be good with, as it did have an interesting flavour profile. The only thing that came to mind was beef Carpaccio with shaved Parmesan. I mention this to Mick and his eyes lit up and nodded in agreement. We discussed the wine some more and couldn’t come up with another pairing other then this.

Here is the group rating for the wine - Mick – 86, Mark – 84, Kathy – 85, Amy – 85, Overall – 85.25.

This wine was purchased in NY state and the LCBO has no listing for it. I remember it being about $12-13 US (so about $22-23 CDN after duty, taxes and exchange). For that price there are much nicer Cabernets out there such as Beringer’s Founder’s Estate Cab or even the basic Mondavi Cab.

Considering how little time I had to put the evening together, things turned out surprisingly well; though I think in the future I will avoid leaving myself such a short fall in time.

Cheers!

Mark

Saturday Night – It’s a Surprise – Part 1

I had been feeling under the weather all week as I was shaking a cold. On top of this I worked Friday night until midnight and it was after 2:00am before I got to bed Friday. I woke up at 10:00am but hadn’t slept well through the night so I was bagged and after lunch I went back to bed. I woke up at 4:00pm (not meaning to sleep that late), had a shower and started to think about dinner when the phone rang at 4:30pm. It was Mick, wondering what the plan was for this evening, to which I replied “Dinner here, 6:30pm”. Mick’s next question was what was on the menu and my reply was “It’s a surprise”. The conversation ended a minute or two later and I hung up the phone and thought “It’s a surprise alright, as even I don’t know what we are having yet!”.

"Born to go with hummus!"

I browsed over my trusty recipe book and found the appetizer – hummus with pita but didn’t figure out the main course. I decided to wing the main course and used a sauce base from “pasta with lemon cream and prosciutto” to do a lemon cream sauce. In the original recipe, the sauce is finished off with canned peas, fresh mint and prosciutto, I left these out and finished the new sauce off with just thyme instead. For the pasta the original recipe is penne but I want to go with fresh pasta instead and went with cheese filled tortellini. I picked up 4 skinless/boneless Maple Prime chicken breasts and marinated them in Italian dressing once I got home and 16 large frozen shrimp which were de-thawed and then lightly coated in olive oil. To finish the dish off, I picked up a container of cherry tomatoes and some green onions.

"Really good but too filling!"

I just finished up prepping everything as Mick and Amy arrived. We started with the hummus and pita and a bottle of d’Arenberg Viognier. We have had this combination before -

http://zippysauce.blogspot.com/2009/01/new-years-eve-2009-part-1.html

Once we finished the main course, I grabbed the chicken out of the fridge and fired up the outside BBQ. The sky while I was out there was getting very dark and I knew we were in for a heck of a storm. I just finished grilling the chicken and got back inside when it poured. I tented the chicken and got the water going for the pasta and started on the sauce. 15 minutes later the sauce was done, the pasta was done and shrimp were grilled (on the indoor BBQ thus saving me from getting soaked!) and I was serving up the food.

"Oakland isn't just a city in California but also a wine :)"

To go with the pasta, I picked a bottle of 2004 Toasted Head Chardonnay. Mick had poured this out for the table while I was cooking and him and the wives were trying it. Mick’s first comment about the wine was “holy oak monster!”. I smiled to myself as he said it as that was the exact reason I picked this wine; the lemon cream sauce is very lemony and there is Cayenne pepper in the sauce which gives it a pretty good kick and with the cherry tomatoes and green onions this dish has some pretty big flavours to it and I felt a subtly oaked French Chardonnay would disappear against it hence the big oaky California wine as the pairing.

The nose on the wine Mick described as musty vanilla bean. There were also aromas of nectarine, caramel and floral notes. Tasting this wine before the food, I agreed with Mick’s assessment of “oak monster” as there was nothing subtle about the oak on this wine. There was also a sharpness to the wine that surprised me. Trying the wine with the food was whole different story, my god was it good; smooth, nice fruit and the food mellowed the oak flavour right out. I was stunned by the difference between the wine with food and without; it was like they were two different wines.

Here is the group rating for the wine - Mick – 88, Mark – 88, Kathy – 85, Amy – 86, Overall – 86.75.

One note I should put in here, for my rating I tend to heavily weight the wine on how it pairs with the food and I think Mick tends to do this as well where as the ladies tend to rate the wine on its own merits. My 88 rating would drop to about an 83 if no food was involved.

Here is the LCBO information on the wine –

Toasted Head Chardonnay (V)

Vintages 594341
750 mL bottle
Price: $ 17.95
Wine, White Wine,
13.5% Alcohol/Vol.
Sugar Content : D
Made in: California/Californie, United States
By: R.H. Phillips Vineyard and Winery
Release Date: May 23, 2009

Description - The name Toasted Head refers to the barrels used to age this wine. Usually, only the barrel walls are charred, but, in this case, the heads are toasted too. The resulting wine is filled with aromas of smoky apple-cinnamon, pear, vanilla and toasty oak. Full-bodied with a medium-long finish, it's a perfect companion to roast pork with apples, or a Wellington made with smoked salmon.

A quick note on the main course, it was quite good but there were a few suggestions made. Amy suggested penne and Kathy suggested angel hair pasta as the dish was extremely filling and the cheese filled tortellini were overkill. Mick’s suggested the leave out the shrimp or to quote “The shrimp were good don’t get me wrong but the chicken and the way it soaked up the sauce was excellent”. I will redo this dish in the future and change the pasta and leave out the shrimp as I agreed with everyone’s suggestions.

Click here for Part 2