#21 - Tuna With Olives and Capers & '98 Heredia Rosado

I think I've established the fact that López de Heredia is our favorite winery on the planet by now.

The rosado offered by Heredia is not really among their collection of wines that we love.

We like it, yes. It's oh-so-Heredia. But it can have a damp dishrag aftertaste. If that's held off for as long as possible, it can be great. But it's always playing on the palate on some level. Stave it off and you got a stew goin'.

Meal: Olive/Caper Tapenadey-type Thing On Top Of Rare Tuna, Heirloom Field Greens and Baguette with Butter

Second day in a row without red meat and I felt clean and balanced.

Quality tuna cooked well with a finely-chopped black olive and caper topping reminiscent of the tuna that Mrs. Ney had at Chiado in Toronto (truly great meal - top 10 easy and has aged so well in our minds). Heirloom field greens that had a little less coarse blandness than the usual field greens. Baguette and butter that has replaced baby potatoes as the default starch in our household.

Just like the tilapia, I felt clean, clean, clean. Real good stuff. I miss tuna. It's simply been overlooked and we should eat more of it.

Another meal where we both said, "God, we eat well."

Wine: 1998 López de Heredia Tondonia Rosado - $22 Binny's

Orangish tint in the glass, not falling apart at the edges. Very little nose but definitely Heredia.

On the palate, it's subdued, drying fruit that hang around in the background. Not forward at all. Bit of fig, a little nut and that pleasant mustiness that comes with Heredia wines. Separated on me occasionally with a dustiness showing up early every other sip. Not harmonious but enough balance to enjoy it for what it is. People talk of the sherry quality when talking about why they enjoy it but I don't get it. Not pronounced enough for me to say that.

This wine is always in play when we think about rosés but a bit more fruitiness may have been a good thing with the meal and for what we wanted that night.

I cracked a cheap 2008 Cantele Negroamaro Salento to compare and it was like drinking water.

Pairing: You Know...Good Enough

Nothing inspiring but the wine allowed the tuna to be itself and the tuna let the Heredia stay everything that Heredia rosado is. Little kick-ups here and there but with Heredia rosados, I've always gotten a pleasing finish for about 20 seconds and then a real dustiness rears its head. That's welcome when it's integrated into the rest of the wine but, by itself, I don't dig it so much. We'll do this pairing again because we like both tuna and this wine (intriguing enough to always return to it) but another year of Heredia rosado besides the 1998 is greatly anticipated.

#222 - Duck, Farro, Oranges & Green Olives With '02 Heredia Bosconia

As López de Heredia typically releases their reds eight to nine years after the vintage, we've recently had a bit of an Oreo cookie experience in terms of superlative Heredia goodness.

Serving as the cream, it was the 2001 Bosconia that blew us away two Augusts ago, served with patatas bravas, linguiça and Iberico ham, Idiazabal cheese and arugula.

Serving as one chocolate cookie, the 2000 Bosconia was helped along immensely by the lavender lamb, piquillo marmalade, pistachio fregola and asparagus but showed a dark, brooding nature and those signature tea tannins wrapped in cinnamon and hints of orange peel that make Heredia so good.

Last night's meal was the other chocolate cookie layer.  It's the 2001 that stands out in my mind as something so wondrously more broad in scope, depth, length and satisfaction.  So pretty, so evocative.

2002 was an extremely difficult vintage in Rioja with bombardments of frost early in the growing season and a rainy June.  Bosconia was spared much of the damage but yields were down significantly across the board, according to their website.

The result, as per usual with Heredia, is a wine that's all Heredia, hitting all the typical, deliciously joyous notes, even if it's not jumping out of the glass and sailing on forever.

But what it brought to the star of the night, the food, was more than we thought.

#239 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

Family.

That's all I gotta say 'bout that.

So Merry Christmas-Happy Holidays to everyone out there looking for a wine pairing and stumbling across our humble little website.  Or if you've somehow been redirected from a dental implant (?) site as it says in my statistics page.  The mind is awhirl with ideas how THAT happened.

Wooly bubbles, an out-of-this-world bargain Eiswein, a disappointing Heredia and Hema's Kitchen made at home highlight this week's roundup.

Let's get started.

Meal #1 - Pork liver pâté, Chaource cheese and baguette with Anselmann blanc de noir Eiswein & Ayala Zero Dosage Champagne

#50 - Wine Can Chicken & Saffron Risotto With '89 Heredia Tondonia White

Made it to 50!

Ever had nuts, honey, pear and cantaloupe mixed with hairspray and gasoline?

We have...last night.

Food: Wine can chicken, saffron/pistachio risotto and Brussels Sprouts with bacon

First, saffron/pistachio risotto is in the top 20 of food-type concoctions on the planet. Mrs. Ney has started to put a red chili pepper in with the chicken broth (used to make the risotto), giving a hint of spice that made it even better.

Same wine can chicken preparation as last time. No glaze. Salt and pepper rubbed all over the chicken and left, standing up, in the refrigerator for 24 hours, making the skin quite crispy with a great rustic color. No more glaze. This is good stuff.

Brussels sprouts done in bacon fat with bacon pieces (and a little parmesan?).

Tasted Spanish-influenced with the saffron and almost Californian with the pistachios, Brussels sprouts and freshness.

Wine: 1989 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva Blanco ($40 - ?)

Aged six years in barrel, four more in bottle before release, 90% Viura, 10% Malvasia.

DEEP gold in the glass, much deeper than any Heredia I've seen. Very little nose. On the palate, VERY dry, nearly bone-dry if it weren't for an almost dessert-like feel in the mouth (had an exceedingly cheap dessert wine - Haut Sarthes semillon - after the meal and it was lighter). Very viscous. A touch of fruit throughout, I got pear, Mrs. Ney got cantaloupe. Oodles of liquified almond and a definite oxidized element. Touch of salt and overall, almost sherry-like.

The finish was a lot of hairspray and gasoline. Unpleasantly so? Only a little. But it threw it out of whack a bit for me. Heredia whites have that alcohol/almost motor oil touch and it usually makes for a spectacular experience when it plays nice with the fruit, nut and dust, but...it was a tad disjointed.

With what I know about aging wines hitting their end, which isn't a lot, I think we may have missed the window here, at least with this particular bottle. It was a complex wine, it was an interesting wine, but it wasn't a harmonious wine. It changed over the course of the meal, but never really stretched its legs.

On the whole, it was better than 85% of the white choices in the house, but I kept thinking about that other 15%. With that said, I've read on the interwebs about Heredia whites closing down for a period only to blossom again in a few years later. Because it's Heredia, we'll buy a couple more and revisit in five and ten years.

Pairing: Merely just fine

We've had this meal with Heredia Gravonia (the new-ish (25 years?), exclusively white vineyard) before and know it works. Different world with the Tondonia for sure, but it didn't have that transcendence we usually get. It fell immediately to trying to figure out the wine instead of enjoying the pairing and all its layers.

Flecks of loveliness with risotto and worked nicely enough with the chicken. No clashes anywhere. Just never great.

But...I'm intrigued enough by the '89 to check out more older Heredia whites, especially given they're still reasonably priced. That includes the '89 again as I'm beginning to be sure as I write this that we simply had a slightly off bottle. All the elements just weren't kicking around, trying to play with each other.

#296 - Sea Bass a la Veracruzana & Saffron Rice With '96 Heredia Gravonia

Back in 2010, right around this time of the year, we drank up one of our Quinta do Vallado wines in anticipation of a stay at their winery in Portugal.

And on that trip, we had wistful and unrealistic yearnings to hop over to Rioja from the Douro and visit another winery that holds a massive place in our wine hearts, López de Heredia.

"It's only six hours away. We're already here, have a car. Can we pass it up?"

Yeah, we found out we could pass it up. That's a long time in a car on a trip that already had six hours booked in said vehicle.

So we're going back to the Iberian Peninsula next month, this time to Rioja, to visit the place we yearned to visit two years ago. Time to drink up a few Heredias in the meantime.

Gotta prep.

After experiencing Veracruz-style sea bass with the 2001 LdH Gravonia in May and all its pairing glory (probably the best pairing we've had this year), seeing where the 1996 is with nearly the same food platform felt right and proper.

It didn't reach the May pairing heights but it was still quality Heredia food and wine stuff.

#263 - Sea Bass a la Veracruzana & Duck Fat-Saffron Potatoes With '01 Heredia Blanco

Classy.

That was the word of the night.  Along with crazy-fancy-classy.

We've been in a bit of a LdH slump of late, finding many of the more recent vintages sort of pedestrian.  Good enough with strong echoes of what we want/love from drinking Heredia but many have just missed.  I think we were spoiled by a batch of '78 Bosconias and a bunch of '96 Gravonias a few years ago.  Heredia never lost that enormous place in our heart, we just haven't gravitate towards the stuff we had on hand.

And then the 2001 comes along. And then we have this food with it.  And then we break out of our Heredia slump with a 500-foot bomb to right that warrants a bat flip and happy trot that can only say, "Slump...GONE!"

It was the kind of home run that makes the bat feel weightless, your stride feel effortless, your muscle memory find its rhythm again, like it never left.  It's the kind of home run that reminds you how pure, singular and transcendent it all can be.

This was the kind of food, wine and food and wine pairing that doesn't need to scream its virtues because it knows, with utter confidence and vision, that what it offers is so damn good.

Food:  Sea Bass a la Veracruzana with duck fat-saffron potatoes and mâche salad

#5 - Wine Can Chicken & '96 Heredia White

If you haven't tried a R. López de Heredia wine, do so.

It's the benchmark for old-style Rioja. The winery only releases their wines when they think they're ready to drink so they typically don't hit the market until ten years after the vintage. Just three years ago, they finally released their 1981 Bosconia red. It's what they do.

Their reds are easily in the top three of our favorite wines and the whites aren't too far behind.

About a year ago, we got our hands on three of their '78 Heredia Bosconias at a ridiculously cheap price and I can still remember every sip. All dried cherry, liquid mushroom and dust that dramatically changed every 15 minutes. Great stuff.

Their whites are made from the Viura grape (Macabeo by another name) and are all honey and nuts with the fruit playing second fiddle (dried pear, dried apple?). Dry with medium to low acidity. Kinda like sherry. Reminiscent of a Savennières in a lot of ways in that both are unlike any other white wine you've ever had. They're both wonderfully perplexing in a pretty great way.

Food: Wine Can Chicken with Saffron Risotto

Our third wine can chicken in three weeks because it's delicious. Honey and Rosemary jam glaze served on mâche with saffron risotto.

The glaze was more subtle this time, which was probably a good thing with the wine. Best of the three WCCs so far.

Saffron risotto was an ideal match with the wine.

Wine: 1996 Robert López de Heredia Viña Gravonia - $23 Wine Discount Center

It's cheap, delicious and, if you haven't had it, unlike anything you've ever had.

Like I said, Heredia is what old-style Rioja is all about. As Spain gravitated toward bigger wines with more extracted fruit to satisfy the world market, Heredia held firm to its roots. They've been making the same style wine since its inception and the Spanish wine world is just now starting to come back to the Heredia style. Or at least to the point of understanding and respecting the virtues of it.

Eric Asimov of the New York Times Pour Blog can tell the story better than I can.

Some info:

The single vineyards:

Tondonia - predominantly red - in the Burgundy style, softer, lighter - some white in a tiny corner

Bosconia - red - tend to be a bit bigger, more fruit forward

The bottle shape was a mixup at the winery years ago, according to Asimov. They wanted Tondonia in Burgundy bottles and Bosconia in Bordeaux, someone screwed it up and they just stuck with it.

Gravonia - vineyard, white wine

Crianza - a wine that has spent one year in oak barrels

Reserva - a wine that has been aged for two years, one of which has to be in oak

Gran Reserva - a wine aged two years in oak and three years in the bottle

Pairing: Always good with Spanish-style white meat, spectacular with anything saffron

For the first time, it took a bit for the dust to blow off on this wine. Five minutes maybe. After it did, all the honey and nuts came through. Fruit was a little more dried than the last time we had this. As with most good Spanish wine, it pairs perfectly with any food Spanish-influenced.

The saffron risotto pairing was perfect, just sublime. The chicken was right behind it. Mrs. Ney found an explosive mulchy note that kicked up with the oil-cured black olives spread over the top and in the risotto.

It seems that, quite possibly, the '96 might be winding down. Something almost tobacco-y about it. Seemed to lose some of the structure it previously had and it was a tad hollow on its own. Still worth every minute and the changes were barely perceptible but it seemed to be closing up to me. Better than 95% of the white wine out there, though, in my world.

1999s are still out there at the same cheap price.

#243 - Walnut-Pomegranate Chicken Thighs & Israeli Couscous With An '03 Heredia Cubillo

Strange and delicious collection of food-wine meals of late.

Borscht with smoked trout on rye (cheap gewürztraminer), a meal that tasted like really fancy Arby's (Bogle Phantom) and this one, vittles that tasted like a Spanish-Persian food baby that secretly had a Greek father. Oh, the scandal!  Almodovar should make a film about it.

Who could play the ghost that represents the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War?  I'm going with Kathy Najimy.  Almodovar loves to gender-bend.

It's been years since we revisited the Heredia Cubillo world. I think the first one I ever had was the 1999 or 2000 vintage and I was oh-so impressed with its tobacco- orange peel-leafy bigness.  Sure, it was a bit of a bumpy ride going down but something about it appealed to me.

When picking out this wine for this meal, I was struck by how much I haven't craved it in recent years.  We've had oodles of meals where a Cubillo could have excelled but nothing about it has recently screamed, "Drink me!"

Some of that lies in the fact that much of Heredia's upper line is only $10 more than the Cubillo line.  Cubillo's appeal comes from its pokey weekday lunch of tapas and a match-matchy goodness that's defined by its appealing rough edges.  Tastes gritty, rough and weathered, like the leathered skin of an old Spanish goat herder.

But, for $10 more, a Bosconia or Tondonia turns that gritty goodness into such wonderful grace and finesse that it tastes like something that should cost so much more.  To wit:  go here.

Cubillo has a place.  It's just not a place we've wanted to return to lately.

Last night reinforced that impression a bit.

Suquet alla Ca L'Isidre with 2004 López de Heredia Gravonia Blanco

This is our first 2004 López de Heredia Gravonia Blanco.

The 1996 was our first love, and a wine that probably did more to get us into Spanish wines in general than any other bottle. The 1999 mostly lived up to the 1996 when it came to acid and echoing the original goodness, but fell short a bit. The 2000 emphasized freshness more than the typical Gravonia nutty depth. And the 2001 was all class. Everything you would ever want from Heredia. No write-up for the 1998, but it came pretty close to the 1996 in terms of completeness, if I recall correctly, and a shame there were so few of them on the market.

Early meals with Heredia Gravonia involved some variation on chicken, many times with saffron risotto. That migrated to Spanish-ed up fish, and it's been a good migration, one that makes the meal feel kinda special.

Like this one.

Suquet alla Ca L'Isidre, local fish stew that has its origins in Catalonian fisherman's Sunday dinner, made with whatever fish they had left. Taken from Barcelona's Ca L'Isidre restaurant. Recipe here, chronicled in Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes In The World (great book). No changes made to the actual cooking. Swapped out red snapper for Icelandic cod and langoustines for lobster tail.

Boiled down, this is deconstructed Spanish stew, with two types of seafood - and all the complementing and contrasting that comes with that - potatoes, onions, tomatoes, garlic, fish stock, parsley and chile. Depth from flamed-up brandy. Garlic-d up mayo for dipping. And a spectacular hazelnut sauce for drizzling over everything. Super-duper Spanish in every bite and done right. It's not the easiest meal to make, but this was the first time Mrs. Ney made it. She expects subsequent ones (which there will be) will be easier.

Hot damn, this was good. Want Spanish food? THIS is classic Catalonian Spanish food.

#110 - Tapas Spread With '01 Heredia Bosconia

I kills me that we didn't decant.

Well...not so much.

But this changed.

It's a sin, I tell you. A sin that we haven't had a Heredia red since February. That was the '64 Tondonia, a wine I'm quite fond of in a very euphemistic sense. The only other Heredia red we've drunk since the inception of this blog in late November of last year was a 2000 Bosconia when I was sick. DOES. NOT. COUNT!

And it would have been nice to compare being that it's all lined up vintage-vineyard-wise and all. But I can't.

All I can tell you is that it was a freakin' gorgeous late summer day in Chicago, the first day (or maybe the second or third day) where the rhythms of the summer could even be tracked/felt/understood and we had a meal that played right into that wheelhouse.

Spanish.

It's unfortunate in many ways that we've diverted from full-board Spanish as much as we have in the last ten months or so. It's what we love more than most things on this Earth. I blame a family dinner at a Spanish restaurant last winter but that's just me.

Last night was a re-introduction back into the fold. Have I told you about the New Spanish Table cookbook? I think I have.

Have I mentioned the fact that I feel a bit embarrassed that we haven't drank Heredia red to any extent, really, over the last ten months? Embarrassed might be a stretch. Unfortunate is more accurate. Along with our dog and not being around people, it's what we like.

Food: Patatas bravas with linguiça and Iberico ham, Idiazabal cheese and arugula

Perfect patatas bravas with whole/macerated/sauced cherry tomatoes (garlic, onion, chili flakes, salt, pepper...oh...here's the recipe. Read it, know it, use it.) mixed in along with linguiça. The sauce on the side to keep it fresh, added at the last minute right before eating. It was a bite filled with recent food loves too long absent - the kind of thing that, along with the great weather, made me turn the page on the miserable summer we've had. Felt...almost sentimental, like something changed or something was offered to mark a passing.

Iberico ham which, for a brief period in Chicago shot up to almost $200/lb, is down to below its original $100/lb initial offering in 2005 (the year the FDA finally loosened its britches and allowed it into the country) at $85/lb right now. So one can get an entirely adequate 1/8 lb. portion of Iberico for like $13! No excuses anymore for the best ham experience on the planet and it's not even close.

Idiazabal sheep's milk cheese that could have been a Manchego/Parmigiano-Reggiano well-aged blend and I wouldn't have known the difference. Not Manchego-y but close. Not chalky/nutty but close. Not salty-lifty but close. Mellow. Nice. Almost ethereal.

An arugula salad with a lemon thyme/sherry vinegar vinaigrette to finish it off. Any Spanish person would have swooned over it. It was Spanish without any fake pretense. Just simple and Good. Well...maybe the Iberico was a bit over-the-top but c'mon.

Wine: 2001 López de Heredia Viña Bosconia ($28 - WDC)

Grape: 80% tempranillo, 15% garnacha and 5% graciano and mazuelo

Appellation: Rioja

Vintage (WS): 93 Hot, dry weather gave ripe wines with opulent flavors and powerful structure

It's a wee lad right now but nonetheless oh, so lovely. The fruit isn't distinctive enough yet, showing a smoked cherry note with a ton of cigar box (and a touch of leather and cedar). If I drank it blind, I wouldn't have known it was a Heredia until about an hour in. Popped and poured because of how the day and dinner came to us. But it was unmistakably an old-style Rioja in the best sense, just don't think I've ever had one at this point before. To feel the newness of it all was new. Beautiful tannins right now, though. Washed over my palate in a way that felt evocative yet new and fresh. Felt like putting on an old t-shirt long gone that remarkably still fit in the way I remember.

And I didn't even love it initially. It took a few sips to figure it out.

Old-style Spanish wines in my world have something else, something that Italian wines can't touch. It's a graceful acidity, an acidity that's wrapped in its cigar box notes, toning it down to something that feels like Hemingway. You can smell the smoke wafting up during a good yarn. This one has it in spades. You drink it and taste something like a feeling.

And that was without the signature autumn leaf note usually so prevalent in properly-aged Heredia reds.

This one's gonna age oh, so beautifully.

Pairing: 94-97-99 Ever read a novel that you know will stick in your craw for eternity? How is it going to sit? How is it going to be processed? The meal felt that ridiculously ponderous.

Mrs. Ney says unequivocally 99. And that's because she didn't have to think about the pairing. It was perfect in the sense of NOT having to think about it. I tend to agree with one caveat - I want to reserve the 95-100 for the unseen.

I had a dalliance with the unseen. But given that, I would eat and drink this meal and this wine a hundred times over and never, ever get sick of it. It had everything.

Tons of funk that was not unpleasant with the Iberico. Tasted OOOOOld. With a bite of potato, linguiça and tomato, it's a 100 perfect score, even with the relative tightness of the wine. In fact, it might have helped. The acid, carb backbone and smoky earth with the linguiça took a crowbar to the wine, opened it up and made it taste like it was right at its peak. The change made me pause.

I couldn't have loved it more.

With proper Spanish food and this wine (or any Heredia, really), I don't know if there's anything better in this world.

A quick note: Something of a dichotomy compared to tonight's pairing, it was Frozen Food Sunday in the Ney house last night. I declare - the best frozen food Sunday ever. Trader Joe's shrimp sautéed in black garlic, peri-peri pepper, salt, pepper and olive oil with tomato bread using the patatas bravas sauce from tonight's dinner prepared ahead of time and the baguette from TK chicken on Saturday. A great meal with a hugely spicy and utterly ridiculous shrimp tapa-style presentation. Crap on a stick, this was G.O.O.D and we'll be having it again.

The wine pairing sucked eggs, though (my first and last On Golden Pond reference ever). Started with a 2009 Raventos Perfum de vi Blanc ($20 - Red & White) because we were unaware of the spice level and utter balls of the shrimp preparation and, predictably, it turned to water with the food and we put it away. The 2009 Skouras Moschofilero ($13 - WDC) performed a wee bit better and even fell into the realm of acceptable in many ways with its lemon rind notes freshening things up. Both were chilled and an experimentation with a red was right out! We were fine and good with the food on a Frozen Food Sunday. Pairing Score: 83.

#145 - Christmas Eve Tapas With '98 Heredia Tondonia Reserva

Merry Christmas and all that stuff to all.

Well...a few months ago, I got all cocky and said that there are few things better in this world than a tapas meal served with any Heredia.

When I said that, it was with a delicious 2001 Bosconia, a wine with a long life ahead of it.

I was wrong.

Last night's Heredia never got out of the hangar and probably doesn't have much far to go.

Food: Tapas Spread of...

Linguiça

Serrano Ham

Smoked Paprika Artichoke Spread

Machego marinated in Greek olive oil and rosemary

Asparagus in walnut oil and sherry vinegar

Dates

Castelvetrano Green Olives

Marcona Almonds

Spanish-style Tomato Bread

Great combinations made with this meal. The linguiça with manchego together made for something great. Ditto with the tomato bread and the great smoky artichoke spread.

New brand of marcona almonds from Trader Joe's that are better than the old version. More creamy almond essence, less reliance on salt. Castelvetrano olives from Gene's, always good. Tastes like almond soy milk and green olive had a baby. Didn't really touch the dates. The Greek olive oil in the manchego brought an unexpected lemony quality, adding much. Went with pre-packaged Serrano ham from Paulina. Not as good as fresh sliced but still better than most (and better than some sliced). Just tons of deep flavor that went on forever.

We can never go wrong with tapas and haven't. It's what we like.

Wine: 1998 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva ($35 - WDC)

Grape: Tempranillo (75%), Garnacho (15%), Graciano and Mazuelo (10%)

Vintage (WS): 79 Cold, rainy harvest. Tough wines with structure but little charm

Closed nose right away (kinda smelled like garden garbage in a good sense) but offered little on the first sip so we decanted for an hour (per some internet recommendations). A bit weak, delicate and somewhat tired after decant by itself. Didn't necessarily taste too old, just a touch diluted and middle-aged. Wet tobacco leaf doused with orange blossom water and a hint of spice dominated with very little fruit. What fruit did come forth needed the food to excite it and then it was dried red berries that didn't offer much depth or lasting presence. At times, it was a dead ringer for a watered-down Cubillo. Some welcome iron play on the back-end but the tannins felt tired, making for a hollow, uninspired finish.

Probably in the bottom 20% of Heredias I've had. Still enough substance to jettison it out of mediocre bland wine territory and had some of the typical Heredia notes that we wanted but nothing great here. We've always loved the vitality and explosion that comes from the Bosconia blends over the Tondonias for the most part, which makes me think we should have revisited the 2001 Bosconia drank in August with tapas for this meal to see how it's progressing. This one, from a bad vintage, didn't offer much. Even the winery talks about how the vintage never allowed the Garnacha to get off the ground.

It did find something resembling decent with some of the food, though.

Pairing: 84 But odd things happened with food typically tough to pair

A dud with many of the elements and bullied around with the linguiça and Serrano ham (on Serrano, I'm beginning to think that wine served with such delicious ham - a ham that beats any Italian prosciutto in my world - needs a well-structured Spanish one from a hot vintage all its balanced peak. The fruit's needed and the tannins need to be integrated. This isn't the first time a more delicate Spanish offering was destroyed by the unique depth of Serrano for me, tasting like I was licking a rusty barrel filled with manure).

But with the walnut oil and sherry vinegar asparagus and the smoked paprika driven artichoke spread, the Heredia found a stride of sorts. Fruit came forth and something like a pleasing structure with a proper delineation and finish popped up. With both of them. And with asparagus and artichokes, two foods very difficult to pair with wine. Didn't expect such things.

Probably had something to do with the Spanish preparation of the ingredients but it certainly came alive to a degree. Without that interplay, we would have cracked something else.

#77 - Plantain Chicken & Saffron Risotto With Two Wines

Yesterday, we finally went to and I can recommend Big Star in Wicker Park, Paul Kahan's take on Mexican street food. The hipster quotient was a bit through the roof but the staff is wonderful.

But it didn't touch plantain chicken and saffron risotto with two of our favorite wines. Not. Even. Close.

It's an absolute shock to me that we hadn't had this meal since starting this blog. We took a bit of a hiatus since the discovery of wine can chicken.

Food: Plantain chicken with saffron risotto and spinach

Plantains mashed and wrapped with sandwich ham, then wrapped with chicken pounded flat, forming a sort of roulade in a way. The roulade-style concoction was then rubbed in rosemary, salt and pepper and then braised with an orange. Leftover-spillover goodness in the skillet was finished off with lemon juice to create a goopy sauce to drizzle over everything. Peri-peri sauce to put on the chicken.

Saffron risotto made with almonds, saffron and finished off with parmesan. Probably better with pistachios but we didn't mind one bit.

Raw spinach as a base and parsley all over the entire plate.

It's a Cuban-Spanish fusion that's definitely on the short list on 'last meal' type talk. I don't know what else I can say. It has everything you could ever want from a meal and has to be tasted to understand its perfection. Even gluten and dairy free, if that matters to you.

And it was glorious with the wine.

Wine: 1999 R. Lopez de Heredia Gravonia Blanco ($22 - Binny's) & 2005 Királyudvar Tokaji Sec ($22 - Berkeley Wine Co.)

I THINK...this was the first time we had the '99 Heredia. We've had plenty of the '96 and '98 but I don't remember the '99, specifically.

100% Viura. Pale gold in the glass. Grilled pineapple and honey on the nose that followed through on the palate. Compared to the '96 and even the '98, this one has much more viscosity to it - especially with the food - along with a smoked pear note. Still the unique nuttiness that defines Heredia whites and good, solid, wonderful acid. A glorious wine. More volatile than previous years as it changed constantly throughout the evening and with the food. A smoky olive oil hint was a constant with more lively, meaty fruit than previous years - the sort of fruit that had a smokier overtone but still jumped out of the glass and stayed bright enough. Can't say it's better than the '96 or even the '98, just different. I love you, Heredia. And it was so nice to revisit everything that you are. Available everywhere.

The Királyudvar showed just as well. 80% Furmint, 20% Hárslevelű. A much lighter yellow in the glass than the Heredia with citrus on the nose. It's been three months since we last had it and while it's changed a bit, the lively acidity still carries the day. While the fruit last time showed more orange and exotic fruits, this time it went more into the world of lemon verbena and maybe peach with only splashes of orange notes and a tad more sugar on the palate than I remember. It's in the dry style (the grapes in Tokaj are naturally sweet) but Mrs. Ney found a Fresca note that nailed it, like a hint of slightly sweet carbonation with a grapefruit peel note. This one's five years out now and is still going strong. Tough to find but stupid good.

(A side note here: Királyudvar's vineyards are run by Noel Pinguet, head winemaker at Domaine Hüet, home of the recently drunk and utterly wonderful 2005 Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec. Pinguet was given sole control of Hüet in 2002 when Gaston Hüet died, but in 2003 he sold off majority financial control to the Chinese-American financier Anthony Hwang, creator and owner of Királyudvar, and the famed Tokaji winemaker István Szepsy, who used to own Királvudvar's vineyards until 2006.)

That's two $22 wines. Both were equally great. If you don't like white wine, try these two. If after drinking them and you still don't like white wine, I can't help you.

Pairing: 95 Only a 95 because 95-100 should probably be left for the unknown. I'll know it when I have it.

Perfect is such an arbitrary word. But it's probably our time-tested favorite meal everywhere, anytime, on any temporal plane. It's the one we enjoy the most, especially with two of our favorite wines, which these are.

The Királyudvar was better with the plantain chicken and the Heredia and risotto might be the best pairing of wine and food I've ever had. It's in the least the benchmark I've used to compare. When I first had that pairing, I kinda understood what perfect food and wine pairings were for me.

In the end, the beautifully graceful acidity in both wines cut through any fat/starch in the plantain chicken/risotto just enough to be able to enjoy both the food and wine exactly for what they were with flavors in each matching up perfectly. Even peri-peri sauce, something with an intense chili-herb flavor, worked great with the wines.

Everything was topped off with Portuguese almond liqueur bought in Cleveland. Cheapest label you've ever seen and even had a bit of crap coated on the bottle when we bought it. I'm not going to say it's delicious. I'm going to say it's freakin' delicious! Wonderfully subtle with barely an alcohol hit. Creamy almonds without the cream. Just glides down the throat and was a great finish to a great meal. Crap, that's good. All of it.

#241 Orange-Green Olive Duck & Farro With A 1970 Heredia Bosconia

A New Year's tradition of sorts continues.

Just saw my first New Year's jogger, running as if he'd never run before, awkward and sloppy, jiggly and panting, so slow that the dog and I could almost keep up, looking like the Nike corporate headquarters puked up all over him, the tags freshly clipped off of all of it.

It's the kind of run that says this run, despite all good intentions, will not be repeated tomorrow.  It's the kind of run that instantly decouples the mind's best-laid, blind hope from reality with a hard smack in the face, telling you everything about what you've done and haven't done over the course of the last year.

Been there, buddy.

Good Luck.

We closed 2011 (Good Riddance. You kinda sucked.) with a magically delicious meal and a wine like no other, a wine older than either of us and a wine currently performing so much better than my New Year's jogger.

It was an aggressive beast worth every freaking cent.

#194 - Lavender Lamb And Pistachio Fregola With A 2000 Heredia Bosconia

It's interesting to know a winery well enough to be able to taste it and have a ballpark idea of how old it is, how the vintage was and how long a particular bottle has to go.

I don't have the wine tasting ability to be able to do such things yet with just any wine.

But it seems that this is how said ability starts: with an fairly intimate understanding of one winery, experience with tons of vintages over a course of years and the knowledge of how the winery's style and wine has shown at various stages in good, bad and mediocre years.

I'm terrible at blind tastings when it comes to nailing down the vitals. Mrs. Ney's tongue is infinitely better than mine at such things.  But I would probably know if a Quinta do Vale Meão was a 2003 or 2007 (great years) contrasted with any of the years in between.  I'd feel fairly competent in the early aughts of Clos Fourtet.  I think I could nail a Ponzi in a lineup of young Oregon pinots.

But last night, not knowing the finer vintage details before drinking, I don't think I've ever come across a wine that was so obvious in my head to be a Heredia Bosconia about 10-15 years old and from a vintage that wasn't the best.

Having said all that - and good for you, Christo, here's your popsicle - we still don't know why people get off on such things so thoroughly.  Especially when good red wine is infinitely better with the right food.

Food:  Lavender lamb, piquillo marmalade, pistachio fregola and asparagus

Mario Batali's lavender/rosemary lamb recipe from Food & Wine, made during the filming of that shockingly dull Spain - On The Road Again PBS series.  You know, the one where Gwyneth Paltrow wouldn't eat pork...in Spain...for a TV show about eating food in Spain.  But the world now knows she speaks Spanish quite well and that's the most important thing, really.  We felt terrible for Mr. Batali.  He knows and loves Spanish food but had nothing to work with.  I digress.

#122 - Cuban Feast With Two Rhône-Styles & A Heredia White + A Girl & The Goat Review

Sleepy day in the Ney house after the bucketful of wine last night.

Had a friend and his dog over for a Cuban feast.

Cuban in our world has one partner. It's Villa Creek Mas De Maha. Nothing else compares.

The friend we had over also hadn't had a good viura. With that, there's Heredia and then there's everything else.

What resulted was a meal chockablock with big flavors, something we got at The Girl & The Goat the night before (see below), but with this meal, we weren't left wanting.

Food: Black bean cake-hash, tostones, ropa vieja and key lime pie

Spicy, bold black bean cake-hash (they fell apart) filled with the Cubany goodness of sweet potatoes, smoked paprika, onions, and shishito peppers left over from The Girl And The Goat. Tostones fried up with garlic and salt. Both served as an appetizer spread with sliced avocados and a cilantro-mint yogurt sauce to drizzle over everything. Eaten with the Heredia white.

Roja vieja as the entrée. It's Cuban pot roast. Slowly simmered freakin' delicous Whole Foods skirt steak with onions, garlic, red and green peppers, beef broth, cinnamon, parsley, oregano, cloves and various other ingredients I'm not privy to at the moment due to the sleepiness of the house. Served over brown rice flavored with cumin seeds and orange zest. Succulent and medium-deep. We've had heavily seasoned ropa vieja a ton of times and, while delicious and has a place, it tends to make me feel sticky, dirty and in need of a nap. This was a somewhat lighter version that allowed us to actually taste each ingredient while still tasting everything as a dish in and of itself elevated to a greater plain. Great balance. Eaten with the Villa Creek Mas De Maha and half of a bottle of the Tablas Creek Côtes De Tablas.

Key lime pie without the "key". Still that bright tartness that comes with key lime pie without the puckery dimension. Eaten with leftover La Playa Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc and a failed experiment of ice cream made with the same wine. I now know the result of eight egg yolks and two cups heavy cream in the ice cream-making process. Brutal Richness.

Flavor and flavor with a side of freakin' flavor!

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas De Maha ($25 - Binny's), 2007 Tablas Creek Côtes De Tablas ($22 - WDC) and 1999 López de Heredia Gravonia Blanco ($25 - Binny's)

Nothing new here.

Villa Creek Mas De Maha (60% tempranillo, 20% each of grenache and mourvèdre) is a favorite. This time showing some graying around the edges. Largely showed as it has in the past with a hint of muddling starting to happen to the fruit. Still deep and delicious but a touch of that sparkling brightness and verve is beginning to fade. Tons of bright cherry notes and the tempranillo still shines in this different take on a Rhône blend, staying light yet with a full mouthfeel and pretty finish.

The 1999 Heredia Gravonia (100% viura) was an odd bird. Food hit the table quick and we didn't get it out of the fridge in time to let it come up in temperature. So I threw it into a decanter. A hint of a watery core showed more than a wine with flavors fully and completely integrated. Pineapple and honeycomb notes dominated with a dried honey finish. The mid-palate came off flat to me. Missed a smoky olive oil note and that edge of nuttiness that comes with Heredia whites. The acid was there and we were all more than happy that it was in our glass but I'm beginning to wonder if the '99 might end up having a shorter life than the '96 or '98. Wanted more.

The 2007 Tablas Creek Côtes De Tablas, the bargain wine by Tablas Creek, is 50% grenache and 25% each of syrah and counoise. Gamey notes with pepper and licorice lead the charge with this one but, unfortunately, the promising entry got overwhelmed by the sticky, sappy, syrupy fruit that just isn't our bag. More toned down than some we've had but still coated the mouth with something that wasn't welcome. For the style, better than most in the price range, but...meh.

Pairing: 89 Just missed getting into the realm of talking about the finer points of greatness

We probably could have stuck with two bottles of Mas De Maha for everything and would have loved the meal even more.

And that's because the Mas De Maha really shined with the black bean cake-hash and the tostones. Big, raw, Cuban flavors and Mas De Maha again. Solid with the ropa vieja but exploded with the fried plantain-garlic-pepper black bean cake-hash tastiness.

The Heredia showed its true nature for the most part with the appetizer spread but hollowed out a bit with a big bite of garlic or pepper (something previous vintages never did with big punches of flavor).

The Côtes De Tablas didn't offer much outside of "wine at the table".

No complaints, though. We had the flavors we were chasing the previous two days.

A quick review of The Girl & The Goat

Anniversary dinner, number six, 8:30 reservation, packed restaurant even up until when we left at 11pm, informed and accommodating staff, pretty space - large, a touch loud, dark-ish, somewhat odd lighting but festive and warm.

Food: Peter Piper bread, shishito peppers, chickpea fritters, hiramisa crudo, scallops, pig face and short ribs

Wine: Two glasses of Gran Sarao Cava Rosado to start, bottle of Pazo Senorans Albariño with the first four plates and two glasses of Girl & The Goat GSM with the pig face and short ribs.

Great use of acid overall. A temperature issue with the chickpea fritters as they came out lukewarm but were still tasty. The hiramasa crudo and scallops, while solid, lacked some punch and weren't worth the $14 and $16 respectively. The pig face, served with tamarind sauce, cilantro and a fried egg, while also tasty, lacked a bold personality that I expected to come with the dish. The short ribs with edamame bordered on bad. Mostly flavorless short ribs with a enormous pile of edamame on top that weren't de-spined, making them awkward to chew. A mess of a plate for the most part. But the bread was delicious, the shishito peppers with parmesan were an humongous mound of awesomeness, I liked the chickpea fritters even with the temperature issue but the scallops and the crudo with crisp pork belly served more as filler than adding a different delicious dimension to the meal.

Solid wine list, mostly the usual suspects with a few interesting choices off the beaten path. Markup at about 2 3/4 retail, something that's mildly annoying given most of the list is readily available in stores all over town.

The restaurant is part of the Boka Group and you can feel it. Feels...a touch overly planned but with some semblance of an individual personality coming through. Good flavors overall but I don't think I can call them memorable flavors. Tons of variation in styles of cooking but I can't help but recall the old-fashioned mantra. When you put on everything you're going to wear for the night, look in the mirror and take one thing off. With Girl & The Goat, it felt like they accidentally took two things off, leaving a hole in the cohesiveness of it all. We missed the oscillation of flavors, that back and forth. Everything seemed to stay in an "safely inventive" place offering little in surprise. Didn't taste...risky. Or ballsy.

Mostly, I kept thinking it's in the same stratosphere of Graham Eliot but then we kept thinking about all the things Graham Eliot does better (right down to the $10 "4 cup" french press that was utterly forgettable).

And as always, it comes down to what you get for the price. In the world of $300 meals, it sits squarely in the bottom tier for us over the last three years. Good time, interesting enough food but if we would have spent $200 or even $250, higher points might have been given.

Just didn't touch even the mediocre experiences we've had at Avec just down the street for $100 less. We enjoyed ourselves but a few days after, the impression left was one of a "Restaurant Group" experience and that's rarely a great time. Good maybe, but never great.

But kudos on the Girl & The Goat GSM, blended by Stephanie Izard herself. That's one tasty food wine. All liquid figs.

#285 - Fish In Shrimp Sauce & Maduros With '01 LdH Gravonia Blanco

Or filhote com molho de camaroēs e bananas, if you want to practice your Brazilian Portuguese.

That meal, the third in today's roundup, came off so utterly surprising that we vowed to eat fish once a week from this point out. With a recipe like this and eating it with a wine like the 2001 López de Heredia white, that might be something that lasts longer than the mere proclamation.

Hot Chicago days brought about food from hot climes this weekend.

Monday saw skirt steak in green sriracha sauce (Food & Wine - Susan Feniger), sweet potato fries, mayo for dipping and arugula salad with 2008 Orin Swift Saldo ($26 WDC).

It's a meal that naturally follows the utterance, "I want something California blendy, maybe something Zinfandel-ish." Grab some cheap cut of beef, maybe marinate it, maybe not, get a good char on it, throw on some interesting sauce you found on the interwebs or in a magazine like green sriracha sauce, toss a bag of sweet potato fries in the oven, whip up a fancy mayo for dipping (like pan juice mayo), finish with an arugula salad and drink something New World, big and blendish. Orin Swift, Villa Creek, Owen Roe (the Ex Umbris started this business).

Very little kitchen pain, flavors galore, tastes like a fancy BBQ and everything comes in under $50. This meal is our "let's just order a pizza and drink something we have in the house." It's essentially the same price, same amount of time, only a bit more work and delicious as all get-out. Green sriracha is something delicious. Doesn't resemble sriracha in the traditional sense. It's more of a broad definition akin to an Asian chimichurri or pesto, led by basil, coconut and lemongrass and worth a look. The Saldo more stayed its delightful self than offering a whole lot in the way of real, true-blue enhancement but that's all what really wanted. No clashing and tons of juicy dark goodness. Pairing Score: 88

#126 - Quail, Fava, Iberico & Soda Bread With '98 Heredia Rosado

Sometimes, you have to find the bottom of things to understand the spectrum of goodness.

At the very bottom of the wine and food spectrum of goodness for me is Iberico ham and the '98 Heredia Rosado. I truly can't describe how awful those two taste together. Best I can do is if you've ever accidentally mixed bathroom cleaners when cleaning the tub, like bleach and KaBoom!, and a wisp of something like the devil's brew of chemical vapors shoots up your nose.

Or like you washed your dog in a rusty basin and decided to see what the water tasted like.

Maybe people like that. People are into a lot of weird things. Just ask Brett Favre.

I pass.

As an overall meal, it tasted like really fancy picnic food. But pretty much a dud with the wine.

Food: Quail with pistachio sauce, fennel and fava salad, Iberico, coffee-crusted cheese and soda bread

Quail marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, cumin and smoked paprika and cooked medium-ish. Slightly gamey, a lil bit sweet, tasty meat. Two medium-sized quail each. I like quail, or I should say I have fond memories of the few quail meals I've had. And that's probably it. My memories might be better than the actual consumption of it. More of a diversion that satisfies just enough than savoring every bite.

Fine on its own but much better with a Moroccan pistachio sauce made with pistachios, parsley, mint, chilies, garlic, lemon, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Fresh fava beans, nature's most well-packaged food, and sautéed fennel salad dressed with white balsamic vinegar, cilantro and mint. Sort of a seasonal transition salad between summer and fall bringing lightness and lift while serving as a bridge between the darker flavors on the plate.

Soda bread made with walnuts and dates, Barely Buzzed coffee-crusted cheese from Beehive Cheese Company in Utah and Iberico ham from Binny's.

Take out the Iberico and this meal could have been quite versatile with a huge range of wine. Pinot noir would have fit quite nicely. We were intrigued by the idea of a grüner veltliner just to see what would have happened. 2001 Heredia Bosconia worked well enough with Iberico in the past. Iberico isn't cheap so having it play a big role in the pairing seemed appropriate. With fennel involved as well coupled with the leafy orange peel notes that the Heredia rosado usually shows, the pairing seemed destined for, in the least, acceptableness to marginal goodness.

It wasn't.

Wine: 1998 López de Heredia Tondonia Gran Reserva Rosado ($23 - Binny's)

It's shown better in the past.

60% grenache, 30% tempranillo and 10% viura

Dusty old orange peels on the nose. Fading, old, mashed dried cherries, cashews, moldy wet leaves, some caramel and even a car battery acid component (and maybe some old milk) on the palate. A bit flat with, dare I say, somewhat muddled flavors. Came off boring. We've only had three of this one in the last year but, from memory, it seems like it's taking a very linear, incremental arc to an odd place. I could be totally wrong but it just hasn't excited me lately like it has in the past.

It's in the dust. It hasn't been evocative lately. Where before, it tasted and smelled like the dust of vivid childhood memories, like walking into an old house where something exciting feels like it's about to happen. This dust tastes and smells like you're an adult and you have to clean out a water-damaged attic that hasn't been touched for years. You're left with an immediate sense that you're going to get real sick of the taste and smell real quick. Because it tastes like work you don't want to do.

Nearly all of the same elements as in the past with this wine, they just came off much less interesting and alive. Tasted kinda tired and diluted, like an old man that just wants to sit in a chair and watch TV until he dies instead of an infinitely interesting, energetic old man with stories coming out of his wa-zoo. Missed that underlying freshness that perks up among all its beautifully dusty, musty, crusty, blustery fall wind notes.

Utterly drinkable but still must be compared to how it's shown in the past.

A 2000 is out there. May be time for us to switch vintages.

We'll try it again with tuna niçoise sometime. We know that's spectacular and will be a better gauge as to where it is.

Pairing: 82 as it was, 86 if it were a picnic

All that said about the wine, there were moments. The fennel with the wine was borderline delicious and tasted like the wine was attempting to find its former legs.

A bite of quail and pistachio sauce with the wine wandered into the world of tasty. And with the soda bread, it might have been best with the dates playing right into the wine's wheelhouse.

Unequivocally awful with the Iberico ham. Have I mentioned that?

We didn't love the food but certainly liked it. If we had all of it on a picnic (which we've never done - picnic, that is), we would have thought it fancy pants and having any wine with it would have upped the fancy pants factor even more.

Happy enough overall but with some grumbles.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #33

Movie reviews:

If you ask me what Spectre was about a week from now, I'll have no clue. No a one. Completely forgettable Bond installment.

But 99 Homes, Ramin Bahrani's newest, writer/director of the superlatively good Chop Shop, Man Push Cart and Goodbye Solo (and less successful At Any Price), digs in there, sets up shop and doesn't leave your head. Quite good.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $130 for food and $162 for wine = $292

Sunday: Tuna-Caper-Pistachio-Shallot Pasta with 2014 Desperada Sauvignon Blanc Fragment Santa Barbara County

Food Details: Leftover olive-oil poached tuna, pistachios, capers, serranos, charred scallions, anchovies, toasted bread crumbs, basil, mint, lemon zest on bucatini; kale salad.

Did We Like It? Big plate of happiness! A big surprise. Mrs. Ney expected it to be good as she was cooking it, just not THIS good. So breezy, leisurely, delicious, broad and deep.

How Was The Wine? Last (and first) had with fish cakes, celery root pita panzanella and chermoula, where it had a perfect back-and-forth between its grizzle and grace. This time it brought a quiet elegance and suppleness to go with its wisps of fruit and perfectly perky yet controlled acid. Fine on its own, nothing special, but wow with this food.

And The Pairing? Snuggled right up to the pasta and Mediterranean-ness of all the ingredients and turned into a perfect "expander of the flavors." Put this is front of me at some seaside restaurant at three in the afternoon after a dip in the water and I'd chew peoples' ears off about it for years. California sauvignon blanc gets a bad rap. It's taken great leaps in the last few years.

Cost: $8 for food, $22 for wine = $30      

Saturday: Smoked Chicken and Sprout Sandwiches with 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elégance Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Paulina Market smoked chicken, clover sprouts, kumatoes, monterey jack cheese, avocado, onions, mayo on toasted baguette. Olive oil chips.

Did We Like It? Pretty damn good sandwiches, as usual. A home interpretation of a Big Mike's classic. It has everything.

How Was The Wine? Grenache blanc, vermentino, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc. One liter, $10, Whole Foods. Top-three wine of 2015 in our home in terms of price-to-enjoyment ratio. It's fading. The flavors, order, sparkle and energy is becoming jumbled and tired. Almost bought a ton more recently, so I saved money there!

And The Pairing? Did nothing for me.

Cost: $25 for food, $10 for wine = $35

Friday: Iraqi Chicken, Yogurt, Salad and Naan with 2014 Amancay Torrontés La Rioja

Food Details: Based on this Saveur recipe, it's Djaj bil-bahar il-asfar, or dry-spiced Iraqi chicken. Click on link to see the bevy of spices. 500-degree roast on the chicken. It'll chicken up everything in your house but it's entirely worth it. This meal was more stuff on top of a bread-type substance. Naan slathered with cilantro yogurt, topped with the Iraqi chicken and herb salad. Eat.

Did We Like It? We've come a long way since wine-can chicken. Now, Iraqi chicken is chicken we want. Such a beautiful, dirty, gnarly, dry spice blend on the chicken that makes you declare "This is Better chicken!"

How Was The Wine? More TJ's torrontés. Flowers, acid, fruit, cheap.

And The Pairing? Again, very acceptable. The floral notes in the wine mixing with the spices created the gap and pause you want from a pairing. Happy.

Cost: $13 for food, $7 for wine = $20

Thursday: Charred Shallots, Labneh and Pugliese Bread with 2014 Amancay Torrontés La Rioja

Food Details: The usual. Hey, vegetarians. If you complain that it's tough to cook easy veggie meals that simultaneously come off as substantial, filling and delicious, you're not trying. Here's one. Charred shallots and onions with a lemon-thyme (?) vinaigrette (based on this Melissa Clark recipe), Middle Eastern yogurt, Pugliese bread and arugula. Piece of bread, top with yogurt, shallots and salad. Eat.

Did We Like It? We'll probably eat this meal once or twice a month until we die. Satisfies every crevice of your being.

How Was The Wine? I finished the rest of the Broc Cellars grenache blanc, which wasn't...good...with this meal. Mrs. Ney had a new Trader Joe's $7 torrontés, which has just enough flowers, just enough acid, and just enough cheapness at $7 to have a place in this house with the type of food we eat.

And The Pairing? Mine, terrible. Mrs. Ney's very acceptable.

Cost: $8 for food, $7 for wine = $15

Wednesday: "Spread" with 2013 Broc Cellars Vine Starr White Central Coast and 2004 López de Heredia Blanco Gravonia Rioja

Food Details: Roasted red and cubanelle peppers, charred onions, garlic, anchovy, parsley, white balsamic, evoo. Olive-oil poached tuna (made at home) with thyme, rosemary, garlic, bay. Castelvetrano olives with lemon zest and black pepper, mâche, batard bread.

Did We Like It? It was just "spread." But it turned into such much more. Stellar peppers served as the base with nice tuna and great herb-infused oil. This was pick-n-choose bread topper, mostly. Piece of bread + peppers + tuna + mâche = eat. Vaguely Spanish, but easily could be southern French. We Loved This.

How Was The Wine? This Heredia has been in the fridge for a month (!) with a Preserva disk in it. By itself, no bueno. But with food, unbelievably, this turned into everything that makes Heredia, Heredia. Length, nutty, touch of lemon and smoked orange peel, all of it. Classy. I have no idea how. We just needed to get it out of the fridge. The Broc Vine Starr (100% grenache blanc) is lightly herbal, lightly mineral and lightly fruity, while being the perfect blend of all three, with each taking the reins at different times while the others served their supporting roles admirably. Nice acidity, as grenache blanc has/does. Clean, dry, Broc being Broc. Best wine club decision I've made.

And The Pairing? With the Heredia, this was Spanish goodness. With the Broc, this was southern French. The back-and-forth was so damn good. It took a meal that was already good and made it even wider/better. Paired with more Come Dine With Me. Great two-hour dinner.

Cost: $23 for food, $53 for wine = $76        

Tuesday: Pizza Art Café with NV Fattoria Moretto Lambrusco Secco Grasparossa di Castelvetro Monovitigno Emilia-Romagna

Food Details: Greek salad to start, Diavola with arugula and Pugliese with smoked beef pizzas.

Did We Like It? Something about their Greek salad. It's loaded with freshy-freshness. We don't divert from what we like here. It's consistently good pizza. This time...something about the cheese on both...it was better this time.

How Was The Wine? Lambrusco done well. Blackberries all over the place. Juicy, dark, smooth, twiggy forest floor, dry, tart. You taste it and it tastes like what Kermit Lynch likes.

And The Pairing? Zero complaints.

Cost: $40 for food, $28 for wine = $68    

Monday: Goat Kofta and Roasted Cauliflower with 2014 Frank Cornelissen Etna Rosato Susucaru 

Source: Goat kofta from Yotam Ottolenghi (do a book search here). Cauliflower, hazelnut, pomegranate salad based on this recipe, from NYT, and Ottolenghi's as well.

Food Details: Goat kofta made with allspice, cinnamon, etc. (similar flavors used in the salad). Roasted cauliflower-hazelnut-pomegranate salad. Celery, parsley, onions, mint, adding preserved lemon and serrano, leaving out maple syrup. Tahini and pita.

Did We Like It? "This is what all other food wants to be!" Spicy, nutty, crunchy, fresh, bright, slightly sweet, every flavor and food sensation, all put together on a plate. There is absolutely nothing missing here. You don't like this, you don't like food. It's perfect, perfectly balanced, makes your tongue go, "Wow!" It's been a few months since the last time we have this, and that gap made it taste oh-so new again.

How Was The Wine? Our first 2014 Susucaru after drinking a good amount of #5s. You stick the 2014 next to any other Susucaru vintage (this is only our third) and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Exact same expression (maybe less rosewater here) and a lovely one at that. Light, fluttering red fruits in the background with dried roses, stones, and a happy buckwheat-rye-cinnamon note. Dry, gutsy, easy, refreshing and fun.

And The Pairing? The Susucaru wants North African-Middle Eastern flavors. It has the backbone to stand up and expand with the spice while having the gaps and space to slowly and gracefully mingle with the flurry of flavors on the plate. Great pairing. Great.

Cost: $13 for food, $35 for wine = $48      

#162 - Two Meals And Two Wines

A combined post because the pairings weren't much to recommend, though one wine, the 2000 Heredia, is worth mentioning.

Some surprisingly good food, both with slight twists put on food we like, that made for a pretty solid food week during the house arrest the Chicago snow has put us under but nothing really popped together.

Meal #1: Quiche with arugula salad, bread and butter

Quiche maraîchère from Around My French Table, same quiche as this quiche with a slight change that made it better. In the three times we've had this, it's been a clearinghouse for random herbs in the house. This time, fresh tarragon was used and it elevated things beautifully.

A darker, more present and substantial herb hit from the tarragon that bled into the vegetables (red pepper, leeks, celery, carrots, etc.) and changed them into something more connected, darker and bordering on meaty. Really changed things. Liked this quiche before with its lightly buttery notes and less-of-an-eggy egginess but this was better.

Arugula and parsley salad with bread and Irish butter to round things out. Seemingly light and delicious but I didn't feel hungry even five hours later. Surprised how much tarragon changed everything. The quiche became an entrée instead of almost being one.

Served with the NV Crémant du Jura Berthet-Bondet ($24 - WDC). A blend of chardonnay and savagnin grapes, not worth $24 but certainly a solid value in the mid-teens. Tough to think of what food this could go with. Fine and plentiful bubbles, bringing a great mouthfeel to the wine, which is its best asset. Something close to creamy almond skin or creamy peach pit (or both) dominates along with a cheap fruit juice blend without the sugar, the kind where three or four yellowish juices are blended together and it's odd how together you get so much less than if drank separately. Five-Alive without the citric acid. Different and nice by itself (its best use, really), offered very little with the food outside of good lifting bubbles. Pairing Score: 75

Meal #2: Pepita mahi mahi with white rice and snap peas

Pepita chicken used to be a weeknight staple for a bit in our house. A return from a long hiatus last night with mahi mahi instead of chicken.

Pepita (pumpkin seeds) with tomatillos, onion, chiles, cilantro, garlic, sea salt, corn oil and black peppercorns simmered and turned into a rustic, chunky green Mexican paste-sauce. Served with Trader Joe's mahi mahi and sided with white rice and snap peas with cilantro dumped over the whole plate and lime to spritz. The mahi mahi flavor wasn't really lost but in essence became a light vehicle for the pepita sauce, which was just the tops. It's a favorite. Somehow, the white rice was the best white rice I've ever had, a product, Mrs. Ney said, of a standard preparation but the toasting of the rice beforehand brought out this humongous nutty flavor. One of those meals where as Mrs. Ney was making it, she didn't want any part of it but, as typical, turned out magically delicious. All nutty, earthy and green, spectacular seasoning with the mahi mahi keeping everything light while letting the sauce star...because it's good. And about $13 total for both plates!

Served with 2000 López de Heredia Gravonia ($25 - Binny's). First time for the 2000. The 1996 has a fond place in my heart. The 1998 is fantastic (haven't had it recently - no write-up). The 1999 a bit less so (some bottle variation here). The 2000 is fresher than previous years. Lively. With lime spritzed on the food, an enormous banana note dominated. Pineapple, apple, maybe quince and something like lemon oil danced around as well. The freshness came from the acidity but the acid doesn't make its presence felt as much as some internet reviews say. Definitely Heredia but not as much iconoclastic Heredianess bursting out of the glass as previous vintages in our world. Less smoke, wax, gas, nuts and we couldn't taste the obvious and glorious age yet. Cleaner. Complex as per usual, precise and delicious. Big Boy White. Gonna need to see what another bottle and a little age does to this one to completely figure it out. Guess I missed the funk and commanding presence to declare it another Heredia winner right now but it's nonetheless a pretty great white, especially for $25.

I spritzed lime right away over all the food (bringing out the banana). Mrs. Ney did not. Both of us came to the same conclusion. Run-of-the-mill pairing with nothing jumping out. Nutty white rice and banana in the wine the best and overall, it was nice to have the wine there. Best that can be said. Pairing Score: 84

#297 - Spanish Pork & Saffron Potatoes With '91 Heredia Bosconia GR

Pork.

It's fiiiine and God bless those people that love it so, putting pork slogans on t-shirts, inking pigs on arms (and possibly other places, if you read the news this week - I suppose that was the next inevitable tattoo spot in this day and age) and just generally preaching from the altar of swine.

For us, it offers little. Sure, you can screw with it like no other meat (Whaaaa?), making for a blank slate on which to paint your food art. That has value. Pork is by no means valueless. We like pork in various forms. But we don't anticipate pork. Not like lamb, duck, flank, hanger, shrimp (see below), roasted chicken, you get it.

Pork is like watching Chopped to us - fine enough food TV entertainment to record and watch commercial-free but never in real time. And I've certainly never anticipated the airing and viewing of Chopped. It's sorta just 'there' with all its predictable structure and snooze-worthy content (usually halfway through the entrée course). Yet we watch, because it's on TV.

We eat pork because it's available, cheap and, at times, like this time, can satisfy the 'use stuff up' food meme of the next two weeks as we wait for vacation.

Spanished-up pork is also a good platform for Heredia reds.

And this one was.