Thanksgiving greetings from the Wine Country

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

I love the idea of taking stock of your blessings and being thankful for them. Spending the day with family and friends without having the pressure of exchanging gifts is an added benefit.

Living in the Wine Country adds to the charm of the holiday season because we have spectacular autumn colors here. The deciduous trees are not the only source of color as it was when I grew up in the Midwest.

In Sonoma County our hills are covered with rows grape leaves whose colors turned from green to yellows, oranges, and brilliant scarlet. Our days can be chilly or warm while the evenings and nights are cold, but not bitterly so.

Last week I took advantage of a warm sunny day and ate lunch outdoors. I am grateful for that opportunity because my mother cannot do the same back in Michigan, for this time of year there means overcast skies, drizzling rain or a few snow flurries.



For those wondering what kind of wine to serve with their Thanksgiving meals, here a a few links that might help. My favorite wine writer Dan Berger recommends Beaujolais Nouveau and a blog I just discovered called Good Wine Under $20 has a post dedicated to inexpensive wines appropriate for your average Thanksgiving Day menus.



I am a fierce Sonoma County partisan when it comes to wine to the point where I consider wine from the Napa Valley as being an import, but I would like to share recommendations for dessert wines and my favorites do not come from Northern California at all, but rather from the hot Central Valley.

The two dessert wines that I adore are made by Quady Winery in Madera, California. These two wines are designed for pairings with different foods and if done correctly are incredibly sinful. These wines should also be widely available nationwide at any good wine shop, so I will not tease you with describing wines that you cannot obtain easily.





Essensia is an orange muscat and is the perfect accompaniment for a light cheesecake or peach cobbler or pear tart. You will taste oranges, peaches, and the fuzz on an apricot when you sip this luscious orange colored elixir.


And then there is my favorite dessert wine made from black muscat named Elysium.


The color is a deep purple and the nose of the wines smells of roses.

Pair it with anything that has raspberry and dark chocolate. That combination is to die for.

Quady has other dessert wines which you may enjoy as well.

Have a safe and delicious Thanksgiving and may you be surrounded by those who love and appreciate you whether that be family or friends.

Linda

Crush time in the vineyards

I have wine on the brain.

Not a bad thing to have either, but only if it is good wine and in moderation.

Since my last post about wine in a box and worse - champagne in a can - the harvest season for wine grapes began in my county on August 1st.

That is unusual. Normally the beginning of the harvest is about mid-August with the majority of wine grapes maturing during September and the last straggling vineyards being culled of their luscious fruit in October.

I am beginning to wonder if this is another symptom of climate change. Another wine related article in my local paper said that some vineyards in Mendocino County have become cooler over the years which is now allowing Pinot Noir grapes to be grown there. Previously it was thought that Mendocino's climate was too hot for that temperamental varietal.

"(St. Helena winemaker George) Vierra said he unexpectedly found acidic levels of the Hopland grapes (in Mendocino County) comparable to those grown in the famously cool Carneros region at the southern tip of Napa and Sonoma counties. That's important because grape acidity falls significantly slower in cool regions, a process that can be sensed in the taste of a finished wine.

To better understand why, Vierra sought the opinion of nationally known climatologist Gregory Jones of Southern Oregon University. Jones the year before had compiled, analyzed and published findings from a study of 50 years of Wine Country temperature data.

Jones' findings substantiated a warming trend in Sonoma and Napa counties, which he said is already altering grape-growing conditions. Jones said a pattern of warmer overnight temperatures appears to be stewing some cool-loving varietals.

Jones, and now Vierra, are convinced the climate shifts occurring in inland Mendocino County to the north deviate sharply from Sonoma and Napa."

I find the changes in my local climate to be troubling, but comparatively it is not as bad as global climate changes reflected in the polar ice caps.

Anyway, let us get back to discussing wine.

For those unaware, the timing for picking grapes is determined by the sugar content. Winemakers will measure and monitor the sugar level in their various vineyards and will give the order for the crews to start picking as soon as the optimal level has been reached.

That means a swarm of pickers descend upon the field and pick the crop as quickly as possible, because grapes in neighboring fields will soon be at their optimal sugar level and need to be harvested. It becomes a race that resembles a hybrid of a sprint and a marathon.

Oh and yes, the grapes are also crushed.

Hence the name "Crush" due to the crush of workers and the crush of grapes.

One thing to note is that different grapes mature at different rates due to the microclimates in the county, appellation, as well as individual vineyards. You can have hills and valleys in a small plot of land and it can influence the maturation rate due to the amount of sun the different areas receive.

Also there is a difference between sparkling wines and still wines as to their optimal sugar levels. Because sparkling wines have a secondary fermentation, it is important that those grapes are harvested early with a lower sugar level. Otherwise the alcohol level would be incredibly high and change the taste of the wine itself to being "hot."

Just to clarify, the sweetness in wines is determined by the level of residual sugar and not by the alcohol content. You can have bone dry wines with no residual sugar and it may have the same level of alcohol as syrupy sweet ones.

Another reason for me to blog about wine is that last weekend our favorite winery held their annual barrel tasting for the previous year's Zinfandel harvest. It is used to generate sales for "futures." That means we give them money in advance to help finance the making of wine that we will pick up next April, but then again we get the end product at a discount.

We have been supporting Scherrer Winery since 1994, and have never been disappointed by Fred Scherrer's wines. This is one "futures" market that I do not have any qualms about investing my money. Especially when you get such a tasty return on the investment.

Barrel tasting is just like it sounds. You taste wine directly from the barrel. They use what is called a "wine thief" but to me it is nothing more than a giant pipet. Tasting wine at the barrel stage gives you a good idea as to what to expect from the finished product. It has not fully aged in the barrel, nor has it been blended, but if it doesn't taste good from the barrel, it will not taste good in a bottle.

Here is Ed Scherrer, the winemaker's father, pouring Zinfandel.



The first time we ever did a barrel tasting was with Fred's wines, and we stumbled upon it by accident when we had friends in from out of town and visited Dehlinger Winery.
Fred used to be their winemaker and was allowed to have tastings and sell futures in wine he made from grapes his grandfather planted.

I remember tasting the Old and Mature Vines Zinfandel for the first time and thinking the wine tasted like raspberry jam.

This year, his Shale Terrace Zinfandel had the intense flavor of black cherries. I know that it is going to be fabulous.

Here's my husband talking with Fred Scherrer.



Good wine should always be paired with good food. Here are some of the nibbles that were set out to better enjoy the fruits of the vine. In case you cannot read the print on the placard it reads: morels with bacon and shallots.


This next platter has braised lamb shoulder with chick peas and peppers.


The Scherrer Winery is a family business. Fred's wife Judi helps with the day-to-day office work and shipping of wine to consumers. Here is a picture of Fred's mother and wife handling the finances of the day.



The Scherrers have their priorities straight and they don't waste money on adorning their facility with aesthetically pleasing, but nonfunctional decorations. Nope, the winery is designed for the creation and storage of wine. Period.

The metallic insulation you can see on the walls and ceiling is to maintain a constant cool temperature.


If you look closely at the wine boxes you will see that they are stored upside down. That is to keep the corks wet, so that they do not rot.


And because it is a family winery, during their open houses there are kids running around playing hide and seek. You will also see the family dogs. Both pooches have signs on their collars saying "no food" trying to avoid people from succumbing to the power of begging eyes.



There is even a display of Evelyn Scherrer's artwork for sale for you to consider buying while you are sipping and swirling the wine.


Scott was so inspired by the appetizers of morel mushrooms, bacon and shallots that once we returned home he did his best to replicate it for our dinner guests that evening.

Here is the result.




The rest of the spread includes smoked trout, sour dough baguette slices, green table grapes, and a Sonoma County Chardonnay.

I shall stop here in my subtle or not so subtle attempt in trying to make people envious of where I am fortunate enough to live. However, I would like to point out a story on the front page of my local paper today was about tourism in Sonoma County. Specifically foreign tourists who are taking advantage of the weak U.S. dollar and enjoying themselves while they are here.

So for any European readers of this blog who are planning a trip to California, you should consider visiting Sonoma County as well as San Francisco. Sonoma County is home to over one hundred vineyards, redwood forests, the glorious Sonoma Coastline, the northernmost mission of the California Mission system, the site of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and Jack London's infamous Wolf House ruins.

For those wondering if anyone stomps on grapes anymore during the harvest...that's really only done as a competition in the annual Sonoma County Harvest Fair.



Cheers!
Linda

Wine in a can? And I thought wine in a box was bad.

Jeff Sypeck was amused by my last post where I showed consternation to find wine in boxes for sale in France. So he shared with me an article from the Economist which suggests that wine in a box is eco-friendlier than traditional bottles with corks.

Then it went a step further and mentioned something I had heretofore been blissfully ignorant about.

Wine in a can.

Specifically champagne in a can.

:massages temples at the thought of such sacrilege:

Champagne is a wonderful thing. It is a wine used for celebrations and whose heritage dates back to the 17th century monk by the name of Dom Perignon who discovered the art of secondary fermentation and its wonderful byproduct of sparkling wine.

The second fermentation by tradition is done in the bottle, and is referred to as methode champenoise. The best sparkling wines are all done by this method and then there is another process to rid the bottle of the dead yeast that would otherwise be present as sediment in the bottle.

This old fashioned method involved turning the bottles in a rack a quarter turn or so each day as the angle of the bottles was slowly increased until the sediment settled in the neck of the bottle. The person who turned these bottles was given the title of "the Riddler."

No kidding. (Think about that this summer during the Batman media craze.)

Then they froze the neck of the bottles to make a solid plug of the dregs to remove it without spilling too much wine. After that extraction was completed, a cork was put in the bottle after refilling the bottle of spilled wine.

Today with the wonders of automation there isn't the need for hand riddlers, (and good thing too since I am sure they were prone to repetitive stress injuries).

With our modern technology there is also the ability for the secondary fermentation to be done not in the bottle, but in a stainless steel vat.

That is the method of choice for cheap sparkling wines such as Tott's or Ballatore.

Read your label. If it does not say "fermented in this bottle" or methode champenoise then it was probably created by methode champen-vat. Be especially suspicious if the price tag is less than $5 a bottle.

And now, thanks to film director-turned-winemaker Francis Ford Coppola who has purchased wineries in Sonoma County I now have in my vocabulary: methode champen-can.

Ugh.

I have not seen that in the stores, but then again, I have not been on the lookout for champagne in bright red cans.

It not only comes in a can, it comes with its own straw.

Pop open a flip top, then slurp sparking wine through a straw in a can. How utterly sophisticated.

That is not how you should imbibe champagne. This noble wine should be properly chilled and the sound of the cork popping helps set off your celebration. Then it is to be poured into fluted glasses to discern the size of the bubbles (they should be small and with a rapid stream and not like frogs eyes) and the shape of the glass also helps concentrate the wine properly on your tongue.

That is how it should be done.

I do not buy this excuse that wine in a box or wine in a can is more eco-friendly. I am sorry, but good wine needs to be treated with care.

If all you want is to have something to quaff with spaghetti on a Tuesday night and you do not want to spend a lot of money, go ahead and buy wine in a box. You certainly do not want to store it. Only buy wine in polystyrene if you are going to age the wine on the car seat on your way home.

Wine is a living, breathing entity that changes with time and with its surroundings. No two bottles of wine will ever taste exactly the same.

Wine reacts to fluctuations in temperatures, and it can age prematurely and/or "cook" the wine, sometimes ruining it.

The best example I know of this comes from my favorite wine columnist, Dan Berger. One of his columns was about how tanins in Cabernet Sauvignon can make the wine unapproachable when it is young and that it needs to age for several years before drinking. He then did an experiment and bought two bottles of Cab. One he treated properly by promptly placing it in his wine cellar, the other he left in the back of his station wagon and let it roll around for a week or so in the summertime.

Later he did a blind tasting with some of his friends who were not wine connoisseurs. They preferred the wine that had been abused over the one that was stored properly. Why? Because the abuse had tamed the tanins in the wine and made it drinkable younger than it ordinarily would have been.

I love that story and it reinforces why I am not that big of a Cabernet Sauvignon fan. I am not that patient to wait years to drink wine. Give me a glass of hearty Zinfandel any day over Cab. (And for those unfamiliar with Zin, I do not mean White Zinfandel which is a blush wine, I am talking about the hearty red wine that is a California heritage wine.)

Moving on to corks.

Corks can rot over time if bottles are stored upright. Therefore, watch out when you buy bottles of wine at your grocery store that are standing on a shelf for too long. If there's a layer of dust, you might want to pass on buying it.

To store wine properly in your home you do not have to have a special wine cellar or anything like that. All you need is an area where the temperature is constant and there isn't much commotion. Preferably without contact to an outside wall. We use the closet under our stairs to store our wine. Store the bottles on their side or in a case, but with the bottles upside down to keep the cork wet.

The Economist article also mentions a movement to get away from traditional cork and using of new synthetic corks as well as screw caps.

It depends on the wine whether or not you can really get away with that.

My favorite winemaker is Fred Scherrer and we have had several long conversations about the differences in these types of corks. He has experimented with them and found that for certain wines that do not age well, such as his Vin Gris or Dry Rosé that it is fine to use them. However, when a synthetic cork is used on bottles of wine that have a longer shelf life, it starts out fine but they do not age well. That is because the synthetic nature of the cork does not allow for the slow exchange of gases that is one of the functions of a traditional cork.

So he feels you can use synthetic corks for those types of wine which are thought of as the "chill it and kill it" wines, but not for wines that have any staying power.

By the way, I feel as if I should mention that I did not have any appreciation of wine when I grew up in the Midwest. Wine drinking around my family's table was usually Gallo jug wine with 7-Up.

Later after college, my girlfriends and I drank Bartles and Jaymes while the guys drank fizzy yellow beer.

My knowledge and appreciation of wine comes from touring and tasting at wineries, secondly from learning from friends who love wine, and thirdly from my own independent research that comes from supporting my local economy. We moved to Sonoma County in part so that we would be closer to the source of fine wine. That translates to better selection and lower prices since you do not have to pay for the long distance transport of wine.

Dan Berger once placed wine into three categories:

1) Wine he would buy.
2) Wine he would drink if someone else was buying.
3) Wine he would not drink even if someone else bought it.

Wine in a box is for me, category 3.

So is wine in a can.

Life is too short to drink bad wine.

Until next time,

Cheers!


Edited to add:

The Economist article appeared in the editorial page of my local paper this morning. Since we are in "the Wine Country" anything that has to do with the wine industry is fair game for news coverage in our paper that other papers might ignore. I shall be interested to see if there are any letters to the editor in response, especially from winemakers.