New Grape of the Month: Cortese

I'm continuing to explore the Italian wine region of Piedmont this month, and today I have a new grape: Cortese.

Cortese is a grape indigenous to the Piedmont that makes bright, refreshing white wines. If you want to know more, follow the link to AbleGrape where (as the founder so rightly reminded me!) there is lots of information available.

Like many Italian whites, Cortese is lean and acidic--a far cry from the fruit-bombs many of us are used to drinking. As such it represents a delightful change of pace and gives your palate a good spring cleaning.

Recently I tried the 2006 Tenuta Merlassino Gavi, a very good QPR example of the grape. ($16.84, Garagiste; available elsewhere for around $20) Though the label here is for the 2005, we drank the 2006 and the label was identical. There were characteristic aromas of oily minerals, apple, and bitter almond. These aromas were followed up with flavors of apple and stony mineral water (Vitel was my pick) which were rounded up with a bitter aftertaste. The texture of the wine was slightly spritzy on first opening, then it smoothed out into a wine with a medium-bodied mouthfeel.

Fish is the typical food pairing for a Cortese, but I wanted to pick out the oily mineral notes and so made orecchiette with fresh tomatoes and an almond-pecorino pesto. The almonds did just what I hoped they would--they picked out the mineral and turned them nutty. And the wine's bracing acidity stood up nicely to the tomates and the basil.

If you like Italian whites--Pinot Grigio, Vermentino, Verdecchio, Garganega--I think you'll like Cortese. Give it a try if you see it on the shelf.

Today On Serious Grape: Embracing Corkage

Today on Serious Grape, my weekly column on Serious Eats, I take up the controversial subject of restaurant corkage fees. (photo by neeta_lind).

Some grumble that $15-$20 is too much to pay for someone to open your wine and occasionally pour from the bottle. Others never buy off the wine list, and prefer to bring their own wine.

I'm a novice at this, but my recent experiences taking wine into restaurants lead me to think that corkage fees are a small price to pay for drinking good wine without going bankrupt.

Click over to the post and see what you think. And leave your comments--here or there--about your experiences with corkage. Do you accept it? Hate it? And are you taking wine to restaurants more now that wallets are tightening?

Friday Nights IN: Comfort Food for Hard Times

Friday Nights IN is a regular feature at GWU$20 that's intended to trim a few dollars from your entertaining budget by replacing a meal out with a meal in. Some suggestions are dinners for four, six, eight, or even ten. Some are for romantic dinners for two. And some suggestions are perfect for when you need time to yourself!

When the going gets tough, the tough turn to comfort food. This week on Friday Nights IN, I recommend a blast from the past to help lift your spirits and remind you that these hard times will pass: meatloaf and mashed potatoes. This meal will serve six, plus leave leftovers for the all-important meatloaf sandwiches the next day.

The Meal: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans. Good meatloaf is a joy that many of us forget about in our era of sautee pans and outdoor grills. When looking for comfort recipese, I turn to the Joy of Cooking, the classic American cookbook we all grew up with. Their meatloaf is miraculous, and I recommend you take their advice and use quick-cooking oats in lieu of bread crumbs for a lighter, less gummy end product. Also, we use 1/2 ketchup and 1/2 chili sauce in the mix, and then put 2 T of chili sauce on top for the final 30 minutes of baking. This makes all the difference. If you don't have the Joy of Cooking, call your mother or your aunt. They do, and can read the recipe to you. For your mashed potatoes, our household secret ingredient is cream cheese. A little Philly cream cheese and some chicken stock in your mashed potatoes--in lieu of cream and better--will give them some extra oomph. Steam some green beans, and you'll be transported to 1969.

The Wine: With such a traditional, comforting meal you want a traditional, comforting wine. My choice would be a fruit-forward Cabernet Sauvignon from California's Central Coast. A new release I would recommend is the 2006 Festival '34 Cabernet Sauvignon from C&B Vintage Cellars. (available for $7-$15) The wine has blackberry and raspberry aromas and flavors with a hint of milk chocolate. Notes of cedar and cassis liqueur emerge in the aftertaste, which remains bright and lively.

Full Disclosure: I received this wine as a sample.

Your Very Own Barrel of Wine

A few months back in my weekly column Serious Grape, I was lamenting the fact that nobody was exploring the use of barrels as a way to reduce wine's carbon footprint. Lots of explanations were given as to why we don't go back to the barrels--from storage space to licensing laws. None of them struck me as insurmountable.

Happily, the folks at Red Truck Wines have decided to see just how far they can push alternative packing forward--by going back to barrels. This makes huge sense to me. And hopefully it will to you, too.

For just $29.99 (suggested retail), you will soon be able to get your very own barrel of 2007 Red Truck Red Wine, a blend of Syrah, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot. I haven't had the 2007 (yet) but previous vintages have struck me as the perfect, easy-going, fruit-forward house red. The mini-barrel, as they call it, holds the equivalent of four 750ml bottles of wine. I'm not a math whiz, but I think that works out to $7.50 a bottle. There is a tap on the side that keeps air out of the wine and the barrel is equipped with a special gizmo that means you don't have to tilt the barrel to get the last of the wine out of it. And it even has little feet, so it will sit on your cool, dark counter without rolling around. How long will the wine stay fresh? The winery says 40 days--a claim I'm eager to put to the test (although I doubt the wine will last that long).

The mini-barrels will debut this month in Sam's Club stores, and be available through other retailers within the year.

Who's headed straight to Sam's Club with me?

My Gold Standard in Zinfandel

If you drink a lot of wine, you probably have a few that serve as your "benchmark bottles." These are the wines that set the standard against which you judge similar wines from other producers, other vintages, or even use to compare grape varieties across the globe.

When it comes to Zinfandel, my benchmark bottling--the one that sets the gold standard for me--has been Dry Creek Vineyard's Heritage Zinfandel (suggested retail $17; available for $12-$20). Year in and year out the folks at Dry Creek Vineyard produce a wine that is balanced between fruit and spice. Even better, they don't overdo the alcohol and as a result I can have more than one glass if I want to without regretting it the next morning. If you want to know more about Dry Creek Vineyard and the people behind the wine, check out their blog, Wilma's Wine World.

Like previous vintages of this wine, the 2006 Dry Creek Vineyard's Heritage Zinfandel represents excellent QPR. The wine is predominantly Zinfandel (88%) with some Petite Sirah blended in (12%). It has a rich, dark color and abundant blackberry aromas. The blackberry fruit carries forward into the flavors, where there are also layers of black pepper and baking spices. The wine's overall impression is rich and spicy, but not heavy thanks to the bright fruit at the core.

I've been missing North Carolina, and so we had our Zinfandel with a time-saving take on Carolina-style BBQ: pulled chicken sandwiches with coleslaw. For those who don't know, not all BBQ sauce is tomato-based. This one is vinegar-based, with red peppers and other spices. You shred a store-bought roast chicken into the cooked sauce, pile it on a bun with some coleslaw, and you're as close to North Carolina as you can get without a plane ticket and a BBQ pit. Only a Zinfandel like this one could stand up to that vinegar without clashing, and the blackberry fruit was a nice foil to the spiciness of the sauce.

This vintage confirmed what I already knew. When it comes to Zinfandel, I've got my benchmark and it's from Dry Creek Vineyards.

Full disclosure: I received this wine as a sample.