Friday, May 16, 2014

Deconstructed Provence Herb Goat With Cornelissen Susucaru & 2009 Sella E Mosca Cannonau

"GOAT DAY!" followed by The Wines of Portugal tasting. We were shocked, shocked I tell you, that Quinta do Vale Meão AND Quinta do Vallado was in attendance at our favorite tasting of the year. Old friends in the bottle, as they say. Wait. Nobody really says that. Good time though.

But "GOAT DAY!" the day before, made for a deconstructed Provence herb explosion of flavors, served with our biggest wine surprise of the year in Frank Cornelissen's Susucaru 5 Rosato Etna ($35 - Red & White), and a wine with a French sensibility wearing an Italian suit in the Sella E Mosca Riserva Cannonau di Sardegna ($15 - Binny's).

Deconstructed in the sense that each element had varying levels of Provence herb representation in it.

Like this:


Seven-hour roasted goat (NPR recipe): Savory, thyme, rosemary, sage, marjoram and bay leaves. Added anchovies, swapped out chicken stock for water. More five-hour goat instead of seven. Turned out deliciously goaty. It wasn't this silly-great goat, but this was damn good goat.

Marinated zucchini salad (NYT recipe): Used mint only, added serrano pepper, pomegranate seeds. House favorite. Zippy, poppy, refreshing, gardeny zucchini.

French potato salad (Cook's Illustrated recipe): Tarragon. Might be a new house fav.

Colicchio pickled mustard seeds with fennel seeds and lavender.

Kumatoes and parsley.

Goat. Feast! And that's it for the goat. Ten pounds of goat from Olympia Meats on Randolph, split into two meals, with at least that in leftovers. Two great meals that has led to us thinking we'll be buying ten pounds of goat each year and do exactly this with it. Or not. Or some variation. But ten pounds of goat is now on the year's shopping list.

The wines helped make it a feast. I've blathered on about the Frank Cornelissen Susucaru Rosato enough. It's a DRY rosato that tasted like eating rose petals in the best possible way. And it's so stinking delicious with the right food. Food Wine of the Year so far.  (2004 Two Hands Beautiful Stranger is the stand alone Wine of the Year so far, cuz that was crazy business). But we finally had the Susucaru with goat, which was a goal, and it was all we thought it could be.

A quick Binny's run for a Cannonau suggested for the goat on the interwebs led to the Sella E Mosca. Dark, warm, savory, dry, with violets, licorice, plum-blackberry hybrid and earth. Wild, as most good Sardinian reds are. Had the structure and acid of an Italian red, in the way that they typically announce those things one step earlier than we prefer, yet all of its other qualities came at the leisurely, welcome pace of a stubborn Frenchman. Flat-out spectacular with the tarragon and a combo of potato and zucchini, surprisingly. The cannonau with the wine pairing winner of the night. So broad and new and adaptive. Seemed like it was going be a stubborn, ornery bugger right after we opened it, but turned out to be anything but.      

This was happy stuff so eat more goat, I say.

It's $5/lb, people!

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