Tag Archives: Pinot Noir

What to drink with Bangers and Mash?

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We are making up a meal of bangers and mash for this evening.  This is the first time cooking this dish at home and I am really looking forward to it tonight!  And we are also looking forward to spring time, but still in the throes of winter and some warm mash in the tummy will suit me just fine this evening!

Several days ago, I wrote about a ‘medicinal Pinot Noir’ and described what a great Pinot Noir the Bannockburn is.  My first introduction to bangers and mash was while living in Melbourne in 1998, and interestingly enough that was also my first introduction to the Bannockburn Pinot Noir!  I can’t remember the vintage, but it was that tasting that encouraged me to buy two dozen of the 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir several years later and for which I am forever grateful.

When having bangers and mash, the mashed potatoes feature prominently as do the sausages (we will also have a side of salad with caramelized balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing).  The mash is creamy in texture and when mixed with butter and truffle oil, it deserves to be matched with a slightly lighter red wine such as a Pinot Noir or a Cabernet Sauvignon.  Many Shirazes could overwhelm the bangers and mash and we would not want that.  (However, the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is such an elegant and slightly thinner textured Shiraz and would go beautifully!)

Therefore, I selected the 1997 Lindemans St George.  I was tempted to open a bottle of the 1996 Lindemans St George which is even better than the 1997, but that seemed too elegant for a simple meal of bangers and mash.  The 1997 St George would be considered an off year compared to the brilliant 1996 and 1998 Lindemans St George.  One of the reason I choose the 1997 Lindemans St George is I thought it was more suitable than the 1996 or 1998 Lindemans St George when matched to the food, and the other is that it will not last as long and  I have about two dozen of the 1997 Lindemans St George and only four of the 1996 and six of the 1998 Lindemans St George which will last another six to ten years.  I am guessing I need to drink all of my 1997 Lindemans St George within the next several years.

When decanting the wine, I noticed that the tannins were well deposited on the side of the bottle and there was a lot of tannin.  The wine seemed a bit tight upon first opening it, but after 20 minutes, it opened up and became smoother.  This wine is still surprisingly robust, yet very mellow with little fruit flavours, maybe just a hint of blackberry.  It does have some light smokey and leathery smells.  The grapes come from the Coonawarra region in South Australia where a number of great Cabernet Sauvignons are grown.  Overall, this is a very nice wine, but not a great wine.

The wine should match up very well with both the mash and the sausages.  I would explain what flavoring is in the sausages, but frankly we forgot what type of sausages they were when we froze them, so will have to find out upon eating them!  But I know the wine on its own is great to drink and it is a great match for the buttery mash with truffle oil, so I expect the meal over all to be outstanding!

A Medicinal Pinot Noir this evening!

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I am still a bit unfit, from having been quite sick with a viral infection in my lungs (of which I still have some remnants) and now have a bit of a toothache, even though rubbing the tooth will alcohol really does seem to make the pain subside!  Therefore, I have opened a ‘medicinal’ Pinot Noir for the evening.  It is lighter in taste and more elegant than a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Shiraz – I can actually visualize drip-feeding a Pinot Noir directly into my blood stream!  I also know my bride is bringing home some beautiful leftover pasta from an amazing lunch she had with co-workers today.  The pasta is a spaghetti with blue swimmer crab and tomato, and could have gone nicely with an aged Riesling, but I really wanted my ‘medicinal’ Pinot Noir tonight and believe it will match extremely well with the pasta.

I have opened a bottle of the 2006 Bannockburn Pinot Noir from the Geelong area in Victoria.  Year-in, year-out, Bannockburn makes exceptional Pinot Noirs.  I was first introduced to the 1998 vintage of this wine which was an exceptional and unusual Pinot Noir.  I finished off my last bottle (thank God I had two dozen to last!) about a year ago and it was still magnificent.  Very few Pinot Noirs will last this distance, but the 1998 Bannockburn Pinot Noir just went on and on! 

This wine (the 1998 vintage) is very complex, full flavored and combines berry flavors with some musky, almost musty flavors but in a very positive manner.  This wine would go very well with a mushroom ragout, eggplant or any other dark vegetable.  I can see myself smoking a fine Cuban cigar while sipping this wine!  The 2006 is similar, but a touch lighter and not quite as complex.  However, it is still a truly wonderful wine.  I purchased two dozen of both the 2005 and 2006 vintages of the Bannockburn Pinot Noir, but enjoy the 2006 more.  It will also last longer.  However, taste is a matter of ‘courses for horses’ and I know several people who prefer the 2005 vintage.

The 2006 Bannockburn Pinot has a very light but tart chokeberry or elderberry taste combined with flavors from the dark, moist forest floor.  Yet, the different flavors are highly integrated, the texture smooth and perfectly balanced, making an excellent wine.  I am drinking it on its own as I write this and it fills the senses!  It also is serving its purpose as a medicinal wine to reduce the ache in my tooth and pick up my spirits overall!  I am excited to have this wine with dinner in about 30 minutes!

A lot of people rave about New Zealand Pinot Noirs, but I need to look no further than Geelong, Victoria for my favorite Pinot Noir in Australia and New Zealand.  (I have had slightly better Pinot Noirs from France, but at two to three times the price of the Bannockburn.)

Another darn risotto and wine post?

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Yes!  (But I promise this will be the last one for a while!)

My wife made a very pedestrian, yet delicious bean and bacon risotto the other evening (if you follow the link to her post, you can get the recipe).  We were a bit skeptical about how it would work, but it turned out divine.  Yet, when you pick up a little fat and extra juice from the bacon, you wonder “is there any wine that will go with that?”

The wine needed to be nice, but not overpowering, and this was a situation where many of the wines I would otherwise choose, would fit in that category – they would have dominating and minimized the risotto.  I needed to open a red wine to be used in the cooking process, and figured that the wine I choose would have to work for that (pretty much most wines – even ones well past there peak do!) and for serving with the risotto.

The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a great match and the blending of the food and wine were perfectly balanced.   

Wine Texture is a big part of of how I perceive how good a wine is, especially when served with food. 

A wine can range from tepid (usually a very old wine or a poorly made wine in the first place with poor grape selection) to smooth (like some beautifully aged Pinot Noirs or Cabernet Savignons) to having a bit of friction on your cheeks (usually from the tannins in a wine built to last a long time, but where the tannins are not completely integrated yet), to gritty (where the tannins are big and far from integrated).  A good example of a superb, yet ‘gritty’ wine was the 2006 Seppelts we had with lasagna.  Both the food and wine were gritty and matched beautifully.  I needed to accomplish the same with matching a wine to the bean and bacon risotto.

I needed a wine for the bean and bacon risotto which was smooth, yet still possessed some character and fruitiness, and would still compliment the bit of fat and extra juice.  The 2006 Gabbiano Riserva was a perfect match.  Like Goldilock’s, “not too big and not two small, but just right!”

Overview of Australia’s Wine Regions – Part 4

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Part 4 – Characteristics and Grapes of Australia’s Smaller Wine Regions

In Part 1, we discussed why Australia has become a renown wine producing country, and that all states and territories other than the Northern Territories and Queensland produce high quality wines.   In Part 2, we described where Australia’s prominent wine regions were located.

Discussing, even in simplest terms, each region, takes up some space, so I broke the wine regions up into the four large wine regions which I described in Part 3 (last  post):

  • Hunter Valley – about two hours north of Sydney, New South Wales
  • Barossa Valley – just north of Adelaide, South Australia with close-by regions of Clare and Eden Valley, and with McLaren Vale south of Adelaide
  • Yarra Valley – about an hour north of Melbourne, with close-by regions including Mornington Peninsula and Geelong, south of Melbourne, and Heathcote, Victoria northwest of Melbourne and on the way to Bendigo, Victoria
  • Margaret River – about 4 hours south of Perth, Western Australia

In Part 4 (this post), we will now describe what makes each smaller region so special and what grapes grow best in those regions:

  • Rutherglen – about half-way between Sydney and Melbourne, close to the New South Wales and Victorian border and the cities of Albury and Wodonga
  • Mudgee, NSW – about 4 hours northwest of Sydney, with some wineries relatively close by around Orange
  • Tasmania
  • Riverina – in southwest New South Wales

    Rutherglen:

    Rutherglen is one of the best wine regions in the world for Muscat.  They make a wide variety of great Muscats.  They also are known for their Durif wines.  Durif is a secondary grape, easy to confuse with other red grapes if you have not had it before.  They also make some spectacular Tokays, the Hungarian grape often used as a dessert wine.  See me blog entry on “What an Affogado!” for an overview on how special a Rutherglen Tokay can be!

    I have not been there yet myself, but friends tell me it is a very nice region to visit with a lot of good food events and sightseeing outside of just tasting wine.

    Rutherglen Top Wines:  Durif, Muscat, Tokay

    Mudgee:

    Mudgee is much higher up and inland than a lot of wine regions, making a perfect climate for cold weather grapes.  Robert Oakley has some of his best vineyards in Mudgee.  Mudgee vineyards also ship a lot of grapes to wineries around Australia.

    Some very good Cabernet Sauvignons come from Mudgee and a number of organic wines are made in Mudgee.

    But Mudgee is mostly known for its dessert wines and iced wines.  They have a lot of sweet late harvest and Botrytis Semillon dessert wines.

    While 4 hours outside of Sydney, it can make a nice weekend getaway.

    Mudgee Top Wines:  Cabernet Sauvignon, Botrytis Semillon and other Desert Wines

    Tasmania:

    Tasmania is a significant newer entrant to Australian wine regions.  With its cooler climate, it produces great Pinot Noir wines.

    Tasmania Top Wines:  Pinot Noir

    Riverina:

    Riverina is not known for its great wines, but rather as the largest producer of wines in Australia.  About half of all Australian grapes come from Riverina, and many of them find there way into cask (box) wines.  Decent enough and very cheap, but not the type of thing I like to drink or write about.

    Riverina Top Wines:  Cheap Cask Wines

    This concludes the very short four-part overview of Australia’s wine regions.  I will be following up with several blogs on where and how to buy wines in Australia and also with blogs in more detail on each of the major wine regions, including recommendations on some of the best and best-valued wines on the market.

    Stay tuned and keep drinking smartly and safely!

    Overview of Australia’s Wine Regions – Part 3

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    Part 3 – Characteristics and Grapes of Australia’s Larger Wine Regions

    In Part 1, we discussed some of the reasons why Australia has become a renown wine producing country, and that all states and territories other than the Northern Territories and Queensland produce high quality wines.   In Part 2, we described where Australia’s prominent wine regions were located.

    Discussing, even in simplest terms, each region, takes up some space, so I am breaking the wine regions up into the four large wine regions which I describe in Part 3 (this post):

    • Hunter Valley – about two hours north of Sydney, New South Wales
    • Barossa Valley – just north of Adelaide, South Australia with close-by regions of Clare and Eden Valley, and with McLaren Vale south of Adelaide
    • Yarra Valley – about an hour north of Melbourne, with close-by regions including Mornington Peninsula and Geelong, south of Melbourne, and Heathcote, Victoria northwest of Melbourne and on the way to Bendigo, Victoria
    • Margaret River – about 4 hours south of Perth, Western Australia

    In Part 4 (next post), we will then describe what makes each smaller region so special and what grapes grow best in those regions:

    • Rutherglen – about half-way between Sydney and Melbourne, close to the New South Wales and Victorian border and the cities of Albury and Wodonga
    • Mudgee, NSW – about 4 hours northwest of Sydney, with some wineries relatively close by around Orange
    • Tasmania
    • Riverina – in southwest New South Wales

    Hunter Valley:

    The Hunter Valley is divided into the Lower Hunter and the Upper Hunter.  However, the Upper Hunter only has four cellar doors remaining, and a number of vineyards that produce and sell grapes. The Lower Hunter is where the action is.  There are about 150 wineries in the Lower Hunter.  The Hunter Valley is close to the ocean, but not right on top of it, so it gets some good breezes, decent rainfall (some years far too much rain fall!), and has some great soil conditions.  The best known grapes in  the Hunter Valley are Semillon, Shiraz and Chardonnay.

    Hunter Semillons are un-paralled anywhere in the world.  A multitude of Hunter wineries make great, great Semillons, in three styles which really relate to their age in the bottle and when they are released.  They are:

    • Crisp, new Semillons a year or two in the bottle
    • Semillons stored for 5 years before being released
    • “Museum” Semillons being bottled and stored 10 years before being released

    The Shiraz of The Hunter Valley tends to be more spicy than fruity often described with labels as “peppery”, “smokey”, “leathery”.  Hunter Shiraz’s also tend to contain slightly less alcohol and is more refined than the Shiraz of Barossa Valley, by comparison.  I would consider the Hunter Shiraz’ to compare with “old world” style Hermitage.

    I have recently become a real fan of Hunter Valley Chardonnays and believe both the lighter crisper Chardonnays and the aged Chardonnays of the Hunter are as good as any in Australia now.

    Hunter Valley Top Wines:  Semillon, Shiraz, Chardonnay

    Barossa Valley:

    The Barossa Valley is often labeled as Australia’s “Best Wine Region”, even though I am sure many wine producers from other regions would deny that claim!  However, the Barossa Valley has a lot going for it which justifies that label.  They produce great grapes, have a variety of micro-climates and regions, variety of elevations, and some of the best wine labels in Australia, including Penfolds, Henschke, and Grosset among many others.

    The Barossa is known for big, robust, fruity, Shiraz, often high in alcohol.  It is also know for superb Rieslings, especially in the Clare and Eden Valleys.  As testimonial, I have about 6 Australian Rieslings in my cellar and they all come from around the Barossa Valley.

    McLaren Vale, south of Adelaide is known for making superb Cabernet Sauvignons.  McLaren Vale is close to the sea and gets some nice breezes to help the grapes mature in a consistent manner.

    There are a lot of other grapes that do well across the Barossa Valley, given its variety of micro-climates and great overall growing conditions.

    Barossa Valley Top Wines:  Shiraz, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon

    Yarra Valley:

    The Yarra Valley makes some of Australia’s best sparkling wines.  They are also know for great Shiraz, as is the Heathcote region nearby.

    But what I love most about the Yarra Valley and the surrounding areas of Geelong and the Mornington Penisula are the great Pinot Noir wines that come from this region.  The slightly cooler climate is perfect for growing the Pinot Noir grape.  Everyone is talking about New Zealand Pinot Noirs, but my favorites all come from Victoria.

    Also, for pure enjoyment and if you only have a day to tour a wine country, the Yarra Valley is quicker to get to than The Hunter Valley or Margaret River from the closest big near-by city, so you can pack in more fun in a twelve hour day than with a number of the other regions, which almost demand two, if not three days.

    Yarra Valley Top Wines:  Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Sparkling

    Margaret River:

    For pure elegance, I love the wines from the Margaret River.  Sea breezes and some of the best soil in Australia for growing wine exists in Margaret River.  It is often compared to Napa Valley and some great American wineries have purchased vineyards here.  In fact, this is the Australian wine region most noted for Zinfandel, a popular California grape.

    Cabernet Sauvignons and Chardonnays are the stand-out wines from Margaret River.  A number of premium brands such as Leeuwin Estate, Pierro and Moss Wood come from this region.  While one of the smaller regions compared to the three described above, Margaret River still “punches above the line” with so many premium labels.  Winery per winery, you will get more quality wineries from this region than from any other region.

    Margaret River Top Wines:  Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc

    Each region will be described in more detail, including recommendations of specific wineries and wines in subsequent posts.  But first, onto “Part 4 – Characteristics and Grapes of Australia’s Smaller Wine Regions.”

    White wine with beef? You bet!

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    “Never” you say!  White wine with fish and red wine with beef is the convention.  Let’s turn the table!

    Recently, I wrote a blog on how well a good Pinot Noir goes with a dense gamy fish life swordfish.  This is a perfect example of a red wine matching well with fish.  Another great example is matching a big, buttery Chardonnay with beef stroganoff.  For a great recipe for beef stroganoff, see DAZ in the Kitchen, a wonderful blog on food written by my wife, Deanna Lang.

    My wife’s beef stroganoff is very rich and creamy.  The mushrooms are cooked in butter and the gravy is very rich.  The richness and creaminess of the gravy, mushrooms and fettuccine noodles almost demand a similar style white wine like a big, buttery Chardonnay.  There are several choices for this including a decent aged Montrachet, an aged big, rich Hunter Valley Chardonnay such as the Alexander Munro Chardonnay from Meerea Park, or the aged Chardonnay from Waverly Estate, or a Chardonnay from Margaret River such as the Leeuwin Estate Art Series or one from Pierro.

    But one of the classics is the Penfolds Yattarna, otherwise known as “White Grange.”  We had the 2006 vintage with the beef stroganoff.  This is such an easy drinking wine, we often wonder where it went.  Sometimes we think it must have evaporated!  My wife claims that the sign of a good wine is that it goes down so easy that she can not believe having drunk all of it when it is gone!

    The point is “rich and creamy” gravy and “rich and creamy” white wine go very well together.  The gravy and noodles contributed more to the overall taste of the meal than the beef (mildly seasoned) did.

    Therefore, while it is generally a good and safe rule to match “white wine with fish” and “red wine with beef”, you are missing out on a great combination if you are not willing to try to match the more subtle flavors and textures involved.  Next time you have a heavy, rich, creamy gravy made from mushrooms cooked in butter, try a big, rich Chardonnay.

    BTW, never drink a Montrachet before its time – it is absolutely sinful – but then again, don’t wait too long or you will be pouring good money down the drain – literally!  But then if you are buying Montrachet, I expect you are careful about this and know what time frame in which to drink the wine.

    Educating your wine palate and taste buds using potato chips

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    I have a number of friends who will drink any wine with any food and the combination does not seem to matter to them, but then many of them are drinking for the alcohol effect, not the taste.  Any many other friends know and can appreciate the basic and simple rule of ‘white wine with fish, red wine with meat’.  However, there are a number of nuances the make a food eating and wine drinking experience even more pleasurable.  There are certainly wide variances between the taste of different white grapes such as Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and so on.  The same goes for various red grapes.

    Wine tasters believe that the Sauvignon Blanc grape is the easiest to determine in a blind tasting and stands out as being the most different and distinguishable from other grapes.  And it is a classic to go with fish, making it a safe bet for most fish.  However, for a gamy, more solid fish such as swordfish, I find a good Pinot Noir is a perfect match, especially if the swordfish has a bit of light salsa or tomato sauce with it.  Therefore, people may look at what you are eating and drinking and believe you have made the ultimate wine / food matching mistake in pairing a red wine with fish, but I can assure you that this is a most pleasant pairing!

    The sauce (and amount) and the method of cooking (broiled, roasted, BBQ, steamed, etc.) also has a big impact on what wine goes best with a particular food.  Even the difference between different styled wines from the same grape can make a huge difference.  And the aging of the wine changes the wine greatly over time, so it is important to select the wine close to the optimal time for drinking it.  You may find a white wine more acidic when young and more buttery and smooth when older.

    While this may seem like a lot of effort to understand and rightly match food and wine, it really does make a great difference.  Even if you do not understand it, you will usually recognize it and notice the difference in how good the food and wine tasted (even if you cannot describe it).

    However, what I really want to focus on today is much easier to appreciate.  A good first step to educating your palate is to just try different foods and taste them with your eyes closed and focus on what the flavor is telling you.  Try to pick out how dry or sweet the food is, is it acidic?, or bitter and so on.  This makes you more aware of the common taste characteristics of food.

    Tonight I was a bit hungry, but it was a while until dinner, and my wife had an open bag of sour cream and chive potato chips.  I had just poured a glass of a Cabernet Sauvignon.  I grabbed a handful of the sour cream and chive potato chips, ate them and then took a sip of wine.  I thought the flavours would be competing against each other and it would be a horrible match, but it worked far better than I thought.

    Then I poured a glass of a Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend (I had both bottles open from a day or two before) and tried it with the sour cream and chives potato chips also.  I would have expected this to be a better combination, but found out that was not the case as the Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon blend was a bit acidic, and did not work well with the sour cream taste.  Then I opened a few more bags of different potato chips and tried them with both wines.

    Why do I suggest potato chips for this?  Because it is a lot cheaper to open a few bags of potato chips than it is to used real honey-glazed ham, chicken, etc.  Of course, you could always go the sliced meat route for another lesson.

    By trying several different wines with several different flavors of potato chips, you can quickly educate your palate and zone in on grape and food flavor combinations you like and don’t like  I will not tell you my findings of the various combinations of grapes to potato chip flavors to let you focus better and really learn more by tasting than reading.  I would also suggest you do this in the company of friends and discuss your findings.  You will be amazed at how quickly you will learn to identify tastes and combinations that work or not.  And talking about it while doing the tasting is a great way to learn (and socialize!).

    When doing this, I would suggest using Kettle or Red Rock brand potato chips as they tend to have more intense flavors than other brands, and also have a wide variety of flavors including sweet chili, peri peri chicken, caramelized onion, honey coated, etc.  These wide contrasts can help you quickly zone in on categories of combinations that work – or don’t!

    Let me know what combinations of flavors and wine grapes work for you!  I am anxious to hear your feedback.