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.