Spa Wine

Sometimes you want a big wine, a wine that' s bold and brash and practically a meal in itself with chewy tannins and lots of body. But sometimes you want something light, lean, and fresh. I call these "spa wines," wines that seem to refresh you and clear the cobwebs out of your palate as much as a day at the spa. I often find myself drawn to this kind of wine after a long day at work, or if I've been drinking too many brawny reds and eating too much steak.

A wine that certainly qualifies as a "spa wine" in my book is the 2005 Domaine de la Fruitière Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Cuvée Petit M. ($8.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; available elsewhere for between $8 and $10) This wine had delicate fresh lime and mineral aromas, which conjured up images of citrus trees and walks on the beach. When you sipped the wine, it had light and lean lime, grapefruit, and stone flavors. This muscadet was lithe and supple like a yoga class, not heavy and muscular. This was not a terribly complex muscadet, but is was delicious, and at under $10 it certainly represented very good QPR.

With such a light wine, I certainly didn't want to weigh it down with heavy or rich food. This wine screams out for shellfish or fish. While it is a brilliant pairing for something as light and lean as it is, it could handle something a bit more decadent, too. We had it with an Asian salmon rice bowl with lots of lime and some tangy cucumbers and it was lovely. But the last bit of the wine was just as good with a decadent Nigella Lawson shrimp and mango curry with coconut milk. This is in her new book, Nigella Express, which is due out next week (Oct. 30) here in the US. I scored a copy in England last month, and can testify that the curry recipe is worth the price of the book. Not precisely spa food, with all that coconut milk, but awfully good nonetheless.

Dining Solo by the Sea

Sometimes, you have a special bottle of wine you want to drink, and that dictates what you're having for dinner that night. Other times, you know what you want to eat, and will go out and get a bottle of wine even if you have a cellar full in order to feed the need.

Yesterday I knew that before the sun had set I was going to have an ample plate of linguine alle vongole. I wanted to think I was by the sea, with the saline tang of the air in my nose and the taste of fresh seafood on my lips, perhaps because after several days of warm summery weather we are back to rain and sweaters (I know no one outside LA thinks this is a particularly dramatic weather tale). And I was alone for the evening, so I could do exactly as I pleased in the food and wine department.

So I went out and bought some beautiful Manila clams from Whole Foods--or Whole Paycheck as it is known in our house and many other houses-- and set them in a bowl of water so they could spit out any last sand they had carried with them from the ocean. While they sat, I put a pot of water on to boil. Once you let the clams soak for 30 minutes or so, and the water's ready, you're only about 7 minutes (including such onerous prep chores as mincing garlic and chopping parsley) from the meal itself.

I made my linguine alle vongole from Nigella Lawson's recipe in Feast, but it's not online and Tyler Florence's is, so here's a link. (For what it's worth, the idea of topping it with breadcrumbs is awful, so I'd skip that "option" if I were you.) Ms. Lawson includes this wine in her section dedicated to dinners for one--which she says are the most important meals of all to make and revel in. So, no drinking wine from a box or poking through my limited collection of half bottles of wine for me tonight! I was going to celebrate dining solo and open a bottle of muscadet from the Loire coast to go with my linguine.

I'm not sure why I thought this pairing would work, but I think it had something to do with my conviction that Loire whites often have a nice, mineral tang that would go well with my clams. The 2004 Chateau de la Preuille Muscadet des Coteaux de la Loire ($13.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; also available at Terranova and WineSellar.com for around $20) hails from the Nantais wine region which borders the Loire as it approaches the sea. Made from melon de bourgogne grapes (also known as muscadet) it was aged in barrels with the remnants of the yeasty lees left over from fermentation. This aging method makes the wine more complex and rich. It's bright gilt color conjures up images of sun and sand and the golden flesh of Anjou pears. Once you sip this, your immediate first impression is of a round and dry white, with pronounced mineral aromas and light whiffs of citrus and pear. As the flavors develop in your mouth, the citrus and pear take over, moving the mineral notes to the background for a juicy finish. This would be a nice change of pace for folks who like unoaked chardonnay, with its interesting minerality and round, full feeling. This wine represented good QPR and certainly will encourage me to try some more muscadet from the Loire. And it was darn good with my linguine.

One of the things I like most about wine is the way that it can transport you to different times and different places. Drinking my Spanish wine the other night, I could almost feel that I was sitting under one of those Spanish windmills, hearing the creak of the blades as they turned in the wind. With my clams and Loire white I found myself dining alone in some imaginary Franco-Italian seaside.

Not bad for $13.95.

Saturday Wine Shopping--The Houseguests are Coming

Because my sister-in-law and her husband are coming from New Jersey to stay with us for a week, I decided to go wine shopping. This is in spite of the fact that I know exactly which wines I'm going to serve with each meal I'm cooking all week already, and they are already in the house. Perhaps it's the anticipation of empty spots on the wine racks. We are looking forward to checking out some of the area wine bars while they are here, so stay tuned for reviews of those.

I scrounged around Whole Foods in Pasadena, where I was reminded once more that their wine is overpriced (though they do have a good selection of organic and biodynamic wines). I went to Trader Joe's on Rosemead, where I was reminded that they give you hardly any information on the shelf talkers. So, it was off to Chronicle Wine Cellar. (Here is a picture of the interior, nicked off their website--thanks to Chronicle Wine Cellar!)

For those of you who live in LA and haven't been to Chronicle Wine, you should consider a trip out to the east side. Go to the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens (the weather is gorgeous and the fall plant sale is on this weekend), then to to Pie 'n' Burger, the legendary establishment where you can eat at chipped brown formica tables, chowing down on burgers with Thousand Island Dressing and iceberg lettuce that is folded into squares to fit the bun. (I know, but people do come from miles around). After you eat, head out of the store, turn left then left again down a kind of daunting alley, and under the apartments you will see a plain door with some Christmas lights around the door. Do not be alarmed--just go in.

What I love about Chronicle Wine Cellar (other than the wine) is that they have about half a dozen people working there (singly or in pairs, usually) and no matter who is in the store, they are friendly, informed, and honest. I'm so sick of going into wine stores and asking questions only to have them make stuff up. Today I asked Bob, who was on his own this morning, if he'd had the wine I was about to buy and he said no without hesitation. He also recommended a wine I knew nothing about, but he said the buzz on it in the shop was good. They have great shelf-talkers, which are a combination of published wine reviews and staff wine reviews. I trust their staff reviews completely--if they say its a good value wine, I buy it without worrying about being taken in (see honesty, above). Chronicle Wine Cellar is a bit like Odd Bins used to be in the UK when it was just a few tiny shops with lots of small quantities of wine that you never saw anywhere else.

Chronicle Wines has a particularly nice selection of French wine, along with a great US pinot noir section and some fine cabernets and chardonnay. Today, they had some new arrivals: Pierre-Marie Chermette's high-end 2005 Fleurie Les Garants ($16.95), 2004 Chateau de La Preuille Muscadet Sur Lie Tete de Cuvee ($13.95), and 2004 La Craie Vouvray ($7.95). So I picked those up to fill in some of those impending vacancies on the old wine rack and went home to clean the house!