#90 - Jerk Chicken, Hushpuppies & Pineapple With NV Sparkling Vouvray

Quick one today.

We could have gone in a lot of directions with this meal. Zinfandel would have been nice and made it all California-y. Maybe a shiraz would have brought the fruit and let it wander into more big and hearty.

But thinking about other choices and what they would have done only made us think of what it might not have been compared to what it already was. Which was pretty darn solid, tasty, refreshing, oddly light and satisfying.

Plus, jerk and French sparkling feels fancy.

Food: Jerk Chicken with hushpuppies and grilled pineapple

A staple in the Ney house, having last had it in December but with a different jerk recipe. Also, this time cooked under a brick from a recipe by Mark Bittman in the New York Times.

The jerk marinade from Saveur using soy sauce, onion, scallion, chiles, cloves, five-spice, allspice berries, nutmeg, S&P, thyme and veg oil. This will be replacing the jerk in our house from now going forward. Great stuff.

Cooking under a brick made for better chicken as well. The skin fell off a bit but the chicken was insanely moist and all the jerk seeped deep into the bird.

Hushpuppies made at home were a new one for us. Outside of the Long John Silver's fare that creates an instant flashback to mid-80s fancy family meals for me, I haven't had many others. Intense cornbread taste with a crispy outside made for a tasty side that wasn't dense in the least. Served with a spicy tomato chutney found in the freezer. Oddly easy to make according to Mrs. Ney so...yes...more in the future.

Grilled pineapple (another staple) and a bed of pea shoots to round out the meal and topped off with a deliciously boozy walnut-chocolate pie made with Maker's Mark.

Just goshdarn delicious and a great Monday night meal.

Wine: NV Domaine Vigneau-Chevreau Demi-Sec Sparkling Vouvray ($18 - Binny's)

I couldn't find a ton on this wine without the disgorgement date listed on the bottle (similar but wrong label above). All I can say is that we've had this one a few times before and this time, it was most definitely a different batch.

Not as many distinctive chenin blanc notes, missing some of the honey and beeswax notes. This one was more yeasty with more delicate fruit showing mostly green apple notes. Came off more like a solid bargain Champagne than a sparkling Vouvray. Nice balance, though with the bread notes constantly changing, mixing well with the small, vibrant bubbles and a more true medium dry than the very dry last bottle we had.

We keep buying it because it keeps being good.

Pairing: 89 In the end, nothing in the house would have been better in the price range

The spice in the jerk killed the fruit a bit in the wine but we were entirely okay with that. The joy came in its refreshing aspects, helped by the medium dryness and fine bubbles, than any individual bite with wine standing out.

We thought about other pairings during the meal but it always came back to what other wines wouldn't have offered that the sparkling Vouvray did.

Nothing in the meal would have came off heavy with another wine but it might not have so oddly light with, say, a zinfandel or shiraz or even a sauvignon blanc or rosé.

Plus, the belches were awesome.

#255 - Jerk Chicken, Biscuits & Pineapple With Two Wines

Here's jerk a Rastafarian would respect.

Heat that permeates every level, delicious citrus complementing the heat with spice and herbs that keeps everything in line.

Not surface heat here.  This went deep along with everything else seeping deeply into the chicken while the heat never crossed the line into eye-watering, mouth-blazing territory.  Marched right up to that line but never crossed it, allowing every other flavors to take its turn at bat.

Instead of cooking the chicken under a brick, this one was roasted upright in the oven in the cast-iron.  The results were something spectacular, bringing a more dirty-delicious caramelization to bits of the chicken skin.

This was one glorious looking chicken when it came out of the oven and the taste delivered on that promise.

Food:  Jerk chicken, cheddar-scallion biscuits and pineapple with radishes

#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:

#10 - Jerk Chicken and 2007 François Pinon Cuvée Tradition

Shorter one today.

Coming off the fat feast with the Clos Fourtet, a less fatty, more simple and less labor-intensive meal was in order.

Food: Jerk Chicken with Rice and Cuban Black Beans

Jerk has a prominent place in the Ney house. Allspice, peppers, cloves, cinnamon, scallions, nutmeg, thyme and garlic. What's not to like?

Chicken breast in a jerk rub (that's what she said!), Cuban beans done in onions, peppers and honey with a hefty pile of rice.

Wine: 2007 François Pinon Cuvée Tradition - $20-ish Wine Discount Center

We went with another Chenin Blanc, this time Vouvray, located just north of Montlouis-sur-Loire and more well-known.

All honey on the nose. It's a little lean with apple and pineapple, a bit of brioche (something I only recognized after reading the tasting notes) and mineral with touch of honey. Has a slight buttery creaminess that reminded us of oaked Chardonnay in an odd way. Just a bit and something we both don't particularly love.

It's balanced and a better wine than the recently drank François Chidane for various reasons. With a smidge more acid, I think the fruit would have made for a more satisfying experience. But with Chenin Blanc, you don't come for the fruit and stay for the mineral/honey/wax. It's usually the other way around with a nod to its delicate Frenchiness.

We're still trying to find out what we like when it comes to Loire wines and last night, we felt like we missed that yeasty, sur-lee quality that comes with Muscadets, something that usually is approximated with beeswaxy notes in Chenin Blancs. This one didn't have that in a pronounced way.

We've had better Vouvrays in our limited experience with such things but it wasn't bad in the least, just didn't pop. South African Chenin has a good reputation. We'll give one of those a try very soon.

Pairing: Fine enough, should have drank something different.

Most likely, we would have had a better pairing with something more simple and big. More sugar with a Riesling or bigger fruit with an Albariño.

The Cuvée Tradition is a wine culled from multiple vineyards to make sort of a typical example of Chenin Blanc that reflects the year instead of a particular vineyard. It was a fine enough wine but bringing something more basic, more raw (?), bigger, more acid and more fruit-forward would have been a better choice. We tried to force-fit a Chenin into the meal. No clash or weird aftertaste. Enjoyable enough, just didn't do much.