weekend wine buy: beaulieu coastal estates

From sunny California where they don't get frightened about impending winter, and the ripening of grapes is nary a problem, comes this deep bottle of red wine.

Beaulieu Estates is in the Napa Valley and is quite famous for being the place where André Tchelistcheff worked with Georges Latour to make wines in the early 1900s. Tchelistcheff is credited with bringing European expertise to California and raising the standards of wine production. His influence has touched pretty much every corner of the Californian wine-making scene and his methods have influenced people like Robert Mondavi, hence the many monikers attributed to Tchelistcheff: 'the godfather of Californian wine'; 'the doctor'; 'the dean of American wine'.

In the glass: next to all the dark cherry and blackberry fruit is a little sweet spice, and earth. The fullness of it makes for a nice sipping wine, but the backbone of balanced tannin and acid would also allow for some decent food pairing. A bit of beef off the barbeque anyone? It also has nice staying power on the palate with a fairly long, fruity finish ($9.95).

Oh, and by-the-way Tchelistcheff came out of retirement at 90, and was 92 when he passed-away. If I can be working at 90, then that makes me feel good about drinking red wine today.

chateau de gourgazaud - redux

This is one of my favourite go-to wines when I'm browsing the LCBO and need a little comfort wine to get me through the evening. I posted tasting notes for this back in April, you remember April, when the promise of summer was just around the corner?

Recently, I have been harbouring a little fantasy of going to Languedoc sometime next year and cruising the vineyards; this may, or may not materialize, but it hasn't stopped me from doing a little research which brought me to Chez Loulou. This is a charming blog written by a woman who has moved to the Languedoc region of France not so long ago; she's obsessed with cheese and occasionally writes about wine. Today she posted about a visit to Chateau de Gourgazaud, which just happens to be in her neighbourhood. How nice is that?

If you've had, and liked this bottle of wine, then you'll enjoy reading about Chez Loulou's visit to the place where it all happens.

tormaresca: a love affair

I woke up this morning with the romance of Saturday night still fresh in my memory: the candlelight; the delightful conversation; the beguiling atmosphere. You see, I spent Saturday evening with a charming, Italian gentleman who knows much about wine. He poured bottle after bottle of liquid love into my glass and spoke softly about stainless steel fermentation, Hungarian oak barriques, and the merits of preserving acid in grapes destined for white wine. In return, I listened. I planted my nose deep within my wine glass. I sipped. I was captivated. Then there was the food: four courses, each paired to compliment the wine. In hushed tones we discussed the union of the citrus in the Chardonnay with the pepperiness of the arugula salad, and how the bruleed figs accentuated the deep fruit in the Primitivo. I was floating on air.

Francesco Domini is the Directore Generale at Tormaresca. He is indeed charming, and Italian, and he is in Ottawa as part of the Wines of Puglia promotion. Oh, and did I mention there were some eleven other strangers (new friends now, really) and my wine crime partner, Nita, at the table as well? And that the real love affair last night was with the wine? Francesco hosted a dinner to highlight the wines of Tormaresca, a wine estate in southern Italy with two vineyards, one in the heart of Puglia, and one in the south of the province, closer to the sea. Tormaresca has been making wine for eleven years now with an intent focus on the indigenous grapes of the region.

Over the course of the meal, we sipped our way through four wines. A 2009 Chardonnay was crisp and refreshing with enticing hints of tropical fruit. The presence of some Fiano (an indigenous grape) added a little minerality. Then we had a blend, aptly named Neprica to reflect the Negroamaro, Primitivo, and Cabernet in the bottle. It was a favourite at the table and is Tormaresco's biggest selling wine: spicy and fruity; complex and balanced; liquid velvet. Our main course was accompanied by a dark Negroamaro that was somewhat mysterious, and rough, and perfectly tamed by the juicy lamb. We finished with a cheese plate and a bottle of Primitivo, heady at 14% alcohol, it was just the thing to send me off home, all dreamy-eyed and feeling completely sated.

At the end of the evening, I was happy to come home, in the rain, don my pyjamas and flop on the couch next to Dave who had had his own version of an Italian inspired evening - pizza. What did you do on Saturday night? If you are looking for an adventure in wine romance some rainy Saturday evening, I suggest you take a trip into Puglian wine territory and try a bottle, or two, of wine from Tormaresca.

A few of these wines are available at the SAQ, and they are great value for the price:

Torcicoda Primitivo, 2008 ($19.80)

Tormaresca Masseria Maime, 2007 ($28.50)
Bocca di Lupo ($33.00)

weekend wine buy: montalto

This is a day late; I wanted to leave the posting about Wines of Puglia on the front page of my blog for a few days, but you know I had to go out and buy some wine for the weekend eventually. This bottle is in keeping with all that is Italian in the wine world; it's from Sicily. I couldn't find much information on the producer, but I can tell you that Nero D'Avola is a grape indigenous to Sicily, and that 'nero' means 'black', so it's probably safe to say the grape is a very dark berry; it's also used in the making of Marsala. As for the producer, I guess we'll just have to go to Sicily and find out for ourselves. Sigh.

In the glass: some pepper spice, dark cherry, and black berry, vanilla, black olive, and a little minerality, not very acidic or tannic, but with lots of body and a big, berry-fruit finish ($8.95).

It's not complicated and it's not subtle, but it's a well made wine and for that price who can complain! The big body and fruity profile make it great for sipping, but you could also pair this with a hearty braised meat dish, or something seared, and hot off the grill. They like it at Wine Current, so one of us has to be right.

puglia dreaming

Do you ever dream of going to the south of Italy? And do you imagine sitting next to an olive tree, or a lemon grove, a glass of wine perched between your fingers while a warm Mediterranean breeze ruffles your hair? Are you snacking on something simple but satisfying in this dream, perhaps some focaccia gently brushed with olive oil and dusted with sea salt, or a modest dish of orcchiette lightly tossed with fresh tomato sauce? I have this dream. Sometimes I am on a hillside over looking white-washed stucco, sometimes I am by the water’s edge, but always there is food and wine.

There is no more immediate way to access a culture than through its food and wine. It has been said that wine came shortly after the baked loaf of bread. When the switch was made from eating grains in a soupy porridge to eating them in a dry baked format, the need for a potable to wash down the crumbs became necessary. If that is the case, it seems that the differing cultures who have occupied the province of Puglia over the centuries have been drinking libations made from grapes for almost as long as the first loaf was pulled from hot stones.

Puglia is the heel of the Italian peninsula, and among other things, it’s the home of a few exotic sounding indigenous grapes that make excellent wine: Negroamaro; Nero diTroia; Bombino Bianco, Primitivo to name a few. There is something very interesting happening in the Italian wine world these days. Regions that have been passed-over for more well known places like Tuscany and Piedmont are gaining a renewed focus; more time, more money and effort is going into the wines, and there is a focus on local, unique grapes. As a result some great wines are being produced at prices that the kind of people, like me and you, who like to dream of these things, can afford.

At the forefront of this change is Puglia, and this week is the launch of Wines of Puglia, a series of events promoting the region’s wines. Yesterday I was fortunate enought to sit in a room full of local wine industry people, and winemakers from Italy’s Puglia, listen to an expert discuss the merits of wines made in Puglia, and then sip my way through, well, some wine from Puglia.

There are more reds than whites produced in the region; a result of the warm climate however, in the north of the province grapes can be grown at altitudes with cooler weather and this is where the whites preside. The Bombino Bianco (a white grape) that we tried was crisp and vibrant and is also used to make sparkling wine. There was a selection of rosés that would easily rival those made in Provence (I woke up dreaming about one particular rosé made from Negroamaro grapes), and a wide array of reds. The reds ranged from floral, elegant, and medium-bodied to bold, spicy and rich. They all had vibrant fruit, elegant structure, and lingering power on the palate.

Puglia is one of the top wine producing regions in Italy. In past most of the wine was made for blending, sometimes in other regions of Italy, and even France, but a renewed passion for the terroir of Puglia has young winemakers with entrepreneurial spirit reviving the industry. An added benefit is that much of the wine is made using organic principles. Centuries of agrarian-based living, a dry climate, cooling breezes and abundant sunshine all make it unnecessary to intervene much with the vines.

So, if you are one of those dreamy people, like me, who would love nothing more than to be thirsty and washed up on the shores of old Magna Graecia, you can temporarily transport yourself to a little piece of the heel of Italy and indulge in an expression of Puglian culture as seen through a wine glass.

There are more events to attend in both Ottawa and Toronto over the next couple of weeks. For more information and to read about the visiting winemakers go to the Wines of Puglia site.

There is plenty of Italian wine to be had, Puglian and otherwise, at Divino Wine Studio on Preston Street.

There are a few bottles of wine from Puglia at the LCBO, two of which are among my favourites: Mezzomondo Negroamaro Salice, and Ogio Primitivo.

birthdays, cake, and wine

My approach to celebrating birthdays has changed over the years. When I was young birthdays were the next best thing to Christmas. I would get up all giddy and maybe head off to school. All my little friends would bring me handmade cards which made me feel very special. Sometimes there was a surprise party, or I would get to plan my own party, pick out invitations, and maybe a new dress. Always there was cake.

One particularly memorable year my younger brother decided to try and drink gasoline during one of my parties and all twelve of us spent the afternoon in my mother's station wagon at the hospital waiting for him to have his stomach pumped. The thing I remember most from that year, aside from the hospital trip, was the nectarines and cream we poured over the cake. I grew up in northern Ontario and we only had things like cherry tomatoes, nectarines, cherries, and apricots for very short periods of time; when they were in season only. I loved peaches or nectarines doused in whipping cream. I still love them, but doused in whipping cream... not so much.

Then I grew up a little and birthdays became, more simply, a party. There have been celebrations on the beach in Malaysia, around a campfire in the woods, at Niagara drinking great Ontario wine, in New York with friends, in night clubs, at house parties.

These days that coming-around-time each year brings more quiet celebrations, and my reflections. More and more I feel thankful for all the seemingly small things that make life enjoyable: friends, peaches, Dave, cake, wine, rainy days, central heat, turkey and stuffing, dogs, Bailey the dog, sunny days, tomatoes off the vine, grapes, down filled coats, winemakers, writers, and mothers – none of us gets here alone.

There were birthdays celebrated in my house this weekend. I'm not naming any names, but you know who you are. This means there was also cake. Lots of cake. We weren't eating cake for breakfast, but we were experimenting with what to drink with those cakes. But wait, first things first. We started by pulling this bottle out of the cellar and sipping it with some cheese, salami, olives and flatbread. We most thoroughly enjoyed it with our neighbours Mike, and Gray and Lisa; one more thing to be thankful for - good company.

This comes from one of my favourite Niagara vineyards, Marynissen Estates, and it's one of a few that we brought home from our trip there earlier in the summer.

In the glass: oh so good with a little vanilla and menthol to accentuate the dark fruit and pepperiness of it all; a long finish with a hint of tobacco and some round tannins. I had a glass of this last December and it's mellowed and become even nicer in the interim.

Once we had our palates warmed up we opened this red treasure from The Foreign Affair Winery. It's a blend of Merlot grapes and dried Merlot grapes. The component of dried grapes in this bottle make it a luscious, fruity, deep red wine. Unique.

In the glass: all that lusciousness mentioned above with aromas of dried fruit like prunes and raisins, and the kind of sweet spices that go into christmas cake, like clove and cinnamon. There's a long, fruity finish to the wine with a little alcoholic kick.

There are rules about what to drink with sweets. The wine and the dessert need to be appropriately balanced. If the wine is too dry or tannic, the sugar in the dessert will just make the wine seem harsh and acidic. The general rule of thumb is to drink something sweeter than what's on the plate for a nice complimentary pairing. The bottle of Abbraccio wasn't sweeter than the cake, but it seemed to work just fine. The cake wasn't too cloying and had a bittersweet ganache which helped create a decent balance between the two. The next day we tried a glass of Port with the cake. I liked that combo as well.

Ice wine, sweet sparkling wines such as Mosaco d'Asti, sweet Sherry, German Rieslings, or Gewurztraminer all make great cake wines. Sometimes I like to splash a little liquer into a glass of sparkling wine.

Later in the weekend we had some Pineau Des Charentes with a hazelnut brown butter cake that was delicious.

Of course you could also have a cup of tea with your cake. There’s nothing wrong with tea and cake. It’s just not wine and cake, that’s all.

Happy birthday Virgos; you know who you are!

weekend wine buy: honoro vera monastrell

My good friend Laurie and I are always commiserating over the fact that there is not enough Spanish wine at the LCBO, and what is there doesn't really change much over time. Often Vintages doesn't even have much Spanish wine featured. So when I saw this bottle I thought I'd give it a try. This bottle was on the regular shelves in my local LCBO however, it's listed as a Vintages buy on the website, so I'm not sure where the heck it'll be in your liquor store. There is some at Rideau, Carling, Bank & Walkley, and the Glebe stores.

This one's for you Laurie, maybe it's available in TO somewhere.

In the glass: all dark fruit and earthy with some sweet spice, liquorice, and floral notes; there's a little alcohol kick with a plummy, mildly tannic finish ($11.95).

This is a comforting sipping wine for these gray, cool days.

Word: Monastrell is called Mourvèrdre in France where it grows in the Southern Rhone and around the Mediterranean.

the wino's alphabet: v

Have you met the letter V? It's actually a Latin letter. Thank you Rome. I suppose if we're going to thank Rome, we should really thank Greece as well. The ancient Greeks introduced vowel sounds - not the sounds themselves, but the written forms. This matters because the letters 'v' (and 'u') were derived from a Greek vowel. For a while there, in Middle English, 'u' and 'v' were used interchangeably until the printing press started regulating things, so thank you Gutenberg for creating the printing press. And I guess we need to thank the Semites who gave us something to work with in the first place... and the Phoenicians who further refined what the Semites had started.

Here are a few wine terms that we wouldn't have without the trusty letter V:

Vouvray: a wine making region in the Loire where a spectrum of white wines ranging from sweet, to dry, to sparkling are made with the Chenin Blanc grape.

Vintage: indicates the year in which the grapes were grown (not bottled). Not all vintages are the same, however. In California 95% of the grapes in a bottle must be from the vintage noted on the label, but in Ontario that number can be 85%. Sometimes a bottle of wine can be a blend of vintages, for example Port, or Champagne, in which case no vintage (or year) will be displayed on the label.

Veraison: you probably don't see this word that often, and it is really just a fancy way of saying grape-ripening. Of course this happens in the fall, in the Northern Hemisphere, when the little jewels go from green to varying hues of yellow, and red, and purple.

Varietal: I get this and ‘variety’ mixed up all the time. Varietal refers to a bottle of wine made from a specific grape. Most new world wines are varietally labelled (as opposed to Europe where often grapes are named after the villages or specific plots of land from whence they came). Like rules governing vintages, there are rules also for varietal labelling and the percentage of the noted grape variety in a bottle can vary. In California a bottle that specifies itself as Chardonnay must contain 75% of the said grape whereas in Ontario the content must be 85%.

Variety: refers to the grape itself, as in 'Sauvignon Blanc is a variety of grape belonging to the Vitis Vinifera family.'

Sometimes it helps to drink while thinking about all of this.

what last weekend looked like

That's Joe stirring up onions in preparation for our backyard paella. He and Dave created a makeshift, well a quite sturdy actually, grill in the backyard for our experiment.

And so a combination of this.

That's our new paella pan that we bought at CA Paradis; it feeds twelve people; it's huge; it's beautiful.
And this is some Bomba Rice, that I thought we'd have a difficult time finding, but was right there on the shelf at Nicastro's in the market.

More ingredients from Nicastro's.

Chicken stock, Merguez from Aubrey's, chicken, and not pictured above: seafood from The Fish Market.

All resulted in something that looked a little like this.

And of course there was lots of this: sparkling Vouvray.

Along the way we also had some of this Domaine Perrault that I brought back from the vineyard the weekend before.

In the glass: this is a zesty, zingy white wine with some hints of peach and pear on the nose. All that citrus zestiness gets a little lost on the palate, but it was a great counter-balance to the spicy, fried nasturtiums we had with it.

That's what last weekend looked like - friends, food and wine, and a little smoke in yer eye. Sigh. I miss last weekend.

weekend wine buy: deinhard riesling

Today isn't exactly the kind of day, in Ottawa anyway, that makes one want to run out and buy cold, white wine. It's breezy, and cool, and grey. For the first time in months, I could see my breath as I darted for the bus this morning. Today is more a day for Merlot, or Malbec, not a crisp Riesling. And I know, I know, I posted a Riesling last week - when the weather was a bit more appropriate for such things. It's just that I'm hanging on to these last days of 'summer' with a firm grip on my wine glass. It's not that I don't like cool Autumn days. I do. I can once again turn on the oven and braise, and bake. And I love curling up on the couch with a fuzzy blanket and a bottle of Zinfandel. It's because I'm not quite ready for this change, yet, so you are all getting another bottle of the clear, cool, yellow stuff.

This one is from Joe and Laurie - I'm thinking I should do a series of wines from people with whom I like to drink - they brought it with them on the weekend, and we enjoyed it as a start-of-the-evening (well, more like mid-afternoon) sipping wine with some pâté and cheese. It has an alcohol content of just under nine percent, so really you could have this one for breakfast if you like.

German Riesling is worth a try because you can be certain those people have not been toiling over those dangerously steep slopes for centuries without good reason (the steepest vineyard in the world is along the banks of the Mosel). No, those people know they have some of the best Riesling grapes in the world.

In the glass: pear, lime, and mint with a mildly effervescent thrill on the palate, and a little sweetness that gets balanced nicely by the tart grapefruit finish ($11.95).

Traditionally, off-dry Riesling pairs well with spicy, Thai, and Chinese food dishes. We're having linguine with clams for supper tonight, so I'm going to grab another bottle of this particular Riesling and see how it pairs up. Did I also mention this would make a good morning wine? How about Christmas morning? How about cheese soufflé? I find things go better on Christmas morning if there is wine involved, but now I'm getting way ahead of myself. Let's just get to Autumn first.

a family tree of wine

Whew, you know it has been a good weekend when on Monday (or Tuesday in this case) morning you rifle through your purse and find a slew of crumpled LCBO receipts. I'm feeling a bit like Ray Milland in 'The Lost Weekend' today. But that's not to complain. Our good friends Joe and Laurie came for a visit and we were also blessed with the return of our friend Dan, who has been travelling and creating a film - for the last five years! We drank some wine, ate, danced, and simply enjoyed being. We had a great Moroccan meal in Hull, and created an outdoor hearth in our backyard to make Paella, but more of all that later. For now I'm working on drinking my way through a vinous family tree.

This wine is from the Lurton family estate in Bordeaux, a 17th century estate that looks exactly as I imagine a 17th century estate does: right angles, manicured lawns, ornate pillars, and an impressive entry. Approximately 10km from St. Emilion, this is where François Lurton grew up, you remember, we've had a few of his creations in past: a red and a white.

In the glass: black currant, violets, earth, spice, liquorice, anise with a little tannic raspy mouthfeel and an acidic presence - finishing with some spice and dark fruit notes ($14.95).

Equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, I found this wine a little rough and acerbic on the palate. It's not really a sipping wine, but paired well with some coq au vin; the acid and tannin in the wine were tamed by the richness of the dish, and the smoky bacon and earthy mushrooms were a flavourful compliment. Grilled meat would also be a good pairing for this wine. Or, if you are not one of those people who has to have all fruit and oak in your mouth, then maybe this is a decent sipping wine for you.

Keeping it all in the family, you could sip a Lurton-The-Younger while you prep dinner, and then pair this Lurton-The-Elder with your meal.

weekend wine buy: pelee island lighthouse riesling

This one's from Nita - my favourite wine crime partner. She brought this over a few weeks ago and I just got to drinking it last night. It paired well with the vegetable curry, cucumber/mint raita, and the 30 degree temperature that joined us at our dinner table.

In the glass: mostly citrus on the nose with some hints of pear and apple; a little minerality. Just off-dry with a little sweetness on the round, medium-bodied finish ($11.95).

The Pelee Island Winery is probably the most romantic winery in Ontario. If you can get to the island some day, it's worth the trip. We went in September a few years ago and cycled around the island. It was quiet during those twilight days and we spent more than a little time sitting on the beach, drinking wine from the bottle, and watching the mass exodus of birds flying south.

A few things about Pelee Island wine:

- it has the longest growing season in Canada (situated on the southern most tip of the country).
- it is the home to Canada's first commercial winery, VinVilla, opened in 1866. You can still see the original vineyard; a little patch of land.
- the current Pelee Island Winery was one of the first to produce ice wine.
-harvest happens early on the island, usually at the end of August with late harvest grapes being picked by mid-October (although who knows what that means this year, apparently Niagara had the earliest ever harvest this year).

I'm thinking these are the last of our oh - so - hot - must drink cool white wine days. Enjoy it while you can, soon enough we'll be into the warming, deep Malbecs and Zinfandels (one good reason for winter).

a cocktail: nothing to do with wine

I came home, on a very hot afternoon, and was greeted at the door with a frosty, pink martini-like cocktail. This is what happens when rhubarb, vodka, and Dave collide in the kitchen. Now I know how all those husbands felt in the 1950s. It's a very civilized way to end the work day -with a proper cocktail hour. When the hurriedness of the commute home fades into the short, quiet time before the rush of dinner there is a tenuous suspension of time where words can be heard. This is why someone invented cocktails.

We usually honour this time of day in our home by imbibing something alcoholic. I usually pour a glass of wine, and Dave a glass of beer. But then we are quickly off in separate places of the house, me usually browsing the fridge and prepping dinner, Dave in his office; both of us chatting aimlessly, more engaged in our separate activities than each other, but there's something inviting about being presented with a concoction that has been made with the intent of sharing. We took our drinks, plopped on the couch until the martini shaker was empty, and shared the day's happenings. I'm sure today we'll go back to our usual routine, but it was a nice break. Try it, maybe you'll like it.

First you have to make the rhubarb juice.

2 cups cubed rhubarb

2 litres cold water

1 cup sugar

-boil it all together until the rhubarb starts to break down and then allow it to cool

-strain the liquid into a pitcher with a few sprigs of mint and refrigerate

Then you make the cocktail as per Dave's instructions: 1.5 parts vodka to 5 parts rhubarb juice (or another light, tart juice of your liking such as cranberry, or pomegranate, perhaps with a little lime juice introduced).

Note: these drinks taste best when shared with a loved one.