We Interrupt This Blog...

For a movie review.

We watched Bottle Shock last night. It's a 2008 movie about a blind wine tasting competition in France in 1976 when two California wineries blew everyone away and won the thing in both the red and white categories.

The movie focuses on Chateau Montelena and it's quest to produce excellent wine, Chardonnay in particular. I'm always interested in how movies based on real events can build tension and uncertainty in the audience when the outcome is already known. (Apollo 13 did this brilliantly, by the way.)

In Bottle Shock, the writers did it by making Jim Barrett, the owner and wine maker, on the verge of bankruptcy and giving him and his son an uneasy relationship.

I have no idea how much of that is based on fact and how much is added for tension. There's a female intern who is attracted to both Bo Barrett and his friend, a winery employee.

The Napa Valley of 1976 is shown to be very rural and nearly poverty stricken. The trucks and cars are 1960s vintages and on their last legs. I got my driver's license in 1975 and I remember the trucks and cars I and my friends drove. We weren't from wealthy families and our cars were in much better shape than those in the movie.

Bottle Shock is a great story dressed up to impress. It did make me want to taste some Chateau Montelena Chardonnay. The current release is their 2007 vintage at $50 a bottle. They charge $20 for a tasting.

Maybe it's time for another Total Wine field trip...

Pasta and Peju

On our first visit to Napa, which incredibly was only three months ago, we were steered by friends to Peju Winery. They are now very good friends.

Peju turned out to be a highlight. It didn't start well, but the Peju staff jumped in and made it a wonderfully memorable visit. And the wines were pretty good, too. Actually, the wines are excellent. Every one was flavorful and brought different elements of the grape to the glass. Our favorites were the Provence and the Fifty/Fifty. The 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon H.B. Vineyard was delicious, even to this non-red wine lover.

For Christmas, our very good friends gave us a bottle of Peju's Rose' of Syrah. They are now very, very good friends.

Yesterday was the day to uncork and pair it. We looked online and consulted both The Wine Bible by Karen MacNeil and her Wine, Food, and Friends. Because rose' wines are so varied, we couldn't find a universal recommendation. But all the experts seemed to agree on a few common elements: garlic, Mediterranean, and seafood.

Well, that's a no-brainer. We had shrimp and feta and pasta so Greek Shrimp Pasta* was the obvious winner.

We sipped the wine as the pasta cooked and it was very good, but it really exploded with the garlic and shrimp and feta flavors.

I tasted cherries and a hint of licorice. Wine snob hubby smelled cranberries, cherries and a hint of pomegranate. We agree that the Greek Shrimp Pasta really showcased the wine to its fullest.

Our friends are now very, very, very good friends.

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*Greek Shrimp Pasta
1 pound raw shelled and deveined shrimp, fresh or frozen thawed
4 cloves garlic, pressed
2tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
6 ounces crumbled feta cheese
6 green onions, finely chopped
4 teaspoons fresh oregano leaves, minced
5 fresh tomatoes, cored, seeded, and coarsely chopped (I try to use plum tomatoes, but I've used larger varieties and smaller. Even halved grape tomatoes)
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 pound linguine, freshly cooked and drained

In a large bowl, combine feta, green onions, oregano, tomatoes and salt and pepper to taste. Let the mixture stand at room temperature for an hour. (I've cheated when pressed for time and I still think it's marvelous. You do need at least 15 minutes though.

In a skillet, add the butter and olive oil and heat over medium high heat. Add the garlic and stir until it starts to brown, then add the shrimp. Stir until the shrimp turn pink. Remove from heat.

Add the cooked pasta to the shrimp and garlic. Toss. Top with the feta and tomatoes and enjoy!

Ice Wine

In Karen MacNeil's Wine, Food, and Friends I read about ice wine or Eiswein. It's a dessert wine made from grapes that are frozen on the vine and then pressed. The water stays behind as ice and only juice is extracted.

This description fascinated me and I imagined ... I don't know, icy wine crystals I guess and I wanted to see how this translated into wine.

So, on our field trip to Total Wine , we found the ice wines. They are from Germany or Canada. They ranged in price from $15 - $75. I was prepared to go up to around $30, but in this case I went with the cheaper edition for the shallow reason that I liked it's packaging and label better than the higher priced wine. Oh, and it's a half bottle size and it's poured in 2 ounce servings.

Jackson-Triggs Vidal Icewine was the lowest priced and since we had no idea what to expect (and it had nice 'rich' looking packaging) we decided to start at the bottom of the price tier and will work our way up.

We opened the Vidal and had our 2 oz. pour a couple of nights ago, then again last night.

It's a rich amber color, it pours thick, almost like cough syrup. I sniffed and got a deep floral scent. Wine Snob Hubby wasn't sure what he smelled until I said flowers. He sniffed again and said, "Yes, roses."

It is a very gentle flavor, not harsh at all. We had it alone, without food, and I'd like to try it with something to see how it holds up. I tasted apples and a hint of the florals. It's a very concentrated taste.

We'll try it again with a food, then move our way up the price scale to compare.

On the Cheap

Fresh and Easy recently came to town. I stopped by to check out their prepared foods and left with a basket of groceries. I wandered the wine aisle, looking for their version of a Two-buck Chuck. Sure enough, they had several wines for $1.99.

I chose the Big Kahuna Chardonnay.

I fixed crab cakes with the leftover crab from the Geurwertz tasting and oven roasted some veggies (zucchini, carrots, Brussels sprouts, peppers, broccoli).

The wine wasn't bad on first sip. But by the end of dinner it had lost all power to stand up to the food and take its place as part of the meal. A bite of vegetables would bring it back to half-mast, but it never fully recovered.

But it was two bucks. For the price, it wasn't horrible.

It felt very dry on the tongue and sharp to acidic on the finish.

Gewurztraminer and Crab

Saturday Wine Snob Hubby wanted to compare the two Gerwuertz... Guerwert... you know what I mean. Anyway, he bought two different bottles at our recent field trip to Total Wine and
he wanted to taste them side by side.

RNDaughter was home for the weekend and she wanted crab. Usually we have one night a year with newspapers on the table, crackers (the metal kind, not the edible ones), wine, and a salad.

WSH checked his Wine Bible and MacNeil's Wine, Food, and Friends and decided it could work with the right accompanying sauces.

So we called some friends, threw the papers on the table, and chilled the wines.

The menu:

Crab (one non-shellfish eater had a chicken breast)
Assorted dipping sauces (Thai peanut, cocktail, spicy ginger, garlic and chile) and drawn butter
Ceasar salad
sourdough bread
And dark chocolate truffles for dessert.

First up:

Adler Fels Gewurtz from the Russian River Valley.

Heard around the table:

• "With the spicy sauces, it really opens up the flavor of the wine."
• "It's not sugary sweet, it's flowery sweet."
• "The spicy ginger sauce brought out the dry elements."
• "It pours pretty."

My uneducated thought: I liked it a lot. It stood up to both the crab and the vinegary salad dressing. A bite of bread refreshed the palate.

Next was the French edition, Vin d'Alsace Gewurtz (as the name implies, from Alsace):

Heard around the table:

• "Makes the cocktail sauce super hot."
• "Has a chardonnay finish."
• "Would be great with a spicy sushi."

I liked the Adler Fels wine better. Not that there was anything wrong with the Alsace, at least nothing I can articulate. The Adler Fels just seemed a better fit. It's very possible the Alsace would have been wonderful with Thai food or a jerk chicken with fruit salsa. We made it work with what we wanted and it's probably our fault that it didn't shine.

Beouf Bourguignon

December 30 Wine Snob Hubby decided to try a new Beouf Bourguignon recipe. He made one a couple of months ago and it was too hearty, if that's possible. He used a 'quick' recipe and the wine flavor simply overpowered everything else.

So this time he went for a more 'traditional' preparation, including flaming brandy before the simmer. He added some left over Fresno State red and a Cabernet.

We ate it on egg noodles and he paired it with a Tejon Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon. I'm not a red drinker. I just don't care for the sharp flavors but this red worked so well with the beef that it was totally good.

I tasted berries.