365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #26

Mrs. Ney is sick. So we kept it simple this week. And cheaper.

Sicario = Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation > Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

I say that because it's true. The second half of Star Wars is a freakin' mess. I wanted to loop the Benny Hill soundtrack over every move the First Order made. And I understand the use of nostalgia here, but laying it on a lil thick, don't ya think?

I'm not saying Sicario or MI are great films, but at least they took the time and care to give a coherent storyline and had an attention to detail.

*** Half-Year (26 week) Summary: $3542 for food, $4065 for wine = $7607 ***

Total food and wine cost for the week: $111 for food and $82 for wine = $193

Sunday: Charred Onions and Yogurt with 2014 Terrasse du Moulinas Blanc Elégance Languedoc-Roussillon

Food Details: Shallots/onions, charred, dressed with sumac-y vinaigrette with bits of perserved lemon. Big slather of labneh on the plate, shallots/onions on top. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds on the side. Whole Foods Ancient Grains bread to serve as a base for all of that. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? Have since the first time we had it, this time going meatless, something that's been happening with more frequency because this meal doesn't need meat in the least.

How Was The Wine? Another love since the first time we had it. Grenache blanc, vermentino, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc. One liter, $10, Whole Foods. This is the best it's shown. Barely any fruit, more of a whiff of an nearby orchard mixed with European country well water. Terrific, graceful cut and bite. Three-act play that tasted like a house wine at some great little restaurant on a European vacation.

And The Pairing? There's technical pairing perfection that can feel a little clinical in its analysis. But there's another level where the food and wine together taste like some part of your history, something down deep that hits you just right and reminds you of vague happy/peaceful moments. This had that, in all its puke-inducing, schmaltzy-ness.

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

Saturday: Sopa Seca with 2011 Trader Joe's Syrah Paso Robles

Food Details: (From Cook's Illustrated's Cover and Bake, page 49-50). Thin spaghetti, black beans, onion, garlic, cumin, tomatoes, chipotle, chicken broth, Monterey Jack cheese, cilantro and sour cream.

Did We Like It? More nostalgic food. It's been years since we had this. STILL GOOD!

How Was The Wine? A wine that's been in the fridge for a month (Preserva disk)! Surprisingly full, flavorful and complete. Thicker, but not unpleasantly. Nice black fruits, smooth finish; a wine completely salvaged from being dumped.

And The Pairing? Happy. It's sopa seca. You're not going to find pairing magic here. Hope for happy, be thankful when you find it. Like here.

Cost: $5 for food, $10 for wine = $15

Friday: Savory Potato Tart with 2011 Kuentz-Bas Alsace Blanc

Food Details: (NYT Cooking recipe) Thinly sliced potatoes mixed with leeks, crème fraiche, garlic, thyme, nutmeg, s & p. Placed in a pie crust, topped with more crust like a pie. Baked. Herb salad on the side.

Did We Like It? I say this every time we have it, which it often, because it's perfect food: easy French bistro food at its best. We need no more than this most nights.

How Was The Wine? Kermit Lynch import (60% sylvaner, 20% auxerrois, 20% muscat). This bottle's been sitting around for a bit, needing to be drunk. Herbs and dryness from the sylvaner, dried honey from the auxerrois, touch of peach buried down low from the muscat. Some gray hairs showing here in the form of walking into a slightly musty basement, but a fruity acid that was still present. Light-bodied, pleasant bounce.

And The Pairing? Nice. I used fennel vinegar on the salad and the wine became a fully-formed, food-friendly, lovely drinker.

Cost: $10 for food, $12 for wine = $22  

Thursday: Spanishy Sausage-Artichoke-Kale-Polenta with 2014 Rosa dell'Olmo Gavi Piedmont

Food Details: (Martha Stewart recipe) Very simple plate o' food consisting of sausage, kale, artichokes, onions, rosemary and crisped up polenta cakes, with the addition of paprika to Spanishify it.

Did We Like It? This aged well. I look back on it with food fondness, having that "Here's a bunch a stuff you like. Eat it." And cost $5.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's Gavi done well. Dry, crisp, lightly floral, peaches, medium-bodied. A dryness resembling the air of a freshly cut 2x4.

And The Pairing? Fine enough. No comments.

Cost: $5 for food, $8 for wine = $13

Wednesday: Hema's Kitchen with 2013 Crios Torrontés Mendoza and NV Trader Joe's Brut North Coast

Food Details: Carryout of chicken vindaloo, ghosh rogan josh, veggie samosa and three types of naan. Forgot to get raita. Idiot.

Did We Like It? Hema's, when I first had it about 7-8 years ago, was an Indian food revelation. Just loved the poop out of it. It's been less great in recent years, missing on going deep and fresh with about 40,000 different flavors jumping everywhere like it used to. Feels like they're made ahead and reheated. More of a taste memory now than true-blue food wonder.

How Was The Wine/Pairing? When we ate Hema's a lot in the past, Crios and some Trader Joe's sparkling (Albero) was the only play, because they fulfilled everything you'd need with this food. Bubbles for lift and the creation of gaps, flowers in the Crios for 'The Pretty.' Echoes of that here, but we gave up on the Crios rather quick and downed the bubbles.

Cost: $50 for food, $24 for wine = $74  

Tuesday: Smoked Trout and Salami Pasta Salad with 2014 Cuvée Azan Picpoul de Pinet Languedoc and 2014 Berger Grüner Veltliner Kremstal

Food Details: From The New Basics Cookbook; One If By Land Pasta (page 143). This pasta salad tastes EXACTLY like 2004, as this was a fairly frequent dinner right after we moved to Chicago (mainly because Mrs. Ney could find the cervelat sausage/salami in Chicago that the recipe called for). Fusilli pasta mixed with smoked trout, spicy salami, shishito peppers, onion, dill, parsley, salt, pepper, crème fraiche, olive oil and white wine vinegar.

Did We Like It? Old School pasta salad from an Old School cookbook that never gets old.

How Was The Wine/Pairing? Our last bottle of the picpoul, which is sad. It's a favorite. Nothing special here with both wines and their pairing goodness. The leftover grüner from earlier in the week won out, but both didn't offer much.

Cost: $13 for food, $8 for wine = $21

Monday: Lamb Sausages, Fried Cauliflower and Arugula Salad with NV Trader Joe's Brut Rosé Sonoma County

Food Details: Fried cauliflower (Solomonov recipe), Paulina lamb sausages, herbed labneh for dipping and dragging, and arugula salad with pomegranate seeds to finish.

Did We Like It? Interesting one-off with the cauliflower. Don't see us making it again, because this cauliflower is better. Texture here was fine, but it misses on going deeper than merely "here is fried cauliflower." Good lamb sausages, nice to have the yogurt here, as the cauliflower needed it. A fine and good dinner.

How Was The Wine? Sick Mrs. Ney so we kept it cheap. Solid $10 Trader Joe's sparkler, a pinot noir and pinot meunier blend, so Blanc de Noirs done in the Champagne method from Sonoma County. Less fruit, more dry frame with a bit of funk.

And The Pairing? Nice swirl of bright cherry on occasion, but very rare. This food needed a fuller fruit expression to the wine to offer more to the food and it didn't have it here. There's not enough second or tertiary flavors to these bubbles to take this pairing to a broader, fuller place without more fruit showing up to the party.

Cost: $18 for food, $10 for wine = $28

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #23

Watching a trio of Christian Petzold films, Yella, Jerichow and Phoenix to go along with the previously seen Barbara, confirmed my assumption after seeing the latter that if Mr. Petzold makes a film, and Nina Hoss is in it, I'll be renting it. Dark, honest, adult stuff.

Jon Bonné left the SF Chronicle earlier this year for Punch and it didn't take long for him to embrace the freedom offered by such a move. His 'Wine Stories That Will Shape 2016' is a good read, as has been everything else since he made the move.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $88 for food and $95 for wine = $183

Sunday: Calzones with 2013 Trader Joe's Sangiovese Sonoma County

Food Details: Frozen bread dough whipped up into loafy, calzone-y form, stuffed with Italian chicken sausages, ground pork, green pepper, onion, pickled serranos, cheddar and mozzarella. Jarred 'pizza sauce' on the side.

Did We Like It? We don't eat like this, particularly the jarred, sweet, processed-tasting 'pizza sauce.' But this hit a place reminiscent of an 80s-style corner pizza place growing up. No complaints. Big brown loaf of goodness.

How Was The Wine? Blind, I wouldn't have said it was sangiovese, but pleasant red-black fruits with a modicum of acidity that puts it in the large ballpark of what you'd want from Chianti. Borderline generic wine, but nothing to hate here. Nothing, really, at all.

And The Pairing? As Italian-American from the mid-80s at it gets. Both of us...kinda...liked it.

Cost: $12 for food, $10 for wine = $22

Saturday: Potato Tart with 2014 VinTJ's Arneis Russian River Valley

Source: Savory potato tart recipe, via NYT Cooking (Tanis)

Food Details: Thinly sliced potatoes mixed with leeks cooked down in rabbit stock, crème fraiche, garlic, thyme, sage, nutmeg, s & p. Placed in a pie crust, topped with more crust like a pie. Baked. Herb salad on the side dressed with fennel vinegar.

Did We Like It? Always. It's bistro food at its best. Delicious rabbit reduction addition.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's arneis, a first for TJ's offering arneis under their own label. Not particularly concentrated, evocative or complete, but nice gooseberry notes and something reminiscent of smoked orange peel. Very bright finish that makes up for a watery entry. Pleasing, if not resplendent, but nice texture for the most part. Would buy again.

And The Pairing? The food ripped into the wine and opened up its secret places quite nicely, taking the meal to a more food-wine completeness. The wine loved the fennel vinegar on the salad, offering a perky mango-kiwi-mineral note with a bite and sip. Happy with this pairing.

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

Friday: Pick-n-Choose with 2015 Viñas Chileans Reserva Rosé Valle Central

Food Details: Ham, salami, Scottish aged cheddar, pickled onions, arugula salad, Provencal mustard, and mini-ciabatta buns.

Did We Like It? Strangely, This tasted like the best pick-n-choose in a good long while. No idea why. Just had a ton of flavors bouncing everywhere, and offered space to enjoy all of them.

How Was The Wine? $4. Cab-syrah. Rosé. Chile. It's $4-ness is quickly making this wine our house rosé when we don't want to get spendy.

And The Pairing? Good. Nothing special, but good. Firmly in the realm of Good.

Cost: $15 for food, $4 for wine = $19

Thursday: Chicken Pot Pie with 2014 Quinta do Porrais Douro

Food Details: Your standard chicken pot pie, made with biscuits instead of crust.

Did We Like It? Used to be a fairly regular weekday meal for us. Now, we don't eat like this anymore. This meal has probably been put to bed for years, as both of us found it tremendously boring.

How Was The Wine? A terrible choice, made by me, here. Thinking pot pie was a blank enough slate to serve any wine with a minimum amount of acid in it, that thinking proved woefully wrong.

And The Pairing? Shockingly terrible. One of those times where you say, "By golly, this might be the worst pairing I've had in years!" Fine on its own, but watery, flaccid, with notes of the dumpster on a hot summer day with the food.

Cost: $3 for food, $14 for wine = $17

Wednesday: Orecchiette, Sausage and Rapini with 2013 San Salvatore "Pian di Stio" Fiano Paestum IGP

Food Details: Very good batch of sausage and rapini using free sausage from a co-worker. Spicy. House staple eaten once a month or so.

Did We Like It? Top-2 weekday meal for me. Simple Italian done well. It has everything.

How Was The Wine? Squat little 500-ml bottle of fiano from San Salvatore. We liked their very polished falanghina that took its time to reveal all the goodies within. Similar complexity and length here, with minerals and preserved lemon-basil stem-spice notes mingling together. Very clean, higher perception of alcohol but never got in the way, and would get better with time. Secondary nutty notes should open up, as this was a tad tight even after a two-hour decant. One problem: this is $23 for a 500ml. That works out to about $35-36 per 750ml. Is it worth it? Maaaaaaaybe. We wavered back and forth whether we'd buy it again, finally landing on "it has a small place." Would be a great southern Italian white wine to use as an introduction to someone who doesn't think southern Italy makes serious white wine.

And The Pairing? We were surprisingly devoid of sausage and rapini pairing fits in the house. In our book, it's gotta stay Italian. Force-fitting a sauvignon blanc into this meal tastes like just that. This was the only Italian white in the house and shame on us. Gave it a pop and loved the 'Italian food with Italian wine' interplay. Loved the pecorino. Liked the sausage and orecchiette together. A bit leery of the rapini, but nothing went pear-shaped. Nice.

Cost: $5 for food, $23 for wine = $28

Tuesday: Goat Leg Greek Cassoulet with 2013 Cascina degli Ulivi Semplicemente Vino Belletti Rosso

Source: Mediterranean braised goat leg with fennel and white beans, via the Boston Globe, with the addition of fennel pollen rubbed on the meat.

Food Details: It wasn't Greek cassoulet, merely giving the elemental impression of that. Five-hour roast of goat leg. Roasted leg meat mixed with white beans, garlic, fennel, oil-cured black olives, tomatoes, lemon zest, oregano, white wine, salt and pepper. Ate like a drier cassoulet and it was light, complex, and delicious. All the ingredients stayed in its medium-bodied lane with each perking up just enough to offer a different angle and depth with each subsequent bite. We sort of loved its subtlety and complexity. Kale salad on the side. The entire meal tasted like crossroads city food where 87 cultures pass through on a regular basis offering their own little touch to a hodgepodge dish.

How Was The Wine? We almost aborted drinking it, because this was good food and deserved more after our first drink impression. Barbera-dolcetto blend served slightly chilled. Notes said it has a slight petillance but it's barely perceptible here, showing up more in a verve and jump on the tongue that comes from carbonic maceration than anything resembling spritz. Tart, lively, full. Basically a wine that the winemaker said, "Here. Here's some juice I just threw together. Try it. You'll like it." We typically gravitate towards such a thing. This one at first tasted a little too hastily thrown together, wandering into church wine territory. But as it opened up, full dark red berry fruit mixing with forest floor showed itself, becoming more distinct and interesting. At about $22, Cleto Chiarli makes three different versions of Lambrusco that occupies a similar, cheaper place and offers more length and pockets to enjoy. Intrigued by their cortese though.

And The Pairing? Food was better than the wine but we weren't displeased with the pairing.

Cost: $25 for food, $22 for wine = $47  

Monday: Best Fried Chicken Ever with Lillet Rosé

Food Details: (I'll hand it off to Mrs. Ney, as we'll be eating this often ["Not that often," says she]):

Chicken: Whole Foods air-chilled fryer. Cut into 8 pieces: 2 breasts, each cut in half; two thighs; two drumsticks. Save the wings, backbone, and other stray parts for the stock you'll surely need someday.  Combine Mr. Brock's and Mr. Keller's recipes as you see fit, as both are Experts. This is what happened to our chicken, and it worked out pretty well:
24 hours refrigerated in brine:  4 cups strong-brewed hibiscus tea, 1/4 cup kosher salt, 1/4 cup sugar, juice and shell of half a lemon, 2 tbsp garlic, thyme bundle.
Rinse off brine.  Pat dry.
One hour on the counter in 2 1/2 cups of buttermilk, 1 tbsp hottest hot sauce (in this case ghost pepper vinegar), 1 tbsp ground black pepper.
Don't rinse. Dump into flour coating (2 cups flour, 1/3 cup masa harina, 1 tbsp cornstarch, 1/2 tbsp kosher salt, 1/2 tbsp onion powder, 1/2 tbsp garlic powder, 1/2 tbsp paprika).  Use your hands to aggressively toss the chicken and bury it in the flour, let it sit 30 minutes or so.
Use lard--however much you have--or chicken fat in addition to your frying oil.
Follow Mr. Keller's fussypants directions for cooking thighs/drumsticks and breasts separately. They will come out Per.fect.ly.
Frisee, celery, pickled onions, pomegranate seeds, roasted garlic/mustard vinaigrette.
Buttermilk biscuits.

BEST. FRIED. CHICKEN. I'VE. EVER. HAD. I tried to think of better that I've had in my life and came up empty.

How Was The Beverage? From 'Everything's Coming Up Rosé' in Saveur. Link up that hibiscus tea in the chicken with hibiscus tea in your beverage, people. Lillet is delicious, as is Aperol. Find them, drink them, love them. This was perfect.

And The Pairing? Had that finger weaving quality that good pairings have. This is how to start a weekend!

Cost: $18 for food, $14 for beverage = $32 
          

#270 - Hanger, Vanilla Mash & Rapini With '08 Owen Roe Merlot

Portland vittles and Willamette wine trip next month!

A trip that includes a visit to the Oregon outpost of Owen Roe.

Those crazy cats have become a bit of a favorite.

This wine was no exception.  In fact, it might be the best full-on 100% merlot I've ever had.  We don't drink much merlot except when we have a rare yen for the fat pile that is vanilla mash.

This time, we wanted merlot, oddly, with the hanger, vanilla mash and rapini business coming along for the ride, which is the way the meal itself turned out because this is a silly good merlot that strikes every chord of balance:

Expressive without being obvious, elusive without being a tease, fruity without being a hammer, earthy without being gritty, full and round without bringing milk chocolate cream, layered and long without a sappy linger.

Want more now, please.

Food:  Hanger steak, vanilla mash, rapini and Jamaican pickled onions

#227 - Dry-Aged Filet And Potato Cakes With '05 Clos Apalta

Anniversary Dinner!  Number Seven.

Crap.  Now I have the Grizzly Adams theme song in my head.

With a sick dog, we didn't have the option to celebrate the occasion out on the town, but last night we got flavors that didn't taste like home flavors, so mission accomplished in many ways.

A carménère/cabernet blend is not home flavors (or 'out' flavors either).

A roasted vegetable chimichurri.  Not home flavors.

A zucchini/carrot veg medley.  Not home flavors.

The whole meal didn't taste like home and we liked it.

Don't need it again but we liked it.

Food:  21 day dry-aged beef filet, potato cakes and zucchini/carrot medley with chimichurri

#203 - Tuna Niçoise With A 2010 Les Pallières Rosé

Tuna Niçoise as a meal presents something akin to alchemy.

Given 15 different elements in their mostly unadulterated forms on a plate, the joy comes in combining two or three or four or more of the elements to see what new flavor presents itself.

The result is a cavalcade of distinct flavors created entirely by you, in the order you like, wonderfully beholden to the micro-craving you have in the second before taking a bite and culminating in one of the most clean, refreshing and wanted feelings of satisfaction right after putting the napkin down for the final time.

It's been upgraded from a top-fiver to one of the top-three meals in my world.

With rosé, it might be perfect because as a pairing, it's a function that you can manipulate and correct as you eat, finding the best collections to keep the wine right where you want it if you starts to gradually run off the rails.  Too much onion in that bite with tomatoes, green beans and a bit of tuna?  Use less in the next bite and suddenly the food-wine combo becomes something so much more.

And with rosé, you get a wine straddling both wine worlds: refreshing and crisp like a white with the guts and depth of a red.  A good one is a chameleon adaptable to multiple environments.  Tuna Niçoise offers a bevy of different food environments and the Les Pallières is certainly a good one.

#121 - Dry-Aged Filet & Mushroom Tart With Two Clos Fourtets

Right Bank Bordeaux can be fairly limiting with food.

Staying away from spicy heat is prudent.

And experimenting with the joys of contrasting elements on the plate that work together aren't in Right Bank Bordeaux's wheelhouse.

It's right and proper to keep the food in a similar, more mild, earthy vein with protein simply prepared in order to let the sometimes finicky, moody nature of merlot shine.

So...stripped-down, Old School, simple French food.

That can suck sometimes, coming off dull and boring, a meal that feels and tastes like the very essence of mundane.

It has to be done right in order to transcend its limitations.

It's not like good Thai or Mexican or even contemporary American, cuisines that seem to be able to make up for its sometimes sloppy preparation with its broader range of flavors, textures and surprises. More room for error.

With Old School French, the joy comes in the quality of the preparation and ingredients. Get it wrong and it's utterly forgettable. Get it right and it reminds you why the French have known what they're doing for centuries.

And you can't beat using dry-aged beef filet with a Michael Chiarello mushroom tart recipe for getting a head-start on getting it right.

Turned into a pleasant night with a neighbor over for dinner.

Food: 21-day, dry-aged beef filet with mushroom tart, mâche and cheese plate

Say you want beef filet. To buy good filet, you're already in for about $35 or so for two people. It's of course good, tasty and dripping with beefy goodness. You're going to like it. It's beef filet. Spend $15 more for the same amount of meat and you get something that you'll remember for weeks. Very similar to '64 Heredia Tondonia pairing in February.

Cut into two 3 oz.-ish medallions and rubbed with salt, pepper and oil - roasted then seared, they turned into something extraordinary. Better than the NY strip. Better than the ribeye. While the strip sprinted directly for the beefy butter realm and the ribeye comes off as a little too rich, the filet brought a perfect balance of meaty butter and beefy structural integrity.

It's the pinnacle of beef.

A red wine and mushroom reduction on the side. We were worried that it might overwhelm the beef but it didn't. Complimented beautifully when kept to the side and dragged through.

Served with a mushroom tart. Creamy yet distinguished flavors. Lightly herbal with a good parsley hit. Great crust that never went mushy or dominant, as tarts can sometimes do. Great recipe and great preparation.

Topped off with a lightly dressed mâche salad with baguette and Irish butter.

A cheese course to top things off. After some research to find cheeses that went well with Right Bank Bordeaux, three names came up. Camembert (didn't want it), Cantal (couldn't find it) and Pont L'eveque (found and bought it). We're ambivalent to stinky cheese and lean towards not liking much of it but we're open to trying. Smelled like a corpse rotting in a dumpster and the smell enveloped the entire apartment. Nice to try, much milder on the tongue, full-bodied and intensely creamy, but we don't need it again.

Aged cheddar, leftover Delice de Bourgogne and Roquefort rounded out the platter. Aside from the Roquefort having a dirty sock behind the dryer taste, good stuff all around, varied and interesting enough. Cheese is good. We're just not "I can eat entire block of cheese!" people.

We've steered away from French-style food lately for a ton of reasons. Freakin' great to return precisely because it stays balanced and almost...light.

Wine: 2003 Clos Fourtet ($60 - WDC), 2002 Clos Fourtet ($35 - Brown Derby) & 2005 Royal Tokaji Wine Co. Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos ($35 - WDC)

The 2003 Clos Fourtet was the wine that got us into Bordeaux with a half-bottle four years ago at Schwa.

This was the first time we've had it since. Plum, truffle and grilled meat on the nose, the fruit was a tad closed at first on the palate but opened up quickly to show round, bright-ish plum and raspberry notes with a touch of spice and mid-palate core of fine earth and mushroom. Somewhat creamy in texture but not thick. Tons of tannin still but integrated nicely and quite drinkable now. Showing some age. Rich and straight-forward from a great vintage. Maybe missing some of that spicy edge-earth blend I remember from the half-bottle but big and balanced nonetheless. Long life for this one, I assume. Lovely.

The intention for the night was to do a mini-vertical with Clos Fourtets from 2002-2004. Didn't happen. The 2004 wasn't touched. That's a lot of wine. So we had the 2003 with the main course and drank the 2002 with everything else.

I was dubious about the 2002. Not much info on it and a mediocre vintage. But it turned out to be something to recommend. Tons of dirt, dirt and more dirt with juicy dark red fruits and a slightly thin texture that nonetheless held on to something resembling Right Bank Bordeaux...ish. Even somewhat leafy at times. Not much personality or commanding presence and the backbone isn't long for this world but for $35, it's a fine little Right Bank drinker.

The Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttanyos served us well in place of dessert. Drank with Swedish ginger cookie-crackers, it's all orange peel, honey and marmalade, light but substantial, beautifully consistent texture from the lips to the stomach and great balance of dry and sweet. Delicious. I can't say I liked it enough to pick up another. Borderline but good price.

Pairing: 92 Frenchy Goodness

It's tough to talk about the details as there was much talking going on at the table not involving the wine. The details slipped through the cracks as other things were being discussed.

But the 2003 with the beef and mushroom tart, especially as it opened up, served us entirely well, staying true to itself, serving as a bridge between the beef and tart and offering a richness that couldn't be matched by the 2002.

The 2002 was good with the milder cheese (Delice de Bourgogne), mâche, baguette and butter and got swallowed up by the funkier ones.

The Hungarian dessert wine played better than any actual dessert could have offered. That just would have taken the meal from nicely balanced to stupid rich and heavy in many ways, I think.

Just a nice night.

Really nice.

#114 - Beef Filet & English Cheddar With '05 Dominio De Atauta

Ah...it was good to have big flavors again.

Freakin' glorious.

A week in Portugal, while relaxing and quite beautiful at times, left us wanting when it came to food flavors.

The best single item I had, a quail tapa with apricots eaten with an insanely cheap '05 Quinta do Vale Meão at the stellar Chafariz do Vinho Enoteca in Lisbon, even left me wondering what would have happened if a pinch more salt were used.

We had good food in Portugal. Solid food, interesting food to a point. We just missed bigger flavors...and maybe some risks.

And the first full meal back brought it.

Food: Paulina beef filet with English cheddar, Whole Foods Seeduction bread and an arugula and parsley salad

Beef filet seasoned with a Penzeys Spice blend of sweet basil, Turkish oregano, red bell pepper, garlic, thyme fennel, black pepper and anise seed with a little salt and olive oil (and a touch of balsamic?) added. When the meat first hit the pan, the house smelled like fancy pancake syrup.

Cooked a great rare to medium-rare, the filet melted in my mouth with each spice alternately taking the stage as it dripped down my throat. Each bite was glorious, partly because we missed such flavors and partly because it was cooked so beautifully. A little over-the-top description but golly, we missed such things.

Served with aged cheddar from Montgomery Farms in Somerset, England. I'm no cheese maven but this one has the cheddar goods. Mostly indifferent to cheddar - and cheese to a certain point - the Montgomery cow's milk brings a subtle and long cheddar taste with a tiny grassy hit and a wee touch of must that made everything taste intentional, natural and balanced. Ponderous in many ways. Dry, firm and pretty delicious. With cheese, I continue to learn why it's good...and this is Good.

Served with Whole Food's Seeduction bread. Hearty bread with sunflower seeds, poppyseed, millet and what seems like a thousand other grains. It's the only bread at Whole Foods that ever really delivers the bready goodness when you're stuck in a pinch and have to buy bread there.

Simple, undressed arugula and parsley salad that was oddly more delicious than the sum of its parts. Again, probably missed home flavors.

Home flavors are what we want and this was exactly it. Loved it. Initially, we were leaning toward cracking a 2003 Clos Fourtet, serving it with vanilla mashed potatoes and getting all Bordeaux-y with it. In the end, with the heaviness that may have brought and just enduring 13 hours in the air, we're glad we didn't.

Wine: 2005 Dominio De Atauta Ribera Del Duero ($35 - Binny's)

Grape: Tempranillo

Region: Ribera Del Duero

Vintage (WS): 95 - Hold - Assertive wines with chewy tannins; the best have great depth

Toughy. Chatter on the interwebs talked about the wall of oak showing right now with this one. And with the vintage recommendation of 'hold', what we got was seemingly a wine right at the beginnings of shedding that and entering its tannin maturation phase.

Dominio De Atauta is a Mrs. Ney favorite. I've always been left trying to figure it out and end up pretty much loving it. Our first bottle ('02 or '03, most likely) of this was brought to the now-closed Rick's Cafe, a perfectly good if unspectacular Mediterranean BYO in Wrigleyville and, mostly because of the wine, I can remember most everything of that meal and the bottle. I remember the purity of the fruit and the beautifully dry, violet-tinged finish.

The winery is a rarity. Pre-Phylloxera vines with many over 100 years old (some over 150 years - the "La Mala" bottling), they're wines to experience and ponder and simply figure out. The process of rehabilitating the neglected vines has only been going on for a little over 10 years and the results have been, in our limited experience, a benchmark of what is great about Ribera wines (the '02 single vineyard "Llanos de Almendro" is in the hopper).

This particular one would benefit from some more time but nonetheless showed much of what it's going to be. A slight nose of herbs, tar and blackberry with an early palate that showed blackberry with some black cherry fruits. With some air (a quick decant that should have been longer), the fruit turned into a blackberry liqueur/blackberry pie note. Persistent but still light on its feet, it brought a medium-full mid-palate with a pleasing hit of smoked meat mixed with a touch of vanilla. The finish was the ponderous part. Oak was fading and more small jumps of vanilla showing but the tannins were drying things up. Not unpleasant but shortened it up a bit. Distinctive and borderline good-to-great but a couple more years in the bottle would be prudent.

The Domino de Atauta regular estate offering has seen an incremental increase in price since the first bottling in 2000, up to $50 now from its initial $30 tag (we got it on sale). Worth it?...Yeah. Maybe should have left it alone for a couple of years and/or given it a long decant but in the end, it became for us much of what we wanted. It's a distinctive Ribera style that you have to love and want to follow for that price but if you do, the rewards are great.

Pairing: 90 Stayed consistently solid with even a few surprises throughout the meal

Fell right in the great meat and wine wheelhouse with the filet, offering much of everything anyone would want. Maybe not transcendent but a solid core of meaty-winey goodness.

The purity of the fruit in the wine showed more with the English cheddar with more delineated flavors and really attacking the must in the cheese with a vengeance, turning the wine into something that just kept changing. More herbal and a more tar note. Gave it a bigger backbone.

Even entirely acceptable with the arugula/parsley salad, turning the blackberry fruit into a dried blackberry that was completely welcome.

A meal that was a welcome return to big home flavors.

#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.

#98 - Dry-Aged Bone-In Ribeye With '06 Velvet Glove

Best meal in months.

And it was just so much! So much food and so much decadence.

The superlatives certainly flew as we were eating. I settled on 'hedonistic' as the best descriptor.

Kinda went over the top last night, made better by the fact we feel like we're finally are at a place where some of our first big purchases of wine are starting to get to the point where it's not stupid to crack them.

So we did.

Food: 21-day, dry-aged, bone-in ribeye with five-spice tostones, wilted spinach and Oregon blue cheese

Fox & Obel 21-day, dry-aged, bone-in ribeye.

We've had New York strip and beef filet in the dry-aged vein. We enjoy the beef filet the most but there's just nothing wrong with the ribeye at all.

When I say hedonistic, most of it came from the unbelievably rich and gorgeous flavors, but some of it came from the size of the ribeye. Over a pound each and at least 12 ounces of meat for each of us. We've come to the conclusion that nobody needs more than six ounces (maybe even less) of meat. That's the point of diminishing returns but we didn't care last night.

Beautifully cooked to a medium-rare in the cast-iron skillet with salt, pepper and olive oil and then rested on the cutting board to finish off with its own juices on top. Had the wondrous dry-aged flavor that is something other than beef. Something else. Something...

This one had a sausage filling quality to it. Less buttery than the filet and more rough and wild.

And there was just so much! Did I mention that?

Halfway through, I assessed my place in the meal as I approached full and realized I wasn't even half-done. What I thought was an extension of the bone mixed with fat was more meat. Didn't care. It would have been a crime to leave it.

Settled on five-spice tostones after screwing around with paprika and thinking about potatoes. The five-spice performed the best with the wine when we sampled it before the decant, bringing out the big blackberry notes instead of accentuating the oak as the paprika seemed to do.

Now...we loved the ribeye. But the star of the food night was the tostones smeared with the Oregon Rogue River Smokey Blue Cheese. First, the tostones with five-spice couldn't have been a better match with the wine and brought perfect elements of crispiness and subtle sweetness to the meal. But topped with this Oregon blue cheese, something entirely new to us, was simply stunning.

Smoked over hazelnut shells, many on the internet have described the cheese as having a cheddar quality. I thought the particular creaminess may have approximated that but mostly, it tasted like a better, brighter, more delicate and streamlined Roquefort. Where Roquefort (and blue cheese in general) tends to dominate any meal, becoming more a blue cheese experience no matter how judiciously incorporated, this one is just the bee's knees; strong enough to unfortunately drown out the meat with a bite but delicate enough to line up perfectly with the sweetness of the tostones and all five elements of taste that five-spice offers. Never went off the grid as blue cheese can. Never took over. It integrated and ingratiated itself into the rest of the meal with the elegance of an Englishman with white gloves and a top hat. And just couldn't have been better with the wine.

The wilted spinach wasn't touched because when you're this knee-deep in fat, why ruin it. Just go all-in.

Topped off with Smith Island chocolate cake, which brought new definition to "all-in".

Wine: 2006 Mollydooker Shiraz McLaren Vale Velvet Glove ($180 - Berkeley Wine ?)

Bought during the height of our Shiraz love two years ago, that love waned for a bit and has started to kick back up recently. We're starting to think the "fruit bomb" has a place in our world.

It was a ridiculous purchase, a vanity desire, a highly-rated wine (97 - WS, 99 - RP) insanely priced at the height of the world's love for Australian Shiraz with a simply ridiculous packaging (came with a velvet bag). I wanted it because I wanted it, something I rarely do. Usually, it takes me three weeks to buy new tennis shoes. So Mrs. Ney bought it for me.

Just monstrous. 1 1/2 hour decant. Initially, I worried about the oak after reading reviews of people that drank it recently and some showed up on the first sip before the decant. Never really showed up after that, though. Lil bit but nothing distracting and became integrated rather quickly.

Grilled meat, herbs and huge juicy blackberry on the nose. DEEP purple/black in the glass with dark red edges. Massive on the palate, tons of dark berries dominated by blackberry and plum, a wee hint of black cherry mixed in and oodles of black pepper/spice and meat with a touch of bitter dark chocolate. Thick (!) but never approaching sappy. Underlying vanilla throughout and hides the over-the-top 16.5% alcohol beautifully. The joy is in the structure and constantly changing layers. Each sip was slightly different, with the food and on its own, and the finish never stopped. Toward the end, a port-like quality with a bit of caramel/brown sugar that lingered forever.

Could have cut this wine with a knife in the best possible way and is probably the best Shiraz we've ever had.

Pairing: 95 Oh, The Extravagance!

It was our version of a foie gras, truffles, caviar and lobster meal.

Perfect with tostones and blue cheese and one of those pairings I'll remember for years. Less so but still stunning with the dry-aged ribeye.

This meal was different for us in a sense that we're usually astute about getting acid into the meal. This one had none from a food standpoint except for the sort that black pepper tries to bring. The wine was the acid bearer with this one, which put a bigger burden on the wine than we typically want but it delivered.

So much lift, so much matchy-matchy wonderfulness, everything fit like a jigsaw puzzle.

We're going to need some recovery time after last night's fat-feast but we don't care.

That was...something else...something more...just Something...Freakin'...Fantastic.

#84 - Leftover Onion Skirt Steak & Pumpkin Seed Potatoes With '05 Crasto Old Vines

It's "Try New Things" and "Drink Portuguese Wine" summer!

For lunch, sandwiches from Bari's. Oddly had never been. Best old-school, pizza parlor-ish subs on the planet. Just spectacular stuff.

For dinner, we rid ourselves of a wine we were sick of looking at and a wine that the critics slovenly gushed over two years ago, especially Wine Spectator when they put it at #3 on their top 100 list of 2008.

We were less impressed when we first had it. Liked it enough but it paled in comparison to the quality of Quinta do Vale Meao. In fact, we bought last night's wine for the first time three years ago because the Quinta do Vale Meao suddenly began to dry up around town.

The first time around, it was pleasant enough, just not particularly interesting and certainly not one of the best wines on any list. Last night showed that it may have just needed a little more time in the bottle.

Food: Leftover skirt steak, pumpkin seed potatoes, spinach and a roasted corn and bacon relish

It was clean out the freezer night for more urgent reasons than simply making a little space. The fridge teetered on the verge of "fritz" Friday, leaving oodles of items on the scary side of safely eatable.

So...it was rustic Californian with Spanish flecks! Or "let's see what can be made from what can be eaten."

Leftover skirt steak (in the safe freezer) from three weeks ago (served then with Jiménez-Landi). Onion/parsley marinade, cooked medium rare and turned out nearly as good as the previous one, which might have been the one of the best skirt steak preparations I've ever had.

Pumpkin seed potatoes made with "picada" of pepitas, baguette crumbs, parsley, garlic and saffron. An alteration of almond potatoes last served two months ago, also with skirt steak and the Torres Celeste. I didn't know it wasn't almonds instead of pumpkin seeds until Mrs. Ney told me. Par for the course, really. One of our favorite potato preparations, mainly because of the delicious garlic/parsley/saffron goopiness slathered all over them.

Relish-y type garnish consisting of roasted corn, sautéed onion and pepper, bacon, thyme

spinach and basil. I hate corn. Grew up in Iowa and I hate corn. I also become an Angels fan in the heart of Cub country. And a Browns fan in the heart of Bears country. As a child, I had a compulsive need to be different. As I grew older, I reexamined many of my prejudices, coming to tolerate the Cubs, accept that the Bears had a right to exist, even didn't wretch when I saw a Maid-Rite. But screw you, corn. Creamed corn = the most disgusting concoction on the planet. Corn niblets is a close second. But oddly, roasted corn has a begrudging, if ever so marginal place. Even corn on the cob isn't really that terrible when drenched in butter from a piece of Wonder bread (which would be a flashback of historic proportions!).

Roasted corn mixed with bacon, onion and garlic is quite good and mixed in with baby spinach and basil, it made for a side that transformed the meal a bit. It lightened everything up and brought some freshness.

Surprisingly good, even kinda great meal as Mrs. Ney had zero expectations. Broken fridges will do that.

Wine: 2005 Quinta do Crasto Reserva Old Vines ($38 - WDC)

Grape: Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz and up to 30 others

Region: Douro

Vinification: Foot-crushed and aged in a blend of French and American oak for 18 months

Vintage (WS): 94 Warm weather, with even ripening during harvest, made balanced and powerful reds

Speaking of expectations, we had none. As I said, the last time we had this one, we didn't love much about it, but it was much more open this time.

Reddish-purple in the glass, Asian spice nose. Gobs of plum on the palate with some wild dark berry mixed in. Explodes about halfway down with hugely expanding fruit and starting to show some dark cherry that subsequently retreated. A very small amount of Asian spice was present, not as much as some great Portuguese reds, but present nonetheless. Hints of very dark bitter chocolate that was welcome on the finish with not the most refined tannins but were nice enough.

Mostly, it was a quality Portuguese red, a little simple but balanced enough to make it feel like opening it was a good choice given our preconceptions going in.

Pairing: 89 Nice to have it there, agreeable with everything

Sometimes, you find cheap meals that work well with cheap wines (Roulades and Nero d'Avola). Sometimes, you find fancy meals that work well with fancy wine (Dry-aged filet and Heredia).

And sometimes, you find a meal and a wine that falls right in the middle. We have done pretty well in this range in the last two years or so. Gettin' better at this.

This meal was one of those. Quite good with leftover skirt steak, probably the best with the potatoes and entirely acceptable, even good with the relish. Great with the basil and the surprise of the night.

All the different flavors in the food and in the wine melded together for something that went above what was on the plate and in the glass.

Happy and full. Happy...and...full.

#70 - Curried Wine Can Chicken & Spinach Pie With '05 Huët Clos Du Bourg Demi-Sec

This...was...stupid good!

There's been a general feeling in the Ney house recently that we've hit a bit of a lull when it comes to pairings that approach great.

We've had good, borderline great food. And we've had some good, if not great wines. The two just never seemed to come together for a great food and wine pairing.

In fact, before this meal, the best pairing we probably had in the last month was seafood sausage, rice cakes and bok choy with the 2009 Crios Torrontes. Nothing against that pairing. It was glorious. But given everything, we seem to have been in a bit of a pairing rut lately. Tons of "perfectly fine" pairings, a few "that'll work"s and a lot of "take or leave"s.

Until tonight. Until...Tonight!

Food: Curry Can Chicken with a raita, chicken glaze on the side and spinach pie

Chicken prepped the night before using twice the recommended salt along with pepper and baking soda rubbed all over it and stuck in the refrigerator overnight. Soda can stuffed with the crappy Alois Gross Muskateller from Monday with ginger and garlic and stuck up its rump.

Chicken glazed with butter, orange marmalade, "hot" curry powder, lemon zest and sambal oelek, a sort of hot pepper paste popular in Southeast Asia, then thrown in the oven.

Came out Beaut-i-ful! The extra salt intensified the curry, sambal oelek and marmalade to such a degree that every flavor continued to linger in such a glorious way long after we swallowed. Wasn't hot. Came off more like a deep honeyed char with orange hints and a perfectly-pitched curry with oodles of depth. Best wine can chicken yet. With the glaze on the side to remoisten everything, there really was no contest. Best ever.

Chicken was over a raita, an yogurt-based Indian condiment usually used as a cooling agent for the heat that comes with things like a curry. This one was yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, shallots, onions, mint, fennel fronds and toasted coriander and white pepper. This was probably the glue to the meal. While the chicken glaze wasn't hot enough to need a cooling agent, it served as something to cut any richness that the glaze offered while serving as a bridge to the feta in the spinach pie.

It's just frozen Trader Joe's spinach pie but Mrs. Ney really didn't feel like cooking after the last two days and the thought of another green salad or prepping another starch seemed like way too much work. Didn't need anything else in the least. I've said it before and I'll say it again, best frozen product along with seafood sausage at Trader Joe's by far. Flaky, fresh, not too feta-y, not salty in the least and just all around freakin' weirdly delicious.

So we had wine can chicken with frozen spinach pie. On paper, before eating it, it would have seemed like a fine enough meal, tasty and good. Perfect with a catalogue wine. Easy-peasy and we would have moved on, happy enough.

In reality, it was the best meal we've had here in a few months.

And the wine played as big of a part.

Wine: 2005 Domaine Huët Clos Du Bourg Demi-Sec Vouvray ($30-ish - WDC?)

Grape: 100% Chenin Blanc (biodynamic)

Region: Vouvray

Vineyard: Clos Du Bourg (Le Haut Lieu and Le Mont being Huët's other regular vineyards)

Vintage: 93 - warm, dry season and ideal weather at harvest; low yields led to concentrated, balanced wines (WS)

It's been sitting in the cellar, laid on its side right in the front, staring at me for over a year. I constantly thought, "Just drink the damn thing. It's probably only marginally cellar-worthy anyway."

Straw yellow in the glass. Lightly honeyed nose. On the palate, white peach to peach with honeysuckle, a bit of minerality and a glorious underlying floral note that wasn't overly pronounced but served as a beautiful base throughout and made everything seamless. Just kept giving with great precision. Straight-up off-dry. Vacillated between being almost rich and being lifting and light, walking a great line. Faint secondary and indistinguishable tropical fruit notes. A graceful acidity that wasn't bracing or overt but was enough to allow everything to play nice and come through. Medium to slightly short finish propped up mostly by the acid, keeping it from being a ridiculously good wine and maybe the best white wine I've ever had. If longer, it would have made the wine almost perfect. Long life to this one. By golly, this is pretty!

We'll be doggedly following this vineyard of the Huët line. Maybe not this exact vintage, but more will be bought and soon.

Pairing: 94 Simply great

All the soldiers lined up and saluted. This would have been a pretty great meal without wine. With this wine, it approached perfect. It made us think if the finish to the wine was a wee bit longer, it would have been. And would have sat right alongside the Asian beef filet with Yalumba and dry-aged beef with '94 Heredia pairing. For now, it slides right below those since I started this blog.

The white peach and honeysuckle in the wine danced with the feta and raita with the graceful touch of acidity frolicking beautifully with the chicken glaze.

The meal itself had some great bridges that surprisingly stayed right in the same range of weight and spice and the wine filled in any gaps that weren't bridged. Everything was so fluid, flowing and effortless.

It was a thrown-together Wednesday night meal for the most part and it ended up feeling like something quite unique and pretty remarkable.

#64 - Tuna Niçoise And A Bandol vs. Bulgarian Rosé Beatdown

Tuna Niçoise has increasingly become the follow-up meal to the un-follow-up-able (my high school English teacher just rolled over in his grave. Is he dead? Crap. Now I have to find that out).

It followed Blackbird last October. It followed dry-aged filet with the 1964 Heredia, the best wine I've ever had, in February.

It follows things of that level because it would be silly to try to match them or try to follow them up in the least. Tuna Niçoise's deliciousness lies in the freshness along with the gargantuan mountain of food on the plate that takes two hours to eat.

You can pick and choose from 5,000 different combinations of bites. It's all very democratic.

In that democratic vein, two rosés to taste, sample and compare seemed appropriate.

Food: Tuna Niçoise

Same preparation as in February:

"Clean you out!"

Seared rare tuna with cherry tomatoes, black olives, capers, green beans, potatoes on arugula with olive oil drizzled everywhere and two hard-boiled eggs for me.

Just a big abundance of food that never gets old. Acid from tomatoes, bitterness from arugula, brininess and earthiness from the capers and olives, carb hit from the potatoes with great, fresh Whole Foods tuna and lots of it.

We have it six to twelve times a year. Kind of resets the food clock with its mountain of fresh goodness.

This time, it was served with "Seeduction" bread from Whole Foods, a hearty, dense, dark wheat bread with a big, nutty flavor. Didn't go with the tuna niçoise but we didn't care. It's great stuff.

Topped off with bacon-maple gelato from Gene's, made in Indiana with bacon cured in-house at Gene's and served with waffle galettes. That's good eatin'.

Wine: 2008 Domaine de la Bégude Rosé Bandol ($20 - Vineyards Wine Mercant - Cleveland) & 2006 Slavyantsi Rosé Rose Valley Bulgaria ($12 - Gene's Sausage Shop - Lincoln Square)

The Bandol rosé had the typical, well-crafted rosé color in the glass. Shimmered a bit. A nose of strawberries and raspberries. On the palate, it was what Bandol rosés are, sort of the essence of red wine stripped down and lightened up. Meaty with an almost sanguine quality. Dry, long finish that kept changing as it went down, ending with a meat juice and alcohol note. Nice, pleasant, lighter, a bit different. Liked it. Bandols are good and we should drink more of them.

But the Bulgarian rosé (no info or pic on the webby-webs) was oddly more interesting, probably because it was Bulgarian, came from Gene's Sausage Shop, was a four year-old rosé and didn't suck in the least. Very dark pink in the glass. Green olives on the nose with a huge alcoholic hit right away. Made from cabernet grapes, it opened up nicely as it was given some air. Probably liked it better because of what it did with the food.

Pairing: 86 A flurry of food and wine choices to pick from

By itself, the Bulgarian rosé wasn't anything special. With the food though it turned into strawberry shortcake with every bite. Surprised us completely. Any combination of the tuna Niçoise, be it the bitterness of the arugula, the brininess of the capers and/or olives, the acidity of the tomatoes, it was strawberry shortcake. The wine had a cabernet backbone and was still kicking quite nicely for a four year-old rosé...from Bulgaria...bought from a sausage shop.

We reached for that much more than the Bandol even as the Bandol was an entirely pleasant wine that was probably better from a technical wine standpoint. It just didn't offer us much in the way of surprise. Paired nicely, didn't get thrown off its game in the least but we couldn't let go of the Slavyantsi that offered strawberry shortcake where there previously wasn't strawberry shortcake.

#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.

#38 - Dry-Aged Filet With 1964 López de Heredia Tondonia Gran Reserva

Last night, I had the most ethereal moment of my wine and food life.

So much so that I fear my words will become too precious for, well, words.

As you grow older, it becomes tougher to be surprised. Tougher to not take a moment or experience and not immediately categorize it. Immediately place it into a box and watch the sensation of the moment slowly wither. And slowly feel it fall into the scattered jumble of life's moments.

Last night's meal was akin to a seemingly meaningless moment I saw or felt when I was seven years old yet it never failed to exit my brain. The kind of experience that will most likely become one of those imprints.

It was a meal that felt like a lace curtain blowing in a hot, late summer breeze.

Precious enough for you?

Oh so precious but these were some of the thoughts rummaging around my head as we ate last night.

Food: 21 day dry-aged beef filet, roasted potatoes and pearl onions with mâche

Better than the antelope from Schwa

Better than the duck from French Laundry

Better than the wagyu from Blackbird

We're still new to the dry-aged beef world, having it only once before three months ago. Here I'll plagarize myself:

Basically, it sits in its own juices for a period of time (this was 21 days) in a temperature and humidity-controlled cooler with air circulating around it. For me, it almost tastes like it's been sitting in salt for months yet it doesn't taste salty. Every natural beef flavor is drawn out.

With one change. We had New York strip then. Last night was filet. Both were from Fox & Obel.

Cut into 4 oz.-ish medallions and rubbed with salt, pepper and oil - seared then quickly roasted, they turned into something extraordinary. Better than the NY strip. While the strip sprinted directly for the beefy butter realm, the filet brought a perfect balance of meaty butter and beefy structural integrity.

I've eaten good beef. This isn't beef in the traditional sense. This is something else, something more, something...Other.

Mrs. Ney made a cherry-red wine reduction to accompany the meat and go with the wine. A gorgeous sauce that had the right hints of everything but we wouldn't let it touch the meat. Seemed wrong.

The medium heft of the potatoes, pearl onions and mâche worked perfectly with the beef.

Wine: 1964 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva ($350 - K&L Wines)

This was a Christmas gift to Mrs. Ney (and me). K & L had it for $100 off, it's our favorite winery and the '64 is considered one of the top two wines ever made by Heredia (with the '47) so there wasn't really a question over the purchase price.

Virtually no loss of wine in the bottle (top shoulder fill). Great cork. Broke 3/4 of the way down but didn't crumble at all. Let out a wisp of air when opened, a sign of good things to come.

Now the good stuff. Since ordering it, I've read what seemed like 500 reviews of the wine, getting into how the wine shows in the glass to the evolution over the time opened. Everything about how to serve it came with oodles of uncertainty, wanting it to peak at the right time, most of my thoughts being informed by the 1962 Clos Fourtet experience and its small prime drinking window. Even knowing these were two entirely different wines from different vintages in different styles with different drinking windows, I eventually settled on opening it about 20 minutes before the meal. Kind of winged it.

None of the fuss was warranted.

In the glass, there wasn't one sign that this was a 46 year-old wine. No orangish hue on the edges, no thinning out in the least. Pure medium red from middle to edge with only the ever-so slight tinge at the very edge. If I wasn't looking for it, I wouldn't have even seen that. We got a great bottling with a spectacular cork.

On the nose: Cherry, some berry, a bit of plum and a hint of vanilla and cedar. Maybe a background truffle. Very little basement dust. Blew off extraordinarily quick.

On the palate. OH, on the palate. If I knew more about prime Burgundies at their prime drinking age, that's the only thing I would have guessed if I drank it blind. Such a beautiful, silky texture brought on by something resembling creamy plum. Seamless in the most pure way. Cherry notes - alive, vibrant cherry notes, not dried - with some cedar and vanilla playing on the mid palate. Not big. Not small. The definition of a perfect medium-body with an elegance and grace I've never experienced in a wine ever before.

And what made it was the liveliness of the acid, an acidity bringing about the perfect balance, awakening something so old in the most beautiful and odd way. I never expected even a scintilla of that. Tannins weren't fully resolved either. Almost gone but not yet (five more years?).

There were moments of basement funk on a couple of sips toward the end of the meal (about 1 1/2 hours) but the wine itself never stopped, never began to close, never changed dramatically. Just evolved with such a generous and open grace. Washed over us and stopped us in our tracks. Almost too pretty for us in our current wine world.

The finish at its peak lasted two minutes, hanging mostly at the upper part of the throat and gradually seeping down.

After reading so much about the wine, especially from reviews of Rioja verticals and horizontals, I almost pitied people that drank this wine up against so many others, thinking the beauty of this '64 would be lost in the crowd. Mrs. Ney put it perfectly. If you meet the Queen of England, that's pretty great. But if you meet her alongside the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of Japan, Elvis, etc., well, the Queen of England might draw a "meh."

There's just too much finesse and haunting, underlying tone to find in this one when there are 15 more glasses are in the queue.

We love the 1978 López de Heredia Viña Bosconia (Bordeaux style). All mushroom, truffle, basement and rustic cherry. The 1964 Tondonia (Burgundy style) is in a different stratosphere.  A bottle mix-up years ago led to the bigger Bosconias being put in the Burgundy-style bottles and vice versa.  They just stuck with it.

Best wine I've ever had and it's not even close.

Pairing: Best Ever

That's all I can say. I've never experienced anything like this. On the technical side, the unexpected acidity and the medium weight of the meal and wine helped everything along in the most perfect way. Mostly though, when you have the best beef you've ever had paired the best wine you've ever had, the result is most likely going to be the best ever pairing if the heft of everything matches and some acid is brought to the party.

This was that.

Recently, Mrs. Ney and I were talking about how we don't seem to really enjoy rich food. We like rustic food with hints of richness, but once it approaches the gates of rich, we're turned off a bit.

Mostly, I think we like foods that approximate richness in new and original ways. Like the butter quality of dry-aged beef without the butter. Or the subtle creaminess of Spanish wine that doesn't wander into a Shiraz-like fruit-cream bomb. We enjoy the creaminess of leeks and the subdued richness of a properly made reduction.

This meal was like a fastball of that placed right down the middle of the plate.

We're still learning, but last night was about the prettiest thing we have ever experienced.