Happy Monday!  Oh my goodness, new favorite wine alert!  Last week I discovered Lulu B., a series of wines produced from the makers of Cupcake.  First of all, how adorable is the label?  When Monique told me that she liked the wine I knew I had to try it – especially at 3 for $25!  We grabbed the Pinot Grigio, the Cab and the Malbec.  Each wine is from a different country, Pinot Grigio from Italy, Malbec from Chile, Pinot Noir from France, and the Can and Chard from California.  Quite a tour de force!  They are all simple, easy to drink varietal wines.  My favorite so far is the Malbec, it is light and bright and perfect for sipping on the patio with cheese and my Kindle.  You should definitely try these out folks, great summer time wines!  Let me know what you think, cheers!

(photo credit:  LuluB.com)

Happy Friday everyone!  Today I want to share with you the much awaited details of my recent organic wine collaboration with my darling friend Nina!  When Nina approached me with the concept of an organic wine tasting I instantly loved the idea.  Why organic you ask?  Well, organic wine is made from grapes grown on organic farms, which means no chemicals, pesticides, herbicides or unnatural flavor enhancements.  It has greater health benefits, it has a reduced environmental impact, and it is delicious!  I had not had a lot of experience with organic wine and felt it was important to better educate myself.   I decided upon Bonterra, Frey and Parducci.  Bonterra and Frey are both organic and Parducci is sustainable.  I felt that even though Parducci didn’t quite fit the mold of what we originally set out to do, it was still created with noble intentions of being green and responsible so decided to let it play.  Now, each winery produces a variety of wines.  I selected the red house blend for all three.  That way the tasting would be more apples-to-apples.  It is hard to compare a Merlot from one winery to a Cab from another, right? They were even all from the same region, Mendocino County, CA!  So with an even playing field we dove into these bad boys and didn’t look back.  Let me tell you, I was impressed!  Here are our reviews:

Bonterra – Merlot (52%), Syrah (22%), Cab Sauv (20%) & Zinafandel (2%) – $10.99/bottle

Light tannin with a somewhat vegetal nose and a combination of stone fruit (from the Cab) and black olive (from the Merlot) on the palate.  A softer wine, didn’t pack as much of a punch as you would expect from a wine dominated by Merlot, Syrah & Cab.  But pleasant and easy to drink, good for sipping on its own.  I thought this was a good wine, but after seeing Bonterra wine all over the place I guess I was expecting more.  Granted, this is a table wine and not one of their pure varietal wines, so you should not expect it to be super well defined.  But of the three this is probably the one I would least likely buy again.

Frey – Carignane, Zinfandel & Syrah – $10.99/bottle

Lovely wine with bright, ripe fruits (from the Zin) and a touch of floral/herbal notes.  A nice hint of anise on the finish, unless you’re paring it with a flavorful food in which case you may not detect it.  Much rounder than the Bonterra, very smooth tannins.  This wine was great!  I had never tried Frey going in to the tasting but I am glad I did.  I would buy this wine again, it is soft and easy to drink.  I would most likely drink it on its own as with food I felt it got a little washed out.

Parducci – Zinfandel (39%), Syrah (26%), Cab Sauv (23%) & Carignane (12%) – $9.99/bottle

Pronounced, bold flavors.  The Zin really shines through, this wine clearly has the most pronounced alcohol of the three.  Paired well with the cheese plate we created, especially the pungent Camambert/Blue hybrid.  Big and beautiful – a wine after my own heart!  This was my favorite of the three.  Really held up against the food we were eating but super smooth and delightful on its own.  Love the Zin characteristics and I think the blend was done very well.  I will be buying this again for sure!  Definitely my favorite of the three.

So, I told you all about the cheese tasting part, now let me tell you about the preceding dinner we enjoyed as part of Cheese Tuesday at L’Espalier…

Our first course was a salad of asparagus, pickled beets, AFS mizuna, and Shy Brothers’ Hannahbell cheese (you know, the little ones that look like thimble?  LOVE!).  It was paired with a delightful 2009 Simonnet-Febvre Brut Cremant de Bourgogne.  (Side note – Any time you see “Cremant” in a wine title you know that it is a French sparkling wine made in the methode champenoise but not of grapes grown in the region of Champagne.  Some sparkling wines just have air injected into them like a soda, can you believe it?  Guess it’s cheaper that way than letting the bubbles develop naturally in the bottle over the course of a year, but I digress…)  The wine is a blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and was buttery yet crisp with light acidity and a nice citrus finish.  I truly believe that one should enjoy sparkling wine every day.  It is just such a treat.  This particular bubbly was a great pairing with the salad.

The second course was housemade gnocci with radish puress and spring peas, topped with truffled pecorino.   Truffled Pecorino, um, yes please…  It was paired with a 2009 Maison Champy from Saint-Romain, Burgundy.  The wine is produced exclusively from Chardonnay grapes (white Burgundy = Chard, red Burgundy = Pinot Noir) and has a subtle oak nose that reflects its barrel aging before bottling.  The palate is a combination of  honeysuckle, the hallmark of the region, and toasted popcorn.  So delicious.  The perfect Chard for people who don’t think they like Chards.  No one could dislike this little beauty.

The main course was an absolutely outstanding Chartreuse of Painted Hills beef with Parmesan and root vegetable puree.  I can’t believe that I STILL cannot spell chartreuse without looking it up, even after writing it a million times as it was the accent color at my sister’s amazing wedding…  It was paired with a 2006 Domaine Les Aphillanthes, “Le Cros” Cotes-Du-Rhone Villages.  This bad boy was GOOD.  In general Cotes-Du-Rhone produces red grenache wines in this part of the valley but this Les Cros is actually 100% Syrah.  It was meaty, full, had some great vegetal flavors like beet and black olive, it was really amazing.

All in all, this was an amazing meal!  I still cannot believe they gave us all that cheese after this three-course meal.  I feel like we got away with something, like we pulled the wool over their eyes, almost guilty!  It was just THAT good and really affordable for L’Espalier!  So check it out, try to find the wines, and have a fabulous Thursday  :)

(photos via here, here & here)

I don’t even know where to begin…  Last night was our long awaited Cheese Tuesday at L’Espalier.  The L’Espalier website describes the evening as follows:  ”Cheese Tuesday combines wine and cheese in a casual night featuring a three course dinner with paired wines, followed by a grand cheese tasting and musical entertainment.”  Casual night, some food to snack on, a few wine tastings, sounds great!  Friends, it was so much more than great.  After an amazing gourmet 3-course dinner with superb wine pairings (I’ll get into the dinner later), the Fromager, Louis Risoli, rolled out two big tables covered in wheels of delicious cheese.  Now, the room was packed, there must have been at least 40-50 people in there.  We though, “Cool!  We can circulate, nibble on a couple of the cheeses, try some dessert wine, call it a day!”  Oh no.  The tables of cheese were just for display during the grand cheese tasting and lecture.  Tasting of 11 different cheeses.  An entire plate of 11 cheeses to try – PER PERSON.

The lecture was amazing and went through the cheeses in order of intensity, starting with the curd (fresh curd made at home by Mr. Risoli himself!) and ending with the blue.   At the top of our list were the 5 year aged Gouda, the Burgundian Epoisses, and the Oregon Caveman Blue.   We were even provided with a chart on the cheesemaking process which I found very interesting.  Little Miss Muffet would have LOVED it, lots about curds and whey…  I have included a full list of the cheeses below.  They were paired with a delightful dessert wine from Sauternes (Bordeaux), a 2001 Chateau Lahonade-Peyraguey.  Great acidity, lovely notes of peach, apricot and burnt orange, a really perfect pairing that was not too sweet for the mild cheeses but not too delicate for the bolder ones.  This event may become dangerously addictive…

L’Espalier Cheese 101 – April 12, 2011

The How’s, Why’s and What’s and Yummy Yums of Cheese

1. Fresh curd, cow, homemade
2. Mount Vikos Feta, sheep and goat, Greece
3. Pave Sauvage, goat and herbs, Perigord, France
4. Hartwell, cow, Ploughgate Creamery, Albany, VT
5. Epoisses, cow, Burgundy, France
6. Pecorino Ginepro, sheep, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
7. Fiscalini Cloth Bandaged Cheddar, cow, Modesto, CA
8. Tarentaise, cow, Spring Brook Farm, Reading, VT
9. Gouda, aged 5 years, cow, Holland
10. Bayley Hazen Blue, cow, Jasper Hill Farm, Greensboro, VT
11. Caveman Blue, cow, Rouge River Creamery, Central Point, OR

This is totally one of those wines that you see all the time and think, “Really?  TRUCK?  That does not make me want to drink this wine.  It makes me think of dirt.”  So in hopes of discovering something new and fabulous I grabbed a bottle as part of a 3 for $25 deal.  And you know what?  It was pretty decent!  It was light but had a substantial amount of fruit.  If I hadn’t known better I may have thought I was drinking a merlot, that’s how much ripe berry I found.  I brought it to temperature with my wine chill drops and I think that made a big difference in taking the edge off, I would recommend you try this wine a little on the cooler side as well…  Great for a casual mid week dinner when I didn’t really know what I was going to pair with it.  At 3 for $25 I think Red Truck is right priced and I would definitely get this again if I wanted an easy drinking red for just hanging around the house.  A very pleasant surprise from a wine I affiliated with dirt, I must say!  :)

(Image via)

Hello all!  So I know I’ve blogged about 181 Merlot before, but apparently I’ve never blogged about it’s dear cousin 337 Cabernet Sauvignon!  Well, they just released their 2008 vintage and let me tell you – YUM.  The vines they use for 337 are clones of Bordeaux vines and they have taken remarkably well to the terroir of Lodi, California.  Dark berry flavors with balanced acidity and tannins, this is a great Cab.  We paired it with grilled veggies and an aged cheddar with cranberry pepper jelly and felt it held up superbly to the strong flavors.  But it is absolutely smooth enough to drink without a food pairing as well!  We grabbed this bottle as part of a 2 for $20 deal (another Monique suggestion, I love that woman).  Highly recommended!

(photo credit 337 Wine)

Wow, it’s Friday already?  Thank GOODNESS.  Not that I am happy that my husband’s birthday week is drawing to a close, for his sake, but that DOES mean my birthday month is that much closer so I guess it’s a win-win (because clearly he’s super excited about my birthday month too, right?  Why does he get a week and I get a month?  He can only put up with my singing to him for a week I guess…  I can put up with my singing MUCH longer!).  But back to the D man’s big day.  We had a great night out with friends over the weekend so when his actual birthday rolled around I decided to cook my husband’s favorite meal at home.  Burgers.  But these were no ordinary burgers – they were organic beef, smoked English cheddar, crispy bacon, caramelized onion and mustard-garlic spread on big crusty boule roll burgers.  Accordingly, no ordinary wine would do.  So I consulted the team at my favorite Whole Foods at Legacy Place and came up with the most amazing pairing – Black Slate.

Black Slate is a 2007 red blend from Porrera, a village in the Priorat region in Catalonia.  The wine is composed of 60% Garnacha (Grenache) and 40% Carignon – we ALL know how I feel about blends…  At the wine master’s suggestion I allowed it to decant in a flat bottom decanter for over an hour before drinking. The result was an incredibly balanced wine with super soft  tannins, full of rich cherry and spice.  It was ridiculously smooth.  Unlike most bottles, we drank this one very, very slowly, sipping long after the burgers were finished.  We didn’t want it to end!  Whole Foods priced this at $24.99 but I was able to grab it for $19.99.  I did a little research and it looks like the average price is right around $22.  So this is not an every day wine, but a great splurge bottle for a special occasion, housewarming, fancy dinner party and so on!  With the big March Babies Birthday Pub Crawl coming up tomorrow I don’t see a lot of wine in my weekend, but I’ll be back soon with some new bottles and maybe some new sangria recipes to get you in the mood for spring!!

Last night we met up with some friends in town for supper.  The reservation wasn’t until 7:30 so we had some time to kill beforehand.  We headed over to Stella, an adorable bar/restaurant in the South End.  All decked out in chic Italian white, this is a great place to hang out and people watch.  We selected a bottle of J. Lohr Gamay.  Kind of random, I know, but you know how I feel about lesser-known varietals.  I couldn’t recall having a 100% Gamay wine before and I was very intrigued by the soft tannin and jammy flavor.  Tons of blackberry and raspberry.  There were strong alcohol notes on the finish (I know, all wines are alcohol, but some have more alcohol essence than others, it’s a real thing in the wine world, I swear!) and overall I really enjoyed the wine.

Well, you know what’s funny?  When I looked up the wine on the J. Lohr website, I discovered that it is actually NOT a Gamay but a Valdiguié!  I hadn’t even heard of the varietal so I didn’t think anything of the fact that it was printed on the label of the wine.  I guess I figured it was something to do with the vineyard.  But anyway, I looked it up and apparently the wine makers thought it was Gamay until U.C. Davis testers determined that it was actually Valdiguié, an even lesser-known varietal with roots in southwest France.  I guess the folks at Stella didn’t get the update, oh well!  Doesn’t change the fact that we really enjoyed the wine.  We also enjoyed the price, only $28 for the bottle!  And, of course, we  enjoyed the fried artichoke hearts in a caper-laden sauce that we nibbled on while we were waiting.  Yum.

Happy Monday, all!  We tried a lovely new wine over the weekend that I am excited to share with you.  It was suggested by Monique, our darling wine-lady at a local store near our house.  Monique has not reccommended a bad wine yet, in fact, she is the one who led us to both Liberty School Cab and Axis Zin, so you know this one is going to be good…  We felt like doing a little grilling and wanted something that would pair well with shrimp and veggie kabobs.

The wine Monique suggested was Joseph Cattin Pinto Gris from the Alsace region of France.  It was REALLY good.  I found the wine to be on the sweeter side of dry, loads of vanilla and apricot notes.  The winemaker points out strong spice and smoke notes but I didn’t really pick up on a lot of smoke until the finish.  The smoke was mild enough and complimented the sweeter palate so I didn’t mind it at all (normally not a huge fan of smoke).  Fantastic compliment to the grilled meal.  At 2 for $25 I would totally buy this wine again.  By the way, can you please take a look at this beautiful tray of veggies?  Doesn’t that look SO GOOD.  Now imagine it with a fresh blue cheese & herb dipping sauce.  Right?

So glad to be grilling again, next Monday is the first day of spring – as well as the Hub’s birthday!  Hurrah for fun times and fine wines!

Rain, rain, go away…  What a dreary end to the week!  I thought I’d cheer things up a bit by telling you about one of my favorite old stand-by bubblies, Segura Viudas Brut Reserva, a cava from Spain.  Brut refers to the sweetness of the wine.  If something is labeled Brut it is going to be on the dry side (I have included an index below to help you understand where that falls on the sugar scale).  Why we refer to a wine with less sugar as dry I do not know.  Perhaps because it sounds better than calling it bitter?  Or sugarless?  Ha, imagine if they came out with a wine and called it sugarless.  Weight Watchers would have a FIELD DAY with that one.  But moving on…  Segura Viudas is a great go-to when you want a basic bubbly.  Under $10 a bottle, nice and crisp, great for Mimosas or other “champagne” cocktails.  I personally like to add a dash of Chambord to mine as it is on the dry side and the Chambord sweetens it up while giving it a great splash of color.  In addition to being affordable, Segura Viudas is very easy to find.  Even if you don’t want to drink it right now, pick up a bottle to store in the back of your fridge for when you’re in the mood for something sparkly!  Because come on, when it is NOT an occasion for something sparkly?

(Photo credit: Real Simple, Sweetness chart: Wikipedia)