Los Olivos… wine, wine, wine…

It’s Tuesday, and I’m sitting in a cozy little coffee shop. I’ve just finished eating my breakfast special – egg, bacon and muenster on a jalapeño bagel, and now I’m sipping on my café au lait as I type this post.

I guess you could say today’s post is about living well, but then again, I kinda think all my posts (at least most) are about living well! It’s often ironic that I work in the wine world helping new wineries get started, and I seldom find the time to get out and taste wine. So, I’ve marked my calendar March 29 and 30th as wine tasting days. What better place then Los Olivos to taste.

We started at Buttonwood – small, charming, great inexpensive wines, and amazing grounds to relax and enjoy the beautiful day, peach trees with baby fruit, cherry trees with blossoms taking off – it was the BEST way to start our tasting journey!

What I find amazing is when you take the time to actually talk to the good people who work behind the wine counters, you discover so many enriching things, not just about wine, but about the people pouring the wine. For instance, the friendly elderly lady at Buttonwood, works just two days a week and her pay is wine – she’s collecting whites at the moment for her pending summer sipping. Then there was the totally eccentric lady at Rideux winery – she was wearing a wild psychedelic dress;  an artist who pours wine, because we all know most artists starve for their passion. From there it was on to Beckman – one of the highly regarded winers in the area, nice, but a tad uppity when they heard I worked in the Temecula wine business – their Grenache was amazing, but we decided not to buy. Three wineries in three hours, time for food. If you’ve seen Sideways, you’ve seen the sidewalk cafe that served as our lunch spot – FUN!!!

Since we were in town, it was time to visit the Los Olivos tasting rooms in this order – Carina, Tensley, Longoria. Adjectives to describe were: Carina – enthusiastic, Tensley – bothered, Longoria – real deal.

Needless to say, we joined both of Longoria’s clubs, the basic and the exclusive that only basic members can join – expensive, but we only have to accept one club shipment and then we can cancel if we wish… try getting that deal from a Napa winery… HA! Our last winery of the day, Rusack, was probably my favorite, not because the wine was the best, we picked good wineries all day, but because it was out in the country, on a screaming twisty-windy road, and the tasting room pourer – Georgia, was wonderful.

She was funny, sarcastic, not afraid to tell us where to taste, and let us go out the back road since we got there 5 minutes before closing and the main gate was closed off while we were there. She saw us coming in, watched us pause at the gate due to the time, and yet come in anyway, originally she said she’d only pour us two tastes, but ended up giving us the royal treatment – even gave us her 50% discount on the two Pinot Noirs we purchased; moral of the story – flirt BIG time with sassy ladies presiding over the tasting room!

Time to go – gotta go pick-up wine client wine samples from Rideux, then it’s off to the trifecta of Foley, Foxen and Gainey – I’m sure I’ll have more insight on living well tomorrow – hope you take the time to live well today too!!!

Lamb Burger Wednesday!!!

My good friend in Sacramento just sent me the following suggestions for Lamb Burgers!!! I had to post it verbatim because it sounds fantastic! Add a Greek salad, or my favorite grilled vegetables, and you have a feast. I LOVE LAMB and this is calling to me… How about you?

Complements of Brian in Sacramento:

“Not so much of a question, but over the past couple of years we’ve “discovered” ground lamb as a great substitute for ground beef.  We use it pretty much in any recipe where we would normally use ground beef (ie, spaghetti, meatloaf, etc.).  Our favorite usage of it, though, is “lamb-burgers”.  We will mix the ground lamb with crumbled feta cheese, ground cinnamon, and whatever other herbs and spices we have laying around–usually coriander, parsley, maybe fresh mint, crushed rosemary, salt, etc.  We form this into hamburger-sized patties and grill them just like hamburgers.  Serve this in a hamburger bun with a little bit of greek yogurt mixed with dill or just eat the burger by itself.”

Wine Pairing – Syrah/Shiraz, Zinfandel, Cabernet

Pinot and Pork = Perfection!!!

I sent out a coming-soon teaser on this a few days ago. It’s truly one of my favorite meals to cook, both for family meals and casual entertaining. I’ve even used it for culinary seminars because it includes so many culinary techniques – pan searing, roasting, cooking temps for perfect meat, harmonizing flavors, etc. Hope you enjoy it as much as I  do! The picture is my dinner from last night! And don’t stop reading til you get to the end of the post for the wine-pairing! I promise, it will entertain you ;-)

Pan Seared Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Creminis, Sweet Onions and Dried Cherries

Ingredients:

• 2 (approximately)2lb Pork center-cut tenderloins – they usually come two to a package.
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 3 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 3 Garlic cloves finely chopped
• 1 Small package cremini mushrooms – thinly sliced
• 1 large sweet yellow onion – thinly sliced
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 cup dried Cherries
• 2 Tablespoons fresh minced thyme

Method:

Preheat oven to 375. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in large oven proof sauté pan over medium heat. Season tenderloin with salt & pepper. Sear tenderloin in sauté pan until golden brown on each side; remove from heat.  Add remaining olive oil, sauté garlic, mushrooms and yellow onion until beginning to soften, add dried cherries, and half the wine (this will also deglaze the pan adding additional flavor). Cook until the wine is reduced, add the cherries, minced thyme and the remaining wine. Remove from heat, add the seared tenderloin back into the pan and place pan in oven to finish roasting.  Roast in oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until pork reaches an internal temperature of 135f, remove from oven and to rest pork for about 10 minutes – this should allow the pork to reach a finished temp of 140f – PERFECTION!!!

Plating:

Plate this wonderful tenderloin with mashed potatoes, or broad-cut pasta. Finish with some roasted red peppers for added plate texture and spoon pan jus over finished plate – OH, and don’t forget to complete your masterpiece with a sprig of fresh thyme!!!

Warning: Provocative picture ahead! But it’s also educational – “Pigeage”: The french term for punching down grapes during fermentation. This is how the color and flavors in the skins are continually reincorporated into the juice. At the wine production company I manage, all our wine is hand made and goes through “Pigeage” three times a day until the wine is put through the press after fermentation is complete! I picked this pic because the grapes are Pinot Noir.

Wine Pairing:

Pinot Noir, PERIOD!!!

Here’s why, a good Pinot Noir has a classic earthy nose sometimes reminiscent of mushrooms, or wet straw, with a fruity bouquet of bright cherries, raspberries, and a soft finish of tobacco. Truly one of the great wines of the world, and this dish SINGS with it for obvious reasons!!! Obvious you ask? Pork tenderloin is a low-fat cut of meat, and Pinots usually don’t have overly pronounced tannins, therefore they don’t need a lot of mouth-coating fat like a big Cabernet might. The mushrooms, and thyme harmonize with the earthiness of the wine, and the cherries… well, do I really need to point that one out? Bottom line is “THIS DISH IS A PARTY IN YOUR MOUTH WHEN PAIRED WITH A GOOD PINOT!!!” Sorry for my exuberance, just can’t help myself!

Please try this one! Let me know how it goes, and as always, recipe improvements are appreciated!

buggy info on “one of the most valued cultural and economic crops in the world”!

I’m copying in the following article from Oregon.gov. I thought it was very concise in explaining the pest issues grape farmers/wine producers have to deal with. Many of you may have heard of phylloxera, the granddaddy of all grape attacking pests. This article explains this, but what they fail to articulate clearly is that because this little aphid-like organism can’t hurt the lowly American rootstock grapes (labrusca), all European grape vines (vinifera) have to be grafted on it to survive, hence all the famed wines of France, Italy, Spain, etc can’t survive without the lowly Welch’s grape juice variety grapevine root stock. I surmise that this is the main reason the French hate us so… anyway, it’s an interesting read on many of the perils wine grapes must endure.

Grapes (Vitis spp.) are one of the most valued cultural and economic crops in the world. Unfortunately, grape plants are plagued by many natural enemies. Regulations governing the trade of grape plants are some of the most strict and complicated in the business. This grape regulation page will cover the common pests and pathogens and the various quarantines that apply.

Historically, one of the most important pest outbreaks on grapes began in 1860 in Europe. A tiny aphid-like organism called grape phylloxera, Daktulosphaira vitifoliae, was accidentally introduced from North America and spread throughout Europe. Grape phylloxera feed on leaves and roots of grape plants. The resulting damage causes root girdles that lead to severe decline or death of plants. North American grapes (Vitis labrusca) are fairly resistant to phylloxera but European wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) are highly susceptible. France in particular lost nearly 90% of all of its vines by the late 1800s. As a solution, grape plants throughout Europe were replaced with vines grown on North American rootstock.

More recently, Xylella fastidiosa, the bacterium that causes Pierce’s disease, gained a lot of attention in California. The disease was documented in California in the late 1800’s, but became a major problem with the introduction of the leafhopper insect, Homalodisca vitripennis, in the 1990’s. H. vitripennis, commonly known as the glassy-winged sharpshooter, was accidentally introduced into California from the southeastern United States. Pierce’s disease was able to spread rapidly with the aid of this vector insect. The disease destroys the water-conducting xylem of grape plants, leading to plant death in 1 to 5 years. California mounted an extensive control effort against the sharpshooter that appears to be paying off. There are currently hotspots of Pierce’s disease in Napa and Sonoma counties, and in other countries such as Mexico and Venezuela.

Another major concern for grape plant sanitation is viruses. Some resources claim that there are over 50 viruses known to infect grapes throughout the world. Viruses are especially worrisome because they can be difficult to detect, easy to spread, and difficult to control. Some grape viruses such as grapevine fanleaf virus (GFLV) and tobacco ringspot virus are vectored by nematodes (nepoviruses). Others such as grapevine leafroll-associated viruses (GLRaV) and corky bark disease are vectored by insects like leafhoppers and mealybugs. GLRaV is of special concern to Oregon at this time. The virus stunts plants and can reduce crop yield by as much as 40%. While GLRaV has already spread to all grape-growing regions of the world, it has a limited distribution in the Pacific Northwest.

The vine mealybug (Planococcus ficus) was recently introduced into California from Europe or Mexico in the mid-1990’s. P. ficus, like aphid, suck sap from host plants and result in reduced plant vigor. The mealybug is also more effective in spreading GLRaV than other vectors, and also excretes much more honeydew than other mealybug species. The honeydew alone can ruin a grape harvest. Vine mealybug has rapidly spread through California since it was first detected in 1994, but it has never been found in Oregon. The ODA recently adopted an emergency quarantine order for vine mealybug on grapes being transported into Oregon for crushing or as table stock.

Mailbag Friday

Question: In wine tasting and judging, what is the difference between aroma and bouquet? Brian, Sacramento

Answer: To many there is no major difference, but for some (me included) the aroma is the broader term for how the wine smells, the bouquet is its fruity aromatic notes. In other words “That Syrah has a wonderful aroma of smoke, licorice, and bacon fat and lovely fruity aromatics that include a beautiful bouquet of violets, blackberries and rich dried plums.”

COMING SOON: Pan seared pork tenderloin with braised onions, mushrooms and dried cherries – paired with Pinot Noir

Red, brown, or wild, it’s all good!!!

I frequently look in my fridge and observe what’s left-over, and ponder what to do with it! So the other day, I did pan seared salmon, my stand-by roasted veggies and steamed red rice. This rice is a chewy, nutty rice, and it was wonderful as a neutral balance for the meal. So next evening when I’m standing at the fridge pondering what to do, viola! Red rice = Rice Cakes! I had everything I needed to make a basic cake, and so I expanded my creativity as I forged ahead. The following recipe is my fast-born creation. As always, I’m a loosey-goosey cook, so feel free to adjust this recipe as needed to perfect it for you – one warning though: Be careful with the flour for the final binding, use it sparingly and just enough to hold them together for the pan searing. Too much flour and you’ll have gummy cakes… YUCK! Other than that, have fun and PLEASE do try them and let me know how they turned out and what you did to make them yours!!!

Red Rice Cakes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cooked red, wild, or brown rice
• ¼ cup toasted pine nuts
• ¼ cup minced dried cranberries
• ¼ cup minced green onions
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 egg – slightly beaten
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 4 Tablespoons flour
• 1 cup Panko bread crumbs
• 2 Tablespoons Clarified butter

Method:

Combine first 5 ingredients together in mixing bowl, when done stir in slightly beaten egg, season with salt and pepper, and add only enough flour to gently bind the mixture (mixture will still be sticky, don’t add too much flour or cakes may be gummy when done).

Put panko in a shallow bowl and reserve for coating cakes.

Shape mixture into small patties, and gently coat each patty with panko. When done shaping and coating rice cakes, heat clarified butter in small sauté pan over medium heat. When hot, place cakes in pan and cook on each side until golden brown. Remove from heat and reserve for plating.

Plating:

These cakes are wonderful as stand-alone appetizers, or as a first course on a bed of greens tossed in a light vinaigrette. They are also excellent topped with fruit chutneys, mango salsa, lemon aioli, etc. Trust your taste buds and have fun!

Wine Pairing:

These cakes are earthy,  savory, and a little sweet. A dry Riesling would be my first choice. It creates a nice counter-balance to the cakes, plus if you plate them with a vinaigrette the wine won’t be trounced by the acidity in the salad. Another choice would be a medium bodied Chardonnay or Viognier. Stay away from overly bright acidic whites like Pinot Grigio, or NZ Sauvignon Blanc. They are too bracing and bodacious if you’ve added the dried fruit. If you’ve omitted the dried fruit and kept them very savory, then these wines would work, but they’d HATE any sort of vinaigrette, so go the aioli route with them! MOST importantly, trust your palate… after all, you’re the one eating them!!!

Grilled Veggies – never enough!!!

I can’t help myself. not only are they beautiful to look at, but this is my favorite way to cook them PERIOD!

Patrick’s same ol’ same ol’ grilled veggies

• Asparagus
• Onions
• Bell Peppers
• Mushrooms
• Any thing else you’d love to grill with these (not zucchini – I’ve got another recipe for that later), just watch the density (remember my roasted root veggies density rule!)

Preheat the oven to 400f, clean and prep the veggies, toss them in your favorite olive oil, add some balsamic if you’d like, season with kosher or sea salt and cracked pepper, toss in some fresh or dried herbs if you’d like, arrange them artfully on the roasting pan (this is essential if you want them to be happy in the roasting phase), and roast them for about 15 minutes, or until they are al dente – eat them alone, or if you have to, add some protein – steak, chicken, pork, pasta… it’s all good!

Mailbag Saturday – starved for water…

Question:

With the recent news of a moth in Napa that likes to snack on Cabernet grapes, I saw a brief mention that Temecula was hit hard by the glassy winged sharpshooter a few years back.  Do you have any insights on the history of that event? Brian, Sacramento

Answer:

“Hit hard” is an understatement. Ravaged is more like it! Pierce’s disease (the name of the virus carried by the Glassy Winged Sharp Shooter) was (and still is) such a scare for the California wine industry that all Temecula grapes were quarantined for many years. The history if this blight is complicated, so I did what any lazy blogger would do, I searched out a very interesting article on the subject. I’m attaching the recent article published in the Riverside Press Enterprise. This article talks about what’s currently happening, the history of Pierce’s disease and what’s currently being done to control/stop it. And people think wine is easy to make… HA!!!

Click here for news link on Glassy Winged Sharp Shooter

Friday, Madonna and Cranium enhancement!

I’m a bad blogger… AGAIN! I guess I need to start drinking and cooking more for added inspiration! But on a positive note, today’s Friday and for most of us this means the end of a busy week. I’m doing something crazy on my Friday night… I’m heading out to an uber swanky bar at 10PM to listen (and presumably view on large video screens) the new Madonna album. I didn’t used to be a big fan of hers, but I’ve come to truly love her music. Plus she’s older than me by one year, and looks fantastic… inspiration enough to love her if you ask me. How this relates to food or wine, or living well is beyond me. But in honor of my mission, here goes. Madonna, like any true artist who’s stood the test of time, tends to conjure up a time and place with each song archived in our cranium. Generally these times and places involve some sort of eating or imbibing. Take tonight for example, when I look back on this and hear a song from this album that connected for me, it will also take me back to the event. Probably how I felt at the time, what I looked like, who I was with, and what I ate and drank.

To this day, when I hear Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, I think of the time I was sitting in my first car – a 1975 Plymouth Fury painted baby puke yellow that I referred to it as my golden fury. I was in the parking lot of a small dysfunctional pentecostal church , resisting the pressure to come inside and join the motley choir of 10 faithful church members. The song blasted on my 8 track player…. hmmm, must have been around 1977, or 78, and it was summer. Every time I hear that song it takes me right back to that moment in time – and for the record, I was eating a large order of Tastee Freeze fries with a shake; my friend Tim was in the car with me, also resisting the pressure to sing in the choir – and his mom was the choir director!

I bet you have a similar story. Maybe it’s time for a new one. Maybe you’ll find the time to live well tonight. Maybe you’ll go, hear a song from a favorite artist and connect it to the moment. Maybe it will be a source of fond memories for you for many years to come. Let me know how yours turns out, I’ll let you know about mine too!

Gnocchi!!!

I promised and here it is! It’s not my recipe, but it’s truly the BEST recipe for gnocchi I’ve found! The recipe is from the Tre Vigne cookbook. It’s written by Michael Chiarello. His method is what makes this special… baking the potatoes rather than boiling so their glutens aren’t as pronounced making a very light and fluffy gnocchi. These delectable little darlings are often called Angel Pillows, and this recipe truly supports that image; they are super easy to make. When I make them, I do the roll out, cut them into bite sized pieces and then simply press a dimple in the middle of each one – this works just as well as the fork roll, and is much faster.

Once you get the hang of it, trying experimenting with enhanced versions – use sweet potatoes (I’d suggest half sweet and half regular since sweet potatoes are more dense). Add some fresh herbs to the dough for extra zing. Gnocchis traditionally hail from Northern Italy. The Northern Italian cuisine is more influenced by the Swiss and Germans than the rest of Italy – more cream, butter, less olive oil, etc. So, in keeping with this, try simple cream based sauces, or browned butter and sage with Parmigiano-Reggiano as a finish… GET CREATIVE!!!

Ingredients:

• Kosher salt
• 1 pound russet potatoes
• 3 to 4 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon gray salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting board and dough

Method:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Spread a layer of kosher salt on a baking sheet and arrange the potatoes on top. Bake until a bit overcooked, about 45 minutes. Let sit until cool enough to handle, cut in half, and scoop out the flesh. Reserve the potato skins, if desired, for another use.

Pass the potatoes through a potato ricer or grate them on the large holes of a box grater. You should have about 2 cups. Make a mound of potatoes on the counter with a well in the middle, add 3 of the egg yolks, the cheese, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Mix in the potatoes and mix well with hands. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the flour over the potatoes and, using your knuckles, press it into the potatoes. Fold the mass over on itself and press down again. Sprinkle on more flour, little by little, folding and pressing the dough until it just holds together, (try not to knead it.) Work any dough clinging to your fingers back into the dough. If the mixture is too dry, add another egg yolk or a little water. The dough should give under slight pressure. It will feel firm but yielding. To test if the dough is the correct consistency, take a piece and roll it with your hands on a well-floured board into a rope 1/2-inch in diameter. If the dough holds together, it is ready. If not, add more flour, fold and press the dough several more times, and test again.

Keeping your work surface and the dough lightly floured, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 1/2-inch in diameter. Cut into 1/2-inch-long pieces. Lightly flour the gnocchi as you cut them. You can cook these as is or form them into the classic gnocchi shape with a gnocchi board, ridged butter paddle, or the tines of a large fork turned upside down. Rest the bottom edge of the gnocchi board on the work surface, then tilt it at about a 45 degree angle. Take each piece and squish it lightly with your thumb against the board while simultaneously pushing it away from you. It will roll away and around your thumb, taking on a cupped shape — with ridges on the outer curve from the board and a smooth surface on the inner curve where your thumb was. (Shaping them takes some time and dexterity. You might make a batch just for practice.) The indentation holds the sauce and helps gnocchi cook faster.

As you shape the gnocchi, dust them lightly with flour and scatter them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper or waxed paper. Set gnocchi filled cookie sheet in front of a fan on low for 1/2 hour (turning gnocchi after 15 minutes). If you will not cook the gnocchi until the next day or later, freeze them. Alternatively, you can poach them now, drain and toss with a little olive oil, let cool, then refrigerate several hours or overnight. To reheat, dip in hot water for 10 to 15 seconds, then toss with browned butter until hot.

When ready to cook, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add salt. Drop in the gnocchi and cook for about 90 seconds from the time they rise to the surface. Remove the cooked gnocchi with a skimmer, shake off the excess water, and serve as desired.

Cook’s Note: Baking potatoes on a layer of salt allows heat to circulate 360 degrees. Scrape the salt into a jar and reuse it again and again. If you do not have time to shape the gnocchi, you can freeze the dough, defrost it in the refrigerator, and then shape it. To freeze shaped gnocchi, line baking sheets with waxed paper and dust with flour. Spread the gnocchi on the prepared sheets and freeze until hard. Remove to individual-portion-size freezer bags. Store in the freezer for up to 1 month. To cook, drop the frozen gnocchi into boiling salted water. Cook for about 2 minutes after they rise to the surface.