#TempranilloDay
#TempranilloDay Oh No! Another wine day. I don’t know why, but I just can’t resist. November 14 is Tempranillo Day, and we’re encouraged to open a bottle of wine made from the Tempranillo grape, then share the experience on social media. If you’re curious, just enter #TempranilloDay on Twitter. We don’t drink Tempranillo all that … Continue reading
Viognier & Spicy Food? – Shrimp Tacos
Viognier pairs with a number of interesting foods: Indian cuisine, curries, pork, chicken, anything in a cream sauce, moderately spicy foods. Today we’re testing Viognier with spicy foods. We’re also trying inexpensive examples from California and France. Let’s go! Our spicy food test dish is shrimp tacos. Our basic tacos are barbecue-rub spicy, which is … Continue reading
Viognier Exploration: Curry Chicken, Sweet Potato & Cauliflower
Getting to Know Viognier It’s time to explore a varietal that is surprisingly easy to find, but a little less known: Viognier. Wines made from the Viognier grape tend to have a bigger body: perfect for colder weather. I purchased wines from a variety of different places: California, Washington, Oregon, Australia and France. The samples I … Continue reading
#ChampagneDay 2013
We have fun celebrating these internet based theme days for various wines. One of our favorites is #ChampagneDay because it’s a great excuse to make the day an occasion. It appears that #ChampagneDay is the last Friday in October, because it was also on a Friday last year. Wow, just like Thanksgiving and Easter! Anyway, … Continue reading
Our Piemonte Wine Dinner
Barbaresco, Barolo and Much More Just back from a wine touring week in the Piemonte (Piedmont) region of Italy, Julie and I were eager to share a glimpse of that area with our wine dinner group. We prepared a Piemonte menu we hoped would be both authentic and tasty. How did we do? The White … Continue reading
Oops!
Make Sure You Have Plenty of OOPS! OK, you spill an expensive bottle of wine, you break glasses. Those “oops” moments are no fun at all. The OOPS moments I’m talking about are failures, but they show you are still trying new things, experimenting, learning. FoodBeerClick Chili (original post here) I wanted to modify a … Continue reading
Quick Visit & Lunch in Tain L’Hermitage
If you’re a Northern Rhone fan, a visit to Tain L’Hermitage is well worth your time. Seeing the land for yourself will show you things you will never learn from a book or an article. After our morning visit at Jean-Louis Chave, we had a little time to explore before we caught the train back … Continue reading
Paris: Eiffel Tower Food Tour
Take Away Message: Go to Paris. Stay in the 7th Arrondissement. Take the Eiffel Tower Food Tour early in your trip and eat well for the rest of your stay. Thank us later. Julie and I were planning a long awaited trip to Europe this summer. Julie had not been to Paris since 1977 (!) … Continue reading
CSA Box + August Garden Panic = Meatless Monday
Meatless Monday is your friend when your garden is producing volumes of tomatoes and your CSA box is full. Can you pair a meatless meal with an intense, tannic red wine? Yes! Beet Green “Pesto” First: my sincerest apologies to all speakers of the French and Italian languages. My nickname for this “pesto” is Beet … Continue reading
Piemonte Training
In just a few days, Julie and I will be spending a whole week touring the Langhe, a district within the larger region of the Piedmont (or Piemonte) in Italy! I had the opportunity to do some on-site “research” earlier this summer during a weekend stop mid-way through a business trip. Over the last few … Continue reading
