The Corkdork - Wine and Food Musing

Chateauneuf Harvest has begun!

If you can read French, I urge you to check the Perrin family's (of Beaucastel fame) 2005 harvest blog. This year they have shot some great photos and each day has news of a new grape being harvested. Even at 8 a.m., reading about the Rousanne harvest made me crave that aromatic white wine!

As of today, several white grapes have been brought in --viognier, rousanne, marsanne, bourboulenc.  Syrah and grenache have begun to come in and the Perrins say the grapes are very beautiful.

The harvest changes day-by-day with some days being hot and calm, others sprinkels of rain or blustery with the Mistral.

Here's a shot I took at Beaucastel in January 2005 of 50,000 bottles of 98 Beaucastel Chateauneuf to wet your appetite!

Wrist in a Cast - CD taking a break

I tripped yesterday a.m. and cracked my wrist,so I can't type for a week or so.More soon. CD

Saison Dupont - Belgian Farmhouse Ale

I know the Corkdork was created for wine-talk, but this counts 'cause it has a cork closure! And what other beers are more wine-like than Belgians?

As I drained my glass, I really began to wonder how on earth I ended up with this. I picked up this bottle for around $5.00 at my best local grocery store, Lunardi's and immediately got down to doing some research about where this came from. Lunardi's usually has a very good wine section, and this must have been presented to the wine buyer by a saavy distributor. I'm not sure if the wine buyer actually tasted this or whether it was dumb luck that he snatched it up.

Brasserie Dupont is a small organic farmhouse producer (6500 hectolitres) that is still making cheese and bread as well as this amazing brew.

The cloudy apearance in Belgian beer, and this one especially, comes from refermentation of yeasts in the bottle. At the end of the beer making process, yeast is added to the bottle to turn the residual sugars into alcohol and CO2. Beers made in this traditional manner often through a hefty sediment as well.

The flavor is a lot like Duvel, heady and yeasty, with a bitter edge. One beer website called the head "rocky" and I can only understand that as referring to the fact that the head is like stiffly-beaten egg whites and doesn't smooth out as you drink it. You are left with a craggy head while you drink it.

While Duvel is a more refined brew, this has a distinct farmhouse earthiness to it that I respect and enjoy. I'll be looking for more of it!

WBW#13 Like Wine for Chocolate - Epilogue!

OK...maybe my tall glass of milk reaction wasn't in the spirit of the topic...Maybe even a tad flip. We're supposed to be compiling the list of wines that can stand up to chocolate. And I found one, that matches my desire for Tawny.

Warre's Otima is a very fine, 10 year old Tawny Port and is a great example of a blend that is probably better than the individual barrels that it was comprised of.

At first whiff, the scent of Vanilla is as pronounced as a fine Rum, like Pyrat XO Reserve. Scents of  light caramel and burnt sugar rise from the glass. The Port is full of fruit, but is not at all grape-y...just fresh.

Since the melt-in-your-mouth cake had no vanilla added, this was the wine I was looking for to compliment it. A lot of chefs say that adding vanilla to chocolate dishes actually makes it taste more chocolate-y, and this did the same thing.

Highly recommended and readily available for around 20.00 for 500 ml.

WBW#13 Like Wine for Chocolate

This month's theme, Like Wine for Chocolate was suggested by our blogging friend Clotilde at Chocolate and Zucchini. I think it's the first time we've had a specific food pairing to try and certainly the first where we had a recipe to try to match.

When I read the announcement, I immediatly thought of my favorite chocolate compliment,  Colheita Port. I have a real soft spot for ports of all kinds, and especially this vintage tawny port variety, little known outside Portugal, but readily available in the Bay Area, even at Whole Foods. I especially like Niepoort Colheita and have had many outstanding vintages. Try the Spanish Table for an excellent selection.

That being said...I didn't have time to get one, and I was out of stock at home...I did however, have a surprising treat in my cellar, a Zinfandel Port from Peachy Canyon. For a Zinfandel port, it's not really complex, but it's  lovely, with simple forward zinfandel fruit, very sweet, and heady with alcohol.

I tried this with Clothilde's excellent (nearly flourless) melt-in-your-mouth chocolate cake with amazing chocolate I brought back from France from the Valrhona factory in Tain Hermitage. At 70% cocao, it's wonderfully bittersweet and makes a rich, powerful, and very yummy treat, served with a little whipped cream.

In the end, however, the Port seemed just too sweet to go with such a sweet dessert, and the best foil for it seemed to be...

Yep. A nice glass of cold milk.