that bottle

I finally got around to cracking the seal on that bottle of Norman Hardie Melon de Bourgogne.

I believe it was showing some signs of age, but in a good way. The light, lemony colour of the wine had started to turn a mellow gold - as white wine ages it gets darker, and as red wine ages it gets lighter and develops a brick-like tinge. That's because wine does the same thing that any piece of fruit would do when left to sit; it begins to show signs of exposure to oxygen. Now, usually a little oxygen gets into the bottle when there is a cork seal. This bottle had a screw cap on it, so maybe it was originally a deeper hue of yellow, but I seem to remember it being a paler shade (I have drank my fair share in the past), or maybe I'm just completely unhinged. However, I'm pretty sure the wine was showing a little age on the nose and palate: while it was still crisp and refreshing with an underpinning of lemon and mineral, some aromas of nut and yeast and an earthy mushroom quality were showing more prominently, or maybe I'm just completely unhinged. Either way, if you want to take a bottle of Norman Hardie Melon Bourgogne and abuse it for a couple of years, rest assured it will still be drinkable.

I also cracked open the barbeque. After putting a poor little octopus through a rigor of boiling and marinating, I grilled it and tossed it into a warm salad of roasted peppers, tomatoes, olives, lemon juice, olive oil, parsley and loads of garlic. It was perfect with the wine.

Oh Norman Hardie, I think I love you.

easter rum pork

This is what Dave can do with a bottle of rum.

But first he does this with it.

Rum Swizzle
2 oz dark rum
1.5 - 2 oz simple syrup (half and half sugar and water)
juice of one lime
lots of ice
soda water to fill the glass
a final dash of bitters
-this makes a man-sized drink; halve the recipe for a more dainty-sized drink

While he did that, I did this.

Pork belly slowly braised with soy, brown sugar, hoisin, and an evil bottle of port (that left me with a huge headache after I tried a few glasses), on a homemade bun with basil pickled carrots.

It was a pork and rum kind of Easter at our house.

an old friend

This is one of Dave's favourite meals: organic beef patty, caramelized onions, blue cheese and a lightly toasted bun.

We had burgers this week, and we shared them with this old friend.

It's been a while since this bottle has been on our table: Sogrape Mateus Signature Red ($8.95).  My co-worker friend Brian first suggested I try this good, decent red last year. I still like it. It's a Shiraz/Tempranillo blend that's not too overwhelming in the glass with some deep, earthy tones overlayed with red fruit; soft tannins and a crisp acidity balance out nicely on the palate.

It went well with the burgers. It can come to dinner anytime.

two things

First came the chicken.

And then came the wine.

That's what it says in the bible. I'm pretty sure.

That's not just any chicken. It's one of Debbie's free-range, organic birds that has lived in harmony with a donkey and the great outdoors. It's been brined with a bucket-load of rosemary for a few hours, and then had some chopped proscuitto, lemon zest, butter, and fresh thyme stuffed just under its skin before getting a a slow roast in my oven, with more lemon. Oh, so good.

The wine, Jackson Triggs Proprietors' Reserve 2008 Chardonnay, is an appropriately local varietal that washed down that chicken, no problem. A little soft around the edges with ripe fruit on the palate held up by a core of lemony acid and a finish reminiscent of buttery baked apple, this would be good as a simple summer sipping wine as well.

And there you have it: from chicken, to wine, to backyard sipping.

from jack's cellar

I recently inherited a bit of wine. Aside from a few bottles of fine port, quite a few bottles of expensive Canadian ice wine, a handful of decent cheap bottles from Portugal and Chile, the bulk of it is destined to be cooked into something, or transformed into Sangria, but this one has me feeling curious.

It's a 2006 Melon de Bourgogne from Norman Hardie in Prince Edward County. I love this wine. In fact, I may have given it to Jack at some point in time - funny - I imagine him and Jean looking at it in a perplexed way, putting it in the basement, and then going to the garage to get a bottle of their homemade wine.

What has me curious is to find out how the wine is going to taste. It's not been kept in the best conditions - it was last seen in Jack's coat closet. It's been moved around a little and is, of course, a white wine that was made to be poured as a young thing. But, it has a screw cap (so not having been stored on its side shouldn't be an issue); it is a fairly acidic grape variety, so it should have some ability to hang in there for a while, and we know the quality of what went into the bottle back in 2006 was good.

Melon de Bourgogne is the grape that goes into Muscadet, a light, crisp white wine from the Loire in France. The specific region where the grape grows is close to the Atlantic, at the mouth of the River, and is typically quaffed with seafood. I'm waiting until the weekend to open this bottle. I think a trip to the fish market is in order first; I'm thinking octopus, or some other such fishy delight.

normal

There's something festive about a funeral. It feels a strange thing to write, but in a way it's true. We have been out of our normal routine. We haven't been to work; our house has been filled with friends and family who have been sharing stories and photographs and jokes; we've shared meals and wine and had random acts of kindness bestowed upon us (thank you, you-know-who, for sharpening all my knives). We have been in a kind of suspended space between the reality of what life was like with Jack, and the future of what life will be like without his presence. Today however, I'm feeling a bit like the girl who stayed too late at the party: a little tired and ready to get back to my everyday life. For me that means cleaning the house, doing some laundry, cooking a meal, fantasizing about having a real kitchen one day, and studying for that crazy wine course I'm going to have to go back to on Monday - oh the maps.

Right now my study group is deep in the midst of France: the Loire and Rhone Valleys, regions named after the major rivers of the country, and this week we liked everything that was on the table. I especially like the wines of the Loire for the variety they offer. We tried a pink sparkler, a bottle of sweet, silky Vouvray, and this bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Domaine Chavet et Fils ($18.95).

It's from the far east of the Loire (a region called Menetou-Salon) and displays a great balance of grass and minerality to crisp bright grapefruit, with a slightly soft edge of riper yellow apple. Medium-bodied, it was great with the traditional pairing of a dollop of goat cheese, but would be good with all kinds of foodstuffs from grilled chicken, to seafood, to pesto, or just to drink all by itself, as I plan to do with my second bottle.

Now, I'm heading off to record another Imbibery session. I can't thing of anything more normal than eating and drinking with Nita.

a last bottle

This week I'm saying goodbye to one of my favourite wine drinking partners. My father-in-law Jack, aka Trapper, always showed up at my house with either a bottle of wine or a healthy thirst for whatever I was pouring. From Merlot to Sauvignon Blanc, he was open to it all. And he liked to eat. In fact, in his last weeks he made a point of eating many of his favourite meals in many of his favourite restaurants all about town; I can relate to that.

This was the last bottle of wine we shared, at my dinner table, over some Morroccan spiced meatballs that had been stewed in tomatoes and red wine. This bottle of inexpensive wine is an old standby in our house. It's low in tannin with a big juicy red berry profile and a round, full mouthfeel. It's the second wine I ever blogged about and at $8.35 is very affordable. I wonder now, if I had known it was going to be the last bottle Jack was to taste, would I have opened something a little more special? Probably not. With Jack it wasn't so much about what was in our glasses, but just that we were taking the time to have a pour, and a drink, and a visit, and a little bit of anything in our glasses made it all that much more special.

I'll be tipping a bottle of bubbly in his memory this week, and I hope wherever he is, he'll be doing the same.

Oh, and can you spot Bailey the dog? He and Jack also had an affinity for each other.

thankful for cabernet franc

This week I am thankful for a few things including my fellow wine lovers. About once a month I get together with a fine group of people in order to taste wine. You see, when you are attempting to learn about wine, it's important to taste a lot of wine, and by that I don't mean just drinking that's run-amok (although that does happen from time to time); I mean tasting, and evaluating, and comparing, and it can get expensive. Pooling together resources with other like-minded people helps ease the burden on the wallet, and it's much more fun than tasting alone in a cold, dark, room listening to the sound of one's slurps and sniffs echo off the bare walls. I much prefer drinking with company.

I’m also thankful, this week, for Cabernet Franc. Poor, old, under-valued Cabernet Franc. This is, after all, the parent grape to Cabernet Sauvignon; it's the seasoning in many Bordeaux blends, and is in fact the major component in a very famous wine, Cheval Blanc, but it's not everyone's favourite cup of tea. It can sometimes taste twiggy and vegetal, however when it's grown in the right conditions, and made well, the grape produces wines that can be described as having finesse. And it can tolerate a little cool weather, so it's a grape with which we Ontarians should all become friends.

In the gracious hospitality of my friend Nicolas' living room, I tried a few bottles that I'd buy again including this Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley in France: a delicate drink with violets, mint and cherries on the nose; soft tannins and a compelling, spicy finish ($13.95).

If you live close to Quebec, go to the SAQ and try Cabernet Franc Villa Sandi Piave 2007 ($16.35). It's from Italy and was a group favourite with some deeper aromas of coffee, tobacco and smoke rounding out a core of dark berry fruit. This bottle had a little more tannin and body than the others and a slight bitterness on the finish that was appealing. Or you can try something from a little closer to home: Sandbanks Estate 2008 Cabernet Franc. It had a little of that bell pepper in the glass, but then was all about the sour cherry, raspberry, and earth with a juicy, medium finish ($14.00).

So do something nice for Cabernet Franc this weekend and bring home a bottle.