Wednesday, November 16, 2011

#234 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

About two months ago, a meal of Bill Kim chicken, soba noodles and white asparagus with an '03 Hirtzberger Axpoint led us to thinking we'd just had the best grüner veltliner ever.

Graceful, nuanced and delicious at every turn.

So much so that I rushed out the next day and bought two more bottles.  Now, it's only been two months and we saw a touch of acid depletion in that first experience but this week's drinking of that bottle left me perplexed.

The acid two months ago ever so tenuously kept it in the world of delicious in great ways, coming off like a healthy Mickey Mantle, the later years.  This week, Mick's knees buckled trying to stretch of single into a double and it feels like he'll never be the same again.

Without the tiny acid lift, we got flab, flab and more flab tasting like the cheapest of cheap that had been left open in the fridge for days.  One more left.  Maybe it was just a bad bottle but nothing in the way of food flavors tried with two different flavor worlds did anything to make it remotely interesting.

Let's get to it.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

#233 - Flank Steak, Cuban Beans & Sweet Potato Fries With '09 Ex Umbris

Freezer food!

And delicious freezer food it was, geared toward drinking a New World syrah, which was once again wanted and craved by both of us.

Funky that after drinking wine pretty seriously for years that an entirely new craving and joy can come from a style of wine already explored and somewhat dismissed.

Like many things in life, keeping an open mind and returning to explore the foundations of previously firm opinions just to see if they continue to be just is not only important but necessary.  It keeps one young, allowing intellectual curiosity to continue to be a driving force.

Tying such a thing to wine seems to be a bit much but in a small way, I have been surprised by our new embrace of California/Washington syrah.  Sure, we loved Australian shiraz in the past, even some California syrah, and still do but moved away from them in favor of lower alcohol, more idiosyncratic and many times terroir-driven wines, as many people do (and don't shut up about) as they progress up the chain of wine love.

Our recent dalliance/return in/to the bigger style feels like something that, in some form, will stay.

Here's why.

Food:  Flank steak, Cuban black beans and chipotle sweet potato fries

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

#232 - Spanish Niçoise-y Salad, Greek Feta & Carrot Purée With '09 Síria

Fancy stuff, in the food and in the wine.

The fancy came from the purity and abundance of flavors and the ability to taste every one of them in any given bite.

The tastes:  carrots, anchovies, parsley, honey, mint, harissa, thyme-infused olive oil, pickled onions, sesame seeded Syrian bread, feta, kumatoes, Greek black olives, caraway seeds, pink peppercorns, garlic, lemon juice, dill.

So Greeky, kinda Spanishy, bit of North African, all comprising a tapas-y type feel, a little dip here, a bite there and loving every bit of it.

Served with a wine made from a grape new to us as a 100% bottling and possessing a balance, vitality and Portuguese weirdness that slid right into the food in delicious and new ways.

Food:  Spanish-y Niçoise salad, greek feta in honey and pink peppercorns, carrot purée, thyme-infused olive oil and Syrian bread