#59 - Red-Spiced Wine Can Chicken & '06 Ponzi Pinot Noir

Initial thoughts were that we were trying to force-fit a pairing here.

Not that chicken and pinot noir is necessarily bad, just that it can feel a bit uninspired. We were craving both, though, so Mrs. Ney did everything she could to lubricate the pairing, resulting in some pretty inspired results.

Wine: Cinnamon and sumac rubbed wine can chicken with cherry-rosewater jam, mâche salad and baguette with butter and explorateur cheese

Mrs. Ney pinot noired up the chicken! Rubbing it with cinnamon and sumac made for a great skin and much more spicy-earthy quality than previous wine can chickens. But the star was the cherry-rosewater jam. Cherry jam mixed with rosewater and black pepper. It brought some acid and really let the wine open up.

Good eats and juicy chicken made better by the wine.

Wine: 2006 Ponzi Pinot Noir ($30 - Binny's)

What used to be a graceful, straightforward, fruity pinot noir that made us love Oregon pinot noir has started to become more complex. We had this one back in January and saw that it had started to become more dark and deep but had maybe lacked the leafy quality that made us love it.

It's back and, most likely, it was brought out by lubricating the food in the direction of the wine more than pistachio-crusted lamb could. Instead of relying on lamb itself to carry the day, Mrs. Ney played up many pinot noir-ish secondary flavors to ease things along, letting the wine sort of do its thing with a ton of support along the way.

Popped and poured. A touch darker and brownish in the glass than I remember. Alcohol right away but it blew out quickly. The previously immediate and pronounced straight cherry note is gone, giving way to a slightly more tart black cherry. Even before the chicken skin, cinnamon and a bit of spice box. The dry autumn leaf quality has changed to a wet bundle of leaves and earth quality. Sort of forest floor-ish without the mossy quality.

About 30 minutes in, a deep and dominating cola note showed up for me and hung around for about another 30 minutes. Great stuff. I thought about decanting but this made me glad I didn't. Some sort of pie filling note showed up as well that was not so much syrupy, like a traditional pie filling note is, but more like a faint viscosity mixed with fruit.

Still some gracefully fading acidity here that retained its balance to the last drop of the two hour meal. Could easily have drunk another bottle. The finish was medium to short, going away a tad quickly only to kick back up a few seconds later and show some nice heat while continuing to linger for longer than expected.

The 2006 continues to impress us and should drink well enough for another three years or so.

Pairing: 90 Nothing wrong with that

Great with the cherry-rosewater jam, made to pair with the rose petal note we found specifically in the Ponzi on previous occasions. We put it on the chicken and on the bread and it was consistently the star. The cinnamon and sumac on the chicken with the jam and the wine was some great stuff.

Not good with the mâche, making us a little too aware that we were eating greens, and not in a good way. Surprisingly not terrible with the funky Explorateur.

Mostly though, it was the constant changes and constant surprises that drew this pairing out of the uninspired realm and into a nice, unexpectedly good little meal.

It never quite got into the "great" realm. I can't say that Ponzi would ever get there. It's not a wine that ever approaches knock-your-socks-off spectacular. We like it because it's shocking how comfortable Ponzi is in its own skin, never aspiring to be something it's not, always delivering what it promises on the first sip, evolving gracefully and bordering on elegant. There's an integrity about it, I guess, and that's what keeps us coming back.

The meal without the wine would have been fine and good. With the wine, it was utterly delicious.

#58 - Spinach Pie & '08 Château de Loirère Muscadet

Today's lunch is an example of a meal that seemingly wasn't the best pairing but become infinitely better toward the end and even after.

It left that kind of impression, especially upon reflection.

Food: Trader Joe's spinach, feta and phyllo pie

We've talked about this Trader Joe's product before (in the link at the bottom). It's $4, filling on its own for lunch due to its butter content, isn't salty, isn't too feta-y and tastes utterly delicious.

Wine: 2008 Château de Loirère Muscadet Côtes de Grandlieu Sur Lie ($15 - Binny's)

Unlike most Muscadets we've had. The lemon notes are more in the background with more of an orange leafy note dominating. Salty but more like a light, consistent salinity. Also had a silkiness and purity that was unlike any muscadet we've had so far, bordering on minerally with something that resembled floral. Pretty good stuff and now has a place in our Muscadet world. WDC has it. Randolph Wine Cellars has it, IIRC. Widely available.

Côtes de Grandlieu as a sub-appellation only came into existence in 1996. Before that, the area was responsible for most of the basic AOC Muscadet simply labeled Muscadet on the market.

After this, we'll be buying this exact one again and keeping our eye out for other Côtes de Grandlieus. It made me immediately think an expanded Muscadet tasting that was eventually pared down might have been marginally (even if ever so marginally) worth it (and originally bought for that).

Pairing: 87 Given everything, entirely enjoyable

Not spectacular as a pairing by any means. But the greatness inherent in the $4 frozen spinach pie makes for an interesting wine choice if you're so inclined. For us, our love for the spinach pie forces a choice of wine already in the refrigerator from some other backup wine preparation that we never got to on some other night.

But interestingly, it would seem wrong to choose the crappiest one in the cooler to go with the pie. Choosing something a bit unique in the mid-dollar range seems right and good as the pie is forgiving so you can try a wine you might not have been too jazzed about but eventually want to get to someday.

The pie is pretty solid little lunch, infinitely open to tons of wine options for what it is and works great for us with Monday being our Friday-after-work type-thing. We're tired, gosh darn it.

Mostly, it was good meal with an interesting wine that didn't clash as a pairing.

Sometimes, that's completely welcome.

#57 - Chicken Breasts, Sweet Pea Gnocchi & '06 Cassis White

Dinner after the drive back from Cleveland.

Bought some sweet pea gnocchi at West Side Market in Cleveland in the morning and built a dinner around them that night for dinner back home.

Food: Chicken breasts, sweet pea gnocchi and asparagus

Whole Foods chicken breasts stuffed with herbs, olive oil, mustard and hot sauce paste under the skin. Juicy chicken and nice heat made for a welcome change from their the red meat and salt fiesta we experienced in Cleveland.

The sweet pea gnocchi were delicious. Maybe not fluffy pillows but not dense and heavy in the least and certainly tasted handmade and fresh.

A mountain of asparagus was what are bodies were screaming for after the aforementioned bathing in meat and salt.

A good and needed meal.

Wine: 2006 Clos Ste. Magdeleine Cassis White ($15 - WDC)

This is the first time we've had a wine from Cassis, a wine region in Provence.

Most of the wine made in Cassis is white and rarely gets exported. Located right up against the Mediterranean, it's said that the wines take on a salty quality and paired great with seafood dishes.

We didn't do that.

A blend of rousanne, ugni blanc and clairette. Golden color in the glass. No nose. On the palate, a touch of herbs and honey. Muted fruit, some tropical notes. LOW acidity. Some flowers but not a hugely pronounced floral note. Delicate oil and salt finish.

The wine was four years old. I wonder if Cassis wines have a short shelf life. Didn't taste dead but it felt like the flavors were beginning to meld into an undistinguished jumble. Overall, we liked it well enough and might be open to trying another.

We just missed a wee bit more acid and little more nerve.

Might be great with scallops or shrimp, though.

Pairing: 84 Good, fine, nice enough

No complaints. The delicate salt-oil finish helped with the butter and the salt of the food.

More acid and fruit in the wine would have helped the chicken with the mustard and hot sauce, brightening up the party and making me want to reach for the wine after a bite more than I did.

But nothing was bad, nothing became weird and some notes helped.

Just needed more pop.

And maybe seafood.

#56 - Cleveland

Back from the Cleve.

Great weather, pretty good food, got away from home, nothing to complain about.

We have become a bit too familiar with Cleveland over the last year and a half, making it feel less like the getaway that we needed. Cheap two-day getaways are sometimes only just that. It was nice nonetheless.  

But it just isn't right to consume this much meat and salt in this short a timeframe. I loves me sum meat but geesh! I need freakin' vegetables now!

And when we do go somewhere, our impression of the place is starting to be influenced by the quality of wine there. Toronto was an example of that with its LCBO weirdness.

In Cleveland, I've never seen so much cabernet, Italian wine and bubbly. Take those out and not much in terms of depth was left in our visits to three of the better wine shops and perusing restaurant wine menus.

But we have a soft spot for Cleveland. Nicest people on the planet and great downtown area. It's nice to see a city in the Rust Belt making such efforts to reinvent itself and largely succeed.

Cleveland's a charming little place...plus Michael Symon now has 12,000 restaurants there.

Lola Bistro

The first stop now, always and our third visit to Lola in the last 18 months. It's that good.

The Menu:

Appetizers: Charcuterie Plate, Beef Cheek Pierogi, Veal Sweetbreads & Crispy Bone Marrow

The duck speck on the charcuterie plate might have been the best thinly-sliced meat product we've ever had, rivaling the painfully-thin herbed French salami at Avec. We've had the beef cheek pierogi all three times. This one was a bit of a congealed mess and lacked the dark, funky juiciness that made me crave it out of the blue on a random Tuesday in the months between visits.

The veal sweetbreads were cooked nicely, served on a great chickpea and mushroom bed, but it wasn't anything that made us reconsider sweetbreads. Both of us don't love them but I like them enough to try them once a year.

But I embarrassed myself a bit with the crispy bone marrow, moaning like a hog going to town on a slop bucket, but I didn't care. Four pieces of crisped-up bone marrow served in two-inch by one-inch strips and accompanied with Cyprus sea salt, lemon wedges, pickled shallots, sherried onions and parsley with crispy baguette strips. It was a mix-and match paradise. But with sea salt, lemon and parsley, it became something I'll crave for years. And it was one of those moments where I had strong feelings about even the type of salt used. The Cyprus sea salt, a kind I've never had, was perfect. I can only speculate, but something like gray sea salt probably wouldn't had been as good.

Entrées: Hanger Steak and Lamb

Lamb with cannellini beans, rapini, florina peppers and meyer lemon was a solid representation of a sort of wild, bucking plate Lola typically offers, even if this one was a bit familiar to us. Good. Prepared well.

The hanger steak with pickle sauce, chilies and lola fries with a fried egg on top (my addition - I was in the mood) was something we had the first time we went to the restaurant. Still spectacular. Hint of spice, silky sauce, nice low-level acid.

If we had a complaint about Lola, it would only be that the exact preparation of the entrées haven't really changed in the three times we've been there. Not a problem. It's what they do and have been wildly successful with it. Just that sometimes, a little playfulness and surprise would be welcome in the entrées. I understand why.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that we've always had a ridiculously good meal at Lola and have been treated so wonderfully by everyone that works there. Really. The best restaurant people we've ever encountered.

Wine

Solid pairings all around but not much that overwhelmed us.

2007 Flor de Pingus ($125)

Great price! $75 retail on the interwebs. And that speaks to how good Lola's wine menu really is. Plenty of restaurant wine bargains to be had. Called ahead to decant. Got two hours in a stylish but maybe too little surface area decanter. Needed more time and a wider base, I think.

Compared to the 2006, another one that was drunk too early but we didn't care, it was more closed but stood up to the food nicely. Had that sweet smoke and silky sweet tannins that we're coming to identify and love about the second and third bottlings from Pingus. Hints of vanilla in the background. Berry fruit a little muted but I think the 2007 may end up being a bit more smooth than the 2006. Less wildness with a bit less acid. Still dark and earthy but, in the end, I believe we'll end up liking the 2006 better. Who knows? Both aren't there yet.

Three glasses: 2008 Owen Roe Sharecropper Pinot Noir, 2007 Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofi Priorat & 2005 Chateau Rieussec Sauternes

The Owen Roe had a unexpected density to it that made me want to buy more of this one. At $21, it's a bargain. Wet earth first with underlying mix and red and black berries. Good stuff.

The Alvaro Palacios Finca Dofi may have been a mistake. It sold for $13 a glass but goes for upwards of $70 retail. Either way, it was forgettable. All the characteristics of a Priorat without the distinction, acid and wonderfully odd fruit that sometimes kick up with Priorats. Meh.

I want to know more about Sauternes but haven't the wallet to get the good ones. The one was pleasant enough. Sweet but not cloying. Nice light honey and apricot. Smooth finish but a bit short. Decent Sauternes take at least 10 years to be ready and that's probably why. Don't know this one at all.

Great meal. Interesting wines. Lola always was the goods.

Bar Cento

Bar Cento is a solid little bar food restaurant west of downtown Cleveland, near West Side Market (a right and proper farmer's market that's been there forever), specializing in beer from around the world while having a decent (mostly Italian) wine list to boot.

Open only two years, it felt like a college town place that's been there for at least 15. Well-worn in a good way. Hopleaf would be a fair comparison with 200 less beers, a better wine list and the addition of pizzas.

Sort of upscale-ish bar food, nothing revelatory, but we left full and happy.

Food: Salumi with mozzarella di bufala, pommes frites with dipping sauces (the plural of that got us), ramp pizza (it's the season) and bianca with arugula pizza.

Mostly, it's worth mentioning for one wine: 2008 Orin Swift Saldo Zinfandel

We've had and loved this one before but it's been difficult to find in Chicago the last year or so.

Herbal with typical, slightly jammy Zinfandel fruit but not in an over-the-top way. Predominantly blackberry with good balance and a charred meat quality. Hint of tobacco with a pepper finish. Not 100% Zinfandel. A little syrah and petite syrah is mixed in. The syrah really comes through, adding a hint of licorice. Usually in the mid-$20 range, it's a wine we wish were still in town. Went great with the fries. Served too warm (the restaurant itself has an open format to the outside and it was 80 degrees that night) but good stuff anyway.

The 2008 Gini Soave Classico was certainly serviceable. Soave is kinda like Muscadet. They're never going to blow us out of the water with their nuance but they can be damn tasty. We've had better Soave but it served its purpose admirably.

Cleveland, we love ye. But we might be taking a break for a couple of years.

That's a lot of salt and meat.

#55 - Lamb in Mole, Sweet Potatoes & '06 Concha y Toro Merlot

A quick one before a quick sojourn to the Cleve to do some eating.

It's clean-out-the-freezer week in the Ney house.

Food: Lamb with mole, sweet potatoes and mâche and parsley salad

Lamb from the freezer. Mole from the freezer.

Quality medium-rare on the lamb and the mole (from a duck and Quinta do Vale Meão meal last month) still popped.

A simple meal but still tasty for what it was.

Mole can be a bit tricky when pairing it with wine. Really depends on the type of mole you're working with. What comes through first? Chocolate? Chile? Earthy? Is it smooth or biting? How earthy is it? How much back-end heat does it have? It's all a bit of a fine line since the wine must first stand up to the mole.

Wine: 2006 Concha y Toro Merlot Marqués de Casa Concha ($16 - WDC?)

Both of us thought it could have been a cheaper syrah on first taste.

Earth first with touches of bitter chocolate, not the freshest, deepest plum but serviceable, certainly some tobacco and green vegetable notes on occasion. Some heat.

A decent QPR wine but nothing outstanding by itself. In the mid-teens, it's about what you'd expect. Best thing going for it was that nothing came off strange or disjointed and the dominating earth notes went well with the food.

Pairing: 85 Probably one of the better food pairings for the quality of the wine

The wine wasn't outstanding. The food wasn't outstanding. It's freezer week.

But both were solid enough. And together it worked, making the entire experience better than if each were consumed by themselves.

Individual notes would be pointless (though it was pretty great with the mâche). This was the sort of catalog wine that's nice to have around for meals such as this one - above cheap crap wine, from a good producer (we used to drank the Casillero del Diablo ALOT once upon a time), doesn't get weird with food and doesn't cost so much that you feel like you should drink it with a critical eye.

Just enough distinction to think, "Not too shabby for $16."

#54 - Chicken Piccata, Mustardized Potatoes & Asparagus With An '06 Jurançon Sec

As a parting shot before retiring from the exhausting business of helping old ladies decide between one $5 bottle of wine over another, one of our favorite wine people at Wine Discount Center recommended a wine from a appellation I didn't even know existed.

Wine Discount Center is easily one of the best wine shops in the city, maybe the best for its sheer variety, frequent turnover and three people (down to two) that work there who have been unbelievably helpful and taught us a lot over the years.

The times I've been asked about wine and how to navigate the seemingly insurmountable amount of information you have to know in order to understand even the basics and avoid drinking bad wine, Wine Discount Center has always been the example. Find a shop employed with good people that share your taste and pick their brain to death.

WDC has also become akin to going to the toy store as a 12 year-old, sifting through the Star Wars action figures to find the Gamorrean Guard or Nien Nunb.

Spending an off-day going to different wine shops carries with it the same feeling as my mom running errands to Paul's, K-mart and Target and I get to do a complete sweep of every Star Wars section. I'm 12 again.

But I digress.

Food: Chicken piccata with mustardized potato and asparagus

What was supposed to be a rather thrown-together meal, cleaning out the fridge before vacation, turned into something pretty great.

It's just chicken piccata. But it didn't end up that way.

Some of that had to do with the sauce. Instead of reducing a half-cup of chicken broth down to a quarter-cup, Mrs. Ney reduced a cup and a half down to a quarter-cup, making for an intense, darker, earthy sauce coupled with capers, kalamata olives, butter and a good amount of lemon juice.

It resulted in a more concentrated and delicious version of chicken piccata.

Even though we just had mustard asparagus the day before, the asparagus, too, had to be used up along with potatoes. Things were bordering on 'old' in the fridge and cupboard. So, mustard-drenched grilled asparagus with a sort of mustard dry potato salad made sense. We worried about it being mustard and mustard with a side of mustard but it wasn't. Turned out great, especially with the wine.

On that...

Wine: 2006 Clos Uroulat Cuvée Marie Jurançon Sec ($23 - WDC)

I stupidly assumed that Jurançon was some sub-appellation of Jura near Burgundy and based on chardonnay. It's not. It's located in southwest France near the Pyrenees, is known more for its sweet wines based primarily on the same Gros Manseng grape as the dry offerings and produces intense wines on the darker end of the white spectrum showing pineapple, melon and banana flavors.

This was a dry version, 90% Gros Manseng, 10% Corbu.

All honey and cat pee on the nose and on the palate right out of the bottle. Tight and funky. We were told to decant this, something we've never done with a white. Gave it a 2 1/2 hour decant on ice and it opened up beautifully.

Very concentrated flavors of honey, banana, green pepper (!), pine needles, Pine-Sol, smoked pineapple, maybe nutmeg? and a sort of brighter oil. Good viscous body with a smooth finish. Rich.

Never had anything like it. As a very basic description, it has small similarities to a Heredia white. Only in the same, very broad realm but serves as a starting point to describing it.

And given its concentration and verve, it should be age-worthy.

Completely unique to our world and we'll be buying more. Great stuff.

Pairing: 91 - Made a very good meal something pretty original and great in our world with the wine

The food was a darker version of what we expected.

But the wine brought it to a place populated with 12,000 different flavors, changing all the time. Something new with each bite and something to ponder and figure out each time.

Piccata is Italian but this tasted French Country, something that seemed to fit with a wine and region we've never had.

Tasted right and just.

And delicious.

#53 - Seafood Sausage, Rice Cakes and Bok Choy With Two Powerhouse $12 Wines

When we woke up on Tuesday, good food along with a relaxing family visit wasn't something that was possible in our wildest dreams.

Along with tasty pork tenderloin, asparagus, roasted sweet potato and sweet onions accompanied by an olive oil-mustard sauce with the family, we had this:

Food: Seafood sausage, rice cakes, bok choy and a panang curry-chipotle-coconut sauce with ponzu and pickled ginger

I think we found a stellar, store-bought, quick meal.

Check that. Not 'think'. Know.

Holy crap! Who knew?

Along with the $12 wines, this was in the ballpark of a $17 meal total for both of us.

Trader Joe's seafood sausage ($5 for 4) and rice cakes ($3 for 8).

The seafood sausage is a bit of a revelation. Five freakin' bucks. Encased shrimp, scallops, and whitefish-y type goodness. Wow, these are good.

The sauce tied it all together. One jar of Trader Joe's chipotle salsa ($3), one can of coconut milk ($1) half-can of Panaeng curry paste and one lime ($1) reduced down and garnished generously with cilantro. Seriously spicy but just when we thought the heat was going to become intolerable, it tailed off gracefully.

Bok choy ($2) with sesame oil and ponzu drizzle and pickled ginger on the side ($2/jar).

This was a mix-and-match meal, especially with the pickled ginger. With the seafood sausage and ginger, the ever-so-slight fishiness that comes with even the best seafood was muted and the sweetness, particularly the distinctive scallop sweetness, came out. The heat in the sauce intensified the flavor of the seafood as well while the rice cakes served as a great vehicle for sopping up the sauce. But rice cakes with ponzu is tried-and-true goodness as well. Versatile and delicious little buggers, those.

Simply put, we found a meal that can be on hand at all times, is dirt cheap, takes mere minutes to prepare and tastes stupid delicious.

Given the fact that the two wines we had with it cost $12 each, pair so beautifully with it while being available all over town, it's almost wrong.

Wine: 2008 Torres Viña Esmeralda ($12 - Binny's) & 2009 Crios Torrontes ($12 - WDC)

We started out with the Torres Viña Esmeralda, a wine that's always been a great QPR wine. A mix of Moscatel and Gewürtztraminer, the Torres is a wine made with a deft hand. So much would seem to possibly go wrong with such a blend - too much sweetness, fruit out of balance - but nothing does. Off-dry with a subtle kicks of sweet fruit showing apricot and peach with rose petals and nice acidity. Zippy, borderline pretty and a beautiful wine on its own. A great gift wine. Everyone will like it.

The Crios Torrontes, though, won out. All spring flowers on the nose and the palate in a flat-out stunning way. Fruit is in the background with this one, showing some pear, maybe some apple and a hint of spice. Crisp and dry with a welcoming acidity. It's a wine that demands another sip right after you've taken a sip. All flowers and flowers with more flowers. Where the Torres left off, the Crios picked up the baton and went a few steps more towards near-perfect beauty for the price.

Though always safe bets in the price range any year, these two wines weren't this good in their previous vintage. Highly recommended on both fronts.

Pairing Score: 93 for the Torres - 97 for the Crios

Like the Frey-Sohler Muscat pairing a few weeks ago, there's something wonderful about a light, Asian-inspired seafood meal that brings a little heat paired a well-crafted floral white showing nice structure.

We cooed a little over the Torres pairing with the touch of bright, light sweetness and acidity in the wine offering a refreshing counterbalance to the heat. But to repeat, the floral aspects in the Crios were even better.

And the best bite of the night with both wines, and probably one of the best bites of food we've had in awhile, was the seafood sausage with pickled ginger washed down with the both wines, particularly the Crios. Good freakin' stuff.

$17 for the food for two, $12 for a bottle of one of the wines, 20-30 minutes of prep time (10 minutes active) and you have a $29 meal for two that beats anything Rachel Ray pumps out.

And hey, it's "semi-homemade" yet blows any of the crap that Sandra Lee pushes on the unsuspecting public out of the water.

A few notes on other wines:

2005 Kante Malvasia ($10 - Binny's) - Fruit was almost dead (hints of pear, maybe lemon) but it still had its moments. Carnations on the back-end with a viscous quality that was quite nice. Lost its vibrancy being five years old and not made for aging but it wasn't unpleasant. Malvasia piques Mrs. Ney's curiosity so we might try this one again in a younger vintage.

2007 Fiddlehead Cellars Fiddlestix Pinot Noir ($14 Whole Foods) - Boring pinot noir with not much to offer beyond the very basic varietal flavors. Dirty sock quality and a hit of rust dust with a lunch charcuterie plate. We're done with Fiddlehead, even the sauvignon blanc. Just doesn't do much for us.

2004 Chameleon Charbono ($7 - Binny's) - Dead, dead, dead. All liquid twigs and earth. Bought to try a grape variety we've never had and is pretty rare in California (only 90 acres left). Known as Bonarda in Argentina, we might give the grape another go if on sale and younger.

#52 - Veal Chops, Pan-Roasted Potatoes & '06 Flor de Pingus

Last night was an example of a pairing that didn't work but we didn't care one bit.

The wine was that good.

Food: Veal chops, pan-roasted potatoes, cherry-shallot relish and arugula

Veal chops the size of your head!

Seriously, each one was about 8-9 inches long.

From Paulina Meat Market and not cheap in the least, they were delicious for what they were. We're indifferent towards veal. It's fine enough. These were bright, spongy, cooked a perfect medium-rare and with a little lemon, could easily have gone well with a nice white wine.

Pan-roasted potatoes with a roasted garlic mayo for dipping. A bit of a staple. Good stuff.

The shallot-cherry relish was made with saffron, chestnuts and sherry vinegar in an attempt to help the pairing. While good enough, it became a bit superfluous after trying it with the wine.

It was a meal put together a bit on the fly. After going through five different wine ideas to pair with the veal, when we settled on the wine, a few things had to be quickly adjusted.

But it was also a good meal, a tasty meal and probably a meal we won't be having again anytime soon.

Our veal quota for this five-year period has been met.

Wine: 2006 Flor de Pingus ($70 - Binny's)

This is what we like about wine!

Sure, we drank it WAY too young. We killed a baby. But with reasons.

The Flor de Pingus is Peter Sisseck's second wine from Pingus winery in Ribera del Duero. At a tenth of the cost of the flagship wine, it's a window into the world of Pingus without having to take out a second mortgage in order to do it (the 2005 is currently selling for around $700).

The third wine, the Pingus PSI, we chronicled just a few weeks ago. All of Mr. Sisseck's wines are biodynamic as of the 2005 vintage.

Reddish-purple in the glass, it had a shimmering sparkle to it. Very pretty.

On the nose, sweet smoke and wild berries. By itself right out of the bottle, it was itching to get out. Such a glorious wine right away. Subtle vanilla bean core with an indistinguishable black/red berry fruit burst. Dark and haunting. 45 second finish. Ribera to the bone but a bit less wild in our experience. A Big Boy wine with polished edges but very tight as expected as the fruit wasn't delineated yet. We couldn't for the life of us figure out what the fruit was, just that it was a jumble of red and black berry fruit along with something resembling smoked black cherry.

But beautifully sweet tannins, making us think it's not far off from being ready. Many on these interwebs have said five years and it'll be finding its stride. I can only spitball on that. I simply don't have the experience with such things w/r/t nailing it down to a window. But if I were to do such things, three years seems reasonable to open the window. It's not far off. Many elements were already showing itself and it wasn't out of whack, just that the fruit was very resistant to revealing itself.

One hour decant and it should have been much longer. That was the price we paid for the timing of the meal and deciding what wine to drink. It got better as the meal went on (two hours-ish) but it continued to conceal its seemingly true expression. Solid acidity but it has more to reveal as well. Even saying all of this, it's, right now, a gloriously balanced wine and something that was infinitely interesting to drink.

Gonna be a keeper and might become a big favorite in a few years (three years and again in six?).

But that's the reason we drank it. We wanted to know this wine because it's still available around town and frequently $10 off. That won't be the case if other vintages of the Flor de Pingus are any barometer.

Pairing Score: 75 A bust but we didn't care

New pairing scores based on a 100-point scale. Don't like the 100-point scale and find it to be diametrically opposed to the inherent beauty of food and wine? My blog. Not yours. We'll give it a go.

With very little feelings about the veal and the gorgeousness of the the Flor de Pingus, the pairing wasn't even on the radar.

Initially, we planned on drinking a bottle of the 2007 Paul Hobbs pinot noir Ulises Vineyard, another wine that maybe is a wee too young but could conceivably be drunk now.

Terrible with the shallot-cherry relish and merely acceptable with the veal. Surprising to both of us, it was pretty solid with potatoes and roasted garlic mayonnaise.

But again, the meal didn't matter. We found what should be quite a spectacular wine in a few.

We're still learning but, last night, we had something that screamed "put me away."

Going through that, finding that out first-hand with such a good wine and still loving it, helps us remember.

And as has been the case with other wine from the region, nothing sits as well as Riberas. Next time, it will be paired with a simple salt-and-peppered hanger steak, which should be perfect.

By golly that is and will be good stuff.

#51 - Hanger, Fish Tacos & Three Mediocre Wines

Let's combine two meals this week that were eaten with three wildly mediocre wines.

Food: Mustard-red wine rubbed hanger steak with onion tart and arugula salad

Good hanger steak with a nice char, something that I thought would help the wine beautifully.

Traditional-style onion tart made with bacon had a good earthy taste and a fluffy crust. In fact, I'm eating the leftovers of it as I write this and it's still good stuff.

Arugula salad drizzled with balsamic and olive oil. Again, good capper.

Should have been a great meal. Both of us, though, thought it missed some brightness.

And some of that could have been mitigated if the wine revealed itself in the same way it did that last time we had it.

Wine: 2005 Colonial Estate GSM Envoy ($20 - Wine Discount Center)

The meal seemed to match well with a Rhône. Originally, we had the new 2007 Chateau Des Tours (brother of the Domaine Des Tours Vin de Pays that we absolutely love and is probably one of the best QPR wines we've ever had - both are wines from the venerable Châteauneuf-du-Pape winery, Château Rayas), but I had a bit of the sniffles so we deferred to an Australian done in the Rhône style.

Last time we had this, it came off much darker and much bigger with herbal, tar and spice elements.

This time, unfortunately, the dark fruits were gone, replaced by exclusively red fruits with some raspberry and cherry, medium-to-short finish, medium tannins, somewhat concentrated but not in the least distinctive.

Had that in-between mouthfeel that good Australian GSMs have, something between the New and the Old World. Not syrupy, more like deep. But everything had a manufactured feel to it and the fruit had an over-extracted sense that showed well two years ago but now is coming off a bit flat.

Just didn't distinguish itself. Would be a decent little table wine under $12 but this one used to sell for $40 once upon a time.

Pairing: Meh

Clunky. Good enough with the hanger steak but didn't enhance anything. Got by on its fading glamour, but didn't deliver the goods.

One bottle left of this. What used to be somewhat held back to match a meal in the very least has become a sandwich wine. If the wine would have stayed in the dark and deep range it showed previously, that could have brought the meal to a different level where the mustard-red wine rub began to pop and the onion tart went deeper.

It's not a bad wine - nothing disjointed. It simply isn't interesting anymore.

The same world last night compared to Tuesday when it comes to wine.

But fish tacos is a top 10 meal in our world.

Food: Mahi Mahi tacos with jalapeño sour cream, Mexican slaw, guacamole and hot sauce

Recipe taken directly from here.

Duncan Gott, the brother of winemaker Joel Gott, has a place in Napa that serves up some serious deliciousness.

Spectacular marinade on the Whole Foods mahi, garlic-y with a deep spice. Jalapeño sour cream that I could drink by itself. Easy slaw that adds crunch and depth without getting cabbagey. Insanely fresh guacamole.

It can't be emphasized more, this is great stuff.

We've had it one other time since the beginning of FWW with the ridiculously good purple corn sangria, swapping out mahi for tilapia and altering the slaw.

On that purple corn sangria, there's no better match for these fish tacos. Nothing.

And certainly not these.

Wine: 2003 Prager Riesling Bodenstein Smaragd ($14 - WDC) and 2007 Bokisch Albariño ($4 - Binny's)

I could be fine with the Bokisch albariño. It was $4. Not offensive. Not good, but not offensive. Mrs. Ney found some hard-boiled egg notes, which was worth the $4 by itself for its hilarity.

But the 2003 Prager Bodenstein is done, over, finito. Felt kind of burned by the signage at WDC on this one that said it was still drinking beautifully despite the major critics saying it was done three years ago.

Even the faintest hint of fruit is hanging on for dear life. As it came to near room temperature, I thought I found something that might have resembled orange peel or kumquat.

It's done. I have another bottle. Anybody want it?

Pairing: Nothing

Both wines added nothing. But in our world, that didn't matter. Unlike so many other meals that scream for good wine to make it better, nothing was going to detract from the greatness that is fish tacos with this recipe.

#50 - Wine Can Chicken & Saffron Risotto With '89 Heredia Tondonia White

Made it to 50!

Ever had nuts, honey, pear and cantaloupe mixed with hairspray and gasoline?

We have...last night.

Food: Wine can chicken, saffron/pistachio risotto and Brussels Sprouts with bacon

First, saffron/pistachio risotto is in the top 20 of food-type concoctions on the planet. Mrs. Ney has started to put a red chili pepper in with the chicken broth (used to make the risotto), giving a hint of spice that made it even better.

Same wine can chicken preparation as last time. No glaze. Salt and pepper rubbed all over the chicken and left, standing up, in the refrigerator for 24 hours, making the skin quite crispy with a great rustic color. No more glaze. This is good stuff.

Brussels sprouts done in bacon fat with bacon pieces (and a little parmesan?).

Tasted Spanish-influenced with the saffron and almost Californian with the pistachios, Brussels sprouts and freshness.

Wine: 1989 López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva Blanco ($40 - ?)

Aged six years in barrel, four more in bottle before release, 90% Viura, 10% Malvasia.

DEEP gold in the glass, much deeper than any Heredia I've seen. Very little nose. On the palate, VERY dry, nearly bone-dry if it weren't for an almost dessert-like feel in the mouth (had an exceedingly cheap dessert wine - Haut Sarthes semillon - after the meal and it was lighter). Very viscous. A touch of fruit throughout, I got pear, Mrs. Ney got cantaloupe. Oodles of liquified almond and a definite oxidized element. Touch of salt and overall, almost sherry-like.

The finish was a lot of hairspray and gasoline. Unpleasantly so? Only a little. But it threw it out of whack a bit for me. Heredia whites have that alcohol/almost motor oil touch and it usually makes for a spectacular experience when it plays nice with the fruit, nut and dust, but...it was a tad disjointed.

With what I know about aging wines hitting their end, which isn't a lot, I think we may have missed the window here, at least with this particular bottle. It was a complex wine, it was an interesting wine, but it wasn't a harmonious wine. It changed over the course of the meal, but never really stretched its legs.

On the whole, it was better than 85% of the white choices in the house, but I kept thinking about that other 15%. With that said, I've read on the interwebs about Heredia whites closing down for a period only to blossom again in a few years later. Because it's Heredia, we'll buy a couple more and revisit in five and ten years.

Pairing: Merely just fine

We've had this meal with Heredia Gravonia (the new-ish (25 years?), exclusively white vineyard) before and know it works. Different world with the Tondonia for sure, but it didn't have that transcendence we usually get. It fell immediately to trying to figure out the wine instead of enjoying the pairing and all its layers.

Flecks of loveliness with risotto and worked nicely enough with the chicken. No clashes anywhere. Just never great.

But...I'm intrigued enough by the '89 to check out more older Heredia whites, especially given they're still reasonably priced. That includes the '89 again as I'm beginning to be sure as I write this that we simply had a slightly off bottle. All the elements just weren't kicking around, trying to play with each other.

#49 - Lamb & Yuca Fries With A South Hemisphere Syrah Tasting

Continuing the tasting theme...two syrahs from Argentina and Chile.

And as a pre-dinner drink, a sparkling Chardonnay from Argentina that sucked balls.

But that's really the only negative from last night's meal.

Food: Lamb, yuca and mâche with a fig compote and garlic mayo

Rack of lamb was back at Trader Joe's ($12), something that serves to get your lamb fix without blowing the bank. Good stuff, plenty of it, fresh, not too lamby and cooked perfectly. Four lollipops each, seared in olive oil, lavender and rosemary with a fig compote to spread on as desired.

Yuca fries were the impetus of the meal. It was odd to search this here website and see that we've only had yuca fries once since its inception. Our first exposure to yuca fries came at Sabor a Cuba just a few months after moving to Chicago and it's been a love affair ever since. Last night, we had a heaping mound with garlic mayo for dipping. The love affair continues. Great crispiness. As the meat juice ran into the mâche, it made for a nice topper to the meal.

Won't be four months between the next time yuca hits the table.

Wine: 2006 Luca Syrah Laborde Double Select ($22 - Binny's) & 2006 Montes Alpha Syrah ($18 - Binny's)

The Luca had to be drunk and the Montes Alpha had to be re-visited.

For the Luca (5% malbec), thinnish purple in the glass, fig and blueberry on the nose. Initially, I suspected this was going to be the star of the night but that changed with much of that having to do with how integrated and expressive it...wasn't...as the night progressed. Not the most complex wine in any sense, it tasted like a French Rhône attempting to play up to a New World style. Not in any over-the-top way, just a bit.

Fruity, juicy with nice, subtle fig and a medium body. A little pepper and smoke with a wee hint of chocolate. The finish stopped abruptly at the mid-palate and had virtually no distinguishing finish. A little wood, nothing too distracting. Still enough tannin and fresh, juicy fruit to go a couple more years. After reading the notes, it made me think this was drinking very differently two years ago. No toast or discernible mocha and it felt like the body has begun to lose its vibrancy and nerve. I still enjoyed it for what it was and routinely reached for that when eating the lamb.

The Montes Alpha (5% cabernet, 5% viognier) was an entirely different story. Deep maroon in the glass, all beef jerky and BBQ sauce on the nose. A big, burly wine. Could have been a less jammy zinfandel or a huge zinfandel losing its zinfandel-y-ness. Lots of BBQ sauce, fig and burnt buttered toast on the palate. Very little fruit upfront. Plum and wild, dark fruit played in the background. This was all smoke. And not in a bad way, just simple. This one's a great partner with ribs on the grill.

Of the two, we probably liked the Montes Alpha the best as it was exactly what it was trying to be. I wanted to like the Luca better for its effort to be something greater (oddly close in style to the Domaine Des Tours Vaucluse in many ways, just less French), but I didn't.

For the price, both were...yep, good enough. No complaints. But I'd buy the Montes Alpha again. The Luca, not so much.

Pairing: Back and forth made for some good stuff

I don't think, if we had this meal with either of these wines alone, it would have been as good. Both wines didn't have enough of that 'it' factor. Together, though, not too bad at all.

It was the vacillating between the two that made it nice. The Luca worked just fine with the lamb, probably better than the Montes Alpha, but the latter was stellar with the yuca and the salt while being an overall more pleasurable wine. Tasted like a summertime picnic at the park when you use the park-installed grill on the side of the road.

While the food very much played better than the wine in every stretch, the wines had their moments. Some were quite nice.

For record-keeping purposes, I'd like to catalogue Monday night's meal at Ceres' Table. Another good dinner again.

Appetizers - Crab Louie, Rabbit Confit Gnocchi and Romaine

Entrées - Boar Strozzapreti Pasta and Roast Chicken Breast

Dessert - Peanut Butter Terrine and Crazy Crepe

Wine Bottles - 2008 Sella & Mosca Vermentino & 2008 Mea Culpa Samling Slovenia

The pairings weren't anything worth noting. The vermentino was like a more simple muscadet. Nothing special. The Slovenian wine was better. Played like a stripped-down Hungarian white in the best way possible. Lots of orange blossom, bordering on sparkling orange creamsicle. Light. Good. It was the first Slovenian wine we've ever had and I'm more apt to try another after this one, which is the best thing I can say for it right now.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, though. Ceres' Table is the best restaurant in the Andersonville/Lincoln Square food world at the moment.

#48 - Scallops, Shrimp & Veggie Paté With A Muscadet Tasting

Is any muscadet just a muscadet?

Last night, we did a scaled-back version of a muscadet tasting to find out.

Well, not completely. Not at all, actually.

The original plan pitted four muscadets against each other.

Then we came to our senses a bit. That's a lot of muscadet! Pinot noir tasting? Yes, please. Syrah? Sure, where's the line?

Muscadet?

...That's a lot of muscadet!

It was another one of my brilliant plans that sounded good at the time. Hey, let's find out if more expensive muscadet is worth the price of admission when we already have a perfectly fine $7 muscadet we enjoy. $60 later...

We've had other muscadets including the entry level from Pépière (liked it), a wine culled from various vineyards. Last night's was of the single-vineyard (Clos des Briords) and Vieilles Vignes (old vine) variety at $15.

In the next corner was a Trader Joe's specialty, Château des Cléons, weighing in at $7, a wine we have a bit of a crush on during the summer.

Both were from the muscadet appellation Sèvre et Maine (80% of muscadets made are) and both were 'sur lie' (yeasty bits stayed in the barrel and went directly into the bottle without racking, imparting a more creamy and fresh taste).

The results:

Food: Scallops, Shrimp, Veggie Paté, Asparagus, Mâche and capers with a Dill Vinaigrette, Baguette and Icelandic Butter

Just a MOUNTAIN of food. And great food. Clean food.

Simple, medium-sized seared scallops and garlic shrimp from Whole Foods. We don't get the shrimp fixation. Never have. But we gave them a roll in order to fulfill our requirement to try them every five years. The contract was up. I can see why people like them. These were tasty. In a good sauce, I get it. Maybe that's the problem. For me, shrimp desperately need a good sauce, making it simply a vehicle for sauce rather than a tasty goodness in and of themselves. Good stuff but see you in five years.

Mâche with capers and dill vinaigrette = Freshy Fresh (wasn't that a late 80's rapper?). Gave Icelandic butter a go and Irish butter is still the defending champion in the Ney house.

Now to the vegetable paté. Much cursing was sent forth from the kitchen during the preparation of this. Mrs. Ney has always wanted to give the making of paté a try and vegetable paté seemed to be a good place to start before moving on to more meaty ventures. It seemed like a mountain of work that resulted in a mountain of veggie paté. If you want some, visit the break room of Mrs. Ney's place of employment today. Bring a bib because there's lots.

A layer of puréed celery root followed by a layer a slightly spicy puréed tomato followed by a layer of puréed leeks, all wrapped in a cabbage cocoon. Immensely fresh and delicious. We were kind of intimidated by it on the table. Looked like an oddly-colored loaf of upside-down banana bread. "Why is it green!"

We felt clean and full.

Wines: 2007 Château des Cléons ($7 - Trader Joe's) & 2008 Domaine de la Pépière Clos des Briords ($15 - Binny's)

The Pépière was a better wine, but $8 better? Meh. Not really.

Muscadets are typically drunk young but the good ones have huge drinking windows if you're into it. A guy at Red & White on Milwaukee told me that he had a muscadet from the 60's and thought it was glorious. I'm intrigued a bit.

The Pépière showed more subtle lemon and stony notes with nice minerality and a more refined acidity compared to the Château des Cléons, which was more raw and simple with a more bracing lemon finish but still nice for what it is. The Cléons is more yellow in the glass with the Pépière showing a more light, greenish tint.

If given blind, I could discern which was better but I don't think it would really matter. Also, muscadet is a spectacular summer wine to drink by itself. In that world, I think I'd take the Château des Cléons over the Pépière. It's more substantial in its sheer rawness, if that makes sense. And it we're choosing between two muscadets to drink on its own, $7 beats $15 when volume comes into play and the difference, while distinct, isn't distinct enough to fork over $8 more.

We're going to continue to try more muscadets, of course. This cute little tasting resulted in no conclusions with only two wines up against each other.

BUT...when I'm shopping and looking to blow $15 on whatever, that world where muscadet is an option...

...hmm...$5 more and I have a flurry of choices in the Vouvray world (great bargain world, that). I think I'd at least look there first. Oodles more complexity for just a few bucks extra.

Muscadets are great, versatile with food as the crispness coupled with the acidity can stand up to much, great with greens, good chicken wine, made for the oyster-sea world, good with salty butter.

Lemon, paper and salt. That's muscadet. Trends toward simple by and large but that's just fine.

I kind of compare it to Dr. Pepper. When I'm in the mood, that's good stuff. But I don't want Dr. Pepper everyday.

Pairing: Overall, nice stuff

The weather helped. First nice day in Chicago in months.

The Pépière was more delicate but held its own. Came up a tad short with the garlic. Both were good with the greens and dill. Scallops were better overall as a pairing than the more aggressive shrimp preparation. Pleasant with the paté, even with the hint of spice.

When talking about muscadet and pairing it with food, it's a more basic world. Muscadet is first and foremost refreshing, a sort of pairing that brings good simple, mostly lemon fruit, big acidity and bone-dryness that makes for a nice, quintessentially basic pairing, especially when it's brutally hot and humid. It will enhance most food that can be enhanced by the addition of lemon juice.

It's just nice. You don't have to be too matchy-matchy. Stay in the ballpark and you get a simple wine to drink with simple food and your world is better for it.

The kind of thing that hits you an hour later and you say, "heeeeeeey, that was pretty good."

#47 - Duck, Mole & Sweet Potatoes With '04 Vale Meão

This stuff is getting downright scarce.

What used to be fairly easy to get (even at Sam's) just a few years ago has become nearly impossible to find, even on the interwebs. And what used to be $40 now sits in the $80-100 range on average.

I'm talking about the Quinta do Vale Meão Douro. We love Portuguese wine. Having said that, there's Portuguese wine and then there's Quinta do Vale Meão. The first time we had it (the 2003), both of us were stunned, thinking, "Wine can taste like this?!" Silky, almost creamy, Asian spice, big, smooth fruit, smoky, dark...just freakin' lovely.

Since the 2002 vintage, production seems to have been cut nearly in half (according to WS notes) and imports to the U.S. have been dramatically reduced (80 cases of the '06 vintage and 200 cases of the '07 vintage).

Their second label, the Meandro, has performed admirably in the U.S., getting solid ratings and selling for under $20 in many places. While fine enough, it never compared to the flagship label in our world. Not. Even. Close.

Food: Five-spiced duck with mole, sweet potatoes and snow peas done in duck fat

We've neglected medium-rare duck recently. That should change as duck and pinot noir on warmer nights is a pretty great thing.

This meal was planned around the preparation of the mole. Mrs. Ney whipped up a mole imparting huge earth and dark chocolate notes with a hint of brightness. A modified Rick Bayless recipe, she substituted oranges for tomatillos, apricots and cherries for raisins, corn tortillas for white bread and 85% cacao for Mexican chocolate with a squirt of honey and a glop of miso paste.

It was the star of the meal and we have gallons of it now. Anybody want some? Please?

Both of us have been rather indifferent when it comes to sweet potatoes, but last night's sweet potatoes, especially dipped in the mole, were something great.

The entire meal was something great.

Wine: 2004 Quinta do Vale Meão Douro ($50-60ish - Sam's?)

Only made since 1999, every vintage since has been adored by critics. As I said, the 2003 was a bit of a revelation for us. The 2002 followed the same path and last night, we had the 2004.

For me, there was a problem that I can't really explain. I got much less from what I've usually got from the Vale Meão (I blame the pre-dinner Conundrum with its sugary sugariness). It was a bit frustrating, so frustrating that I resorted to trying to clean my mouth with pickled ginger, so I defer exclusively to Mrs. Ney on tasting notes, who has a better palate than mine anyway.

One hour decant. Reddish-purple in the glass. Big sediment in the bottle. I got roast beef juice on the nose. Mrs. Ney found smoky/charred meat. Fruit more subdued than expected. Big charred meat initially on the palate with a smooth Asian spice kick followed by more char and charred meat down to the mid-palate. Everything just kept popping, changing and coating on its trip down. Earthy, silky finish that lasted a good 30 seconds. Best one yet. Tasted like the winery went all Old School-Old World in 2004 rather than playing up the fruit and creamy aspect like in the 2002 and 2003. Sort of a gnarly, big-boy wine that said, "this is what I am, like it or not. We don't care either way because we like it."

We thought it might be a little closed (?) still with its more subtle fruit so with two more 2004's, we'll put them away and try again in a few years. This could really be interesting in four years. We're also torn on the one hour decant. After 2 1/2 hours, it started to taste like it was shutting down. But that could open right back up after 4-5 hours. Overall, it had medium, almost chewy tannins that shot in and out so who knows?

Pairing: Yes, yes, yes

We will have this exact same meal again, wine and all. Pretty great stuff.

The Asian spice notes in the wine served as a great bridge between the mole and five spice on the duck crust, the mole and the sweet potatoes and even played well with the snow peas.

Just kept popping back and forth, making everything a bit electric.

By the last third of the meal, I started to get what Mrs. Ney was getting and it became a taste entirely better than the sum of its parts and something that became a taste-memory sort of goodness. Entirely original yet entirely derivative of flavors we love.

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A quick note on two wines: Sunday was/is always frozen food Sunday because we work. I didn't work under the auspices of watching the Oscars. Instead of one frozen food meal, we had two.

Lunch: Trader Joe's spinach/feta/phyllo pie with Zacharias White Squared (under $10 - Binny's). $4 for a great little lunch pie. Tastes fresh, isn't salty and doesn't reek of too much feta. Greekish food with a great, cheap Greek wine. A good find. Had a farmer's market on a hot summer day smell going on, like the smell of a crate of peaches that's been out for a bit. In a good way. Dry, a hint of a basement quality and solid, underlying fruit of peach/apricot with a bit of salt. Paired well. No complaints at all and we'd do it again any day.

Dinner: Leftover Sunday Gravy with La Loggia Barbaresco ($12 - Trader Joe's). Same Sunday Gravy from a week ago with the same great garlic bread. Solid meal. Cheap Barbaresco that has gotten a beating on the web for its cheapy cheapness. I'm not saying it was good, but it was a step up from bland table wine. Good cherry core with a little smoky meat. Paired was average, nothing great. We didn't finish the bottle.

#46 - Tilapia Curry With '05 Alsatian Muscat

Boned up on our chopstick skills last night.

Like a gaggle of monkeys humping a football, it was quite a scene with flaky tilapia.

We haven't had many Alsatians but that will be changing soon.

To be frank ("Who's Frank?"), I know absolutely nothing about wines from Alsace. I know they make pinot gris, riesling, gewürtztraminer and various other whites. I know they have more minerality, complexity and are dry-ish. I know it's cold in Alsace...

...aaaaaand that's about it.

I think I've had five total bottles.

And hey, Alsace is the only French region that puts the grape variety on the label. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.

Food: Spicy tilapia curry with rice cakes and pea shoots with ponzu and pickled ginger on the side

Thin spicy curry over tilapia with Trader Joe's rice cakes (covered before here) dizzled with ponzu sauce. Pea shoots on the side, eaten last in the curry juice.

The curry tried alone had the spice sneak up on us. Pretty big kick. With the fish, it mellowed out while retaining enough heat.

Very clean meal. Very good meal. Usually, I could take or leave tilapia (having served it so much, the smell has a waiting tables nightmare feel). This was good stuff as a great vehicle for the curry paste mixed with coconut milk.

Still trying to figure out why I love pea shoots so much.

Wine: 2005 Frey-Sohler Muscat ($10 - WDC)

Severely discounted at Wine Discount Center during one of their semi-annual sales probably because it was seen as being past its prime.

Maybe it was. Haven't had it before.

Alone, very soapy, perfumed and floral. Dry. Fruit only far in the background which might be why it was perceived as being done.

With the food, it took off. Fruit came to the fore with grapefruit and apricot and a slight and very pleasant oil note on the palate. The floral notes were still aggressive but lessened to a point where everything really came into balance. Muscats usually tend toward sweet. No sweetness on this one at all. Very nice dryness.

Finish was a wee bit short but that didn't detract in the least.

It's one of those wines that proves perusing the discount rack is worth the time. Might have slipped through the cracks when someone tasted it without food and thought it was all soap after four years. Usually priced in the low $20 range, we got it for $10.

Pairing: Yep, just fine

The spice opened this one up!

Great balance that worked nicely with everything, even with the ponzu which tends to become somewhat difficult with wine at times. A bit of fruit, a bit of flowers, a bit of oil and not too much of anything.

Refreshing all around.

More Alsatians will be bought tout suite (Hey, I speak French.).

Pre-dinner 375ml of NV Gaston Chiquet Brut Tradition ($26 - WDC) was surprisingly subtle and refined. Very alive, minerally, sneaky fruit and plenty of brioche notes. Fancy and elegant with a spectacular balance. Pretty Champagne and worth every dollar.

#45 - Take-Out Tuesday With Two Wines

Lunch and dinner were not made in the Ney household Tuesday.

Lunch at Semiramis on Kedzie, our go-to place for good Lebanese. Always fresh, always delicious, always BYO.

Pairing wine with Lebanese....well...with the spice level...what you end up ordering....it can go in a ton of directions.

Something bigger may be the traditional way like a shiraz. I've read a mourvèdre with its heft, spice and meatiness may work. But all of that is presupposing that all Lebanese food is bigger itself.

Typically, it's not. In our world, we just bring what we're in the mood for while not putting anything in a box.

With Semiramis, we usually go lighter. Tuesday was a typical food order.

Hummus - our favorite in town

Fattoush - fresh

Falafel - dense and lighter, no char like some in town

Dolmas - tightly wrapped and taste like they were just made

Chicken Chawarma - we were full so we took it home

Lamb, chicken and beef biryani - see chawarma

Our menu shows how difficult a proper pairing would be so we just shoot for down the middle with something that's been sitting around and is intriguing, like a grape from a region not typically grown there.

The 2006 Kris Pinot Nero ($10 Binny's), an Italian pinot noir from the Alto Adige near Venice is the first such offering from this winery while it's only the second time we've had an Italian pinot noir as well. In our limited experience, they seem to be a blend between Old World and New World pinot noir. Typical pinot noir ruby red in the glass with cherry and cinnamon on the nose, it has a sort of light barnyard quality mixed with cherries and raspberries on the palate. Not the leafiness that you get from good New World pinot noir, more like fertilized farmland and an iron element behind the fruit. Medium-bodied and consistent throughout the meal.

Paired well enough with the food, more like an accompaniment than an enhancement of anything but it never went off the rails for the most part. Nice little wine. Nice little meal.

For dinner, the 2004 Chariot Sangiovese ($15 - liquor store on Wilson and Clark) was paired with pizza from my place of employment. It's nice to work at a place where I know that I'll be craving the product until the day I die but it had been awhile since I had a whole pizza.

Mostly, I just want to pass along this quality Californian Sangiovese. Trader Joe's used to carry the great Chariot Gypsy ($12-ish), a blend of cabernet, zinfandel, petite syrah and sangiovese for an entirely reasonable price (right up there with the Trentatre as a Trader Joe's great value).

From the Jim Neal Wine Company, Mr. Neal is pumping out some great everyday wines that are smooth, sufficiently complex, enjoyable to drink alone and work with a ton of mid-week, thrown-together meals. A solid pizza and burger wine that won't disappoint.

This one only slightly had that syrupy taint that comes with a lot of lower-end Californian wines, especially wines that are made from new-ish grapes to California (some low-end Rhône Rangers certainly have it).

Great stuff with the tomato sauce, less so with the bianca con bufala y rucola. Typical sangiovese cherry notes but a very nice spicy complexity and a clean, mid-length finish. A simple wine but a great simple wine. Better than many that are $10-15 more.

#44 - Hanger Steak & Vanilla Mashed Potatoes With '00 Right Bank

It was $40, down from $80.

And it was 10 years old, the traditional opening of the drinking window for most Bordeaux.

And it was from Jonathan Maltus, a "flying winemaker" whose wines we've enjoyed for what they were in the past.

And we were in the mood for something merlot-based.

And it wasn't that good, at least not what we wanted.

Food: Hanger steak with sautéed shallots and bacon with vanilla mashed potatoes and mâche

Hanger steak, that lovely funky, gnarly beef, made a return appearance after a too-long sabbatical in the Ney household. Medium rare with a shallot-bacon topping. Salty goodness.

Vanilla mashed potatoes was first discovered by Mrs. Ney about three (?) years ago after perusing some Thomas Keller recipes. And holy crud! That's sex on a plate! You'd think it's just mashed potatoes and you'd be wrong. These aren't mom's potatoes. These are the most silky, delicious, vanilla-spiked dollops of beauty incarnate I've ever tasted. And carry with them about 2,000 grams of fat. It's in the top 20 of things I've ever eaten. And they're freakin' mashed potatoes!

From a food standpoint, we were sitting in the cat bird's seat.

Then the wine happened.

Wine: 2000 Chateau LaForge St. Emilion Grand Cru ($40 - Binny's)

90% merlot, 10% cabernet franc. Reddish-purple in the glass. Truffles on the nose right now, turning to macerated plum and dark berry. We had high hopes to start, mainly because we opened a Trader Joe's Right Bank an hour or so before just to see what it's like. The 2002 Chateau Coucy ("That's what she said!") tastes like we were drinking a tree. After that, anything would have seemed like heaven.

Maltus has about 12,000 labels. We've loved his Australian operation, Colonial Estate (Exile and Émigré), which uses old vines previously used by Penfolds Grange. And you have probably seen his Chateau Teyssier label around town. He has vines in Napa and the Languedoc as well. Basically, he comes in and buys up neglected or failing houses, modernizes them and pumps out moderately-priced wines (for the most part, his "garage wine" Le Dôme is not, shall we say, cheap) in a style that's representative of the area.

The LaForge has been praised by many critics for its complexity by some press (Decanter and Tanzer) and seen as a nice upstart. Um...we didn't get that.

More gravelly than silky, the wine didn't have that plushness we wanted and usually get from Right Bank Bordeaux. The generosity of the fruit faded in and out and only very occasionally did I get a big mushroom hit. Wasn't seamless, a bit clunky and still oaky. A crumbling cork might have led to a wee bit of oxidation but the wine tasted proper, like this was the true expression of what it was supposed to be. It just didn't come together, like a very moderate step up from a table wine.

In many ways, I think we've been lucky with Right Bank wines. By latching onto Clos Fourtet and Chateau Fombrauge early on (and rather accidentally), everything will always be compared to those in this price point.

Pairing: Wanted so much more

Oddly, it was better with the greens than anything else. The subtle bitterness of the mâche wasn't too bad at all with the LaForge and that was where I got the mushroom hit.

It just didn't work with fat in any form at all. Vanilla mashed potatoes, for us, has been a pretty great pairing with Right Bank in the past. Perfect, actually.

Did. Nothing.

LaForge, after the initial good press (Maltus has only been making it since 1998), was released for upwards of $150. That's dropped dramatically of late, down to $50 for the 2006.

Seems like they're still figuring out what LaForge wants to be.