Christmas and Beyond

Our traditional Christmas Eve supper is basically snacks. Cheese and salami and crackers. Maybe a dip, maybe hummus and pita bread. Lil' Smokies. Frozen canapes (no, we don't eat them frozen, we bake them first). This year, we had them with a bottle of cheap champagne. Cook's, I think. Maybe Korbel. No, Cooks. The champagne was a little drier than I remembered but it went nicely with the cheeses. We had a smoked cheddar, a pesto jack, and a sharp cheddar. The wine and the pesto jack were excellent. And the smoked cheddar was amazing. It actually tasted creamier as the evening went on.

Christmas dinner was a whole pig. It roasted in the Caja China for several hours and then was carved and served with sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, Caesar salad, corn, rolls, olives, cranberries, etc. I had water. There just seemed no where to go with all the choices.

Saturday, Dec. 26, we made our way north to visit family. While there, the mother ship called Wine Snob Hubby and we all answered the call with a stop at Total Wine in Roseville, CA.
We knew risotto and veal was the evening menu, so WSH whipped out his copy of Karen MacNeil's Wine, Food & Friends to get her recommendations for risotto.

Her first suggestion was Col d'Orcia Brunello di Montalcino. It was available but at $50 a bottle, a bit out of our price range. Her back up was Rosso di Montalcino at $15. We got it.

The white MacNeil suggested wasn't at the store (Domaine Weinbach Cuvee' Ste. Catherine Pinot Gris) so we went with an employee suggestion of an Alsace Pinot Gris from Albrecht.

I'd read about eiswein (or ice wine) and I wanted to try some so we found an employee who was very helpful and knowledgeable and he pointed us in the right direction. They were from Germany and Canada and ranged from $12 - $75. I figured since this was a new experience, I'd start cheap and work my way up. We bought the $12 bottle and I'll let you know when we open it.

WSH found 3 other wines he purchased. Then we moved to the tasting area. Total Wine was offering flights of champagne. For a whole dime each, we tasted 5 different wines, ranging from $6 - $50. One of the lower priced and the highest priced were the best. (When will I remember to write these names down??)

For dinner, the risotto was cooked in a red sauce but the veal was light and thin, so we opened the Albrecht Pinot Gris. We tasted first and I tasted pears. We had a crab cake appetizer and the wine complemented the smoothness and richness of the crab and its crust. Then we segued into the veal and risotto and the wine contrasted with the risotto in a very different way. I lost the pear tones, but the wine still, in my uneducated opinion, held up very well.

Cheese and Crackers

We had dinner last night with our daughter and her fiance', but we started with a trio of cheese and crackers. Cream cheese with garlic and chives. A red-wine soaked goat cheese. And a garlic jack. Also water crackers and jalapeno stuffed olives.

We had the ever-present Pacific Rim dry Riesling and a Kenwood Merlot.

Wine snob hubby gave me a taste of the merlot with a cracker spread with cream cheese. I tasted the wine first and had no strong feelings and no strong sense of what it tasted like. I try not to read labels until I've at least tasted it so I don't taste with any preconceptions of what flavors I should be finding.

Anyway, nothing from the merlot at first sip. Ate the cracker and cheese. Tasted the merlot again. At first, not much. But on the finish, I tasted... berries! Then we checked the label and I was right! I rarely, if ever, can find the hints and flavors so I'm stoked. I tasted berries! And the other flavors (I don't know what they were, but I know they were there) were intensified after the cheese.

We repeated the process with the dry riesling. The results were disappointing. I enjoy the dry riesling with most foods, but the cheese just left the palate flat. The wine couldn't wake up the taste buds again.

WSH read me a quote from Karen MacNeil. She said caterers know the secret of serving cheese with low price wines. The cheese makes the wine seem better than it is.

I don't know what the Kenwood merlot runs, but the cheese certainly woke up my uneducated palate.

A Surprising Pairing

Several months ago, I had Pacific Rim Dry Riesling for the first time. One sip and I loved it. I try to keep a couple of bottles on hand for when I don't know what I want.

Last weekend, Wine Snob Hubby prepared bacon-wrapped fillets. He had his with a Tobin James Merlot.

Going against all that wine snobs around the world hold dear, I had my dry Riesling. And loved it.

The meat was tender and flavorful, almost delicate, in spite of being beef. The light fruit essence made the beef even more melt-in-my-mouth delicious.

Which brings up a discussion WSH and I had last week.

He's reading The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil. In it, MacNeil says that it's a fallacy that if a wine tastes good to you, then it's good. She argues that there are objective parameters and conditions a wine must meet to be considered good.

I understand what she's saying. I think. And I look forward to learning those parameters and how to apply them to what I like.

I know I like the dry Riesling with bacon-wrapped fillets.

Thanksgiving and Beyond

We opened 3 reds and 3 whites for Thanksgiving dinner. I made sure to write them all down. I could tell you what they were. But not how they tasted or paired with the dinner. So why bother?

I was so busy putting the food out, keeping up on the dishes, hiding the pumpkin fluff, that I don't remember what went with what.

So. Skip ahead to last night.

Wine Snob Hubby and I went to dinner and a movie. Okay, technically, if we lived in Florida it would be the Early Bird Dinner special since we arrived at the restaurant at 4:00 PM, but the movie started at 4:45. And us 50 year olds can't eat after 7:00 and get any sleep so it meant "dinner" first.

Anyway, we went to a local Asian fusion kind of place, Dai Bai Dang. We had pork pot stickers (gyozas to my Taiwanese friends), then chicken chow mein (pretty good) and the crispy chicken (very spicy - too spicy the next day).

I asked for a glass of the house chardonnay and was offered either a Kendall-Jackson or a Snapdragon.

I know I've had the Kendall-Jackson. Many people love it, but it's never done much for me so I opted for the Snapdragon.

It was wonderful. Airy. Not quite ethereal but almost. It complemented the gyozas perfectly.

Highly recommended and I don't know what I'm talking about.

Tuesday Night

Wine Snob Hubby worked yesterday and since he works 12 hour days, he eats all his meals at work, leaving me to fend for myself. I hadn't eaten dinner when he got home so he threw a couple of potatoes in the microwave and we each had one. We paired it with water.

Later in the evening, we pulled out the almond champagne we purchased last week at Morgan Hill Cellars/Pedrizetti. When we tasted it at the winery, I smelled the almond but didn't taste it. I liked the champagne overall, I thought it was crisp and very flavorful. Of something, just not almond.

Last night, it was still light, crisp and pleasant, but had no almond bouquet at all. Kind of disappointing. We didn't have anything to eat with it, but that shouldn't matter, because we didn't at the winery either. WSH didn't finish his, he was that unimpressed.

A Typical Monday

I spent a good part of the day waiting in a hospital cafeteria for my grand-daughter to have surgery on a fingernail. Yes, on a fingernail.

Then I went to physical therapy for my back problem.

Then I came home, curled up in the recliner and whimpered. A lot.

WSH fixed pasta with a cream sauce, garlic, and artichoke hearts. I had the last glass of the $2 Chuck, he had red.

I thought my wine went nicely with the artichokes, not so much with the cream sauce. I wish I knew why...

Lesson 1: Sauvignon Blanc

The wine: 2008 Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc

The lesson: acid

The pairing: smoked salmon with creme fraiche, capers and dill (sort of)

Wine Snob Hubby printed off a ream of pages from the Culinary Institute of America's online wine classes and gave us a lesson in SauvBlanc.

We sipped the wine. It was tart and I definitely tasted the acidity. Then we took a (teeny) sip of rice wine vinegar, then another sip of wine. The wine was flat. It had totally lost the bite and the character.

We alternated bites of smoked salmon, the creme, some bitter lettuce and capers and dill. This is where it gets interesting.

WSH said eating a caper then sipping the wine was the same as the wine after the rice wine vinegar. Not for me. The caper cut the acidity somewhat for me, but not nearly to the extent the vinegar did.

So... who's palate is better? We don't have a clue. His is very sensitive, obviously.

The wine itself was nice, not as light as expected, so it stood up well to the smoke in the salmon.

I tasted pear and that's about it. The label said citrus and pear. I didn't get the citrus. But (and this is weird, I know) towards the end of my 2nd glass, I took a hearty sip and tasted pear followed by...(drum roll, please)...cactus.

I know, weird. I've had cactus once, in a salad, diced. I didn't know I remembered what it tasted like. Or maybe the wine tasted like I think cactus smells.

But there was cactus in that there glass. That's all this uneducated palate knows.

Late Night Risotto

So, we got home from the "Family Dinner that's really Dessert" last night. We had pie, cookies, cinnamon rolls, turnovers, and Brown Bobbies. I had 2 Brown Bobbies, 1 roll, 1 cookie. Not bad for hours of sitting around staring at the food. I also discovered that I can't take certain people for more than an hour if I'm sober. I raised my voice in irritation more times last night than in the last month. I have to think it's because I didn't have enough wine.

Anyway, we arrived home and unloaded, did a few chores. I read a chapter in my current book and discovered I was hungry.

Wine Snob Hubby fixed me a snack, the last of the leftover risotto, a bread stick, and a glass of the $2Chuck.

WSH recently discovered the joy that is risotto and has been experimenting with different combos in the rice. The last one was pretty simple: mushrooms and onion.

I had the last of it at 10:00 pm last night. It was beautiful. The wine with it... not as good as it was with the salad yesterday afternoon. Last night, the wine left a sharp tang on the back of my tongue. Not as enjoyable, in my uneducated opinion.

Tonight: WSH is currently smoking a salmon fillet and we're going to have it with some capers and a Sauvignon Blanc. The education continues.

First Pairing

It's a fall Saturday. We're going to my mother-in-law's home for dessert at 4:30 this afternoon.

I don't know why. Well, I sort of know why. Family is gathering from around the state and the country and she wants to have everyone together. Not all of will be at her home for Thanksgiving and she doesn't want to do two huge meals in a week. So we're all coming for dessert. I made cinnamon rolls because I have to take some to church tomorrow and it's just as easy to do two dozen as it is one.

Anyway, it's a typical fall Saturday. Rolls rising, laundry churning, lawn mower roaring. Because of the aforementioned 4:30 pm dessert, we had a late lunch.

Left over tri-tip on a green salad with sugar peas, red bell pepper, a plum tomato, and seeded cucumbers. With a thin ranch/gorgonzola dressing (the dressing was bottled and labeled gorgonzola but it tasted like ranch to me). Wine Snob husband thinned it with a little 2% milk to extend it over two salads.

We ate at 2:30. We had a glass of Charles Shaw Chardonnay with it. Two-buck Chuck. Beringer's White zin is now too sweet for me and this Chardonnay is just fine.

I thought it went very well with the salad. I could taste something along the sides of tongue. I'm not sure what.

The wine was light and crisp and the little bit of beef on the salad didn't overpower the wine. The dressing might have been too much for other whites but since it was thinned down, I thought it was fine.

But what do I know? I have the uneducated palate.

The Uneducated Palate

For years I've said I don't have a palate.

People can rhapsodize about the fruity flavors of wine, or the tar or oaky hints, and I nod but I'm faking it. I can't taste those things. Sometimes I can smell a hint of a strawberry or the oak. I had some almond champagne recently and I totally smelled almonds in it, but I really didn't get it in the taste.

I used to drink only Beringer's White Zinfandel. Or wine coolers. Then I found I didn't hate white wines.

This blog will be my journey to educate my palate.

My husband is taking wine classes and he's going to teach me a thing or two. Or three.