Monthly Archives: August 2012

Gewürztraminer with Thai Food

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Last night we had five people around for Thai food.  We do this every couple of weeks and it provides a good opportunity to try a number of different wines matched to the food.  Of course, what is Thai food?  For four to six people, we would have about eight different selections of food, including noodles, seafood, beef curry, chicken, pork along with springs rolls, rice, etc.  Therefore, the most important thing to remember is that if we have multiple dishes and types of food, we need either (1) multiple wines, or (2) a wine that will match easily with many different dishes.

In my second ever wine blog written on 29 March, 2012, I wrote about what wine to have with Thai food.  That evening we had a Riesling which matches up well because Riesling usually has a bit of sharp edge to it and works well for a white wine with ethnic food, especially Thai food in my opinion where I like a bit of sharpness to start with and then followed by a smoother Shiraz with some of the other dishes.

If we have a few people over though and a few dishes, then I would like to have maybe two whites and one red wine to go with Thai.  That way you can vary what you want to achieve with the whites and I usually would choose a Hunter Valley Shiraz, which is not too heavy (like the big Barossa Valley Shirazes) and contain more peppery or spiced flavorings for the red.

However, a few of us were still recovering from having been sick recently and one was not drinking, so we only opened one bottle of a white wine.  It was the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company.  This is a spectacular wine and has aged beautifully in the several years since I bought it and a perfect match for Thai food, especially tonight as we had several seafood dishes on the menu.

I would describe this wine as off-dry or semi-dry, with a beautiful sharpness to it that goes really well with Thai food.  It should really be classified as a dry wine, but a bit of sweetness from the citrus flavors and almost candy-like drops or chews comes through to make it appear semi-dry.

One of our friends is having us over for Malaysian and Indian food in a couple of weeks and I have set aside another few bottles of this great wine to share with them.

The Gewürztraminer is a secondary white grape and there is not a lot of it to be found in Australia.  Most of the Gewürztraminer I drink comes from the Alsace region (like the Hugel Gewürztraminer).  I have had a few Gewürztraminer’s in Australia and the 2008 Gewürztraminer from The Little Wine Company really stands out!  This is a magnificent wine for the money.

As a side note, Suzanne and Ian Little are really nice people (as are most of the people in the wine industry in the Hunter Valley!), and I remember a most special night two years back where we had a 5-course degustation meal with matching wines at the Little Wine Company, with Suzanne and Ian Little, Andrew Thomas, Andrew Margan, and a few other great Hunter Valley wine makers where each wine maker rotated tables with each course.  The food, the wine, the company and the discussions that evening were special!

Wine Foreplay and Sensual Pleasures!

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Yesterday afternoon I had my first wine in three weeks.  As mentioned in yesterday’s post “My first wine in three weeks!” I drank the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, a beautiful wine to drink on its own while blogging and also to go with dinner, an exceptional mince and cheese casserole that my lovely bride made.

While I was looking forward to the wine drinking with some enthusiasm, I was not prepared for the sensual experience that came from the ‘foreplay’ or preparation.  The excitement started to ebb by making the choice of what wine to drink, and increased as I proceeded to open the bottle.  Since the bottle had a screw top (instead of a cork), I did not have the sensual pleasure of removing a challenging cork which some of the ‘more mature ladies’ use in protest of one’s advances! 

However, things quickly picked up again when I decanted the bottle through a filter and aerator.  What a joy to visualize the rich, almost purple color of the beautiful liquid spray out through the aerator and cascade down the side of the decanter.  The smell of wine drifting upward as the liquid trickles down providing a tingling to multiple senses.

As the wine continued to decant, I approached my selection of Riedel glasses, choosing to go with the Cabernet Sauvignon Vinum Extreme (a slightly more sensual stem over the Vinum!) and brought it back to the counter.  The excitement mounted as I poured the wine from decanter into glass to the perfect height (the widest part of the globe) and tenderly and slowly swirled the wine to further speed the aeration process and watch the magic liquid go around and around, like the CERN particle accelerator in (very!) slow motion (crikey, I am sounding like I should be writing “50 Shades of Red” or something!)

As I walked to my desk, anticipating my first sip in three weeks, I was trembling and had to be careful to not spill the wine onto my clothes or the floor.  I then placed the glass on my desk and stared at my prize, my possession that I was about to consume, being in total control of the situation.

My God, I am breathless again writing this as I remember the pursuit and the anticipation more than the act itself!  This is the closest I have been to comparing the wine drinking experience to an erotic sexual experience.  However, for now, let’s just leave it that drinking wine can be something sensual!

On a final and true physiologic note, what makes wine drinking truly sensual is that it fills and satisfies all of the senses from sight to smell to taste to feeling (the texture of the wine on your palate) and even in some cases hearing (by listening to the decanting and swirling processes).  And you can’t do many things that excite the senses more than that!

My first wine in three weeks!

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Yesterday, I wrote about being ready to “come off the wagon” and have my first wine in three weeks after an extended period of illness and treatment of antibiotics.  I also mentioned the pressure associated with opening ‘just the right bottle.’  I had pretty much selected the wine (for reasons mentioned in yesterday’s post) as a Cabernet Sauvignon, and I was leaning towards the 2008 Stonefields Vineyard Arbitrage Cabernet Sauvignon from the Wrattonbully region of South Australia.  However, when I was over at my cellar retrieving some wine this morning, I decided to bring back and try either the 1999 Zema Estate Cabernet Sauvignon or the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and brought a bottle of each back to the apartment.

The 1999 Zema Estate, however, is one of the truly magnificent Cabernet Sauvignons I have had over the years and I only had three bottles left.  It is a wine to share with great food and great friends.  Having even fonder memories of the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon than the the 2008 Stonefields Aribtrage, I decided that would be by bottle to “come off the wagon with.” 

The reason I decided to switch to the 2006 Colstream Hills Reserve Cabernet was various, including:

  • It was slightly lower in alcohol (14% versus 14.5%) than the Stonefields Arbitrage.
  • It reminded me of the gracious individual and the “heart and soul” of Lindeman’s for 12 years, Damien Harrison, who sold it to me and is a legend in the wine industry and the great wine times we have had together.
  • I did review with my bride, Deanna Lang, who writes DAZ in the Kitchen, what we were having for dinner tonight which is a minced meat, cheese and elbow pasta casserole dish for which I thought the slightly more complex (but not overly complicated for the casserole) wine would go better with, considering the extra onions, garlic and other spices she tends to add into most recipes, and I am expected she will tonight also!

Therefore I made the switch to the Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon and glad I did!  This wine cost about $50 per bottle (even though I was able to get it at a stock clearance for $30 per bottle).  Upon decanting, it appeared slightly flat and a bit tight, but within ten minutes had opened up nicely, became more flavorful, and had a strong taste of blackcurrant, slight taste of black olive tapenade, and a bit of leather which appears to be as much a matter of texture as taste.

I personally love the smell of leather and find a wine to be more enjoyable when it is a bit leathery on the tongue and palate.  (I have only met one person in my life who hated the smell of new leather, but that’s a different story!)  I also surprisingly loved the ritual of decanting and serving the wine and was shocked at how much I missed the ritual and experience during the last three weeks, but that’s the topic for another post.

Now that I have had a glass while writing this blog (and ‘no’, I did not make it to the library to read!), I am going to wait until dinner to have another glass with the mince casserole!  Back to the good times of enjoying great food and great wine!

What wine to come off the wagon with?

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After three weeks of being sick, taking antibiotics and generally suffering, I am almost ready to have a bottle of wine again.  This puts some pressure on me!  Should I have one of the truly greatest wines in my cellar to celebrate?  Probably not, as I am not sure how well my taste buds are working yet and if my tasting palate is functioning at 100% or not.  I certainly do not want to waste a great wine if that is the case.

Should I have the wine with a meal and if so, should I be concerned about matching the wine to the food on offering?  That seems to be a bit restrictive .  And given I am coming off of illness, I should probably have a red instead of a white wine or sweet wine as there is documented evidence of the slightly further health benefits of red wine!  (Or at least I can use that as an excuse to drink a good red, not that I need any excuses!)  Should it be an organic wine to ensure I do not have any lingering reaction to sulphar dioxide or other additives in the wine?

I certainly do not want it to be one of my ‘last’ bottles of a particular vintage of limited stock as it is not that special an occasion.  I expect I will open the bottle before dinner, sometime in the afternoon and have my first sips while sitting in my reading chair, relaxing after a morning of errands.  Or if my bride is watching an afternoon movie, I may bring the glass of wine to our apartment unit library and read – that is always a special treat!

The common library in our apartment unit

Yes, I think that will be the venue – sitting in the common library with a good book on food writing “The Table Comes First” by Adam Gopnik.  And the wine will be an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon.  While I love my big tannin wines – especially Shiraz – I believe a slightly simpler and lower alcohol Cabernet Sauvignon is the way to go.  One possibility is the 2008 Stonefields Vineyards Arbitrage Cabernet Sauvignon from the Wrattonbully region in South Australia.  Wrattonbully has some of the best Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards in the world!  I have had numerous great bottles of Wrattonbully Cabernet Sauvignon for around $20 – $25 per bottle.  I have had a few bottles of this particular wine before, so I know it will be good.  (However, in reading the label on the bottle, I see the wine has a 14.5% alcohol content which is higher than I was expecting.)

I may also consider a bottle of the 1997 Lindeman’s St George, or the 2006 Coldstream Hills Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, but I would need to go the cellar to retrieve a bottle of those wines, while the Stonefields Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon  is right in front of me!

While I may consider a few other choices tomorrow, I believe the path has been set and it may take a bit more effort than I want to put into it to change course!  I will let you know my final decision and how it tasted in a few days.

My dry July!

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It was not my intent to have a dry July.  We have plenty of other ways to help raise money for a good cause that we participate in without giving up drinking.  I do admire the people who have given up drinking though for a month to help raise funds, even though I know a number of them make at least one exception and are comfortable “in spirit” doing something for a good cause.

While I have not had a completely dry July, it has been three weeks now without drinking.  I was just so worn down and then got sick and on antibiotics for a while.  While I am feeling a lot better, I certainly am not back at full strength and not at the point where I know I would greatly enjoy opening and sharing a bottle.  I had a 5 minute workout on the treadmill today just to try to force back some fitness and it was clear I tried this a few days too early.  I am glad I had enough smarts to quit after five minutes even though I thought I was feeling pretty good; I was quite drained and light headed from the experience.  It will be another three days before I try to exercise further.

By not drinking, it has also lessened my desire to write about wine (and certainly removed the reason to write about what wine has been matched up with what food), so I have had a bit of a lull the last few weeks, even though I have got a few decent posts out.  I also thought it could be good opportunity to recycle some of my earlier posts as they only had about ten page views when I was getting started four months back.

I hope to be back into opening and sharing a bottle by this weekend as I really miss thinking about a meal as the complete package including the matching wine.  I read recently that it was only in the 19th century that wine and food matching came into vogue.  I find this hard to believe as cooking has been around forever blending many different ingredients into amazing recipes.  Matching up particular types of grapes and flavors of wine to enhance the eating experience seems like a natural extension to cooking and certainly seems like it should be something that has been around forever or at least as long as food has and wine has existed!  I guess there are “somethings new under the sun!”

Because we were sick, we had to cancel one dinner party with a Masterchef and some great wines and I am looking forward to rescheduling it soon.  But first I am anxious just to get a good glass with some meat or pasta!  Maybe by tomorrow or the next day!  I certainly want to be a “winner’ (or winer) again soon!