Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Green Goddess Chicken and Grilled Endive with 2014 Bokisch Albariño

There are few better things in life than roasted chicken with a punchy-green sauce, big pile of veg, and a zippy albariño that knows when to take the volume of the zip down a notch.

It's not just the tired descriptors related to its simplicity and honesty, which it has. Or that it has everything anybody would or should want or need with food and wine, which they should.

Mostly, it's about when you're finished, and you drop your knife and fork on your plate and say, "Hot damn, that was delicious in every way!"

Serve it with a wine that knows when and where to take a pause after a bite-sip and watch it explore, slowly, all the graceful fruit and minerality it has; like it's reading a great passage of a book and it wants to you understand every word as it builds to a crescendo.

That's Bokisch albariño in our world. Under $20, sea-spritz lilting in and out everywhere, even though the Terra Alta Vineyard where the grapes are grown are nowhere near the ocean, and simply happiness in a bottle.

Green Goddess chicken, from Melissa Clark. Funks up the house like a stampede of wet dogs just came through your house, but well worth it. Endive, slathered in leftover GG sauce, then grilled; mixed with (home) roasted peppers. Roast your own. It's worth the work. Parsley tossed in with everything, topped with more GG. Baguette and butter on the side. Little better in this world.

Served with 2014 Bokisch Albariño Lodi Terra Alta Vineyard. Stainless steel, no oak. Citrus basket, smoky melon rind (almost composty, but in a good way...sunbaked), slow and casual in revealing itself, pokey even. Then gives a graceful burst of acidity and punch. Great pulse and tempo, tailing off like a beat of drums in a Paul Simon song.

These two...this food and wine...they're best buds.