Boar/Pork Belly Rillettes & Guinea Hen Hash With 2009 Quinta do Vallado Tinto Douro

Hash.

Souped-up hash.

Leftovers made fancy.

With a $20 wine that we thank all that is holy nobody purchases at Binny's, yet some buyer there keeps stocking it year after year.

More for us.

Check that. I'm convinced there's one other customer in the city that's wise enough to know the deliciousness of Portuguese wine. And we jostle with him or her for the city's stock. They sit on the shelf for months after we've procured enough for us, and visit after visit they remained seated, until one day they're gone. And one day, we're going to meet that person. And it's going to be like grabbing the last Cabbage Patch.

There will be a stare-down and there might be a fight.

Food: Boar/Pork Belly Rillettes & Guinea Hen Hash

Quick Hits

Three meals, three $20 wines.

Many people think $20 is the sweet spot for wine - that place where quality meets price.

I think that's mostly true. Sometimes though, that $20 place can leave you wanting more from the wine. Just a touch more. It's so close.

Here's three.

Meal #1: Celery root brandade and fennel-blood orange salad with 2012 Mark Herold Acha Blanca Albariño California ($21 - Binny's)

Jacques Pepin brandade, swapping out most of the red potatoes for celery root, just for funnies, and using rice milk instead of dairy. The result was a lighter, less POTATO!-y brandade with subtle hints of celery root mingling with salt pollack (Devon Market) in pleasant ways. Fennel-blood orange salad mixed with arugula and topped with pecorino. We loved this salad before mixing it with the arugula. Big blast of licorice freshness. The arugula took that down a notch. But this salad will see a lot of play this summer if blood oranges are somehow still around. Baguette to dip and dunk. Happy meal here.

#80 - Duck Leg Stew With '07 Vallado Tinto

More of a Portuguese bent will be happening over the next few months as we just booked a trip to that deliciously weird country in September.

For two days during that trip, we'll be in the Douro and staying at the winery which made today's wine offering.

Excited is a mild term for our feelings about the trip.

While the wine missed the mark with the pairing, for $20, it's all Portugal, giving a glimpse into what makes Portuguese reds so gosh darn tasty.

Food: Duck leg stew with a sort of tapas spread

Well done duck legs stewed in prunes, Sicilian green olives, onions, leeks, carrots, tomatoes, chicken broth, bay leaf, salt and pepper with a picada sauce of garlic, parsley and nuts added later. It's a Catalan recipe from the inland region of Ampurdan taken again from the New Spanish Table cookbook.

The result was a sort of duck stew with a complexity of flavor I've never experienced. Deep earthiness with all the ingredients coming through at different times without becoming muddled or weighty. Wasn't coma-inducing or thick though. Almost bright and light. Looked like gravy, tasted like the best gravy I've ever had but didn't weight down the meal like gravy tends to do with flavors jumping everywhere. With delicious duck leg that nicely fell right off the bone, it was a true joy. Can't compare it to anything because I've never had anything like it. Just buy the book.

We'll be having it again.

Various accompaniments forming a sort of tapas spread included thinly-sliced linguiça, manchego cheese marinated in olive oil and rosemary, marcona almonds, medjool dates and baguette and butter.

A great meal not made better by the wine.

Wine: 2007 Quinta do Vallado Douro ($20 - Binny's)

Grape: Touriga Franca (30%), Touriga Nacional (25%), Tinta Roriz (20%),

Sousão (5%) and Vinhas Velhas (20%)

Region: Douro Valley

Vintage: 96 A cool, wet spring and summer cut yields by 20 percent, but ideal harvest weather delivered optimal ripeness

The estate "basic" tinto blend from Vallado (the reserva will be forthcoming). Opened 30 minutes before drinking (probably should have been longer). Dark red in the glass. Grilled plums on the nose. More plum dominated on the palate with some dark dried cherry and plenty of Asian spice. The flavors were straight-forward and entirely representative of what you get from a good Portuguese wine. Some nice heat with this one and a good backbone.

It performs better than most any other $20 Portuguese red blend we've had, including the wine press's favorite children, Quinta do Crasto and Vale Meão Meandro. But with Portuguese reds, a huge jump in quality happens from $20 to $40-50. In the latter range, you get something so ridiculously good, it's probably become our favorite style of wine on par with Heredia in its deliciousness.

If you haven't had Portuguese red, the Quinta do Vallado Tinto is a good place to start just to see if you dig the style. A grittiness mixes with a dark plummy creaminess vacillating back and forth dominates with some grilled meat notes and slightly less prominent Asian spice than you get from better, more expensive and expressive reds from the Douro. But it's worth every dollar in the $20 price tag. Maybe not more, but certainly worth the dollars paid.

I've never been particularly thrilled by lower-end Portuguese reds (good enough was about the best I could ever say) but I'd give my left leg for much of the higher end stuff. This one broke that mold and successfully landed right in the middle of all that.

Pairing: 80 Didn't work but I don't know what the heck would go with this food

The wine turned a bit gritty, flat and boring with most of the food, particularly the duck leg. With the linguiça, it reached the realm of mildly interesting but that was about it.

We were stumped completely by what in the world would have paired with the gravy-like goodness of the duck leg stew. Maybe a Rhône? Priorat? Other than that, not much would have had a chance, I think.

Solid wine, great by itself but bad pairing. Didn't matter, though. We're goin' to Portugal!

#168 - Lamb, Chorizo Spread & Arugula With Vallado 100% Sousão

A week in Portugal last September left us with some impressions.

1.) We can take or leave Lisbon.

2.) We can take or leave most Portuguese food.

3.) There are few places on Earth better than the Douro Valley.

4.) There are few places on Earth more relaxing than Quinta do Vallado winery.

5.) There have been few wines that left a bigger impression on me than the 100% Sousão we had at Vallado.

Last night, seven months after buying a bottle about two seconds after tasting it (for about $20, BTW), we finally had it.

Food: Lamb rack with pearl onions, chorizo spread with Seeduction bread and arugula and parsley salad

Trader Joe's lamb rack marinated in roasted garlic, olive oil, rosemary, soy sauce and red wine vinegar. Better than most Trader Joe's lamb racks. Tasted more...fresh or something. More pure, bright lamb flavor. Usually, it's a fallback lamb when Paulina/Whole Foods lamb seems cost-prohibitive or we're drinking a bottle of wine that doesn't particularly warrant the $10-12 more in lamb cost.

Roasted tiny pearl onions drizzled with olive oil, balsamic vinegar reduction and soy sauce. Solid stuff and played a integral role in the pairing.

A chorizo spread for Whole Foods Seeduction bread (one of the best breads out there). The spread taken from The New Portuguese Table. Seemed right and proper and continues to be a cookbook offering much bigger, bolder flavors than we got in Portugal. Chorizo, mayo, butter, parsley, mint and a splash of Portuguese whiskey hot sauce all blended together. Tasty. A touch salty but came off more like whipped mortadella than chorizo-like. More up my alley than Mrs. Ney's.

Arugula and parsley salad with extra virgin olive oil and good sherry vinegar. Odd arugula. Trader Joe's stuff that had a very raw, almost sheep's milk cheese funk to it. Wasn't bad, was even good overall, just had an oddness to it. Starting to realize that organic arugula almost necessitates the clamshell packaging instead of the bag and spending an extra couple dollars for the certainty of it being delicious is essential. It's been hit or miss.

The meal was prepped around the wine - or at least the impression we had of the wine at the winery - but it turned into a meal that could have played into the hands of a lot of reds we like.

Fresh, a little bit of umami goodness, great depth from the onions, salty hit from the chorizo, always welcome hearty graininess from the Seeduction bread, bitter and earthy salad finish. Hit a ton of notes.

But the wine was the star.

Wine: 2008 Quinta do Vallado 100% Sousão Douro (about $20 - Winery)

Not sold anywhere in the United States which, admittedly, offers a bit more swagger to it in my mind. Something nice 'bout that. Only about 200 cases made with most sold in Portugal and Spain to wine nuts, according to our wine tour. Entirely foot trodden for six days in old-style lagares built into the design of the winery's brand-spanking new winemaking facility specifically for the sousão grape (read about the revival of the grape here). Aged 20 months in French oak. Special stuff in my world. Wine Spectator rated it just four days ago talking about its fruitiness and juiciness. We didn't get that. The fruit in this one played second-fiddle more than any other wine I think I've ever had in such a glorious way.

At the winery, it was all iron-rich blood, concentrated and utterly distinctive. Completely original in our world. Last night showed tons of iron, tar, game, liquified dirt, game (did I mention that?), treated black tobacco product like Skoal, balsamic and summer garbage whiff in the best possible way. Tasted like it came from a dark, dark place. Big black flavors, medium body, great structure, long finish, nice heat and acid that let everything fall into its seemingly proper place. Black, black magic here. Ink in the glass and balsamic-drenched compost on the nose. After all that, we finally figured the fruit to be old dark cherries and blackberries underneath, utterly buried by the delicious weirdness upfront but still there in essential and tasty ways. Beautiful witches' brew. Kills us that we only bought one bottle.

Pairing: 90 It was about the wine but the pairing ended up better than expected

Fit wonderfully with a bite of lamb and onion, letting everything in the wine fall properly into place while accenting the iron in the lamb, turning it into something more lamby and pure with the onions turning the finish in the wine into something even longer.

But might have been best with the greens, oddly. Stellar stuff turning the wine into a kaleidoscope of previously mentioned flavors, each and every one popping up in one sip. Concentrated and vivid stuff even as the wine by itself was starting to become more simple and oxidized an hour or so into the meal (glad we didn't decant).

Too much iron and oak with the salty-ish chorizo spread.

Great stuff all around. We have to write that winery a letter.

An Utterly Haphazard, Completely Unreliable, Probably Not Complete List of Our Favorite Food and Wine Of 2013

Our Best of 2013 list, chronicled by month.

Criteria for this list: Good food, good wine, buggy-bear pairing love, something unique, something we very specifically loved, just whatever struck our fancy and deserved a list-type spot.

In short, some big impressions of the year past.

So...good, very good and great are listed, with the meh, huh?, and terrible not listed. Because who has the time for the bad in life? Just move on.

#193 - Memorial Day Hodgepodge

We stayed in for the holiday due to the 90-degree heat.

We don't enjoy hot.  If northern California didn't have earthquakes, we'd probably be living there.  Since it does, we'll just visit.  Next trip in three months.

But that's not to say we don't enjoy a hot day with a dip in the pool followed by lounging around on the patio afterwards with a bottle of wine.  We thought we could take or leave that before experiencing such a glorious 'that' at Quinta do Vallado winery in the Douro Valley last September.

While basking in the afterglow of a pool dip in 90-degree heat there, we drank a bottle of white from the winery.  I wanted to get all nostalgic and recreate that on the first hot day in Chicago with the same wine.  Yesterday was that hot day.

So we did.

Lunch:  Tomato salad, mozzzarella di bufala and baguette


Tomato salad made with tomatoes, red onion, garlic, fresno and jalapeño peppers, basil, oregano, white balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.  Mediterranean and all get-out and delicious stuff.

A ball of sliced mozzarella di bufala drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and topped with a handful of fresh basil leaves.  Baguette to mix and match.

Silly good lunch that tasted like a lunch that needs to be eaten once a week.  It's the very core of What We Want.

#309: TWIB: A Potpourri of Pairings

We're in slowdown mode here at FWW but let's whip out some food & wine pairings had over the course of this busy holiday week in the tradition of "Boom! Roasted!"

Things we learned during this Thanksgiving blur: Leave Amarone Classico on the shelf. Spend $4 more for the good albariño. Kermit Lynch could release a Night Train-based beverage and we'd buy it. The 2007 Vale Meão STILL isn't ready. Rubber, plastic and petrol tastes terrible in wine form (or any form, really). Cheap Crasto doesn't taste cheap. And food is good.

I also learned that Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue will utterly destroy the hearts and minds of anyone with a heart and mind. This is ten hours of real and honest filmmaking with some spectacular acting that makes you mad when you realize it has to end, as you want to stay in that world so completely. Can't recommend it more highly.

Let's do some cataloguing:

#240 - Linguiça, Potato-Kale Hash & Manchego With '07 Vallado Tinto

In July of 2010, we paired this wine with duck leg stew and a tapa spread.

Delicious wine by itself then, but not delicious with the food.

I remember the flavors and pairing of that meal pretty well.  Reading that post now after seeing how this wine showed last night, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't ready to go a year and a half ago.  Tannins were just opening and becoming accommodating enough then but everything else hadn't come out of its shell quite yet.  Throw on a gravy-like duck leg entrée and the fact that Portuguese reds typically scream for food less subtle and stewish, I don't think the wine had much of a chance.

Portuguese reds want simple, bold flavors with less complete integration.  They want a little char, a little bitter, a little starch.  They want rustic to match their rustic guts and then use that as a launching pad to expand out from there.

Last night's meal was that and the wine was true to form.  Textbook, really.  Mrs. Ney nailed it.  The wine tasted like War by itself.  All iron and blood with churned up earth.  With a bite of potato-kale hash and linguiça, an expanding balloon of dark but sparkly and round plum completed the delicious frame and turned this wine into one of the best showings of a $20 wine we've ever had.

I thought this wine was worth every bit of the $20 price tag a year and a half ago but probably not much more.  I was wrong.  This one's plays well above its price and has plenty of drinking life ahead.

Food:  Linguiça, potato-kale hash, marinated manchego, fig-almond cake and baguette

#208 - Bison Flank Steak, Tapenade & Risotto With '07 Duorum Reserva

One seemingly innocent element in many of the best pairings over the history of this here blog has served as the literal and figurative starchy-oozy gooey glue to what made them great.

We like various grains risotto'ed up.

Jus' sum'in 'bout it.  Something about its ability to round out edges in the rest of the food and the wine, round out the pairing, enhance spicing, perk up fruit, help along secondary flavors and bring a rational, sane and mature flavor to a meal.

Stupid Italians.  They got yet another thing right.

Whether it's a saffron risotto with arborio, blue cheese fregola, pistachio fregola, pearl municion, fennel arancini, English pea risotto, duck risotto or various other takes on these and other styles, risotto has been the happy-slappy glue to many a great meal for us over two-plus bloggy years and more.

Last night was no different.  Outstanding food here that harkened back to a former food place for us and served with a wine that was all Portugal.

Food:  Bison flank steak with almond/olive tapenade and Israeli couscous/São Jorge risotto

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #41

Ever watched a movie you should have seen decades ago? I watched Gandhi for the first time last night. Yep. First time. Never seen Chariots of Fire either. Probably should take care of that.

The first season of 'The Americans' only made me think that the rest of the series is them almost getting caught every other episode, with them almost breaking up in the other episodes. Keep it. I have hundreds of hours of terrible Angels baseball to watch.

And I can't wait to see in what unique way the Browns screw this one up.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $126 for food and $91 for wine = $217

Sunday: Salmon and Bagels with 2015 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Trader Joe's cured salmon, avocado, clover sprouts, cream cheese (with dill, cilantro, serrano, onion and lemon zest), bagels, and tomatoes for me.

Did We Like It? Leaves us clean, full and feeling healthy every time, even with bagels and cream cheese. We have it probably 8-10 times a year.

How Was The Wine? More Charles Smith rosé (this one a collaboration with Charles Bieler). 63% syrah, 12% mourvedre, 10% grenache, 7% cab, 7% cinsault, 3% counoise from Columbia Valley, with Mr. Smith's VINO being 100% sangiovese. Both are a house favorite. When the new vintages come out, at least six of each are immediately bought. This year's has a watermelon-earth back and forth with bright acid. Not as evocative or deep as a couple vintages ago, but has a playful, perky side that's welcome. And it was a stupid-ridiculous $8 at Target (!) when we bought it.

And The Pairing? Not great. Felt like two co-workers who go through the necessary pleasantries because they have to be in the same space while on the clock, but no friendship will be forming anytime soon.

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

Saturday: Big Fried Chicken Salad with Leftover Wine

Food Details: 'Southern style" Aldi frozen fried chicken cutlets, cheddar, green pepper, onion, peas, kumatoes, pretzel-bread croutons, romaine and homemade honey mustard dressing. All ingredients in a big bowl, mix, eat. Don't even use a table. Sit on the couch, put the bowl on your stomach and go to town.

Did We Like It? Nostalgia food! Tasted like 1998 Bennigan's, and that was a pretty darn good thing. Tasted like my 20s. Does Bennigan's still exist?  

How Was the Wine? Mrs. Ney had better luck with leftover Joel Gott sauvignon blanc than I did with leftover Schwarzböck Grüner Veltliner, which was terrible. Tasted like Pledge.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $11 for food, $0 for wine = $11

Friday: Fava-Ramp-Carrot Top Strozzapreti with 2014 Schwarzböck Gruner Veltliner Austria

Food Details: Favas, ramps, carrot-top pesto, ricotta salata, marjoram, parsley on strozapretti

Did We Like It? First uber-spring meal of the year. Green and green with a side of green, and it was rampy and carrot top-y in the bestest sense. Happy. Very happy.

How Was The Wine? Fine. Lemony with green hints and fine acid. Cheap grüner in liter form that has served us fairly well over the years.

And The Pairing? Less "fairly well" this time. Not much intermingling or interplay.

Cost: $20 for food, $13 for wine = $33

Thursday: Zucchini Goop with 2015 Charles Smith VINO Rosé Columbia Valley

Food Details: Based on a recipe from Mexican, by Jane Milton (page 186), with the addition of green chorizo, from Melissa Clark in NYT Cooking. Cook your chorizo. Remove from pan, and then brown onions and scallions. Add garlic and four [previously salted and rinsed] sliced-into-sticks zucchini, sautée some more. Add a can of tomatoes and sliced pickled serranos; sauté briefly. Dump in chorizo, warm through. Turn off burner, add half a block of cubed cream cheese to melt in residual heat. Fresh oregano, tons of dill and parmesan. Ancient Grains bread to top with zucchini goop.

Did We Like It? Bready, porky, touch spicy, vegetabley, happy as all-get out. This version brought a very good dill-heat balance.

How Was The Wine? Sangiovese rosé from Mr. Charles Smith. Bright cherry fruit, pretty earth, medium-bodied, super-duper rosé happiness. We'll probably go through a case by the end of the year. Because it's delicious and because it's $10.

And The Pairing? The wine LOVED the dill. Very good version of zucchini goop with a very fresh rosé that liked the food. Do need much else.

Cost: $10 for food, $10 for wine = $20

Wednesday: Hummus, Laffa and Fattoush with 2015 Broc Cellars Sparkling Chenin Blanc Central Coast

Food Details: Hummus here, laffa here, fattoush here. Third making of this meal. Hummus somehow less bright and clear than in the past. Greens too wet, but fine enough flavors bouncing around to enjoy it. Homemade za'atar again helped immensely. Laffa instead of pita this time, which is the same recipe as pita but rolled thinner and bigger. Better than pita.

Did We Like It? Good enough was my overall thought. But this wine... Curse the heavens that it's sold out!

How Was The Wine? Pet-nat chenin blanc from Broc. 11.5% alcohol from Central Coast (that in itself seems like a miracle). We got three in our club shipment this year. Crazy-fresh peach, peach fizz and pit in a glass. Crystal-clear fruit that tastes like San Francisco morning sunshine - cool, bright, head-clearing. Five stars, Mr. Brockaway. You're ridiculous.

And The Pairing? Wine ruled the night and slid into the food well enough. Nice dinner.

Cost: $20 for food, $27 for wine = $47    

Tuesday: Argentinean Skirt Steak and Empanadas with 2009 Quinta do Vallado Tinto Douro

Food Details: Most beautiful medium-rare on some of the beautiful beef we've had in a long time. Paulina Meat Market skirt steak in churrasco marinade. Chimichurri to top and dip. Empanadas filled with kale, potato, onion, Petit Basque cheese, currant and garlic. A bit of arugula under the beef.

Did We Like It? Best meal of the week and probably the best since Fish sauce-sauce game hens! Gorgeous beef, delicious empanadas, what else does anybody need?

How Was The Wine? Dry, savory blackberry fruit, perfect earth, lovely hint of spice, great balance. Vallado's tinto is the best $20 and under red wine in my book. This thing is over six years old. Find me another $20-and-under, six-year-old wine that drinks like this and I'll give you...something...how about a hug? Tastes like the air of a mid-August Iowa summer (which is the air of the Douro all the time) in the bestest sense.

And The Pairing? The chimichurri beat it up the smallest wee bit, but overall this was so stupid-good.

Cost: $27 for food, $17 for wine = $44    

Monday: Fish Tacos with Argus Cidery Tepache Pineapple Wine

Food Details: (recipe - don't mess with it) Mahi mahi marinade = shallot, garlic, jalapeño, olive oil, lime juice, chili powder, cilantro and cumin, then fish cooked up in cast-iron. Cabbage slaw. Homemade guacamole. Jalapeño crema. Hot sauce. Charred tortillas.

Did We Like It? Why has it been so long, fish tacos! This batch had a complete balance of flavor. Perfect hit of everything needed to find fish-taco joy. And a perfect kickoff to a great food weekend.

How Was The Wine? Pineapple wine made in Texas. We're fans, ever since having it at Minero in Charleston. Spicy grilled pineapple in a bottle. Frothy, almost beer-like but never all the way there. It demands you to pay attention to it in the best way.

And The Pairing? Strangely better than we expected, and we expected to love this. Purple Corn Sangria is great with fish tacos, but purple corn sangria can be a bit of work, particularly when you don't want to do said work and pineapple wine exists. Argus killed purple corn sangria and we're just fine with that.

Cost: $16 for food, $16 for wine = $32

#108 - Lamb Shank In Mole With '07 Vallado Reserva Field Blend

Hey!

We're staying there in a few weeks!

Like AT this winery. That's pretty neat.

I'm sure there will be reports.

On another note, the '04 Yalumba HP Shiraz-Viognier from last week got the wine preservation treatment (a Harvey Steiman recommendation - he's good and likes wine). While nothing to write home about, all the wood was gone and even some marginally vibrant fruit perked up on occasion even after a week.

50 disks for $20 at KL Wines. Entirely worth it.

Food: Lamb shank in mole with corn polenta and mint snap peas

Exact same preparation as the duck in mole with '04 Quinta do Vale Meão. From that write-up:

Mrs. Ney whipped up a mole imparting huge earth and dark chocolate notes with a hint of brightness. A modified Rick Bayless recipe, she substituted oranges for tomatillos, apricots and cherries for raisins, corn tortillas for white bread and 85% cacao for Mexican chocolate with a squirt of honey and a glop of miso paste.

Seemed apt with a Portuguese red in a similar vein. Didn't turn out to be similar from the wine side of things but it still worked in solidly delicious ways.

Tasty corn polenta that made me wonder why we don't eat it more. Farro was an option but it only would have darkened things up even more. The polenta served as a great contrast with its subtle brightness.

Mint snap peas because it's lamb. Mint and lamb = good.

On the lamb, this preparation gave lamb shank a go. While tasty and, at times, delicious, we're talking about a lot of fat with the essence of lamb only half coming through. Some bites were delicious but working around the fat only made us want proper lamb rack even more. It had a pork belly feel to it. Good in small doses and delicious as an appetizer in a succulent sauce but as an entrée...pass. Good in small doses, great at times, marginally fatty and boring as a centerpiece.

But the wine brought everything on the plate together, even if the wine may have never got out of the realm of an idiosyncratic wonder.

Wine: 2007 Quinta do Vallado Reserva Field Blend ($60 - Binny's)

Grapes: Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela, Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional and Sousão

Vintage (WS): 96 A cool, wet spring and summer cut yields by 20 percent, but ideal harvest weather delivered optimal ripeness

A little over a two hour decant and could have used three hours or more.

Mostly because an hour into the meal, the wine started to open up. Scorched earth on the nose and all Portugal in many ways. A jumble of undistinguished mixed darker red berry fruits on the palate with a huge expression of burnt coffee right away that tasted like someone tried to cover it up with caramel syrup. With that as a starting point, the coffee notes changed dramatically throughout the meal, going from a milk chocolate mocha to its best point, a caramel latte that showed up right as we were finishing the bottle. All that mixed quite nicely with a twiggy campfire quality that integrated itself quite nicely. Hints of sweet tannins but dry overall as good Portuguese reds tend to be.

We alternated between thinking this wasn't anything special in the beginning to growing quite fond of it as it opened up in the decanter. A lot of grace here that's probably not for everyone but, as I said, it's all Portugal in some of the best ways. There's an austerity, even after it opened up, that's puzzling but if open to it, the wine rewards in spades. A lot of smoke, decent amount of fig and enough Asian spice that kept us coming back, if only to figure it out.

I have fond memories of this wine a day after drinking it even though I was completely vexed by it during the first half of the meal.

Pairing: 89 A perfect example of the food on the plate coming together because of the wine

It's not like the food particularly needed it. Everything was in place. But with the wine, the lamb, mole, polenta, snap peas and mint became complete dish full of integrated flavor once a sip of wine was introduced.

That's not to say the pairing overall was anything special. It wasn't, really. But with lamb shank that we weren't terribly excited about and sides served to complement the shank, the wine served as something that brought together each element and turned it into a surprisingly cohesive meal. Should have been cohesive, sure. Nothing was out of left field in any way. But the level to which it reached surprised us. Tasted...intentional with the wine.

As for individual elements, only the polenta really stood out, allowing the fruit to come out more in the wine, something that was more muted than we thought should have been/are used to with good Portuguese reds.

Good stuff, entirely interesting, all Portugal. $60? Um...yeah...maybe. Gotta really want it get to know it, though.

Quick note: Semiramis with Mrs. Ney's co-workers and two wines. 2009 Crios Rosé of Malbec ($11 - Whole Foods) and 2008 Montecillo Verdmar Albariño Rias Baixas ($11 - Binny's), two bottles that have been sitting around and we were sick of looking at them.

Both were serviceable with the food (standard Lebanese spread) with the Crios probably playing more nicely than the Montecillo. Could have gone through three bottles of Crios easily. Susanna Balbo is some kind of crazy genius. A lot of substance with this one with an even mixture of strawberry and cherry fruit followed by an easy, open and expressive finish. Unbelievably solid stuff. The Montecillo Albariño was a nice contrast from the rosé and sparkling we had (can't remember the name - brought by someone else, good and was a Blancs de Noirs, IIRC). Tasted like unsweetened old orange juice, but in a good way. Or a weirdly tasty Chinese orange drink bought at a Asian grocery store. Don't really need the Montecillo again but the Crios Rosé of Malbec will be purchased again quite soon.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #31

TV things with a week to go until pitchers and catchers report:

I feel the internet failed us. How nobody told me that every freaking season of Channel 4's Come Dine With Me is on YouTube is a big disappointment and I blame all of you people. This show has everything: bad food, strangers forced to try to get along, weird human ticks, conversational dynamics, and judgment...loads of judgment. Everyone on the show is also Trying: trying to cook well, trying to understand another human being, trying to have some fun, trying to be understood. Loads of Trying.

There are hundreds of episodes. If I didn't like sports, that cord would have been cut years ago.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $85 for food and $72 for wine = $157

Sunday: Orecchiette with Sausage and Rapini with 2014 Rosa dell'Olmo Gavi Piedmont

Food Details: Orecchiette with sausage, rapini, onion, red pepper flakes, parsley, bread crumbs and evoo.

Did We Like It? Solid batch here. Loved the sausage-rapini back and forth.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's Gavi done well. Dry, crisp, lightly floral, peaches, medium-bodied. I drank this, like it muchly, and now I want picpoul. Something about these two grapes that make me want buckets of them.

And The Pairing? Classic. They like each other.

Cost: $6 for food, $8 for wine = $14

Saturday: Leek-Onion-Tomato Tart with 2014 Charles Smith VINO Pinot Grigio Columbia Valley

Food Details: Leek, onion, shallot, charred scallion, garlic, basil tart with parmesan and grape tomato slices; herb salad.

Did We Like It? A fine tart, even with me making the wrong dough for it in the morning. Tart and salad. It's simple, honest bistro food done right.

How Was The Wine? The Charles Smith VINO is consistent, with teeny-tiny vacillations with each drinking and depending on the food. But knowing that we're drinking it with a weeknight dinner always ups the anticipation of dinner, particularly after waiting on Valentine's weekend couples (rubs temples). Loved the acid with this drinking.

And The Pairing? Nice tart, solid wine, very happy.

Cost: $8 for food, $11 for wine = $19

Friday: "Sandwich" with 2015 Viñas Chilenas Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Smoked turkey, mortadella, muenster, roasted red peppers, onion, tomato, leaf lettuce and mayo on the more "fancy" batch. Ham, mortadella, American cheesed onion on the street sandwich batch. D'amato's bread for both. More than six feet of Sandwich! Olive oil chips.

Did We Like It? So much sandwich that it blew past the plural back into the singular. So much sandwich to last us through the weekend for snacky-lunchy needs. And good sandwich at that; the kind of basic sandwich that tastes like the rolling history of sandwich.

How Was The Wine? This is $4, fresh, fruity, round, bouncy and delicious. Cabernet-syrah blend done up rosé style.

And The Pairing? Not as delicious here, at least for me. A bit coarse.

Cost: $20 for food, $4 for wine = $24

Thursday: Mexican Green Rice with 2014 La Granja Blanco Rioja

Food Details: Jalapeño chicken sausages, sauteed onions and Bayless' "Mexican Red Rice" made with freezer roasted tomatillo salsa.

Did We Like It? Easy weeknight food when you simply want a big, hot bowl of Mexican flavors. And a vehicle to eat sour cream without simply opening up the tub of sour cream and eating it with a spoon.

How Was The Wine? $5 Trader Joe's verdejo-viura blend. Big tropical fruit notes this time, with a fine snappy finish.

And The Pairing? Good. Enough.

Cost: $6 for food, $5 for wine = $11

Wednesday: French Pizzas and Walnut Oil-ed Arugula with NV La Granja Brut Cava

Food Details: A Trader Joe's feast. TJ's French pizzas with ham and gruyère. Arugula salad dressed with walnut oil, roasted garlic, grainy mustard, evoo and white balsamic. Slice of pizza, top with salad, eat.

Did We Like It? What the hell? After a lazy day and Five Guys for lunch, easy food was in order. This was easy food and oddly great food. Something about the walnut oil jazzed this up to something delicious with flavors jumping everywhere.

How Was The Wine? Cheap Cava (70% xarel·lo, 30% parellada) and usually cheap lunch bubbles that tastes like cheap wine from vacation. Nothing special, ever, but here...

And The Pairing? Best it's ever tasted in this house. The sweetness of its fruit bloomed - bright and clean and Spanishy - with a very nice nut-pit note on its finish with every bite and sip. This was a cheap, easy, whipped together dinner and it turned into something so much more.

Cost: $10 for food, $8 for wine = $18      

Tuesday: Sumac Poussins and Braised Endive with 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast

Food Details: Ottolenghi sumac-ed baby chickens (sumac, garlic, allspice, salt marinade), stuffed with Carolina Gold rice and barley (instead of bulgur), ground lamb, allspice, cinnamon, pine nuts, almonds, etc. Birds then roasted. Endive braised and roasted under the baby chickens. Yogurt to dip and dunk.

Did We Like It? We did, well enough. It had all the Ottolenghi flavors we like. Great bird meat and stuffing, and with a dip of yogurt, it reached all the basic heights of what makes Ottolenghi food our first food love. Felt like something was...half-missing here, though.

How Was The Wine? Grenache in the can from Field Recordings. We've been over this. It's nothing serious or thought-provoking, just VERY sunny strawberry and guava notes with buckets of happy acid. It's ever-so slightly starting to fade from its former fresh-fresh deliciousness, but it's still more than adequate. And was here.

And The Pairing? Fine and good. At times, even delicious. In hindsight, this might have been a food opportunity for something sherry-like.

Cost: $25 for food, $16 for wine = $41  

Monday: Beef Cheek Sugo over Pappardelle with 2007 Quinta do Vallado Tinto Douro

Food Details: Beef cheeks from a couple of Tuesdays ago, mixed with soffritto, a glop of tomato paste, a spoon of cocoa powder and rosemary sprigs; deglazed with Muscadet; added San Marzano tomatoes, brick of congealed braised beef cheeks dumped in, simmered for as long as Mrs. Ney had the patience. Parsley, pecorino, pappardelle.

Did We Like It? Had a depth similar to Bolognese and a darker, winter forest, mountain food-like warmth. Great use of leftover beef cheeks here. We liked it muchly.

How Was The Wine? Our last 2007 Vallado tinto, a great vintage in the Douro. Nine years old and still drinking well. A bit sanguine, with some cocoa, burning brush and blackberries. Typical Douro flavors with a three-act play. Everything needed was present.

And The Pairing? Linked up beautifully. The cocoa in both served as the bridge, and the rest of the flavors giddily played with each other. A fine pairing.

Cost: $10 for food extras, $20 for wine = $30

Christmas

Let's kickstart this here blog back up.

The 365 Days of Food and Wine experiment, while interesting, sapped my ability to accurately describe the delicious food Mrs. Ney made. It got to the point where my word canon reached the very end of its description limit. I'd re-read things I'd written and think, "Hot damn that's boring!" And that wasn't doing any justice to the time and effort Mrs. Ney had put in to researching, thinking about, and making dinners.

The break was needed, but it's time to step back in, because while we hope anyone searching for food and wine pairing advice - a vexing and frightening proposition for many - comes across this site and comes to understand that it's not that frightening, mostly we want and need the reference. We also like to see how our year and tastes flowed and changed.

Christmas seems a good place to start.

Food: Bittman Lamb Osso Buco with Sean Brock Grits and Rapini

Mark Bittman osso buco recipe, from NYT Cooking. Lamb osso buco from D'Artagnan, seared, then cooked for 90 minutes on the stovetop with garlic, anchovies, sage, marjoram, rosemary, white wine, salt and pepper until tender. Meat removed, sauce reduced, served on the side. Cracked pink peppercorns sprinkled on top of lamb. Sean Brock grits, from Heritage: A Cookbook (page 74 - "How to cook grits like a Southerner"). Simple rapini done up with salt and pepper that somehow didn't taste so simple.

Luscious lamb. Frenchy touches with northern Italian guts. Osso buco is never going to be the best meat I've ever had in my life, but when it hits, like here, it's a meat-melty wonder. Rather perfect grits, as Mr. Brock seems to offer with most anything he offers (see burgers, patty melts, steaks, grits, griddle cakes...he's one of our house food guiders to the delicious). Silky, but corny and buttery, with a surprising jump and lightness. A great balance and vacillation between all the flavors. When some of the anchovy pan sauce bled into the rapini, it was maybe the best rapini we've had in a good long time.

This was a dinner worthy of Christmas, after a shockingly easy Christmas Eve visit to the family.

Wine: 2015 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris Fanucchi-Wood Vineyard RRV

We loved the poop out the 2014 Jolie-Laide Trousseau Gris, first had at Chez Panisse two Septembers ago. So board and giving. The 2015 is more sturdy and focused in its flavors. It gets more directly and quickly to the point it's trying to make. Bitter orange peel galore, like Chinotto or Aperol in presence and aggressiveness. Wispy touches of herbs and minerals, particularly on the back-end, even something tea-like thrown in there on occasion. This one needs to warm up significantly in order for it to stretch its legs and become more elastic and playful. The 2014 was all ethereal, sunshine-y goodness, but sputtered with some food. The 2015 is more punchy, and that over the course of the next year might make it more suitable to the flavors we love.

Pairing: Once it reached the right temp...nothing wrong with that.

I opened a 2005 Gourt des Mautens Rasteau (Jérome Bressy) and decanted couple of hours before dinner, but it didn't budge from its hairy-backed, tannic self, and would have been just terrible with how delicate the lamb was. But the Jolie-Laide served us quite well. Not perfect, not by any means. Once it warmed up though, there was enough weaving in-and-out with the grits and lamb together to say, "Slap Daddy! That's just fine!"

Lunch: Homemade duck pâté with Rogue Flora Nelle Blue Cheese, fig marmalade, baguette and salad, served with 2011 Matthiasson Vermouth. Mrs. Ney whipped up A LOT of duck pâté, this one more country in style with its small chunks of duck meat. Turned into one of those pâtés one eats and thinks THIS is how all pâté should be. Every flavor bouncing and jiving with each other. Rogue Flora Nelle has that ideal touch of blue streaks while still retaining a clean brightness to it. House fav.

All served with a Matthiasson Vermouth that's been sitting in this house way too long, and it was great here. Smoky tangerine peel, blood orange and bark. Still going quite strong. A bite of cheese and fig marmalade on baguette with a sip of vermouth was as pairing-perfect as it gets.

Damn good (and lazy) Christmas Day! We didn't get to the "Feast of the One Fish" (brandade). It's in the works for New Year's Eve. With bubbles. We need bubbles. So we'll have them. Because bubbles are essential in life.

After the jump is a list of all the pairings we've had since this blog stopped, some of it in shorthand. It's for our reference:

#298 - Rioja

Getting away and coming back always leads to a state of precariousness. How do you maintain the sense of calm and exhale you find the moment you set down in a foreign land upon your return? Or more realistically, how do you conserve at least a piece of it? How do you stop it from too quickly transitioning from a feeling to a memory?

It's never a perpetual suspension. Never an enduring sensation floating weightlessly on the right side of that line. It's always merely a delay.

This trip, a trip to Rioja, wine country that has become so dear to our wine hearts over the years, left me with a sense that the feeling will stay a feeling a wee bit longer. It will float for a bit, holding steadfast for a period of time acceptable. Because Rioja has that thing, that Spanish thing making it so Spanish as we know and love it. A way of moving that tastes like the food and wine taste. More Spanish than Barcelona, even Madrid, more languid and wonderfully meandering, more something that took us out of life here to a restful there. To a place that became very "there."

And to our relative surprise, it was never really about the wine.

The highlights:

#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.

#207 - Great Lunch With Greek Sparkling & Not So Great Dinner

New digs here at Food With Wine.

That stretched picture up above?  That's Quinta Do Vallado in the Douro Valley, a place that made us feel the most relaxed we'd been in years.  Best views and the best pool ever.

Say hello to Cristina and Francisco for us if you ever go.  They're nice people.

Up was down and black was white Monday in the food and wine department.  We had a tossed together lunch using leftovers that was just the tops while a more thoughtful dinner in terms of recipe and what we thought should have been delicious fall oh-so flat.

Dinner made Mrs. Ney angry but lunch saved the day simply by having one food and wine match that we'll be having again and most likely often.

Lunch:  Lidia Bastianich veggie salad with Greek feta, honey and pink peppercorns

Watching Mrs. Bastianich whip up a leftover refrigerator veggie salad on the Martha Stewart Show (didn't turn the channel to it, I left it on the Hallmark Channel after watching Cheers the night before - I feel I need to say that) both of us thought, "I'd eat that," so we did.

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:

#143 - Asian Beef Filet & Sweet Potato With '07 Quinta do Vale Meão

This is the stuff we should have smuggled home from Portugal!

The 2003 Quinta do Vale Meão Douro opened the gates for us in spending money on the Old World a few years ago. Fantastically creamy, rich fruit doused with Asian spices and charred meat and herbs all over the place. I can tongue-remember everything about that wine.

Then we went back to the 2002, which came off a touch less rich and didn't develop as well in the glass (some say it's drinking beautifully right now).

Shot ahead to the 2004 and found it so confident and delicious (recently had it again in March). The 2005 was recently guzzled at the stellar Chafariz do Vinho Enoteca in Lisbon at a patently ridiculous $85 price tag.

In our world, Vale Meão is two things. One, it's the one wine that causes more hemming and hawing about the quality and preparation of the food. For us to crack one, the food has to be something special from conception. Two, until the day we die or they stop making it, Vale Meão has a customer every vintage no matter the price tag. It's our Lafite-Rothschild, our Ausone, our Pingus. When it's cracked, it's a holiday in our house.

Food: Asian beef filet with asian spiced sweet potatoes and a watercress salad

Quality beef filet from Paulina Meat Market. Not the most beautiful marbling, according to Mrs. Ney, but good stuff.

A Saveur recipe doused with sake, soy sauce and generous amounts of sea salt and cooked rare to medium-rare. Melty in the mouth with a grassy bamboo note from the sake coming through beautifully. Less so with the soy sauce. The joy came in every bite but especially an end bite with more of the beef char and the sea salt that came off more like a sea water deliciousness than coarse hits of salt. Perfect. It's a great recipe. Use it. With quality meat, the standard advice is to not screw with it. Screw that. With this recipe, it's entirely elevated.

Sweet potatoes dressed with butter, szechuan peppercorns and cocoa nib. Done up to accompany the wine. Good stuff, interesting stuff, just didn't match up with the wine in the least. Fell short and that diverted our attention away from it. Became something simply on the plate.

But the watercress salad blended with mint and dressed with sesame oil, balsamic vinegar, szechuan peppercorn and cocoa nib oddly played right into the meal. Something about the mint and how it plays with Douro reds forgives other elements, like the similar peppercorn/cocoa nib on the sweet potato, and opens things up. The mint was the bridge as a minty/eucalyptus note typically pops up on the finish of these wines.

Mrs. Ney declared it to be the best food in months in this house. I tend to agree. I'm still hung up on TK chicken. And the first meal we had after the flavor wasteland that was Portugal in many ways, the beef filet with English cheddar, might have been right there in terms of flavors from the food.

But she was talking about the complete meal. With that, I agree in spades.

And the wine was actually slightly better on its own.

Wine: 2007 Quinta do Vale Meão Douro ($75 - Wine Chateau)

Hour and a half decant and could have used much more. Dark crimson core with a purplish hue swirling around. Closed nose of charred meat and smoked plums (do people smoke plums?). Reticent as all get out. 2003 and 2007 were vintages that our wine tour guide at Vallado confirmed to us to be the most exciting vintages in the Douro in the last ten years. 2003 was hot from beginning to end, bringing the fruit right to the front of the line in all their glory. 2007 saw early rain that cut yields but an even ripening after the rain and perfect harvest weather brought great balance. Looking at it through that lens and comparing the two wines, that was confirmed in the glass last night.

The fruit was mostly hidden, popping up in the background halfway down but still propping up everything. Mostly smoked plums followed through from the nose, some cassis and jumbled mix of red berry. But the wine was defined by its charred meat rubbed in fine earth note that vacillated back and forth between offering a minty note and something like roadkill...in a good way. Less dark chocolate and less obvious Asian spice notes right now than previous vintages. Interesting acid, something that almost tasted like what tangerine/blood orange acid notes offer. Lifty and brightening. And I swear an actual blood orange note kicked up with a szechuan peppercorn bite. And not just from the peppercorn. Tasted like it was IN the wine. Fit like a glove.

The tannins needed a taming, though. More decanting was needed. They never took away from the enjoyment of the wine but nonetheless shortened the silkiness of the finish. One or two more years and this is gonna be a great wine. Once the fruit shows a touch more assertiveness and the tannins bring more integration to the party, this might be a "top ten of the decade" sort of thing.

Pairing: 92 Wine=95, Meat=94, Pairing=92

As a pairing, it didn't touch the 2005 Yalumba Hand-Picked Shiraz-Viognier with the same preparation of beef filet in January. Something about how the sake-soy sauce-salt combo blows open a wine with already bigger, more forward fruit. Just a fancy feast for the senses.

The Vale Meão was better on its own rather than with the food, showing more guts, potential and just a flurry of nuance.

With the meat, that was toned down a bit. Mostly, the charred meat/roadkill notes played right into the charred beef filet in pleasing and delicious ways. The sake lift in the meat worked with the gorgeous acid lift in the wine. Both played together nicely but a sip of wine and a bite of meat separately bought more pause-worthy, ponderous moments.

The sweet potatoes shortened the finish in unexpected ways, especially since we've done Asian sweet potatoes before with Vale Meão and liked it. Probably needed more a fruity core presence with the wine to pull that off.

But the wine rebounded with the watercress. Didn't sing but with greens and red, who knows what's going to happen. The mint in the salad cozied up mighty kindly with the wine.

....Yep....best meal in months.