#244 - Bo Ssam With Sparkling Riesling & Vouvray Sec

Crazy mad genius David Chang becomes more so once you see how easy it is to replicate one of the staples at his restaurant, Momofuku Ssam Bar in NYC.

The New York Times gives you the recipe, it's not labor-intensive in the least (just takes some monitoring) and only costs about $30 for the whole lot.

It's bo ssam, a salty, sticky, deeply delicious pork butt wonder that serves as the centerpiece to a Korean lettuce wrap buffet of goodness.

Chang leads the party here but a supporting cast of Michael Symon (pickled onions), Bill Kim (kimchi from Urban Belly) and Jacques Pepin (scallop pancakes) rounded out the party quite nicely, thank you very much.

And the wine...yeah...good enough with one being a winner.

Food:  Bo ssam pork with scallop pancakes, pickled onions, ginger- scallion sauce, ssamjang sauce, rice, kimchi and boston lettuce for wrapping

#95 - Sea Bass On White Bean & Garlic Purée With '08 Orballo

We should eat more fish.

So we did.

And I told you that the Orballo Albariño is a great wine to have around and pop anytime.

We did and we did.

Food: Greek-style sea bass and marinated tomatoes with a white bean and baby garlic purée, watercress and parsley with bread and butter

Whole Foods Chilean sea bass stuffed with garlic, lemon, thyme sprigs, salt and pepper and pan-seared to a golden brown. Great fish flavor, better than expected. Not cheap ($22) but it has an oiliness and fleshy quality that stands up to bigger flavors, better than tilapia or something of that ilk. We should eat more fish.

Marinated tomatoes done in olive oil, vinegar, chili, oregano, minced onion and salt and pepper. The tomatoes informed the wine pairing. With a white fish flavored a little more aggressively and tomatoes, we went back and forth, settling on something with a bigger acidity and more rough and tumble. We're glad we did but the fish and tomato combo turned out to be a bit more versatile than we originally thought. Could have gone in a bunch of directions and been fine (except maybe a sweet riesling).

A very recent Mark Bittman recipe from the New York Times.

Mrs. Ney bought some baby garlic scapes. Originally, she was going with a sort of potato salad but switched up to a white bean and baby garlic purée (another very recent New York Times recipe) to serve under the fish. Charred garlic scapes, cannellini beans, olive oil, lemon juice, coarse sea salt and pepper thrown in the food processor. Turned out to be the thing that made the meal. A bite of fish, purée and tomato was flat-out delicious. We should eat more fish.

A watercress and parsley salad that tasted like geraniums, weeds and menthol Red Man had a baby. In a good way. Maybe too much on the plate but good stuff.

It was a meal that will make us eat more fish. Even this exact recipe.

Wine: 2008 Orballo Albariño Rías Baixas ($18 - WDC)

Showed the same as three months ago.

Nice minerals with tons of lemon rind and big, big acidity. Not a simple wine. Some depth here with maybe a pear core (and a little canned pineapple juice) hiding underneath with something like a creamy almond. Not fine minerals here either. More like Mrs. Ney's description of the roots sitting on a big, sulfurous rock. It's exactly what we like about albariño. Big, bold and a little raw with a few surprises along the way.

Estate-bottled, which is relatively rare for Rías Baixas, worth the few extra dollars and our favorite albariño right now.

Pairing: 90 Surprisingly, it was the garlic and not the tomatoes that brought the pairing goodness

With a fish-purée-tomato bite, the wine showed beautifully, mostly by remaining to be itself and offering a lift and cleansing of the food in the mouth and down the throat.

But with a bigger bite of the garlic purée, the top coat of lemon rind was stripped away, revealing more on that pear and canned pineapple juice core with tons of minerals while maintaining its acidity. I like the overt lemon quality in this one, but with it gone, the Orballo became even more intriguing, offering some previously unseen finesse.

We could have had a rosé of sangiovese, which might have been interesting. We thought about a more oily wine like a Jurançon which, upon reflection, might have been iffy.

In the end, bringing a ton of acidity was essential. But that's about it. This meal seemed to be more versatile than we originally thought.

But when we eat more fish, which we should, it's going to be tough to not drink Orballo with it.

It's that good.

TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

What's the difference between TWIB Notes and Quick Hits?

Nothin'.

Someday - I'm shooting for July of 2017 - I'll figure out how to organize this here blog. Same with painting the apartment.

Better food week than last. French roast chicken, a great elderflower cheese, cocoa hanger steak with fancy Portuguese wine, and a panzanella salad whose preparation made the kitchen look like a gaggle of wild muskrats got loose and went to town.

Easter Roast Chicken With 2012 Orballo & La Cana Albariños

I've always loved Synecdoche, New York.

It's such a glorious mess, with that mess coming together to create something pretty great.

Easter roast chicken resembled that last night. The garbanzos were overcooked, the chicken a touch overdone, April corn that barely tasted like corn, avocados that we were looking forward to were simultaneously underripe AND brown so we ditched 'em, all sorts of slight missteps.

Yet, in the end, we got a dinner full of Easter goodness on a rare beautiful day in Chicago, giving us everything we could want.

Dinner: Green goddess chicken with a mustard green, garbanzo, kumato and corn salad, and Pugliese garlic bread, served with 2012 Orballo Albariño Rías Baixas ($18 - Binny's) & 2012 La Cana Albariño Rías Baixas ($13 - Howard's)

New York Times recipe here. Herby, garlicky, anchovy-laden Green Goddess dressing slathered all over the halved chicken and roasted at 500º. The addition of dill turned it into the best version of this great dressing-sauce we've had. Used it on the chicken, to dress the salad and top the garlic bread. This is a rip, top, layer and dunk meal; making lil open-faced sandwiches with various combinations to create different bites.

Mustard green-garbanzo-kumato-corn salad. Fresh, clean, happy. Mustard greens packed a mustardy punch, which helped things along quite nicely.

#159 - Greek Chicken Legs & Pomegranate Salad With Orballo & Albero

Yeoman's work was done in today's New York Times with Julia Moskin telling the world that pepperoni is NOT an Italian meat product.

Over four years now working at an Italian pizzeria and this is still, routinely, something that people are aghast that we don't carry.

For today's offering, how to take dirt cheap bargain chicken and make it into something so much more. Or alternately titled, 49¢/lb. chicken legs! Gotta marinate the crap out of that!

Food: Greek chicken legs with mâche and pomegranate salad, hummus and pita

Chicken leg quarters marinated in onion, parsley, lemon juice, olive oil. Cooked under a brick, thanks to Mark Bittman and his recently shuttered NYT food column, The Minimalist. RIP. Here's every Minimalist column in its 14-year history. Marinated for days. The chicken was just chicken but the flavor that bled into the skin and fat was sublime. Greeky to the nth degree. Great onion-lemon play. Became souped-up chicken at Harvesttime clearance prices ($1 total for chicken on both plates).

Homemade hummus. We've had good homemade hummus a ton of times. Last night's came shockingly close to Semiramis hummus (best I've ever had) in many ways. The key seemed to be cooking the dried chickpeas at home instead of using canned chickpeas. Olive oil drizzled over the top to finish. Delicious stuff. Couldn't get enough. Served with fresh pita bread from the Middle Eastern bakery in Andersonville ($5).

Salted kumato slices with a mâche salad topped with a Saveur recipe of pomegranate seeds, cubanelle pepper, scallions, mint, parsley and lemon juice (Saveur: "tomato salad with herbs and pomegranate"). Probably about $8 total - pomegranates ain't cheap. Screamed fresh acid with darker undertones of flavors. Bright yet almost brooding and the best part of the meal. A combination bite of scallion and pomegranate seed with mâche and lemon juice was familiar yet entirely new and I couldn't get enough of it.

Simply nothing missing with this meal coupled with boatloads of quality acid, something we both love and need. And a grand total of about $14 for both plates.

Wine: 2008 Orballo Albariño ($17 - WDC) and NV Albero Cava Brut ($7 - Trader Joe's)

I've written about the Orballo Albariño multiple times and it showed pretty much the same as before. Nice minerals with tons of lemon rind and big, big acidity. Not a simple wine. Some depth here with maybe a pear core (and a little canned pineapple juice) hiding underneath with something like a creamy almond. If someone were to ask where to start with albariño, I would say this one every time. Cheap albariños can be uninspiring. This one shows exactly what it can be for under $20 and beats most $30 ones. Big, raw and confident while showing alternating layers of finesse. It's probably our favorite albariño with the Valtea running a close second.

The NV Albero Cava recently returned to Trader Joe's. It's nothing dramatic or complex, just a simple cava that has the quality of being more what it's not than what it is. Key lime upfront this time with a touch of apple and lively bubbles. It gets a lot right for $7 and its solid bubbles serve so many meals well when you want to inject a little sparkling into a meal without spending too much. Hummus and sparkling is glorious.

$24 for the wines.

Pairing: 86 Food won the day but it was nice to have the wine around

Not much enhancement with either wine but the Orballo showed best, standing up to the significant amount of acid on the plate and even showing a touch of cream on the back-end with the chicken. Good stuff. Not great stuff but tons to like.

The Albero never got out of "fine" territory when it came to the pairing but its place always comes from its sparkling nature and the lift it offers. Nice to have there.

$38 total for everything. Stupid good food and wine that wasn't too shabby at all.

And $38. Did I mention that?

#262 - Strawberry Caprese With Ponzi Rosato & Vadouvan Roasted Chicken With Marc Hebrart

Quickie today.

A lunch and dinner recap for cataloguing purposes.

Lunch:  Strawberries, cherry tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, evoo and balsamic with baguette and butter

A slight alteration from a favorite Monday lunch with the inclusion of the strawberries, taken from Around My French Table (still finding uses for that book in nice ways).  Much like the French pot chicken from the same book, we had good grub, tasty grub, and grub we probably won't make again.  Well...it fall into a 'maybe' category.  Something about the utter freshness of a traditional caprese with its olive oil playing with the cheese and tomato in such a pure way was missed here.  Nonetheless, this had a hot patio feel to it.  Pleasant, slightly sweet strawberry juice added a nice change of pace.

The 2010 Ponzi Rosato ($15 - Winery) was a shocker.  A rosé of pinot noir, it was all beautifully cooked pork chop with herbs, pinky meat juice and bone, with virtually zero fruit. Sa-Vory!  As savory a rosé as we've ever had, making for a more than merely pleasant diversion.  We'd buy more.  This has a big place.  But since it's not available in town, with shipping and such, it puts it into a realm of thinking twice about it.  Low 20s?  Ummm....

#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.

Quick Hits: This Week In Food And Wine

Light red wine week.

With a Champagne followed by tempranillo mixed with Coke tossed in. That's how we roll.

So...funky week. We liked it.

Monday Lunch: Salad of avocados, tomatoes, edamame, pea shoots, arugula, parsley, cilantro, sunflower seeds and standard dijon-tarragon vinaigrette, served with NV Piper-Heidsieck Brut Champagne ($30-ish - Trader Joe's)

We initially thought this salad would be fine enough, then two bites in, phrases like "this is awesome!" started to get tossed out. Fresh, of course, but also woodsy-seedy-gardeny with the pea shoots and sunflower seeds. Strangely came off like a mid-winter salad eaten to remind you that 'the winter of your discontent' isn't a permanent thing. Fresh, bright AND brooding can co-exist together. Served with what might become our new cheap Champagne. Ayala has become too specific and food-moody in our world. The 'Peeper' gave flinty minerals and smoke first with a broadness and happiness without ever being so eager to please. Both of us thought it could have been a Blancs de Noirs. Chardonnay didn't seem to be playing any role whatsoever except for a small tangerine peel lift on the end. Only 15% of the blend is chardonnay and I think that's what we prefer. The bubbles exploded with the sunflower seeds and sprouts, turning even more broad and round while still being focused and refreshing. Big Monday lunch winner.

Quick Hits

Quick Hits, a collection of pairings that didn't blow us away yet had their merits. Or...record-keeping.

The inaugural edition is brought to you by food that isn't Spanish. We're going to put you to bed for a couple of months, sweetie.

#1 - Bison flank steak with potato latkes and blue cheese, paired with 2008 Efeste Syrah Ceidleigh ($30 - Wine Discount Center)

Chinese Chili & Asian Cornbread With 2011 Trader Joe's Reserve Syrah

We expected very little.

"Meat in a bowl" and cornbread.

Not the most inspiring impression to start the meal.

But as with most New York Times recipes, the bar on its minimum level of happy-goodness is raised.

Toss in green chili cornbread and this was an enormous surprise, with a wine that shocked both of us with its savory change-y-ness throughout the meal.

Chinese chili recipe here.
Green chili-cilantro cornbread recipe here.

TJ's brisket ($20) used, resulting in a large bar-raise in terms of meat. Look at the list of ingredients in the recipe. If you want to be a happy cooker, making even the simplest of meals that satisfy, surprise and just all-around feel like teeny-tiny mini-vacations every night. You have that stuff on hand at all times. It's not expensive, most of this stuff lasts forever, and if something is "on the verge," cook something with it. Simple.

I just had Taco Bell for the first time in probably three years, as I was sucked in by the "loaded grillers" commercial and I'm a weak man at heart. I feel like I just ate a soapy chemical bomb, mostly because there were no herbs and acid. The tummy wants herbs and acid. And garlic. And pop.

This meal had that. A swirl of Asian flavors, always staying light, always offering something different with each bite, always feeling like we were eating something purposeful and substantial. It went from a meal when plopped down that screamed "just eat it!" to something slow-down, pretty, deep and delicious.

Green Goddess Chicken & Endive-Tomato-Avocado Salad With Uruguayan Albariño & Palmina Arneis

New York Times recipe, part deux, for the week.

Coming off Monday's Florence Fabricant Chinese chili, Melissa Clark chimed in last night with a marinade we've had before a few times in dip form. Mrs. Clark likes food. She particularly likes salt-acid-herb-driven food. So we like her.

Green goddess chicken recipe here. Ours looked like their picture. Except for the professional photography, as you can see. Should have put it through a grainy filter, like everyone else. Wouldn't that have been neat? We all need a heightened sense of reality thrust onto the mundane, don't we?

Recipe followed to the letter. Smoked up the house something fierce, but the result was delicious, summertime chicken and freshy-fresh salad that gave the middle finger to this "fun" winter that Chicago is experiencing.

So...delicious half-chicken for each of us, crispy-roasty-deep with fresh flavors vacillating back and forth with the char in beautiful ways. A salad of endive tossed with the green goddess dressing, chopped; grape tomatoes, scallions and sliced avocado. Handful of parsley dumped on top of both plates. Garlic bread on the side. More dressing to dip and dunk as we saw fit.

This was stellar. So expletive-ly satisfying.

#137 - Asado Negro & Mashed Plantains With '07 Seghesio Zin

Or dark and deep brisket.

You choose. Land of the free, you know.

A Sam Sifton recipe, the restaurant critic at the New York Times who gave us this offering just a few days ago - Venezuelan Black Beef.

Here's the recipe and here's the article explaining such things.

We used brisket. I'm gonna blaspheme here but I find slow and low beef to be one of the most neutral food-type stuffs on the planet, right up there with stadium popcorn and, in another milieu, CSI:NY.

I can respect it, even like it at times, but I can't think of one time that I craved it.

But we got a good one last night. And it came from the balance offered along with the various accoutrements not hitting us over the head like a blunt hammer with its ever-present presence.

Food: Asado Negro with mashed plantains, jalapeño cheddar biscuits and sautéed spinach

Most certainly dark and deep, but with a caveat. When I took a bite of the beef, upfront was a pretty and bright balance of vinegar and sugar, not cloying, not overly acidic. Then that gave way to a subtle hit of the low and slow infusion of ingredients like the peppers, onions, garlic and soy-Worcestershire mix. But again, it was more of a lifting darkness as opposed to something that sticks in your throat. Finished with the brisket that wasn't fatty or tasting like a nap might be required posthaste.

Make no mistake. This IS dark and deep. Great depth here, just without the sticky-sweet sugar and stomach-scraping acid. Came off fancy due to the care the recipe takes to make sure a proper balance was struck. In place of the white sugar, we used piloncillo, unrefined whole cane sugar from Latin America (and mentioned in Sifton's article). Might have been the difference. Tons of sugar used in this recipe but it never came off candied. Everything came off...proper and oddly light.

Mashed plantains on the side, bringing more Latin-y goodness.

Jalapeño cheddar biscuits. Been way too long. I heart these things so much.

A fine and good meal with a recipe worth trying.

Wine: 2007 Seghesio Zinfandel Sonoma County ($22 - WDC)

It's been about two years since we had this one (same vintage). I remember thinking at the time that if someone didn't know what people mean by balance in a wine and wanted a cheap bottle that had it, this was the one to try. Big, sparkly, supple, round blueberry and dark cherry fruit last time followed by an appropriate and delicious herb hit and finishing with some very pretty acid. Fond memories.

The short drinking window given for this one by critics ( - 2012) made me curious but after last night, that seems right. The fruit isn't dying per se, just transforming into a macerated blueberry, blackberry and dark cherry mixture that maybe has been sitting out on the counter too long. Came off a touch flat, showing more a blue Sweet Tart quality, especially with the food, and later showed a bit of almond extract and some leather. I missed that sparkle, that liveliness, that balance that was oh so apparent last time.

Still serviceable stuff with a softer edge but it's time to drink this up. More air didn't really improve it.

But serviceable with the food.

Pairing: 88 Like a senior golfer who has a good front nine with the food

Nothing to dislike and the wine even had moments of (mere) goodness with brisket.

Never broke out though, staying in that middle of the road territory of "that ain't too bad, huh?"

Odd with the cheddar biscuits, showing more of its dying structure than anything. The Sweet Tart note really kicked up with the plantains but it settled into a nice place with the brisket.

We needed to bring some sugar with the asado negro recipe and zinfandel was right and proper. We had no regrets but something younger and more spritely may have rounded out the tasty food on the plate quite nicely.

Live and learn. Drink the zins with short windows and late teens/early 20s price tags very early.

#78 - Moroccan Chicken & Modified Quinoa With '07 Savennières

A lot of screaming came from the kitchen last night.

The chicken fell over four times in the oven, the quinoa didn't fluff up and a general sense of frustration from all angles in Mrs. Ney's cooking world oozed from the kitchen.

Throw that on top of the first 90 degree day and it wasn't fun for her.

The result, though, had none of that frustration. It was good eats.

Eric Asimov did a Savennières tasting report just two days ago in the New York Times, which prompted the Moroccan direction of last night's meal to go with the wine, and we had a Savennières that is just adored by our favorite wine person at WDC. Mr. Asimov steered us wrong on this one, though. Not a pairing we would do again.

But Savennières...you're weird and mysteriously lovely. And that's why we're starting to love you. You're the Polish Poster Shop of wine.

Food: Moroccan-spiced wine can chicken with modified quinoa, mâche and baguette

Honey, bee pollen, lemon, garlic and wine in a can and shoved up the rump of the chicken. Rubbed with paprika and cumin and roasted. Turned out magically delicious. Good chicken for a hot day.

A sauce on the side made from a spoonful of tahini, chicken stock, lemon thyme and wine from the wine can. Goopy good.

After the quinoa didn't fluff up, Mrs. Ney improvised by adding wild rice to the golden raisin, walnut, parsley, shallots, lemon juice and olive oil mixture. Not only was it salvaged but became something quite good.

A Moroccan-influenced, Pan-Arab meal was the intention and the result. The chicken brought the right hint of spice along with crispy skin and the tahini sauce, especially drizzled over the mâche at the end of the meal, served as a solid accompaniment to everything. We liked the plate of food and were happy.

Baguette and butter rounded everything out and, unfortunately, was the item that worked best with the wine.

Wine: 2007 Mathieu Tijou Croix Picot Chateau de l'Eperonniere Savennières ($24 - WDC)

Grape: 100% Chenin Blanc

Vintage: 90 Drink or hold, A warm, dry September helped save the vintage for Chenin Blanc

Four-hour decant on recommendation from our favorite wine person at WDC. Darker gold in the glass. Soft, closed nose. On the palate, anything that resembles honey and the honey-making process showed up. Honey, beeswax, bee pollen, you get it with a hint of cinnamon pear, especially as it came closer to room temperature. Not big. A bit of wax and dry, dry, dry. An oily texture without the oil note and the right amount of alcohol that brought about a nice, slow burn on the finish. Good length, not too long, but beautiful nonetheless with a light honeyed oil coating everything on the way down.

This is maybe our eighth Savennières and they keep getting more interesting with each passing bottle. Chenin blanc, you win. You're my favorite white grape with splashes of viura mixed in.

A pretty, seamless wine by itself. Not so much with the food.

Pairing: 84 It broke up with the food and didn't enhance the overall meal

This wasn't a big, burly Savennières. It was missing that overarching nuttiness that comes with the bigger ones. With the Moroccan chicken, it turned slightly bitter and broke up a bit, throwing all the honeyed notes to the front of the line and leaving a hint of bitterness on the mid-palate while leaving the food to fall a bit flat.

Not much better with the quinoa-rice salad but pretty spectacular with the baguette and butter. And that's unfortunate. The Mathieu Tijou is a borderline great wine that's light on its feet while at the same time bringing the goods.

Moroccan-inspired spice and preparation is not this wine's bag, though. Even with the copious amounts of bee-honey foodstuffs added to help it along. With the baguette and butter performing the best, something lighter and more subtle would have served it much better.

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #5

Nice piece by Eric Asimov about domestic chenin blanc in the New York Times a few days ago.

And Julia Edelman pretty much nails The Food Blog in the New Yorker this week.

But we're immune to such criticism here. We're more of a food journal (see what I did there). With terrible pictures. One might even say we're the ANTI-food blog, because this is wildly disorganized and has only been of interest to us for years. Which is the way we like it.

And let me save you a few hours of your life: don't read 10:04, A Novel, by Ben Lerner. Just...don't. Unless you enjoy 78 segues akin to "you know... everything is just one big organism, you know..."

Total food and wine cost for the week: $138 for food and $123 for wine = $261

Sunday: Salmon, Bagels, Cream Cheese, Arugula, Kumatoes and Pickled Onion-Manzano with 2014 Berger Grüner Veltliner Kremstal

Food Details: Simple stuff. Smoked salmon from Trader Joe's, bagels, herbed-up cream cheese, arugula, kumatoes and pickled onion-manzano from Friday. Build. Eat. Drink. Enjoy.

Did We Like It? Best meal of the week, me thinks. Right there with Pizza Art and chicken with fennel panzanella. The workweek's been long and it's freakin' hot. This Sunday staple Wipes. That. Right Out of the Mind. This is always delicious, but typically has avocado. Weren't ripe yet. But the absence of it here made this meal better. Avocado creaminess would have taken away from a sharpness and cut in each bite that we like/d. Tastes more balanced, rather than some sort of embarrassment of food riches that doesn't always add up to great. Plus, adding avocado to all the other stuff makes for a tall-ass bagel, with neck cranes that make me feel like I'm in a competitive eating contest or something.

How Was The Wine? Perfect. Fresh Berger, our first of the year. We had the 2013 in week #1 of this 365 experiment and it was ever-so subtly losing its zip and verve. Not here. All of Berger's freshness here on full display. Stony, peppy, lively, proper hits and hints of greeny-citrusy fruit, a smart and smooth conversationalist with great flow.

And The Pairing? Perfect times two! Without the avocado, each salmon-bagel bite had a more properly pared-down interplay between the ingredients, allowing us to taste everything and how they played with each other. The wine picked that up, snuggled its way in, gave even more to the pithy conversation, and then refreshed. Per. Fect.

Cost: $19 for food, $15 for wine = $34
  

Saturday: Pasta With Meatballs, Rapini & Amaranth with 2014 Innovacíon Rosé Mendoza

Food Details: Greek creste pasta with TJ's meatballs, rapini, amaranth greens, pecorino, garlic, onions, olive oil, and herbs.

Did We Like It? Big bowl of food. Mrs. Ney found it disappointing. After working a patio shift in 90-degree heat, I found it to be welcome meat and carbs with greens.

How Was The Wine? One-liter rosé, malbec and syrah, $7.50 at Whole Foods (on sale with 6-bottle discount). It's been our workhorse rosé this summer. Here, it tasted like cherry Life Savers

And The Pairing? Meh. Nothing to see here. Move along.

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


Friday: Zucchini Baba Ganoush, Pickled Onion-Dill-Serrano, Kumatoes, Arugula and Pita with 2014 Nortico Alvarinho Vinho Verde

Source: Recipe here, from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, by Claudia Roden (page 65)

Food Details: Zucchini instead of eggplant in baba ganoush, skipped the cumin. Generous amount of olive oil and za'atar dumped on top of baba ganoush. Onion-dill-serrano pepper quick-pickled, mixed with arugula. Sliced kumatoes. Pita to stuff, top, and/or dip. It's Lebanese-Eygptian pick and choose.

Did We Like It? Good Lord, Yes. Creamy, herby, spicy, bitter, pickle, tomato. All that crap. It's the polar opposite of the casserole food we ate growing up. That's probably why we love Middle Eastern food so much. First, it's freakin' great, then we compare it to the meatloaf-lasagna dinners we ate when we were 12, back when lemon-pepper chicken was for Special.

How Was The Wine? Here's an example of a wine that tastes so much better when there isn't a Luis Pato Branco sitting next to it to compare. Firmly in the realm of 'like' that time, this time, with this food, it was perfect. Loads of energy and verve, with seaside air, gas and snap. Such firm, yet forgiving acid. For $11 at Whole Foods, after having it with this food, this wine went from a nice alternative to "buy that, you'll like it. A lot!"

And The Pairing? See above. Something about the char on the vegetables and the umami of the tahini played perfectly against its brightness. You put this meal in front of me on vacation at some cheap café on the coast with this wine...I'd remember it for years.

Cost: $10 for food, $11 for wine = $21    


Thursday: Chicken Enchiladas with 2014 La Granja Blanco Castilla y León

Source: Enchiladas (here) from Cook's Illustrated's Cover And Bake, rice from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday.

Food Details: Leftover chicken from Tuesday, corn tortillas, onion, tomato sauce, cilantro, cheese - it's all in the recipe linked above. Mexican rice with tomatillos, onion, herbs and peas.

Did We Like It? If there's one weekday meal that we've eaten throughout our 12+ years in Chicago, it's probably enchiladas in some form, these enchiladas for the last eight or so. It's a Mexican "clean out the fridge!" dinner in a form we always like. Tastes like Home.

How Was The Wine? Tastes like vacation on the cheap. White Spanish wine, a verdejo and viura blend, with crispness, dryness and creaminess; lightly floral, lightly citrusy...$5 wine done well. Guzzle-able.

And The Pairing? It works. Cleans everything up nicely while offering some stone fruit pit to finish. We're always happy to drink this wine, because it's just so likable.

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


Wednesday: Pizza Art Café with Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco

Food Details: Greek salad to start, margherita, diavola and Pugliese pizzas. It's our standard order at this wildly underrated pizza place in Albany Park. Solid margherita, best diavola yet, and the Pugliese with smoked beef added is crazy-pants, smoky-cheesy good. "Why are we not there more often?"

Did We Like It? See above. Big thumbs up. Beautiful night to boot. Napa-style clear air. Felt like it'd been months since a night like that, or any beautiful kind, showed up in Chicago.

How Was The Wine? After some experimentation, Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco is the one and only wine to take to Pizza Art for us. Captures everything in a wide net while maintaining its tart, frothy, energetic strut, while its $12 price tag at Vin Chicago keeps everything budget-y. Brought a bottle of 2013 Efeste Feral Sauvignon Blanc for the Pugliese, a surprisingly good individual pairing.

And The Pairing? See above. If you're going to Pizza Art, Cleto Chiarli is the choice.

Cost: $50 for food, $32 for wine = $82


Tuesday: Roasted Chicken and Fennel Panzanella with 2014 Broc Cellars Picpoul Blanc Luna Matta Vineyard Paso Robles

Food Details: Chicken rubbed with white pepper and fennel pollen, bay and lemon shoved under the skin; roasted. A roasted fennel panzanella salad which, and you can see to the right, was enough to feed a small army. And yet both of us pretty much finished our plates (with a good chunk of the bread taken out), because it was delicious. Salad of roasted fennel, lemon, onion; the rest of the celery/fennel mostarda from last Monday, multi-colored baby tomatoes, arugula, dill, tarragon, oil and vinegar. Apart from dumping in the mostarda, this was exactly the recipe from New Year's Eve.

Did We Like It? First of all, great chicken. Moist, fantastic white pepper-fennel pollen chicken skin, just a terrific bird. But this was panzanella with a side of chicken. A wacko amount of flavors we love all together in Big Salad form. With a wine this was nuts.

How Was The Wine? We joined the Broc wine club because it included wines like this (still available, btw). Picpoul, a wine we dismissed for years but have come to sort of love recently due to a Trader Joe's cheap-o French one, is all fennel bite, creamy citrus, wee bit of salt and acid. It doesn't crave your love. It's just itself. This Broc offering from Paso Robles is more delicate than the French ones we've had, offering a sunny-foggy acid, lilty fruit presence, and delicious gaseous finish. Just when you think it might be too ethereal, it asserts its presence. We loved the snot out of it. Loved, loved, loved it. Particularly with food catered to it.

And The Pairing? The food brought everything out in the wine, especially with a roasted lemon bite and fennel, becoming a broader, more friendly, complete wine. This isn't a drink-on-its-own wine, as it barely reaches even pleasant by itself. It's too simple and muted. With food, it's "HELLO! Look what I can do!"

Cost: $24 for food, $32 for wine = $56     


Monday: Indian Spread with 2012 Luis Pato Vinho Espumante Bruto Baga Rosé Bairrada

Source: 660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer

Food Details: Goat curry, substituting goat for lamb in the recipe for lamb curry in a sweet onion-tomato sauce (pg. 190). Coriander, cumin, sweet paprika, cayenne, turmeric, ginger, garlic, cardamom pods, bay, tomato sauce, fried onion, ground goat, stewed. Topped with cilantro. It's Indian Goat Chili!

Amaranth leaves recipe (pg. 461) mixing amaranth leaves and beet greens with peanuts, black and yellow mustard seeds, cumin, turmeric and cayenne. Didn't have asafetida. We'll be picking it up on the next trip to Devon, as Mrs. Ney is curious. Beet raita (adding beets to David Tanis's raita recipe - it's a good one). Trader Joe's naan - entirely acceptable naan on the cheap, done well.

Did We Like It? We did. Didn't love it by any stretch but we got our Indian fix with plenty of spices and a proper triangulation of Indian dip-dunk-cool-repeat. The Goat curry was nice, but maybe a bit too chili-ish. Big winner was these freakin' amaranth leaves. Greeny-planty-earthy loveliness with every bite. Beet raita served its purpose quite well. We liked this. All of it.

How Was The Wine? It's Luis Pato. Enough said. This is sparkling baga with a bit of maria gomes. Called a rosé but it's more of a sparkling red, with a cherry-currant punch, touch of spice and earth, and lovely froth. The maria gomes, with its characteristic wooly quality, offers a lacy structural help and something that turns into a red apple-watermelon background refreshment. We love it. And it loves food.

And The Pairing? Helped immensely. Became the tie that bound all the flavors together. Nice elevation and brightening of flavors with this pairing, taking the Indian spread to a place that was quite happy. Luis Pato loves food. You can tell by the wine he makes.

Cost: $17 for food, $20 for wine = $37
   

Thanksgiving Week

Happy food week.

And a lot of sitting.

Monday dinner of beef bourguignon, Tuscan kale salad with Grana Padano (New York Times recipe) and Pugliese bread, served with 2005 Chateau Fombrauge St.-Emilion ($40 - Binny's). We left most of the meat alone, preferring to dip and dunk with the bread, while loving this kale salad with its dark green depth and parmesan roundness. I don't know what I'm going to do with all the Bordeaux we own, because it's just not doing anything for me right now. Let's hope that changes. Here, this Fombrauge, a solid, value-driven Right Banker that's always satisfied, satisfied with this food as well, linking up, allowing to be itself, which is Good. Just felt perfunctory as an overall meal.


Tuesday lunch of grilled bocadillos (Pintxos cookbook) with La Quercia, manchego and kumatoes on Pugliese. Arugula salad on the side. Served with 2012 Charles & Charles Rosé Columbia Valley ($14 - Whole Foods), a syrah-forward blend. Best pairing of the week, as the sandwiches took the syrah to an earthy, balanced, Old World-ish place, but with the typical Washington freshy freshness. This was fantastic. Something about these grilled sandwiches... Trick seemed to be getting them more burned in parts than just grilled.

Goat Kofta, Roasted Cauliflower, Kale, Hazelnuts, Pita And Tahini With 2010 Owen Roe Pinot Noir The Kilmore

$5 goat. $7 for everything else. That's $12 for dinner.

We spent roughly that for an Arby's lunch a couple of days ago when there were no other options and we needed something fast. You tell me which one sounds better. Our answer is, unequivocally, in the above picture. Good Lord! Arby's cheese is not natural!

Don't think you like cauliflower? Eat this cauliflower and get back to me. From Yotam Ottolenghi (natch) in the New York Times. I didn't need cauliflower in my life. Now I want cauliflower in my life after eating this. Sweet, roasty, spicy, nutty, with a pomegranate seed pop and celery crunch. Every ingredient has a purpose. Perfect balance, utterly new, and plenty of roughage to clean out Arby's cheese.

Goat kofta (here's a reason to buy $5/lb. ground goat and toss it in your freezer), made with similar flavors in the cauliflower salad, using allspice, cinnamon, etc.. Tahini and pita to round out the meal.

Eating this meal was like rereading a chapter in a book you're reading, because the chapter was that freakin' good. The world slows down, things make a bit more sense, there's a touch of clarity in your head that wasn't there before. And it's why I can't abide people that say eating should be treated as mere sustenance. When one willfully avoids good food, it's like they're willfully avoiding...beauty. That feels like idiocy to me. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of Arby's next to real food, but this dinner felt like beauty to us.

The 2010 Owen Roe Pinot Noir The Kilmore Yamhill-Carlton ($42 - Winery) benefitted from the similarity of spices in both the kofta and cauliflower salad, letting the wine take a cue from that and say, "Here's all the pretty earth I can give to this." A complete Oregon pinot nose, a touch of plum and a hint of something like a mulled Christmas wine, but this one was all about the earth on the tongue. Delicious wine. The food could have maybe used a floral note from the wine but we were happy campers with this food-wine combo. Felt very intentional, which is all anybody wants from a pairing.  

365 Days Of Food And Wine: Week #50

When you have the urge to hate on something, the New York Times Style or Weddings section will usually fit the bill.

I've wandered over or stumbled upon pieces in those sections over the years and came out with an adrenaline rush of hatred combined with gut-busting laughter so weirdly pleasurable that I felt like I really should examine why I found those pieces of garbage so pleasurable.

But then I read something like 'The Sound of Music Is in His Blood and Now His Heart' from yesterday's Weddings section and I know that there is objective terribleness in this world and it really should be resoundingly mocked.

Total food and wine cost for the week: $117 for food and $120 for wine = $237

Sunday: Tapas Spread with 2011 Juvé y Camps Brut Nature Reserva de la Familia Cava

Food Details: Iberico ham, Harriet sheep's cheese, marinated grilled artichoke hearts, piquillo peppers, rosemary marcona almonds, ciabatta and arugula/parsley salad.

Did We Like It? Feels like it's been years! We used to have this "rip open some packages and open some jars" Spanish-style tapas meal quite often. Good ham, good cheese, all the Spanish accoutrements; eat pokily, drink good Spanish bubbly, enjoy. This wasn't even great Iberico but it's been so long that we loved it. The big star here, though, was the Trader Joe's artichokes. They're grilled, then marinated, and the result on top of ciabatta with some parsley (maybe some cheese) was the bite of the night/week - offering a taste that was long, wide and delicious. This was a two-hour meal that reminded us why we love Spain so much.

How Was The Wine? Another reminder of Spanish goodness. I feel like I would have done a write-up on our last drinking of this Cava favorite. Looking back in the history, it's been 2 1/2 years since we've had it. Odd. Very odd. One of the problems of buying wine in Chicago is that everyone carries the same wine when it comes to non-hot/less popular regions. We've drunk every Cava in our market - there's only about six - and Juvé y Camps is our undisputed go-to Spanish bubbly in that group. It has the rawness and grizzle all Cava should have, not bubbles trying to be Champagne and coming up short. It should taste like an quiet explanation, and not a justification, of why Spain doesn't have to compete against other European or Mediterranean food-type stuffs. You be you, Spain. You. Be. You. This Cava tastes like that. Plus $5 TJ's Palomino as an alternative to the Cava.

And The Pairing? Pure Spanish breeze.

Cost: $36 for food, $23 for wine  = $59    


Saturday: Ham and Pretzel Bread Panzanella with 2015 Field Recordings Fiction Grenache Rosé Paso Robles

Food Details: Garbage salad of baby kale, ham, pepper jack, vidalia onion, tomato, dill, pretzel bread croutons and honey mustard dressing.

Did We Like It? No need for a plate, just eat it straight from the bowl you mixed everything in. Perfect Saturday night food that tastes like a nostalgic hug.

How Was The Wine? I can't find anything on this bottle around the webs. Feels like a Field Recordings one-off to get some rosé on the market due to the fact that the Alloy rosé cans sold out so quickly this year. Frankly, we liked this one more than the 2015 cans. It's very much a straight-up grenache rosé, no frills, just dirt and fruit with brightness and balance. Paso sun without the Paso syrup. Kudos on this one for $15. Perfect price for a rosé that gives much.

And The Pairing? It loved the mayo-honey in the dressing and the copious amounts of dill in the salad. And of course...rosé and ham are besties. Big pairing success here. Wasn't superlative, just a damn good garbage salad with a rosé that liked it.

Cost: $10 for food, $15 for wine = $25    

Friday: Green Beans, Peanuts, Lime and Radish Sprouts with 2015 Lila Sauvignon Blanc Marlborough

Food Details: Yotam. Ottolenghi. Always. An enormous amount of green beans mixed with a slurry of peanut, kaffir lime, ginger, lemongrass, garlic, etc. Over white rice, topped with radish sprouts, cilantro and a lime spritz.

Did We Like It? I mention the radish sprouts twice (not included in the recipe) because they brought a garden-dirt quality and verticality to an already delicious Asian-y green bean curry-like bowl of happiness. It's the summer of radish sprouts in our house, it seems. They brought something akin to mung beans without being too mung bean-y as mung beans can be.

How Was The Wine? Barely worth mentioning. Mrs. Ney was sick, so no wine. I had a can of Lila, which brought a bit of grassiness that linked with the food in basic ways, but it lost its cleanse. Meh.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $10 for food, $3 for wine = $13

Thursday: Allium Tart with 2013 Jean Masson Jacquere Savoie

Food Details: Allium tart (garlic scapes, chive blossoms, charred spring onions) with tarragon, dill, and feta. Arugula salad with pomegranate seeds on the side. Tart shell recipe here. It's bistro food.

Did We Like It? A damn solid tart. Elevated weekday grub.

How Was The Wine? Another wine that slipped through the storing cracks. This meal seemed like a good opportunity to get some value out of it. At three years old, it's lost some of its crispness and floral nature, coming off as slightly better than basic white wine here. Touch of oily peach pit notes that was pleasant though.

And The Pairing? Merely okay.

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

Wednesday: Chicken-Radish Sprout Sandwiches and Chips with 2013 Heidi Schrock Muskatellar Burgenland 

Food Details: Paulina Meat Market smoked chicken, radish sprouts, pickled onions, avocado and tomato on pretzel bread. Olive oil chips. Mrs. Ney finished the chive blossom-garlic scape pancakes for her side.

Did We Like It? Radish sprouts are delicious, and turn an already well-crafted sandwich using up some leftover stuff from the week into The Fancy. Delicious.

How Was The Wine? This is aborted wine from yesterday's pairing, and it's helpful when you can take fridge wine and find food that turns it into so much more than "fridge wine," like here. The radish sprouts pried open a depth and mineral-driven fruit in this muskatellar that was never present in yesterday's food. A real roundness and tick-off of deliciousness. At $24, it's a bit pricey compared to Darting's muskatellar that offers similar goodness and less finickiness, and it's $6 cheaper. But big fan here.

And The Pairing? See above.

Cost: $8 for food, $24 for wine = $32  

Tuesday: Bittman Fish Sauce Chickens and Chive Blossom/Garlic Scape Pancakes with TJ's Lambrusco

Food Details: From Mark Bittman's The Best Recipes in the World, Vietnamese cornish game hens, page 334; Lucky Peach spicy fish-sauce sauce; crispy chive blossom/garlic scape pancakes (instead of scallions), from Serious Eats. Charred yu choy (Chinese flowering cabbage).

Did We Like It? It's the kind of meal that reminds us, "God, food is Good!" Even when we've now had this meal a handful of times. It always tastes new and punchy and possesses everything anyone who likes food would ever want or need. This batch a touch salty overall (from the fish sauce bottle) and the yu choy offered nothing in the way of interestingness, but we loved nearly everything about this meal.

How Was The Wine? Our original bottle, a 2013 Heidi Schrock Muskatellar Burgenland was DOA with the food. And another bottle in the fridge, a 2013 (!) Ponzi Pinot Gris, which slipped through the wine-storing and monitoring said wine-storing cracks, was dead, period. The only other thing chilled was a Trader Joe's Lambrusco. We gave it a go and had absolutely zero issues with its ice-cold-water-like refreshment and sweet, bright fruit.

And The Pairing? The Lambrusco salvaged what could have been a disaster. Its sweet-like fruit and frothiness stood up to the aggressiveness SE Asian flavors quite admirably. Tailed off as it warmed up but no complaints given the situation. In fact, the fish sauce and salt negated the cheapness inherent in this wine and allowed it to ONLY give nice fruit, dirt, acid and cleanse. Surprise. Big one.

Cost: $20 for food, $20 for wine = $45

Monday: Sean Brock Cheeseburgers with NV Marietta Cellars Old Vine Red Lot #63    

Food Details: Sean Brock's Heritage cookbook, page 131. Double stack burgers with American cheese, onions, mustard-pickle sauce, potato buns. Bagged fries. This meal plus two more meals in the freezer cost $26.

Did We Like It? We like many cheeseburgers from around town. Kuma's is a great burger. Bill's Drive-In is fantastic. Recently, we had the Au Cheval burgers and found it quite good. Five Guys works. Shake Shack is good... But when we think of the most superlative cheeseburgers that exist in this world, it's Sean Brock home cheeseburgers. Not really even close.

How Was The Wine? Merely fine, and that was a surprise. Zinfandel, petite sirah, syrah, mixed Italian blacks blend. Came off a bit thin and reticent, lacking a forceful or focused personality, compared to other drinkings of this series. Reached the point of just enough pleasure but never went beyond that.

And The Pairing? Fine.

Cost: $26 for food, $12 for wine = $38    

#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.

Feta-brined Chicken, Latkes And Arugula With 2012 Birichino Malvasia Bianca

"Cold enough for ya?"

We love Spanish wine oodles more than Italian, if we were prompted to provide a preference. Not even close, really.

BUT. If we see an Italian-style wine/grape grown in California on the shelf, it's a much more immediate "Yes, please" than a Spanish version. You gotta pick and choose with the Spanish-style stuff. Isn't that funny? Weird, huh?

Today's post is brought to you by useless tidbits about our wine proclivities.

Here's an example, though.

Food: Feta-brined roast chicken, latkes, roasted veggies and arugula-parsley salad

Recipe for feta-brined chicken from Melissa Clark in the New York Times. Good chicken, moist breast (giggity), got the feta notes, sort of, but this didn't change Mrs. Ney's two-day salt rub preference. Nice. Worthy diversion.

Veggies roasted under the bird, mostly celery on crack. Celery, celery seed, celery leaf included, because malvasia LOVES celery. Trader Joe's potato latkes with feta crumbled on top. This is a top-notch product, particularly when whipping up a fancier starch seems like a lot of work that day. Or even not. They're that good. Creamy-crunchy and a great vehicle for more cheese. Arugula-parsley salad to mix and match with a piece of chicken, latkes and/or veggies. You do what you want. It's your food and you're an adult, damn it.

Quite pleased with this meal, we were. All the flavors we like done well. And the wine was perfect.

Wine: 2012 Birichino Malvasia Bianca Monterey ($14 - Vin Chicago)

Elderflower, lime leaf, pink carnations, white peach, kiwi juice. Lighter body than we expected. Bright impression. Seamless transitions. Delicious wine. A perfumey, floral wonder that never wandered into true-blue perfume, which can sometimes be a problem for this grape family that includes malmsey, our favorite name in the malvasia family. This one is bouncy and light, letting the floral notes sing instead of weighing it down. Birichino is an off-shoot of Bonny Doon. Like Bonny Doon wines, it seems Birichino also likes to take Old World grapes and make them their own. So...we'll be following this winery. Because we like surprises.

Pairing: Yep. Good. Happy with this one.

We've been in a pairing slump, particularly with whites. We just haven't had that interlocking deliciousness that's made a meal complete of late. This one meshed and connected in great ways, allowing for that pause in the meal when you say to yourself, "Crap, this is good." Except with the arugula. That was god-awful.

Glad we have another bottle of this stuff. It's another example of the slap-happy goodness coming out of the California.
 

#5 - Wine Can Chicken & '96 Heredia White

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

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

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

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

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

Food: Wine Can Chicken with Saffron Risotto

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

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

Saffron risotto was an ideal match with the wine.

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

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

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

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

Some info:

The single vineyards:

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

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

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

Gravonia - vineyard, white wine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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