#37 - Wine Can Chicken, Tomato Salad & Arugula With '06 Mas De Maha

Couldn't have changed in just two months, right?

Couldn't have...?

We returned to Wine Can Chicken last night. With the Mediterranean feel of the meal, something Rhône-ish seemed fitting and we weren't in the mood for an actual Rhône.

Food: Wine can chicken with tomato salad/arugula and baguette with butter

No glaze this time. Chicken was rubbed in salt, pepper, copious amounts of cumin and baking soda, left in the refrigerator overnight. Glaze was put on the side in an attempt to see if the skin will crust up better.

Boy did it. Salty, crispy goodness. Best skin so far. Might have missed the molasses quality that comes with the glaze a wee bit, but that was made up for by the utter crispiness of the skin. I can see us switching back and forth between glaze and no glaze in the future.

Juicy, more simple roast chicken without the glaze.

We had the same tomato salad with this wine just two months ago. Cherry tomatoes, parsley, mint, red onion, pomegranate molasses, pomegranate seeds, thyme, lemon juice, peppers, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper - made and allowed to sit and marinate in itself. It's Turkish.

Exploding, bright, acidic salad without washing out your mouth with an acid bath. I could eat this concoction three times a week and never get sick of it.

Solid, solid meal.

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas de Maha ($22 Binny's)

We're getting to the point here at Food With Wine where we can do real comparisons with wine and different food pairings. That's been the intent. Copious notes that don't rely on my brain. 100 pairings is the goal and then we'll reevaluate its utility.

Last time we drank the Mas de Maha, we had it with hanger steak, plantains and the same tomato salad and loved every second of it.

This is maybe the fifth time we've had the Mas de Maha and the consensus has been that it pairs perfectly with Cuban-influenced food. It seems unlikely that the Mas de Maha has changed in two months, but the price did mysteriously drop from $31 to $22 at Binny's. Did something change? The result last night makes me wonder.

What made this wine great was the tempranillo in the blend (60% tempranillo, 20% grenache, 20% mourvèdre). The cherry notes and the lifting quality of the grape brought a lightness and brightness to the wine while still retaining a nice heft. It could have been the food, but that seemed to fall last night.

Used to be a bit of tobacco and herb nose, with plum and cherry fruit on the palate. Never tannic, though. And that makes me think this might be changing rather quickly. Where the fruit was always concentrated, you could distinguish between the fruits and there was a lightness that seemed to defy what you were tasting. Last night was gobs of raspberry pie filling and some black pepper, like the grenache is starting to overtake the tempranillo, and it lost some of that lightness.

Still good stuff, just not what it used to be.

I never found a drinking window for this wine on the internet, usually meaning it's a drink early and often wine. But that big a difference in two months? I doubt this matters, but last night's came from the $22 batch while the one two months ago came from the $31 batch. Hmm.

With a few bottles left, we might relegate it to a meal we know works in an attempt to extend its pairing life - Cuban or Latin food.

Pairing: Perfectly good, just not what we were expecting

Even after saying all this, I liked the pairing.

Everything worked just fine, helping the chicken in small ways and standing up to the tomato salad.

We've had other offerings from Villa Creek and they came off a bit syrupy for my taste. The Mas de Maha never did. Last night, it kinda had that.

Mas de Maha = Cuban food, particularly with plantains and red meat fat from this point out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flavor and flavor with a side of freakin' flavor!

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

Nothing new here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A quick review of The Girl & The Goat

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ropa Without the Vieja And Elotes With 2008 Villa Creek Mas de Maha

We thought we wanted ropa vieja and yuca fries last week with one of our favorite wines, particularly with said Cuban-y food.

In the end, once we were eating it, we found out we really wanted Mexican street corn and Mas de Maha with a side of ropa vieja.

That result was mainly because, oddly, the spring corn was so good with the queso fresco-herb-spice slather. And because Mariano's hanger steak got its third and last chance. It's barely acceptable. Has no depth! No grizzle! No anima! It's limp, tired beef that has no place in our house no matter how close Mariano's is to our abode now.

With the cumin and oregano from the beef marinade and cinnamon-led red and green pepper-onion-tomato business below it, we got enough in the way of goodness to drive the wine right into its sweet spot, which was all we really wanted.

Because Villa Creek Mas de Maha Paso Robles ($35 - Winery) is love in a bottle. Last year, I mused, as I tend to do, that Mas de Maha might lead the category of "if I could only have one American red for the rest of my life, this might be it." I said that because it would have to be (1) a wine that was fairly cheap, (2) probably a blend to catch the wide range of flavors we typically eat, (3) possess a grace, freshness and lift, and (4) not shirk from its duty with food. Since $25-and-under in the U.S. is a big, bloated mess of 'meh' with some exceptions, the $25 to $35 range is the happy place in the U.S. Not cheap, but not ridiculous either. Mas de Maha fills that bill, with such perfect New World tempranillo freshness supported by grenache, mourvèdre and carignan to give it some guts.

Showed virtually the same as last year. "Fresh upfront, more dirty, darker, deep, licorice-y and olive-y in the middle, with a cinnamon finish that jazzes up all of that without becoming too ridiculous. It's a wine that tastes like it knows what it's doing. Smooth tannins, pop and pour, perfect in every respect for our liking." This isn't ripe or sweet in the least. It's a savory, delicious wonder that takes its time to reveal all its layers. And while it's not the best red wine I've ever had, it IS a red wine I could drink every couple of weeks for the rest of my life and I don't think I'd grow tired of it.

Nice with the corn, but it strutted beautifully with a cinnamon-heavy pepper-onion bite. This was an example of a meal that might have made us angry due to the meat blah-ness, but Mas de Maha and good corn only made us think about the good things happening on the plate and in the glass.

#250 - Oxtail Ropa Vieja Over Rice With '08 Villa Creek Mas De Maha

Super Bowl dinner.

I'd like to thank NBC for delivering a broadcast so much less LOUD than anything FOX has ever done.  And no dancing robot.  Life is better without dancing gladiator robots (though the trumpets before the trophy ceremony was a bit much).

I'd like to not thank NBC for being less loud because I rather enjoy hating on the Super Bowl.  Haters always be hatin'.  And I'm a hater.  I admit it. It's just so much spectacle for spectacle's sake.

Cassoulet with pink wine used to be Super Bowl tradition.  It's a riff on ropa vieja with Villa Creek Mas de Maha now.  Last year was ropa without the vieja and a 2006 Mas de Maha.  This year, it's oxtail ropa vieja with our second drinking of the 2008.

Food:  Oxtail ropa vieja over white rice and an arugula salad

#160 - Ropa Without The Vieja With '06 Mas De Maha +1

Last year, for the Super Bowl, was duck confit and veal sausage cassoulet with a Loire Rosé.

That meal served us well as we watched Bud Light and Doritoes belch and vomit all over my TV viewing experience.

This year was Ben Roethlisberger's move towards "redemption" from being an ugly and deplorable human being...because throwing an oblong ball well in a big game washes away all our transgressions.

Same reaction as last year for me:

No Browns = Don't Care.

With a caveat. The NFL industrial complex - and that includes the deplorable NFL media that might be the biggest collection of meatballs I've ever seen over the last ten years - has become just a little too icky for me. I fear baseball with splashes of college football and basketball and sprinkles of even tennis are my games now. Football is a little too...football-y for my world. And the impetus was probably the FOX dancing robot, a seemingly small concoction of awfulness that might have pushed me over the edge.

But like last year, good food went a long way in being able to stomach the spectacle.

Cuban pot roast without the roast coupled with a a wine we thought nearly done.

Food: Flank Steak with ropa vieja accoutrements and yuca fries with an arugula and pomegranate seed salad

Flank steak marinated in onion, parsley, worcestershire and olive oil, cooked medium rare and placed over a pile of traditional ropa vieja ingredients of onion, poblano, sweet red pepper, garlic, can o'cheap tomatoes [oregano, cumin seeds, pinch of cloves & cinnamon, bay leaves] reduced with veal stock and graciano, topped with parsley.

Instead of stewing the meat and ropa vieja-ness together, they were cooked separately. Became a sort of half-deconstructed deliciousness, allowing the typical bright and clean flavors of the flank steak to show through while still allowing the soul-satisfying Cuban flavors announce its presence. This was great meat with great accompanying flavors that allowed each distinctive flavor to show up at different times (cinnamon at time, cloves occasionally, big poblano presence, all alternating). Not ropa vieja. Ropa vieja's appeal is the sum of all the parts as it becomes something else. This was better, new and will be had again, probably soon. In our flank/hanger/skirt world...the best we've had in a long time.

Solid batch of yuca fries. Each batch is different. This one had that 'it' factor. Served with a Portuguese whiskey sauce-infused mayonnaise.

Arugula and pomegranate seed salad with balsamic and olive oil to finish.

With Cuban food, it begins and ends with Mas de Maha but the 2006 hasn't performed as well of late for us. The tempranillo in the blend lost some of its brightness and lift the last time we had it (no write-up) and the 2007s haven't shown up in Chicago yet.

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas de Maha ($23 - Binny's)

Still good!

Might have just needed some big food flavors to pry open the door. With Mas de Maha, what we love about it is the addition of tempranillo, taking the typical cheaper California Rhône blend out of the world of that dominating flat syrupness and into the realm of distinction and balance.

All raspberries this time, big batch, seeds and all. Like unsweetened raspberry jam in the process of being made. Touch of cherry at times as the tempranillo tried to assert its fading presence but the grenache and mourvèdre is taking over in great ways. Solid phase right now and something we didn't expect in the least as we popped it because we figured we should blow through the last two we have while we still could. Secondary grilled meats and hint of tobacco with enough acid holding on. It's softened considerably since the first time we had it but still possesses a great balance and dark juiciness that hits some place in us that we absolutely love.

A quick wine note: the graciano in the reduction was the 2006 Bokisch Graciano ($8 - Sam's). Tried it before putting it in the pan. Shocked. All booze-soaked chocolate cherries with earth, spice and meat char. Deep. Delicious stuff...still! Tasted like some weird off-region monastrell or mourvèdre blend. All mud with the food when we gave it a go but might have been better than the Mas de Maha by itself, without food, simply because of how odd and weird and good it was. Got a steal with this one.

Pairing: 91 Super Bowl Delight

As with our past experiences with Mas de Maha and Cuban-style food, a melding of the food and wine together happened so gracefully and fully that it became something else, something more than what each offered separately.

The raspberry juiciness brought a brightness to the meal, for sure. But the food also seemed to grab the wine by the shirt collar a bit and throw everything into line. The clove/spice in the food and wine seemed to be the chain that united things but nothing else in the food, wine and food and wine hit a false note. And the pepper on the char with the big fruit in the wine exploded on over the place in stellar ways.

Seemed made for each other and just fit.

So much better than anything emanating from my television as well.

A Quick Pairing Note: Dak Bulgogi with Trader Joe's cheap label Vouvray, the 2009 Lacheteau Demi-Sec ($6). One of the better weeknight pairings we've had in months. Nothing special in the least with this wine on its own, the sweetness in the Vouvray picked up the spice in freakin' delicious Korean hot goodness, tamed it, threw it around like a rag doll and took it to places the dish wouldn't have been by itself. Textbook example of matching a touch of sweet with a touch of heat. Great food, something double-Great with this wine. Pairing Score: 93

#192 - Ropa Vieja-ish Flank Steak & Yuca Fries With '06 Mas De Maha

With this, our last bottle of the 2006 Villa Creek Mas De Maha has been drunk.

Our love was quick and firm with this wine, becoming infinitely more firm when we found out how perfect it went with Cuban and Cuban-inspired food.

That's been a pairing that sits in the top-five in our food and wine world, anything Cubany with Mas De Maha and you got yourself a party in your mouth and everyone's invited.

Last night was the best yet.  The wine found itself a second life about a year ago, turning from a Tempranillo-dominated show with the Grenache and Mourvèdre serving as a great supporting cast to something more light and subtle with all sorts of raspberry notes in every form possible exploding everywhere.

A price drop on this wine about a year and a half ago from $31 to $22, probably caused by the Parker review that limited its drinking window to 4-5 years out from bottling, left me leery that it would last if I jumped in and bought a case.

That's too bad because it's sailing along in its second life quite well right now.

And again, with Cuban-ish food, we had a pairing last night that touched the realm of perfect.

Food:  Roja vieja-ish flank steak and yuca fries with pan sauce mayo

Flank steak marinated à la "Flank Steak With Garlic, Oregano, Orange and Cumin", courtesy of the New York Times.

#220 - Bill Kim Chicken, Soba & White Asparagus With An '03 Hirtzberger Axpoint

We've had a nice survey of quality grüner veltliners over the past two years, thanks mostly to the suggestions from our favorite wine person at Wine Discount Center.

Last night's offering, a 2003 single vineyard released at $45 and now sold for $20 due to the perceived lack of acidity needed for aging in the initial reviews right out of the shoot, is the best one both of us have ever had.

While the acidity certainly didn't define the wine, it tasted like the subdued level of acid most likely experienced right away, in 2004 or 2005, was arrested, staying in the realm of low-ish but nonetheless utterly performing its due diligence, lifting everything else, rounding out the edges, turning the wine into a three-dimensional delight as if it was merely a couple of years old instead of eight.

The big reviewers and their short drinking windows for Austrian wines continue to give us the best wine values when they're halved in price one year after Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate says they're done.

It's one example of how the domination of the market by the big-boy reviewers actually benefit wine drinkers.  Cheap goodness all around.  Of the 25 or so we've bought at a severe discount from the release price over the last three years, maybe two or three weren't Good Stuff.

#14 - Hanger Steak, Plantains, Tomato Salad and Rice With '06 Mas De Maha

Bad day to be an Angels fan.

In the span of three minutes, Lackey signed with the Red Sox and Halladay and Lee came off the market.

So it was with an open heart that a meal such as this took place.

Villa Creek's Mas de Maha opened us up to California wines. Before, we saw them as just too big, too forceful, too obvious without any subtlety.

Without any fun.

What was seen as not even an option, especially given our relative inexperience with some regions we loved and desire to explore those more, California, particularly Rhône blends, were suddenly on the table.

Food: Hanger Steak with Plantains, Tomato Salad and Rice

I was struck most with how Californian the meal felt. Something about nicely-charred, simple beef with simple rice and a Mediterranean tomato salad with acidity and fresh herbs that made it feel fresh, seasonal, clean and balanced.

And that's from a meal that should have felt mildly Cuban with the hanger and plantains.

Tomato salad made it. Cherry tomatoes, parsley, mint, red onion, pomegranate molasses, pomegranate seeds, thyme, lemon juice, peppers, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper - made and allowed to sit and marinate in itself. It's Turkish. Probably made the meal, at least for me.

Wine: 2006 Villa Creek Mas de Maha - $30 Binny's

Only inspired by Rhône blends, this one's 60% Tempranillo, 20% Grenache and 20% Mourvèdre from Paso Robles.

Fine by itself but flat-out ridiculous with food. Bring a little Latin flavors to the plate and it's sublime. Dark purple in the glass and a hint of wet tobacco on the nose, it displays tons of dark plum with a great contrast of blackberry. Concentrated fruit. Tannins are there but never pronounced, serving to properly separate flavors. Wild herbs play in the background with a little smoke. Easy drinking.

A seamlessness to the flavors keeps us coming back. Everything flows so well.

Pairing: Might be our Definition of Perfect

I was a bit shocked that the acidity so prevalent in the tomato salad didn't kill the wine. Just a little hollowness on the mid-palate. The Grenache peeked its head out as well, bringing some black pepper notes.

Overall, the Tempranillo does the bulk of the work with its characteristic plum and cherry notes with a hint of vanilla (Spanish Tempranillo usually has cherry first). What you get with food is a grape that doesn't try to get in the way. Always enough acidity and tannins to hold up just enough with flavors to compliment a wide range of cuisine. Double down on that with Latin-influenced food-type stuff. Explosive and quite memorable.

A slight gaminess brought on by, I assume, the Mourvèdre played well with the beef alone. But with the beef and plantains together, all the elements of the wine came together and became a perfect expression, in our world, of a great wine and food pairing. Everything was elevated.

Really. It's exactly what you want from a pairing, especially for a mere $30.

#99 - Two Favorites With Two Wines

Tons of catch-up to do. A messed up left hand and vacation (forthcoming and our 100th post!) has set me back a few days.

It's funny to constantly be reminded what wine can do for a meal.

The first one was an example of one of our favorite meals - so clean, fresh and filling - that once again informed us that rosé is really the only way to go with it.

The second one was an example of a fair-to-middling meal utterly taken over and elevated to such great heights by the wine, stupefying us as to how such a thing could have even happened.

#1 Tuna Niçoise with 2009 Domaine Collotte Marsannay Rosé ($17 - WDC)

I'll just plagarize myself as typing is a process right now.

Tuna Niçoise will Clean you out!

Seared rare tuna with cherry tomatoes, black olives, capers, green beans, potatoes on arugula and parsley with (lemon-infused?) 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 - a bit less of it this time, which was prudent.

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

Paired this time with a 2009 Domaine Collotte Marsannay Rosé made from pinot noir. The Saintsbury Vin Gris of Pinot Noir might be the best we've ever had with tuna Niçoise but this one performed admirably. Softer, bright and pure, showing mostly strawberry cream. Enough backbone to stand up to mostly anything on the plate but not tannic or aggressive in the least.

A pleasing rosé for a reasonable price offering something a bit more distinctive than a run-of-the-mill pink. We might like a rosé to bring a bit more in a darker, more complex vein but it was light and fresh in an Ugly Betty sort of way.

A solid 88 pairing score. No complaints at all and just reassured the notion that there's not much better than tuna Niçoise and rosé is the only way to go in our world.

#2 Falafel, pita, tomato salad and cucumber yogurt with 2006 Villa Creek Mas De Maha ($22 - Binny's)

Lots of tasty flavors with the meal. Everything represented but the falafel came out a little toasty and the pita a little crispy. It was a quick dinner right before vacation with our minds more on that. Some parts were delicious and the falafel was kinda great, if a bit overcooked.

But something happened on the way to the forum. I've written about our love for Villa Creek Mas De Maha (60% tempranillo, 20% each of grenache and mourvèdre) in the past. It's awfully great with Latin food, especially anything with a Cuban bent. When we had it with hanger, plantains and tomato salad, it was pretty revelatory, like we found one of the perfect pairings that exist in the world. Something happens to the Mas De Maha with spice and tomatoes. It takes the entire plate of food with those elements by the hand and leads it to the promised land.

In the past, it's been with meals that were good on thier own. With this one, it picked up the plate by the back of its pants and said, "get your ass to the land of goodness!" I can't ever recall a meal so lifted to such a better place by the wine.

A 95 pairing score due to what was an archetypal example of what wine can do to and with food.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #21

Geology is boring to most people. But if you have one bone in your body that's intrigued by it, this piece on the misuse of geologic terms by wine writers and winemakers is entirely worth it. NOVA's 'Making North America,' a three-part series still available through their app, is a good companion to it.

This piece on the the rise of consumer comedy - or the shoddy, cheap, and ubiquitous use of reference bait in comedy, I say - is spot on.

That Monday Night Browns' game...I'm in my early 40's, too late to switch NFL teams. Plus, it's the NFL, an ugly, sordid organization barely worth my time. But that Monday Night game... In a way, everyone should have a favorite team like the Browns. It reminds you, every game, that fate exists and it can kick you right in the nuts, even with three seconds left.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $110 for food and $109 for wine = $219

Sunday: Spicy Korean Chicken "Stir Fry" with 2014 Lacheteau Vouvray

Food Details: Oven-charred korean-ish chicken sausage, brussels sprouts, red bell pepper, and onion tossed in a gochujang-based sauce over white rice.

Did We Like It? We did. Korean-funk in a good sense.

How Was The Wine? Adequate. This Trader Joe's Vouvray has that touch of chenin sweetness that counters Korean flavors nicely, typically served with (and really only served with) dak bulgogi, a weekday staple. But the 2014 hasn't been great to us. It's a more quiet and shy Vouvray than it has been in past vintages.

And The Pairing? Adequate is the word.

Cost: $10 for food, $7 for wine = $17

Saturday: Chicken Panzanella with 2013 Chateau Trinquevedel Tavel Rosé

Food Details: Chicken [marinated in leftover nicoise dressing and freezer salsa verde with almonds, spatchcocked and roasted on top of fennel in a 450-degree oven]; slow-roasted grape tomatoes and lemon slices, tangerine-marinated castelvetrano olives, arugula, scallions, parsley; dressed in a tarragon-tangerine vinaigrette over toasted, cubed Pugliese.

Did We Like It? At first, we thought this wasn't close to the best panzanella Mrs. Ney has made in this house, then, as we got into it, we were left saying, "This is Gooood!" Still not the best version, but with panzanella, that doesn't matter. It had all the panzanella goodness and flurry of flavors that takes a fairly easily-made plate of garbage salad to a place that hits all of the buttons.

How Was The Wine? This Tavel rosé is nothing special. Solid Tavel rosé on the cheap ($15), good guts, admirable structure, fine fruit and acid balance. It's pleasant. But...

And the Pairing? ...It was rather obstinate with the food. It wouldn't look the food in the eye when it talked to it. So we opened a can of 2014 Alloy Wine Works Grenache Rosé Central Coast, our favorite rosé of the year (I don't count the Jolie-Laide as a rosé - that's something else) and it gave the Trinquevedel a lesson in how pairings work. A complete wine-food weave happened in such a pleasing, refreshing and complete way. I can't recommend this can of rosé more. It's what's good.

Cost: $20 for food, $22 for wine = $42

Friday: Tuna Salad, Arugula and Ciabbatini Buns with Two Picpouls

Food Details: Nice, basic tuna salad, dressed arugula salad, Persian cucumbers and mini-ciabatta buns. Rip, top, eat, repeat.

Did We Like It? For as basic as this meal was, this hit a pleasant food place.

How Was The Wine? Trader Joe's is running low on the 2014 Cuvée Azan Picpoul de Pinet, but a new one just popped one, the 2014 Ormarine Les Pins de Camille, also from Languedoc. This, at first, was sort of exciting. Another cheap picpoul in our lives would be a good thing. We like picpoul. But it's...not...good. Picpoul is about the snap and finish; that distinctive herb-and-stone-licking finish. The Ormarine's finish tastes like licking a rusty truck bed. Looks like a trip to various Trader Joe's is in the offing to clear out all the Azan.

And The Pairing? Pret-Ahhh good. No complaints with the Azan.

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

Thursday: Lou Malnati's with 2014 La Granja 360 Tempranillo Cariñena

Food Details: Lou Malnati's frozen spinach pizzas. A meal you have when cooking is "RIGHT OUT!"

Did We Like It? Sure. It's the only Chicago pizza we enjoy.  

How Was The Wine? $4 Trader Joe's Spanish tempranillo.

And The Pairing? Nothing to report with the wine. I paired it with the Lions-Packers game. I'd like to thank the Lions for one-upping the Browns' Monday night performance in terms of last-second futility and pure buffoonery.

Cost: $26 for food, $4 for wine = $30

Wednesday: Hummus and Fattoush with 2013 Cave de Saumur Les Plantagenets Saumur

Food Details: Same prep as five weeks ago, Solomonov hummus and pita with fattoush and homemade za'atar. Very good hummus with luscious consistency. Solid pita, but still working on the puff. Clumsy fattoush, as it was too wet.

Did We Like It? Filling, solid, good enough.

How Was The Wine? Most of the delicious nuggets that come from Saumur for $15. Fresh, higher acid, a pleasing smoky lemon salt finish. Got better and more complete as it approached room temp.

How Was The Pairing? Saumur and hummus is a thing. Better Saumur is, anyway. This one was more cozy with the fattoush, but no complaints overall here.

Cost: $12 for food, $15 for wine = $27

Tuesday: Hanger Steak with Chimichurri and Homemade Empanadas with 2010 Villa Creek Mas de Maha Paso Robles

Food Details: Hanger steak marinaded in churrasco marinade, homemade empanadas filled with potato, pumpkin, onion and cheddar. Chimichurri sauce to top on everything.

Did We Like It? South American meat and potatoes! We loved it, frankly. Perfect-perfect-perfect dough recipe here. Probably because of the lard. Lard is good. Wonderful chimichurri with a perfect acid pop and gnarly chimichurri-ness. Hanger was a tad tough, but still tasty. Very good dinner.

How Was The Wine? We haven't had a Mas de Maha in ages, a tempranillo-forward blend backed up by grenache, mourvèdre and carignane. It's stupid-great with Cuban-ish food, but alas, it's allocated now. Only available to club members, if I recall correctly. Looser, more soft and bright in the past than this drinking, the 2010 shows darker fruit flavors and more structure, more figgy secondary flavors and broodiness overall. Enjoyed it.

And The Pairing? Not the superlative pairing loveliness that Mas de Maha and Cuban food has been in the past, but very good meat and potatoes with a bigger wine that never went to the sappy fruit bomb world. Nice.

Cost: $20 for food, $50 for wine = $70  

Monday: Ottolenghi Chicken Thighs, Clementines,White Rice and Pistachios with 2013 Binigrau Vins I Vinyes Nounat Mallorca

Food Details: Chicken thighs (recipe) marinated and roasted in ouzo, orange and lemon juices, mustard, fennel, clementines, thyme, fennel seed and salt (omitting sugar). Chicken on plate, fennel on the side as veg, white rice with pistachios for starch. It's smothered chicken, Ottolenghi-style!

Did We Like It? We thought it quite nice before Mrs. Ney brought out the clementine and cooking goop to the table. After adding the clementine peel and roast goop to any bite, this turned into Food We Like. Crazy people on the interwebs that adapted this recipe say to omit this bitter peel and goop business (one calling it inedible) when serving. That's nonsense. It turned this meal from "that's nice" to "that's delicious!" Perfect bitter component to an already mighty fine chicken thigh meal. Wonderful texture on the fennel. Great cook on them. Oddly delicious white rice, though the pistachios didn't add much. We liked this and will be having it again, particularly after tasting the bitter peel goop.

How Was The Wine? Parker said this Mallorcan white wine, a chardonnay-prensal blend, is the greatest wine he'd ever tasted from Mallorca, giving it a 95. We wouldn't go that high, but it is reminiscent of a chardonnay-viognier blend from the southern Rhône with a touch more minerality (reminded me a bit of Kermit Lynch's Vaucluse Blanc from a few years ago). Interesting, unusual, delicate, smooth. More perky at times. Apple backed by tiny but prevalent tropical fruit notes. Seamless acid. Flavors that introduce themselves out of the typical order in very pleasing ways. We debated whether we'd buy this again at $25. Cautious yes, mainly because it would fit into a relatively small food box for us. We like more acid in our food and this wine COULD be more finicky with that.

And The Pairing? That said, this was pleasant. Loved the fennel. Liked the chicken. Big thumbs-up with the rice. Happy.

Cost: $12 for food, $25 for wine = $27

#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:

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.

#221 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

Our last post, Bill Kim chicken, soba noodles and white asparagus with the 2003 Hirtzberger Axpoint Grüner Veltliner, was the highlight of our grub and drink week but with a week off work for the annual September restaurant vacation, food and wine together at dinner every night nicely complimented my pokey, meandering, highly unproductive hiatus from asking, "Would you like another Coke?"

Some value plays in this week's TWIB Notes.  Friendly French on three occasions, one fine and good enough German offering and a deliciously surprising back-and-forth with two off-region tempranillos, with all the wines under $20.

#119 - Chicken Thighs And Skordalia With Two American Albariños

Two American albariños with Greek-style chicken and Turkish-inspired salad (on Polish plates with Austrian wine glasses all served on a $5 coffee table from Iowa. I can keep going...).

We accidentally went global because the soft flavors from the night before warranted it.

We wanted Flavors and we got it.

Food: Chicken thighs with skordalia and tomato salad

Chicken thighs simply roasted in the cast iron skillet and put over a big, mushy pile of skordalia.

A change-up from the previous preparation, this time using up the bread in the kitchen in place of potatoes. Almonds, bread, garlic, lemon, extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice blended into a purée that on first taste, I thought it was a modified hummus. Great garlic punch here with a smoothness and non-dairy creaminess that coated every inch of my mouth.

Chicken thighs that served more as an vehicle for the skordalia. Together, the skordalia dominated but that's exactly what we wanted.

The entire meal came down to the beautiful garlic hit and smoothness of the purée and the contrasting acid bath from the tomato salad.

I heart this tomato salad with every fiber of my being. Tastes like mowing the lawn on a 90 degree day and then drinking a tall glass of ice-cold water. Insanely fresh, this time done without the pomegranate seeds usually incorporated to pair up with red wine (usually Mas de Maha). Cherry tomatoes, oregano, parsley, mint, red onion, thyme, lemon juice, peppers, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper. Mixed and left to sit for a bit to marry. Wakes up every possible taste bud in your mouth and we need to have it more often.

It felt like getting back on the horse in many ways. After having some largely uninspired food in Portugal and slogging through post-vacation ennui, it was an entirely welcome food night.

And the wine helped.

Wine: 2008 Bonny Doon Ca' Del Solo Albariño ($18 - Randolph Wine Cellars) & 2008 Abacela Albariño ($18 - Binny's)

Ca' Del Solo from Monterey County in California. Abacela from the Umpqua Valley in southern Oregon.

Bonny Doon's an interesting story. Their vines were destroyed by Pierce's disease in 1994 and they took that as an opportunity to get out of the big production world and into small production, terroir-driven wines. Now, they grow a ton of Rhône varieties along with a flurry of boutiquey-style grapes.

This one is 75% albariño, 21% loureiro and 4% treixadura, all grapes primarily grown both in Galicia in Spain and Vinho Verde in Portugal. It's also biodynamically-grown.

Minerals dominate with a precursor to a banana creaminess. Refined and understated citrus notes with some grapefruit, touch of melon, flowers and maybe even grass that made it wander into a sauvignon blanc realm for a time. Crisp but not over-the-top with a nice underlying acid in balance with everything else. Jumped around, vacillating between the different fruit notes yet still retaining its base of cream/slight butter/hint of oil base. Got better as it came up in temperature.

Not bursting with personality but in a good way. Light. Would be a good afternoon drinker on its own. The price makes it difficult for that, though.

The 2008 Abacela seems to be falling apart but drank well enough to enjoy moments. Clunky limeade, some nice melon tones and flat club soda notes with a wacky acidic edge that blew right past quenching and settled into tart and unwieldy for sips. Hasn't seemingly aged well in a very short time but some elements present in the initial bottle that we loved of this one showed up to the party with a bowl of fresh citrus showing best very cold in the glass. When very young, the Abacela exhibits a quirky citrus-pear-apple-creamy nut-crispy goodness that demands we follow it and we do (and will).

Pairing: 87 Mixed, largely welcome bag with the food

As the Bonny Doon came up in temperature, it enhanced all the separate flavors in the skordalia and chicken quite nicely. Tasted more of everything. The Abacela also had its base hits with its lime-lemon notes blending right into the Greeky purée just fine at times.

The tomato salad was predictably a land mine, though. Served best with the Bonny Doon more as a basic food-wine accompaniment but it had the guts to hang with the acid in the tomatoes and keep the basic elements of itself, though it was kind of spectacular with a big oregano bite. The Acabela hollowed out, finishing with something that resembled inhaling a cleanser vapor.

The 2008 Abacela seems to be hanging on for dear life but still occasionally told some funny stories. The 2008 Ca' Del Solo reminded me of the Do Ferreiro in some ways. Nice, light, refined, tasty but not exactly what we want from albariño. All that said, though, we liked what happened last night.

It had Flavors with enough complexity and nuance in the wine to enjoy everything that was happening.

#111 - Jerk Chicken & Goya Products With NV Brut Rosé

Jerk Chicken is kinda fun to say.

Not as fun as Jerk Turkey, though.

Something about the repetitive 'ur' that gets me back to my Iowa roots. "Wur gunna eat sum braaat-WURst with sum mus-turd...and maybe sum catsup. After that, we gunna worsh the flatboat."

I can do this all day.

Food: Jerk chicken thighs with goya empanadas and croquetas and a tomato/pomegranate seed salad

It's frozen food/eat-the-leftovers week in the Ney house with the big 2010 vacation just a week away. Mrs. Ney promises a week of food weirdness.

The jerk marinade from Saveur using soy sauce, onion, scallion, chiles, cloves, five-spice, allspice berries, nutmeg, S&P, thyme and veg oil, slathered all over chicken thighs and marinated for 24 hours.

Big fans of jerk here and this was no exception. Maybe got more of a liquid all-spice with this one along with more of the allspice berry. Something more berry-like kicked up.

If you haven't, get to know Goya products. Solid Latin frozen food options, this time with plantain and cheese empanadas that are deliciously earthy and ham and cheese croquetas that are a great, mushy, hammy mess.

Topped off with a cherry tomato, pomegranate seed, parsley and arugula salad.

Easy meal. Monday meal. Tasty and Good meal. And it made room in the freezer.

Wine: NV Lucien Albrecht Cremant D'Alsace Brut Rosé ($18 - Whole Foods)

100% Pinot Noir, smelled like strawberry donuts right out of the bottle. Respectable bubbles and a subdued strawberry fruit note that mixed with a good core of red berries. Not big and fruity, though. Dry, clean finish with good length and structure. Almost elegant. Almost.

We both liked for $18. Recently we had an utterly delicious Schramsberg 100% Pinot Noir Napa Sparkling at Ad Hoc that retails for $40 and, for half the price, it satisfied a lot of sparkling Pinot Noir rosé yens I've had since the Schramsberg. Wasn't terribly distinctive or memorable but had enough guts and gentle openness to warrant the dollars and work with the food.

Pairing: 87 Not too shabby at all.

We just weren't in the mood for red with more Chicago hotness on the weather menu for the night, but a Mas De Maha might have been spectacular.

In some ways, this was like trying to squeeze a square peg in a round hole with jerk and non-red wine but we ended up happy. Oddly, the ham and cheese croquetas were the only thing that didn't work with the wine. Fell flat.

The rosé's subtle fruit and dry backbone was the winner, standing up just fine to the jerk, getting cozy with the empanadas and shining with the salad. More of a catch-all type pairing than something the utterly sung. The wine admirably fielded everything thrown at it with a certain panache and gamesmanship and was good enough that we might even do it again.

Cuban Wild Boar Shoulder with 2008 Twisted Oak Ol' Chumbucket And Lou Malnati's with Marietta Cellars Old Vine Red Lot #61

More California wine.

Because, in the past year, we've had our prejudices utterly debunked by a wide range of California wines. H/T to Mr. Bonné.


#1  Cuban wild boar shoulder with yuca fries and mojo sauce, served with 2008 Twisted Oak Ol' Chumbucket Calaveras County ($28 - Lush)

Two-ish pounds wild boar shoulder (from D'Artagnan), brined in water + [3-1 orange-lime] juice, sugar, salt, garlic, cumin; stuffed with pancetta, prunes, oregano; wrapped in more pancetta; rubbed with dark brown sugar; braised in Malta. Based on a Roberto Guerra pork shoulder recipe, using boar instead. Mojo sauce for yuca dripping and dragging the boar through, made with charred garlic scapes, guava paste, evoo, sherry vinegar and cumin. Mucigelatinous wonder! Goopy texture that didn't make us miss our favorite condiment with this type of meal - spicy mayonnaise. The mojo brought a garden-like punch to a meal that wanted such things. Solid batch of yuca. Aggressive Cuban flavors galore, something we like oh-so much and liked them here very much.

Pissaladière With 2007 Didier Dagueneau Silex

My favorite wine?

This.

I know you didn't ask.

It is, though.

Not necessarily this vintage, just this wine. It's magic. Pure magic.

2007 was the last vintage Didier Dagueneau took to the end. He died in a small plane crash in September of 2008. His son, Louis-Benjamin, took over and, at only 34 years old, the domaine seems to be in great hands for a long, long time. The 2009 was more magic at Etxebarri a couple of years ago.

Rustic French pissaladière and arugula-tomato salad to pair with the 2007, we felt, would have garnered a nod of approval from Didier. The result was stunning deliciousness overall and a wine that simply couldn't be summed up with a few descriptors.

Pissaladière of a bucket of onions cooked in Muscadet, garlic, olive oil, lemon thyme and white pepper, then mixed with anchovies and black olives and thrown on top of Syrian sesame bread. It's a house favorite and every time we've had it, we wonder why the hell we aren't eating this twice a month (and how the hell I never did a full write-up on it stumps me).

Silex is the benchmark of sauvignon blanc, yet it's unlike any sauvignon blanc on the planet. And the 2007 Didier Dagueneau Silex Pouilly-Fumé ($140 - Flickinger) is still pumping along, showing zero gray hairs, drinking so utterly sparkly and beautiful we could barely stand it. Some descriptors, I guess, though it won't tell the story: gooseberries, dark-dark-dark minerals (so much liquid rock it made my mouth sweat), garden notes (like sucking on tomato vines), creamy slate, more dark minerals, teeny-tiny citrus perk here and there, maybe asparagus, explosive but focused, never heavy but good heft, clean, beautifully meandering, gave about 12 different flavors with each sip, in different orders, each with such precision, purity and unique angles that, once again, it jettisoned itself to the top of the list of the best wines we've had this year, with the nod going to the 2004 Two Hands Beautiful Stranger for Mrs. Ney and this Silex for me.

It was a pairing we couldn't have been more happy with. Nothing diminished in the least in the glass or with the pissaladìere. Both the food and the wine remained themselves perfectly, with enough interweaving to bring a boatload of pairing enjoyment.

Hot damn! This is a stunning wine!

Silex, Mas de Maha and Arnot-Roberts Trousseau. Geesh! Good wine week.

We're not counting Monday's dinner of (weird) shrimp escabèche and (delicious) Peruvian potato salad with a grilled stone fruit and lavender liqueur sparkling sangria that tasted as strange as it sounds.

#300 - Romanian Skirt Steak, Spring Onions & Scallion Sauce With '07 Twisted Oak The Spaniard

Hey...we made it to 300 pairings.

Or 300 posts with probably 450 pairings.

I guess, given the societal significance attached to numbers ending to double zeros, I should sum up what we've learned lo these last almost three years.

Learned...? Hmm. I guess that is the word here. Because we have learned, while it's always been a rather organic process dictated entirely by our own random curiosity.

In many ways, food with wine has become what we love, what we do, it's our hobby, the thing we find infinitely interesting and...fun. Finding that in our 30's was something unexpected and joyful.

We knew all that when I started this blog but it's become a little more entrenched, more of a love I would say, more essential and true when talking about what we like in life. Because it's good.

So good.

Like this.

#185 - Stuffed Pepper Extravaganza, Plantains & Ramps With Two Wines

And radishes and corn and pea tendrils and cilantro-lime vinaigrette and a "romesco sauce"and a little chorizo.

We've wanted less meat lately and "a little chorizo" was the sum of all the meat present.

Last night's meal turned into a garden party with the plate looking like a jumble of every possible vegetable in the house and out in the world.

And it was delicious.

Served with two nice enough wines.  Should have stuck with one because I'm feeling it today.

Food:  Stuffed poblano and red Italian frying peppers, plantain mash and ramps with a radish, corn and pea tendril salad

Poblano and red Italian frying peppers stuffed with black beans, potato, Spanish chorizo and leftover Dunbarton blue cheese cheddar from Monday.  Could have roasted longer in the oven as the shells still had some bite to them but good stuff nonetheless.  Tasted balanced with each bite offering a nice hit of spice with the beans serving as the guts and the cheese and chorizo bringing some depth.  Each topped with a version of 'romesco sauce' made from the leftover kumatoes Provençal (from Monday as well) thrown into a blender with almonds and olive oil.

#279 - Shrimp Lunch With '10 Strub Riesling & Greek Dinner With '09 Villa Creek Avenger

Hey, it was thigh-soaking hot last Memorial Day as well.

And we went Greek then, too!

And we had Villa Creek wine just a few days before last May Remembrance with ropa vieja, a meal we were just talking about last night!

This is eerie. Moon cycles or something.

Our pairings were better this May holiday than last, with a quality bargain riesling and a surprisingly savory Villa Creek number that I think shows the vintage and the work Villa Creek put in to create something rather delicious.

Lunch:  Leek-saffron shrimp and bread for juice dipping with 2010 Strub Niersteiner Brückchen Riesling Kabinett ($18 - WDC)