Yorkshire Pudding

Hi, folks, and welcome back to Cèpage et Cuisine, Brian’s and Mary’s wine and food blog.  Today is a bit of Thanksgiving redux and a preview of festive holiday dishes to come.

Anyone who has read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens or read about traditional winter and Christmas dishes of 18^th and 19^th century England has heard of Yorkshire pudding.  Mary and I confess we knew nothing about it until we made it recently as part of our Thanksgiving celebration.  Even at that, the recipe was called popovers.  We didn’t realize it was actually Yorkshire pudding until we did more research.  Gosh, we thought it was some kind of pudding for dessert!  But it’s only the batter that’s like a pudding!

Yorkshire pudding was a way of making use of the drippings of roasted meat.  The hot fat, the hot pan, and a batter not unlike pancake batter combine to produce a bread-like muffin that is traditionally served with savory, hearty meals.  According to Wikipedia, one of the first recipes, called “A Dripping Pudding,” was published in 1737 in a book called The Whole Duty of a Woman.  Enough said about that and I’m not touching it with a ten-foot pole!

Today we use handy-dandy nonstick muffin pans, the fat is butter or oil, and we have fan-driven convection ovens, but the results are still delicious and complement a traditional holiday meal.  We got the idea for our dish from an article by Mark Bittman, a food writer for the New York Times.  Credit due where credit is deserved, I always say.

The dish is easy, interesting, and different from the usual brown ‘n serve rolls in the little paper box.  Our granddaughter loved our creation!  The ingredients are probably already in your kitchen as you read this post ... butter, eggs, milk, sugar, salt, flour, and herbs.

Well, here's how easy it is.  Melt a little butter in the muffin pan while you make the batter, which takes only a couple of minutes.  Beat the eggs, milk, a little melted butter, sugar, and salt together.  Beat in the flour and herbs to a smooth batter.  Take the muffin pan with melted butter in each cup out of the oven and pour a quarter cup of batter into each cup.  Bake for 15-20 minutes at a preheated 425 degrees, then reduce to 350 degrees for 15 more minutes without opening the oven door.  It’s really interesting to watch them “pop over.”  Remove from the pan immediately and serve hot.  They don’t stay poofy and light very long.  Here's a series of photos from our experience.

We used whole wheat flour, but regular all purpose flour is fine.  Fresh herbs are best and thyme is a good choice.  If you use dried herbs, use a smaller quantity.

Here's the batter just after it is put into the oven.  The photo was taken through the glass in the oven door.  Don't open the door while cooking!

They really do pop over!  It is interesting to watch.  Now here's the finished product again as it went to the Thanksgiving table.

The recipe isn’t hard to find and there’s a great video by Mark Bittman at www.nytimes.com .  You can also post a comment here at the blog and I’ll be glad to email the recipe to you.  You’ll feel so….Dickensian.  Don't worry ... your email address won't appear on the blog.

That’s our post for today.  Let’s have a great holiday season, appreciating each other, great food, fine wine, friends and family, and all our blessings.  Keep checking back for more posts at Cèpage et Cuisine.  We’d love to hear your comments and ideas.  Let us know about your wine and food enjoyment for the holidays.  Until then,

Cheers,

Brian♥Mary

Thanksgiving Wine Suggestions

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Cèpage et Cuisine, our wine and food blog.  Today, we’re offering tips and suggestions on Thanksgiving wines.  We had our holiday family gathering a few days early, but everything else about the event was very traditional.  Here’s the star of the show.

If your family gathering is anything like ours, it was a delightful houseful of guests, happy noise, college football (it was a good game, but Ole Miss lost), and granddaughters scampering around in our arms and underfoot.  Mary and I were tag teaming in the kitchen from the moment we got out of bed in the morning until late at night when we finished the cleanup.  Here’s the menu:

• appetizer of butternut squash soup
• roasted turkey (free range, no hormones, treated humanely, Dan)
• gravy from turkey stock
• sweet potatoes
• Cajun-style cornbread dressing (of course)
• navy beans
• turnip greens
• cranberry sauce
• black olives
• popovers (our first attempt at this...will have to blog about it sometime)
• pumpkin pie
• pear tatin

Somehow, we pulled it off, got everything on the table at basically the right time.  It was all delicious, everyone enjoyed it, and we had a nice time to count our blessings.  Now, about those wine suggestions…..

Suggestion #1:  Don’t fret about the wine.  Drink the wine you like with the food you like.

Suggestion #2:  Don’t spend a lot on the wine and don’t open “special” wines for a crowd.  Most people probably aren’t all that into wine.  Plus, the focus of the day is not the wine.  The wine is just an enhancement.

Suggestion #3:  It’s probably best to offer both a white and a red.

Suggestion #4:  It is likely that some guests will not partake of the wine at all, but to make sure you don’t run short, think about one bottle for every two or three guests.

About specific wines, we’re not going to suggest specific producers but broad themes.  With a complicated meal, a riot of flavors, the blank canvas of the bird, spicy and savory flavors of the side dishes, choose versatile wines that go with a wide variety of foods.

On the white side:

• Riesling is perfect, whether a dry version from Alsace, one with a bit of residual sugar from the Mosel region of Germany, or good examples from Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, you can’t go wrong with Riesling.  The citrus, peach, apricot, honey, and mineral notes blend seamlessly with turkey and the fixins.
• Gewurztraminer is a wine that seems to have been made for Thanksgiving.  It is redolent of rose petals and a delightful spiciness.  Like Riesling, it is produced in dry and sweet styles.
• Southern Rhone whites such as Viognier, Roussanne, Marsanne, or blends are also excellent, but can be a little pricey.  Shop carefully.
• A sparkling wine would be festive and wonderful.  Champagne is too expensive for a crowd.  Think about a Spanish Cava, Italian Prosecco, or a sparkler from California or Oregon.
• A Chardonnay would work, but might not be quite as versatile as the other whites.  Try to avoid really oaky Chards, which can make shopping for a Chard difficult at Thanksgiving, especially if you're trying to be price conscious.

On the red side:

• Pinot Noir is one of the most versatile reds, but also a bit pricey for a Thanksgiving crowd.  It offers great aromas and flavors of red and dark fruit, earth, autumn leaves, and mushrooms.
• A Cru Beaujolais is bright, juicy, and fruity, easy to drink, not a complicated wine, can’t go wrong with this one.  Cru Beaujolais is a step up from Beaujolais.  Once again, shop carefully.
• Zinfandel (not the pink) is the all American red.  Think big fruit, rich texture, adding another layer to the complex dinner menu.  A word of caution….Zinfandels can be high in alcohol, so tread lightly.

We suggest you save the other classics like Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah for another day, but if you like ‘em, drink ‘em.

This is all the tip of the iceberg, of course, and there are other great choices.  Post a comment here at the blog and tell us about your Thanksgiving menu and wine choices.

Here’s a photo of Mary’s first attempt at pear tatin, sort of a pear upside down cake, famous in the Loire Valley of France.  As you can see, it turned out great!  Compliments all around to the chef!

She's such a wonderful chef.  I love to brag about her.

That’s our post for today.  We hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Keep checking back for more posts about wine and food at Cèpage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,

Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving!

Brian♥Mary

Evolving Wine Styles - Temperature Rising!

Hello again, folks, and welcome back to Cèpage et Cuisine, our wine and food blog.  Today, we're discussing the trend for riper, bolder wines with higher alcohol levels over the last decade or more.  Take a look at these two wine bottles.  What differences do you see?

Well, the obvious difference is the one on the right is empty!  A slightly closer look tells us the wine on the left is a Merlot and the wine (fomer wine) on the right is a Zinfandel.  These are both California wines.  Let's take a closer look.



The Merlot is produced by Mayacamas Vineyards on the steep slopes of Mt. Veeder, above Napa Valley.  It is classified as a Napa Valley wine.  You might recall an earlier post about another Mt. Veeder producer, Wing Canyon Vineyards.  Importantly, notice the vintage is 1995.

The Zinfandel is by Christopher Creek Winery, a producer in Sonoma County.  This wine is from the 2008 vintage.  The winegrowing appellation, the area where the grapes were grown, is Dry Creek Valley in Sonoma County, north of Healdsburg.

Beginning in the 1990s, many producers began to refine viticultural and winemaking techniques to create wines with bolder, richer flavors that are approachable and ready to drink upon release.  The historical model of wines is that they need time to evolve, to settle down, and for their complexity and subtle nuances to reveal themselves.  Well, Americans often expect to drink wines right away.  It has been said that the average length of time Americans age their wines is 20 minutes on the car seat!  It's a cute expression, but there is some truth in it.

Our culture often treats wine as a leisure beverage, to be enjoyed over casual conversation or relaxation, with or without food, what I sometimes call patio wine.  Wines with strong tannins or high acidity don't always lend themselves to this style of consumption.  Softer, rounder, richer, bolder flavors work well for this.  Europeans, on the other hand, have long viewed wine as first and foremost a beverage to enjoy at the table with food.  For this purpose, structure with tannins and acidity complement food, enhancing the dining experience, sort of 1 + 1 = 3.

Influential wine critics, especially James Laube, who reviews most California wines for Wine Spectator, and Robert Parker, who publishes the Wine Advocate, usually award high scores to the rich, ripe style.  That drives sales when consumers read their reviews and see those little shelf talkers in wine shops.  Faced with a bewildering array of wines, a high score means at least somebody liked it, so that wine gets selected.

The wheels on the bus go round and round.  Many people like easy, soft, bold, rich wines.  Laube and Parker bless them with high scores.  Consumers choose the wines with big numbers.  Producers must sell their wines in a very competitive market, so they try to make wines that will get high scores...   Riper wines have higher sugar levels.  Yeast ferments sugar to alcohol in the winemaking process, so higher sugar translates to higher alcohol.  Let's look at these two wines again more closely.

Mayacamas Vineyards is a very traditional producer.  Their wines are made in a traditional style, more like Bordeaux than Napa Valley in some ways, even now.  But look at the alcohol level on the label of this 1995 Merlot, 12.5%.  This is a wine that rewards cellaring and really needs at least a few years to show itself fully.  If you want to sip this wine by the pool, go ahead.  You might like it on its own...it is lovely, perfumed with violets, currant, and mineral notes.  But if you want to drink this wine over a long, lingering dinner of, say, beef tenderloin, grilled to medium rare perfection, or rack of lamb with mint, shared with friends or a special person, then you are in for a treat.



Now check out this baby.  In this corner! from Dry Creek Valley! checking in at 15.9% alcohol!, a contender for the Sonoma County Heavyweight Championship! Christopher Creek Winery 2008 Zinfandel !  LOL.

To be fair, Zinfandel is not Merlot.  It often requires higher sugars for adequate ripeness.  I recently read an article that quoted Paul Draper, one of the most noted Zinfandel experts, as saying that any Zinfandel under 14% alcohol has been artificially manipulated to lower the level.  So, it may not be completely fair to compare a 1995 Merlot with a 2008 Zinfandel, but it is a good example of how some wines have turned into monsters of jammy fruit and high alcohol.  Fifteen point nine percent!  Lots of people love this style and to them, I say that's great.  Drink the wines you like.  If you like it, it's good wine.  Zinfandel is great with comfort food....think pizza, burgers, nachos, ribs...and it's not usually highly expensive.

My problem with a wine like this is it leaves me fatigued after a glass or so.  Mary and I like to share a bottle of wine most evenings with dinner, talking about our day, enjoying each other's companionship, living life as we love it.  But after a bottle of a wine with alcohol this high, we just feel washed out and sleepy afterward.  As you saw in the first photo, it is an empty bottle.  Here are my notes on the wine.

The wine was not undrinkable, but it had the usual overblown, raisiny or pruney qualities of the modern style of too many California wines, especially Zinfandel.  The nose was dark plum, raisins, chocolate, and toast from the barrel.  The palate was full-bodied, low in acidity, with mocha-infused flavors of dark fruit, plum, jammy marmalade.  Not all that complex and not very friendly with food.  It was hedonistic and many people like this style, but I am not among them.  Modestly complex, a bit hot on the palate from the alcohol, not well balanced to me, medium length.  15.9% alcohol.

Ok, choose your style.  Maybe you like them both.  A lush, fruit-foward wine for simple relaxation and more restrained and elegant wines for dinner occasions.  Diversity of wine and wine preferences is wonderful.  I'm hoping the pendulum is beginning to swing back to a happy medium toward somewhat lower alcohols and better structure, but different wine styles will always be with us.  And that's as it should be.

And for the record, Mary and I have enjoyed many, many Christopher Creek wines on many, many occasions and look forward to doing so again.

That's it for today.  Thanks for following the blog!  Don't forget to visit us again at Cèpage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,

Cheers!

Brian♥Mary

Producer and Wine Highlight - Freeman Vineyard and Winery

Hello, everybody, and welcome again to Cèpage et Cuisine, our wine and food blog.  Today we are highlighting Freeman Vineyard & Winery, a producer from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County whose wines we really enjoy.

Mary and I learned about Freeman on a trip to the California wine country a couple of years ago.  We called the winery and talked to Eric Buffington, the assistant winemaker.  He met us at the winery and gave us a great tour and tasting of Freeman wines.  We immediately fell in love with the wines.  They have California fruit, but they also have elegance and balance.  They are not overripe, not too high in alcohol.  They are delicious on their own, but also pair wonderfully with food.

The proprietors of Freeman are Ken and Akiko Freeman.  Akiko is Japanese and brings a delightful cultural influence to her wines.  In addition to wines from the Russian River Valley, Freeman also produces wines from the Sonoma Coast appellation and from single vineyards within the Russian River Valley.  The vineyards and the winery are in cool growing regions where they are influenced by coastal breezes and fog in western Sonoma County.  True to the topography and the climate, they produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Today, I'm highlighting the Chardonnay.

On the label you see the Japanese words "Ryo-fu" and two Kanji characters.  The English interpretation is "cool breeze," reflecting the climate where the grapes are grown in the Russian River Valley and the balance and elegance of the wine.

I recently opened the 2004 vintage of the Freeman Chardonnay.  Like certain other wines in our collection, we open them only for particularly enjoyable occasions on a weekend, with guests, or a special meal.  They are not all that expensive, but I just don't want to run out!  Here are my notes on the wine.

Freeman Vineyard & Winery Chardonnay Russian River Valley 2004.
New World in style, but balanced and elegant, it had a weight and richness that reflected its California roots.  Golden in color in the stem, the aroma profile reflected wonderful lemon, apple, peach, hazelnut, and a subtle oak influence, not at all overpowering.  The palate was smooth, creamy, and full-bodied.  The acidity was medium and the balance very nice.  Lemon creme, apple, perhaps banana, that same subtle spice quality, perhaps a nutmeg, and well integrated oak were all on the palate.  The barrel influence was not the star and did not diminish the fruit character of the wine.  With a bit of time in the glass, it developed a delightful caramel or butterscotch quality.  Complex, balanced, and with nice length, it is excellent and showing well at six years.  It has more heft and a little more alcohol than a white Burgundy, but it shows its geographic origin without being overblown, which is more than can be said for many California Chardonnays.  14.2% alcohol.  We paid $30 for this wine.

That's our post for today.  Check the blog again for more wine and food posts at Cèpage et Cuisine.  In the meantime,

Cheers,
Brian♥Mary