#218 - Blackbird

We saw the beginnings of a chef transition back in December at Blackbird and it was right on script for a place of the quality of the restaurant.

David Posey, Mike Sheerin's sous chef for I believe a couple of years (and an Alinea/Trio vet), had just taken the reins.  The impression of a definitive change in the preparation and flavor came in the small details then.

The transition was gradual - at least through one seasonal menu, we only visit Blackbird a couple of times a year - with echoes of an overarching Sheerin molecular style still present but it tasted more back to basics in the best way possible, like it was preparing for an exploration into a broader, more elemental scope down the road.

#217 - Szechuan Tuna, Beets & Pea Shoots With '06 Ponzi Pinot Noir

The last time we had the 2006 Ponzi estate bottling of pinot noir in April, I remember starting to wonder how long it had left.

The acid that typically and uniquely surrounds and penetrates any year of this Ponzi offering had previously showed signs of fading in this vintage.

Last night's experience was the opposite.  The acid seems to have simply transitioned into a different phase as opposed to showing a linear regression to death.  This acid was alive, jumpy and dominating in a way that we sorta loved.

The experience still stayed more in the world of seeing where the wine had evolved to instead of coming off delicious, fresh and balanced but in the realm of understanding why acid is so important to wine and enjoying it for where it currently sat in its life, good drink I say.

Food:  Szechuan Tuna with beets and pea shoot salad

#216 - San Francisco

Our third trip to the Bay Area in the last four years produced a very nice handful of highlights, a stupefyingly awful lowlight, a comfortable sense of familiarity, tons of interactions with ridiculously friendly, calm people and a relaxing feeling of escape, which was sorely needed.

So...success.  We liked it muchly.

Some impressions:  Torta Frontera by Rick Bayless in O'Hare is the best airport eats we've ever had (and we successfully avoided Bounty Hunter in Napa and Anchor Steam Brewery in SFO.  A first.).  We won't be flying or visiting wine country in August again.  La Quinta, you're always nice and cheap.  Dodge Charger...keep it.  2011 San Francisco summer weather feels like reading the more depressing moments of Kurt Vonnegut (which isn't altogether bad, just foggy-gloomy).  Spanish Table (and the wonderful Joe) was like a candyland for us, reminding us once again that a place deeply entrenched in Spanish-Spanish is desperately needed in Chicago.  Mrs. Ney continued her string of being selected for 'extra screening.'  She's now been tested for a full-body CT scan, a shoe bomb, a liquid/gel bomb, a boob- and/or crotch-bomb (aggressively) and now explosives residue while her companion with the stoic, slightly snarly expression sails right through.  We never expected a veggie-centric lunch could have been so transcendent and a formerly favorite restaurant visited a few hours later would have been such an abomination, tasting like it came from the 'International' section at Denny's.  But easy-peasy and a calming getaway.

This trip:  Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Zuni Café in SF, C Casa Taqueria in Napa, Ubuntu in Napa and Ad Hoc in Yountville.

#215 - Borlotti Bean & Blue Cheese Fregola Risotto With 2003 Hobbs Gregor Shiraz

Grab Mr. Peabody and his boy Sherman, we're jumpin' into the WABAC machine.

Last October, we had a top-three meal of 2010 consisting of lamb, fregola risotto and carrot purée with this wine and ruminated about not even needing the lamb.  It did little with the wine while the superlative stuff on the plate was the blue cheese fregola and what it did with the Hobbs Gregor.

Last night, we omitted the lamb, replaced it with borlotti beans and were all the better for it, resulting in a meal that was all of the "Yes!" and none of the "meh."

It was a whittling down, a honing in on what absolutely shined with one of our favorite wines, taking that relatively narrow flavor explosion from a side dish and expanding it out into a meal not driven by a protein but introducing elements that mimic what's good about a protein, like depth and char and meaty qualities.

And that's what happened.  We not only didn't miss the meat, we didn't want the meat because everything we want in meat was there in meatless form.

It became a meal that proves the notion that big-boy, burly and deep shiraz doesn't always need meat to tame it.  There are a ton of different avenues to pursue that makes for stupid-good stuff.

"After all, Sherman.  Isn't it important in life to avoid a Hobbesian choice?"

"Oh, Mr. Peabody."

Food:  Borlotti bean & blue cheese fregola risotto with arugula salad

#214 - Not Thomas Keller Chicken, Chaource & Baguette With '07 Fichet Meursault

We're torn.

On the one hand, Thomas Keller chicken is chicken on crack with stupid-good crispy skin, a pool of juice that could be sold on the street and turn a tidy profit and leg and thigh meat that turns so dark and succulent.

On the other hand, due to the high cooking temperature and longer time in the oven, keeping the breast meat moist (huh-huh - I enjoy lame running gags) has been a delicate balancing act, usually just missing the mark.

So along came the Cook's Illustrated version of simple roasted chicken in this month's issue, cutting the cooking time in half while turning the oven off halfway through to allow the bird to continue cooking but at a gradual and incrementally lower temperature.  Seemed right and proper to keep the breast meat juicy.

So we gave it a go.

#213 - Beet Gazpacho, Moroccan-y Lamb Over Rice & Carrot Salad With an '07 Beaume-de-Venise

I think I can declare the White Sox dead after last night's monkey-hump, which means they'll go on a run.  That's how my declarations usually go.

In other news, check out this week's New Yorker story on the details of the raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad.  Great read.

Back to the grub and juice.  And back to the recipes of Jamie Oliver along with another 2007 Rhône.

This bottle fell in the same vein as the Domaine Grand Veneur Clos de Sixte from Tuesday, also showing a surprisingly light touch driven by earth and herbs with the fruit supporting the lead actors.

For a hugely ripe vintage that the big critics said was a classic and the smaller (read: probably better) ones calling it overblown and overripe, we've had six or seven on the lower end of cost spectrum that have mostly been quite graceful, restrained and not at all overripe.

While the wine was fine stuff, the food led the way here.

Food:  Beet gazpacho, Moroccan-y lamb over rice and Indian carrot salad

#212 - TWIB Notes: This Week In Bottles

New feature here at FWW.

It's TWIB notes, a roundup of food and wine from weeknight meals, BYOs, lunches, leftovers and anything else that might have happened that involved food with wine.  Just hum the theme to This Week In Baseball while reading and it becomes interactive.

Let's get right to it.

Sunday Dinner:  Leftover Daniel Boulud Fennel Balls With a 2007 Rhône tasting

Boulud fennel risotto balls leftover from June, when they exploded to great effect with a cheap 2009 Schild Estate GMS.

Mrs. Ney made 50 balls then, we ate 18 in June, another 18 Sunday and brought some to co-workers to sample...and there's STILL MORE!

Original recipe here. Switched up the pepper in the coulis the first time, using sweet picanté peppadew and it was one of many things we adored about that meal.  Back to the original recipe this time, using piquillo peppers and blending in some leftover carrot purée.  Not as good but still tasty.  The fennel balls as well suffered from not being freshy-fresh but it turned into gussied-up Fancy Frozen Food Sunday in delicious ways.  Pomegranate seeds drizzled over the entire plate again with an arugula salad with lemon thyme to finish.

#211 - Rosemary Lamb & Potato-Kale Cake With A 2000 Amarone

Trying to till through sparse or vague reviews for a wine bought at a bargain and figuring out how to drink it can be a difficult plough.

We got this 2000 Amarone at a steep discount, down to $35 from $60, which was probably flag #1.

A mid-level producer from a very fine vintage in Amarone, recommendations on wines from top-end producers in Amarone typically want people to wait ten, sometimes twenty years before drinking them and most don't even release them until five years after the vintage.  Here's one that should be forging ahead quite nicely yet...nearly 50% off.

Then there was the Wine Spectator review:

90  Intense, with currants, herbs and a tinge of iodine. Full-bodied and smooth, with concentrated fruit and mineral flavors. Very fine tannins that firm up a bit on the finish. Bitter chocolate aftertaste. Needs time. Best after 2006. 950 cases made. –JS

Looking back after drinking it, some more flags.  The review was done upon release, in 2005, yet we have a "needs time" followed by a "best after 2006."  A short gap followed by an absence of a real drinking window and pretty generic descriptors used for an Amarone translates to a wine that is "fiiiinnnne" and good enough or typical but nothing exciting.

That's what we got as well, along with typically good lamb, a shockingly delicious potato-kale cake and an "Oregonzola" cheese from Rogue Creamery to pair with the Amarone that blew us away.

But shiraz or syrah was the play here.

#210 - Shrimp On Fire, Plantains & Brussels Sprouts Slaw With '06 Pichler Riesling

Ever have a meal that teetered on the line of too spicy hot to eat but effectively held on the line enough to enjoy it for its mouth-scalding fiery goodness?

That was Shrimp On Fire, not the name of the actual recipe, just what resulted from substituting the presumed heat equivalent of six arbol chilies with about twenty old, presumably flavor-faded, piri piri peppers.

Oops!

It reminded me of the Modern Family episode where Cameron orders the Diablo at a Mexican restaurant.  We had the fiery shrimp sweats with eyes watering and the inside of our mouths screaming bloody murder.

In ways, we liked it for its heat and the underlying peanut in the sauce was delicious.

No wine was going to save this pairing, unfortunately.  We needed booze in the form of margaritas or something to counter the heat, which was too bad because the Pichler was all sorts of interesting, even elegant.

Food:  Shrimp on fire, plantains and Brussels sprouts slaw

#209 - Orecchiette & Lentils With 2010 De Falco Falanghina

Shorter one day as yesterday's prodigious length burned up any useful part of my brain.

Last night's meal wasn't better than bison flank, risotto and Duorum but if you caught us in the right mood, or the bison meal caught us in a crabby one and this one in a friendly, "the world's so nice!" one, orecchiette and lentils with falanghina might have won.

In short, it was close, and closer than we expected.

Probably because it's a Lidia Bastianich recipe that fills you up while leaving you feeling so, so clean.  She does that.

And it was meatless...except for a bit of ham dust.

Food:  Orecchiette and lentils

A modification (s) from Lidia's recipe, substituting orecchiette for rigatoni.  I got a thing with how the orecchiette's little cups catch more sauce.  Less messy and you get more of the good stuff.

#208 - Bison Flank Steak, Tapenade & Risotto With '07 Duorum Reserva

One seemingly innocent element in many of the best pairings over the history of this here blog has served as the literal and figurative starchy-oozy gooey glue to what made them great.

We like various grains risotto'ed up.

Jus' sum'in 'bout it.  Something about its ability to round out edges in the rest of the food and the wine, round out the pairing, enhance spicing, perk up fruit, help along secondary flavors and bring a rational, sane and mature flavor to a meal.

Stupid Italians.  They got yet another thing right.

Whether it's a saffron risotto with arborio, blue cheese fregola, pistachio fregola, pearl municion, fennel arancini, English pea risotto, duck risotto or various other takes on these and other styles, risotto has been the happy-slappy glue to many a great meal for us over two-plus bloggy years and more.

Last night was no different.  Outstanding food here that harkened back to a former food place for us and served with a wine that was all Portugal.

Food:  Bison flank steak with almond/olive tapenade and Israeli couscous/São Jorge risotto

#207 - Great Lunch With Greek Sparkling & Not So Great Dinner

New digs here at Food With Wine.

That stretched picture up above?  That's Quinta Do Vallado in the Douro Valley, a place that made us feel the most relaxed we'd been in years.  Best views and the best pool ever.

Say hello to Cristina and Francisco for us if you ever go.  They're nice people.

Up was down and black was white Monday in the food and wine department.  We had a tossed together lunch using leftovers that was just the tops while a more thoughtful dinner in terms of recipe and what we thought should have been delicious fall oh-so flat.

Dinner made Mrs. Ney angry but lunch saved the day simply by having one food and wine match that we'll be having again and most likely often.

Lunch:  Lidia Bastianich veggie salad with Greek feta, honey and pink peppercorns

Watching Mrs. Bastianich whip up a leftover refrigerator veggie salad on the Martha Stewart Show (didn't turn the channel to it, I left it on the Hallmark Channel after watching Cheers the night before - I feel I need to say that) both of us thought, "I'd eat that," so we did.

#206 - Basque Wednesday With Two Wines

As we begin to cook our way through the Pintxos cookbook, the impulse to continue to try more recipes reveals itself in a similar fashion to our thoughts of the food as we eat it. It's a feeling of 'I want to continue to do this' in its most basic form.

There's a simplicity and honesty to the food, tasting like its origins.  If eaten blind, you could nail it as an amalgam of Spanish and touches of southern French. It stays clean, leads with spicing and offers flavors familiar with a hint of newness and surprise.

At times we've wanted a bit more depth and heartiness from a couple of the dishes but the recipes have never disappointed in their freshness and unique flavor.  It's a winner, giving something more than simply a diversion in food style or testing of something different.

Here's three more from the book.

Lunch:  Gigante bean salad with white anchovies and cold melon shooters with serrano ham chips

#205 - Skirt Steak & Juanita's Saffron Potatoes With '02 Atauta Llanos del Almendro

The dog's cancer-free so we cracked the good stuff.

And this certainly was the Good. Stuff.

In fact, right out of the bottle and after two hours in the decanter, we thought it might have the potential to be more enjoyable than the 2000 Pingus from three months ago.

Its progress towards that level of goodness was halted over the course of the night, never reaching that amount of depth and seduction but if you named ten elements that a Ribera wine can possess that would make it an exceptional wine, this one certainly had eight of them.  And every one of those eight elements were delicious.

In other words, it was Ribera all the way while offering such a unusual and idiosyncratic voice.

#204 - Two Meals As Our Dog Heals

Between thunderstorms, four days of fireworks and a biopsy on her head, our dog has been sent through the ringer in the past week.  She's been a trooper.  A lot of tub time but she's been a trooper.

I've talked about our love for many cookbooks over the last two years with The New Spanish Table and The New Portuguese Table certainly near the top.  A new one has entered the fold, Pintxos, Small Plates In The Basque Tradition, from the chef-owner of Piperade and Bocadillos in San Francisco.

We had a delicious, distinctive and memorable meal at Piperade three years ago.

His recipe collection here seems to reflect that same experience.  We've just started to delve into the bowels and they're plenty to like, plenty to crave and plenty to understand as the recipes are meticulously written and straight-forward.  I can say 'we' because I actually participated in the cooking (!) and had a great time.

Meal #1 - Bill Kim-marinated chicken thighs, soba noodles and fava beans

A Bill Kim spicy Thai marinade with basil and cilantro for chicken thighs from July's edition of Food & Wine.  Wonderful, deep dark flavors in the marinade that nonetheless came off lifted and bright throughout.  Fish sauce integrated well enough to offer a mysterious depth to the chicken while letting all the other flavors show up individually in a great way.  Winner marinade here.  Thighs cooked under a brick à la Mark Bittman.

#203 - Tuna Niçoise With A 2010 Les Pallières Rosé

Tuna Niçoise as a meal presents something akin to alchemy.

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

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

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

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

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

#202 - Turkish Beany Surprise, Explorateur & Asparagus Salad With An '07 Cab Franc

We nearly went to Cleveland yesterday for the annual Lola mini-vacation.

After some cocktails and a bit of wine Monday, it sounded like the best idea ever.  Then, fifteen minutes later, not so much.

So a 'vacation' downtown for the day, something we haven't done in years, substituted and probably exceeded a trip to the Cleve, especially given the ten hours in the car that would have been required.

Xoco for lunch (delicious), Sable Bar + Kitchen for cocktails right after (really delicious) and an early dinner at Purple Pig (Crap! That was good!) made for a pretty great getaway during one of the most gorgeous strings of weather days in Chicago in years.

On Purple Pig, a vintage 2005 Juvé y Camps Reserva de la Familia Cava made for a largely good pairing with the food but alone, so wonderfully funky, it made our minds dance with visions of what we could whip up at home that would slide right into the spritely yet deep funk this one offers.  Great stuff here.  Entirely reasonable $52 at the restaurant and $15-17 on the webbywebs.

Monday's meal that led to the downtown vacation also had some revelations.  One, Turkish Beany Surprise made two days before for an impromptu Meatless Monday turned out to be an awesome idea.  Mrs. Ney was leery of such things, or at least bored by the idea of it.  Two, (whisper) I think I like cabernet franc.  Like...a lot.  Three, eat your cheese two months past the expiration date every time.  It's what Jesus wants.

#201 - Vegetarian Mexican Stew With '06 Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel

For a lazy day that left us indifferent to pretty much anything related to food or wine, a nice little meal evolved out of it:

Food that was quick and easy, meatless and cheap with a wine that had gotten to the point of burning our retinas with its ubiquitous yet blah-inducing nature every time we looked at the shelf for a wine to drink for dinner.

Zinfandel really isn't our bag.  Has a place but it's always been a very specific place and that's been briskety-type meals, the last time in December eating a briskety asado negro, mashed plantains, jalapeño cheddar biscuits and sautéed spinach with an '07 Seghesio zinfandel estate bottling.

Over the last three years, in the Zinfandel world, our love has been given mostly to the Saldo line of the Orin Swift brand, having the 2008 with beef brisket and cornbread and very much liking what it brought to the table.

And the first time I had the Seghesio basic Sonoma bottling about three years ago, it was, for me, the answer to the question, "What's a cheap bottle of wine that will give me an idea what 'balance' in wine means?"  Fantastic stuff when very young.

The Old Vine Sonoma last night, after it got out of its initial Robitussin phase, turned into something more welcome but never jettisoned itself out of the world of 'typical.'

#200 - Revisiting The Very First Pairing

It's fun with numbers!

Today, for the 200th post, we revisit the very first pairing we ever did for this blog, Wine Can Chicken with 1999 Prager Riesling Smaragd Steinriegl, which started out the blog with a bang and served us much better than post #2, Church Cookbook Lasagna with 2008 Castle Rock Pinot Noir.  My bowels are probably still scraping out the nastiness of that concoction.

We soon rebounded from that calamity though with pairing post #5, Wine Can Chicken and saffron risotto with 1996 Heredia Gravonia that saddled right up to the food in great Spanish ways.

Thomas Keller Chicken quickly usurped Wine Can Chicken as the chicken standard with pairing post #83, our first foray into seriously considering chardonnay as a drinkable grape and something we might actually want.  But WCC found itself left in the dust, so much so that Mrs. Ney struggled today to find her WCC mojo in the kitchen, something that once upon a time came to her quite naturally.

Since this is #200, let's look back at other number milestones in 25-post increments that starts out with a boatload of more chicken (and risotto):

#199 - Monday Grub To Wash The Workweek Away

Tough workweek for both of us with Mrs. Ney's a bit tougher than mine.

But there's something about a great Monday - which is our Friday - lunch that goes a long way in wiping out all the residual psychological trauma that comes with the end of a rough week of work.

It allows for a clean break, clap-clap, in a way most welcome and needed on certain weeks and this was certainly one.

We just wanted sparkling wine and to use up the Champagne cheese in the fridge that was three weeks past its expiration.  What we got was a level of deliciousness and joy that hasn't been seen in weeks for Monday lunch.

So simple, so unadulterated, yet oh so freaky good.

Food:  Lincet Chaource Champagne cheese, baguette, mâche salad and a peach

Whole Foods Chaource cheese from Champagne, three weeks past expiration, as I so recently said.  Semi-semi-soft, cow's milk cheese using a similar recipe to that of brie.  Probably much more creamy and soft when young, but the length of time in the fridge made for a firmer texture and concentration of flavors, most likely.

#198 - Daniel Boulud Fennel Balls And Peppadew Purée With '09 Schild GMS

The 2009 Schild Estate GMS came to the rescue in February after a bottle of cheap Italian wine turned out to be corked.

Same thing happened last night when a 2006 Domaine de Ferrand Châteauneuf-du-Pape turned out to be dreadfully dull, showing all liquid figs and blood with not nearly enough acid we were craving at the time and was needed with the food.

Back in February, we drank the Schild Estate GMS with pork, pancetta and prunes.  Delicious food that we enjoyed but the pairing and the surprising cheapness for such big delivery in the wine was the talk of the night.

Last night was different.  We ate food so good it made me want to swear...loudly.  The Schild this time simply reminded us how versatile it is with food and how we really should be buying a case or two very soon.  It's that food-friendly and that good.

But not as good as Daniel Boulud modified fennel balls.

These are just silly great.

Food:  Daniel Boulud fennel balls with a peppadew pepper purée, candied pancetta and pomegranate seeds with an arugula salad

Basically arancini, Boulud Frenches them up and adds Spanish touches, like something that would be served on the border of Tarragona and Rousillon.

#197 - Chicken Piccata, Roasted Potatoes & Arugula With '09 Coenobium Lazio Bianco

Tasted like feet.

On a recent trip to Wine Discount Center, Mrs. Ney asked for a funky white wine recommendation and that's what she got - this wine that's the definition of a funky white with an interesting story behind it.

Organically grown by sisters of the Cistercian order, the juice of the grapes see prolonged contact with the skins and isn't fined or filtered, resulting in an old school wine from an old school Benedictine group of sisters housed about 60 km north of Rome in Lazio.

The $27 price tag and how it showed last night wouldn't make us run out to get more and, not being Catholic, I can't fudge the rules and claim it as part of my tithe, but in the deliciously oxidized white wine world, it had its moments.

Food:  Chicken piccata, roasted potatoes and arugula

A longtime weeknight meal heavily in the rotation that became supplanted by Sandwich Day a few years ago, it was nice to return to the simplicity and tasty lemon-caper-chicken juice goodness that is chicken piccata.  Homey stuff.

Chicken stock reduced a touch longer than normal, offering a touch more of a salty angle but never distracted while bringing a more concentration to the sauce, making for a more chicken essence.  The standard chicken piccata recipe:  chicken breasts dredged in flour and fried up, reduction of chicken stock, unsalted butter, olive oil, capers, lemon peels and parsley cooked and reduced in the chicken breast pan with the leftover fried bits.

#196 - Harissa Hanger, Spicy Carrot Purée & Sherry Onions With '08 Mas Carlot

Good things are good.

Last night's dinner was good, great actually.

Bridesmaids is not so much good, well, sorta almost good, marginally almost funny, not the worst way to spend a 97 degree day.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is quite good and should probably be seen in 3-D, just make sure to go in with knowledge of Werner Herzog's penchant for meandering through the material in a way that can only be seen through his eyes.  Do that and you'll love it.  And the postscript absolutely has a place.

I cannot recommend Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN, an 800 page manufactured drama of the most inconsequential inconsequentialness.  If you're interested in the behind-the-scenes fights over how the ESPYs made it to air, then this is for you.  For me, it's like listening to other people's stories about their children.  Keep it.  The Pale King, DFW's unfinished novel, was bought for summer reading but instead I chose to finish this pile of poo.  And it's 800 pages!  Did I mention that?

But back to the good.

Ever eaten high quality soil?  We have, last night, on the plate and in the glass and it was delicious.

#195 - Moroccan-Inflected Tuna & Beets With NV Larmandier-Bernier Rosé de Saignée

The bloom is a bit off the rosé de saignée (I make jokes) with one of our favorite wines in the last year and a top-five pairing ever.

When we first had the non-vintage Larmandier-Bernier Rosé de Saignée on Christmas Eve with duck, farro and Brussels sprouts, it was pairing perfection.

Last night wasn't pairing perfection in the least, but it was gosh darn good stuff with some surprises.

We first had a version of this "Best Tuna Ever" back in January with Ponzi Willamette and Ken Wright Shea.  Oddly, the Larmandier-Bernier this time, instead of exploding with a huge blood orange core - which was a fruit we incorporated into the tuna prep last time and served with Ponzi but not this time - it came off more rose petaly, leafy and more quiet, tasting more like a Ponzi Willamette instead of a Champagne.

Get that?  I didn't.

It does feel, though, like we got into the nitty-gritty of how this tuna recipe performs more broadly with pinot noir and pinot noir-based wine while also informing me about how the familiarity of flavors can influence how a meal feels at the time and how it's going to resonate.

#194 - Lavender Lamb And Pistachio Fregola With A 2000 Heredia Bosconia

It's interesting to know a winery well enough to be able to taste it and have a ballpark idea of how old it is, how the vintage was and how long a particular bottle has to go.

I don't have the wine tasting ability to be able to do such things yet with just any wine.

But it seems that this is how said ability starts: with an fairly intimate understanding of one winery, experience with tons of vintages over a course of years and the knowledge of how the winery's style and wine has shown at various stages in good, bad and mediocre years.

I'm terrible at blind tastings when it comes to nailing down the vitals. Mrs. Ney's tongue is infinitely better than mine at such things.  But I would probably know if a Quinta do Vale Meão was a 2003 or 2007 (great years) contrasted with any of the years in between.  I'd feel fairly competent in the early aughts of Clos Fourtet.  I think I could nail a Ponzi in a lineup of young Oregon pinots.

But last night, not knowing the finer vintage details before drinking, I don't think I've ever come across a wine that was so obvious in my head to be a Heredia Bosconia about 10-15 years old and from a vintage that wasn't the best.

Having said all that - and good for you, Christo, here's your popsicle - we still don't know why people get off on such things so thoroughly.  Especially when good red wine is infinitely better with the right food.

Food:  Lavender lamb, piquillo marmalade, pistachio fregola and asparagus

Mario Batali's lavender/rosemary lamb recipe from Food & Wine, made during the filming of that shockingly dull Spain - On The Road Again PBS series.  You know, the one where Gwyneth Paltrow wouldn't eat pork...in Spain...for a TV show about eating food in Spain.  But the world now knows she speaks Spanish quite well and that's the most important thing, really.  We felt terrible for Mr. Batali.  He knows and loves Spanish food but had nothing to work with.  I digress.

#193 - Memorial Day Hodgepodge

We stayed in for the holiday due to the 90-degree heat.

We don't enjoy hot.  If northern California didn't have earthquakes, we'd probably be living there.  Since it does, we'll just visit.  Next trip in three months.

But that's not to say we don't enjoy a hot day with a dip in the pool followed by lounging around on the patio afterwards with a bottle of wine.  We thought we could take or leave that before experiencing such a glorious 'that' at Quinta do Vallado winery in the Douro Valley last September.

While basking in the afterglow of a pool dip in 90-degree heat there, we drank a bottle of white from the winery.  I wanted to get all nostalgic and recreate that on the first hot day in Chicago with the same wine.  Yesterday was that hot day.

So we did.

Lunch:  Tomato salad, mozzzarella di bufala and baguette


Tomato salad made with tomatoes, red onion, garlic, fresno and jalapeño peppers, basil, oregano, white balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil.  Mediterranean and all get-out and delicious stuff.

A ball of sliced mozzarella di bufala drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and topped with a handful of fresh basil leaves.  Baguette to mix and match.

Silly good lunch that tasted like a lunch that needs to be eaten once a week.  It's the very core of What We Want.

#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.

#191 - TK Chicken And Two Eastern French Cheeses With An '02 Paul Pernot Folatières

I like interesting things.  Who doesn't like interesting things?

Interesting things drive curiosity and fuel further forays in the food and wine field.

But interesting is a broad word and sometimes interesting is too much work when all you want is to eat and drink two elements that go together without much effort.

If I wanted to ponder this wine, think about it, pour over its nuances and layers, then great, there's plenty here to think about.

We just wanted a well-crafted white Burgundy that would go with a great chicken while playing well with cheeses from the same general region.

This wasn't that.

Food:  TK chicken, Epoisses and Delice du Jura cheeses, baguette and mâche salad

Better than solid Thomas Keller chicken slathered in white pepper and lemon thyme, juicy and delicious, which is too bad because it felt a touch wasted on the experimentation going on everywhere else.

#190 - Hanger Steak Adobada, Potatoes & Arugula With '08 Firehouse Red

Hey, look, I spelled hanger steak right.  I'm growing (shakes head).

I didn't expect a $15, short-windowed wine would need an hour and a half in the decanter.

A half-hour wasn't nearly enough, leaving us with a wine that, for over half of the meal, offered little outside of new oak and tannin.  We could feel that it desperately wanted to get there, wanted to come out and play but once it did, much of the food on the plate was already consumed.

Zinfandel was the call with this meal.  Or the similarly-priced Schild Estate GMS.

We hadn't had hanger steak in five months and this one was one of the best we've had and it very much wanted a better pairing to help it take off.

On a baseball note, the Angels haven't scored a run in 21 innings.  Runs are important. They help you win games.  In the immortal words of my former baseball coach, "I think if we score more runs than the other team, we might have a chance to win this one."

Just a thought.

Food:  Adobo-marinated hanger steak, potatoes with Michael Symon Worcestershire mayo, arugula and chimichurri 

A recipe from The Week magazine that sounds delicious and it was.  The only alteration was the use of specific chilies, going with ancho, casabel and mulato.  Not spicy hot, just tons of depth all over the place.  Chilies dominated but it was the secondary flavors that lingered so well.  Cloves and allspice jumped out with everything coming together to create a taste somewhat foreign yet deliciously familiar.  A perfect medium-rare sear.  Five months since the last hanger steak meal?  Really?

#189 - Garlic Shrimp, Ethiopian Hummus & Syrian Bread With '07 Brut Cava

But having wrote what I just wrote about Avec, we (and by 'we,' I mean Mrs. Ney) currently have (has) taken the Mediterranean angle and tweaked it to more of a Greek/North African/Middle Eastern bent.

It's a bit of what we currently love and last night fell right into that vein, maybe more than any previous meal.

Garlic shrimp isn't particularly finicky with wine as long as you follow certain guidelines.  A crispness, substantial enough body and especially a nice minerality is vital.  Albariño typically has all those traits and we've loved the combination in the past.  Lively and spritely is the order of the day, something to contrast the oily, garlicky shrimp keeps things balanced.  This recipe of shrimp has a certain smoky richness to it and it needs something with a certain energetic or effervescent quality to work.

We returned to a similar pairing we liked a year ago that showed why bubbles are lovely with food.

Food:  Spanish-style garlic shrimp, Ethiopian hummus, Syrian bread and mint snap peas

Same Cook's Illustrated garlic shrimp recipe from last June.  One head of fresh garlic, one head of black (fermented) garlic, dried thai chilies, bay leaves and extra virgin olive oil cooked up together with the shrimp and served at the table in the cooking pan. Great smoky, deep oil in the pan that demands bread for dipping, hence the Syrian, sesame seed-inflected bread.  This is great stuff, easy to make and can be whipped up for about $20 total.  We wanted shrimp and got shrimp in a form we like most.

Black beans found in the freezer puréed with cooked carrots, extra virgin olive oil, tahini and "berbere" spice blend from the Middle Eastern Market on Foster.  Deliciously weird, tasting almost like chocolate and cinnamon were involved but never fully dark and heavy-ish.  Dark-er but light in taste.  A blend of  chile peppers, garlic, ginger, dried basil, korarima, rue, white and black pepper, and fenugreek, the traditional blend used in Ethiopian cuisine and played wonderfully with the sesame seed bread.

#187 - Chicken, Potatoes & White Barbecue Sauce With '08 Confluence

Yesterday, I bemoaned the fact that a good meal with a good wine became less so because of the pairing, hurting a bit more with the $70 price tag that came with it.

Last night's meal stands diametrically opposed to that - a good meal with an okay wine became so much more because of the pairing, and came with the added benefit of costing a grand total of about $32.

I can get behind that.

White barbecue sauce will be used again but the rest of the recipe was pretty standard, a wine that most likely won't be bought again but had some nice moments by itself, but together, as a combination, it was a flavor I'll remember for awhile.

Food makes wine better and vice versa.  Last night's meal was a great example of that.

Food:  Chicken, pesto potatoes and arugula with white barbecue sauce

A F&W recipe, Big Bob Gibson's Chicken.  A grilling recipe adapted to a 500º oven under a brick.  Great chicken (simple salt, pepper, olive oil), moist chicken, chicken where the skin stayed on the meat and crisped up beautifully.  Pesto potatoes made from leftover mystery pesto in the freezer and apple cider vinegar.  Delicious.  The hit of apple cider vinegar made them taste fresh, outdoorsy and played right into the BBQ-ness of the meal.

#188 - Avec Restaurant

It's odd to realize I've never done an Avec post.

A favorite of ours, some of that has to do with the fact that it was closed for a healthy chunk of the life of this blog due to a fire.  It also has to do with never particularly loving the pairings we've had at the restaurant.

And the fact that our dear love for the place had waned a bit over the last two years, which itself came about for a couple of reasons:

One, the seasonal changes to the menu seemed to become more like tweaks than real changes.  Since, for the longest time, we skipped new places for the safety and deliciousness of Avec, lately it seemed to make for a ripe time to get a bit more adventurous in the city until the internet menu sparked a "gotta have that" feel to it.

Two, and most importantly, Avec was how we had come to eat at home with very similar flavors, regional feels and preparations.  Throw on the fact that we had drunk our way through the wines on the list that interested us in the dozen and a half times we had been there, that the wine list for years itself seemingly only went through minor tweaks instead of real changes and that while I'm intrigued by an unfined, unfiltered, old vines Syrah from the Coteaux du Languedoc, I'm just not interested in paying $150 for it, we always felt we could get the flavors at home with the added bonus of playing in the more general range of our peculiar wine tastes at a third of the cost.

But Avec is probably the best $150-200 meal in the city.  It's a place where you can throw caution to the wind, order everything you want and not leave feeling the wallet pain.  You get a real feel for the place with what's currently tripping chef Koren Grieveson's trigger in a setting that can only make you feel comfortable and relaxed.  When you eat there, it feels like a weekend.

#186 - Gnocchi, Ramps & Speck With '06 Capiaux Widdoes Vineyard

When ordering takeout from a restaurant that has two locations, check to make sure you ordered from the one you intended to drive to.

That's this week's nugget of wisdom.

Nugget #2 - Many times, Food & Wine recipes taste like exactly that - a recipe that photographs well and that's pretty much it.  A tomato, pickled walnut and blue cheese salad for lunch (a Richard Blais recipe from this month's mag) left one impression - it was pretty.

Nugget #3 - If some recipes call for an entire stick of butter, you probably don't need that much.  But if you use less, give the dish a little time to cool down in order to let the amount of butter used to work its magic, get all congealed and become all saucy.  Reserve judgment.

Because once last night's meal cooled down a bit, we came to love gnocchi, ramps and speck.

Food:  Gnocchi, ramps and La Quercia speck with lemon thyme

Here's the recipe, reprinted in last week's edition of The Week, with a few tweaks:  deglazed the pan with Muscadet, added lemon thyme and used 87.5% less butter than the recipe called for, allowing us to eat only a pat of butter per serving instead of 1/3 of a stick(!).

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

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

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

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

And it was delicious.

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

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

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

#184 - TK Chicken, Kumatoes Provençal & Green Beans With '08 Turkey Flat Rosé

It's dangerous to know a little instead of a lot about HTML code.  Makes you think you can fix things or create an end-around when it's pretty obvious you can't.

So while you currently can't read these first few sentences because "TinyPic has been moved or deleted," I'll figure this out soon.  Or blow it up.  Either/or.

Quick one today.

Solid Monday night meal made better by the return of a favorite rosé, gone for about two years but inexplicably found on the shelves at Whole Foods.  And a 2008 to boot, which is just oddly odd in the oddest sort of odd way.

Food:  TK chicken, kumatoes Provençal, green beans, Dunbarton blue cheese cheddar, bread and butter 

Standard TK chicken.  Delicious with the difference this time being an almost buttery skin but the chicken became an afterthought with the compilation of great accoutrements.

Kumatoes Provençal.  A take.  Equal volumes bread crumbs, parsley and Bari giardiniera with a healthy portion of anchovies, then baked.  Deep achovy flavor, spectacular level of heat.

Green beans sautéed in the chicken pan with honey, red wine vinegar and thyme.  Felt needed and tasted delicious.  With the kumatoes Provençal and the green beans, there was enough range of flavor, depth and heartiness to feel like a meal in itself.  We gravitated toward these two elements because of that, leaving the chicken mostly as filler.  With the Tuscan bread, KerryGold butter and a beautiful Dunbarton blue cheese cheddar from Wisconsin, a cheddar that both of us thought might be the best cheddar we've ever had, this meal sans chicken could have been enough.

Good food that tasted like a place - distinct flavors that came together to feel like it was intentional, leaving an impression after just a few bites that a glowing satisfaction after the meal was guaranteed.

Wine:  2008 Turkey Flat Rosé ($19 - Whole Foods)

This has been missing for a couple years in Chicago.  A prized and loved rosé in Australia and that's probably why.  It's Mrs. Ney's favorite rosé and it might be mine as well.


Grenache (63%), Shiraz (18%), Cabernet Sauvignon (13%), Dolcetto (6%).

Though a 2008, this one's chugging along quite nicely.  Tasted a touch settled but still a wonderfully wild quality to it, tasting of the land more than polished and pretty.  A Grenache-y gnarly-ness to it with tannins still popping and a gift basket of red fruits jumping up and down with a darker edge to round it out.  Rose petal notes color the frame with a depth one doesn't see in rosés much and a great bite to it.

On various occasions, each grape separated itself out to reveal a singularity to each that was entirely welcome and delicious.

Pairing:  88  A perfect example of the wine staying right in line with the boldness of the food

Very little enhancement but we were both struck with how the structure and body of the wine played right into and stayed right with how big the food flavors were.  This one kept up with no trouble whatsoever.

At times, it seemed like the Grenache singled itself out with the kumatoes Provençal, like it pushed a button and said the Grenache needs to step up here with the heat from the giardiniera.  Same thing seemed to happen with the chicken and the Cabernet's curranty notes perking up.  Identical with the Shiraz and the green beans with a more dark fruit-juicy note.

Full and happy with the added bonus of having a wine that offers so much in, dare I say, a fun package.

#183 - Sake-Soaked Wagyu Beef & Sweet Potato Fries With '05 Yalumba HP Shiraz-Viognier

We eat meat, love meat and crave meat.

But this year, we've eaten much less meat, more lean meat and mostly mini versions of meat with each meal.

Under the auspices of 'you can have too much of a good thing,' we started to experience the fact that bigger portions of meat, even six ounces of meat, on the plate detracts from the after-burn from and basking in the enjoyment of a good meal.

We've been wanting our veggies more, our greens more and a well-prepared starch more with a smaller portion of meat at the center of the meal to complement instead of bullying such things.

We've always eaten well-balanced meals but being from the Midwest, we haven't completely shed the upbringing of meat and meat with a side of meat.

Eight ounces of wagyu beef, a slab of dead animal that tasted like a delicious grilled stick of butter, will force anyone to reconsider the peculiar details of an upbringing.  Sort of like eating the Meat Monster.

Mrs. Ney was prudent and stopped at four ounces of meat-butter consumption.  I did not.

Food:  Sake-soy soaked wagyu beef, sweet potato fries with red thai curry mayo and watercress

The Fish Guy on Elston wagyu beef ($36 for 16 oz.) cooked rare.  Not cheap but it's wagyu.  Oddly though, it left us wanting a bit.  This was the first time we cooked up wagyu at home.  Had it and loved it in various forms out in the world but never at home.  Dunked in salt, then sake, then soy sauce, then finished with a crusting of szechuan peppercorns; from a Saveur recipe and the same recipe used in the superlative #143 Asian beef filet with 2007 Quinta do Vale Meão in December.  Quality stuff but begged the question:  If you're going to buy one of the best cuts of meat on the planet, should you go whole-hog and buy the best cut of one of the best cut of meat on the planet?  Both of us weren't driving down to Fox & Obel and probably drop $20 more to get the same amount but we ended up wondering if he should have.  If done again, that would feel right and proper.

Beautiful taste, great marbling but we both felt like eating eight ounces of anything that tastes like a grilled stick of butter needs in its most basic form to be much...less.  Three to four ounces would have been prudent and even necessary.  Something about taking that first bite and seeing the task before you with so much more meat on the plate forces the meat to loudly star.  Stop halfway through?  Again, I grew up in the Midwest in a big family.  You clean your plate.  Still haven't shed some of that upbringing.

But the Asian preparation of the wagyu was delicious stuff and it's versatile with so many other cuts of beef.  Sake and soy come through beautifully, imparting a deep but bright and lifting quality that lingers nicely with a popping and bright szechuan peppercorn hit backing it up.

That played right into the sweet potato fries and Thai red curry mayo for dipping.  We like our mayo and this one sits in the top five.  With the meat prep and sweet potato-mayo-Asian goodness, we were happy.

Uplands Cress watercress bag from Jewel, roots and all in the bag, stemmed and then wilted in the meat pan.  A better watercress by every measure.  Planty and raw with a punch of something that tastes like the white bits in potting soil in the best possible way.  No other watercress will most likely ever hit the plate in this house.

Tasty food galore.  Asian-y, delicious and played right into one of our favorite wines.  But four ounces of beef filet offering something less of a "LOOK AT ME, I'M WAGYU!" might have been better.  We needed more low-key beefy goodness to allow every element of the meal to alternately take the stage and belch out to the rafters.  We needed a meat that would shut up and let others show their acting chops.

It was like watching Nicolas Cage chewing scenery with his bloated Nic Cage-ness at every possible turn.

Wine:  2005 Yalumba Hand-Picked Shiraz Viognier ($30 - Winerz)

Probably the fourth bottle we've had of this vintage.  Used to be available in town but sadly has gone away.

Biggest impression of the night was how little it's budged since we first had it.  Still chugging along, longer life here and cheap, cheap, cheap for what you get.  More dark cherry and wild berry with an underlying darker fruit note and a small creamy edge but plenty of dark, meaty fruit skin.  The fruit since our last experience seems to have became a bit more tight and focused.  Some nice grip.

Secondary flavors of herby sage, a touch of pencil and even something similar to sweet paprika with mature, paced transitions leading to a finish that kept going.  Viognier still lending a juicy acid feel to it, lifting it out of the ordinary Australian shiraz world and into something more pretty and friendly.

Followed a great arc throughout the meal, becoming more open and delicious halfway through and ending on an irony sanguine note that was utterly delicious.  Not fruit bomby, this is graceful stuff.

Again, shocked how little age this one has shown over the years.  Falls into the 2003 Pirramimma world for us - a wine that we'd buy a case of just to watch it die a fun death.      

Pairing:  89  Enough basic goodness but the world, like the meal, needs less of Nic Cage being Nic Cage

If we cooked up four ounces of beef filet with the same preparation, this one could have been great.

Good stuff paired the wagyu with the Asian preparation playing its part more than the meat.  Szechuan peppercorns continue to shine with Australian shiraz for us.

Nice with the sweet potato fries and Thai red curry dip and strangely good at times with the watercress, especially as the wine hit its later, irony stage.

We liked this meal but expected more, though.

And as Mrs. Ney says, "People that bitch about Australian fruits bombs can kiss my butt!"

Good ones are Great Stuff in our world.

#182 - Lamb, Spicy Carrot Purée & Onion/Tomato Ragout With '07 Antica Terra

Five days, my butt!

Two weeks ago, we opened a 2004 Joseph Swan Syrah and two weeks ago minus one second, we dismissed it as too cough syrupy.

Using a Wine Preserva wine preservation disk - little plastic round stoppers made for restaurants and their wine-by-the-glass programs - we shoved one down the bottle and tossed it above our sink to let it sit there, staring at me as I did dishes and wonder why the heck I haven't dumped it yet every night.

The disks are made for keeping the wine from oxidizing for 'up to five days.'

It's been two weeks and it was delicious.  Better than when we first had it by miles showing much more distinctive and typical syrah qualities of concentrated dark fruit, herbs, smoke, tobacco and leather.  Where were you two weeks ago, my friend?

With last night's meal and the other times we've had spicy carrot purée, it should probably be listed first in the description of the meal as it's been the leading act in two recent great meals (well, except for the fregola - consider it 1a in that one...well...1aa because the Hobbs and fregola pwned [look at me, I'm all internet-speaky] the night but you got my drift).  It's that good.

Food:  Spicy carrot purée, lamb and tomato/onion ragout with pita bread

North African Feast.  Well-made large flavors all over the place.  Medium-rare lamb marinated in onion, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, cinnamon and cumin - pan-seared and finished in 425° oven.  Melty, tasty lamb that actually took a back seat to everything else, serving as an accompaniment more than starring.

Because the star was the spicy carrot purée (did I mention that?).  1.5 pounds carrots, extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, harissa, roasted garlic and cumin seeds.  So creamy, perfectly spiced and just bang-my-head-on-the-coffee-table fantastic.  Tasted like Love.  With a bite of lamb slathered in the purée, it tasted like flavors that people have been eating for centuries.  Ancient, delicious and un-improvable.  Pita bread for dipping with the leftovers.

More ancient and delicious flavors existed in the ragout. Pearl onions (frozen), can of Muir Glen roasted tomatoes, dried cherries, orange juice, garlic, ginger, orange zest, coriander, cumin, cinnamon stick, lemon thyme and bay leaves with parsley over the top.  The orange elements in the dish became vital to the overall enjoyment of the meal, adding a brighter citrus acid to go along with the tomatoes and mingling with the lamb and purée beautifully, making everything feel complete.  Something about the ginger as well.  Made the ragout seem to want the purée to mix with it with the spice level in the ragout tasting like someone has been tinkering with it for years and finally nailed it.

Mint leaves drizzled over all the food.

North African flavors driven entirely by spice abounded with very little (bad) fat and small portions of meat.  All for $20 and ended up tasting like it was exactly the meal we wanted at that specific time.

The wine didn't really have a chance but developed quite well over the course of the meal.

Wine:  2007 Antica Terra Pinot Noir ($43 - WDC)

No decant, just opened 15 minutes before the meal.  Could have used it.  Should have, actually.

Nose of a basket of darker berries smelled right next to a grass fire.  Closed and uninteresting at first but deeper and directed by an unidentifiable spice angle.  The great thing about good pinot noir comes from its quick development.  Good ones change so quickly, sometimes with segues and transitions so quick that the wine is completely different from one sip to the next with very little connection.  This was one of those.

The spice turned from undistinguished to prevalent darker cinnamon, allspice and clove on a dime, mixing with a very creamy cherry, a touch of blackberry and a muddy earth and sticks river bank element.  Very long finish that lingered nicely with a fine balance overall.  Smoother tannins already but plenty there to think this one has many years ahead of it.  Medium to fuller-bodied with a focused dark fruit concentration at its core mixing with some gnarly herb bush notes.  Jumped back and forth often, sometimes coming off bigger and darker with other times going more light, almost milky and peppy.

At $43, both of us felt that a bottle a vintage was our limit but good stuff nonetheless.  Made by Maggie Harrison, an assistant winemaker at Sine Qua Non for almost ten years so the pedigree is certainly there.

Pairing:  90  Food won but the wine did a good job of trying to keep up

After a bite of lamb with spicy carrot purée, asking for a wine to match and enhance its deliciousness almost seemed greedy.

The pairing's moderate success came in watching the wine transform into something delicious when there were few early expectations and the fact that much of the wine's specific spices played in the regional ballpark of the North African flavors on the plate.

Nice stuff, wouldn't do the pairing again.  We wanted more in the pairing as this wine begs for more simply prepared food where the wine can play more of a role in the combination.

Has the guts and is delicious stuff but needs to be a bigger fish in a smaller, less explosive food pond.

But with food this good, the fact that the wine never struggled to keep up made for something good enough in our world.

#181 - Tuna, Cannellini Beans, Arugula & Tomatoes With Two Non-Italian Whites

That's what the meal needed.

An Italian white.

But nope.  I had to try to get creative and see what else would work.

Thought process:  Cannellini beans in cassoulet has worked well in the past with rosé.  Tuna niçoise, the same.  Too miserable of a day for rosé.  We like rosé any time of the year except on days that straddle the time between damp and freakin' damp and miserable.

Basil, lemon juice and shallots were in play.  Albariño.  Rocky rocks would have been great.  Minerals always good.  Oddly didn't trip our trigger at the time.  

Sancerre, New Zealand or California sauvignon blanc is the typical recommendation for dishes such as this.  Just had a Sancerre and I just didn't want it.  A California one would probably have been lovely.

Prager riesling is a bit of a force-fit for the meal but we had a bit of a jones.  I liked the Croatian Malvasia three weeks ago with monkfish and veggies and just bought two more.  I didn't heed my own notes.  "Light package."  This meal needed more white wine guts, a wine made for the warmer weather food on the plate, a wine with more mouth-watering acid to take everything to a better place.

That didn't happen but we ended up fine.  The food was so good we ended up not caring.

Food:  Tuna and cannellini beans with arugula, grape tomatoes and Seeduction bread

Whole Foods tuna cooked rare.  Simple salt and pepper seasoning.  Beautiful slab of tuna for $13 taking what we learned from previous tuna meals and buying a smaller piece.  Sometimes, too much tuna is TOO MUCH TUNA!

Built on a bed of arugula and basil with a pile of cannellini beans in the center cooked from dry beans (key) and tuna on top.  Grape tomatoes sprinkled around and a vinaigrette of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, white balsamic vinegar, oregano, parsley, shallot and mustard drizzled over everything.

Cannellini beans were the star, tasting at times like the essence peppered mashed potatoes without the mush.

But the surprise came in the acid level.  Acid galore in the preparation but the acid was so well integrated it never overtook one bite.  Little, proper spikes everywhere.

Whole Foods Seeduction bread - best bread in the world - to munch on.

A fresh and clean meal with substance.  In other words, beautifully balanced food that felt needed after mac and cheese pizza.

Wine:  2009 Matosevic Alba Malvazjia Istarska ($15 - WDC) & 2007 Prager Riesling Steinriegl Federspiel ($33 - Binny's)

Three weeks ago, we adored the Matosevic Alba Croatian Malvasia.  Pretty herbs and citrus with a herb water core all wrapped in a light package.  This time, not so much.  A baby aspirin and gauze quality dominated while overall coming off a bit clunky.  Tasted like we were drinking a glass of wine that had been left open in a hospital supply closet for too long.  Not terrible, just not interesting in the least.  Some bottle variation here.

While the Prager should have been saved, we had no real attachment to it after reading the early reports on this one.  What resulted was that this one could probably have used a decant as it became infinitely more interesting as it warmed and opened up an hour into the meal.  Started out with a boring blend of limestone, lime and choppy acid but settled into something more friendly.  Became more graceful and subdued showing a transition from lime to a more delicate lemon and pear fruit core with the minerals becoming more fine and a floral note popping up.  Light, almost pretty sugar but the alcohol separated itself out throughout the meal, becoming less so as it opened up and settled down but still there.  Almost dry, more off-dry.  Overall though, it felt like a wine that went through a brutal workout to get to the bottle.  Never elegant, which is something Prager excels at.  Nice, just never pretty.  I'm still trying to figure out if federspiel is even my bag.  My limited experience so far says the bigger smaragd style is more my speed.

But it worked best with the food.

Pairing:  84  No clashy but no matchy

We were fine.  Italian white was the way to go, though.  Should have picked up a Greco when I thought of it.  A Friulano or even a Soave would probably have worked beautifully as well.  Or jumping into a California sauvignon blanc might have been at least interesting.

Became one of those pairings though that emphasized what it was not.  No clash.  The wine satisfied the basic definition of being there and being welcome.

Nothing exciting but the food made up for it in spades.

Simple, delicious, well-prepared food can do that.

After waiting tables in Italian restaurants for nine (gasp!) years, I had given up on Italian food as something I wanted to eat.  Got sick of the whole concept of the style after serving it so much.  Too familiar and wanted flavors not associated with work.  That's changed dramatically in the last year.

If you told me I'd be craving Italian food with Italian wine a year ago, I'd have thought you were a crazy person.  Last night again reaffirmed its newfound goodness, even when both elements weren't present.

Or should I say, because both elements weren't present.

#180 - Bacchus In Milwaukee With 2000 Pingus

Back in December, I ruminated about Quinta Do Vale Meão having a customer for life.

Every vintage until we die (Gary Vaynerchuk over at Daily Grape just wet his pants over the same 2007, as he should.  It's silly delicious).

It's our Lafite-Rothschild, our Ausone, our Pingus. When one's cracked, it's a holiday in our house.

But it's also our Lafite-Rothschild, our Ausone, our Pingus for another obvious reason.  We can't nearly afford such wines (the lowest US price on wine-searcher for a 2005 Lafite-Rothschild is $1400 - a bottle of that would be the third most expensive thing we own!).

But when we saw a 2000 Pingus on the wine list at Bacchus in Milwaukee for $410, a bottle that regularly sells for $800 retail, we pointedly felt like it would be a supremely dumb decision NOT to buy it.

So we jumped in the car for a one-day mini-vacation to Milwaukee for the opportunity to drink a wine our pocketbooks normally wouldn't allow and drank the best bargain we've found since the $35 wall-to-wall bookshelves and $5 coffee table.

We were treated to a delicious meal, beautiful wine and just fantastic service in a beautiful space tucked right next to Lake Michigan just an hour and a half away.

It was one of those moments when you decide to do something that is, by definition, frivolous (like drinking a $410 bottle of wine) and immediately and at every moment thereafter, feel like you made a great choice.

Food:  Bacchus

Contemporary American, seasonally-driven.  Bacchus along with French-focused Lake Park Bistro more north, a kitchen also run by head chef Adam Siegel (James Beard Best Chef Midwest 2008), are the flagships in the Barolotta mini-empire in greater Milwaukee area, it seems.

Like most good American cuisine (which is somewhat rare), the menu draws from world techniques using local and seasonal products to create something else, something of a distinctive flavor that can't be replicated anywhere else because it's so specifically driven by the products locally available, the chef's particular tastes and what's currently exciting him.  Sounds roll-your-eyes food writerly, but you know it when you eat it.  Bacchus works.  It's French technique with a huge nod to coastal-contrasted-with-mountain Mediterranean flavors (the Italian Mare e Monti in full effect).  Seems like Siegel is playing around with the beauty of bitter greens and root veggies for this season's menu (as it's the season).  Slightly tweaked Italian classics abound.  Spanish ingredients play a role.  An underlying Greek dalliance seemed present, especially with some of the Italian dishes, sort of an Italian face upfront with a Greek nana pulling the strings.  In short, you can taste what the chef is currently messing around with and that's a good thing.  Tastes purposeful, honest and playful.

We ate very well.

Menu:

Appetizers:

Red Beets – oranges, crispy prosciutto, arugula, Marcona almonds, Hidden Springs cheese
Foie Gras – rhubarb, French toast, bacon, quail egg, maple syrup

Pasta (half-portions):

Seafood Ravioli – white wine butter, braised artichokes, oregano
Tagliatelle – Maine lobster, tomato confit, lobster cream

Entrées:

Roasted Duck Breast – Spring vegetable and duck confit ragout, roasted garlic
Strauss Free Raised Veal Chop – baby potato salad, mustard vinaigrette, veal jus
  
Dessert:

Molten Chocolate Hazelnut Cake – Caramelized Hazelnuts and Coffee Ice Cream
Raspberry Millefeuille – with Crispy Pastry, Raspberry Sorbet and Vanilla Cream

Delicious.  Again.  We ate very well.


Wine:

Started with two glasses of NV La Marca Prosecco.

A bottle of 2009 Pascal Jolivet Sancerre to drink with the first half of the meal.

A glass of Sauternes (forgot name) to pair with the foie gras.

Two glasses of Adelsheim Vin de Glace with the raspberry millfeuille

Two glasses of Heitz Cellars Ink Grade Port

It was a lot of wine spread over about 3 1/2 hours.  Standard Prosecco, a good enough Sancerre that missed a bit on offering that singular mineral, rocky core that makes good Sancerre good Sancerre.  I now get the Sauternes and foie gras thing.  Good stuff, even if the fruit straddled the line of being a touch flat.  Both dessert wines WILL be bought soon.  The Adelsheim so delicate and the Heitz so smooth and open.

But we came for the 2000 Dominio de Pingus ($410)

The GM and wine director at Bacchus, Katie, couldn't have been more wonderful.  The Pingus was an auction buy for the restaurant and, I'm sure, not fully knowing the storage conditions and provenance of the original buyer and the wine's trip made for the lower price tag.  Kudos to the restaurant for pricing it while taking such things into consideration and marking it up based entirely on the price they got it for instead of what they could get away with.  We know tons of places that wouldn't.

We went back and forth over when to decant and settled on an hour before the reservation to make sure we didn't over-decant (better not enough than too much).  2000 was a 'drink or hold' in Wine Spectator's view for Ribera so there was a realistic chance this one could have been pretty much ready to go with just an hour or so.  We were wrong but not by much.  It really hit its stride three hours into the original decant and after a double decant halfway through the meal.

A nose of everything that makes Ribera Del Duero the best nose on the planet.  Big and gnarly with grilled meats with tasty sweet char all over the place.  Sweet smoke and roasting coffee followed by a raspberry-blueberry-blackberry compote/cassis-y type business that followed right through to the palate (probably leaned more red fruity overall, which surprised me a bit), with an additional something that was like grilling rosemary, smell, taste and all.  

Oak spikes on occasion, especially about two hours into the original decant that went in and out.  And it was at that two-hour mark that it felt like the wine really wanted to break through.  Wound up, itching and ready to go.  Felt like it wanted to punch through from the mid-palate to the finish to create the seamlessness that brought everything together but couldn't get there.  The fine-grained tannins were holding it back a bit.  It finally did so at the three-hour mark, right in time for the entrées.  They were out of lamb for the night, which would have been right in the wine's wheelhouse, but we got a side of olive tapenade for the night's salmon special that did some great things with the wine, knocking all the soldiers right into line.  It sung.  Beautiful stuff.

Mostly, we just wanted to know what a full-fledged Pingus tasted like.  It's our first and at that price, it was worth it.

So worth it that the overall impression left on us was if a similar bargain on this exact vintage of Pingus came up, we'd certainly think deeply about buying.  It was everything we love about Ribera Del Duero and still has a long life ahead.  Tasted like a baseball player that's no longer considered young but can surprisingly leg out a triple with ease and could play well into his 40s.  Maturing but not old in the least.

And served us well with the tasty veal chop and duck breast.  While a bite of duck and olive tapenade together, by itself, was on the odd side, but taken with the wine it became delicious wine and food heaven.  Similar result with the veal and tapenade but served best with a big bite of char on the veal.

Yes.  Great decision.  No question.  We Loved it.


Two quickies:

1.  Mac & cheese pizza sounds like a food abomination.  It's not at Pizza Shuttle in Milwaukee's Brady Street area.  Ten in the morning on our way out of town and we couldn't have wanted anything else more.  Came off...strangely light.  And stupid good.  Yeah, we followed a Pingus with mac & cheese pizza.  That's how we roll.

2.  Skirt steak tacos (grilled tortillas, guacamole, pico de gallo, sour cream, lettuce, onion, hot sauce) was the quick, easy and utterly wonderful dinner after the drive home.  Eaten with 2009 Orin Swift Abstract (Grenache-forward with petite syrah and syrah included, mostly from Sonoma).  We don't love it, didn't love it in the past.  All plummy and black raspberry-ish with a barnyard poop pile on a bale of hay quality.  If tasted blind, its California-ness would be the dominant characteristic that shines through.  A touch syrupy but you can really taste the efforts to not make it so.  The 2009 was the first year they've made it and while we don't love it, I'd be inclined to give it another go in future years just to see where it goes, especially with how it performed with the skirt steak tacos, becoming more friendly and willing to take a backseat to the food instead of announcing its presence so loudly.  Mingled quite well.  Not running out to buy more 2009s but fine and good stuff when we didn't expect much.