#157 - Thomas Keller Chicken, Rapini & Risotto With '09 Kermit Lynch Vaucluse

Last night was probably the first time in a long time when the food and the wine didn't necessarily go together but somehow, in the process of everything, with freakin' fantastic food on the plate and a gosh darn good wine in the glass that didn't conflict in a technical sense with the food, the pairing became better than the sum of its parts.

In other words, things didn't necessarily mesh in that pretty matchy pairing way but we loved every second of it.

And we found a delicious Rhône white for under $15.

And I found out that there's no substitute for Ricard Pastis. There is that and there's everything else.

And we found out that Retsina, that strange Greek white wine concoction infused with pine resin, tastes like Pine-Sol...but not really in a bad way. I can completely see the allure of the stuff.

And we're feeling all of that drinking today.

And baseball season has to get here soon because this time of year is an absolute barren wasteland of sports entertainment.

Food: Thomas Keller chicken with rapini and risotto

A return to TK chicken after the brutality that occurred a couple weeks ago. That was a bad chicken from the start. Got a bad bird. THIS was NOT a bad bird. In fact, it was a delicious bird. Moist and juicy with great salty, peppery skin also done up with thyme. Anytime you're roasting a bird at 450 degrees, it's a tightrope act making sure the breasts stay moist. Usually, it's never the recipe or the preparation. It's making sure you have a good, bigger bird. This was that.

Continuing our recent "Italian-inspired" jag, risotto with onion, sundried tomatoes, chicken and veg. stock, pine nuts, sheep's milk ricotta, parsley and lemon zest. Great starch bleed-off with this one but not too much. Sometimes, the "perfect" risotto served in restaurants makes for some great first bites only to turn into a somewhat goopy, bland mess a half-hour into eating. This one had great starchy moisture to start and retained it after an hour on the plate.

But the star was oddly the rapini made with Aleppo pepper, garlic and extra virgin olive oil and blanched. Just so bright with monstrous depth and graceful bitterness.

It hit us during the meal. Just a great "weekend" of food. Hema's Kitchen (Indian - $88 - BYO - Crios Torrontés and Albero sparkling) for lunch and Icosium (Algerian - $57 - BYO - Domaine des Tours Vaucluse) for dinner on Monday, veal chops ($50) on Tuesday and this ($30) for Wednesday.

Added up, that's $225 for four great meals including the five bottles of wine. Felt like vacation instead of simply not working. And we've spent $225 on some spectacularly mediocre meals out in the non-BYO restaurant world.

Wine: 2009 Vaucluse Blanc Selected by Kermit Lynch ($13 - Binny's)

The 2008 was 50% chardonnay and 50% viognier. I'm going to assume the blend was the same for 2009. Can't find any definitive confirmation of that and certainly tasted like it.

Shiny pale yellow in the glass with a greenish edge. On the palate, it offered everything we like in Rhône whites while softening the raw edges that Rhône whites tend to offer when really young. Completely different blend than typical Rhône whites but was nonetheless entirely reminiscent. Honeysuckle and green apple, all light, open and pleasing. But instead of the huge hit of acid, this one is mitigated about a quarter of the way down by a ginger-pear crème brulée note that smoothes everything out, finishing with a subtle licorice hit at the end. Not fruit-forward, emphasizing all the secondary flavors first with more of a fruit presence throughout as a baseline.

Can't recommend more highly for $13. Great cheap white that we'd drink on its own and love it. Insanely food-friendly in the sense of staying out of the way more than fitting more traditionally into the food. Would serve to lighten and brighten the food while offering a ginger-spiked creaminess to the meal.

Which is exactly what it did for us.

Pairing: 89 Not technically matchy-matchy, but some great stuff here

Tough to describe. The food was higher than that score. The wine by itself was higher than that as well. Together, not traditionally what you want in terms of food-wine enhancement.

But together, it was one of those times when each element was so gosh darn good with nothing clashing, turning harsh or thin. More about what it wasn't instead of what it was.

Reminded me of times we've gone to Blackbird and didn't have particularly great pairings but everything was done at such a high level, it becomes something that transcends the pairing scrutiny.

We'd do this exact meal again in a heartbeat.

#156 - Veal Chops, Polenta, Mushrooms & Onions With '07 CC H3

If we went to a nondescript "Italian-inspired" restaurant on a stretch of road known more for a jumble of cheap food options from other parts of the world smashed next to a Pier 1 and a multitude of Coin Laundries and had this meal...

...I would have thought, "How'd we miss this place!?"

Mostly, it would be in the surprise. A good quality meal, nothing extravagant, over-the-top or jaw-droppingly great. Just an across-the-board deliciousness, cooked well, nicely seasoned and fitting well with a bargain wine.

Dining out, this would have been a $120 meal. We did it for $50.

So...bargain all-around.

Food: Veal chops, roasted onions and polenta and mushrooms with arugula

Trader Joe's veal chops (new product) cooked medium-rare with rosemary, thyme, oregano and sage. Quality char on both sides. The draw to veal is its brightness and lightness compared to beef and how well it takes on an herb extravaganza. This had it with a more meaty, beefy angle brought on by the char and copious amounts of herbs. Made for a great balance to "beef" up the juicy, light meat. Substantial. But light.

Honey-glazed roasted whole onions cooked in thyme. Tasty and essential to the balance of the overall plate of food. Brought a subtle sweetness.

Rosemary polenta with mushrooms in a chicken stock and Metaxa reduction. Just boxed polenta mix but gussied up with a more fancy mushroom preparation. Might have been the best bite of food. The Metaxa came through, bringing a huge depth to the mushrooms.

As the meat juice bled into the arugula, they became something stupid delicious.

Nothing was heavy. Nothing was too delicate. And everything played right into the wine.

Wine: 2007 Columbia Crest H3 Merlot ($13 - WDC)

#43 on the 2010 Wine Spectator Top 100. A $13 bottle of wine that most critics say is only now hitting the beginning of its drinking window four years out.

Though it could use another year or two, not a bad little merlot and much better than the price tag would have you believe.

Still a mixed bag of undistinguished, dark-ish fruits right now. Precursor of dark cherry and blackberry, I guess. Pleasing, gritty, complex earth was most prominent with a cocoa edge. Fresh. Very medium-bodied. Only the smallest hint of vanilla but a decent shot of grilled, herbed meat on occasion. Quality structure here, showing a three-act play with nice segues. Smooth and pretty graceful and should only get better once the fruit becomes more distinctive.

Probably one of the better QPR wines we've had in the last year or two and was certainly helped along by the food.

Pairing: 87 No hiccups at all and liked everything for exactly what it was

Tasted wintry - something we haven't really had this winter.

Can't think of one thing I didn't like on the plate, in the glass or as a pairing. This was nice stuff. We didn't necessarily love anything but there was a certain, high, minimum quality that we respected and enjoyed.

Sweetness from the honey onions, light, juicy, light beefiness from the veal, earthiness from the alcohol-infused mushrooms and herbs to be had everywhere coupled with a quality cheap wine that possessed a little of all that.

Tons of efforts were made to make sure the food played right into the wine and it worked.

Happy.

#155 - Moroccan-Inflected Tuna With Two '08 Oregon Pinots

"Beat THAT!" Mrs. Ney says to her future self.

"Not likely!" says me.

Best tuna we've ever had.

If this tuna showed up on a 20-course tasting menu, it would the one course I'd remember three years later. Except we each had six full ounces of the stuff sitting in front of us.

As an overall meal, with both wines to go back and forth, this meal easily sits in the top two or three in the few years.

And, for everything, on the plate and in the glass, it cost a grand freakin' total of about $80.

Don't need a Groupon for that!

Food: Moroccan-inflected tuna with blood oranges and gaeta olives, arugula and pomegranate salad and Seeduction bread, Kerrygold butter and rose petal jam

The recipe:

Tuna: 12 oz piece: crusted with:

(1 1/2 tsp coriander seeds

3/4 tsp pink peppercorns

3/4 tsp szechuan peppercorns

seeds from 5 cardamom pods

1/2 tsp fleur de sel

4 thin slices peeled ginger,

mashed all together in mortar & pestle - from Around My French Table)

Blood orange suprèmes and gaeta olives (shallot, thyme, cumin seeds, walnut oil)

Arugula, parsley & pomegranate seeds salad (walnut oil, salt, black pepper)

Seeduction bread, Kerrygold butter, French rose petal jam

Tuna seared rare and placed on top of the blood orange and olive salad. The first bite was one of the purest taste experiences (don't care how pretentious that sounds) I've ever had. Every flavor on the tuna and under it came through so balanced, so beautifully seasoned, so pause-worthy that words aren't gonna do it. Right away, the cardamom and peppercorn hit freshened, brightened and lightened by the blood orange juice, cleaned by the ginger and then brought back to a savory, darker depth of deliciousness by the gaeta olives. Seemed like 12 levels of flavor in every bite without being murky or muddled and nothing obscuring the tuna in the least. Great acid, pretty floral notes from the spices. Can't say anything more.

Best. Tuna. Ever.

Accompanied by Seeduction bread from Whole Foods. Played an important role with its rustic, dark bread edge, leveling out the entire meal with country, sort of unrefined presence brought to something more refined by quality Kerrygold butter. But the rose petal jam, adding yet another floral component, seemed integral, enforcing again what we want: bright, clean food with a strong acid backbone, the protein strongly driven by herbs and spices that serve as the primary lifter and the supporting cast being different levels of diversion and cut while tying into everything else.

Who doesn't? That's textbook. But in the details, this meal is the First example in our food world.

Arugula, parsley and pomegranate seed salad to finish.

Wine: 2008 Ponzi Willamette Valley ($33 - Binny's) and 2008 Ken Wright Shea Vineyard 375ml ($22 - Binny's)

Two of the best noses on wines I've smelled in a couple years at least. The complexity on both of these wines coming out of the glass...wow! Both felt like the first real experience we've had with the 2008 Oregon vintage and, if these wines are any indication, all the hype is warranted.

A return to the 2008 Ponzi after having it two months ago with ridiculously good lamb and saffron risotto. Didn't show particularly well then but it's showing much better now. Popped and poured then. Opened about 30 minutes before dinner this time.

Plum, roses, forest floor, a touch of tobacco and lipstick on the nose. On the palate, the plum transitioned to a more muted black cherry with a touch of blueberry juice. Very muted, actually. All secondary flavors right now, showing a big rose petal component with everything going right into the mid-palate. Tea and cola notes to finish. Bitter tea leaves, actually, that weren't unwelcome. Flat-ish cola after about two hours open, which may mitigate a long decant in the future.

Again, and consistent with we utterly love about Ponzi, a ton of roses and the very distinct, bright, lithe and lifting acid that only comes from Ponzi. We'll know Ponzi acid blind until the day we die. It's why we capital-L love it.

Great wine and it's only going to get better. Much better.

But the Ken Wright beat it from a technical sense, helped along by its half-bottleness. Massive wet tobacco nose intermingled with an spiced orange peel, loam-potting soil, piles of rose petals and fuzzy blackberry. All of that followed on the palate and all of that danced around beautifully, all in a streamlined and seamless structure, finishing with the tobacco again going right into a graceful touch of a flower bundle. Softer acid than the Ponzi. Dark with brighter flecks on occasion. Just so well-made and gorgeous. Starts out big but goes right into a perfect medium-bodied weight halfway down. Pretty. Changed. Flowers everywhere. And I've always love tobacco notes but I can't think of a time when I enjoyed it this much.

Odd that this was the first red Ken Wright we've had since the start of this blog. This will be changing soon.

In the end, what jumped out though, were the floral notes and acid in both wines and how they fit so perfectly with the food.

Pairing: 99 Made me think about life changes, like needing an apartment with a patio

Because if this meal were eaten on a late July day, at dusk as a searing day heat gave way to a surprisingly calm, cooling night, outside with friends, I might have wet my pants a little.

The cumin in the blood orange-gaeta olive blend under the tuna fit like a glove with the Ken Wright and the coriander in the crust blew up with the Ponzi. Each, all and everything showing so much purity and love in the glass and on the plate.

That's it. Everything tasted like so much Warm Huggy Love.

#154 - Hanger & Onion/Spinach Napoleons With '06 Filliatreau la Grande Vignolle

Leftover-garbage-buried in the freezer-"Let's see how this goes" meal last night.

And it went quite well.

We've been in a bit of a pairing slump of late. Feels like it anyway. Might have something to do with the poo-arse weather and dreariness that comes with late December-early January but not much has stood out w/r/t wine. Except this one, of course. Yeah...that was Good.

Some of it, as Mrs. Ney ruminated on last night, probably comes from the fact that we've drunk so much white and rosé wine this winter. We love white and rosé, of course, but there is a point of diminishing returns when you drink so much of said wine that is indelibly attached, or in the least elevated, by its delicious accompaniment to the weather outside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whites and rosés should never to boxed into "summer quaffer." Of course not. We drink a ton of it when it's bone-chillingly cold. But too much during that time can make you want to put it to bed until the joy of having the windows open in the apartment for the first time presents itself. Too much has made us want so much less of it.

So let the red flow.

Food: Hanger steak, onion/spinach napoleons and fava beans

Freezer hanger steak that didn't taste like it. Came off fresh. Marinated in parsley, onion, lemon and extra virgin olive oil, much like the Greek-style Bittman chicken marinade from two weeks ago.

Napoleons made with mini pancakes (originally going to be crepes but didn't make it). Pancake batter made from the leftover French Pot Chicken from the day before, blending the potatoes, carrots, onions and juice into a batter.

Used the mini pancakes to make layers stuffed with a combination of sautéed onion and spinach, roasted kumatoes, sheep's milk ricotta, roasted garlic, lemon zest, oregano and dill, calling them napoleons, cuz it's our house and we can. Oodles of savory goodness with quality depth jumping everywhere, coming off creamy at one time only to change to this rustic, almost Italian jumble of deliciousness. Light that changed to substantial. Bright that changed to dark. Odd and weird, delicious and wonderful.

Freshly-shucked fava beans tossed with shallot, mint, lemon juice and extra virgin olive oil and dumped over the entire plate adding a lift to the entire plate.

For a meal made on the fly and incorporating so many leftovers, it tasted...intentional. And pretty darn good.

Wine: 2006 Filliatreau la Grande Vignolle Saumur-Champigny ($20 - WDC)

Grape: 100% cabernet franc

SubRegion: Anjou-Saumur

Appellation: Saumur-Champigny (fun to say)

Vintage (WS): 85 for cabernet franc - very rainy, leading to unripe grapes

We've had two cab francs since the start of this blog. Enjoyed the first (2006 Guiberteau) and piqued my interest more for cab franc than any other one I had before. This one stayed right in that "interesting" vein.

Four hour decant, recommended by the person we bought it from and it helped. Tight and tannic right out of the bottle. After the decant, it opened up into something almost generous with red cherries and black cherry pit all over the plate with a rose petal edge. Meaty core with vegetal/red pepper/green and black olive hints going everywhere, alternating with every sip.

Bigger than the Guiberteau with an impression that came off like a watered-down shiraz at times, but mostly medium-bodied with an always prevalent acidity that accented the cherry pit notes on the finish.

Good stuff. Don't know if I need it again but, good stuff.

Pairing: 86 Great with the hanger, short with the napoleons

The wine exploded with the char on the hanger steak, making every note in the wine jump up a level and become more distinguished, bigger, more concentrated and darker.

The napoleons shortened the wine's finish considerably, something that seemed to be the result of the onions as I tried them separately and killed it even more. Nothing strange, just muted.

Overall though, not too shabby.

Really enjoyed the food. Almost enjoyed the pairing.

#153 - French Pot Chicken & Veggies With '06 Grand Veneur Champauvins

It's a new year and new years bring with it impulses to shake things up a bit.

With last night's dinner, we "shook things up" and tried different chicken. Like many other attempts to try new things, the fact that it was tried is enough.

We'll stick to the chicken prep we love, thank you very much.

Food: French pot chicken with brandy, herb and vegetables, baguette and butter with a mâche salad

A recipe from Around My French Table (M. Jacques' Armagnac Chicken - pgs. 204-5).

Standard 'toss everything in a pot' chicken that allows every flavor to seep into everything else. Chicken, carrots, onions, potatoes, thyme, rosemary, bay leaf, salt, pepper and oil with a 1/2 cup of Metaxa substituted for the Armagnac.

Can't complain. Tasted Country French with moderately deep, wintry flavors entirely suited to the gloomy day and time of year. We, though, were left with the palpable feeling of something being missed, which was probably the skin from Thomas Keller chicken. Or the great juice run-off from it that screams essence of chicken. Tasted like solid enough chicken in a pot. Chicken was just kinda 'there', though, with us liking the vegetables with chicken juice poured over them much more.

Baguette and butter to accompany and mâche salad to finish.

Tried something new and plan to continue such things with chicken but nothing beats TKC.

Wine: 2006 Domaine Grand Veneur "Les Champauvins" Côtes-du-Rhône Villages ($17 - WDC)

GSM. Pop and pour. Dark raspberry jam spread on toast with a touch of grilled meat that followed through on the palate. Kirsch mixed in with nice structure for a Villages wine in the mid-teens. Drinking well enough even though some reports said it was done or close.

I liked it more than Mrs. Ney due to its noticeable ability to be a step above something that simply tasted like "wine." Tasted like the shell of a GSM in a pleasant enough way, though never played one cent above (or below) the price tag.

With mid-teens Rhônes in our world, I'd rather spend $35 for one and enjoy the hell out of it instead of the $17 blah-inducing offerings. Outside of the Domaine Des Tours, I've never really loved anything in this price range.

Pairing: 83 Wouldn't do either the food or the wine or the food and wine again

Not necessarily flat or boring, just not particularly inspiring stuff. Took a ten-day hiatus due to sickness in the house and jumping back on board the food and wine train made for taking small steps back into the fray. Which meant nothing too extravagant.

Zero enhancement on the plate or in the glass but as a wine buddy to go with the food, nothing turned icky.

Usually don't love chicken and red wine and this was no exception.

#152 - Leftover Lamb Stew And Fregola With '05 Meandro

Along with passing along pairings here at FWW, I'd like to perform a second function. Time and anguish saving.

Don't read Vertical, the follow-up to Sideways. There. I just saved you 20 or so hours of unmitigated reading hell. At one point, if the words 'alacrity' or 'enervated' popped up one more GD time, I was going to whip the Kindle across the room. The admittedly decent last 100 pages couldn't be saved by the first 300 of terribly written soft-core porn intermingled with ads for the "trusty" iPhone (entire paragraphs describing the navigation of it) and Viagra with buttloads of laugh jags entirely inappropriate to the set-up ("These people are havin' such a wild time! You're nuts!"). Shooting for a "wacky romp that ups the stakes," it comes off as a badly edited, perfunctory churn-out to get a movie deal. I did not embrace it with alacrity. It only left me feeling enervated.

Anyway.

I never loved the Meandro line from Quinta do Vale Meão.

Always came off as a touch limp and clunky to me. Respected it for what it was but it never thrilled me and I certainly never looked forward to it.

Last night was a little different.

Food: Leftover lamb stew with fregola

From #140 a month ago:

"A New Spanish Table recipe once again. Lamb stew with dried and fresh red peppers is the title (pages 248-249) but the beauty came from the use of San Marzano tomatoes in all their brightness and pearl onions bringing a perfect level of depth. Red bell peppers and ancho peppers with garlic, chicken stock, white wine, red wine vinegar and various stew-ish essentials with a pronounced black pepper presence."

Came off somewhat similar a month later, this time with a more pronounced ancho and red pepper hit. Deep but not sticky with lamb that pretty much tasted fresh. Loved what it offered but it was second to the fregola.

A textbook way to freshen up leftovers. Add a freshly-made, ridiculously good risotto-type goopiness to bleed into the stew flavors and fill the holes. Tasted made for each other.

Fregola done in a risotto style, the Sardinian pasta balls similar in appearance to Israeli couscous but made from semolina, creates a silky, rich, creamy starchy bleed-off just like standard risotto but accents its rustic semolina quality. Italian peasanty in a fancy way.

Blended with onion, chicken stock, manchego and a squeeze of lemon juice with everything topped with parsley and mint.

Much like the last time we had the lamb stew, Mrs. Ney didn't expect much but it turned out damn tasty.

I was sad when it was done.

Fregola was an integral part of one of the best meals we had last year with lamb and the 2003 Hobbs Gregor Shiraz.

With the low-rent, leftover impression we expected before the meal, a low-rent bottle of wine that we'd become entirely sick of looking at and should be drunk seemed prudent.

Like the meal's result, the wine played well above all expectations.

Wine: 2005 Meandro do Vale Meão ($22 - Binny's)

Loam and stewy black fruits on the nose. Blackberry, cassis and a hint of stewed meat right away on the palate with a bone dry finish. The tannins settled down quickly and everything fell into place.

Vacillated back and forth between a sweet blackberry and licorice liqueur and a jumble of sweetish dark red fruits with an earthy note throughout. A bit herbal, tasting like grilled sage or something. Overall, softish with a bit of a creamy edge that came and went and a welcoming hotness kicking up about 3/4 of the way down.

Unlike previous times we've drank this, no chocolate or coffee to be found. Maybe that was it. I never loved the bitter old coffee or the cheap chocolate notes before but the soft, liqueur-like fruit and fine earth is the star right now. Something about the simplicity of how it's showing now compared to how it did before made it more appealing. Less fancified. It's a $20 bottle and it always seemed like Vale Meão, an estate that produces wines on the higher end that taste like Love to us every year, tried to retrofit a Lexus body onto an Aveo engine with the Meandro line.

But five years out, this was good stuff. Maybe it just needed some time or the right food with it.

Pairing: 89 Tasted like a surprisingly well-played pick-up game at the Y

We fell ass-backwards into the pairing but all the pieces fit perfectly.

The creamy nuttiness from the manchego fit with the earth and liqueur notes in the wine and the rich, starchy bleed-off from the fregola filled in the missing gaps in the wine, making it taste like a wine that was two levels better than it was by itself.

A dried, crushed pepper quality that was so prevalent in the sauce flirted beautifully with the hotness in the wine, creating a two act play on the plate - spicy hit that brought out more guts in the wine contrasting with the creaminess from the fregola/manchego that settled it down into a subtle blackberry-licorice place.

Probably 12 different flavor combinations to play with in the meal, taking a leftover meal into a place that didn't taste like it in the least.

#151 - TK Chicken, Baguette & Cheese With Two Chardonnays

Dud.

Brutal.

Everything.

All of it.

The food. The wine. The pairing.

Salad was good.

That's it.

Food: TK chicken, baguette and cheese with arugula and lemon balm salad

Dry chicken (salt, thyme and white pepper). Salty but that's never been the problem before. I think we got a bad bird, one that Foghorn Leghorn would say, "Sumthin' wrong with that boy." Dry and spongy with nothing done different from previous preparations.

Accidentally bought a sourdough baguette instead of a regular one. Boring with the Delice de Bourgogne. Even the cheese was newish, not having the time to develop that great funk.

Dud, dud, dud!

Been awhile.

Arugula and lemon balm salad (walnut oil and white balsamic vinegar) satisfied and the chicken skin was good but that's entirely it.

I thank all that is holy that the wines blew as well. Would have been sad to waste a good wine on this meal.

Wines: 2006 Vincent Dauvissat (René & Vincent) Chablis ($35 - Howard's) & 2009 Chateau Ste. Michelle Chardonnay ($13 - TJ's)

Liked the Chateau Ste. Michelle right away. Not heavily oaked with only a trailing buttered toast note on the back-end. Typical low-end chardonnay notes of pineapple, some green tropical fruits and a touch of maybe sage. Seemed promising for food.

The Dauvissat was all milk with a few drops of pineapple and kiwi juice mixed in. Maybe not so much milk in texture. More like mozzarella runoff that clouded any sense of minerality or character.

Instead of trying to figure out which one was the best of the two, Mrs. Ney and I focused on which one was worse. I'm still deliberating.

The Chateau Ste. Michelle might show better with a year or so but we won't be returning to this Chablis. People like this vintage of the Dauvissat on the interwebs but didn't show well at all for us, even with a little air and coming up close to room temperature.

Both drinkable in the most basic sense but nothing to recommend.

Pairing: 42 Two points added for the lemon balm in the salad

To quote Mrs. Ney, "Dinner made me Angry."

Just brutal. All around.

I truly can't recall a time when the complete meal failed so much.

A Dud in the Dudiest sense of Dud.

#150 - Meatloaf, Tomato Provençal & Potatoes With '07 Domaine Des Tours

150 posts.

Chugging along quite nicely.

It's just meatloaf and potatoes.

Except when it's not.

Food: Meatloaf, tomatoes Provençal and rosemary potatoes

Veal, beef and pork meatloaf with mustard seeds and white pepper, a Food & Wine recipe. I grew up with decent and often served meatloaf. This is fancy meatloaf and the only meatloaf we'll ever eat. Became the only meatloaf recipe about two years ago and felt like something important and settled.

Tomato Provençal. Grape tomatoes topped with bread crumbs, basil, lemon zest and anchovies, then baked. We came to the joy of tomato Provençal late, mostly because I dragged my feet over embracing such obvious anchovy-ness. I'm over that now because they and this is freakin' delicious. A perfect bridge between a protein and starch that makes me understand the basic French cooking philosophy a little more. Probably textbook in that sense and a perfect example, along with onions, of how one supplementary ingredient can add oodles of depth to a meal.

Potatoes pan roasted with lemon halves, rosemary, and garlic. Didn't squeeze the lemon juice into the pan, just rested them unsqueezed into the cooking process. Might be doing it this way from now on as a brightness that tasted like lemon juice crossed with lemon zest came through very subtly but beautifully (seemed integral to the pairing as well).

It's just meatloaf and potatoes but seemed like much more. We avoided this meal and got Indian the day before (see below) because we didn't want "meatloaf." Just as good as the Indian feast.

Wine: 2007 Domaine Des Tours Vin de Pays Vaucluse Reserve ($17 - WDC)

Grape: grenache, counoise, syrah, cinsault, merlot, dious

Appellation: Vaucluse, the large, mostly bulk wine-growing area east of CDP

Vintage (WS): 95 Drink or hold Ripe, rich, powerful reds thanks to long Indian summer at harvesttime. Grenache is heady and rich, so Mourvèdre and Cinsault key for balance. Best wines are classic hedonistic delights, though some are over-the-top

Tons of love for the Chateau Rayas second and third bottlings in this house but our first foray into the 2007 Domaine Des Tours world. Might be better than the 2006.

Medium weight with a texture extraordinarily similar to a pinot noir again. Tons of silky, bright red fruits (not quite distinguished yet) with an underlying fine earth and brush. Pretty tannins that stayed out of the way but this one was defined more by a pinot-like acid and texture again. You can immediately taste the craftsmanship in it with a silky, lilting texture and idiosyncratic development in the glass that tastes like the winemaker is trying to stretch the bounds of what grenache can do and searching for more ways to express it at the lower end of his bottlings. Tastes like he's being playful, drawing out the definition more from the acid than with the fruit.

The 2006 was hit and miss with different foods but it was unbelievable with a fig tart and made us buy a ton more. Finicky with more substantial, diverse offerings where the wine had to cast a wider net but the 2007 last night did just that.

Pairing: 92 Winner, winner, cheap meatloaf and wine dinner!

Solid with the meatloaf but beautifully funky, earthy nearly barnyardy with the tomato Provençal.

Might have been best with the potatoes. Something about how the touch of lemon coupled with the rosemary made everything in the wine fall into line. A great purity to it, turning the fruit in the wine into something more bright and nearly creamy followed by a brushy middle and a red fruit skin, mouthwatering finish. Felt like the acid from the lemon in the potatoes and the acid in the wine found a partner in each other and allowed everything else to come forward.

But it's tough. The funkiness brought out from the tomato Provençal made me want to replicate it immediately after a bite.

In the end, it was a meal flooded with different and changing flavors. The unexpectedness and joy of that turned meatloaf and potatoes into something so much more.

A quick note: Hema's Kitchen on Devon. Vegetable and lamb samosas, raita, two types of naan, chicken vindaloo and ghosh rogan tosh. Served with the same two wines we took last time: 2009 Crios torrontés ($11 - Binny's) and NV Albero Cava ($8 - Trader Joe's). Both worked so well last time we wanted to revisit it. Worked even better this time. The huge floral notes in the Crios shined what anything spicy or vegetal and the Cava worked great with anything doughy. It was a superlatively great back-and-forth that felt hedonistic.

Basically an $85 night out that beat many of the much more expensive meals we've had at other restaurants in the last year or two. This is great Indian food, something we're coming to understand that we capital 'L' love it. Avoided it for so long as we delved deeper into other cuisines but these are flavors that taste old to their very soul.

Hema's and Paprika taste like that's what we're going to be eating this year. The 2011 Semiramis in many ways.

#149 - Bittman Chicken, Skordalia & Pea Shoot Salad With An 8 Year-Old Muscadet

I've had a tough time figuring out if the 2002 Muscadet drank last night is, in fact, Michel Brégeon's Reserve. The company I bought it from assured me it was, saying it was the only one Kermit Lynch imported when they bought it.

Doesn't say it on the bottle (exact picture to the right) but it was worth a shot given both the regular bottling and the reserve each spent seven years (!) on its lees before being put in the bottle.

And Kermit Lynch said it was the best Muscadet he's ever had.

And it was an eight-year-old Muscadet for $25.

And while we've only had about ten different labels of Muscadet, we just love the snot out of it.

And this one, of those ten, is the best one I've ever had.

Food: Chicken under a brick, skordalia with pita for dipping and a pea shoot salad

A Mark Bittman instruction of cooking chicken taken from Italy and one of the quicker chicken preparations for the quality out there. Alter the herbs and rubs as you like. Mrs. Ney did and does.

Used this recipe with the touch of brightness and lift coming from the use of one lemon to tie into the wine. Juicy chicken, tasty skin, fine stuff. Used six boneless thighs instead of a whole chicken.

Skordalia (see recipe above) turned into a favorite in this house about a year ago and become one of those entrée accompaniments that slide so beautifully into the Muscadet/Albariño/Greek white/better bubbly vein. Fits like a glove. This one without breadcrumbs (gluten and dairy free!), subbing boiled and peeled potatoes and using roasted garlic instead of raw. Tasted like Eastern European hummus in a great way.

Pea shoot salad to finish with sliced cucumber, gaeta olives, scallions, mint, parsley and dressed with lemon zest, white balsamic vinegar, and extra virgin olive oil.

Enjoyed everything immensely but worried about some of the elements overpowering the wine.

In the end, no problems at all.

Wine: 2002 Michel Brégeon Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie Reserve ($25 - SFWTC)

Probably the most balanced crisp white I've ever had. Light but substantial. Complex yet quick to transition. Stony as all get out but developed in the most pure way. If I were rich, THIS would be my ideal spring-summer drinker and I would never get sick of it. Just so pretty, graceful, welcoming and stupid good.

Typical Muscadet melon and citrus notes with bright fresh acid intermingled with a white grapefruit note, all of it light, graceful and sparkly. Wet stones in the middle with a subtle yeasty note and finished with the lightest spring rainwater coda that refreshed, cleansed the palate and left me wanting more...quickly.

Eight years old and it tasted like it was made yesterday. Beautifully put together and, as I said, the best Muscadet I've ever had in my rather limited Muscadet life. I'll up it. It's the best light, crisp white I've ever had with only a couple of Heredias, a Hüet and maybe a Champagne or two beating it in the all-around white category.

Pairing: 90 One of those pairings where "absolutely no problems" made it that much better

Worried about the pairing a bit but the shockingly youthful acid in the wine quelled those fears; the wine and the food remained their delicious selves. Enhancement? A bit here and there. The wine accented the olive oil in the skordalia nicely, like when you have good hummus made with good olive oil and the purity of the olive oil jumps out at you. Nice bridge with the lemon in the chicken and the wine that changed course and brought out the white grapefruit mingling around in the wet stone core of the wine.

Overall, it was only subtle touches here and there in the pairing. Cracked a 2007 Domaine Saint Martin Muscadet ($15 - Binny's) to finish the meal and drink with the salad and some of the green elements in that wine played with the salad in more direct, pleasing ways than with what we got from the Brégeon but the Brégeon's grace and subtlety was a one-of-a-kind in our world.

I want two cases of the Brégeon. It's one of those wines that will become a benchmark for me.

A quick note: Mahi mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw and guacamole served with purple corn sangria (recipe here) a few days ago. I've written about this a few times before (go to the January entry for a full description). Probably a top five meal. A couple of notes. We've found that following the sangria recipe to the letter and using a quality sauvignon blanc is essential (Kim Crawford is ideal in our world). More money but entirely worth the bones. Don't get "look at me!" creative. Recipes are out there for a reason.