Co-inky-dinky

A salesman is about to leave the store without and order for the week, he turns as he is in the doorway and says "oh, that Bordeaux you like is almost gone, want any?" I love the wine and many customers do so I grab a bunch more.

Same day, first time customer walks into store and says " my friends served me a delicious Bordeaux the other night that they bought here, I would like a case."

That night an out of state friend tells me how much he loved that Bordeaux I sent him home with.

The Bordeaux? 2003 Chateau Montlisse from St. Emilion. A Cabernet Franc led Bordeaux blend from an erratic quality year that is pure delicious and tastes like Bordeaux. The heat of 2003 was not nice to many makers of Bordeaux as they tended to taste like American wines. Chateau Montlisse either got lucky or knew what they were doing. Now, it is still a 2003 vintage and I don't wan't any in my cellar 10 years from today, but for a tasty classic example of right bank Bordeaux, you get perfection for only $29.99 a bottle. Cheap by Bordeaux standards, cheap for wine of this quality. As for food, this is Bordeaux, and it loves lamb.

Ham or Lamb?

Thanksgiving, turkey is served but at Easter most people have either ham or lamb. As always with big gatherings, match the wine to the guests first and the food second. After all, they are the ones drinking it, not the cooked meat.

Ham is pork, cured with smoke and salt. To counterbalance the smoke and the salt, most people glaze their hams. The salty, smokey, sweet combination needs to be harmonized with the fruitiest wine you can stand. My first choice would be a German Riesling of Spatlese or Auslese level. Spatlese literally means to pick late. If you leave fruit on the vine longer, it gets sweeter naturally. Auslese means to pick out. As bunches are hand harvested, some of the bunches are noticeably riper, sweeter, than other. These extra sweet bunches are placed in a separate smaller hod attached to the normal size hod on the backs of the pickers. An inexpensive but good Spatlese is the Schmidt-Sohne around $11 a bottle. Most Spatleses are between $20-30 a bottle. I have two from the 2002 vintage, from the same producer but two different vineyard sites. Langwerth von Simmern is the producer, the two great vineyard sites are Hattenheimer Wisselbrunnen and Erbacher Marcobrunn, each around $30 a bottle.

Lamb is easier. Your favorite red wine not Pinot Noir. Yup, this is the show-off meat for any red wine other than Pinot Noir. Bordeaux, California, Italy, Spain, on and on just pick your or your guests favorite. To be fair, some people like Pinot Noir with lamb. I am not one of them.

And of course this year after dinner is done, you can choose to watch the Red Sox play the Yankees in Boston. On a rare warm and dry night in April, if you choose to believe the meterologists.

The Final Pump

The Moon burst through the clouds in a Biblical style reminiscent of a Charlton Heston movie.

The pumps are silent.

I am exhausted. Another quickie.

I love lamb for Easter. Or just about any other dinner. Lamb makes red wine taste better. With the exception of Pinot Noir. Lots of people like Pinot Noir with lamb, I don't, but it's my blog so there.

My sister-in-law hates lamb, we are going to her house for Easter. No lamb. But, if we were not going to her house. I would bring something yummy and red. This year the 2007 reds from the Rhone Valley of France are fabulous. For a big crowd, any Cotes du Rhone will work. This year the Chateau d'Oupia from Minervois is a knockout. A blend of many grapes it is complex and just tasty.

Off to bed. Sorry

Rain, rain go away!

Another 3-6 inches of rain due today in the Boston area. Since two storms ago flooded my basement and its now cleared of everything, it's time we go for the world record here and shoot for 41 days and nights. Oh, well.

I wanted a wine to warm me up. Flavors, aromas, alcohol and body, I want it all in one red wine.
Aglianico is the grape, southern Italy is the place, Selvanova is the company and Vigna Antica (old vines) is the quality. Big, spicy earthy flavors and aromas exude from the big and tannic red wine. No red sauce for this baby, I want my favorite cold, dank, dreary day, red wine meat, lamb. And I want the lamb marinated in lots of Rosemary and garlic and olive oil and gin, yes gin, and lemon juice. Roasting that lamb-herb concoction fills my house and the neighbors houses with amazing aromas that get the old digestive juices pumping faster than a sump. I once cooked this dish over the fire in the fireplace, it flares up a lot if you are daring, have the fire extinguisher ready. To make the meal complete, I have to have Garlic Roast Potatoes. The recipe comes out of Jasper White's first cookbook, Cooking in New England. If I remember correctly the recipe is called Freddie's Roast Potatoes. If you do this recipe right, double the batch, you will still run out. They are that good. Heck, it's worth to buy the book for that one recipe but all the others I have tried are fabulous. I even thing the lamb marinade came out of the same book.

Back to the wine. Open and decant the bottle an hour before serving. Same time as the potatoes take.

12 done 588 to go.

South African Syrah

Another great find from this year's Cape Cod Spring Fling Tasting was the Graham Beck The Ridge Syrah 2005 at $29.99 a bottle. Graham Beck is on my short list of best all-around bang-for-the-buck winemakers in the world. Although most of them are under $20 a bottle, this amazing Syrah is a steal at 30.

Syrah and elegance are two words that are rarely in the same sentence. The Graham Beck Syrah is elegant. Silky smooth in the mouth it has typical gamey-peppery syrah flavors without the barnyardy typicity of Rhone wines nor the Raspberry fruitiness of Australian Shiraz, same grape, different spelling. In combination with this elegance is still the power you expect from a Syrah.

This is a great choice if you plan on serving a leg of lamb for Easter dinner. Smooth enough for the occasional wine drinking relative and complex enough for the astute wine drinker. I can't wait to try it with marinated lamb chops on the grill.

Graham Beck makes a few different Syrahs, make sure you get the one that has "The Ridge" on the label.

11 down, wow this is fun!