Eat local, drink foreign: Not for me!

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Steve Shipley

There has been a trend over the last decade to eat locally produced food, representative of region and season. This has become popular because (1) food in season and region are fresher and tastier than when transported from further away, and (2) people want sustainable, ‘green’ food chains to protect the environment. These ideals make sense and I embrace them. So then why do restauranteurs and sommeliers think it is trendy to offer wine lists which are made up of foreign, obscure wines using tertiary varietals? It does not make sense and has been overdone in my opinion. This recent article by Huon Hooke nails it in terms of wine lists becoming ‘too’ trendy. I don’t get the diversion in trends to eat locally and drink foreign? I would think consumers of good food and wine would trend similarly for both their food and wine.

I live in the Hunter Valley wine region and love my local wines, especially with local food. I also value and like access to trying wines from different regions around Australia and the world. One of the great attractions of wine is the great diversity of styles, varietals and methods use to make wine. But when I travel to other locations, I want to experience the best of what is on offer locally, in terms of both food and wine. When I visited Canberra and Rutherglen recently, I want to sample Canberra and Rutherglen wines!

I remember picking up a Mexican friend at the airport in Minneapolis a long while ago. The woman sitting next to him on the plane was from Minnesota and insisted I take him to Boca Chica’s for the best tacos around. I thought “how stupid is this?” My friend can get great tacos (and even better ‘real’ Mexican food) at home. I – and more importantly he – wanted to experience food unique to the region such as Scandinavian or Swedish food, or just a good Midwestern pot roast! The last thing my Mexican friend wanted was to eat Mexican food! And he certainly was not interested in drinking a Dos XX beer – he wanted to try Minnesota beers.

Jim Chatto, Chief Winemaker at McWilliams Mount Pleasant and Chairman of the Judges for the Hunter Valley Wine Show last night stated that since he moved to Mount Pleasant, he removed from the restaurant wine list McWilliams wines made in other regions (McWilliams is a large multi-regional winery in Australia) to focus on local Hunter wines to go with local fare. This makes great sense to me. I have three favorite restaurants I visit in the area: Bistro Molines in Hunter Valley, Paymasters Cafe in Newcastle and Two Naughty Chooks in Singleton. Without exception, they all have great food. Paymasters and Two Naughty Chooks offer a wine list of about 60 wines, with Bistro Molines offering twice that. They all offer some wines outside the region and some foreign wines (especially Bistro Molines). But all three have wine lists representing the Hunter region, at great value, and many by the glass. I love these restaurants, not just for the great food on offer, but because the owners have put so much effort into providing local wines to match the season and local food they make. I love eating locally and drinking locally!

Trendy, obscure, tertiary varietal wine lists with over 1,000 bottles to chose from – no thank you – to much work and too much risk. I appreciate a restaurant where the restauranteur / owner has done the hard work for me and can offer me the best of local food and wine.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, due out Sept 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014. Steve Shipley. All rights reserved.
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

2013 Kelman Cate’s Paddock Chardonnay

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Steve Shipley

The vineyard where we live is known for making decent, but not great wines. However, over the years, they have won a few medals and produced some exceptional wines. I was taken by surprise today tasting the 2013 Kelman Cate’s Paddock Chardonnay. It is magnificent for such a young wine. Tangerine and rock melon flavors, orange citrus flavoring, nutty and honey also. But most impressively, this wine has body! It has medium-plus body and structure and smooth, yet full texture which fills the mouth and finishes long.

The Cate’s Paddock line is meant to be the second tier of Kelman wines, but with some of the best 2013 Chardonnay grapes and the way it has been structured, this wine should be getting some top prizes. It will not last long at the cellar door at the price. If you are coming through the Hunter Valley, you need to stop by Kelman Estate and definitely buy some of this wine. After tasting it today, I picked up a dozen on the spot and will be getting another dozen to cellar for a few years – it is an outstanding buy.

As it is getting into winter, we are having our first winter soup for dinner this evening. My wife is making one of my favorites, which is wild rice and mushroom soup. As rich and creamy as the soup is, we usually have a Montrachet to go with it, or a Penfolds Yatarnna. However, this evening we are drinking the 2013 Kelman Cate’s Paddock Chardonnay at a fraction of the cost of a Montrachet! This is a fine, fine wine and will be sold out soon, so make sure to stop by and get some while supplies last. And if you do, let me know so we can share a glass together!

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, due out July 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014. Steve Shipley. All rights reserved.
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

What dessert wine with chocolate mousse?

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Steve Shipley

Several weeks ago, we had a great dinner with two other couples. We started with salmon mousse tarts and a choice of a Hunter Valley Semillon or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Even though we knew it was going to be a scorcher of a day, everyone wanted DAZ in the Kitchen’s famous beef stroganoff which we paired with a 2009 Bouchard Pere & Fils Pulingy-Montrachet. We wanted to have creme brulee for dessert, but did not have a torch available, so decided to go with chocolate mousse instead. (The recipe for all courses is provided in the obvious links.)

I had a number of good sticky dessert wines, including some very nice Sauternes to go with creme brulee, but was uncertain as to what dessert wine would work well with chocolate mousse. After some internal debate including considering Port or Muscat, I felt a peppery Hunter Valley Shiraz could work, so put aside a 2007 Tyrrell’s Stevens Shiraz. This is a typical high-end Hunter Valley Shiraz from a great vintage. However, through the generosity of our guests and them offering to help determine what dessert wine to drink with chocolate mousse, we had a bottle of Ivanhoe Madeira and Audrey Wilkinson Muscat to choose from. I also had a bottle of 1993 Lindeman’s Porphyry leftover from the evening before (notice the small cork bits in the bottle from the shattered 20-year-old cork). So we decided to try all three dessert wines and the main lesson learned is that sweet wine and sweet food match quite well, regardless of other characteristics involved! All three wines provided unique, but pleasurable drinking experiences while eating chocolate mousse.

The Porphyry was sweet, almost too sugary due to its age and worked better as a dessert wine with the apple tart we had the night before. Yet, it provided a viscous mouthfeel that felt good with chocolate mousse and set off well the strawberries adorning the chocolate mousse. The Madeira was sweeter yet, but sharper in taste and complimented, almost competed with the chocolate mousse. The Muscat (which was one of my original alternatives to consider as the dessert wine) probably worked the best as it less sweet, containing caramelized orange flavors to compliment the chocolate flavors of the mousse.

But the key lesson learned was that almost any dessert wine worked! Looking back, I wish I would have also pulled out a few different Ports wines as I think they could have worked as well as the Muscat or even better.

What wines have you served with chocolate mousse? Let me know if you have any good suggestions.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014. Steve Shipley. All rights reserved.
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

Paymasters Cafe provides great food and great wine

Posted on January 5, 2014 by Steve Shipley

I have been anxious to return and have a meal to order at Paymasters Cafe in Newcastle, NSW. We had a specially prepared Christmas in July meal there about six months ago which was outstanding and the wines provided by McLeish Estate winery. But I wanted to explore a broader set of options from the menu and wine list. And I am glad we did; I am not sure I have had a better meal anywhere! The entire experience was done to perfection. First of all, we were in a refurbished historic building overlooking the waterfront, the front windows opened wide, and we had a table with a magnificent view and perfect weather. This was all a real plus and set the scene, but we came for the food and wine and were not to be disappointed.

We always look for things we would not be cooking at home and there were a few entrees and mains to choose from which satisfied that requirement. We started with the best bruschetta I have ever had and DAZ in the Kitchen had Baked Camembert Cheese for an entree and a robust Spanish Style Paella for the main. I had the Beef Carpaccio for an entree and Garlic Prawns in pastry for the main. We shared a most magnificent Golden Rough Lindt Chocolate Pudding for dessert. Everything was cooked to perfection and served at just the right time and temperature.

But this is a wine blog, so let’s talk about the wine! Let me start by say this: “This is the best-valued wine list I have seen seen that fits on one page!” Paymasters Cafe wine list has been extremely well thought out and reflects the effort Executive Chef Rodney Scales puts into ensuring the dining experience is without peer. Most wines were priced between $30 – $45 per bottle, with a few exceptional wines being just under $100 per bottle. Having bought some of those wines direct from the wineries, I also know that the markup on the wines is very reasonable. There are many easier ways to build a wine list, but you can discern the effort Rodney has put in to create such an outstanding wine list. You can easily have a larger list to cover your basis, but that comes with a high capital and operating cost and lower turnover of inventory. You can buy more iconic brand name wines but are paying more and then have to pass the cost onto the customer. Rodney has worked hard to find a great variety of Australian wines from NSW, VIC, and SA plus some outstanding wines from New Zealand.

Rodney has worked to perfection a wine list that matches the food he prepares and the taste of the Australian customer. He knows and can describe every wine on the list and every food dish it pairs with well. And his food menu has a recommended wine for each dish if you do not want to try to decide which wine goes best with any dish. And most wines can be bought by the glass. I had to drive an hour home so did not want to commit to an entire bottle. Yet, I had ample choice of excellent wines by the glass to match the food we were eating. I have been to restaurants with 100’s of bottles of wine on the list that only offer less than ten wines by the glass. Paymasters Cafe offered 33 out of the 52 wines on the wine list by the glass!

I noticed in July and again last night that Rodney is a chef who works the front room as well as any chef I have met. He ensures each customer’s satisfaction and is there to watch over their experience. This compares to many good chefs I know who cannot seem to leave the kitchen, either because they have not built a good team behind them or they believe it is more important to pay attention to the food (and be their own judge of if the food is OK) than how their customers are reacting to it. I have had some great chef friends who will never make it big because they cannot escape the kitchen. Rodney spends far more time in the front room than in the back and it shows in the dining experience.

And the best part came at the end when I went to pay for dinner. The price of the meal was only 50% – 60% of what I expected to pay and have paid at other comparable restaurants. Great food and great wine at a great price point! Paymasters Cafe – without peer!

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013. Steve Shipley
SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook
Wine Pinterest Boards
Twitter: Steve Shipley @shipleyaust; InkIT Publishing @inkitpub

Making red wine ice cream

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Vintec, the wine storage company, displayed this recipe on Facebook and I thought I would share it since I took the time to translate the recipe from Spanish to English (OK, Google Translator helped a little bit!). I was going to write another post on why you need to build a cellar, but that will wait another day now. I have two Vintec wine storage lockers and they are great. But again that will be the focus of another post. For now, I am going to explore making red wine ice cream. I have not tried this yet, but will give it a go next weekend when we are in the Hunter Valley for a long weekend and let you know the results. If any of you try it before I do, please write to tell me how it turned out.

The recipe calls for:

A bottle of red wine
150g sugar
4 egg yolks
250ml cream
300ml whole milk
cinnamon stick

This is not actually a recipe so much as just an ingredient list! I am sure you could substitute a half-teaspoon cinnamon powder for the stick. And if you want to make it a bit creamier and smoother texture, use six egg yolks instead of only four. Then just whip it up in a blender and put into a container to freeze. I am guessing a more elegant, finer red wine works better than heavier, coarser red wine. I would use a Pinot Noir or a Zinfandel. And a full bottle seems to be quite a bit, so you may want to use half a bottle first, then taste, and determine if you need to add more.

Based on the quality of the wine, this could be a pretty expensive dessert. But it does look delicious and we will give it a try! Once I know more and can recommend more, I will write an update about our experience making it and how it tasted. Please let me know if you try it first!

How cooking improves your wine tasting abilities

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Through tasting more and learning more about tasting wine, I have continued to improve my wine tasting abilities and experiences. Yet, I was always surprised how many of my chef friends seemed to have a better palate than mine. I assumed it was because they were super tasters (people with significantly more taste buds and lower sensitivity to certain tastes) than me. I attributed their skills to their in-born capabilities. My wife was taking cooking lessons several years ago and I was highly supportive because I was benefiting from eating better at home. We ate better, more healthily and far less expensively now at home than when eating out (except for a few known restaurants that are among our favorites).

I decided to follow my wife’s lead and took about 10 cooking lessons myself, including a 6-part beginners course for ‘blokes,’ a knife skills lesson, a pasta making lesson, and a Christmas dinner banquet lesson (including ham and turkey). But it was really practicing making meals from beginning to end at home that opened my nose and palate to being able to smell and taste many more flavors and with greater sensitivity. What became apparent to me was importance of sauces, spices, and all the ingredients necessary to alter or enhance the flavors of the primary ingredients be they meat, fish or vegetables. Noticing what a teaspoon of paprika (or smoked paprika), saffron, chili flakes (or freshly cut chilies) or nutmeg could do to enhance flavors became noticeable. Understanding why chopped basil worked better than mint or parsley (or Spanish onions better than spring onions) in certain circumstances also became apparent.

By learning to understand and appreciate various flavors, I was able to more immediately determine when to drink a softer, more versatile wine such as a Verdelho over a Pinot Gris (or vice versus) with the meal, or a sharper, edgier wine such as a Riesling or Sauvignon Blanc worked better. What I really noticed though was that instead of being able to match up broad categories of wines with food, I was now able to much more easily ‘micro-match’ a wine style with a particular meal. I was able to determine which sub-category (young or aged Semillon, for example) and sub-style (Hunter Valley versus Barossa Valley Shiraz) and determine which wine more uniquely was a better match with food, even to the level of individual wine makers (a young Andrew Thomas Semillon versus a Tyrrell’s Johnno Semillon) and vintages.

Most people believe they are limited in their ability to taste and appreciate good wine (and often as a result, buy wine based on price, thinking a higher price is better quality), but this is simply not true. There are rare exceptions of people who were born or through a severe illness, have lost the ability to smell. However, for the most part and within usable tolerances, almost every one of us is able to with a high degree of accuracy be able to smell and taste wine. Through practice and learning, any one of us can influence our abilities to taste and enjoy wine more so than through our natural abilities. And by learning some basics of cooking and what ingredients are used to make meals, you can learn much more quickly.

“Learning to cook has improved my ability to taste wine more than any other activity over the last several years!”

My book Wine Sense helps you understand how to train and use all of your senses to improve your wine tasting experiences. But on its own, learning to cook (even a little as in my case) has greatly improved my ability to smell and taste. I am able to much more quickly identify flavors and nuances and determine why I like one wine over another with a particular meal, whereas before I would have thought they tasted pretty much the same. Do not limit your ability to enjoy wine far more than you currently do, and make learning to cook an important part of that training.

Paymasters Cafe – without Peer?

Posted on August 15, 2013 by Steve Shipley

It may be a bit of a stretch to say any restaurant is without peer, but Paymasters Cafe would be close, and I did like the play on words! We had a most delightful Christmas in July meal there recently and the food was outstanding. Rodney Scales is the head chef. What I really like about Rodney (in addition to being a great chef) is his passion, his absolute need and personal attention to make sure his customers are having a great time, and his sociability. Rodney likes to engage with his customers and is also very active on social media. Rodney took the time to show us his kitchen, his dining rooms, and even the surrounding area, while explaining the Newcastle history behind the building that ultimately become Paymasters Cafe.

We had four great meals in July around the Hunter Valley and surrounding cities such as Newcastle and Singleton. It would be a toss-up as to which one was the best. Our Christmas in July meal at Paymasters Cafe would have been number one or two along with the meal we had at Two Naughty Chooks considering the food, the ambiance, and the overall experience. I felt though that the food at Paymasters Cafe was the most approachable though in terms of a good family outing. I identified with the food and style of cooking and want to go back again and again.

Our Christmas in July meal was special. We started with several ‘beyond’ canapes including the Tourtiere Quebecois Meat Pie and the Gravalax Salmon with Toasted Saffron Brioche. These were complimented by the McLeish 2012 Dwyer Rose which was a great match. The entree was a Brined Pork Loin with Molasses Mustard Glaze, Sour Mash Sce and Apple Butter matched by the 2013 McLeish Semillon and McLeish 2011 Chardonnay. We then had a main meal assortment which included Pineapple Chipotle and Coca Cola Glazed Ham, Roast Turkey with Cranberry Sauce, and Braised Red Cabbage with Bacon. The mains were served with a 2011 McLeish Tri Moir. Dessert was Baked Walnut Stuffed Apple with McLeish Semillon Chardonnay and Polish Bowtie Fritters and Eggnog, served with the 2009 McLeish Jessica Botrytis Semillon.

The food was outstanding and I admire the adventurousness that Rodney and Jessica had in matching up the wines with the food. They bucked traditional match-ups, but the pairings worked very, very well. The meal was international with the recipes representing Europe and the Americas. What I really enjoyed though was how approachable the food and wine were. Neither required any thinking – they were just enjoyed. As my wife, DAZ in the Kitchen says, “you know it is good food and wine when it goes down before you even think about it.” And that was the case this evening.

Rodney Scales, like a few other chefs I greatly admire, is passionate about his food, his service and his experience. He started cooking early in life and worked his way up through a variety of different experiences gaining expertise and knowledge. Some of his opportunities required that he drive or train two hours each way, just for the pleasure of cooking for us! But for the last decade, he has been at Paymasters Cafe, having built a great reputation. Next time we are in Newcastle, we will be eating at Paymasters Cafe again, enjoying the great food and learning more from Rodney. If you get Newcastle way, you need to try this place and make it a regular experience. We certainly plan on it!

Great Chefs of the Hunter Valley and Surrounds

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Steve Shipley

When I was on Food in Focus several weeks ago, we were discussing how difficult it is to make a restaurant commercially successful, especially in the prolonged economic environment we currently face. Natascha Moy, our radio host, mentioned with sadness the closing of one of her favorite Sydney restaurants. We talked about how important it is for a chef to be the face of the restaurant and truly hands-on to infuse his or her passion and quality to give the restaurant every chance of success. This made me think about how those of us in the Hunter Valley are fortunate to be able to have some access to some great restaurants and superb meals by some of the finest chefs Australia has on offer.

My wife and I took two weeks vacation in early July. It was great to get away. For the most part, we took the time to cook every meal at home, had some people over for a nice meal, and really spent the time writing, learning new technology and blogging. However, we did have four meals out, all which were exceptionally good. We have a few restaurants in the Hunter Valley we frequent regularly, but none with more enthusiasm than Bistro Molines, up Mount View Road and next to Tallavera Grove winery. It has beautiful views, but most importantly is one of the few hatted restaurants in rural NSW and under the ownership of Robert and Sally Molines who are Hunter Valley icons. If we want a good meal or a special celebration, this is where we go about 80% of the time.

However, we were anxious to try a few new wineries and restaurants this trip and were able to combine both by attending two great meals hosted by McLeish Wines. We really fell in love with their 2012 Rose, 2007 Reserve Semillon (numerously awarded internationally), and the 2009 Reserve Chardonnay. Jessica McLeish, proprietress of McLeish Wines, also has a fine taste for good food and introduced us to two excellent restaurants, Two Naughty Chooks in Singleton and Paymaster’s Cafe in Newcastle. Both were outstanding restaurants with great chefs that we are certain to go back to. The meals were on back-to-back nights and were two of the best meals we ever had.

The next week, we visited Restaurant 221 in Cessnock for another outstanding meal, even though, I must admit that I had a bit of a ‘concept conflict’ with such fine dining in a pub environment. And the following day we ate lunch at the restaurant at Margan Wines in Broke.

Four new restaurants with four great head chefs (actually five as Two Naughty Chooks is a husband / wife team) which we are certain to visit again. Each restaurant and their great head chefs deserves their own write-up, so I will be writing a post on each of them over the next month or so. You may feel this has more to do with food than wine, but food and wine go together so well and each of these restaurants has a great wine list and close relationships with wineries in the region. They all have some ‘special’ wines for consumption and make every effort to provide the best food and wine dining experience available. That is why I want to introduce you to them as you deserve to know about such outstanding places to eat and they deserve your support.

I wrote a review of the great meal we had at Two Naughty Chooks already. So I will be reviewing Paymasters Cafe next and their outstanding long-term chef, Rodney Scales. We did my first ever Australian Christmas in July meal there and it was magnificent. Rodney is passionate about cooking and serving and is also well versed in social media, so feel free to connect with him and follow what he has going on in terms of upcoming events and new menu items.

A perfect food and wine match

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Steve Shipley

My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, is making a magnificent slow cooked beef with mushrooms and barley for this evening! I have been smelling it cook for the last two hours and getting ravenous! We will have a serve of Quinoa and a light salad as sides. With such a combinations of flavors going on, we thought a nice Bordeaux style blend would go really well with this meal. I have had one bottle left of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus which I have been saving to enjoy with some friends, but we just have not been able to arrange a meal together (well, we did, but had a bottle of the 2001 Henscke Hill of Grace with that meal). Fortunately for them, we still have two bottles of the 1992 Lindeman’s Limestone Ridge which I am sure we will drink together.

The ’92 Pyrus is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I love this blend as each flavor comes through. I have written about this wine previously, when I pulled a bottle out and we had it with soup! You can refer to that post to get a review of the wine. As with that bottle, the cork was perfect on and the sample of wine I had while decanting indicates that this is a slightly fresher and fruitier bottle than the last one we tried. It should be a perfect match for the dinner. We once again will be serving this wine in the Riedel Vimun XL Grand Cru Bordeaux glass to get maximum enjoyment from the wine. The only thing that beats a perfect food and wine match is the same thing, but serving the wine in a Riedel glass! I discuss the benefits of using proper glassware and taste in my upcoming wine book at some length. For a synopsis on why proper glassware is important, review my previous post on Riedel glassware.

This meal and wine will be special. I am sorry we could no longer save our last bottle for dear friends, but we have more than enough ‘last’ bottles to share with them – more than we can find time to drink them all. So it was with some regret, but more excitement that we opened our last bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to match our wonderful beef dinner this evening.

Now that Daz in the Kitchen has rebuilt her computer and is catching up from helping me with a number of technical and publishing issues, she should be able to get a post with the recipe out soon. In fact, she just wrote the post with the recipe, and I am sharing with you here.

While you are unlikely to find a bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to go with this meal, any good Bordeaux blend or a blend such as the Rosemount Traditional should work just fine. Just make sure it is a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend and optionally either Malbec or Cabernet Franc. A Shiraz blend or a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mouvedre) is likely to be too heavy.

What Wine with Truffle?

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Steve Shipley

We have been on a bit of a truffle kick the last few weeks, even posting a vlog on making scrambled eggs with truffle. And last night, my loved one, DAZ in the Kitchen, made a great pasta dish with chicken, cream, and a mushroom and truffle paste. It was delicious and will be posted in Daz in the Kitchen soon.

Truffles

Both mushroom and truffle have strong umami mouth taste and feel. Jeannie Choo Lee, Master of Wine (MW), and expert in Asian haute cuisine (and everyday Asian food fare!) in her book Asian Palate: Savoring Asian Cuisine and Wine, explains umami as follows:

“Umami is a Japanese term that is widely acknowledged to be the fifth taste, the others being salty, sour, bitter and sweet. It was identified by Professor Kikunae Ikeda at Tokyo Imperial University over 100 years ago. as amino acid glutamate (aka glutamic acid) and later confirmed by research as a type of amino acid that is detectable by tongue receptors. Rather than having its own recognizable flavor, umami is subtle and expands, creates depth and rounds out other flavors. It occurs naturally in foods such as seaweed, mushrooms, soy sauce and aged cheese.”

She also recommends a full body, aged white wine such as Chardonnay or Semillon to compliment and enhance umami flavors. We had a 2006 Penfolds Yatarnna in the fridge, pulled it out, matched it up against the pasta and it was a perfect combination! I love a big, aged Chardonnay with cream sauce and mushrooms and the heightened and enhanced flavors derived from the truffle only added to the flavor (to the point of satiation!). The meal was magic.

We have used truffle to enhance scrambled eggs as shown in the video and also in quiche. (If using 100% real truffle, you only need a very small amount which is good because it is expensive!) With the eggs and possibly some cheese in an omelet or quiche, I would recommend an aged Semillon instead of a Chardonnay.

If you have not tried real truffle, you should! If you cannot bring yourself to pay the price for real truffle, you can use a truffle flavored oil instead, but there is a drop-off in taste. With half a teaspoon of truffle added to our scrambled eggs, the finish on the truffle lasted hours on our palate. It is an amazing ingredient to add to many meals. And if you are looking for a wine to go with truffle, a big, aged white Chardonnay or Semillon is the way to go.

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

Category Archives: Food wine pairing