Bec's Happybox

Corison Tasting Scheduled!

I heard about Corison wines on one of my favourite podcasts, The Restaurant Guys. 

Today I reserved a spot for Tobias and I at one of their Friday morning tour and tasting sessions at their vineyard in St. Helena. 

I am SO EXCITED. 

WBW 25: Champagne

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday is being hosted by Sam of Becks and Posh, a San Francisco area food blog that I plan to spend a lot of time reading in the next couple of weeks before we leave for our USA roadtrip.  Sam chose Champagne as the theme and I thought this was a great choice.  There was one little problem, though.  When I sent Tobias down to our wine shop to pick up a bottle to accompany our brunch this past Sunday, he came back with a California sparkling wine, rather than real Champagne.  Apparently the cheapest bottle of real French Champagne at the store was 55 dollars.  Yikes!  I thought "Ohp, Sam is not going to go for this.  She specifically stipulated real Champagne!"  But I asked nicely and Sam has agreed to let me be an official WBW 25 participant, despite my shameless flouting of the rules. 

So the bottle we ended up with was a Roederer Estate Brut from the Anderson Valley of California, which isn't a Champagne, of course, but it's pretty darn close.  The Roederer winery was founded by the president of Champagne Roederer, the winery that makes Cristal (accusations of racism aside, I would love to try Cristal one day).  The California branch of Roederer opened in the 80s and they've been making their Anderson Valley Brut since 1988. 

There is a lot about how this wine is made on the Roederer website, but here are the salient points:

• made from pinot noir and chardonnay grapes
• made from grapes of multiple vintages
• aged in French oak
• a team from the Roederer winery in France comes over to help blend it.  Fancy!

We tried the wine as part of a brunch and we invited Abu, my friend Ms. T, and her daughter to join us and give their perceptions of the wine as well.  Everyone seemed to enjoy the wine, but I think Tobias and I were the most excited about it, being the most geeky. 

This wine was full of surprises for me.  The first surprise was how far the cork flew when Tobias opened the bottle.  If only we'd been outside, I'm sure it would have gone into orbit.  As it was, it hit the ceiling hard, flew across the room, and landed on the front porch of Sahsez' Playmobil Victorian mansion.  The second surprise was the amount of bubbles.  There were thousands of them!  It was so much more bubbly than any other sparkling wine I've tried.  I'm not sure if cork flying distance and number of bubbles are generally considered the marks of a good sparkling wine, but in this case, it seemed to be so.

More surprises: the gorgeous, delicate palate of this wine.  Very minerally, not fruity, but so easy to drink and with a nice smooth mouthfeel.  There was pineapple and citrus and melon on the nose, once the bubbles calmed down enough for people to stick their noses in there. 

People seem to enjoy drinking sparkling wines more often alone than with food.  I think I might enjoy this, especially the classic, romantic Champagne-for-two-in-a-fancy-hotel-room thing.  But for my first foray into the world of really good sparkling wines, I wanted to try it with brunch.  So, to start, we had a salad with a raspberry balsamic vinaigrette, strawberries, chevre and toasted almonds.  With the strawberries, it was an obvious pairing choice, and I think it went beautifully.  For a second course we had quiche lorraine, which was still good, but was slightly overpowering for the wine, because of the pancetta I put in it. 

In future, I would definitely buy this wine again, and would probably pair it with the salad again as well.  I'm also itching to try a real Champagne, and maybe pair it with a nice seafoody pasta.  But mostly, I'm looking forward to February, when my wedding anniversary rolls around, and I have a good excuse to get a really nice bottle of Champagne, and have it with nothing but strawberries and a fine man. 

Cheapie Roundup

When I said to stay tuned for the cheapie roundup on Tuesday, what I meant was Tuesday, August 15th, not Tuesday, August 8th.  (Not really, but it sounds good, no?)

Three weeks ago, Tobias and I went to the liquor store and spend only $65 dollars on four (4) bottles of wine.  This is unprecented, and very exciting.  Here's how we fared with our cheapies:

WBW 24: Loire Valley Whites

This month's Wine Blogging Wednesday is being hosted by Alder of Vinography and he has chosen the topic of Loire Valley Whites.

My local wine shop did not have an overwhelming selection of Loire Valley whites and of what was there, the Sancerres, Pouilly Fumes and Chenin Blancs were all pretty expensive (over 35 dollars).  So, instead, I opted for the Pascal Jolivet (warning: awful FLASH website) Attitude sauvignon blanc, which was CDN$21.75.

I tasted the wine with my tasting buddy/spouse, Tobias, and our conversation didn't go exactly like this:

ME: Huh.  So, whatta you think?

TOBIAS: I dunno.  Whatta you think?

ME: I dunno. Whatta you think?

but it was pretty close. 

This was a delicate wine, and very unlike the New Zealand sauv blancs we're used to.  I don't drink French whites in general, and I wonder if maybe my palate isn't developed enough to fully appreciate them yet. 

The wine was goldeny straw in colour and had minerals and butter but practically no fruit on the nose.  The flavour was grassy and slightly lemony and sour.  I wouldn't say I didn't like it, but I wouldn't say I did like it either.  It was just very unfamiliar. 

The flavour did work very well with our dinner of fried ling cod, dilled baby potatoes and pea and pea shoot salad.  The salad dressing was quite sweet, with rice vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sugar, and the dryness of the wine was a nice contrast. 

Far from being disappointed by my experience with the Pascal Jolivet, however, I'm actually kind of excited that there's a whole region that I don't know anything about, and lots of new wines to try (when I can scrounge up the 35+ dollars, that is!).  Also, I'm reminded that I'm still very much at the beginning of my wine education, and that's a nice place to be. 

So, thanks to Alder of Vinography for suggesting something totally new to me, and I look forward to trying more Loire Valley whites before the end of the summer.

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All my wine-related posts are here.

Stay tuned on Tuesday for a bit of an antidote to my complaining about the price of the French whites.  I'll be posting a description of four cheap wines we bought last weekend, with varying results. 

WBW 23: Wine and Barbecue

Wine Blogging Wednesday is being hosted by Vivi's Wine Journal and the topic is wines to drink with barbecue.  This was a good theme for me since we were planning to do some sipping and barbecuing on Canada Day anyway. 

The afternoon started with the tasting of a honey wine.  My sister took some pictures of this, and the looks on our faces speak much louder than words, so here they are.  The captions on the photos are examples of polite phrases to use when tasting wines that one is not overly fond of.  One must never say anything negative when in the presence of the winemaker, so one can choose from a whole slew of ambiguous phrases such as "Wow!  That's really something!"

Once we determined that the honey wine was not going to provide a suitable pre-meat hot-day sipping wine, we opened up some Merridale ciders and Phillips IPA instead.  (I like to drink local cider and beer, given that the local wine...leaves something to be desired.)

Merridale Cider

This post has been moved to Dinner in the Yellow House. 

Lamb Chops and mcp

Tuesday night's dinner doesn't really qualify for 100 new recipes, but it does deserve a mention.  It was a dinner that owed its greatness to the the component ingredients, rather than anything I did to them. 

I got the lamb chops very cheap at Pepper's that morning and intended to get them in marinade immediately, but didn't get around to it until about half past four.  The chops had my favourite combination of stickers on their package: a green one reading "ORGANIC" and a red one that said "REDUCED".  Jackpot!  My sister is shocked that I buy reduced meat and fish at Pepper's, not because she wouldn't do it herself, but because she assumed I would look down my nose at anything that said "Should be eaten or frozen on the day of purchase".  Oh how wrong she is.  There's nothing that makes me happier than seeing that red REDUCED label on some fresh halibut or sockeye salmon unless it's the red label/green label combination.  Even if I'm not at all in the mood for steak, I will always buy one if it's got the red label/green label combo, and pop it in the freezer for another day. 

The marinade I used was nothing exciting: oil and lemon juice, s&p, garlic, rosemary and parsley.  Likewise, I did nothing remarkable to the potatoes: just boiled them, then treated them to a butter and dill bath.  The only thing I actually made was that blue cheese dressing, using less garlic this time.  The greens were of the pre-washed, plastic bag variety. 

Tobias put the chops on the bbq, but we ran  out of propane halfway through so he finished them on the grill pan.  The baby was out-of-sorts which meant I had to hold him while I ate, but this gave me the excuse I needed to pick up my lamb chop by the bone and eat it with my hands, getting  every last bit of meat. 

The wine was an Australian Bordeaux-style blend by Penmara.  It's called mcp because it's a blend of merlot, cab. franc, and petit verdot.  Micheline said it would go with lamb and boy did it ever. 

Oh what a meal! No dessert was necessary. 

Christening the Beast

About a month ago, Tobias and I co-bought a camperized van with my dad.  This plan has been in the works for a while, and my dad (who really was the driving force behind the thing) finally found something fitting his criteria (1. must be a van, 2. must be a "bargoon").  Here she is, in all her camperized glory:

New Recipes 35-40

New Recipe Number 35: Strawberry and Rhubarb pie with a cream cheese crust - This is the one we had for M'hijo's four month celebration, and I forgot to record it earlier.  The strawberries were the last of the 2002 harvest from the freezer.  "But you didn't live in the yellow house in 2002!  You lived in family housing and had no garden!" says the astute and longtime reader.  True!  But when we moved into the house, the former owners left behind a few treats, including a bottle of champagne and two glasses, and frozen rhubarb and strawberries from the garden.  Wasn't that sweet? 

Anyway, so the strawberries were frozen but the rhubarb was fresh from the ground.  I'm not the queen of pie pastry, but the cream cheese pastry recipe from the Joy is pretty foolproof.  No blind-baking though.  I'm of the mind that such a wet filling demands blind baking, but what do I know, really?  I'm still a novice at this pastry game. 

New Recipe Number 36: Marinated Cukes with Asian Flavour - From my favourite new food blog, Dirty Sugar Cookies by Ayun Halliday, whose zine, the East Village Inky, I've been reading and loving for years.  These were great, and I'd like to try them again and sprinkle some toasted sesame seeds over. 

New Recipe Number 37: Breaded pork chops - If doing 100 New Recipes has taught me anything, it's how much I rely on the All-New Joy of Cooking to help fill my family's bellies.  Tobias made the breaded pork chops from it on Saturday night, and man they were really tasty!  I usually buy Hutterite-raised meat from my butcher, but a few weeks ago, I broke down and ordered a big pack of pork chops from Thrifty's, and froze a few for future use.  So they were not the best-quality, and they had been frozen for several weeks, and the recipe was still great. 

New Recipe Numer 38: Mushroom gravy - In my opinion, it would make no sense to have breaded pork chops and not have mushroom gravy (and mashed potatoes).  I've never made one, but I just flew by the seat of my pants and it turned out delicious. 

Instructions

Make a roux (about  2T butter, 2T flour), cook it, then add about a cup of mushroom broth (I use Harvest Sun mushroom bouillon cubes).  Whisk, whisk, whisk, taste it.   Good but wrong colour.  Cheat with a litle Kitchen Bouquet.  Ah, now it's a nice dark brown.  Whisk, cook, let it thicken, yum.  Distract husband, discreetly pour in some Villa Antinori Toscana (or any white, or even red, I suppose, if you want, although I wouldn't) from your glass.  If he sees you putting good drinking wine in the gravy he will fuss.   Taste.  Could use even more wine.  Distract and pour again.  Now add all the sliced mushrooms that you can get your hands on and let it simmer on v, v, v low heat for oh, say, five minutes.  Make a well in the middle of your mashed potatoes and make your own little mushroom gravy volcano.  Dig in! 

New Recipe Number 39: Smothered sunchokes with tomatoes and onions - Well, I got more sunchokes in my Spud box, but I didn't want to do a gratin of any kind, so I went hunting for something different.  Apparently, Marcella Hazan is the world's biggest sunchoke fan, since her book, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, has at least half a dozen sunchoke recipes in it, compared to all of my other cookbooks, which have around zero.   With this one, you just cook up some onions, garlic, tomato and parsley and add hunks of sunchoke and cook for a long time, and it turns out very tasty.  Can't wait to get more sunchokes!

New Recipe Number 40: Grilled Shrimp Skewers - Once I had Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking open last night, I figured I might as well cook my whole dinner from it.  So, loosely following Hazan's recipe,  I defrosted 15 big shrimp, stuck them on three skewers, and then pressed on a paste made from olive oil, garlic, parsley, and Breton crackers.  Tobias barbecued them for two minutes a side. They turned out pretty good, slightly chewy.  Would have been better with fresh shrimp.   

WBW 20: Burgáns Albariño

This post has been moved to Dinner in the Yellow House, my food and wine blog.