Brunch and Bubbles: the NV Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut

I adore Sunday brunches. Especially in LA, when it is the only time of the week you can set a time for a meal and actually have people from all over the city reach your house on time. That's because late Sunday morning is the only time of the week when the traffic jams occur outside dim sum restaurants and not on the freeways.

Mostly, though, I love brunches because time seems to move more slowly during the hours of 11 and 3 on Sundays. The light seems more golden. The flowers smell sweeter. And friends who make you laugh under most circumstances can make you hilarious for no good reason at all.

When I think brunch, I nearly always think "bubbles" right after. Sparkling wines, with their bright acidity and low alcohol, are perfect sippers for this occasion. And they can be cut with a variety of fruit juices and purees--raspberry, peach, orange, pink grapefruit--if you want to prolong the pleasure and cut the alcohol even further. But of course you don't want to pull out a vintage French champagne at a casual, friendly brunch. Save that for the big celebrations.

Instead, opt for a budget-friendly California sparkler, like the NV Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut ($14.99, Trader Joe's). Schramsberg was founded in 1862 by Jacob Schram, a German immigrant with a viticultural background. The winery fell into disuse and dereliction, and was rescued by Jack and Jamie Davies in 1965 who saw the enormous potential in the vineyard site and the caves that peppered the hillside. Their son, Hugh, now runs the place and makes a full line of sparkling wines. The Mirabelle Brut is made from a blend of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes from Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino. The juice is divided, some is aged, and then they are blended from many vintages until they achieve the Schramsberg house style.

The NV Schramsberg Mirabelle Brut was a very good QPR sparkler with a great deal of complexity for the price. It had a pale, buffed straw color and a nice, biscuity aroma that mixed with some hints of lemon. Citrusy, nutty, and toasty flavors enhanced the warmth of the afternoon, the soft spring air, and the companionship of good friends. It managed to be soft and refreshing, with its acidity and toast kept in nice balance and a soft, smooth bead/bubble adding to the pleasure that this wine gave.

We had the wine with an egg tart made with carmelized red onions, goat cheese, and pancetta from a great cookbook called California Home Cooking that makes the most of the local produce and foods from the great state of CA. Written by Michele Anna Jordan, author of the popular Cook's Tour of Sonoma, the recipe I used is not online, but some of her other wonderful recipes are and can be found by clicking here. With it we had a trio of salads pulled from Jamie Oliver and the Barefoot Contessa including smashed tomatoes and olives, pea and pesto, and a grilled zucchini salad with mint and basil. The meal tasted like a spring Sunday, and was the perfect companion to the sparkling wine.

If you haven't thrown a brunch lately, pick an upcoming Sunday, get some friends together, buy a few bottles of affordable bubbly, and settle in for a wonderful and relaxing afternoon. And don't forget to toast spring while you're at it.

WBW #32: To Reserve or Not to Reserve?

The Wine Cask Blog has set another challenging theme for the 32nd edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, the online virtual tasting event founded by LennThompson of Lenndevours.

Here are some of the details, but do check out their full instructions here, including submission details. By Sunday, April 8, drink a regular and a reserve version of the same wine, made by the same maker. Is the reserve the better wine? Does it warrant the higher price? An interesting question, and one that I hope to solve without breaking the bank if at all possible! Seriously, the folks at Wine Cask are into affordable wines, so they are urging participants to team up to fulfill the assignment or look for more inexpensive bottlings.

You've only got two weeks from tonight to find and taste your wines if you want to participate so get cracking. The Wine Cask folks anticipate posting their roundup on April 11--just in time to spend your anticipated refund on some of the recommended wines.

What's in Your WineQ?

I read about WineQ some time ago, the new wine club based on the Netflix model, and cruised by their site but it was early days and though the concept was intriguing, I filed it away like Scarlett O'Hara to think about on another day. Recently, though, a bunch of us have jumped on board, including Winehiker who generated quite the blog-buzz last week with his post about joining up. So I wanted to add my kudos to Joshua Zader and Marshall Sontag, the brains behind the operation, and report that my wine arrived just when they said it would, complete in snazzy box with WineQ sticker, and in perfect condition.

What made me take the plunge? Well, when I saw that Twisted Oak and Escafeld (two wineries I feel I know because I follow their blogs) had joined the ranks of WineQ, that was all this blogger needed to sign up. And I'm really glad I did. Now that I've signed up and have received my first shipment, I'm happy to report that not only does the club represent excellent QPR, it also provides great customer service (and no, they didn't know I was a blogger when I started emailing questions). Joshua himself wrote back in approximately 1o minutes with the answers about how and if I could pause shipments during the hot summers.

WineQ has a small stable of wonderful artisanal wineries from California right now, but the list is growing each month and they are very open to suggestions of who they should approach about joining. They even have a blog to keep you up to date on the latest news, complete with profiles of new wineries as they are added. Wineries you can already put in your Q, in addition to Escafeld and Twisted Oak, include Ceja, Smith-Wooton, Lava Cap, Sapid, Deerfield Ranch, and Rust Ridge. When I was at the Family Winemakers tasting this week, I made a point to taste some of these wines and I can report that every one I tasted was a winner, and represented good value. Not sure about wines you've never heard of? There are customer reviews for most wines, and more are entered every week as new members like me pop their corks and take a few sips.

If you've ever been in a wine club where you've received wines you don't want when you don't want them--sound familiar?--this is the one wine club out there where you get exactly what you want, when you want it. Want nothing but whites? Don't put anything in your queue that's red! Want boutique cabs and pinots? They have them. Only want wines under $20? That's easy, too. Don't want wine next month because you'll be in the Bahamas? Just pause your shipments. Need 3 bottles one month and one the next? Okay. The site is intuitive and easy to use, allowing you to find wines that you like and drag and drop them into an ordered list for regular shipments at intervals you define. Or, you can turn this feature off and have complete control over when wine gets sent to you. And it's dead easy to make changes.

Even more than including great wines, WineQ represents excellent QPR. Why? Because for $4.95 a month in membership fees, you get unlimited free ground shipping for any order that totals more than $35. You won't find yourself in the unenviable position of Wannabe Wino when you do the math and realize that you've spent $1300 in wine shipping over the past year. Free ground shipping for $4.95 a month works great for California, but if you live farther away from these wineries, you should know that members get deep discounts on 2/3-day shipping (just $5 per shipment) and overnight shipping (just $10 per shipment).

My first shipment contained 3 lovely bottles of Escafeld Vineyards wine, and will be followed up next month by three lovely bottles of Twisted Oak wine. I figured Friday was a perfect time to post my reactions to WineQ, since over the weekend you might have the time to sit down and browse through their site. And if you're a member, feel free to let us know what's in your Q.

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.

10 Things I Learned at the Family Winemakers Tasting

Yesterday afternoon the Family Winemakers of California came to Pasadena to do their Southern California trade tasting, the sister event of the August extravaganza in San Francisco. Here's some of what I learned, both the reverent and the irreverent:

1. "Family winemakers" is not just a marketing concept. Some truly fabulous people were there, pouring their wines and talking about what they were looking for in the vines and the grapes that they watch over.

2. Family winemakers continue to preserve the precious wine history of this country. It was a privilege to talk to Betty and Van Ballentine of Ballentine Vineyards about their experiences in the wine business, and to hear how their families had roots in wine making that extended all the way to 1906 when the San Francisco earthquake drove their ancestors to Napa where they planted Zinfandel, Merlot, Petite Sirah, Charbono, and Gamay. Seeing winemakers there with their children, and in some cases grandchildren, gave me a sense that this was a legacy that was being handed down. It was also great to see all the modern families--like the folks at Twisted Oak and Four Vines--that were forming around making wines for new generations of wine consumers.

3. There is some seriously good wine being made right here in California. And much of it is a seriously good value, too. The trick, as ever, is finding it--but more on that later.

4. A shocking number of people do not spit. I tasted 75 wines in a little over 2 hours. I spit--a lot, as my stained spit cup shows. How do the ones who swallow get home?

5. Comfortable shoes and dark clothes are essential. Not everyone who spits has good aim.

6. No matter how much water you take with you, you will need more to keep your tongue from shriveling up from the tannins and your teeth from aching from the sugar.

7. After your 100th spit, your technique improves dramatically.

8. Folks who have not practiced their in-mouth aeration skills in the privacy of their own home should not attempt to do so in a public setting (especially if they have been swallowing, see above #4). The results are not pretty, and can be messy.

9. You need 4 arms--3 minimum--to successfully juggle notebook, spit cup, and wine glass. Most humans have 2.

10. There are always more wines and never enough time.

Obviously there's a lot left for me to report on my experiences and conversation, and in the upcoming weeks I'll be profiling some California wineries to watch who are making excellent wines that are great values. Many of these are directly available from the winery if you live in such a state, and if not I'll be giving you links to Free the Grapes so that you can do your bit to help repeal the shipping laws standing between you and tasting this great wine.