Good Food, Good Wine, and Good Fortune in 2012

Good wine deserves good food.  We partnered with our friend, and food blogger, AGirlInTheSouth, to create a perfect pairing for New Year’s Day.

According to tradition, New Year’s Day supper will bring you good fortune in the year to come.  There are a variety of foods that are believed to be lucky and improve the odds that next year will be a great one ~ including grapes!

AGirlInTheSouth put together a tasty New Year’s Day menu that is sure to bring luck your way.  We selected some of our favorite grapes to pair with it to make a very fortunate feast!

Menu

 Pork with Apple and Onion Confit

 Shaved roasted brussel sprouts

 Latkes (sour cream on the side)

 Dessert ~ chocolate cupcakes

A nice white wine pairs best with this lineup.  We recommended going with a Gewurztraminer, Riesling, or Viognier.  Here are a few of our favorites, all of which can be found at larger wine shops, such as BevMo and Specs:

Gewurztraminer:  Handley Cellars ($18) - Dry wine with flavors of grapefruit, vanilla, and lychee  

Riesling: Chateau Ste Michelle ($10) - Off-dry, sweet lime and peach character with subtle mineral notes  

Viognier: Anglim ($25) - Fruit-forward, with fragrant ripe melon and white peach

If white wine really isn’t your thing, or you want to offer a red option for your guests, with this meal we suggested a fruitier pinot noir.  Wild Horse makes a very food friendly pinot noir ($20).  It is a fruitier, California style pinot that has flavors of cherry, pomegranate, and cola.   

Pair a port or a muscat (especially black/orange) to wash down the chocolate cupcakes.  One of my favorite ports is Heitz Cellars Ink Grade Port ($35 for 750ml bottle).  This is a traditional Portuguese style port, and is simply delicious! 

Wishing you all good food, good wine, and good fortune in 2012!

Perfect Thanksgiving wines under $20

Thanksgiving is a great time of year to enjoy the three Fs: family, food, and football! The tricky part is picking the right wine to go with your Thanksgiving feast. Some of your guests will appreciate a pairing that goes well with the meal while others will gulp down anything you put in front of them. 

Here are our suggestions for great Thanksgiving wines that are all under $20. They all go well with turkey, ham, and a wide range of fixins. Even better, you'll probably find them in your local liquor store, wine shop, or supermarket no matter what part of the country you are in.

Riesling
An off-dry Riesling can be a refreshing compliment to a heavy Thanksgiving feast. Our choice is the 2010 Chateau Ste. Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling. It earned a 91 point rating from Wilfred Wong and retails at BevMo for $7.99.

Chardonnay
This is a good choice if your guests want a white wine but don't want the sweetness of a Riesling. Stick with lighter Chardonnays and avoid anything that is too oaky or buttery. Our pick is the 2008 Simi Sonoma County Chardonnay, a nicely balanced Chardonnay that has a light apple taste without a lot of citrus. It retails at BevMo for $18.99.

Pinot Noir
This is a terrific choice for a red wine that won't overwhelm the food. Stick with more fruit forward, light-bodied California Pinot Noirs. Our selection is the 2010 Chalone Monterey County Pinot Noir, which always tastes like a more expensive Pinot. Little known fact about Chalone - Julia Child was a part owner. This wine retails for $18.99 at BevMo.

Zinfandel
This varietal is a terrific choice if you are looking for a medium-bodied red wine that pairs well with your menu. You can't go wrong with the 2008 Lake Sonoma Zinfandel. The last time I shared a bottle with friends it quickly disappeared and I was glad I had a second bottle in reserve! It normally retails for $19.99, but the current club price at BevMo is only $9.99!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cycles Gladiator Pinot Noir – no tricks, all treat!

It is always a treat when you discover a good wine at a reasonable price.  It is even better when it is super delicious and around 10 bucks!  We first discovered Cycles Gladiator Pinot Noir while out with our friends Gaby & Steve at the Wine Vault & Bistro in San Diego.  It has now become one of our most shared bottles.  And yes, it is another screw cap wine!

As with most California pinots, this one is a delicate, fruiter wine, with not a lot of earthy tones. It has aromas of red fruit with a hint of spice.  Upon tasting, flavors of pomegranate develop, finishing with a little splash of vanilla.  The diverse characteristics make it enjoyable with a wide variety of foods. This is a great wine to select when dining out with a group as it pairs well with lean beef, chicken, pork or fish.  

It’s getting harder to find good value pinot noir.  Fortunately, this 100% pinot is fairly available. You can find it at BevMo and Specs. Or, check out the where to buy feature on their website to locate a distributor near you.

Erath Pinot Noir ~ Don’t be afraid of the screw cap, you may miss out on a gem!

When you see a screw cap, it’s not uncommon to immediately think “cheap wine”. This is a consumer perception some winemakers have struggled to overcome. In reality, screw caps provide one of the best seals for bottled wines. With the screw cap you don’t have to worry about “corked” and oxidation problems that may occur with a traditional natural cork. Great wines, such as Conundrum and even Plumpjack all use screw caps. Another favorite sealed without a cork is Erath Pinot Noir.    

I first discovered Erath Pinot Noir during a night out with co-workers at Olive & Ivy in Scottsdale, AZ. Prior to this, I had really only tasted Pinot’s from California.  At first sip, I knew this one was different. In general, Oregon pinot’s are lighter in color, and have earthy aromas and subtle fruit character compared to California style pinot’s which are much darker in color, fuller-bodied, and have stronger fruit aromas and taste. 

The ’09 Erath Oregon Pinot Noir has smells of raspberry pie, and fresh, bright flavors on the palate. It does well on its own, but is best with food. We recently enjoyed a bottle with prosciutto and a ‘nutty’ cheese, followed with a thin crust margherita pizza (delicious!). 

Shortly after discovering the wine, I recall ‘finding’ it among the many bottles lined up down the grocery store aisles. I was so excited to see it, and then realized, it was probably there all along and I had probably snubbed it because of the screw cap. Shame on me, I had no idea what a gem was inside!

We enjoyed the wine so much (and so often), it was top of the list of places to visit during our first trip to the Willamette Valley, OR. (read A great day in Willamette Valley, Oregon for other great wines from this region). While at the winery, we discovered several other great wines ~ including their Sweet Harvest Pinot Blanc which was served during our Pinot-Palooza party in 2010.   

Next time you are cruising the wine aisle at your local store, don’t immediately skip over the bottles with screw caps, you may just miss out on a gem! Want to know which wines are topped with a screw cap?  Wine.com features a section devoted entirely to screw cap wines.

What hidden gem have you found in a screw cap? 

First impression: Paso Robles Wine Country

Our recent wine trip brought us to several California wine regions for the first time, including Paso Robles. We left Paso Robles with two distinct thoughts.

First, why did it take us so long to visit this awesome wine region? Second, we're going to be in trouble because we want to come back soon. Real soon.

Here are some of the highlights from our three day visit:

Wineries

Wild Horse Winery was our first stop in Paso Robles. They have a wide range of wines but are best known for their Pinot Noir. Their Wild Horse Pinot Noir is distributed outside the winery and is a very good, fruit forward California Pinot. They also make several other outstanding Pinot Noirs under their limited production Unbridled label and their Cheval Sauvage reserve program. Wild Horse is a must stop if you like Pinot Noir, though we tasted some other terrific varietals too. For example, we aren't big Merlot fans but thought their Merlot would be a perfect compliment to a nice steak dinner. 

Barrel tasting at Cypher WineryCypher Winery is worth a visit for their "Barrel Comparison" wine tasting. You drink the same wine directly from two different barrels to experience how barrels can influence the flavor and character of the wine. We tried Malbec, Petite Verdot, Petite Sirah, and Tempranillo. The Petite Sirah was particularly interesting. The wine from one barrel tasted a bit too fruity while the wine from the other barrel was too tannic. However, when a splash from each barrel was blended in our glasses the wine suddenly had terrific balance and character.

It was a fun way to imagine how a winemaker tries to achieve the perfect flavor and balance.

Hank the Herman Story wine dogHerman Story might be our new favorite winery. Winemaker Russell From makes awesome stuff with deep, bold flavors that somehow escape all the messy blasts of alcohol and tannin that often accompany big flavors in wine. He is also very focused with only four wines making up his list of current releases: a Viognier/Roussanne blend, a Granache, and two Syrahs. The wine room is the front portion of a small warehouse in downtown Paso Robles, but the complete lack of pretentiousness is part of the charm. Just be careful - time can move pretty fast when you are chatting with a winemaker who is happy to keep pouring throughout the conversation! 

Other honorable mentions from our visit to Paso Robles include Niner Wine Estate, Anglim Winery, and Tobin James. Better make Tobin James your last visit of the day. Their wine is decent, but they make a lot of stuff and they'll keep pouring as long as you keep drinking. It can get a bit wild out there late in the afternoon!

Dining

Farmstand 46Paso Robles didn't strike us as a haven for foodies, but there were a couple of cool places worth mentioning. We had lunch one day at Farmstand 46 which is in the same complex as Cypher. They are best described as an upscale deli that features a lot of locally sourced food. 

We also had a wonderful dinner at the Enoteca Restaurant and Bar at La Bellasera Hotel and Suites, a hotel restaurant that actually brings in the locals. Tip: Enoteca waives their corkage fee if you bring in a bottle of local wine, so we enjoyed a bottle of Zinfandel that we purchased from Kenneth Volk Vineyards.

Downtown Paso Robles has a cluster of small cafes around their main square. While they don't qualify as gourmet, a small cafe can be the perfect place for lunch or dinner after a long day of wine tasting!

Accomodations

We stayed at La Bellasera Hotel and Suites. All of their rooms are large and very comfortable. The hotel was also located in the center of the Paso Robles Wine Country, so it was easy to get to all of the wineries from there. The only drawback was there weren't many restaurants within walking distance, except for their very nice Enoteca which is on the property. If you don't mind driving to dinner, this hotel is a perfect home base for a visit to Paso Robles.