Terra Rosa Old Vine Malbec

Hello Wine Lovers!
My entry today is two fold, an extremely value driven Malbec from Terra Rosa made from old vines from Mendoza Argentina, and my feelings on wine and dinner. First the wine. Here is the kicker... the winery is owned by Patrick Campbell who also owns Laurel Glen Winery in California. After the wine finishes fermentation, it is brought up to our California winery by ship in temperature-controlled 24,000 liter stainless steel containers to age in French and European oak barrels for 15 months. So what is the kicker you say? The cost is only $8 a bottle! Think about it, everything this wine goes through and it still shows up at market for this price! Available at Binny's and Wine Discount Centers. This wine is teeth staining, dark violet in color with a nose of licorice, tobacco and smoke. It has a juicy mouth full of dark plums and spice with nice tannins to round out the wine. Very complex for a wine of this price point! Before they run out, go and grab all you can carry, you will not be disappointed!
Now dinner. Last night my wife and I shared dinner with a wonderful couple (of which I happen to work with the husband)who's company and conversation was divine. At one point our dinner conversation led us down the path of a changing society and how different things are now than when we grew up. My point is (I do have a point...)I think one of the factors that has shaped our society today is the dinner table, or lack of. Without getting too involved and lengthy I'll tell you what I think. With both parents working, kids enrolled in everything from soccer to violin lessons to baseball, commuting to and from work, long hours of work, and the cell phone... there is never time for dinner! Dinner should be planned and thought about, not a drive through in between games or lessons. You plan dinner, you sit with your kids and you talk! You laugh, you ask questions, you get connected to them! You listen, and I mean really listen, to each other. The nucleus of the family is at the dinner table and without it, in my opinion, it starts to crumble. This is just one guy's opinion but I'm sticking to it!
Cheers!
J

Chateau de Macard

Hello Wine Lovers!
Fall is here! Football every week, cool nights, leaves changing colors and starting to fall, and of course, hearty stews and slow cooked meats, hearty pastas with rich red sauces. And wine changes with the season too! Now we drink big reds with tannins to keep us warm at night. What comes to mind are Syrah, Bordeaux, Cabernet and of course the occasional Cabernet Franc! Which leads me to today's wine entry... Chateau de Macard Bordeaux Superieur. For about $8 at Binny's you won't believe this little beauty! This wine is a blend of 50% Caberent Franc, 20% Cabernet and 30% Merlot which leads to a mouthful of fruit with cassis and blackberries and a little tobacco notes as well. This wine is aged for 18 months with half in oak barrels and half in stainless steel tanks. This wine is just what the doctor ordered for this time of year! Speaking of which... I also included one of my favorite dishes for you to give a look see and this wine will match nicely! Enjoy!

Cheers!
J

Ingredients
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 sprig fresh thyme
1 dry bay leaf
2 whole cloves
Cheesecloth
Kitchen twine, for bouquet garni and tying the veal shanks
3 whole veal shanks (about 1 pound per shank), trimmed
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
All purpose flour, for dredging
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 small onion, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1 small carrot, diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1 stalk celery, diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 cup dry white wine
3 cups chicken stock
3 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf Italian parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon lemon zest
Directions
Place the rosemary, thyme, bay leaf and cloves into cheesecloth and secure with twine. This will be your bouquet garni.

For the veal shanks, pat dry with paper towels to remove any excess moisture. Veal shanks will brown better when they are dry. Secure the meat to the bone with the kitchen twine. Season each shank with salt and freshly ground pepper. Dredge the shanks in flour, shaking off excess.

In a large Dutch oven pot, heat vegetable oil until smoking. Add tied veal shanks to the hot pan and brown all sides, about 3 minutes per side. Remove browned shanks and reserve.

In the same pot, add the onion, carrot and celery. Season with salt at this point to help draw out the moisture from the vegetables. Saute until soft and translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the tomato paste and mix well. Return browned shanks to the pan and add the white wine and reduce liquid by half, about 5 minutes. Add the bouquet garni and 2 cups of the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover pan and simmer for about 1 1/2 hours or until the meat is falling off the bone. Check every 15 minutes, turning shanks and adding more chicken stock as necessary. The level of cooking liquid should always be about 3/4 the way up the shank.

Carefully remove the cooked shanks from the pot and place in decorative serving platter. Cut off the kitchen twine and discard.

Remove and discard bouquet garni from the pot.

Pour all the juices and sauce from the pot over the shanks. Garnish with chopped parsley and lemon zest.

Santa Ema Merlot

Hello Wine Lovers!
Sorry for the 2 week delay in my entry, things have been a little crazy! Because of all the craziness in my world right now it made me think it is very easy for all of us to get caught up in our every day lives to slow down and "smell the coffee" as they say. In today's world we are connected 24 hours a day! Smart phones, laptops, I-Pads, text, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter... etc etc! Slow down! It is not life or death! Relax, have a glass of wine, sit in your favorite chair, get your dog to curl up with you and read one of these books on wine!

1. Wine for Dummies.
Another entry in a long line of books and this one is helpful for beginners!
2. Wine & War
A book about WW II and what the Nazi's did to France, a good read.
3. Great Wine Made Simple
Do I need to say anything?
4. 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die
Fun and interesting prospectives on wines of the world
5. Judgement of Paris
A must read! About the 1976 Paris wine tasting that launched American wines into the forefront of the wine world! (My dear friend was at this tasting and is mentioned in the book)
You can find all of these books used on Amazon for ridiculously low prices and I think you will find them not only interesting but educational as well.
Now for the wine review! Santa Ema Reserve Merlot from the Maipo Valley in Chile. This wine will blow your socks off for the money! About $8 at Wine Discount Center and Binny's. I am not usually impressed by Merlot at this price range, but I gotta tell ya... this one changed my mind! You will find it to be a dark violet color with a very fruity nose of plums, blackberries, and black currant, accompanied by intense notes of caramel, chocolate, and vanilla. On the palate soft, ripe tannins which lead to structure and balance. I don't think you will be disappointed with this wine!
Good Reading!

Cheers!
J

Malbec

Hello Wine Lovers!
As I am sitting on my porch writing this entry today I can't believe summer is over already! It seems just like yesterday it started, and now with Labor Day and the leaves are already starting to fall in my yard, (that's a real sign of fall) I have no other choice than to accept it. All of this leads me to my topic... preserving that open bottle of wine. (I would like to preserve summer and open it up on those really cold days in February)
Let's get one thing perfectly clear before I get started, finish the bottle when you open it! That is the best way to keep it fresh and vibrant, but if for some strange reason you do not, here are some options. The enemy to wine is oxygen, the more you can keep it away from the wine, the longer the wine will taste fresh and the integrity of the wine will remain. There are a number of devices on the market today that claim to keep your bottle fresh. Probably the most common and least expensive is the "VacuVin" pump. The idea is to replace the cork with a rubber stopper and then you place the pump on top of the stopper and pump the air (which of course has oxygen) out of the bottle. It is this guy's opinion that it helps the wine remain somewhat fresh up to 48 hours. Much after that reduce it for a sauce or use it to make a stock. The next market item is called "Private Reserve". This is a mix of gasses (Nitrogen, Carbon Dioxide, and Argon) that you spray into the bottle. These gasses displace the oxygen in the bottle and create a protective blanket over the wine. After displacing the air immediately place the cork back in and store the bottle upright. The gas mixture has no aroma of its own, so it does not corrupt the wine. I have found this to also be helpful and as the VacuVin, is available at most wine shops for around $10. I also suggest you store the open bottle in the fridge to slow down the oxidation. (Remember the 20 / 20 rule I wrote about a few blogs ago) Another option is called "WineTap System" and is available at some wine shops and on line for around $100. This system uses a nitrogen cannister with a nozzle you place in the bottle and then hook up the canister. When you hook up the canister it displaces the air and then allows you to dispense the wine from the bottle using the handle. This also works for up to 24 -48 hours. The bottom line is this... for the money buy the "VacuVin" and pump your wine, place it in the fridge and drink it tomorrow!
Today's wine is the Diseno Old Vine Malbec from Argentina (Where else?) You will find this wine to have a nose of wild dark berries with a touch of chocolate and coffee. When you taste the wine you will find earth tones, dark fruit, coffee and cocoa with substantial tannins. It is a perfect wine to pair with grilled meats and hearty red sauces. It can easily over power some food so be wise. For about $9 at Binny's you can't go wrong. I Served it with the recipe below and it was a perfect match! The recipe is simple and packs a lot of flavor... enjoy!

Cheers!
J
Argentinian Chimichurri Sauce:
• 1 cup lightly packed chopped parsley (ideally, flat leaf "Italian" parsley)
• 3 to 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
• 2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (optional)
• 2 tablespoons shallot or onion, minced
• 3/4 cup vegetable or olive oil
• 3 tablespoons sherry wine vinegar, or red wine vinegar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice

Directions
Preheat a grill.
Place all chimichurri sauce ingredients in a blender or food processor and pulse until well chopped, but not pureed. Reserve.
Place the steak directly over a hot grill, and cook to medium rare. Remove the steak from the grill, let rest 5 minutes and top with the chimichuri.

Wine Harvest

Hello Wine Lovers!
Here it is Sunday and so far I have survived my birthday weekend, it was a little "touch and go" last night after dinner, but I pulled through. My family goes out of their way to make me feel special and this year was no exception! My two kids came over yesterday afternoon to help Mom with another superb four course extravaganza and between courses I started to think what it took to get the bottle of wine, my daughter so graciously gave me for my birthday, to the table. As you know from reading this blog, I write about $10 or less wines and I am always amazed how a bottle shows up at a wine shop for that price range considering what it goes through! Harvest is just around the corner and I thought I would point out a few items to get you thinking "How can they do this for $8?"
Wine can be traced back to over 8000 years ago and there are thousands of different varietals. The price put on a bottle of wine is as much perception as it is business, in other words, what will the market bear and will the consumer think it is a good enough wine for the money?

Price also plays into the perception of value, said Vic Motto, a senior partner at Motto Kryla Fisher, a wine industry consulting company in St. Helena, Calif. ''If I made the best wine in the world and charged $1 for it,'' he said, ''no one would believe it was the best. They'd say it's a great bottle of $1 wine.''
But there is much more to the cost of a bottle than the wine inside. To start with, the retail price on the shelf is generally twice what the winery sold the wine for. That means a $100 wine was $50 when it left the winery and $50 was added by the distributor and the retailer.
Wineries, of course, also like to make a profit. A $100 wine that cost $50 when it left its maker may have cost as little as $25 to produce. For wines in the $7 to $10 range, the margin is far less, because the makers make money on volume. But coming up with a precise number is hard because overhead like electricity,staff costs, the cost of the bottle, cork, labels, equipment, and lets not forget the price of an acre of land! It is like anything in our great big world we live in, what is it worth to you? If I open up a bottle of 1961 Cheval Blanc and you taste it and don't like it, that bottle is certainly not worth the estimated $3000 price tag to you. On the other hand you open up a bottle of $9 Cabernet over looking Niagara Falls with your sweetie on a perfect sunny day, and that bottle has a lasting memory of one of your favorites! Whether it is a car, a home, a designer, a dentist, a clothing store, whatever it is, it is what you are willing to pay for a good or service. Value is the key!
Wow, now that's out of he way... let's talk about a wine! Santa Julia Reserva Malbec, from Argentina for $7.99 at the Wine Discount Center. (I believe Binny's has it too)
This wine is loaded with cherry and ripe fruit with a nice bright finish of light tannins. It is dark in color and has a nose of licorice and spice. This wine pairs well with grilled meats and hearty sauces. Again, how the heck do they get this wine to market for well under $10 is beyond me!
Cheers!
J

My Favorite "Wine" Movies

Hello Wine Lovers!
This wondrous morning after a run, breakfast, dog walking and a little gardening I decided to take a little time for myself and slip in a movie and light up a cigar and enjoy. The movie I put in the player was "Dr. No" the 1962 Jame Bond flick, which I feel is the best Bond film. But at any rate it made me think of my favorite movies with wine in them. Not movies where wine is the focal point, but movies where
it clicks: Wine plays a significant role, the filmmakers get the wine parts right, and the movie is a pleasure to watch. So using this criteria here is my list with a little antidote about each one. Grab your sweetie, make some popcorn (hint: a buttery Chardonnay from California goes really good with buttered popcorn) and watch one or all of these movies. Pay attention to the wine scenes!
#1 Casablanca:
Champagne is the wine of choice in this famous epic and Claude Rains, as the jolly French policeman Capt. Renault, specifically orders 1926 Veuve Clicquot, "an excellent French wine," for the Nazi Maj. Strasser. Rains and Henreid also enjoy Champagne cocktails. Champagne's finest moment comes during the flashback to Bogart and Bergman's romance in Paris, when they're drinking bubbly in a small cafe. As Bogart's faithful friend Sam plays "As Time Goes By" on the piano, Bogie says to the cafe owner "says to finish this bottle and then three more. He says he'll water his garden with Champagne before he'll let the Germans drink it."
#2 Notorious:
Only Alfred Hitchcock can make it nerve-racking to watch people drink Champagne!Bergman stars as the title character, a "notorious" woman whose father is convicted of treason for spying for the Nazis. Bergman also once loved current Nazi spy Rains, and is now a hard drinker accused of promiscuity.
Grant plays an American spy who manipulates Bergman into flying to Rio de Janeiro and back into Rains' arms in order to see what he's doing now. Grant suspects that the Nazis are hiding a substance used to make radioactive weapons in wine bottles. He and Bergman poke around in the wine cellar of a mansion, opening bottles, while the Nazis throw a big party. If someone finds them down there, they'll be killed.Meanwhile, the high-society guests are drinking huge amounts of Champagne. All the while, we know that if the Champagne upstairs runs out, someone will be sent to the cellar to fetch more, and Bergman and Grant will be shot. Once again, the suspense of Hitchcock will keep you on the edge of your seat!
#3 Dr No:
James Bond has always been a sophisticated drinker, with much more of a taste for Champagne than the vodka martinis he's now most famous for.However, the moment that establishes Bond to audiences as more than a well-trained assassin, but a well-polished gentleman as well, involves Champagne.Invited to dinner while held captive by Dr. No, Bond grabs a bottle of Dom to use as a weapon."That's a Dom Perignon '55," says the evil yet cultured Dr. No. "It would be a pity to break it."Bond shrugs, puts the bottle down, and says, "I prefer the '53 myself." Now, think of when this movie was released and American audiences had to think he was a complete wine geek to know what year was important! You can judge how good a Bond film is by the vintage of Dom he orders. In the entertaining film "Goldfinger", Bond enjoys a bottle of the '53 Dom with a beautiful woman. But in "Thunderball", he orders a bottle of the '55 he once scorned! I rest my case, Thunderball was not as good as Goldfinger!
#4 The Earth is Mine:
Filmed at what is now Rubicon Estate, in Napa Valley,with workers appearing as extras, this film is a portrayal of the issues that divided Napa Valley in the 1930s still seems prescient today, and some of the gender-preference innuendo in Hudson's dialogue is pretty interesting even now. In this steamy version of Napa life, marriages are arranged to bring desirable vineyard property into the family. Affairs of all types are never out of the question. Hudson's mother, played by Anna Lee, says at one point: "Andre is thinking of selling Stags Leap. Cutting it up into little parcels. Selling it off to all the riffraff that come flooding in here because the price of grapes is high." Rains plays a noble character, believing that wine grapes are a gift from God. "The grape is the only fruit that God gave the sense to know what it was made for," he says. The film gives simple-to-understand descriptions of both the winemaking process and how to taste and appreciate wine. If you pay close attention, it is like "wine 101"
#5 Sideways:
About a trip through California's wine country with one character getting married and the other a failed writer with a passion for Pinot Noir, and wine in general. It is fun to watch Miles teach his friend about wine. He hates Merlot and Cabernet Franc and there is a great scene outside a restaurant you won't want to miss. Even though he hates those 2 grapes, his favorite wine in the world is made up of them both, yet the director doesn't throw it in your face. If you know the wine, you will know what I am saying!
#6 Disclosure:
Demi Moore sexually harasses Michael Douglas and a key point to the film is her special ordering him a 1991 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay which later is a point of guilt on her side. There is not a lot of wine drinking but the movie did put the Chardonnay on the map!
This should keep you occupied for a few Sundays with your sweetie!
Enjoy!
J

Argentina Malbec

Hello Wine Lovers!

Another week has gone by here in the latter part of summer in beautiful Chicago which translates to beautiful lake front walks and BBQ on the patio! Which leads to Malbec, the perfect wine for summer! Today I am talking about Andes Crossing (Top 10 Whole Foods wine) for $8.99 and Don Miguel Gascon Malbec also for $8.99 at Binny's. Both wines are form Mendoza Argentina which means both are grown at high altitude in the Andes Mountains. Lets talk about Andes Crossing first. You will find this wine dark in color (typical of Malbec) with wild red fruit flavors and violet tones with a long smooth finish and well balanced tannins. Quite a mouthful for $9!

You will find the Gascon Malbec slightly more elegant with a full body and soft tannins with flavors of blackberry, blueberry and dark cherries with a hint of chocolate at the end. Here is a few notes from the winemaker, Ernesto: "The 2010 growing season in Mendoza was characterized by a slight delay in ripening, lower alcohol potential and higher acidity, compared to the previous one. A late-season frost in 2009 prevented normal bud formation in the spring, resulting in lower yields. January and February saw unseasonably warm weather throughout the region, and consequently, veraison occurred earlier than normal in most areas. Sugar accumulation arrest in the berry was delayed and led to lower potential alcohol levels in the fruit than in 2009. Throughout the summer, the weather remained both hot and dry, resulting in generally thick skinned fruit with very concentrated flavors. The fruit also maintained excellent levels of natural acidity, lending freshness and vibrancy to the grapes. Overall, the dry season combined with lower yields resulted in fruit with intense color, exceptional levels of concentration and complexity". There ya have it! (That is his picture)

I was visiting a friend last week who had a bottle of red wine in their refrigerator (Due to the fact he did not have a cellar or wine fridge) and it reminded me of the 20 / 20 Rule for serving wine. It goes like this... take a bottle of white out of the fridge for 20 minutes before serving and place a bottle of red in the fridge for 20 minutes before serving. This will get both wines, white and red, close to the proper serving temperature. Whites show best at around 45 degrees and reds show best at around 56 degrees. Use this rule when serving your wine and you won't go back to "room temperature" red wines or white wines that are 40 degrees or less ever again!

Cheers!

J