Wine Pairings for Easter

Traditional Easter foods like ham and lamb present all kinds of interesting wine pairing choices.

Let's consider a typical Easter meal:

Appetizers and salads:

Sauvignon Blanc and dry sparklers are good choices here. After all, you want to get the taste buds ready for the main courses with your appetizers, and the higher acidity in these wine choices will get those salivary glands pumping away.

We usually have some hard boiled eggs with the apps, and these wine choices will work just fine with the eggs as well. 

Beware of horseradish though. If you load up your egg with pepper and horseradish, like I do, you will want to reach for something with less acid, like a Chardonnay or a Rose.

Ham:

German or Alsatian Rieslings are perfect if you're going with white wines. Stick with your lighter reds like Pinot Noir or a Spanish Grenache.

Lamb:

My go to wine here is red Bordeaux. Syrah is also a classic pairing. While some of our domestic Syrahs might be too big and overwhelm the lamb, a Syrah/Grenache blend from Chateauneuf du Pape would be ideal.

Dessert:

Your chocolate bunnies will go nicely with those red wines or a port. A Sauternes or Icewine all by itself is also a great way to finish the meal.

Have a great weekend and a happy Easter!

Tom

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Are Fine Wine Lovers Snobs?

If you google "snob definition" Webster says: A person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people: "a wine snob".
Is there some implication being made here by Webster? 
Are they picking on us wine people?
I never thought of myself as a snob, but, I bet there are people out there who do - simply because I love wine.
Well, I guess there's not much I can do about what other people think. 
Wine Spectator editor Tim Fish wrote about wine snobs in his blog and he made this insightful comment: "There's an easy way to tell when you're dealing with snobs: They spend more time telling you what not to drink than offering ideas on what you might like".
I'll go along with that.
So here's a great wine that I enjoyed this weekend with my family - something you might like:
2012 Chappellet Chardonnay
A rich, oaky/buttery style with loads of green apple, pear, peach and butterscotch. We didn't have this wine with our meal, but enjoyed it beforehand all by itself. 
It would, however, pair well with chicken, white fish and especially shell fish, like lobster.

Tom

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A Wine You Must Try Before You Die?

Fine wines, cult Cabernets, First Growth Bordeaux, Grand Cru Burgundies and Chablis, great Champagne and important wines from nearly every major wine producing country.
That's what you would expect to see in Neil Beckett's excellent book 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die.
So, it's Thursday night, I'm reading the book, and what do I see?
Page 89 - Mateus Rose'??
What?
I do a quick sanity check: It's not too late and I'm definitely awake. I'm not Drunk.
But there it is, right in front of my face - Mateus Rose'.
I haven't thought about that wine in a long long time.
Actually though, Mateus has some sentimental significance in my life.
This was the first wine I ever drank, and I thought it was pretty good. My friends and I would pour the wine into flasks and sneak it into late night movies when we had nothing better to do. Of course we were all over 21, and the movies were of the highest repute at the time.
Mateus Rose'. A wine to taste before you die.
Available at most drug stores, grocery stores and gas stations for around $4 a bottle.

Have a great weekend!

Tom

Mateus Rose. Label from mid 1970's

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Wine 101 - Reviewing the Basics

I'm going to be giving an "Intro to Wine" class this week.
It's always fun and informative to review the basics, so I thought I would prepare for the class with this blog.
SST. See - Smell - Taste.
Start by pouring wine into a clear wine glass. The ideal amount should be 5-6 ounces and the glass should be about one-third full. Never more than half full.
Now, tilt the glass and look at the wine. Hold it against a blank white sheet of paper to really examine the color and clarity.
Whites should be clear and light yellow to bright gold. Reds should be light red to dark purple.
Look for cloudiness, sediment and crystallization, which could signal flaws in the wine.
Beware of the color orange in both whites and reds. It's an indication of oxidation, or, that the wine is past its prime.
Next, swirl the wine in the glass to give it air, then stick your nose in the glass and smell the wine. Do this a couple of times and try to identify what your nose is experiencing.
Are you getting fruit, oak, minerality and spice? Those are good things
Are you getting wet cardboard, stewed prunes or manure? Not so good.
Finally, taste the wine. Take a good mouth full and swish it around all the surfaces of your mouth. Swallow the wine and enjoy the "finish" or the lingering aftertaste of the wine. How long does it last? Great wines have long finishes that can last up to a minute.
Tasting is the best way to learn about wine - what you like and what you don't. And it's fun!
Balaban's has wine tastings all the time. On Saturday from 1 - 3pm, we always taste two whites and two reds.
And it's complimentary.
Hope to see you here soon.
Tom

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Is Your Wine Dumb, Fat or Flabby?

Dumb, fat and flabby are not very flattering words when applied to people, and they're not so great when describing wine either.
Big red wines like Bordeaux and Cabernet Sauvignon can be wonderful when young and spectacular with many years of aging. But sometimes, in between their youth and senior years, the wines can close up and just not taste very good. Guess what? The wine has gone dumb on you. Sometimes decanting the wine for several hours can bring the wine out of its dumb state, and sometimes ... it doesn't help at all.
Sometimes the wine just needs time - in some cases, lots of time.
When a wine is fat, it will typically be high in alcohol and one dimensional. In other words, the wine will actually feel fat in your mouth without the balance of acid and tannins which give the wine structure.
Where "fat" typically describes a condition of red wine, flabby relates more to whites. The conditions, however, are similar. A flabby white will just taste like grape juice. It will lack the acid that is necessary to provide balance to the fruit. The wine will lack character, will not pair well with food and will be, well, flabby.
That is why the great dessert wines of Sauternes, while extremely sweet, are not flabby at all because of the fruit/acid balance.
Have a great weekend!

Tom

Rose' vs White Zinfandel

Rose' wines get a bad rap.
That's because Rose' is typically associated with White Zinfandel.
According to Wine Spectator, White Zin is often made with relatively low-quality grapes and blended into a consistent house style that give it a fruit-punch flavor profile and sweet finish. Rose, on the other hand, is made from higher- to very high-quality red wine grapes (Cabernet and Pinot Noir, for example), and it can be very nuanced and even complex. It gets its lighter color because of the way it’s made; the juice has less contact with the grape skin.
Here at Balaban's, we'll carry 3-4 different Rose' wines through the Spring and Summer. Rose' becomes less popular as you get into Fall, but, that really shouldn't be the case.
These are very versatile, food friendly wines. Besides being great all by themselves, they pair well with salads, fish, barbecue and and pretty much anything you cook on the the grill except for maybe your heartiest red meats.
So, if you haven't given a good Rose' a try in a while, stop by the Balaban's Open House on Thursday, April 24th. We will be pouring several new releases for Spring and there will be at least two Roses.

Tom 

The beautiful shades of Rose'

Napa Valley Dreaming ...

We had a Napa Valley theme going this week at Balaban's.
On Wednesday, Scott K had a Cabernet Sauvignon tasting, most of which were from Napa Valley.
And on Thursday, my newsletter focused on 4 Napa Valley Cabs.
As much as I love Napa, I probably won't be going back any time soon. There are just too many other wine regions to visit on my "bucket list", and I've been to Napa several times. Oregon, Washington, Paso Robles and Italy are all on the "to do" list before Napa gets another visit.
Even though Napa has changed immensely over the years, I still strongly recommend it as a wine touring destination. The countryside is gorgeous, the weather is usually perfect, there are restaurants galore, and then there's all that amazing wine.
Be aware of a couple of things though: If you go during the Summer or Fall over a weekend, prepare yourself for major crowds. My favorite time to go is during the off season in January or February. You may have to deal with a day or two of bad weather, but the whole experience is much more manageable. You're also more likely to meet wine owners and winemakers in a more laid back atmosphere.
The second thing to remember is to bring money - lots of money.
Lodging, dining, gas and souvenirs are all expensive, and just about all of the major wineries charge for their tastings - some as much as $50 or more per person.
And then, once you're there, and all caught up in the moment, you're going to buy wine and probably join a few wine clubs.
That's just what happens.
One last thing: don't "wing it". Plan your dining and wining destinations in advance. While it's always fun to spontaneously pull into a small winery you never heard of and taste their wine, many of the wineries, and certainly the best restaurants will require appointments and reservations.
Here are three of my favorite wine tours - all require appointments in advance:
Schramsberg: start your day with a tour of the caves, learn how great Champagne style sparkling wine is made and then taste some of the best domestic sparkling wines made.
Anderson's Conn Valley: wander through the caves with either the owner or winemaker tasting wine from the barrels. Then, sit in the tasting room to sample great Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet blends.
Chappellet: Stroll through the vineyards on Pritchard Hill sampling wonderful, Chardonnay, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and much more.
Have a great weekend!

Tom