I love leeks. Love them. If you braise them in plain water and save the water, you have the base for a great soup, which is what I usually do.
Tonight, I broiled them. Here's how.
Trim all the dark, dark green tough outer leaves. (You don't have to get rid of all the green parts--they are yummy too!) With the root end still attached, slice down the length of them with your chef's knife. Turn them 1/4 turn and repeat it. Now you have an easy to wash bundle of leeks, still held together by that root. Wash them under cold water until all the grit and sand and stuff is gone.
Now, cut the root end off, and cut them into 6 inch lengths, keeping the natural bundles together.
Line a sheet pan with foil, and place the leeks, cut edges up, on the foil. Brush with oil (olive, canola, whatever) and sprinkle a little salt on them. Put the pan in the preheated broiler, about 6 inches from the heating element. When the start to get some brown on them, take them out, brush some balsamic vinegar (the cheap stuff is not only fine, it's great), turn them, brush them with more oil, and return them to the broiler for a few more minutes. Repeat one more time, making sure they don't burn.
If you drink any wine with them, make sure it isn't a grassy white, the mistake I just made. The wine tasted bitter fast.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Cono Sur Cabernet Sauvignon Carmenere (Red) 2009 $10.99
South American wines in general, and Chilean wines in particular, will probably appear on these pages a lot. A combination of relatively new wine exports, favorable exchange rates, and fundamentally high quality have conspired to make these wines high value propositions.
And for those of you interested in organic foods, Cono Sur combines all of these attributes into a first rate producer. (To the best of my knowledge, not all their wines are organic. Those that aren't still repute to be from "biodynamically" grown grapes, but until a faithful reader buys me a ticket, I won't be able to investigate first hand.)
The blend in this case is essentially a Bordeaux-style red, though a young one, ready to drink now, rather than one that requires years of patient aging in optimum conditions. The story of the grapes is kind of interesting, if you like food stories, but I won't go into it in detail. Suffice it to say that the Carmenere grape originated in Bordeaux with several different names. In Chile, it was long mistaken for Merlot--and it is nearly extinct in Bordeaux. But it is a Bordeaux grape, and grown to maturity (which takes longer than Merlot) it has somewhat similar flavors (though sometimes more pepper, I'm told), and it suits blending with Cabernet Sauvignon just fine.
I'm generally a fan of Cono Sur wines--if you can find it, the white Viognier is a real treat. This wine is maybe half a step up from other low price Chilean Cabs, with fairly soft tannins. (Tannins are the stuff that makes you pucker when you over steep your hot tea. They are present in red wine skins, and are often the thing that makes people think they don't like red wine. Expensive wine often has "tight" tannins--harsh ones--that are meant to mellow and break down with age, and more importantly, exposure to oxygen. Sometime I'll explain about the silliness of allowing a wine to "breathe" in its original container, but for now take it that the bottle of tannic wine will taste harsh when first opened, and may taste very differently after an hour or two--if the winemaker knew what he or she was doing.) The only harshness--and this is what keeps it at a 4 point rating instead of a 5--comes at the end of a sip ("on the finish" for more aristocratic readers). There's just a hint of straight up alcohol. I didn't note the % on the bottle, so I can't say if it's a result of an overly high alcohol content or just a function of the wine style, but it's the only thing I have to say that's less than very good about this one. It is a very pleasantly drinkable wine.
Pairings: Cab based wines are generally considered classics with red meat and gamier animals, like lamb or venison. This one is maybe a bit more for sipping than pairing, but you will do fine with burgers, broiled steaks, etc. I always like cab with garlic heavy foods, too, as long as there aren't too many tomatoes.
Rating: 4 stars. $10.99.
And for those of you interested in organic foods, Cono Sur combines all of these attributes into a first rate producer. (To the best of my knowledge, not all their wines are organic. Those that aren't still repute to be from "biodynamically" grown grapes, but until a faithful reader buys me a ticket, I won't be able to investigate first hand.)The blend in this case is essentially a Bordeaux-style red, though a young one, ready to drink now, rather than one that requires years of patient aging in optimum conditions. The story of the grapes is kind of interesting, if you like food stories, but I won't go into it in detail. Suffice it to say that the Carmenere grape originated in Bordeaux with several different names. In Chile, it was long mistaken for Merlot--and it is nearly extinct in Bordeaux. But it is a Bordeaux grape, and grown to maturity (which takes longer than Merlot) it has somewhat similar flavors (though sometimes more pepper, I'm told), and it suits blending with Cabernet Sauvignon just fine.
I'm generally a fan of Cono Sur wines--if you can find it, the white Viognier is a real treat. This wine is maybe half a step up from other low price Chilean Cabs, with fairly soft tannins. (Tannins are the stuff that makes you pucker when you over steep your hot tea. They are present in red wine skins, and are often the thing that makes people think they don't like red wine. Expensive wine often has "tight" tannins--harsh ones--that are meant to mellow and break down with age, and more importantly, exposure to oxygen. Sometime I'll explain about the silliness of allowing a wine to "breathe" in its original container, but for now take it that the bottle of tannic wine will taste harsh when first opened, and may taste very differently after an hour or two--if the winemaker knew what he or she was doing.) The only harshness--and this is what keeps it at a 4 point rating instead of a 5--comes at the end of a sip ("on the finish" for more aristocratic readers). There's just a hint of straight up alcohol. I didn't note the % on the bottle, so I can't say if it's a result of an overly high alcohol content or just a function of the wine style, but it's the only thing I have to say that's less than very good about this one. It is a very pleasantly drinkable wine.
Pairings: Cab based wines are generally considered classics with red meat and gamier animals, like lamb or venison. This one is maybe a bit more for sipping than pairing, but you will do fine with burgers, broiled steaks, etc. I always like cab with garlic heavy foods, too, as long as there aren't too many tomatoes.
Rating: 4 stars. $10.99.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Swallow Gewurztraminer 2008 (white) $10.99
I l-o-v-e love love love Gewurztraminer. If gewurz (say it like "geh-vertz") were a woman I would marry it. Unfortunately, she probably wouldn't have me, because she's a bit higher class than I am. And that means that I can't afford a lot of the wines that are worth having, like the very good to great ones from Alsace. (If you ever get a chance to taste, or--bless you--consume a bottle of--a Schlumberger reserve please, please do.) If you don't know what it means to say a wine has a "good nose" get a bartender to pour you a glass of an Alsatian Gewurz. They smell flowery, sometimes with easy-to-detect** fruity smells, like apples and pears, and even people who usually say "Uh, smells, um, wine-y?" can tell there's something special going on here.
Usually, at the $10 price point, Gewurz is either generic white wine, or sweet. Now, most Gewurztraminer isn't actually sweet, even though that's the word most people would use. It doesn't have residual sugar (or doesn't often) the way Riesling and many other German wines can. Instead, it is what they call "off-dry" which is just snob for "tastes sweet." But cheap ones do seem to have that actual sugar in them.
Not so with this yummy wine from Oregon. It is certainly a simple wine compared to many Alsatian wines, but at half (or one quarter) the price, it does very well. It is much more balanced than typical cheap gewurzes, with very pleasant scents of, well, apples and flowers, and late summer when the trees are starting to bloom and...well, I did say I love it.
Gewurz is a good all around wine for food, too, because it's big enough to stand up to heavy foods (unlike many whites) and it does very well with spicy things like Thai cuisine.
rating: 5 points. $10.99. Excellent wine for the money, and would compare favorably to some costing a bit more.
**Not the pretentious gobbledygook many people say "Notes of Madagascar vanilla with just a soupcon of Indonesian Cinnamon" along with twenty other things, 19 of which were listed on the label. Most people can get three, with some practice, and others are usually the power of suggestion.
Usually, at the $10 price point, Gewurz is either generic white wine, or sweet. Now, most Gewurztraminer isn't actually sweet, even though that's the word most people would use. It doesn't have residual sugar (or doesn't often) the way Riesling and many other German wines can. Instead, it is what they call "off-dry" which is just snob for "tastes sweet." But cheap ones do seem to have that actual sugar in them.
Not so with this yummy wine from Oregon. It is certainly a simple wine compared to many Alsatian wines, but at half (or one quarter) the price, it does very well. It is much more balanced than typical cheap gewurzes, with very pleasant scents of, well, apples and flowers, and late summer when the trees are starting to bloom and...well, I did say I love it.
Gewurz is a good all around wine for food, too, because it's big enough to stand up to heavy foods (unlike many whites) and it does very well with spicy things like Thai cuisine.
rating: 5 points. $10.99. Excellent wine for the money, and would compare favorably to some costing a bit more.
**Not the pretentious gobbledygook many people say "Notes of Madagascar vanilla with just a soupcon of Indonesian Cinnamon" along with twenty other things, 19 of which were listed on the label. Most people can get three, with some practice, and others are usually the power of suggestion.
Les Amadous Ventoux 2009 (red) $9.99
The Cote du Ventoux is in Southern France, in Provence. Being adjacent to the Rhone region**, its wines are similar, both in the grapes used and the styles produced. In France, the region is defined by the government, and the grapes that are allowed in wines using the name of the region are controlled by law. For example, a "burgundy" wine means it comes from within the recognized boundaries of the Burgundy (or Bourgogne) region and contains pinot noir. (It's a lot more complicated than that, actually, but close enough.) The usual grapes in Ventoux are Syrah (also know as Shiraz), Grenache, Mourvedre, and several other less important ones (though real wine snobs will get on me for omitting Cinsault from the list, so I won't).
A typical Ventoux red is a fairly sharp wine, with strong acidity and a style that ranges from rough to punch you in the mouth. It's usually hot, befitting the hot summer climate of the region, and even when it's not high in alcohol, can leave a raw alcohol taste at the end.
Okay, I said no wine snobbery, so why the lesson? Well, simply put, because this wine is not at all typical of the Ventoux wines I have tasted in the past, and this is a very good thing. Don't get me wrong: under the right circumstances, I like typical ones just fine. But this wine is a good deal lighter than many others. If you hold the glass over a white piece of paper or table cloth, it's much lighter in color than other Rhone reds, and it lacks that hot, sharp, raw taste that often presents itself. A usual Ventoux I would have with a big slab of beef or game. This one, I'd rather sip. It would also be a fun wine to take to other value-conscious friends, especially if they fancy they know something about wine. It is atypical enough you might just surprise them.
Rating: 4 points. $9.99. Excellent value, good points for doing something original without being goofy.
Drink it, or eat it with lighter meats. Burgers are probably good, and it's a rare red wine that I might try with a chicken dish, esp. something with leg and thigh meat in it.
(**I've never been to France. If it turns out Ventoux is technically within the Rhone region, don't sue me. But the wine people I ask these things of generally call it Provence, not Rhone.)
A typical Ventoux red is a fairly sharp wine, with strong acidity and a style that ranges from rough to punch you in the mouth. It's usually hot, befitting the hot summer climate of the region, and even when it's not high in alcohol, can leave a raw alcohol taste at the end.
Okay, I said no wine snobbery, so why the lesson? Well, simply put, because this wine is not at all typical of the Ventoux wines I have tasted in the past, and this is a very good thing. Don't get me wrong: under the right circumstances, I like typical ones just fine. But this wine is a good deal lighter than many others. If you hold the glass over a white piece of paper or table cloth, it's much lighter in color than other Rhone reds, and it lacks that hot, sharp, raw taste that often presents itself. A usual Ventoux I would have with a big slab of beef or game. This one, I'd rather sip. It would also be a fun wine to take to other value-conscious friends, especially if they fancy they know something about wine. It is atypical enough you might just surprise them.
Rating: 4 points. $9.99. Excellent value, good points for doing something original without being goofy.
Drink it, or eat it with lighter meats. Burgers are probably good, and it's a rare red wine that I might try with a chicken dish, esp. something with leg and thigh meat in it.
(**I've never been to France. If it turns out Ventoux is technically within the Rhone region, don't sue me. But the wine people I ask these things of generally call it Provence, not Rhone.)
Who we are and what we do
Okay, "we" is already a bit pretentious, since at least for now, there's just me. I'm a middle aged white guy, living in the Boston area, who used to be a teacher and school administrator, and who lately is channeling his inner engineer. I love wine--its variety, its depth, its charms.
I don't find all wine talk pretentious. After a while, things that seem that way at first often become less so: "barnyard" for instance turns out just to mean "it smells a bit like poop," and since poop is bad as smells go but barnyard really isn't--or isn't always--saying "barnyard" turns out to be nice shorthand that also avoids using the word "poop" in a context (say a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant) where that word isn't welcome.
At the same time, a lot of wine talk *is* pretentious. This is wine we are talking about. It's grape juice that got some yeast added to it, by accident at first and by design later on. I don't mean to diminish the skills of winemakers--the sometimes very considerable skills--but this is the most accessible alcoholic beverage in the world. Easy to make (though hard to make really, really well) easy to find, easy to enjoy, and just plain yummy.
So what you can expect to find here is a minimum of pretension and a maximum of prospective value. "Plonk" is a great French word, that almost conveys its meaning just in the sound. It's regular wine. It's the stuff that people put on their table night in and night out. It doesn't usually include the word "grand" anywhere on its label, except perhaps ironically. It's the stuff people run to the market to get to dump in a stew and keep a bit left to drink with it. You won't usually find celebrity chefs waxing rhapsodic about it, or telling a rambling, incoherent story about the night they broke down on the side of the road in Tuscany and the person who happened to stop and help turned out to be Mr. So-and-so (who, as all savvy viewers know) turned out to be the winemaker at Insider Vineyards, a place that producing 2.3 cases of wine a year and sells them for $18,000 a bottle, where the grapes are harvested by specially trained organic goats, who are fed an exclusive diet of grape skins, balsamico, and artisan parmesan.
Nope, plonk is just wine. Some of it is blah, some of it is plain, but some of it is really surprisingly good. These days, my budget very much runs to plonk, with only a very rare indulgence in a nicer bottle. And frankly, I like it that way. If you want to know all about wines that I can't afford or don't see the point in buying, I highly recommend Robert Parker as a resource. Wine Spectator is good, too, though there are a lot of people who see a correlation between advertising and rankings in WS. (I'm not one.) In all instances, however, I find the "100 point" scales used by most major publications silly to the point of dumb. If the lowest possible score is 70 (and 80 the effective lowest score, ebing the lowest ever actually used) then it's not a 100 point scale. And I defy you to define in a useful manner the actual difference between a wine that scores 94 and one that scores 95. Can't be done, except subjectively.
For you, what I'm offering is commentary on (mostly) plonk. I am defining that as in most cases under $10/bottle, retail. Given variations in regional pricing, as well as the nature of the tastings I attend, I may with semi-regularity include wines approaching $15, but only if they are exceptional values at the price point. I shop at a lot of stores, but two local ones in particular, where the prices seem pretty good, but can sometimes be beaten, so using their costs is probably a decent average price. I will list the regular price, even though I typically shop at the big tasting where a mixed case can garner a 20% discount. I'm going to try an initial scale of 5 points.
1: I drank it, and wanted to warn you against doing the same. (I won't post a lot of these.)
2: If it's the only wine available, sure, whatev.
3: "Tuesday night wine." Okay, it's not fabulous, but if you open it on a work night and don't finish it and it goes bad before the end of the bottle, well--Tuesday was enjoyable and you won't feel guilty about the unconsumed bits, at least for the money you spent.
4: Terrific, as far as plonk goes.
5: Priced like plonk, but drinks like something much pricier. Within the boundaries of this blog, exceptional wine.
You might have noticed above, where I said I'd been a teacher? So, perhaps there will be the odd plus or minus appended to the wines, but usually only as a means of saying, "these are both in the same category, but I preferred this one to that."
I like food, too, so you may get some food recommendations and even recipes from time to time. You might also get food pairing recommendations--or recommendations that some wines are better sipped and some better served with food. You can also reasonably expect that if I start telling you much about the region the wine is grown in, or the history of a particular grape, that I got the info by Googling it. Which is actually how a lot of the wine press makes its living, but they aren't usually very honest about it.
Look, wine is food, and done well it's basically yummy. So, enjoy yourself--pour a big glass of your favorite plonk, and let me know what you think.
I don't find all wine talk pretentious. After a while, things that seem that way at first often become less so: "barnyard" for instance turns out just to mean "it smells a bit like poop," and since poop is bad as smells go but barnyard really isn't--or isn't always--saying "barnyard" turns out to be nice shorthand that also avoids using the word "poop" in a context (say a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant) where that word isn't welcome.
At the same time, a lot of wine talk *is* pretentious. This is wine we are talking about. It's grape juice that got some yeast added to it, by accident at first and by design later on. I don't mean to diminish the skills of winemakers--the sometimes very considerable skills--but this is the most accessible alcoholic beverage in the world. Easy to make (though hard to make really, really well) easy to find, easy to enjoy, and just plain yummy.
So what you can expect to find here is a minimum of pretension and a maximum of prospective value. "Plonk" is a great French word, that almost conveys its meaning just in the sound. It's regular wine. It's the stuff that people put on their table night in and night out. It doesn't usually include the word "grand" anywhere on its label, except perhaps ironically. It's the stuff people run to the market to get to dump in a stew and keep a bit left to drink with it. You won't usually find celebrity chefs waxing rhapsodic about it, or telling a rambling, incoherent story about the night they broke down on the side of the road in Tuscany and the person who happened to stop and help turned out to be Mr. So-and-so (who, as all savvy viewers know) turned out to be the winemaker at Insider Vineyards, a place that producing 2.3 cases of wine a year and sells them for $18,000 a bottle, where the grapes are harvested by specially trained organic goats, who are fed an exclusive diet of grape skins, balsamico, and artisan parmesan.
Nope, plonk is just wine. Some of it is blah, some of it is plain, but some of it is really surprisingly good. These days, my budget very much runs to plonk, with only a very rare indulgence in a nicer bottle. And frankly, I like it that way. If you want to know all about wines that I can't afford or don't see the point in buying, I highly recommend Robert Parker as a resource. Wine Spectator is good, too, though there are a lot of people who see a correlation between advertising and rankings in WS. (I'm not one.) In all instances, however, I find the "100 point" scales used by most major publications silly to the point of dumb. If the lowest possible score is 70 (and 80 the effective lowest score, ebing the lowest ever actually used) then it's not a 100 point scale. And I defy you to define in a useful manner the actual difference between a wine that scores 94 and one that scores 95. Can't be done, except subjectively.
For you, what I'm offering is commentary on (mostly) plonk. I am defining that as in most cases under $10/bottle, retail. Given variations in regional pricing, as well as the nature of the tastings I attend, I may with semi-regularity include wines approaching $15, but only if they are exceptional values at the price point. I shop at a lot of stores, but two local ones in particular, where the prices seem pretty good, but can sometimes be beaten, so using their costs is probably a decent average price. I will list the regular price, even though I typically shop at the big tasting where a mixed case can garner a 20% discount. I'm going to try an initial scale of 5 points.
1: I drank it, and wanted to warn you against doing the same. (I won't post a lot of these.)
2: If it's the only wine available, sure, whatev.
3: "Tuesday night wine." Okay, it's not fabulous, but if you open it on a work night and don't finish it and it goes bad before the end of the bottle, well--Tuesday was enjoyable and you won't feel guilty about the unconsumed bits, at least for the money you spent.
4: Terrific, as far as plonk goes.
5: Priced like plonk, but drinks like something much pricier. Within the boundaries of this blog, exceptional wine.
You might have noticed above, where I said I'd been a teacher? So, perhaps there will be the odd plus or minus appended to the wines, but usually only as a means of saying, "these are both in the same category, but I preferred this one to that."
I like food, too, so you may get some food recommendations and even recipes from time to time. You might also get food pairing recommendations--or recommendations that some wines are better sipped and some better served with food. You can also reasonably expect that if I start telling you much about the region the wine is grown in, or the history of a particular grape, that I got the info by Googling it. Which is actually how a lot of the wine press makes its living, but they aren't usually very honest about it.
Look, wine is food, and done well it's basically yummy. So, enjoy yourself--pour a big glass of your favorite plonk, and let me know what you think.
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