Pairing Challenge!

Blind tasting challenge for JC:
Monte Tondo Soave DOC Classico 2014 
Duca Sanfelice Ciro DOC Rosso Classico Superiore Reserva 2011

Soave is a white wine from northern Italy.
This one has 100% Garganega.
It has Honeysuckle, Candied Citrus, and slight bitterness of Almond skin. It feels soft than sharp. 
This is very friendly wine, palate-wise and price-wise.

Ciro DOC is a red wine from Calabria, Italy. 100% Gaglioppo.
I tried this wine at the Southern Italy tasting last week and liked it.
Floral aromas of violet and rose, cherry, coffee, and meat-like savoriness.

JC got both of them wrong. Long way to go.

Ciro has tannin and meatiness. To pair with this wine, we had Oven Roasted Lamb and Chicken for dinner.
Chicken and the wine wasn't a good pairing. Soave was better with chicken.
Surprisingly, lamb and Ciro weren't a very good pairing either. It wasn't bad, but I was expecting a great pairing.

We saved the wine for the next day and tried again, this time with Beef Sauce Pasta. The wine's tannin should have gone good with the fat in the beef sauce, but it didn't. They tasted bitter together.
The wine was really good with cheese, but I thought this would be a great food wine which would work perfectly well with salty, fatty meat dishes. 
Then JC came up with an idea. He opened a canned Sardine. 
Bingo!
Ciro works better with the savoriness of fish than that of meat.
Well, Calabria is the tow of the boots. People there must eat a lot of seafood. We should have known.
  

Tiki Cocktails

I still don't know if it was a good idea...I gave JC a cocktail recipe book "Smuggler's Cove Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and The Cult of Tiki" as a wedding anniversary gift.
Since then he's been totally into Tiki cocktails and seemed like he forgot about everything else. 

I agree that Smuggler's Cove's cocktails are excellent: amusement, sophistication, strength, all in one, so although I think he's a little too fanatic, I still enjoy the outcome.

Jungle Bird is the first cocktail he made from this book.
This is originally from Kuala Lumpur Hilton.
Ingredients are pineapple juice, lime juice, Demerara syrup, Campari, Rum.
There is good balance of sweetness and sharp refreshingness.

By the way, there are recipes for house-made syrup in this book, too.

Next is Planter's Punch. 
Lime juice, Demerara syrup, Allspice Dram, rum, Angostura Bitters.
Although it was used just a little bit, allspice gives the cocktail its own characteristics.
Good cocktail, but I encourage JC to work on its visual.

This book also tells you about the history of Tiki, description of ingredients, or origin of each cocktail.
This is not just a recipe book.



Hurricane is my favorite cocktail from this book so far.

There are only three ingredients in this cocktail: lemon juice, passion fruit syrup, and rum.
It's very simple yet deep.
This cocktail has decent sweetness and strong backbone, and even after the crushed ice was melted, it didn't taste diluted. Excellent cocktail.

JC also made Mai Tai. It was good, but he wasn't satisfied so he will try again. I look forward to seeing how he will fix and how different it will taste. 
Well, I'm becoming a little fanatic about Tiki cocktails, too, I guess.

Southern Italian Wine Tasting

There was Southern Italian Wine: A Guided Tasting at Solano Cellars this week.
The tasting of one white, one rose and four reds from southern Italy.

This picture somehow has 7 bottles of wine...never mind.

Mastroberardino Radici Fiano di Avellino 2014 is a white wine from Campania.
The grape is 100% Fiano di Avellino.

This wine has stone fruit and savoriness of prosciutto. 
I like prosciutto and peach, not melon, combo. It should go good with this wine.  

Rose wine from Sicilia, Tasca le Rose di Regaleali 2015
100% Nerello Mascalese. 
This grape has high tannin, but they made this wine with low tannin. This low tannin and citrus zest-like bitterness in aftertaste made this wine refreshing. 

Erse Etna Rosso 2013. Red wine from Sicilia.
80% Nerello Mascalese, 20% Nerello Cappuccio.
These grapes are blended together often.
The bright ruby color reminded me of Gamay, but this wine has high tannin and good structure.

Librandi Duca San Felice Ciro Riserva 2011 is red wine from Calabria.
100% Gaglioppo, the indigenous variety.
The meatiness of this wine made me crave roasted lamb.
Gaglioppo is supposed to have relatively low tannin and sometimes needs longer maceration to extract enough tannin. This wine was backed with good amount of tannin.

Botromagno Primitivo Murgia Rosso 2014
100% Primitivo from Puglia. Primitivo is, say, a cousin of Zinfandel?
It was jammy and full-bodied. Very likable wine.

Bisceglia Gudarra Aglianico del Vulture 2009
The Garnet color Aglianico from Basilicata.
There were violet and herbs. Tannin was high but well integrated. It felt soft.

Argiolas Korem Isola dei Nuraghi 2012
From Sardegna. 55％ Bovale Sardo, 35％ Carignano, 10％ Cannonau.
Bovale Sardo is the indigenous grape of Sardegna. Full-bodied.
This and Aglianico were aged in new French oak for 12 months.

Chloe from WInebow guided us through this tasting. She was amiable and made everybody feel at home.
With her help, I got to know and enjoy the hidden jewels of Southern Italy.
It was hard to choose only two to buy from those wines, but I didn't have a car to carry them all that day so made a tough choice: Aglianico and Gaglioppo. 

Italy is now struggling to recover from the huge earthquake. When Japan was hit by the earthquake, I saw people here showing their support by purchasing Japanese products, and I really appreciated their gesture. The idea that total strangers did something to support us really helped us to go through that tough time.
I don't have any resource or talent to make big change, but at least I want to show support by buying Italian products.
I don't do it out of pity: I do it because I believe in wines and people of Italy.  

Two Wines for One Dish

Two wines for blind tasting: Chateau des Deux Rocs Cabrieres Premices 2014 and Kendall-Jackson Cabernet Sauvignon Grand Reserve Sonoma County 2012

Chateau des Deux Rocs is a blend wine from Languedoc. 
Grapes are 50% Syrah, 40% Grenache Noir, 10% Cinsault.
It has fresh fruit of Cherry and Raspberry and the aromas of purple flower.
JC knew it was a blend from South of France, but at the last minute, he changed his conclusion to Aglianico from Italy. 
This wine doesn't have either tannin or body of Aglianico's, but the aroma threw him off.

Kendall-Jackson is a giant from California.
I had had a prejudice against KJ for a long time: it's just a mass production wine and quality shouldn't be good.
However, I'm also a person who is against having prejudice, so one day I gave it a try. KJ proved me wrong.
They make quite a good wine, especially for its price.
This wine has ripe Blackberry, Plum, Cassis, Violet, Herbs and Coffee. JC thought it was from the old world.

We had this wine with Bacon Tomato Sauce Pasta.
For me, Cabernet Sauvignon went good with the bacon. With the blend from Languedoc, I felt bitterness.
However, JC enjoyed the bitterness so he preferred the pairing with Chateau des Deux Rocs.
There is no clera-cut answer for pairing.

Recycle cooking

I'm lucky to live near farmer's market, and of course I buy most of the vegetables and fruits at the market.
When I buy carrot, they usually ask if I want the leaves removed. I'm sure those will become compost, but they are so fresh and pungent and must have a lot of nutrition, so I usually keep them.

Here's what I do with the carrot leaf. When I cook with the part which could have been discarded, I call it recycle cooking.

Just like other normal Japanese food, this recycling dish goes good with rice.

Stems are hard, so after washing them, blanch until stems are cooked.
Rinse in cold water and squeeze them.
Chop them into bite size.
Saute.
Flavor them with Soy Sauce, Cooking Sake, Sugar (3:3:1 ratio).

Mix Chirimenjako (dried baby sardine, in the picture) at the end, and done!

This can be kept in a fridge for a week.

Grignolino from Piemonte

Olek Bondonio La Berchialla Piemonte DOC Grignolino 2013
Red wine from Piemonte, Italy. The grape is Grignolino.

Grinolino is a grape which is mostly grown in Piemonte. 
It has relatively high tannin and acid like Nebbiolo, but doesn't have enough depth to become popular grape. At least, that's what I heard.
JC tried this varietal before and he said it felt like rose wine.

This wine has more depth than the grape's reputation.
It has deep ruby color, characteristics of very ripe red fruit, olive, toast, compost, and interestingly, savoriness of sauteed vegetable.

This flavor makes this wine compatible with vegetable dishes.

We had this with Swordfish, and the wine went really good with the sauteed spinach and zucchini.
Interesting wine. 
This is not a kind of wine to drink by itself, but fun wine to pair with food. 
And I like the label, too!

  

  

Rakkyo Making

Rakkyo is an onion native to China.
They are used in cooking, like other onions, in China, but in Japan, they are usually pickled.
And this pickled Rakkyo is usually served with Japanese style Curry.
Why? I don't know. I assume that somebody got an idea from Chutney.

I've been looking for this onion to make pickled Rakkyo, and this year, JC found them!

These are from HIKARI FARMS, an organic farm in California.

First, wash thoroughly. Dry well.
Trim the stem and root.
Boil salt and water (1 Table Spoon: 1 Cup ratio), pour the salted water over the Rakkyo in a clean bottle.
Cover the bottle when it cools down.
Keep it in a dark, cool place for a week.

Discard the salted water.
Add a little bit of vinegar to rinse: cover the Rakkyo with the vinegar, then discard the vinegar.
Add Sugar and Vinegar (1:2 ratio) into the bottle.
Shake well to dissolve the Sugar.
Keep in a fridge for 2 weeks. Ready to eat.

The color is brown because I used Brown Rice Vinegar.
The taste is sweet and sour.
It's easy to make, and rare Japanese pickles which don't require too much salt.

I don't exactly know how long I can keep this.
It's pickled so it must be fine to store this for a long time, but we usually finish this within several months.

Taste just like the Rakkyo from Japan.
The only difference is that this one is huge.
Even Rakkyo becomes jumbo size in America!

We eat this with curry of course, but also use this to make snacks for wine.
Get a cracker, spread Goat Cheese, place sliced Rakkyo and Smorked Sarmon on top.
Good to have with chilled white wine.

2004 CORNAS

Domaine Auguste Clape Cornas 2004
Cornas is a relatively small AC in Northern Rhone.

Wines of Cornas used to be sold to the outside in casks. Auguste Clape is one of the first vintners who started to bottle their own wines. He is also one of the people who fought against development to protect the vineyards in Cornas in 70s.

Their steep vineyards enjoy enough sun light but make it impossible to work with machines. Everything is done by hand. It is a tough job but Auguste Clape's son and grandson take up this family legacy. I truly appreciate the hard work of these people.

The grape is 100% Syrah.
The wine has red color with Garnet hue.
It has aromas of Violet and fresh Sweet Peas and flavors of ripe Berry, Raspberry and Red Cherry. Very red fruit and more pronounced next day.
Tannin is medium high, well integrated.
This wine should be able to be kept longer, but I might like the flavor now.

JC cooked steak for this wine.
He wanted to barbecue but I didn't feel like it.
And when it comes to food, he was right as usual.
It was a good pairing, but if we barbecued the meat, it might have been a better pairing.

Domaine Bousquet Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2012

Domaine Bousquet Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 is a wine from Mendoza, Argentina.

85% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Malbec.
Ruby color with garnet hue. 
Although Cabernet Sauvignon is the dominant grape for this wine, it has more red fruits such as Raspberry and Strawberry than dark fruits. Ripe. Jammy. 
Coffee candy like oak and aroma of Violet. 
The ripeness of the fruits and the high level of alcohol make this wine taste almost sweet.
With vacuum stopper and refrigeration, this wine tasted still good next day.
I believe it was under $20. Good quality for this price.

We had this wine with curry (Japanese style sweet and spicy curry rice).
I didn't plan to pair these, but it actually wasn't so bad.

White Bordeaux for Summer

There is a wine I get every summer.
Chateau Graville-Lacoste Graves.
White wine from Bordeaux.

The grape varieties are Semillon 75%, Sauvignon Blanc 20%, Muscadelle 5%. 
There are the freshness of green fruits and the sharpness of grapefruits. 
The subtle sweetness of honeysuckle is balanced with its acidity.  

This wine has been our staple summer drink for more than 10 years. 
The quality is stable, and so is its price. It's affordable and very likable.
When I feel like opening some wine but don't know which kind of wine or which kind of food I would pair with it, I choose this friendly wine.
Because everybody I know likes this wine,  this is the first pick to bring to any kind of gatherings.

Wine and flowers

Flowerland is a nursery in Albany, CA.
It has been there for long time, but recently this store transformed itself.
Some years ago, they started to draw attention from passersby with beautiful displays and an antique-like bus turned into a small cafe. Now it's an usual sight to see people sitting on the benches inside the nursery and enjoying conversation with a cup of coffee in their hands in the middle of this beautiful garden. This store became a community gathering place and gives a lively atmosphere to the neighborhood.

Last week, this nursery had a collaboration with Solano Cellars, a neighboring wine store.
They opened a one day wine bar in the nursery.

Open 6:00 p.m. The weather wasn't good that day and it was cold unfortunately, but I couldn't miss such a fun event!
In the middle of the flowers, they set an instant bar counter and served Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Zinfandel, Champagne and Rose.
I chose Bandol Rose. Bandol is an AC from Provence, France.
The wine itself was good, but the chilled Rose wasn't a smart choice for such a cold day.

The benches were filled quickly, but we managed to secure one of them and enjoyed chat and a cup (not a glass) of wine.
The nursery itself was still open too so there were people browsing, shopping plants and drinking wine. It was an amusing and strange feeling to see this unusual combination.

It wasn't dark enough for the lighting, but I still loved them.

This sight somehow reminded me of a summer festival in Japan. Gave me a fun and a little sad feel. It's called sentimental, I guess.

Lunch at Slanted Door

San Francisco is a foodie town which has numerous restaurants opening and closing every day.
Especially for trendy restaurants, it's hard to keep up with the ever-changing style and rare to find restaurants who have kept popularity, reputation and quality for long time.
There is one of these rare restaurants in Embarcadero.

Slanted Door is a Vietnamese restaurant. They first opened in 1995 in Mission, then relocated to Ferry Building, and have always been a popular spot with high reputation.
On beautiful sunny day, we had lunch here.

We were led to the table with a gorgeous view of San Francisco Bay.
Appetizers are always my favorite in Vietnamese restaurant. We had two rolls and Daikon Rice Cakes.
Both of rolls were tasty, but crispy one was amazingly delicious! The combination of salty sauce, herb and subtle sweetness of the roll wrapped in the crispiness.

Daikon Cake has good flavor and texture. This kind of food tend to become a little too salty, but this one didn't.

JC chose wine: Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia Reserva, Rioja.
White wine from Rioja, Spain.
This wine had savory flavor which went good with all the food we tasted the day.

The salad in front was Green Papaya Salad. It's always good to have this salad among the dishes with strong flavor sauce.

 

The main dish was Grass-fed Estancia Shaking Beef.
The meat was soft and juicy.
Cellophane Noodles had a lot of Dungeness Crab flavor and Brentwood Farm Spicy Corn was simple yet so flavorful! I can't really eat spicy food, but this one, I couldn't resist!
Full Belly Farm Japanese Eggplant had good spiciness and sweetness.

When the food was this good, our expectation for dessert became so high, and we were not betrayed.

Meringue was on the top of Elderflower Gelato.
It had decent amount of sweetness, and it was a perfect choice after the big, satisfying meal.

I heard that Slanted Door is also one of the few popular restaurants who have a same chef from their opening.
That consistency must be one of the keys for their long time success.

Bubbles & Cheese Tasting

Good thing about living near Wine Country is not only to have many wine selections, but also to have many wine store selections. One is renown, another is focusing on organic producers...
Solano Cellars is a store who carries lesser known but good deal wines. They also offer wine classes occasionally, and there was a Sparkling Wine and Cheese Tasting Class last week.

Kirstin Jackson, an author of "It's Not You, It's Brie," chose 6 kinds of cheese for this class.

The first cheese we tried was Stepladder Chevre, goat's cheese from California. The wine we had with this was Raventos I Blanca Cava NV. Acidity was relatively low, and it matched with the mild flavor of the cheese.

The same wine was paired with cow's milk cheese from France, Brillat Savarin. This pairing tasted more savory.

Next was Di Stefano Burrata, cow's milk cheese from California. Very soft and very perishable cheese which has decent amount of saltiness. This was paired with Sorella Branca Extra Dry Prosecco NV, a wine with pronounced aromas of melon and pear.

Sequatchie Cove Cumberland is cow's milk cheese from Tennessee, and has complex flavor with chestnut. We had this with Eric Rodez NV, grower/producer Champagne. This one somehow didn't have bubbles.

Cherry and plum aroma Bardolini Lambrusco NV  was paired with Bleating Heart Golden Tommette, cow's milk cheese from California. This pairing had coffee kind of quality.

Last but not least, Oakdale Gouda (cow's milk cheese from California) was delicious! The wine paired with this was Domaine Balivet Bugey-Cerdon NV, sparkling wine from Savoie, France. This was made in Methode Ancestrale: first, the grapes are fermented halfway, then bottled with the remaining sugar and yeast, without new addition, and complete the fermentation. The wine had very fresh pink cherry/pink apple aromas.

Bubbles and cheese pair was not only tasty, also filling.
This class made me satisfied, mind and stomach!

Woodbury and Alchemist

Woodbury is a bar in San Francisco, near AT&T park.

Inside is big. There is a TV screen playing sports games and the atmosphere is casual, but the cocktail here can get serious even if it is served in...

...pineapple.

This is  Frozen Pina Colada.
Good structure. Caramel-like sweetness is backed by strong alcohol.
They serve a lot so you might get drunk, but don't worry: with this cup, you won't make a scene if you are drunk and drop it (I don't know if it is their plan).

There is another bar in upstairs. It's called Alchemist.  
They have calmer and darker atmosphere.
The cocktail I ordered here was South Park Break.
I chose this because I'd never seen a cocktail which used Horchata.
The drink was more fruity than sweet, and it was a great choice for that day (it was hot).

It's fun to have two totally different type of bars side by side: I can enjoy different atmosphere back and forth with just few steps!

SKIPSTONE Winery

SKIPSTONE is a winery which is located in Geyserville, California, and makes Viognier and two Bordeaux style Reds.

Their General Manager Emily Wines, also a Master Sommelier, is a mentor to JC, and she kindly offered a winery tour for us.

It is a beautiful winery with a view of Alexander Valley.
The vineyards are surrounded by untouched land because they believe in sustainable farming and rely on that the nature will play a big role to keep their farm healthy.

Emily explained the vine management as she showed us the vineyards.
They grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Viognier.
After climbing up the vineyards on the very hot day, she treated us with chilled Champagne under the canopy of big trees.
She's not only a great Master Sommelier, but also a great entertainer!

When we went back to the terrace by the vineyards, we were greeted by the three beautiful wines.
Chef Tiffany Smejkal created exquisite menu to pair with those wines.

The first wine was Viognier 2014.
It had acacia-like flower aroma, and relatively high acid for Viognier.
The wine was paired with Tobiko and Carrot with Seaweed.
By the way, all vegetables are from their vegetable garden.
The freshness of the home-grown carrot and the acidity went good together.

The first of the two blends was Faultine Blend 2013.
It was a complex wine: ripe blueberry, red berry, violet, chocolate, etc...
Cabernet Franc is the main grape for this wine.
There weren't so many occasions that I was impressed by Cabernet Franc, but this one was great!
This wine was my favorite of the day.
It was served with a strikingly beautiful Beet and Goat Cheese dish.
The yellow color of the cucumber flower makes this dish a piece of art.
Isn't the color combination perfect?

The last wine we tried was Oliver's Blend.
There is 88% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Aromas and flavors of black cherry, ripe or cooked cherry and chocolate.
Big wine which makes you crave a meat dish.
The pairing was with Ashed Beef and Maitake Mushrooms with Micro Greens.






The dessert was stunning, too: Lavender Honey Gelato and Blackberry Swirl Gelato.

The blackberry was frozen and it was like sorbet.
I have a lot of blackberries growing in the backyard this year. Now I know what to do with them.

It gets very hot around there in summer and I worried that their wine could have strong alcohol up-front like some California wines (the powerful alcohol makes my taste buds numb), but all of their wines were well balanced so the alcohol level was high but I could enjoy the flavors of wine without being intervened by it.

It was a great experience. Thank you Emily and everybody in SKIPSTONE.