Sips: A classic California cabernet sauvignon, to drink and gift

Beyond Bordeaux, California became synonymous long ago with great cabernet sauvignon. That said, it’s also true that memorable California cabs don’t come inexpensively -- unlike Bordeaux, where it’s still possible to find notable cabernet and merlot blends for $20 or under.

And yet price alone is no guarantee that a California wine (or one from anywhere else) will be interesting, as I discovered the other night when I opened a $60 cabernet wine from a celebrated Napa Valley winery and found it one dimensional. The opulent California fruit was there but not much else.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case with Hanna Winery's 2009 Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. This superb $39 wine made from 100 percent cabernet has beautiful complexity and balance with a delicious blackberry and black cherry core and undertones of fennel seed and even fresh fennel, giving it a nice licorice note. Ripe tannins round out the picture in a wine that, despite its youth, is drinking very well now. It's a natural for steak and lamb, and as a serious wine for a holiday gift that won't completely break the bank. Available on Hanna's website and elsewhere. Received as a press sample.

Sips: Marqués de Cáceres’s superb 2011 “Deusa Nai” Albariño

Marqués de Cáceres is a big producer based in Spain’s Rioja region, but the winery, it turns out, also bottles a terrific wine from Rías Baixas in Galicia in the northwest corner of Spain. This is white wine country where the most important grape is the indigenous albariño, which is either bottled as a single variety or blended with others. Marqués de Cáceres’s 2011 “Deusa Nai” Albariño is made exclusively from the variety and is among the best of a dozen or more albariños I’ve tasted this year. It’s a wonderful wine for fish and shellfish or on its own as an aperitif. Pear and grapefruit tastes are accented by floral and mineral notes and a touch of vanilla. The price is about $14 and although production is limited (about 6,600 cases), the wine appears to be widely available based on a check of Wine Searcher.

Pasta with a sauce of yellow tomatoes and hot and sweet sausage

A couple of weeks ago, after I reviewed an excellent Tuscan red made by the tenor Andrea Bocelli in my NBCNews.com column , a number of readers asked if I could provide a recipe for the pasta dish I had with the wine. I use yellow tomatoes when available for this sauce because I like their lower acidity and their sweetness, but I have also enjoyed this dish many times with red tomatoes, both fresh and canned, so feel free to substitute them.

Ingredients:

½ pound sweet Italian pork sausage

½ pound hot Italian pork sausage

2 tbsps olive oil

1 medium onion chopped

1 large garlic clove, finely chopped

Small bunch of Italian parsley chopped

2 pounds of yellow or red tomatoes, cored, broken apart by hand or coarsely chopped

1 pound penne, fusilli or other pasta

Grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Spoon the olive oil into a large, heavy-bottomed sauce pan, preferably cast iron. Add sausage (if sausage is in casings squeeze the meat out). Over low to medium heat, break sausage into small pieces with a wooden spatula and cook for 10 minutes or so, tossing frequently, until nicely browned but not burned. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add garlic and stir with onions and sausage until golden. Add tomatoes and mix thoroughly with other ingredients. Use the spatula to break the tomatoes apart. Cook over a low flame, partially covered, for 15-20 minutes until the tomatoes have softened. Remove cover. Break tomatoes apart more with spatula if needed. Simmer 10-15 minutes more until tomatoes have cooked down and sauce has thickened. Stir in parsley. Toss with penne, fusilli or your favorite pasta and top with grated Parmesan. Serves 4.

Sips: La Quercia’s 2010 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo

I am always on the hunt for juicy, fruit-forward Italian reds, the kind I can pop open on the spur of the moment to enjoy with pasta, pizza or other casual foods. One that really over-delivers for $11 or so is a red from the Abruzzo region, La Quercia’s 2010 Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

This is a relatively soft, easy-drinking casual wine that’s made from the native montepulciano grape without oak and is all about the fruit – blackberry and blueberry tastes with a hint of unsweetened chocolate on the finish. When you breathe it in, it fills the nose with these dark fruit aromas. It’s delicious on its own and, as I said, is a versatile wine for all kinds of Italian and other dishes at a price that can’t be beat.

Imported by August Wine Group, Seattle, Washington. Received as a press sample.

Sips: From California, Gainey Vineyard’s 2010 Chardonnay

As I’ve said before, I prefer leaner-style chardonnays with moderate levels of alcohol and subtle oak treatment. There’s nothing wrong with those brawny, buttery wines, but in general they’re not my cup of tea. Gainey Vineyard in California’s Santa Barbara County makes chardonnay in this leaner style. It is consistently good, and the 2010 Santa Rita Hills Chardonnay is no exception.

 

As always, the wine is beautifully balanced, and in this vintage it presents a delicious combination of Bartlett pear, butterscotch, citrus and a touch of cinnamon. Try it with all kinds of fish, chicken and pork dishes or enjoy it on its own. Alcohol is 13.9 percent and the suggested price of $22 makes it a very good value worth seeking out. Gainey’s website says it’s sold out at the winery, but I imagine it’s around in any number of stores. Received as a press sample.

Carla's beef Burgundy

After my NBCNews.com piece last week on a cabernet sauvignon from Argentina matching beautifully with my wife’s beef Burgundy, a number of readers asked for the recipe and I, in turn, asked her.  

Carla’s Beef Burgundy

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs. beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes

Olive oil 

3-4 cups roughly chopped onions

2 cloves minced garlic

1 tsp. salt 

4-5 twists fresh pepper

1 tsp. marjoram

4-6 tbsps flour

About 4 cups beef broth

3-4 carrots, sliced lengthwise and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2-3 cups of red wine, preferably pinot noir

About 4 tbsps cumin seed

2-3 cups sliced mushrooms

Directions:

1. Saute onions and then garlic in a cast iron or heavy-bottomed skillet until semi-transparent. Set aside.

2.Brown meat on all sides at  medium-high heat, taking care not to burn it. Do this in batches, if necessary, in the same heavy skillet.

3.When the last of the meat is done, sprinkle it with the flour, marjoram, salt and pepper and stir until meat is coated and all "white" from the flour is gone. There should be a gooey "sauce” from the flour absorbing all the meat juices.

4. Transfer the meat, sauce, onions and garlic to a large stew pot. 

5. Add the beef broth, red wine, carrots and cumin seed to the meat mixture. The liquid should just cover the ingredients.  

6. Cook over low to medium heat for at least an hour and a half, stirring often enough to prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Lower the heat if it boils.

7. Add more salt, pepper, cumin or wine to taste during the cooking process.

8. Add the sliced mushrooms about 15 minutes before serving and cook through. 

Serve over white rice and with a green vegetable such as green beans.

Sips: A visit to the Loire Valley and some first notable wines

For the next week, I’ll be traveling through France’s Loire Valley, trying to deepen my understanding of this large and highly diverse region along with four other American wine writers. As I customarily do on such trips, I’ll begin with a word about how I got here. I was invited to the region by two of its trade organizations, Interprofession Vins de Loire and Interprofession des Vins du Centre Loire, which are paying for my travel to and accommodations in the region. The arrangements were made by a U.S. public relations and marketing company, Benson Marketing Group. There was no agreement with these organizations about my coverage of the wines or the region for either this blog or for my weekly column for MSNBC.com, although I have no doubt that I will have plenty to say about my tastings and travels.

Now, on to some of the first wines I tasted after arriving here. At our first dinner at the Brasserie du Theatre in Angers, we decided to order two very different white wines, as most of us were ordering fish or shellfish. And both were outstanding in their own ways. Domaine Pellé’s 2010 Menetou-Salon “Morogues” is quintessential sauvignon blanc and was wonderful at both the beginning and end of my dinner – with a variety of oysters on the half shell and then with a little goat cheese. There’s lots of gooseberry here, some lime, a bit of cream and a nice smooth texture. I found a briny note as the wine opened up. A balanced, refreshing and fairly complex sauvignon with alcohol at 13 percent. It retails in the U.S. for about $25 or so.

The second white was almost a world away in taste, Eric Morgat’s 2008 Savennières “L’Enclos,” a chenin blanc from this small appellation famous for the variety. I was happy to see at least a few years of age on this one. On first tasting, there was a good deal of wood in the mix, but as it breathed over the next couple of hours and its temperature warmed up, the oak influence receded nicely and its considerable complexity and opulence emerged (alcohol is 14 percent). It had a core of rich pear and apple, some orange and a beautiful (but not cloying) creamy quality. Later in the evening I detected a little licorice on the nose. It had enough backbone to hold up to my main course, an assemblage of salmon and two other local fish, one of them smoked, served with boiled potatoes on the side and over a bed of sauerkraut. Somehow it all worked quite well together. From what I gather, the wine sells for about $40 in the United States.

del.icio.us Tags: Domaine Pelle Menetou-Salon,Eric Morgat,Eric Morgat Savennieres,Edwad Deitch,Sauvignon blanc,Chenin blanc,Loire Valley,Loire Valley wines,Loire Valley whites

Sips: From Portugal, Herdade da Comporta Red 2007

Recommended. Red berry fruit and some blueberry emerge as this wine from the Peninsula de Setubal region on the central Atlantic coast opens up. There’s a big oak influence and muscular tannins, which demand red meat. The fruit is concentrated, accented by a powdery cinnamon note.  A blend of 40 percent aragonez (tempranillo), 40 percent alicante bouschet, 10 percent touriga franca and 10 percent trincadeira. Alcohol is 13.5 percent. Decant one to two hours before drinking. I enjoyed it with a smoky steak grilled in the fireplace. Imported by Value Vines, North Caldwell, New Jersey. Received as a press sample.

del.icio.us Tags: Portuguese wines,Portuguese reds,Herdade da Comporta Red,Edward Deitch,Value Vines,Peninsula de Setubal

Sips: Chardonnays that come alive when blended, plus a southern French “classic”

In case you missed my current “Weekend Wines” column on MSNBC.com, I’m linking here to my piece on Domaine du Tariquet and how this winery in southwest France is making some exciting chardonnay-based blends. They’re good examples of what a large, commercial winery can do in the $10-$15 range. After I  wrote about these wines, I also tasted Tariquet’s 2010 Classic, a zippy blend of colombard and ugni blanc, which remains a top under-$10 quaffing white that is a must-have for warm-weather drinking and for fish and shellfish. Rating: VERY GOOD. Imported by Robert Kacher Selections, Washington, DC. Wines received as press samples.

del.icio.us Tags: Domaine du Tariquet Classic White,Domaine du Tariquet,French white wines,Southwest France wines,Robert Kacher Selections,Edward Deitch,French wine values,Wines for fish

Swirls: China’s wine frenzy, Bill Foley’s growing wine empire, what sommeliers like to drink

SWIRL: The New York Times has an interesting piece today on the fast-growing French expat community in China, particularly Hong Kong, which, with its growing wealth and hunger for luxury goods, is drawing more and more wine and other entrepreneurs eager to bring their products to the Chinese market.

SWIRL: Speaking of China, Bloomberg reports that at least a dozen Chinese investors have recently bought wine estates in Bordeaux, mostly small and sometimes distressed  properties.

SWIRL: New York is planning to increase its wine presence in China. The Watertown Daily Times says hundreds of small New York wineries will have a better chance of getting exposure for their wines in China at a New York state wine outlet at the free trade zone in Shanghai. The aim will be to sell New York wines at Chinese chain stores, supermarkets and hotels.

SWIRL: In case you missed it, Jay McInerney’s weekend WSJ column on the increasing importance of sommeliers was notable for, among other things, pointing out that most sommeliers favor leaner, lower-alcohol wines because they match better with foods.

SWIRL: Bloomberg has a good read on the fast-expanding wine empire of Bill Foley, the former mortgage title executive who is buying up wineries in California and beyond.

del.icio.us Tags: China wine,French wines in China,Minneapolis Star Tribune,Bordeaux,Bordeaux estates sold to Chinese,New York wines,New York wines in China,Watertown Daily News,Jay McInerney Wall Street Journal,Bloomberg,Bloomberg Bill Foley,Bill Foley,Edward Deitch

Sips: More on the Super Bowl food and wine showdown

At least one of my NBC colleagues shook his head when I told him I was preparing a story on wines that would work well at a Super Bowl party with all its varied food possibilities. Like many, he's a beer man when it comes to the big game. But for those of you wondering about wines to serve with a Super Bowl spread, I have some suggestions, plus those of some of my wine friends, in my latest Weekend Wines post on the Bites blog of MSNBC.com. Beyond that, Karen Page and Andrew Dorenburg, authors of the new "Food Lover's Guide to Wine" and other books, offered me some of their suggestions.

They write: "For Super Bowl parties, we're all about the flexibility of bubbles for their food-pairing prowess, and all about whites so you don't have to worry if your friends spill on your couch (or you spill on theirs!) during a dramatic moment in the game -- so a good Prosecco would probably be our first choice (even though we also love good cava, we just got back from Italy!)."

Their choice for a red? "In honor of Andrew's hometown team (the 49ers, which was one good kick away from this year's Super Bowl), he'd pour a lighter-bodied, fruity California Zinfandel with the vegetarian chili he's hoping to get around to making."

And their recommendations for some of the most popular Super Bowl fare:

"Chicken wings: sparkling wine; or riesling, syrah/shiraz or zinfandel.

Chili: Beaujolais, Cotes du Rhone, syrah/shiraz or zinfandel.

Guacamole: Champagne, unoaked chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, torrontes.

Nachos: sparkling wine, torrontes (with white meat), zinfandel (with red meat).

Pizza (pepperoni or sausage): barbera, Chianti, lighter-bodied zinfandel.

Popcorn: Champagne or other sparkling wine.

Fudge brownies and chocolate chip cookies: Banyuls, port or Pedro Ximenez sherry."

Thank you, Karen and Andrew.

Swirls: BYOB? A tale of 2 restaurants, including one that brushes off a well-known NY retailer on a special night out

A couple of weeks ago, I was delighted with a dinner at our neighborhood bistro, Café du Soleil, on New York’s Upper West Side. The reason? For one thing, it perfectly satisfied the carnivorous cravings of our family of four, including hangar steak and leg of lamb for the parents, a steak au poivre for the 12-year-old and a good old hamburger for the 16-year-old (all with some of New York’s best French fries). Beyond the food was the price of a high-end bottle of California cab -- $20. This was not some special wine offer but the very modest (by New York standards) corkage fee the restaurant charges, which permitted us to enjoy  Hawk and Horse’s excellent 2007 Lake County Cabernet Sauvignon, which retails for $65 and which I had received as a press sample. Clearly the owners want to bring in business, and with good food and an encouraging bring-your-own-wine policy, I look forward to our next dinner there.

For Jamie Wolff, a partner at New York’s Chambers Street Wines, it was a far different experience when he and some friends sat down at a restaurant on New Year’s Eve. Jamie began to relate the experience the other day when I stopped by the store (one of the country’s leading retailers of artisanal, small-production wines) and told him about a piece I had written about ridiculous wine markups. I asked Jamie to send me an email about his experience, and here is some of what he wrote:

Sips: An odd couple that proves to be a superb food and wine matchup

I had a delightful revelation about food and wine the other night. But first, a little background on how I got there. For years, I’ve had an unwritten rule about Italian-inspired food: match it with Italian wines, which so often seem just the right choice. With linguine and white clam sauce is there anything better than a pinot grigio from Alto Adige or a Vernaccia di San Gimignano? Don’t tomato-based sauces, with or without meat, seem made for Chianti Classico or Barbera d’Alba? With that in mind, I was headed in the direction of Italian wine the other night as I made a simple sauce built around the last Ziploc bag of tomatoes I had picked at their peak ripeness in late summer and early fall, then frozen to be enjoyed many months later.

After cooking the tomatoes down and breaking them apart with a wooden spatula, I poured them into my favorite cast-iron skillet, in which I had sautéed three or four cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil. I tossed in a handful each of chopped basil and parsley  and a pinch or two of salt and cooked everything for a few minutes more. A quick taste revealed a sauce sweeter than anything that might have started in a can, confirming the rewards that come from the time and trouble of storing fresh tomatoes. Meanwhile, a pot of fusilli was now done to al dente, which I combined in the skillet with the sauce. To finish things off, I sprinkled a generous amount of chopped fresh mozzarella over the pasta and put the skillet under the broiler until the cheese and the top layer of fusilli were a crispy brown, but not burned (cast-iron is best for withstanding the high temperatures of the broiler).

Now about the wine. Since my instinct steered me toward Italy, I opened a bottle of red I had on hand, a negroamaro from Salento in Puglia. Alas, I knew immediately that this wine was not going to cut it. It was earthy with low acidity, a wine more for a juicy roast than a lively sauce. I wanted something that jumped out of the glass, a wine with refreshing acids that wouldn’t be overpowered by the tomatoes. And so, throwing caution to the wind, I opened a red from France’s Loire Valley I had bought that day.

By now you might be thinking it was a cabernet franc, the region’s principle red, or perhaps a pinot noir or a cot, as malbec is called there. In fact, it was the 2009 Gamay from Serge Batard’s Domaine Les Hautes Noelles, a Vin de Pays from this top producer of Muscadet from Cotes de Grandlieu sub-zone. Its transparent, light-ruby red color suggests a wine of delicacy that might easily be overpowered. But just the opposite was the case. Packed with flavor and with great underlying acidity and minerality, it more than held its own against the sauce and, slightly chilled, provided the perfect refreshing counterpoint. With flavors or red and black cherry, a touch of gingerbread and a very long finish, this is a wine of unusual finesse and, at just $10 here in New York, is one of the great bargains out there right now. Alcohol is 12 percent.

And so, my rule about Italian food and wine was broken. A humble gamay, the same grape grown in Beaujolais, proved itself exceptionally well with, of all things, a big-flavored pasta sauce. A Daniel Johness Selection, imported by Michael Skurnik Wines, Syosset, New York.

del.icio.us Tags: Daniel Johness Selections,Michael Skurnik Wines,Edward Deitch,Loire Valley reds,Loire Valley gamay,Gamay,Wine and food pairings,Domaine les Hautes Noelles,Serge Batard,Italian food and wine,Cotes de Grandlieu,Muscadet,Wines under $10,Wines under $20,Great wine values

Swirls: The coming out of organic wine -- some things to keep in mind

Suddenly, it seems, the organic wine crowd is coming out of the woodwork. From growers to importers to supermarkets and other retailers, the wine world is seizing on “organic” as never before. Some growers, of course, have been making natural wines for years, including quite a few in France’s Loire Valley where most choose not to call attention to the fact, preferring to let the wines speak for themselves. And many of them do as wines of distinction. So the bar is high for wineries that trumpet the fact that they are producing organic wines or wines made from organic grapes (I’ll explain the difference in just a minute). My guess is that the market is ready to embrace the organic wine movement more broadly, but the wines will have to demonstrate that they have character, passing the same critical (and consumer) taste tests that non-organic wines must endure.

One that does is Cirelli’s 2010 Trebbiano d’Abruzzo, a delightful and refreshing non-oaked white made from organic trebbiano grapes in the Abruzzo region of southern Italy. A group of friends really liked this $14 wine when we served it at a holiday dinner party a couple of weeks ago, and my only regret is that I didn’t buy three or four bottles of it from Chambers Street Wines here in New York, which, speaking of natural and organic and biodynamic wines, has pioneered the trend among retailers for some years now. With stone fruit, pear, herb and citrus notes, Cirelli’s trebbiano is enhanced by an underlying minerality and was excellent with cheeses and other appetizers. Alcohol is a modest and welcome 12.5 percent. (A Zev Rovine Selection, imported by Fruit of the Vine, Long Island City, New York.)

Few wines in this country are labeled “USDA Organic.” That’s because under Department of Agriculture rules, organic wines cannot contain added sulfites, which are used in varying degrees by the vast majority of wineries as a preservative (and which some people say gives them headaches). If a wine is made from organically grown grapes but has sulfites added, the label can only say that it is made from organic grapes, as with the Cirelli wine.

Before the other day, I couldn’t recall the last time I received a wine with the USDA Organic designation. The bottle was from Italy, La Cantina Pizzolato’s 2010 Organic Cabernet Sauvignon NSA, from the Piave appellation in the Veneto region. NSA refers to “no sulfites added,” and the labeling on this wine makes the point that it contains “naturally occurring sulfites.”

I didn’t quite know what to expect but was pleasantly surprised. It's a light cabernet with an almost unheard of alcohol level of 12 percent (most New World cabs are in the 13.5-15 percent range). It has good varietal character with red fruit and blueberry notes and a subtle herbal touch. Made without oak, it reminded me more of Beaujolais than Bordeaux and was stylistically as far away from California cab as you can get. Delicate and refreshing and a bargain at a suggested price of $11. Try it slightly chilled with chicken, pork and veal.

The wine was sent to me by Natural Merchants, an importer of organic and biodynamic wines in Grants Pass, Oregon. Interestingly, I received a press release the other day from Whole Foods Market announcing the fact that it was the only national retailer to carry NSA wines from Italy and Spain, including the cabernet and others from Pizzolato, which it described as “Italy’s top-selling organic winery.” Organic and NSA, it seems, are about to go mainstream.