Happy Holidays

Wishing you and yours happy holidays and best wishes for a peaceful and healthy New Year. And a big thanks to all who contributed to the Menu for Hope III. Together, wine and food bloggers and their readers donated $58,256.70 towards this worthy project. Raffle winners will be announced on 15 January 2007.

(more information on this Michael Regnier photograph can be found on Alder Yarrow's Vinography. )

Saturday Wine Shopping: Holiday at the Beach

Being as how it's the holidays, and absolutely GORGEOUS here in LA, we headed out to Malibu for brunch at Marmalade Cafe, home of huge portions and fast service. They're tucked into a little shopping center with a wine shop (surprise!), so after we had our nosh I headed into Malibu Village Wines for a look around.

Malibu Village Wines is a small, independent wine store with wine packed floor to ceiling. What an interesting, thoughtful selection of wines they have, all clearly pulled together by real wine lovers. A wide range of Santa Barbara and local wines is complemented by truly eclectic finds from all over the world. Their Australian and Italian selections were particularly impressive, with multiple offerings from Kilikanoon and Thorne-Clarke.

My favorite find courtesy of their friendly staff's savvy wine-scouting was a 2005 Curran Grenache Blanc from the Santa Ynez Valley ($25.50). Kris Curran (of Sea Smoke Pinot fame) now has her own label, and this is one of her offerings. I've never had a Grenache Blanc, but I am looking forward to the experience! Other finds were a 2004 Snoqualmie Naked Gewurztraminer ($12.50) made from organic grapes and a 2006 Fetish Wines Moscato Field of Dreams ($16.00) from the Barossa Valley in Australia.

Their prices are very reasonable, especially given the chi-chi surrounds, and they offer mixed case discounts to their customers. For those of you outside LA: Malibu Village Wines doesn't retail over the internet, since they prefer to specialize in serving their local customers. But for those of us who live here--or are visiting this beautiful part of the world--take a moment to smell the fresh air coming off the Pacific and head out to Malibu.

A Textbook Cabernet: the 2002 Peter Lehmann Barossa"

I've been pretty remiss in my coverage of cabernet sauvignon, one of the world's greatest red grape varietals. A fascinating post by Fred Koeppel on his relatively new blog, Bigger than Your Head, wonders if cabernet sauvignon truly is the king of grapes, the "stake in the ground" that shapes what we think red wine should be. That was my inspiration to pull out this wine and a flank steak from the deep-freeze and remind myself what the grape is all about.

One of the reasons that I don't drink much cabernet is that it is not the most versatile wine when it comes to pairing with food--though I would be grateful for any suggestions apart from "grilled red meat" that people feel goes well with the varietal. We don't eat as much red meat--grilled or otherwise--as we used to, and so cabernets have become relative rarities in my wine storage and on my table.

The food pairing problems stem in part from cabernet's varietal characteristics. Typically, cabernets exhibit flavors of green pepper, bay leaf, and currant. With processing, they can take on notes of vanilla, oak, and smoke. With bottle age they acquire flavors of earth, leather, and cedar. These flavors are often big and overpowering, and are the preamble to a dry, even astringent tannic finish. Cabernets are wines that are well-suited to years of cellaring to soften, integrate, and mellow out the flavors. Heavily oaked cabs, or those grown in warm weather regions, can sometimes be jammy and extracted, thereby loosing most of the vegetal greenness typical of the grape.

The 2002 Peter Lehmann Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon is a textbook cabernet with very good QPR. It cost me $15.99 in a small independent grocery store, and a quick look at Wine-Searcher revealed that there are bottles for sale all over the US for between $13 and $18. The 2002 growing season in the Barossa Valley was very cool, which makes this cabernet sauvignon much more typical of an old world wine in flavors (though it is still a substantial 14.5% alc/vol). True garnet in color, when first opened it had pronounced aromas of green pepper. After 20 minutes in the glass, currants and bay leaf aromas developed. These aromas were echoed in the flavors, along with a touch of tar (from 12 months in French and American oak) and cedar (from bottle age).

This wine has all the classic varietal characteristics of a cool-weather cabernet. I find it interesting that my fellow wine lovers over on Cellar Tracker! find this wine "thin" and a bit green--perhaps because they are used to the fruitier flavor profile of a Napa cabernet. The 2002 Peter Lehmann "The Barossa" is not huge, it's not over the top, and it's still probably a bit young. If you buy a bottle or have one in your wine rack already, I'd keep it in a cool place for another 2-3 years. I suspect with some more bottle age the cedar notes would develop and be in better balance, and this wine would be excellent. If you want to drink it now, remember that it will be at its best with food: grilled meat like lamb, sausages, or beef accompanied by simple sides (we had it with baked sweet potatoes with cracked pepper and sea salt and some steamed haricots verts).

The Best Gift of All: the Menu for Hope III

The Menu for Hope is a charity event sponsored by wine and food bloggers that selects a worthy cause every year to receive 100% of the proceeds from a virtual raffle on the internet. As of this posting, generous bloggers and readers have already donated over $40,000.00 to the cause, and there is still one day left to make a contribution. All over the web food and wine bloggers have donated fabulous prizes that are waiting for YOU. What do you need to do? Simply buy a raffle ticket for $10, pick the prize drawing you'd like to enter, and wait until January 15, 2oo7 when the winners will be announced. Can't decide between all these fabulous prizes on offer? Buy several raffle tickets, and try your chances on all your favorites. And if you really, really want one prize? Then buy lots of tickets, and devote them all to getting your heart's desire.

All the proceeds from a Menu for Hope III will go this year to the UN World Food Programme. What better fund to benefit from contributions from food and wine bloggers and readers.

Here's some more detailed information copied from Alder Yarrow's Vinography (Alder is in charge of the wine blog prizes):

HOW IT WORKS:
The campaign is essentially a big raffle for prizes. You look through the prizes, figure out which one(s) you want to try to win, and then you buy "virtual raffle tickets" -- one for each $10 of donation you make to our cause on the special web site set up for that purpose.

When you make your donation, you simply specify the prize number(s) (each prize should have one) and the "number of tickets" your donation is buying. Donate thirty bucks, get three tickets, and use them for one prize, or for three. Just be specific in your request.

Here's the site to enter / donate.

Looking for the list of prizes? Check out Alder's full list or prizes, and his list of updates donated by wine bloggers. Want to have dinner with Eric Asimov, wine critic for the New York Times? How about having Alder Yarrow serve as your sommelier for the night at a dinner party you host--and he'll even supply the wine? How about one of Jerry Hall's fabulous wine bottle photos, blown up into poster size to hang over your wine rack? All these great prizes and more could be yours for just $10 a ticket.

It's the season for giving, and for remembering those less fortunate than ourselves. Click over and contribute to this worthy, worthy cause.

German Sparkling Wine: NV Schloss Biebrich Sekt

Do you know which nation consumes more sparkling wine per capita than any other?

No, it's Germany. I learned this fun fact from Golly over at Golly's Wine Drops, where he reviewed a different German sparker for you to check out when you're done reading this.

Every LA area Trader Joe's that I've been to in December has end-caps full of this German sparkler: the NV Schloss Biebrich Sekt ($3.99, Trader Joe's). While I tend not to find their $5.99 wines either exciting or particularly drinkable this is the third bottle of $3.99 wine from Trader Joe's that I've really enjoyed. It represented excellent QPR, and at that price I'd buy quite a few and put them away for the rest of the winter.

Bright and floral, this wine was almost as translucent and colorless as water. It had a modest apple aroma, and when the wine was poured in the glass there was an alarming amount of froth (ok, mousse for the geeks out there). Usually wines with lots of froth/mousse the bubbles are big and harsh, but the Schloss Biebrich bubbles were smooth and small. On the palate, there wasn't a harsh or bitter note, just warm pears flavors and a lingering impression of flowers on the finish. This wine is probably made with riesling grapes, but I can't find out much about it on the web, so that's just conjecture on my part. The Deutsches Weininstitut has a great article on German sekt sparklers, if you would like more information.

This wine is just a hair off-dry, and would be perfect with Indian food, Thai food, Szechuan food, and light appetizers. We had a yummy Asian fusion meal with it: a spicy sauced salmon with coconut rice topped with edamame and a fresh mango salsa (note: I subbed a salmon fillet for the chicken in the original recipe). This was perfect with the wine, and it would be a fast recipe to knock together for an impressive meal for guests who might drop by during the holidays.