Is a blend better than a straight varietal?

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Yes, in general and in my opinion! Let’s find out why I believe that.

I dislike the idea of fusion concepts, especially when it comes to food. Call me a traditionalist, but I find food that has stood the test of centuries, yet alone millenniums, to be among the very best food one can eat. I love Italian food and I love Indian food, but I do not favor blending the two into a single meal. Curry pastas just don’t work for me. I love Japanese and I love Tex-Mex, but I could not bring myself to even try this fusion concept in one of the hotel restaurants in Sacramento, CA when visiting a while back. The raw tuna quesadillas just did not work for me. Globalization has done a lot to change the world, but when it comes to fusion food, it has only made it worse!

But when it comes to wine blends, I am really starting to favor blends over 100% varietals. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE my 100% varietals when it comes to my favorite grapes such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Riesling. But year-in, year-out, it is impossible to get consistent sugar and alcohol levels, with each vintage being affected by that year’s heat index and rainfall causing some vintages to be different in taste than others vintages. That is when a good winemaker can use some of the characteristics of other grapes to provide a better overall taste, by adding a touch of sweetness, or subduing too much sweetness by adding a grape with more acidity or sourness. Good winemakers know how to blend a little bit of another grape or several grapes together to make good to great wines. Even Penfolds Grange over the years has had various amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon blended in to achieve its maximum potential for a particular vintage. Based on what country the wine is from and the local laws, you may still label a bottle of wine by its main varietal as long as the amount of the other grape added is still small, usually less than 15%.

But other wines, especially old world wines have been crafted to be great wines by using various blending combinations. Wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape are predominantly Grenache, but also are allowed to blend in wine from twelve other varietals. Bordeaux blends are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but contain a variety of other grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and possibly small amounts of Petit Verdot or Malbec. A classic high-quality Bordeaux blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. Australia is well-known and respected for its Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon blends such as you would find in a Penfolds Bin 389 or a Lindemans Limestone Ridge. And more and more, I am loving a wine blend called GSM of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre. And for white wine, I find the blend of Gewürztraminer and Riesling to be a very nice drink.

More and more, I am enjoying my blends and the craftmanship of the winemaker to get the blends to get the most of of the grapes. The nuances that can develop and the integration of various characteristics provide for a most enjoyable drinking experience. Maybe I am just become more old-world myself, but I find blends age better, are more complex and more balanced, and generally are a bit softer with a smoother mouth feel.

If you have not tried many blends, then I think it is about time you do! And I would appreciate your views and feedback on if you are a single-grape purist or prefer the multidimensional characteristics of a blend.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013. Steve Shipley
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Review of 2002 Finca El Puig from Spain

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I have had this bottle of Finca El Puig lying around for a while now. I am not sure who I got it from, when or why. I was not sure of the quality of this wine, even though my first impressions is that it is quite nice. For being a decade old, the fruit is extremely lively, tasting of blackberry, boysenberry, other berries and plum. It is well structured with heavy tannins which cause a pucker with the first mouthful. The tannins are truly integrated, but strong. What really surprised me was how long it took to decant. I have never spent more time decanting any wine in my life and I have decanted several thousand bottles! Yet, there is no obvious ‘excess’ sediment. There was some sediment towards the end of the bottle while decanting, but this wine was slow to decant from the very beginning. I am guessing this wine was never filtered. It is thick and heavy – the alcohol content is 14.5%.

This 2002 Finca El Puig is very drinkable now, but I am wondering if I opened it too early. It certainly has a lot of life yet. It is a blend of Grenache, Carignan and Cabernet Sauvignon and the vines are from the Priorat region of Spain. I was a bit worried that it may not line up well with the food we are having tonight which is leftover ravioli. When we made the ravioli fresh over the weekend, we had a Chianti that suited ravioli perfectly. I was a bit worried that the Grenache would be a bit gritty and overpowering for the food. I think it will work and I will be certain of that within the hour. But this is a big, big wine and would have gone really well with a Shepherds Pie, or a dense cut of beef.

I have never heard of the Carignan grape before. In researching it (Wikipedia!), it appears to be a popular grape used in wines from the Rioja region and grown across the Mediterranean. It is valued for its high yields (this has commercial benefits, but not sure it speaks well for quality).

Overall, it is a beautiful wine; heavy, but big and fruity. I love the mouth feel sensation of a wine with heavy tannins, but this may be too much for some people. I have not been able to find many tasting notes for this wine. I did for the 2000 and the 2001 and for later vintages, but not the 2002. Yet, the 2002 vintage seems to really stand out in terms of structure and longevity. Very little seems to be known about this wine, at least this particular vintage. Other vintages have sold for between $30 – $40, but the 2002 drinks better than that. I am really enjoying this wine, even if I will need to sandblast my mouth out later this evening from the heavy tannins! Just wish I knew who gave it to me so I can thank them! Drinking this wine appears to be a single event not to be repeated.

Mixing wine and antibiotics – ok or not?

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Recently having minor surgery, the doctor gave me a 6-day course of antibiotics as a preventive measure against infection. We have all been told not to mix antibiotics and alcohol, but is there truth to this or not? Common guidance to avoid alcohol when taking antibiotics started in the 1950s when antibiotics were being used to treat sexually transmitted diseases (STD). The guidance was used as an attempt to curb continued sexual activity which was prone to happen more when under the influence of alcohol. Medical professionals wanted the STDs cured before engaging in more sexual activity and further spreading disease.

I (as I expect many of us) was told to restrain from alcohol while taking antibiotics because the alcohol would invalidate the effect of the antibiotics, but this is just not true. Most antibiotics will work fine while consuming moderate amounts of alcohol. “There are only three antibiotics that realistically carry a risk of the nasty ‘fainting and vomiting’ reaction (the so-called ‘disulfiram reaction’) when combined with alcohol. They go by the catchy names of metronidazole, tinidizole and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole. But they are marketed under many different brand names – the most familiar being Flagyl, Fasigyn and Bactrim respectively” (sourced from ABC Health and Wellbeing Online Forum, 3 December, 2009). There are numerous other sources that all agree (just Google ‘wine and antibiotics’ or ‘alcohol and antibiotics’ for numerous validations). As little as half a beer or a glass of wine may cause the disulfiram reaction when combine with the ‘bad three.’ But these antibiotics are used to target limited types of infections and only represent a very small portion of prescribed antibiotics.

I checked my prescribed antibiotic and verified it was not among the ‘bad three.’ Therefore, and with the doctors blessing, I will be sharing a bottle of wine this evening with friends over dinner. Even more importantly, a business colleague brought over a bottle of 1986 Chateau Lafite, which if given the opportunity, I would not pass on even if it did induce ‘fainting and vomiting!’

Make sure to validate that your antibiotics are not among the ‘bad three’ if you want to consider drinking while taking them. For most of us, it should not be a problem, but it is always important to verify it won’t be. Safe and happy drinking!

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!

Wine and soapy glassware do not mix!

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I have learned a great deal about wine over the last fifteen years and take my wine drinking seriously. But from time to time, I make a stupid mistake. In my upcoming book, Wine Sense(s), I discuss the importance of rinsing glassware thoroughly so as to not leave any food odors or soap films on the glasses or decanters. Unfortunately, I did just that and poured a $200 bottle of wine into a decanter which I did not realize had a leftover soap film from the last time I cleaned it! Ugh! What a waste and what to do?

I was leaving the wine to decant, then poured a glass for me to have. I returned the rest of the wine into its original bottle and stoppered it to keep it fresh for the rest of tonight and tomorrow. It was not until I was rinsing out (without any soap) the decanter that I realized it had a soap film from the last time I cleaned it. Such a shame and such a waste. I went to give the decanter a good rinse with plain hot water and all of a sudden, I was pouring out soap bubbles! There was not much soap, but it did have a number of bubbles and I had to give it a really good rinse to get it clean. Unfortunately by then, the damage had been done.

The brick purple color was dulled slightly from the soap and it appeared to have just a touch of grey to it. More importantly, I could taste that the wine was a bit off, even though the underlying flavors were still evident and huge. Still since I am having it with a spicy, hot red Thai beef curry, I am going to drink this wine (or some of it). And I feel I need to do that as penance for my mistake and to cement the lesson learned. I want to never, ever make this mistake again! It is still an excellent wine, if not a bit soapy. Interestingly enough, the tactile sensation via mouth feel is the same or possibly even slightly enhanced by the soap! But the aftertaste and finish is not what it should be.

I continue to learn and want to pass those learnings onto others. More and more in talking to the people at Riedel and others, I have heard them tell us that (1) do not clean glasses with soap between courses of a meal; there is nothing better than alcohol (from the previous glass of wine) for cleaning your glasses followed by a rinse of water, and (2) glasses and decanters are dishwater safe. I am now going to follow their advice. I have been washing all of my glasses and decanters by hand and also using too much soap. From now on, I will look to clean them with no or very little soap and then rinse them or use an alcohol spray to disinfect and clean them (this is what most restaurants do), and for larger gatherings, will now use the dishwasher to clean and THOROUGHLY rinse my glasses and decanters.

I made a large mistake this evening and hope to never repeat it. Feeling bad as SAZ in the Cellar!

Wine writing update

Posted on August 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

First and foremost, SAZ in the Cellar is a wine resource site. It is my intent to blog about wine, share ideas on enjoying and appreciating wine, and provide links to other resources on wine. I believe my upcoming book, Wine Sense(s), fits into that concept. Therefore, I will be providing the occasional update on the status of Wine Senses(s) and post on other wine writing. I will also provide reviews and links to other wine blogs and books that I find useful and expect you will enjoy to broaden your wine reading. Over time, the Resources page and sub-pages on this website will provide references to other wine blogs and books, and wine-related products and services that hopefully will be of interest.

But the focus of my blog posts will continue to be on wine tasting and enjoyment. We will review wines, match wines with food and also provide useful tips for buying wine, storing wine and most importantly, drinking wine. These ideas are being consolidated into the book and should provide you with a great read in the coming months. I have found that in blogging about wine and then researching and writing a book on wine that I learned a great deal – much more Continue reading →

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.

Is a red wine diet a real diet?

Posted on August 3, 2013 by Steve Shipley

There are many forms of diets available and frankly, I think most are crap. Anything that is counter to your normal lifestyle is not sustainable. I believe you need to change your lifestyle and your choices a little bit at a time, and then make sure they are sustainable. When I have tried dieting previously, I have seen quick results only to backslide after some period of time. I love drinking wine, I love eating great food and I have always loved my snacks, be they potato chips, popcorn, ice cream or chocolate.

Over the last two months, I have lost 13 pounds (6 kgs) and have been happy about the results. But I have done that before only to have backslid sometime later and put the weight back on again. But this time, I have notice something different. I am still eating the same amount of food for a main meal, but I have been able to substitute my previous poor choice of snacks with healthier ones and be content doing that. The giant Kit Kat bar with 900 calories or the bowl of microwave popcorn with 500 calories has been replaced by an apple at 45 calories. If I feel the need for a small sweet treat, I have one piece of chocolate at 70 calories, or a small piece of homemade baked banana, zucchini, or carrot cake with about 125 calories. I am not munching on the six or so biscuits I used to eat every day at work, nor am I eating multiple chocolates or having multiple treats in a single sitting after dinner. That’s it – that’s all I did and I have dropped 13 pounds.

Fortunately, I did not require eliminating wine or even cutting down on wine. I am drinking the exact same amount of wine I had before. Wine is not high in calories. 150 ml glass (about 5 ounces) is 125 calories. This means an entire bottle of wine is only 625 calories on average. I can have half a bottle wine every day and consume only about 300 – 325 calories which is about the third the caloric intake as the giant Kit Kat bar I mentioned earlier. Once I knew this trade-off, I gave up the mass consumption of unhealthy snacks and allowed myself to keep drinking wine. Wine is satisfying and it is also good for you, if you are drinking two or three glasses per day.

In my upcoming book, I recommend a lot of other books for reading, including two on wine diets. There is good science supporting a wine diet along with other healthy foods. For me or almost anyone else to lose weight, there are many other things you should give up or constrain before you need to consider limiting your wine intake. I won’t go into the details here as they are presented in the books. I have included excerpts from my upcoming boo k which describes two wine diet books. a description of them follows:

The Red Wine Diet (Roger Corder): The Red Wine Diet credibly explains the health benefits of red wine. It shows how to use appropriate amounts of red wine to provide an increase in antioxidants and lower hypertension to improve overall health. It goes further and provides healthy food recipes into an overall lifestyle plan of which wine and particularly red wine are an integrated component of that healthy lifestyle. I found this book useful, if a bit detailed in the science, but it is the explanation of the science which makes it credible. Minimally, this book reduced guilt associated with drinking a bit of wine almost every day and has encouraged me to continue to enjoy wine as part of a healthy lifestyle.

Age Gets Better With Wine: New Science for a Healthier, Better & Longer Life (Richard Baxter, MD): This text is similar to The Red Wine Diet, but an easier and more enjoyable read. It focuses less on the scientific understanding of ‘why’ to follow the diet and focuses more on ‘how’ to follow the diet and what to do. However, it is still very credible.

Either one of these wine diet books is a great read. Since it involves your health and your passion for wine, I recommend reading both as they provide somewhat different perspectives, and the combination of both provides a number of useful tips, some which may work best for your situation.

SAZ in the Cellar

Wine appreciation and enjoyment

Monthly Archives: August 2013