Gevrey-Chambertin tasting

Gevrey-Chambertin is red wine producing village in Cote de Nuits, Burgundy. Their wine is made exclusively with Pinot Noir.

The village of Gevrey-Chambertin used to be called just Gevrey. The prestageous vineyard "Le Champertin" was added to the village name. This set the trend and other villages followed (Puligny and Chassagne Montrachet, Vosne-Romanee, etc.).
Wines from this village are generally full-bodied with good structure and ageing potential.

There was a tasting event for this beautiful red wine.

Domaine Marc Roy Gevrey-Chambertin Clos Prieur 2016
Pronounced aromas of violet, raspberry, red cherry and plum, cedar.
Soft texture.

Domaine des Beaumony Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Les Cherbaudes 2015
Raspberry, cherry, plum, herb, incense, with silky texture.
This producer is moving towards organic.

Nuiton-Beaunoy Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Clos du Chapitre 2015
Raspberry, plum, cherry, strawberry, coffee, mushroom.
Silky texture and long finish.

Domaine Harmand-Geoffroy Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Lavaux St-Jacques 2016
Apple skin, strawberry, plum, spice like clove or cinnamon, cedar, charred wood.
Good wine, would be even better with tamed tannin after further bottle ageing.

Domaine Henri Magnien Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Les Champeaux 2016
Pronounced aromas of strawberry, raspberry, ripe cherry, liquorice candy, sandalwood.
Fine-grained velvety tannin.
Fluid-like texture with long finish.

Domaine Henri Magnien Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Les Cazetiers 2016
Aromas of coffee candy, fresh coffee beans and cedar first, then fresh and ripe fruit of strawberry and cherry.
Tannin is high but not aggressive.
Rich wine with concentration and long, pleasant finish.

There are 9 Grands Crus in this village and some of Premier cru sites are said to match Grands crus with its quality, and this Lez Cazertiers is one of them.
It was indeed a great wine with complexity and depth. Definitely my favorite of the day.
However, other people had other favorites. They all were beautiful wines.

Christmas sewing

This time of the year I somehow feel the creative impulse.
What works for me is that it's Christmas time!
I made men's shirts x 2 as Christmas gift.

Fabric I chose is NANIIRO, double gauze from Japan.
Double gauze is hard to work with because it's soft and frays easily. However, NANIIRO's double gauze is relatively easy to sew so I use this fabric for garment making often.

I use books or magazine as a weight to fix a pattern on fabric as I cut them. It is heavy and wide enough to keep the pattern in place.

The pattern is from a book "Otoko no Shirts no Hon (Men's Shirts Book)" by Ryuichiro Shimazaki.
I made maybe more than twenty shirts from this book and always get praised. I highly recommend this book!

Freeman Vineyard and Winery

Freeman Vineyard and Winery is a winery in Sonoma.

They specialize in Pinot Noir: in fact, to start the winery, they traveled and searched for a land which could produce their ideal Pinot Noir. They found this area and Ken and Akiko Freeman established this winery in 2001.

The winery is in mountains but only 30 minutes or so scenic drive from Sebastopol.

They showed us the small but beautiful and functional winery.

Inside the fermentation vessel. Dry ice is used to control the temperature.

This is pneumatic press.
A bag inside is inflated and presses grapes against the wall of the cylinder.
Grapes can be pressed gently with this machine.

Then we got to taste wines in the cellar.

The wines were beautiful. They were big but elegant.
Concentrated fruit, herb and spice, with gentle and reliable structure.

JC's favorite was Yu-ki Estate.
My favorite was Akiko's Cuvee.
Yu-ki Estate was tender and Akiko's Cuvee was more complex.

Akiko studied art history but became winemaker to support her husband.
It is sweet of her, but tasting her great wines, I think she was destined to become a winemaker anyway.

Spinning thick yarn

It had been hot in October. It was still warm in November but recently it started to feel cool, so it's time to spin.

I cleaned a storage, a.k.a. my room, and found fibers of white wool and grayish brown mohair. I carded them together and started to spin.

I was trying to spin thick yarn but it was difficult. Every time I aimed at thicker yarn, it became bumpy.
It's interesting that when I was a beginner, I couldn't spin thin yarn. Now I get used to spinning, I can't make thick yarn. This seems to be happening to many people.

I somehow managed to finish spinning bumpy yarn, so washed in hot water and dried them.

It's about 500 yards of yarn. Hopefully it's enough to make a vest... 

Madeira Wine tasting

Madeira wine is a fortified wine from island of Madeira, Portugal.
Madeira wine might have a lower profile comparing with other fortified wines like Port or Sherry, but it has a unique feature.

Madeira wine goes through a process called Canteiro.
After fortification, wine is matured in a cask for minimum two years in the warm area. The finest example would be aged for some decades.

This process imitates its history: in the 17th century, ships heading to India from Europe picked up wines at the island of Madeira. After experiencing repeated heating and cooling during the ocean voyage, people found that the wine tasted better than the wine matured on the land.
Canteiro was developed to imitate this process.

There was a tasting of Madeira wine in San Francisco.
It was a rare occasion to get to taste so many Madeira wine, so there were many participants, even came from far away.

The styles of Madeira range from light and dry to sweet, full-bodied wine, but all of them have refreshing acidity. The volcanic soils of the island contribute to this.

Among the wineries, the producer most memorable for me was Pereira d'Oliveira.
Sercial 1989 White flower of acacia. Acidity of citrus fruit.
Terrantez 1988 Interesting aroma of milk coffee and fruit zest.
Boal 1977 Rich sweetness of creme brulee and coffee. Freshness of citrus zest.
Malvasia 1990 Bitter-sweet burned caramel. Full-bodied.

Tinta Negra 1929
This one was gorgeous.
Espresso, coffee and leather.
High acidity is balanced with the sweetness of vanilla ice cream.

I have a sweet tooth but many of sweet wines, fortified or late-harvest, are too sweet even for me. But, somehow, I can fully enjoy the sweetness of Madeira wine.
Dry style has its character and becomes addictive.
They are good wines and I hope they become more popular.

Halloween Bento

It was Halloween.

I usually don't participate this event, but this year I did something: I made Halloween Bento!

I'm not good at making artfully decorated bento, but I saw a picture of chopped finger bento (sausage on rice) on the net and I was still clumsy but tried to copy it.

The original used ketchup for blood. I used umeboshi instead because JC loves umeboshi, but it didn't really look like blood (JC even asked if it was meant to be blood).
Next time, I should follow the original faithfully...

Self-sowed Melon

I do gardening with home-made compost.

Compost is composed of decomposed organic materials.
As the materials decompose, heat is generated. Unwanted weed seeds and bacteria are killed with this heat. Theoretically.

Somehow my compost doesn't become hot enough to kill seeds.
Past years, I witnessed plants like potatoes, tomatoes, and even chili pepper emerged from compost which was scattered on the garden.

This year, I found yellow squash look-like plant was growing in my vegetable garden.
I don't have any recollection of throwing yellow squash seed since I eat them all, but I have no objection growing it in my garden, so let it grow.

After a while, it didn't look like yellow squash.

Watermelon...?
I waited more and found out...

It happened to be cantaloupe melon!
I grew melon from a seedling some years ago but never saw it self-sow.

I cut it into half and tried.

Not much meat...and a little sour... but it definitely tasted like melon!