Reviews of wine related trips and accessories.
The monthly call for bloggers to participate in Wine Pairing Weekend for November came from David, who blogs at Cooking Chat. David is the founder and major organizer of the monthly food and wine pairing event. This month, our task was to come up with Creative Thanksgiving Pairings.
Lodi “Outside the Box” Thanksgiving is the title of a recent online tasting hosted by LoCA, the Lodi Winegrape Commission. We were invited to participate in the tasting and in addition to sending us four wines as tasting samples, LoCA also sent along recipes to accompany each wine. The recipes were created by Chef Tony Lawrence, who is a sommelier and certified wine and food pairing specialist (among many other talents.)
As with many Italian families, wine is an important part of Scotto family life. For at least five generations, Scotto family members have been making and selling wine, first in their native Italy, then in New York after the first family members immigrated to the U.S. in 1883.
Even before leaving Brooklyn for California, the family purchased grapes from Lodi, California growers to make their table wine. That connection between the Scotto family and Lodi growers continued after they moved to California in 1963.
Pair white wine with fish and chicken, red wine with red meat. Sound advice, even if it is a bit general. Some would add: drink white wine when the weather is hot, red wine when the weather is cool. This statement I too mostly agree with, except that I really enjoy drinking white wine any time of year. So, as the weather begins to cool, I’m not yet ready to make the switch to mostly red wines.
Summertime for us often means simpler meals, but not simpler wines. Rather than preparing an oven roasted or braised dish, we might grill chicken or pork in our backyard. Sometimes we simply prepare a charcuterie board, add cheese, bread and a variety of accompaniments. Then, we sit in the quiet of our backyard and enjoy the evening.
The topic for our July Wine Pairing Weekend, aka #winePW, cleverly takes advantage of both American and French celebrations during the month. Michelle Williams, of Rockin Red Blog, posed the challenge to us of pairing food and wine from either or both America and France in honor of July 4th, our Independence Day, and July 14, Bastille Day. We had a great time with the pairing this month.
We recently had the opportunity to taste the second vintage of the Lodi Native Project. This collaborative project is designed to showcase Lodi’s heritage Zinfandel vineyards by producing single-vineyard wines following a standardized protocol involving minimal intervention in the wine cellar. The idea is to show what the vineyard itself has to offer by taking the winemaker’s individual style out of the wine making process. The first vintage, 2012, was released in March 2014 and we tasted that first vintage as well.
The Willamette Valley in Oregon has earned a reputation for producing outstanding pinot noir and we are big fans of the region and the variety. In addition to pinot noir from the Willamette Valley, we have recently tasted some very fine chardonnay and pinot gris from the region. Kudos Wines are among the examples we have tasted lately.
When Markus Niggli talks about his wines, you need to be prepared to pay close attention. He will recite harvest dates, º Brix, pH and TA levels so quickly it will make your head spin. His enthusiasm for and love of winemaking are evident. He loves making wine and taking about wine.
In 1999 Michel Chapoutier turned his interest to Roussillon with the purchase of Domaine de Bila-Haut in Latour de France. The Roussillon portion of the enormous south of France Languedoc-Roussillon region is the portion closest to Spain. The climate here is truly Mediterranean with cold winters and very warm summers that provide a long, sunny growing season.
We enjoy wine, food and travel. Pull That Cork is a chronicle of our wine adventures, the food and wine pairings we create and our travels which are increasingly organized around wine.