Wine and Food Pairings

An Affordable and Aromatic Gewürztraminer Paired with Thai Red Curry #WinePW

Jan 8, 2021

This month the #WinePW crew is looking to pair with Asian dishes, led by Cam of Culinary Adventures with Camilla. The premise is Saké or another wine with Asian dishes. I enjoy saké, but it is something that I enjoy the ceremony of, out at a sushi restaurant with friends. Oh great, now I’m nostalgic, remembering late-night post-show dinner with good friends and hugs that last too long. Yep…okay, taking a sip of tea banishing the mistiness, that and saké are for another day.

At this point in my life, I don’t do saké at home. It’s just for being out with very special friends and it will stay that way for now. But, I do like Asian cuisine and in addition to saké, there are some great wines that go with these foods. Today we will dip into Gewürztraminer.

The #WinePW (wine pairing weekend) crew will gather on Saturday, January 9^th on Twitter to dive into the pairings we each came up with. You can join us! Just hop on to Twitter at 8 am (Pacific time) on Saturday morning and follow and use the hashtag #WinePW to join the conversation.

You will find all the pieces by my colleagues at the bottom of this post.

Gewürztraminer

This grape is an aromatic variant of Savagnin. It makes a full-bodied and distinctly perfumed white wine with notes of lychee and roses. When grown in Alsace, it has been known to also have notes of bacon fat (yum!).

It is the offspring of Pinot and like its parent is prone to mutation. At harvest, it is known for its variegated pink tones and the wines it produces are deeply golden often with copper tones.

Gewürztraminer buds early so it is prone to frost and it is also prone to viruses. If it gets too warm it can be bland or oily and might have bitter notes.

The best of this variety come from Alsace. But there are 1,700 or so acres planted in California, with half of those being in Monterey, which is where our wine comes from.

Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer

This wine is from Monterey County and as its name implies, is grown in Shaly Loam soils. Monterey Wine Country has 8 primary soils, almost all are loam (sand and silt). This shaly loam has limestone and fossilized seashells, and the vineyards enjoy fog and sunshine. The soil elevates the aromas in this wine.

*This wine was received as a media sample. No other compensation was received and all opinions are our own.*

My notes

This wine has a sweet joyful nose. Smelling this wine will just put you in a good mood. Remember that animated film with the heroine (ie princess) in the forest singing with bluebirds chirping along, bunnies and squirrels scurrying about, and butterflies everywhere! Yeah, like that!

Smell that lychee! There is a bit of Asian pear, the delicate note of roses, and then honeysuckle. There is sweetness on the nose too, this is a semi-sweet wine. Take a sip and you might get a bit of effervescence. This wine while semi-sweet has acid to balance and keep it from being cloying. It is medium weight, but not heavy and is altogether satisfying.

100% Gewürztraminer, 12% abv, $10 SRP

Fetzer 2019 Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer from Monterey

Take a moment and look again at that price. This wine won’t break the bank as you step carefully into this new year. On top of that, Fetzer is a Certified B Corp. They were the first winery in the world to publicly report their greenhouse gas emissions to the Climate Registry. These guys work hard to keep their impact on the planet low. (you can read more about them in our piece “Merlot from 2 big-name companies, that are worth finding for different reasons”.

On the back of their label, they proudly have their Certified B Corp logo with a note

“We are proud to be a certified B Corporation, part of a growing movement using business as a force for good”.

This is America’s #1-Selling Gewürztraminer.

Pairings from across the Globe

Almost 9,000 miles away from Alsace, the native home of Gewürztraminer, you will find Thailand. It is strange and wonderful that places so far apart might find compatibility in food and wine pairings. I suppose it is like the contrasting colors on a color wheel. But pair indeed they do. The spicy notes of many Thai dishes are mellowed by the slight sweetness of the wine and the aromatics in the wine elevate the food. It’s not just me, who thinks this is a good pairing. Head to your favorite Thai restaurant, chances are you will find Riesling and Gewürztraminer in abundance on the wine list.

Thai Red Curry with Shrimp and Vegetables

I went through a dozen recipes and several videos compiling my recipe for Thai Red Curry. Once I created my recipe, I went shopping online and, well, pandemic and all, there were several things I was not able to find, like dried shitake mushrooms, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, Thai basil…I’ll let you know in the recipe where you could add these things, but we adapted our recipe to do without the lime leaves. I substituted dried lemongrass and different basil. I couldn’t get fresh broccoli so we used broccoli rabe. Our mushrooms? No dried shitake mushrooms, no dried mushrooms were available at all. I checked for fresh mushrooms and the only thing we could find were stuffed mushroom caps! LOL! So, we will empty them and find a use later for the filling.

Yes, I threw the kitchen sink at this dish, and you don’t have to! Choose a protein and skip the other vegetables or vice versa. I love vegetables but wanted to add the shrimp for Michael. I made this dish approachable in its flavors, using just one chili while cooking the shrimp. You can most definitely amp up the heat. I also used pre-made red curry paste. You can make your own or just add to the spices if you like.

This dish cooks in a dutch oven and we accompanied it with Jasmine rice, garnished with lime, cashews, and green onions.

This was a wonderful simple pairing. The sweetness of the wine with the spiciness of the dish and the aromatics of the dish and the wine that seem to elevate each other. In the future, I would amp up the spices to make the pairing with the Gewürztraminer work even better. Of course, you can always do this the easy way and get Thai takeout!

If you do want to give my recipe a try you can find it here. Thai Red Curry with vegetables and shrimp

Bonus pairing

Couldn’t help it, we did another pairing, that while not Asian cuisine, is certainly delicious. The following day we finished off our bottle of Gewurztraminer. I’m not sure how we had the discipline to not drink the whole bottle the first day! We paired this with sous vide pork chops with roasted vegetables (I had leftover vegetables from the Thai Red Curry), and apples cooked in butter with brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. This was a pretty delicious pairing also.

Shoutout to Erin of Platings and Pairings for the recipe!

Fetzer 2019 Gewürztraminer from Monterey with sous vide pork roasted vegetables and sautéed apples

Asian cuisine pairings from #WinePW

Now let’s see what other delicious pairings the rest of the #WinePW crew discovered!

Asian Appetizers Paired With Tozai Sake by A Day in the Life on the Farm
Cashew Chicken With A Crisp Riesling by Our Good Life
Ground Pork Stir Fry with Collard Greens by Cooking Chat
Knocking off CPK While Sipping SMV Riesling by Exploring the Wine Glass
Japanese Sake and Octopus Salad by Avvinare
Our Osechi Ryori おせち料理 (Japanese New Year’s Food), Other New Year’s Eve Traditions, + Recent Saké Explorations by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
Rosé with Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup by The Quirky Cork
Steak and Saké Night at the Culinary Cabin by Somm’s Table
Sushi and Wine? Totally Fine! Here’s a Few to Try in 2021 by Wine Predator
Tio Pepe Fino Sherry and Sushi/Sashimi: A Match Made in Heaven! by ENOFYLZ Wine Blog

Sources & Resources

More on Gewürztraminer from Crushed Grape Chronicles

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

Robin Bell Renken I have always loved people’s stories. I spent a career in Theatre helping to tell stories, as a Stage Manager. Daily enabling artists to freely and safely tell stories through their art. Then I fell in love with wine. There are so many details, so many nuances, not just in the glass, but in the vineyard, the region and the people. As I met winemakers and vineyard owners and even the people in the tasting room excited to pour me a glass and tell me the story of this wine, I knew these were stories I wanted to share. I completed my study and became a Certified Specialist of Wine and continue learning daily as I meet and interview people in this industry.

Robin Renken is a wine writer and Certified Specialist of Wine. She and her husband Michael travel to wine regions interviewing vineyard owners and winemakers and learning the stories behind the glass.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Thai Red Curry with Shrimp and Vegetables

Jan 8, 2021

This recipe was developed to pair with wine for the January #WinePW event pairing wines with Asian dishes.

Creating My Thai Red Curry recipe

This dish cooks in a dutch oven and we accompanied it with Jasmine rice.

This was a wonderful simple pairing. In the future, I would amp up the spices to make the pairing work even better. Of course, you can always do this the easy way and get Thai takeout!

Thai Red Curry with vegetables and shrimp

Ingredients

Sesame oil
½ pound shrimp (shelled and deveined)
2-4 dried red peppers (to your taste)
1 shallot
2 carrots – peeled and sliced on the diagonal
1/2 sweet potato – cut into ¾ inch cubes
¼ head of cauliflower cut into 1-inch florets
½ cup of broccoli (or broccoli rabe, using florets and stems)
1 can of coconut milk
2 tbs red curry paste
1 tbs tomato paste
1 stalk of lemongrass (or 1 tsp ground dried lemongrass)
1 tbs fresh grated ginger
1 tbs fresh minced garlic
¼ cup of mushroom broth (from rehydrating your mushrooms)
¾ cup of sliced mushrooms (ideally dried shitake that have been rehydrated, but use what you can find!)
1 -5 oz can of bamboo shoots
1 tbs of fish sauce
1 tsp sugar
2 Kaffir lime leaves
½ red pepper sliced
½ yellow pepper sliced
½ cup fresh Thai basil
1 cup of spinach
Optional 1 cup of broccoli rabe leaves
Juice of ½ of a lime

For garnish

Green onions, cashews, lime slices, and hot sauce

Directions

With this recipe, it is always best to chop everything in advance.

Dice the shallot, slice the carrots, broccoli (or broccoli rabe), cauliflower, sweet potato, green onions, and red and yellow pepper.
Mince the garlic.
Peel and grate the ginger on a microplane.
Rehydrate (or unstuff LOL) your mushrooms. Put them into enough water to cover them, bring to a boil then simmer 5 minutes. Let them steep and cool. Remove the stems and slice. Reserve the rehydrating liquid.
Drain the can of bamboo shoots and put them in a small pot with some water. Boil for 5 minutes. (this will reduce the bamboo smell).
Heat 2 tablespoons of sesame oil in a dutch oven. Add as many whole chilis as you like (I just added one)and your shrimp. Cook 2-3 minutes until the shrimp are opaque. Put aside on a plate.
Add a bit more oil, cook the shallot 2 minutes until soft, add the carrots, broccoli (or broccoli rabe), cauliflower, and sweet potato. Cook 3-4 minutes. Put aside on a plate.
Put ½ of your coconut milk in the dutch oven, heat it until you start to see it separate at the edges.
Add the red curry paste and continue to cook. This should fry up. If you want to boost your spices, this is the place to do that, adding more chili, ground coriander, or ground turmeric.
Add the tomato paste, lemongrass, garlic, and ginger. Cook for 3 minutes until fragrant.
When this begins to separate (you will see the orange oil on the edges), add the remaining coconut milk and the mushroom broth and bring to a boil.
Add the fish sauce and sugar and if you have kaffir lime leaves tear those and add them here (this will add a citrus brightness to the dish).
Add the mushrooms, bamboo shoots, shrimp, and vegetables simmer for 5 -10 minutes, to absorb the flavors and make the potato tender.
Add the red and yellow pepper and cook for 1 minute. (if you have broccoli rabe leaves or even kale, add them hear also)
Remove from the heat, add your basil and spinach, and the lime juice, and stir.
Serve with jasmine rice and garnish with lime slices, Thai basil, cashew, green onions, and hot sauce.

Pairings from across the Globe

Thai Red Curry with a Gewürztraminer

We paired Thai Red Curry with a Gewürztraminer, from Monterey County.

The best of this variety come from Alsace. But there are 1,700 or so acres planted in California, with half of those being in Monterey, which is where our wine comes from.

To read more about this wine, visit our post “An Affordable and Aromatic Gewürztraminer Paired with Red Thai Curry #winePW “

*We received this wine as a media sample. No other compensation was received, all opinions are our own.*

More recipes with Wine Pairings from Crushed Grape Chronicles

Hungry for more wine and food pairings? You can visit our recipe page for more inspiration!

Food Recipes & Wine Pairings

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Bacon and Butternut pasta recipe to pair with a Langhe Nebbiolo

Jan 1, 2021

Nebbiolo is a wine that is versatile in pairing with food.

Garlic, truffles, olives, capers, butternut squash, wild mushrooms, polenta, leeks, tomato-based sauces, pizza Parmigiana Reggiano or Pecorino Fatty foods, butter, vinegar-based sauces. This is a high tannin wine. Steak with fat. Think meats like bib eye, sausages, duck, or pork shank.

So I had this lovely Nebbiolo that was sent to me as a media sample from Terre di Bacco. This wine is from Langhe and is harvested from vineyards near Barolo. It is a wine that is meant to enjoy young and is brilliant with food.

(If you want to read our post about this wine and the Langhe DOC in Italy, visit our post here)

With the pandemic, I have been trying to eat from the pantry as much as possible and Michael happened to have ordered a butternut squash, so that was where we started.

Butternut is all well and good, but this would need to have some fat and I was kind of craving pasta so I went to the internet to do a little searching. I found a recipe on Joyful Healthy Eats for a “creamy butternut squash alfredo pasta”.

As you can see in her blog name, she leans healthy, this recipe called for 2% milk, low-sodium chicken stock, gluten-free pasta…which is all wonderful, but I was feeling indulgent, so I mixed this recipe up a bit.

If you want to do it healthily, I salute your discipline, click through to her recipe above, I am sure that it will also go very well with the wine. If you want to indulge…read on.

Bacon and Butternut Pasta

I renamed this dish, “Bacon and Butternut pasta”, leading with the bacon because, in my revamping of the dish, that was the flavor that led.

I do have a fear of butternut squash, not eating it, but cutting it. They are hard and can be difficult to cut. I usually talk Michael into cleaning them for me, and that worked this time. You can of course often find fresh cubed butternut squash in the produce department or even go with frozen. Either would work fine in this recipe.

To meld the dish with the wine, I amped up the fat and depth of flavor, frying the bacon first then adding the butter to the bacon grease to cook the onions and the rest of the dish. I happened to have a little mushroom stock left from rehydrating some mushrooms the other day, so I supplemented my chicken stock (which was not low sodium) with that. This will add mushroom notes and Nebbiolo is known to pair well with wild mushrooms.

I have fresh sage and rosemary growing in the backyard, so those were the herbs I used. The wine has big tannins (a polyphenol that occurs in red wines and black teas, among other things. They are astringent. If you want to see what tannins taste and feel like, put a wet tea bag on your tongue). While the tannins will be good with the fats, I wanted to add another tannic ingredient to the dish to match, so I toasted some walnuts to top the dish.

This is a pretty simple dish, you need a pot for the pasta, a pan for the sauce, and a food processor, blender, or…oh man, I could have made this easier by just using my immersion blender (facepalm!)

Bacon and butternut pasta

30 minutes, feeds 6

Ingredients:

3 strips of applewood bacon
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup diced red onion
1 garlic clove minced
3 cups butternut squash cubes
3/4 cup chicken stock
¼ cup of mushroom stock
1 1/2 tbs diced fresh sage
1 tbs chopped fresh rosemary
1 cup milk
salt to taste
12 oz. pasta (I used spaghetti)
¼ cup toasted breadcrumbs
¼ cup toasted walnuts
Shaved parmesan
Fresh sage to garnish

Instructions

In a large skillet cook the 3 strips of bacon until crisp.
Remove the bacon placing it on a paper towel-lined plate.
Add the butter and red onion to the bacon fat in the skillet. Scrape up any of those delicious bits left by the bacon, this will flavor your dish.
Sauté until slightly soft, about 1-2 minutes.
Add in the garlic, sauté for 30 seconds, until fragrant
Add the butternut squash, chicken stock, mushroom stock, sage, and rosemary.
Cover and cook until the butternut squash is tender, about 8-10 minutes.
Put the squash in a food processor with the milk and salt to taste. Puree until smooth. (or…if you have an immersion blender, just turn off the heat and puree it right in the pan!)
Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package
Drain pasta and add butternut squash sauce to the pasta (or the pasta to the sauce, as I did), gently toss together and top with toasted breadcrumbs & walnuts, crispy bacon, and garnish with fresh sage.

How did the Bacon and Butternut pasta pair with the Terre di Bacco Langhe 2017 Nebbiolo?

The wine highlighted the umami notes from the bacon and onions and had nice acid to balance the rich butternut sauce. Michael found that the butternut mellowed the youthfulness of the wine, making it come across as a bit older and more serious. He also liked it very much with the sage, the coolness of the wine giving a lift to this herb.

This dish paired well with this wine. Keep in mind that this is a young Nebbiolo. A Nebbiolo with more oak aging, might want a dish with a bit more structure.

We did also pair this with a walnut, mushroom flatbread with tomato sauce and spices that was topped with red onions, arugula and sumac. The wine was very good with that pairing also!

Let us know if you try this and what adjustments you made to make the dish suit you (or your wine!)

Bacon and butternut pasta and walnut mushroom flatbread wiht Terre di Bacco 2017 Nebbiolo

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore and Venetian Inspired Pairings

Dec 28, 2020

Ahh, bubbles. Such a joyful way to end/begin a year. But why wait for a big celebration? There are affordable bubbles to celebrate all through the year! Celebrate Tuesday! Why not?

There are Prosecco DOC wines like the Val d’Oca or the Terre di Bacco, that wrote about earlier this month (it has been quite the sparkling month!). But then you take a step up the quality ladder to the wines of the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, which is what we do today!

Let’s start with some of the basics

Prosecco

Prosecco is a sparkling wine from Northern Italy. This DOC is for a sparkling wine made with a minimum of 85% Glera. The remainder may be Bianchetta, Chardonnay, Glera Lunga, Perera, Pinot Bianco, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir, or Verdiso.

Until 2021, the Pinot Nero (Pinot Noir) would need to be vinified as a white wine to be included and still call the wine Prosecco. As of January of 2021, the Prosecco DOC Consortium will allow Prosecco Rosé, where the Pinot Nero could be vinified as a rosé. Many producers already make a sparkling rosé. We in fact had one that we enjoyed with Thanksgiving.

The Prosecco DOC spans nine Provinces in Veneto and Fruili Venezia Giulia. Within it, you find two DOCGs, Prosecco Superiore di Asolo DOCG and Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG.

Map of the Prosecco Production Area courtesty Consorzio Tutela Prosecco DOC

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG

You won’t however find any Prosecco Rosé in the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG. They hold to their vision of Prosecco and it doesn’t include the pink craze.

This DOCG is a small zone in Veneto within the Province of Treviso, is made up on 15 communes; Cison di Valmarino, Colle Umberto, Conegliano, Farra di Soligo, Follina, Miane, Pieve di Soligo, Refrontolo, San Pietro di Feletto, San Vendemiano, Susegana, Tarzo, Valdobbiadene, Vidor and Vittorio Veneto.

Two additional DOCG for higher quality exist within the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG, those include; Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore Rive DOCG made up of 43 Rive and Valdobbiadene Superiore di Cartizze DOCG which is a subzone of 108 hectares.

“Heroic” Viticulture

Slopes around Valdobbiadene have grades up to 70% requiring most work to be completed by hand. During Harvest … this becomes visually apparent as workers climb up and down the steep vineyards with buckets to harvest the grape. That’ll build your quads!

This denomination is known for its care of the environment and was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019 as a cultural landscape to be protected.

Over the centuries the people of this region adapted ciglione – a type of terrace that rather than relying on stones, uses grassy soil which reduces erosion as it reinforces the slope. It looks like the shapes on a topographical map.

Ecologically the area is kept diverse because the vineyard plots are many and small and are separated by wooded areas.

So viticulture here is “heroic” in two senses, the steep slopes requiring nerves of steel to farm and working as a protector for the environment and our planet.

Out of the Vineyard into the Winery

Here the main variety is again Glera at 85% of the blend. Of the other varieties allowed; Bianchetta Trevigiana tends to mellow the wine, Perera adds aroma and fruit notes, and Verdiso adds salinity. Glera Lunga, Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and Pinot Nero may also be added.

Picked by hand and pressed only for free-run juice, the rules provide that 100 kg of grapes can only make 70 liters of wine. All the lots from the various vineyards are kept separately and only blended into the cuvée after their initial fermentation into base wine.

The typical method in the region is the Italian Method (also called the Charmant Method, the Tank Method, or the Martinotti Method). In this method, the fermented juice does its second fermentation in large tanks or Autoclaves rather than in bottle.

The styles

There are 3 overall styles of wine made in the region

Spumante – sparkling
Frizzante – semi-sparkling
Tranquillo – still

The styles of Spumante are dictated by the amount of residual sugar (rs) left in the finished wine. These range from the driest at Extra Brut (0-6 g/l rs), to Brut (0-12 g/l rs), Extra Dry (12-17 g/l rs), and Dry (17-32 g/l rs). Ironically, the Dry style is the sweetest of these styles, it is also the least common. The most traditional style is Extra Dry, with Extra Brut, the driest version being the newest as palates worldwide lean toward dryer wines.

A new addition to the Spumante style was added in 2019. Sui Lieviti means “on the lees”. Traditionally known as “col fondo” or “with sediment” these echo back to the original wines made in the ancient method where the second fermentation occurs in the bottle and the yeast falls to the bottom. We received a bottle of wine in this style, the Bianca Vigna, that you will read about below.

We received three samples from the Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG via Charles Communications for December’s #ItalianFWT group. Unfortunately, these wines arrived too late to do proper pairings with them in time for the post.

*These wines were received as media samples. No other compensation was received. All opinions are our own.*

So, here we are now, just before the New Year, the perfect time for Prosecco! Let me tell you a bit about each of the wineries and wines from the Conegliano Valdobbiadene DOCG and then we will get into the pairings.

Valdo

The history of this winery began in 1926 when a group of winemakers from Valdobbiadene got together to create a company devoted to making sparkling wine in Valdobbiadene and Cartizze. The company was bought by a Verona family with the name Bolla. They renamed the winery Valdo Spumanti.

Sergio Bolla was the 1^st President of the company. Today his son Pierluigi is the Chairman.

Valdo Prosecco Superiore DOCG – Cuvee 1926 – Extra Dry

This wine was created to honor the founding year of the winery and is part of their prestige line. 90% Glera and 10% Chardonnay it has 16 g/l residual sugar and extra-fine bubbles. It has 5 months Charmant aging and another 3 months in the bottle before release.

My notes: Notes of lemon zest and yellow apple. Bright but soft. On the palate, Meyer lemon, pear, and yellow apple.

11% abv 16 g/l rs $20 SRP

Mongarda

In 1978 Bruno and Marinella started their vineyard, Mongarda, in Col San Martino. Their son Martino now runs the business. They do not use herbicides or chemical fertilizers.

They produce 50,000 bottles annually in the Martinotti method and refermentation in the bottle.

Mongarda Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG Brut

This wine hails from the San Gallo Vineyard and is Glera with old indigenous grapes. San Gallo sits at an average of 367 meters (1200 feet), the average slope is 38% and the soil is calcareous with iron and aluminum silicates.

These vines are hand-harvested into small crates.

My notes: The first thing that hit my nose was bread, followed by notes of pear and a bit of dust. The tartness swims around in your mouth, fades briefly then returns making your teeth tingle.

11% abv 3 g/l RS $16 SRP

Mongarda Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG Brut

Bianca Vigna

Bianca Vigna is the youngest of these Conegliano Valdobbiadene wineries, founded in 2004 by 2 siblings Elena and Enrico. The vineyard however had been in the family since 1958 when their grandfather Genesio and his son (their father) Luigi farmed and sold grapes to a cooperative winery in Soligo.

Genesio and Luigi dreamed of having their own winery, and a generation later Enrico and Elena brought this dream to life, founding Bianca Vigna.

They are guided by the practice of sustainability. The winery is certified Casaclimawine and they have SQNPI certification for their product chain.

Their new winery has a photovoltaic system that provides 80% of their energy needs and they use eco-friendly and recycled material.

They farm 32 hectares, with 4 vineyards in the DOC area: Soligo, Borgo Breda, Busa Schiratti, and Campolongo, 4 in the DOCG: Soligo, Fornaci, Crevada, and Monticella. And 3 Rive: San Gallo, Collalto, and Ogliano. They produce 600,000 bottles annually.

Bianca Vigna Sui Lieviti Spumante Brut Nature 2019

This is the “sui lieviti” that I mentioned earlier. This is traditional Prosecco, on the lees with sediment in the bottle. This sparkling process takes place in the bottle, as in the method champenoise, but without disgorgement, so the wine stays on the yeast giving it its unique character.

The vineyards for this wine are within Conegliano with rocky-clay soil.

My notes: The first thing that hit me was the smell of biscuit dough. It brightens on my palate with bright lemon notes and a lovely creaminess.

100% Glera 11.5% abv 1 g/l rs $20 SRP

Bianca Vigna Sui Lieviti Spumante Brut Nature 2019

Our Venetian inspired pairings

As I looked for pairings, I wanted to include dishes of the region. We began with a cheese plate with gruyere cheese, dried figs, Marcona almonds, sardines, Prosciutto Panino (prosciutto wrapped around Mozzarella), pear, walnuts, and dried apricots. Not all of which are Venetian elements, but the sardines, almonds, figs and pears are all inspired by the region.

Polenta and rice are the grains of this region overtaking the typical Italian pasta. So we ran with that!

Baccalà mantecato

We made Baccalà mantecato which is a fluffy Venetian spread of fish and olive oil. While typically made of salt cod, we used pollock as that was what was available. The fish cooks in milk with peppercorns and a bay leaf, before draining and mashing and whipping with olive oil. We served it, as is traditional in Venice with toasted polenta.

Pear, Walnut, Radicchio Salad

We did a salad with radicchio which is prevalent in the area. This mixed the radicchio with red leaf lettuce, pear, toasted walnuts, and croutons with a dressing of honey, white wine, mustard, and olive oil.

Pea and Bacon Risotto

Finally, we had to do a risotto. I created a simple pea and bacon risotto. It was perhaps not as creamy as it should have been (I might have been Chopped), but it was delicious.

How did they pair?

All 3 Conegliano Valdobbiadene wines paired beautifully with the food. With the risotto, they lifted the notes of lemon zest and complimented the richness of the dish.

With the Baccalà mantecato, the Valdo elevated the fish and brought out a nutty note. The Mongarda rounded the dish and pulled up more mineral and savory notes. The Bianca Vigna was good with this dish, but was my least favorite, pulling forward the bay leaf notes in the dish.

The salad, with its radicchio and honey, was different with each wine, the Valdo melded with the pear pulling forth the sweetness and accentuated the char on the croutons. The Mongarda made the sweetness of the dressing more serious and the Bianca Vigna popped the honey and the toasted walnuts in the dish.

All in all, these were glorious pairings for these wines.

These delicious Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG wines and are so affordable, that you can enjoy them on more than just a special occasion, say Tuesday! They are perfect for the holidays and for ringing in the New Year!

Sources & Resources

More on Prosecco from Crushed Grape Chronicles

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal Reserva Rioja 2014 – Day 11 of the 12 days of Wine 2020

Dec 23, 2020

It’s time to do a virtual visit to Spain. This next year, I’m looking forward to being a part of the new #WorldWineTravel group of writers. This first year we will be focusing on Spain. I thought I would get a little head start and make sure we included a Spanish wine in our 12 Days of Wine 2020 celebration. Where better to begin than Rioja?

Rioja

This is undoubtedly the most famous region for red wines in Spain. Rioja is known for its outstanding Tempranillo based wines and produces almost 1 sixth of the countries DO level wine. They became Spain’s first designated DO region in 1925 and were the first region elevated to its Calificada status as a DOCa status in 1991.

Map of Spain with the Region of Rioja highlighted – map via Adobe Stock

The region is in north-central Spain in the Ebro River Valley. Most of the region is within the Province of La Rioja, but some vineyards cross over into the Provinces of Navarra and bits of the Basque Region.

Winemaking dates back 2000 years in Rioja, but it was not until the late nineteenth century when new techniques were introduced to the region and then the French came south trying to escape the grasp of phylloxera and the Bordeaux style of aging became prevalent in the area.

There are 3 regions in Rioja, Rioja Alta which is the furthest west and higher in elevation, Rioja Alavesa which sits north of Rioja Alta and mostly north of the Ebro river that runs through the entire region. Rioja Oriental (or Rioja Baja) sits to the east of the region in a much lower area.

Styles of Rioja

Yes, there is white and rosé made in the area. Viura being the primary white wine. But by far Tempranillo is the star of the area.

Spanish wines are broken into 3 quality levels by aging requirements. Rioja ups the ante on this:

Crianza: Minimum 12 months in barrel and 24 months total aging (up from 6 months in barrel for other Spanish red wines)

Reserva: 12 months in barrel and 36 months total aging (this is the same as other Spanish reds)

Gran Reserva: 24 months in barrel and an additional 36 months in bottle to total 60 months of aging before release. (This is up from the 18 months barrel time for other Spanish reds).

Most are aged in American Oak, although some producers are using French oak. French oak is noted for higher tannins while American oak imparts flavors of vanilla, coconut, and dill. American oak is denser also (a board can weigh twice as much as the same size French oak board)

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal

Perhaps you’ve seen photos of their City of Wine, the centerpiece of which is the spectacular building by Frank O. Gehry that swirls in pink and gold and silver in Elciego. The Spanish do love to dot their landscape with innovative eye-catching architecture and this building is spectacular.

The winery itself has been around since 1858 and is now found in over 110 countries. It is perhaps the most easily found Spanish brand of wine in the world.

This is a winery with a history of high-quality international award-winning wines. Those awards started rolling in, soon after its inception. You can read more about their history and see their spectacular City of Wine here.

In addition to their Rioja wines, they also produce wines from Rueda, Castilla y Leon, and Getariako Txakolina.

But, perhaps their most well-known wine is…

Marqués de Riscal Rioja Reserva D.O.Ca. Rioja

This is one of the most famous wines of Spain. It is still wrapped in its gold metallic mesh, the Malla originally added to prevent forgery. The cork could not be removed from the bottle without cutting the net.

This one wine can be found in over 100 countries. It has been praised over the years by such legends as Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dalí.

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal El Ciego (Alava) Rioja 2014 Reserva

Our vintage of this Rioja was 2014. This year the blend was 90% Tempranillo, 7% Graciano, and 3% Mazuelo. Most of the Tempranillo is old-vine (over 50 years old). This wine spends about 2 years in American Oak and then another year rounding in the bottle before release.

Around 4.5 million bottles produced, 14.1% abv SRP $18.99

My wine notes

Medium garnet in color, the nose has a medium intensity with notes of warm berries, spice, pine resin, red plum, black pepper, carob, and light leather.

It is dry with medium tannins and body, with pronounced flavor and high acidity.

Flavors of black cherry, licorice, spice, cranberry, and pomegranate, and a long finish.

Suggested pairings include mild cheeses, ham, poultry, grilled red meat, and roasts. They caution not to pair with anything too spicy. We opted for…

Mojo braised pork tacos with red and white cabbage, pickled red onions, and salsa verde

I did leave out the chile flakes to keep the heat down for pairing with the wine.

The braised pork was cooked and then a marinade of orange & lime juice, olive oil, garlic, salt, onion, and cumin was added.

We served this with warm corn tortillas and topped it with pickled onions, cabbage, and salsa verde.

This paired great with lunch, pulling forward the fruit notes in the wine and accentuating all the flavors in the food.

Marques de Riscal Rioja paired Our chocolate nests with black cherry ice cream

Chocolate nests with chocolate branches

Okay, the full title is “Chocolate nests with chocolate branches. Pistachio soil, walnut cake soil, and chocolate, anise, cinnamon soil. With quenelles of black cherry ice cream, blackberries, and mint.”

I know, that’s a long title. It’s a bunch of stuff, compiled to make a composed (fancy-schmancy) dessert dish. If you have been following the 12 Days of Wine 2020 you will recognize parts of this dish. Yep, that the black cherry ice cream leftover from the black cherry ice cream sandwiches and the walnut cake soil is from the Hungarian Nut Cake that my mother so loved. Bottom line, I saw a photo on Pinterest and felt the need to recreate the feel of the dish. It was a tiny chocolate nest with a quenelle of ice cream. It was so pretty it looked as if you had just come upon it in the forest. So taking what I had available, I set out to create something similar.

I tempered chocolate (the easy way in the microwave this time), made some nests, piped some branches, and then assembled my dish.

It was delicious and many of the flavors in the dish crossed over to the wine.

checkout the recipe

Well, folks, there is just one day left in our 12 Days of Wine 2020 celebration. Join us tomorrow as we wrap things up and celebrate Christmas Eve!

12 days of wine with Crushed Grape Chronicles Holiday Edition 2020

Sources and Resources

More on Rioja and Tempranillo from Crushed Grape Chronicles

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay – Day 10 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Dec 22, 2020

Earlier this fall I wrote a piece about Youngberg Hill. In 2019 they created Bailey Family Wines. It was a place we had visited years ago with a friend and tasting through the Pinot Noirs they had sent, I got a bit nostalgic. You can read that piece here Youngberg Hill – Reminiscing and Making New Memories with 2 Youngberg Hill Pinot Noirs.

Youngberg Hill is a beautiful property. They have a gorgeous Inn as well as an Event Center set within the vines. With the winery, they have 2 labels. One is the Youngberg Hill label, which those two beautiful Pinot Noirs fall under. The other is the Bailey Family Wine label.

*We received this wine as a media sample. No other compensation was received. All opinions are our own.*

Bailey Family Wines

Last year, in 2019 they created Bailey Family Wines. They had worked with their Youngberg Hill label to make the vineyard Organic Certified and are working toward Biodynamics, mostly looking out for the land and the soil and sourcing from other like-minded vineyards.

Bailey Family Wines focuses on exclusive wines from the 23 acres of vines on their Estate Vineyard. Of the 23 acres, 18 are planted to Pinot Noir, 2 ½ to Chardonnay, and 2 ½ to Pinot Gris. So this bottle of Estate Chardonnay is indeed rare.

View of the vineyard at Youngberg Hill – photo courtesy of Youngberg Hill

The Youngberg Hill Inn in Oregon’s Willamette Valley – photo courtesy of Youngberg Hill

Wayne Bailey of Youngberg Hill and Bailey Family Vineyards – photo courtesy of Youngberg Hill

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay

The Aspen block was planted with Pinot Grill in 2006. In 2014 they grafted over ½ of the black to Chardonnay Clones 75, 76, 95, and 548. The block is on Marine sediment and sits at between 500 and 600 feet.

The 2017 vintage was warm with an early bud break and a dry growing season. Then cooler temperatures gave great acidity and mineral notes as well as rich deep fruit at harvest.

This wine was aged for 8 months in neutral oak and they made just 229 cases, which are sold by allocation only.

100% Chardonnay 12.5% abv SRP $85

My notes:

This wine pours a pale lemon and has an intense nose of floral, crushed gravel, citrus leaf, fresh herbs, citrus pith and zest, and Meyer lemon.

It is dry in my mouth with flavors of lemon pith, lemon thyme, and Meyer lemon with lifted floral notes.

I felt like I was standing in a citrus grove with scents of citrus flowers, fruit, leaves, and pith all at once.

This was round but bright. I would luxuriate in this wine for hours.

Roasted Chicken with root vegetables

Michael was on kitchen duty for this one with a meal from Sun Basket. The chicken breast was roasted with lemon juice and lemon zest which paired beautifully with the lemon notes in the wine. The roasted vegetables included golden beets, potatoes, and Brussels sprouts. I was concerned about how the Brussels sprouts might pair, but they were lovely.

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay with Roasted Chicken and Root Vegetables

Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese

Youngberg Hill Pinot Noirs paired with rainbow trout and root vegetable gratin bottles in the background

Youngberg Hill Pinots paired with rainbow trout and root vegetable gratin

I think this wine might really sing with a creamy dish, it has great acid to cut through a creme sauce. It would also be great with homemade mac and cheese, like the smoked gouda and white cheddar one I recently made (link) or perhaps with a baked brie. Quite honestly, I think it would have been brilliant with grilled rainbow trout that we enjoyed with the Youngberg Pinot Noirs.

Cannolis with lemon curd crème

Michael bought cannoli molds back on Amazon Prime Day and it was evidently time to try them out. I was at first, an unwilling participant (I have a fear of hot oil). Nonetheless, we put these together and they worked! Most importantly, I came out unscathed by the hot oil! YAY!

We filled them in an unorthodox way with a lemon curd crème, that paired beautifully with the wine.

You can find the recipe here.

Cannolis ready to face the oil!

The finished Cannolis with lemon curd creme

Sources and Resources

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Chicken Paprikas paired with Meinklang H17

Dec 17, 2020

Chicken Paprikas

This recipe is based on my Mother’s. She made her dumplings to drop by the spoonful, although many prefer the smaller Nokedli.

What to Pair?

Meinklang h17

This wine is from the grape Hárslevelü (harsh-level-oo). It is a white grape whose name means “linden leaf”. This is an aromatic grape although less so when from the tiny Somló region where it has mineral qualities.

This wine is made in an orange style with 2 days of skin contact. It is fermented with wild yeasts, and bottled unfiltered and unfined with no sulfites added.

Time: 1 hour

Yield: 4 people

Chicken Paprikas

Ingredients

1 onion chopped

4 tbs butter + 1 tbs olive oil

1 tbs paprika

¼ tsp pepper (I used ground white pepper)

2 tbs salt

4 chicken thighs

1 ½ cups of chicken stock

½ pint of sour crème

Directions

Melt the butter in a dutch oven with the olive oil (I add the olive oil to keep the butter from burning)
Cook the onion in the butter, until soft
Pull the pot off of the heat and add the seasoning (paprika, pepper, salt). This is done off the heat to prevent the paprika heating too quickly which gives it a bitter taste.
Add the add the chicken and put this back on the heat to cook for 10 minutes to brown the chicken.
Add the chicken stock (this should almost cover the chicken)
Cover and simmer for 40 minutes over low heat
While that is simmering, make the dumplings

Ingredients for the dumplings

2 eggs

2 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

1/3 cup of water

Directions

Mix the eggs and flour together with a pinch of salt.
Add water to get to the correct consistency.
Drop by spoonfuls into boiling salted water. Cook 10 minutes and drain.

*alternatively, you can put the dough on a cutting board and cut it into thinner slices to drop right into the pot. (I find this much easier than using a grater)

Assembling

Remove the chicken from the pot
Add the sour creme to the sauce in the pot and whisk. (If it needs additional thickening you can add sifted flour, just be sure to cook it through)
Add the dumplings and toss them to coat.
You can choose how to plate this. I put it into individual gratin dishes with the chicken on the bottom, then covered it with my sauce and dumpling mixture.
Finish it off with a sprinkle of paprika.

Watch our quick video for the highlights.

Hungarian Chicken Paprikas and the Meinklang h17 Wine

We paired this dish with a Hungarian wine of Hárslevelü from Somló, Hungary. From the Meinklang farm, this was wine in the Orange style (white wine that is left on the skins like a red wine).

The wine was rich and delicious and paired well with this dish. The spices elevated by the wine.

Bonny Doon 2018 Riesling to Live – Day 12 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

We kicked off this year's 12 Days of Wine with a story of endings and beginnings and we end in the same way. It has been a tough year, filled with changes, so we end again with joyful bubbles. These bubbles are made in the Method Champenoise style but made of Riesling. They come to [...]

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal Reserva Rioja 2014 – Day 11 of the 12 days of Wine 2020

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay – Day 10 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

LaZarre 2017 Central Coast Pinot Noir and black bean lentil burgers

LaZarre 2017 Central Coast Pinot Noir – Day 9 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Adam and Angie LaZarre have a bit of a “Rockstar” vibe. We met them during Merlot Month when we sampled their 2017 Paso Robles Merlot. We wrote about that in our piece Merlot from Elegant to Badass. When they sent us that sample, they included a bottle of their 2017 Central Coast Pinot Noir. *We [...]

Strawberry mousse filled macarons (and a blackberry goat cheese chocolate bomb)

Strawberry Macarons

Strawberry Mousse filled Macarons I will admit, I was not ready for this. Pandemic food show bingeing had Michael ready to make macarons. I was not so sure. I’d seen how skeptical Zumbo was when someone tried to make them. Michael, though, was determined. So we set forth to make macarons. I would love to [...]

Meinklang Hárslevelü with Hungarian Nut Cake and Apricot Mousse

Hungarian Nut Cake with Apricot

Hungarian Nut Cake was my mother's favorite cake, as her hand-typed recipe below attests. I remember having it often at home growing up and it was her favorite to make for friends birthdays, potlucks, or other gatherings. I have a vision of her carrying this cake out to the picnic table in the yard for [...]

Meinklang h17 – Day 8 of the 12 Days of wine 2020

Today we dive into Meinklang a wine from Hungary. I went to pick up a wine a while back at GaragisteLV and decided to add a bottle while I was there. “What do you have that is interesting,” I asked Eric. He immediately suggested this wine. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized [...]

2018 Rowlee Nebbiolo from Orange NSW Australia

Rowlee 2018 Single Vineyard Nebbiolo – Day 7 of the 12 Days of Wine

We visited Rowlee a little over a year ago with a group from the Wine Media Conference This was a post-conference excursion to Orange Australia sponsored by Orange 360. We joined Nicole and James at their cellar door on the vineyard. We gathered on the porch to look out on the vineyard as the sun [...]

Tablas Creek 2019 Bourboulenc with Coquilles St. Jacque and a pineapple, cucumber, avocado salad

Tablas Creek 2019 Bourboulenc – Day 6 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Bourboulenc. You may not have heard of this grape. It quite honestly doesn’t get out much. This is an ancient white grape found in Southern France in Provençe and the Southern Rhône. We find the first mention of this grape in literature from the early 16th century. It is perhaps most well known in Languedoc [...]

Pavlova with Apricot crème and berries

Pavlova with Apricot crème and berries Ah, Pavlova….they are so pretty. Deliciousness floating on clouds! I was bound and determined to pair one with wine for our 12Days of Wine 2020 Celebration. I fell in love with one on Gather & Feast but this massive, stunning pavlova would be 2 hours in the making and [...]

Blackberry Goat Cheese Chocolate Bombs

Blackberry Goat Cheese Chocolate Bombs Whew! That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? I was looking to pair with an Australian Nebbiolo and Goat Cheese and Blackberry…well that with chocolate would just do the trick. I found this recipe on Pinterest and tracked it down to Crumb Top Baking https://www.crumbtopbaking.com/frozen-blackberry-goat-cheese-chocolate-bombs/ Of course, I needed to adjust [...]

Cannolis with Lemon Curd

Lemon mousse cannolis So Amazon Prime day caused our kitchen to fill with new gadgets. One of the things that Michael ordered was cannoli molds, and he was ready to use them. We used Alex Guarnaschelli’s recipe https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alexandra-guarnaschelli/homemade-cannoli-recipe-2042720 from the Food Network for the Cannoli shells. For the filling, well, we made that up. It’s [...]

Co Dinn 2015 Roskamp Block 2 Syrah with a Black Cherry Ice Cream Sandwich

Co Dinn 2015 Syrah Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 – Day 5 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Tertini Private Cellar Collection 2018 Arneis with grilled peach, chicken and tarragon salad from Southern Highlands NSW Australia

Tertini 2018 Arneis – Day 4 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Early one spring morning we headed into the Southern Highlands region in New South Wales Australia to visit Tertini Cellars. It was October and we were staying on the coast in Shoalhaven. We arose early and headed inland up through the Kangaroo Valley, past Fitzroy Falls. It was a rainy morning and the driving felt [...]

Chocolate nests with chocolate branches paired with Rioja Marques de Riscal 2014 Reserva

Chocolate Nests Okay, the full title is “Chocolate nests with chocolate branches. Pistachio soil, walnut cake soil, and chocolate, anise, cinnamon soil. With quenelles of black cherry ice cream, blackberries, and mint.” Have you ever seen a photo on Pinterest of a dish so pretty that you just had to try to recreate something similar? [...]

Syncline 2017 Subduction Red with a Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Pork Tenderloin with raspberry sauce

Syncline Subduction Red – Day 3 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

It was a cool summer morning when we visited Syncline. Located on the Washington side of the Columbia River Gorge just where the lush green western part of the gorge begins to turn into the flatter browner drier landscape. Here though, the trees still grow lush and we entered the quiet property and set up [...]

AD Beckham Amphora Pinot Gris – Day 2 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

A couple of years ago we made our way to the Beckham Estate Vineyard. It sits at the east end of the Chehalem Mountains AVA on what is known as Parrett Mountain. We spent the morning with Annedria Beckham tasting through their wines and hearing the story of the winery first hand on their patio, [...]

Strawberry Mascarpone crepes with AD Beckham Pinot Gris

Mascarpone crepes with strawberry sauce with an Amphora Pinot Gris

Strawberry Mascarpone Crepes For dessert, we went with something lighter, crepes filled with mascarpone crème, orange zest, and strawberries, served with a trio of strawberry sauces to see which went best with the wine. One sauce had cardamom, one fresh tarragon, and one basil. I enjoyed all 3 but the basil was my favorite with [...]

Terre di Bacco Prosecco – Day 1 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Beginnings and Endings The year 2020. Unexpected, unpredictable, a year of endings and beginnings. This Terre di Bacco Prosecco brings up a story of endings and beginnings – a chapter in my life. In 2008 after having a successful business for 10 years, the economy crashed and my business was no longer viable. A Warm [...]

Hungarian Nut Cake, Caramelized Apples and Crème Anglaise with Prosecco

Pineapple meringues with pineapple curd and roasted pineapple toasted coconut and pistachios with Tablas Creek Bourboulanc

Tablas Creek 2019 Bourboulenc The bourboulenc we tasted was from the first vintage of this variety at Tablas Creek Vineyard in the Adelaida District AVA of Paso Robles California. It is full of pineapple notes, so we ran with that on our pairing. Honey Roasted Pineapple, pineapple curd filled meringue cups with toasted coconut, pistachios, [...]

Black cherry ice cream Sandwiches with espresso and cocoa cookie a perfect pairing with Co Dinn Syrah

Black cherry Ice Cream Sandwiches with cocoa and espresso cookie When I read that the Co Dinn Syrah we were opening had notes of Black Cherry, cocoa, and espresso, I knew that a good dessert pairing would be epic. I searched and stumbled across this recipe for black cherry-chocolate ice cream sandwiches on Food [...]

Co Dinn 2015 Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 Syrah with BBQ chicken, grilled eggplant with chimichurri and smoke gouda mac and cheese

BBQ Chicken in Crockpot with Grilled Eggplant and Gouda Mac and Cheese

BBQ chicken, grilled eggplant with chimichurri sauce, and smoked gouda mac and cheese with Co Dinn Roskamp Syrah Our BBQ lunch to pair with this Washington Syrah from Co Dinn paired beautifully! BBQ with Syrah, especially when you play up the notes in the wine in the sauce, can be spectacular. Co had suggested eggplant [...]

Tertini Private Cellar Collection Arneis with peach crisp

Peach Crisp paired with a beautiful Tertini Arneis

Peach crisp This is such a simple recipe, it almost doesn’t need measurements. I whipped this up after lunch for Michael and me to enjoy as a dessert with a wine that really wanted peaches. What to Pair? Tertini 2018 Private Cellar Collection Arneis This wine comes from Tertini Wines in the Southern Highlands region [...]

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Co Dinn 2015 Syrah Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 – Day 5 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Dec 17, 2020

We got lost on the way to the Roskamp Vineyard to meet Co Dinn. In Washington’s Yakima Valley, GPS service here can be sketchy, and even when you look it up ahead of time, sometimes roads have gates and you find the maps program tried to take you in a locked back door. So after a bit of driving for us and Co talking us in through landmarks we were unfamiliar with, we finally connected and headed up to the Roskamp Vineyard in the Snipes Mountain AVA. Co sources grapes here, for his Syrah and Chardonnay and it is a great vantage point to see the Yakima Valley.

Co Dinn is an expert on the soils and topography of the region. As we walked the vineyard he pointed out the large rocks that had been tumbled through with the Missoula floods. This is “ancestral Columbia River gravel soils, uplifted atop a sharp south-facing ridge top”. You can feel the difference in the wind from this block, to the Chardonnay block on the south side. Block 2 is on an edge at 1150 feet and the block is very exposed to wind. These low vigor vines in these conditions give small berries so you get more structure.

Syrah with a view!

Roskamp Vineyard In Washington State, Snipes Moutain AVA with Co Dinne

Co Dinn of Co Dinn Cellars

Roskamp Vineyard In Washington State, Snipes Moutain AVA with Co Dinn looking toward the Rattlesnake Hills AVA

Roskamp Vineyard View on Snipes Mountain Yakima Valley Washington

Roskamp view looking to Painted Hills

As we stood there in the wind we could look across to Painted Hills and Horse Heaven Hills on one side and Elephant Mountain and the Rattlesnake Hills AVA on the other. The views are really spectacular and listening to Co explain how this land was transformed by the Missoula floods I could picture the floods and the land moving and shifting.

While we had to run off that day to another appointment, we were able to return a few days later to meet Co in his tasting room in Sunnyside. It is a restored historic building that was the city waterworks.

Co Dinn Cellars Tasting Room Sunnyside WA

Co Dinn Cellars Tasting Room in the restored historic waterworks

Co Dinn in the Winery at Co Dinn Cellars

Co showed us the winery and we tasted through a series of his wines. We left with a Chardonnay and with this Syrah.

Co Dinn 2015 Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 Syrah

This Co Dinn Roskamp Vineyard Syrah is fermented in one-ton bins. He presses when he feels the tannins are structured by not too grippy. The wine does secondary fermentation in neutral French oak.

100% Syrah. 14.6% abv SRP $45

My notes:

This wine is a burgundy purple color and it is glass staining.

It has an intense nose of dark fruit with red notes. Red currant, cocoa powder, espresso, baking spice, anise, and brown sugar come to mind. Kinda sounds like dessert right? (We’ll get to that later).

In your mouth, it is intense again and warms and coats your teeth and gums. Flavors of dark tart black cherry, and blackberry with notes of anise.

We did a full meal to go with this! I was inspired.

BBQ chicken, grilled eggplant with chimichurri sauce, and smoked gouda mac and cheese with Co Dinn Roskamp Vineyard Syrah

We made BBQ chicken thighs with my special blend BBQ sauce. I played to the wine with my flavors, including black cherry preserves, and spices, a bit of espresso and cocoa, along with my usual mix of tomato paste, ketchup (yes, or catsup if you prefer), Worcestershire sauce, soy, honey, cider vinegar, balsamic, paprika, nutmeg, and assorted other spices. We did these in the slow cooker. If I do them again I will skin the chicken. Alright, I like fat and the flavor it imparts, but in this case, my sauce didn’t get to permeate the meat as well as I would have liked.

We also did grilled eggplant. In his tasting notes, Co mentions the wine will pair well with eggplant dishes.

Lastly, I made a smoked gouda mac and cheese. This made the whole thing feel like a Southern picnic to me and well, there is a little bit of pandemic virtual travel to be had in that!

Co Dinn 2015 Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 Syrah with BBQ chicken, grilled eggplant with chimichurri and smoked gouda mac and cheese

Slow-Cooked BBQ Chicken

Smoked Gouda Mac & Cheese

Grilled Eggplant with Chimichurri Sauce

All the dishes paired beautifully with Co’s Roskamp Vineyard Syrah, but the smoked gouda mac & cheese was my favorite.

You can check out the recipes here.

Black Cherry Ice Cream Sandwiches

To complete our Southern picnic theme, I made black cherry ice cream sandwiches. Okay, I made the cookies for them and bought black cherry ice cream which I thought would pair well with the wine. The cookies though included cocoa and espresso powder which I hoped would pair well with this Roskamp Vineyard Syrah.

Indeed they did! It was delicious! You know, those moments when you take a bite and a sip and close your eyes and groan with pleasure just a bit. Yeah, that kind of good!

Find the recipe here.

Co dinn Cellars Tasting Room in Sunnyside Washington

Finding Co Dinn Wines

Co Dinn’s wines are wines that you should search out. These are made in small quantities so they are rare finds. When you can visit his beautiful tasting room at 501 Grant Ave in Sunnyside WA.

In the meantime, you can head to his site and order this Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 Syrah as well as his current releases.

Sources and Resources

More by Crushed Grape Chronicle on the Yakima Valley and Co Dinn

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

AD Beckham Amphora Pinot Gris – Day 2 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Dec 14, 2020

They have a fascinating story, which you can read in our post here.

Beckham Estate Vineyard Panorama

Grapes growing on the vine when we visited Beckham Estate Vineyard

The vineyard at Beckham in mid summer.

Gardens and Vineyard at Beckham Estate Vineyard in Willamette Valley’s Chehalem Mountain AVA

Blue skies peeking through at the Beckham Estate Vineyard

One of the things that drew me to Beckham was their Amphorae program, called AD Beckham. You see, Andrew Beckham is a ceramics artist. Annedria had come across an article on Elizabetta Foradori in Italy where she was making wine in terra cotta vessels.

I thought about it 3 different times before I decided to show the article to Andrew…I said “you know I’ve heard of this winemaker and I’ve heard of her wines, we should see if we can get some in Oregon.” And he flipped through and said, “I can make those”. Annedria Beckham

The die was cast, he ordered clay the next day.

NOVUM Ceramics

Andrew Beckham’s Novum Ceramics is the first commercial producer of terra cotta Amphorae for winemaking in North America. As we continued to visit the valley we met other winemakers who were either using or waiting anxiously to receive one of his beautiful amphorae.

The day we were there, his very proud father took us up to the studio to watch the process.

Andrew has worked to create these vessels so that they do not impart flavor to the wine. The early creations he found had too much impact on his wines. I have to say, that I enjoy the characters the clay imparts.

A.D Beckham MMXVI Amphora Pinot Gris

This 2016 Pinot Gris was made from fruit sourced from Antiquum Farm in the Willamette Valley AVA. 70% did skin ferment for 40 days in amphora and then was aged in acacia. The other 30% was fermented and aged on the skins in the amphora. This wine is unfined and unfiltered.

13.7% abv, SRP $40

This wine was a deep rosy salmon-orange color. Like the color of roasted salmon. It is the perfect match for the rich color of fall leaves. This is not white wine, it is not red wine, but more of a deep orange in style, with the skin contact then amplified by the clay vessel.

There were berry notes, like macerated strawberry and tart almost pomegranate notes. At one point it brought to mind cooked plums with herbs. There were savory notes in the back. I got bright red berries and spice, some dusty notes, rhubarb, and then as it opened more umami notes, white pepper, anise, and notes of tarragon.

Amphora Pinot Gris and flavors of Afghanistan

We paired this with a Sun Basket dinner of Afghan butternut squash stew with yogurt. This stew is rich with butternut squash, chickpeas, onion, and a turmeric spice blend that includes ginger, coriander, and cumin and is served over farro. Those orange notes and spice notes played beautifully with the dish.

AD Beckham 2016 Amphorae Pinot Gris and Afghan butternut squash stew

AD Beckham 2016 Amphora Pinot Gris and Afghan butternut squash stew

Afghan butternut stew

Strawberry Mascarpone Crepes

For dessert, we went with something lighter, crepes filled with mascarpone crème, orange zest, and strawberries, served with a trio of strawberry sauces to see which went best with the wine. One sauce had cardamom, one fresh tarragon, and one basil. I enjoyed all 3 but the basil was my favorite with the pairing.

Check out our recipe for the details.

Finding Amphorae wines from Oregon

I find that I really enjoy wines made in amphorae. Find some of the AD Beckham, or check Montinore, or Maloof…or any number of the other wineries that now have one of Andrews Novum to work with! When you can travel, schedule an appointment to taste a Beckham. The drive to the property is beautiful and the views from the ridge are stunning.

Currently, due to the cold weather and the COVID restrictions, they will not have tastings through the end of December. As we get into the New Year and things start to open up you will want to head to the Beckham Website to schedule an appointment.

Of course, right now, you can just curl up at home and order some of their wines online and have them shipped right to your door. That seems like a great option these days!

You might check out their 2019 AD Beckham “Aequalis” Pinot Gris-Pinot Noir, it sounds delicious.

Sources and Resources

More from Crushed Grape Chronicles on Beckham Estate Vineyard

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Terre di Bacco Prosecco – Day 1 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Dec 13, 2020

Beginnings and Endings

The year 2020.

Unexpected, unpredictable, a year of endings and beginnings.

This Terre di Bacco Prosecco brings up a story of endings and beginnings – a chapter in my life.

In 2008 after having a successful business for 10 years, the economy crashed and my business was no longer viable. A Warm Wish was a gift basket business in Las Vegas. We created gifts for conventions and conferences.

With the crash, Las Vegas went through a year with very few conventions or conferences, and I re-re-invented myself, returning to my career as a Theatrical Stage Manager.

This was a career I had left 10 years before to start my business. Another chapter, another cycle. I returned to an extreme version of this career joining Cirque du Soleil, grateful for recommendations from friends from my theatrical touring days. And so, in 2008 I joined the SM team at Zumanity.

The Zumanity team was small, so we employed interns to assist with the workload. They were able to have first-hand experience working with a large theatrical circus show. The first intern that joined us after I became a part of the team, was Robby.

He was with us for just a few months, but he and I stayed in touch, and periodically he would be in town. He would see the show and we would catch up over drinks. His career took him to theme parks and cruise lines and he had been traveling the world with his work.

In 2020 we caught up via Facebook, as Robby posted about him and his partner, who was very involved in wine. One thing led to another and I found a box arriving from Robby’s partner Francesco for a label he represents, Terre di Bacco.

*This wine was recieved as a sample. No other compensation was received. All opinions are my own.

Terre di Bacco

Terre di Bacco means “land of Bacchus”. The label is inspired by the Roman God of Wine.

Created as a “by the glass” style wine for restaurants, Terre di Bacco has found vineyards and wineries across Italy to create quality wines that are elegant, simple and genuine.

Terre di Bacco Prosecco DOC Treviso

This wine from Veneto is pale lemon in color with a nose of citrus, pith and lemon. There are apple notes as well. It tastes of bright lemon and citrus. The mouthfeel is lively and dry.

It is, of course, primarily made from the grape Glera.

It sits at 11% abv and is $13.99 so you can buy a case and enjoy a bottle every evening if you like!

Terre di Bacco Prosecco Paired with Chinese Long-Life noodles with stir-fried vegetables

As our COVID numbers went up, our Governor encouraged us to stay in if possible and order groceries for delivery. So, we returned to weekly orders from Sun Basket. These are meal kits that are Organic and Healthy. We paired this with the Chinese long-life noodles we received. It is a delicious dish that had me cutting vegetables for a bit, with shiitake mushrooms, scallions, bok choy, and carrots, cooked with fresh ramen and eggs in an oyster sauce.

Chinese Long life Noodles with bok choy, carrots topped with green onions, sambal oelek and flowering Thai basil

Terre di Bacco Prosecco with long life noodles

The umami in this dish was lovely with the Prosecco. Stir-fry dishes can have a bit of fattiness and can get heavy as you eat them, but the Prosecco cleaned my palate after every bite (I soooo love bubbles).

Dessert Pairing – Hungarian Nut Cake with Caramelized Apples and Crème Anglaise

I had made walnut cake for another recipe (you will see that soon enough), and thought this would be great with this pairing. I caramelized apple slices in butter and brown sugar, laid them across the top of the cake and drizzled it with crème anglaise.

Now I have been watching The Great British Baking Show for a while, but I have never, myself, made a crème anglaise. I read several recipes and watched a few videos and prepared myself for potential failure (there is a trick, if you scramble your eggs that I learned, to save your crème anglaise). I worked slowly and patiently and it came out perfect. Oh, and delicious! Where has this been all my life?

The bit of apple note in the wine came forward with this pairing and again, the Terre di Bacco Prosecco made each bite with that luscious crème anglaise as good as the first!

Check out the recipe here!

Walnut Cake, carmelized apples and creme anglaise

Endings and Beginnings

So here we are in 2020. Zumanity, after 8 months of being on hold, is now officially closed, and I am on to another chapter, another cycle in life. The connections here were not lost on me. Another cycle has started, paying homage to the previous cycle. The endings make us nostalgic, and their connections to the beginnings give us comfort and hope.

So we celebrate our 12 Days of Wine this year and look to the future. It’s uncertain. It always is. But it is also filled with endless possibilities. So I raise a glass of Terre di Bacco Prosecco to you, to the end of 2020 and to the beginning of so many things! Saluti!

Want to find some?

Terre di Bacco Prosecco di Treviso is available currently in 31 states. You can find more information on their distribution on their website https://www.terrebacco.com/shop-now

Sources and Resources

For more on Prosecco

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Hungarian Nut Cake, Caramelized Apples and Crème Anglaise with Prosecco

Dec 13, 2020

Hungarian Nut Cake was my mother’s favorite cake, as her hand-typed recipe below attests. I remember having it often at home growing up and it was her favorite to make for friends birthdays, potlucks, or other gatherings. I have a vision of her carrying this cake out to the picnic table in the yard for a gathering of the enlisted men’s wives when we living in California.

Mom’s typed recipe for her favorite Hungarian Nut Cake. She loved to share this recipe.

Photo of the Enlisted Wives Club in the Yard in California

A gathering of the Enlisted Wives club in the yard. I am sure there was Hungarian Nut Cake served this day.

She loved hosting. She was not fussy, but warm and welcoming. She wanted everyone to feel at ease and at home and part of a community. Being a Navy wife, with kids while your husband was deployed for 8 months was no easy task. She felt duty-bound to look out for the other families in the squadron.

I made some changes to her recipe to make this dish, but it is an homage to my sweet Mother. I cut the recipe to 1/3. Her original made 3 8-inch Hungarian Nut Cakes to layer. I just needed a small bit for my plating, and my plating was just for 2, so even then I had cake left over.

Hungarian Nut Cake

Ingredients

1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup of lt. brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
2/3 cup walnuts
1/3 cup bread crumbs
½ cup sifted flour
2/3 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk
2 egg whites

Recipe

Crème the butter, lt. brown sugar and sugar together
Add the egg yolks one at a time and mix completely
Grind the walnuts in a food processor until they are fine.
In a separate bowl sift together the bread crumbs, flour, and baking powder
Add to the butter mixture
Add in the vanilla and milk
Beat the egg yolks in a separate bowl until they have stiff peaks
Fold these into the mixture.
Cover a sheet pan with a silicone pad or parchment.
Spread the mixture out thinly on the pan and bake for 10 to 15 minutes at 325.
Let cool slightly and then cut into 3-inch circles.

Caramelized apples

Ingredients

1 crisp apple
2 tablespoons of butter
1 tablespoon of brown sugar

Recipe

Peel and slice the apple
Heat a pan with the butter
Add the apples and cook on each side until golden brown.
Add the brown sugar and cook until the apples are coated and caramely.

Crème Anglaise

Okay. This was my first time making Crème Anglaise. I mean, I’ve watched people on TV do this a million times, so I should be able to do this right? Well, I searched through multiple recipes and watched videos on techniques, and here’s what I came up with (it’s a blend of several). Oh, and it came out perfect!

Ingredients

½ cup whole milk
½ cup heavy crème
1 vanilla pod
3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons of sugar

Recipe

Combine the milk and crème in a heavy-bottomed pot.
Scrape out the vanilla bean and add the scrapings and the pod to the pot.
Heat over medium until it is simmering (not boiling)
Turn off the heat and let it steep for 20 minutes.
Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a separate bowl.
Strain the milk mixture.
In a slow stream add ½ of the milk mixture to the egg mixture, whisking to incorporate. Do this carefully. If the milk is still too hot it can cause the eggs to scramble. (but if they do, don’t worry I found a fix!)
Pour this egg and milk mixture back into the pot with the remaining milk and crème. Heat over medium, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. (This allows you to feel the bottom of the pot and see how the mixture is thickening). Again, do this carefully so you don’t scramble your eggs. This will take 5-10 minutes (mine took 8). You will know it is done by the famous spoon test (if you watch cooking shows you have seen this). The mixture will coat the back of the wooden spoon and when you make a stripe with your finger down the back of the spoon it will not run together. Keep in mind this is a sauce, so you want it to be able to pour.
Place the pot in an ice bath to cool. You want to do this to keep it from cooking!
***If your mixture scrambles and gets clumpy! Get out your immersion blender and make it smooth again!
Strain the mixture through a sieve and serve.

Assembling

Place the circle (or two, I stacked mine) of the Hungarian Nut Cake on your dish, top with the caramelized apple, and drizzle with the crème anglaise.

What about a Wine Pairing?

We paired this with a Prosecco from Treviso Italy from Terre di Bacco, which picked up on the apple notes and was lovely and bright. Prosecco, or another type of sparkling wine or maybe even a sweet wine from Bordeaux would be great with this!

Recipes and Wine and Food Pairings

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Pineapple meringues with pineapple curd and roasted pineapple toasted coconut and pistachios with Tablas Creek Bourboulanc

Dec 11, 2020

Tablas Creek 2019 Bourboulenc

The bourboulenc we tasted was from the first vintage of this variety at Tablas Creek Vineyard in the Adelaida District AVA of Paso Robles California. It is full of pineapple notes, so we ran with that on our pairing.

Honey Roasted Pineapple, pineapple curd filled meringue cups with toasted coconut, pistachios, and yogurt

Yep, there’s a lot going on here. I kinda did some pineapple overkill. But this dessert was delicious!

Time: 1 Hour 45 Minutes

Yield: 2 people

Roasted Pineapple with honey and pistachios, meringue cups filled with pineapple curd.

Honey Roasted Pineapple (for 2)

Ingredients

2 spears of pineapple

¼ cup pineapple juice

1 tablespoon of honey

¼ cup of pineapple juice

¼ cup of dark brown sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 425
Line a sheet pan with parchment paper
Stir the honey, pineapple juice and dark brown sugar in a large bowl until the sugar dissolves.
Add the pineapple spears and toss to coat them.
Allow this to marinate for 10 minutes
Put the pineapple spears on the baking sheet (reserve the rest of the marinade)
Roast the pineapple for 15 minutes.
Flip the spears and brush with the marinade.
Roast for another 10 minutes (they should caramelize)
Remove from the oven and drizzle with the remaining marinade.

Meringue cups

Ingredients

3 egg whites (save the yolks for the curd)

½ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup powdered sugar (+ 1 tbs)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350.
Put your silicone dome molds on a baking sheet bottom side up. Spray lightly with nonstick spray (and maybe NOT the baking spray, it has flour in it and you don’t need that. Unlike what I did).
Get your stand mixer out with the whisk attachment.
Slowly add the granulated sugar a tablespoon at a time.
Turn the mixer to high and beat until there are stiff peaks and the mixture is glossy
Sift in the powdered sugar and fold carefully to incorporate
Put the mixture in a pastry bag with a round tip (the size will depend on the size of your domes, the smaller the dome the smaller the tip to give you control)
Pipe the mixture in a circular motion around each dome, starting at the bottom and being careful not to leave gaps.
Bake in the bottom rack of the oven for 30 to 45 minutes (depending on the size). (The meringues should not change color, like mine did!)
Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the oven.
Remove from the oven and gently remove the meringues from the mold.

Pineapple curd

Ingredients

4 egg yolks (yes I know you will have to use another egg)

1 egg (a whole one, yolk and white)

½ cup pineapple juice

½ cup granulated sugar

1/8 tsp salt

3 tbs butter, cut into pieces

Directions

In a large bowl combine the egg yolks and the additional egg. Set aside
In a 2 quart saucepan heat the pineapple juice, salt and sugar over medium heat to dissolve the sugar. This will take about 5 minutes and it should just come to a simmer. (not too hot or you will scramble the eggs when you add this!)
Let this cool for several minutes.
While whisking the eggs, slowly add this mixture. Do this carefully so that you don’t scramble the eggs. (if you do, don’t panic, I have a fix at the end)
Once the mixture is thoroughly combined, put it back in the saucepan (get out your instant read thermometer here) and heat, whisking constantly over low heat until the mixture reaches 170 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point the curd should thicken. (If it gets too hot it will become gritty. Again, don’t panic there is a fix at the end)
Remove the curd from the heat and whisk in the butter until combined.
Let the curd cool before using.

*Fixes! The immersion blender is your friend as well as a strainer. If you scramble your eggs, use the immersion blender to smooth the mixture back out. Likewise if your curd overheats and becomes gritty. If you notice the mixture does not look smooth at the end, you can push it through a sieve before cooling it down.*

Assembling

Additional Ingredients

¼ cup of yogurt

¼ cup pistachios

1 tablespoon of mint leaves (chopped)

½ cup toasted coconut

Directions

Place the pineapple spear on the plate at an angle
In a corner make a pile of toasted coconut
Spoon the pineapple curd into one of the meringue cups until about ½ full
Place the filled meringue cup on the pile of toasted coconut on an angle, allowing some of the curd to roll out (add more if needed)
Drizzle the pineapple spear with the yogurt and garnish with the pistachios and mint.

Watch our quick video for the highlights.

Roasted Pineapple with honey and pistachios, pineapple curd filled meringue cups with toasted coconut

I went a little nuts with dessert. Too many cooking shows I guess. Today, I thought, is the day I will learn how to make Meringues! Hmmm… Then I will tackle a fancy plating! Hmmm… Well, it came out delicious if not photogenic.

We made meringue cups with our new silicone molds, then, oh yeah I made pineapple curd. (1^st time making a curd too!). Spears of pineapple were roasted in a sauce of pineapple juice, dark brown sugar, and honey.

To plate it, the roasted pineapple got a drizzle of yogurt, a sprinkle of chopped pistachios, and a bit of fresh mint. The meringue cups sat tilted on a bed of toasted coconut and were filled with the pineapple curd spilling out.

This dessert pulled up all the Pineapple notes in the wine.

Bonny Doon 2018 Riesling to Live – Day 12 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal Reserva Rioja 2014 – Day 11 of the 12 days of Wine 2020

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay – Day 10 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

LaZarre 2017 Central Coast Pinot Noir – Day 9 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Hungarian Nut Cake with Apricot

Meinklang h17 – Day 8 of the 12 Days of wine 2020

Rowlee 2018 Single Vineyard Nebbiolo – Day 7 of the 12 Days of Wine

Tablas Creek 2019 Bourboulenc – Day 6 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Co Dinn 2015 Syrah Roskamp Vineyard Block 2 – Day 5 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Tertini 2018 Arneis – Day 4 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Syncline Subduction Red – Day 3 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

AD Beckham Amphora Pinot Gris – Day 2 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Terre di Bacco Prosecco – Day 1 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Hungarian Nut Cake, Caramelized Apples and Crème Anglaise with Prosecco

12 Days of Wine Day 12 – Syncline

Syncline Let's start with the name. Syncline...where does that come from? It was a new word to me. This winery & vineyard in located in the Columbia Gorge AVA. Vineyards are typically in scenic areas. Grapes like a view. But the Columbia Gorge? Come on...this is a pretty stellar backdrop. View of Mt. Hood [...]

Johan Grüner Veltliner 12 Days of Wine Reveal

12 Days of Wine Day 11 – Johan

What wine list of ours would be complete without a bottle from Johan. The Van Duzer Corridor View of the Johan Vineyard in the Van Duzer Corridor of Oregon's Willamette Valley The Van Duzer Corridor is one of the newer AVA's in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The TTB approval of the AVA happened [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 10 – Girardet

If you have tried today's variety I want to hear about it! This is Baco Noir, a French American hybrid created by Francois Baco from folle blanche (which is a wine grape from France) and a red grape of the vitis riparia species (comes from America, but the exact grape is unknown). This variety is [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 9 – Wooldridge Creek

We are sticking to Southern Oregon today, but...we are into a white wine. Viognier is a white Rhône variety that has found a home in the new world. It is thought to be the leading white variety in Virginia, where it does very well. You will find it in California where it can vary in [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 8 – Cowhorn

We are sticking with Southern Oregon today, but we are heading into the Rhônes. No...I'm not giving you another Syrah. Today we focus on Grenache from Cowhorn in Southern Oregon's Applegate Valley AVA (which is nested in the Rogue Valley AVA). Cowhorn Entrance Gate We've done a bit on Bill Steele and his wife [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 7 – Quady North

Where in Washington is this winery you ask? Nope, we finally stepped out of Washington. Quady North can be found in Oregon's Applegate Valley. The Applegate Valley AVA is a nested AVA within the Rogue Valley AVA. This region is way south in Oregon, just above the California state line. In the State of Jefferson...well [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 6 – Armstrong Family Winery

Today we venture out of the Yakima Valley, sort of....This wine is from Armstrong Family Winery, who are located in Walla Walla. We spent an afternoon with Tim & Jennifer Armstrong at the vineyard this summer (you can read about it here). But, sadly...the fruit from this vineyard, did not go in this wine. Here's [...]

12 Days of Wine Day 5 – JB Neufeld

Justin Neufeld is the winemaker for Gilbert Cellars. On his own he works on his JB Neufeld label, focusing on Cabernet Sauvignon. We spoke with Justin when we were in Yakima in July. He sources his fruit and he played with vineyard specific bottlings for a bit, and found that by blending fruit from multiple [...]

12 Days of Wine – Day 4 Côte Bonneville

DuBrul Vineyard is one of the older vineyards in the Yakima Valley. Hugh and Kathy Shiels purchased the property in 1991 and pulled out the orchards to plant vines. This is a family business and the winemaker is their daughter Kerry Shiels. Last summer we spent a morning with Kerry first at their Sunnyside tasting [...]

12 Days of Wine – Day 3 – Valdemar Estates

Valdemar...Go ahead, say it. Savor the word. It has an exotic feel doesn't it. Well it should. As you drive up the the Estate it looks like exactly what it is, a modern Spanish winery. Only...you are in Walla Walla Washington. What's the story? Valdemar Estates Winery and Tasting Room in Walla Walla Washington [...]

As always be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up for our monthly newsletter to keep up to date on all of our posts.

When not traveling they indulge in cooking and pairing wines with food at home in Las Vegas.

Wine and Food Pairings

Gewürztraminer

Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewürztraminer

My notes

Pairings from across the Globe

Thai Red Curry with Shrimp and Vegetables

Asian cuisine pairings from #WinePW

Sources & Resources

More on Gewürztraminer from Crushed Grape Chronicles

Share this:

Like this:

Creating My Thai Red Curry recipe

Thai Red Curry with vegetables and shrimp

Ingredients

For garnish

Directions

Pairings from across the Globe

Thai Red Curry with a Gewürztraminer

More recipes with Wine Pairings from Crushed Grape Chronicles

Share this:

Like this:

Bacon and Butternut Pasta

Bacon and butternut pasta

30 minutes, feeds 6

Ingredients:

Instructions

How did the Bacon and Butternut pasta pair with the Terre di Bacco Langhe 2017 Nebbiolo?

Share this:

Like this:

Prosecco

Conegliano Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG

“Heroic” Viticulture

Out of the Vineyard into the Winery

The styles

Valdo Prosecco Superiore DOCG – Cuvee 1926 – Extra Dry

Mongarda Valdobbiadene Prosecco Superiore DOCG Brut

Bianca Vigna Sui Lieviti Spumante Brut Nature 2019

Our Venetian inspired pairings

Baccalà mantecato

Pear, Walnut, Radicchio Salad

Pea and Bacon Risotto

How did they pair?

Sources & Resources

More on Prosecco from Crushed Grape Chronicles

Share this:

Like this:

Rioja

Styles of Rioja

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal

Herederos del Marqués de Riscal El Ciego (Alava) Rioja 2014 Reserva

Mojo braised pork tacos with red and white cabbage, pickled red onions, and salsa verde

Chocolate nests with chocolate branches

Well, folks, there is just one day left in our 12 Days of Wine 2020 celebration. Join us tomorrow as we wrap things up and celebrate Christmas Eve!

Sources and Resources

More on Rioja and Tempranillo from Crushed Grape Chronicles

Share this:

Like this:

Bailey Family Wines

Bailey Family 2017 Chardonnay

Roasted Chicken with root vegetables

Cannolis with lemon curd crème

Sources and Resources

Share this:

Like this:

Chicken Paprikas

What to Pair?

Meinklang h17

Time: 1 hour

Yield: 4 people

Chicken Paprikas

Ingredients

Directions

Ingredients for the dumplings

Directions

Assembling

Watch our quick video for the highlights.

Hungarian Chicken Paprikas and the Meinklang h17 Wine

More Recipes

Bonny Doon 2018 Riesling to Live – Day 12 of the 12 Days of Wine 2020

Share this: