Oh, Belly!

Warning! If you read this post, you will learn how to make gluten free chocolate cake in 5 minutes. If it is not in your best interest to be perpetually 5 minutes away from chocolate cake, then stop reading now. You’ve been warned! Okay, now for the fun stuff. Diana G. just emailed me to… [Continue Reading]

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Wine Accessories Pinot Blanc Chinon Petit Rouge Pinot Noir Nero d Avola Sparkling Wines

Riesling. It’s like the wine world in microcosm. Wine experts love it but cannot understand why consumers don’t go gaga over it, but ultimately this is our fault. Consumers have heard about it, and when it is poured in their glasses really do enjoy it, but feel confused by its many styles, provenances and the [...]

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Here come the 2009 Napa Cabs.

In general, the pros are expecting 2009 to continue a string of outstanding vintages from Napa. With the exception of 2007 (which was exceptionally good) 2005-2009 are all outstanding Napa Cab vintages which elude quick bookmarking as being universally better or worse than one or another. Look for wineries whose style you enjoy and 2009 will likely satisfy.

The deal hounds among us have discovered HALL Wines’ Napa Valley bottling as a reliable one worth seeking out. In the $40 range it’s not cheap but it can run with the big boys costing $50-$80.

About HALL Wines

“At HALL Wines we offer an elegant and stylish approach to the wine experience that combines the art of winemaking, design and contemporary art,” says owner and vintner Kathryn Hall.

In 2009 their winery in St. Helena was the first in California to receive Gold LEED Certification. In 2010 their vineyards were certified organic. Last year, their 2008 Kathryn Hall Cabernet Sauvignon ($90) received a 96 point rating and landed on the number two spot on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list.

The Kathryn Hall and Napa Valley bottlings are often confused. Remember that the white labeled wines are from their Napa Valley series and cost between $38 and $50 at retail. The Kathryn Hall bottling has a red label and sells for at least $70 and up at retail. I saw a guy at Costco last year filling his shopping cart with the white labeled Napa Valley bottling whispering to me (incorrectly) that it was Wine Spectator’s #2 Wine of the Year. Not that the Napa Valley isn’t a fantastic bottle of wine – just a word of caution be familiar with the bottlings in their lineup.

Here’s what the track record looks like for the 2009 HALL Wines Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon:

The drop-off from a 95 point rating in 2008 from The Wine Advocate to an 88 point rating on the 2009 comes as the publication switched from Robert Parker to Antonio Galloni covering Napa Cabs. From this you might think Galloni doesn’t like their wines – but you’d be wrong. Referring to their 2009 lineup he said:

“This is a thrilling set of wines from Hall. The estate favors a rich, extroverted style, yet all of these wines have distinct personalities and tons of sheer character. … Simply put, I was blown away by what I tasted.”

Here are my tasting notes for this wine:

2009 HALL Wines Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon
Varietal Composition: 84% Cabernet Sauvignon, 9% Merlot, 5% Petit Verdot, 1% Malbec, 1% Cabernet Franc
Barrel Aging: 16 months in 55% New French Oak
14.9% Alcohol
$48 Release Price (high $30s street target price)

100% opaque – mostly purple with ruby red in the background. Bright, high toned and fresh with lively fruit. Grippy mouth feel with cinammon and blackberries on the nose. On the palate I get coconut rum and cola. Needs time to settle down but I like what I see.

91/100 WWP: Outstanding

Look for Laube’s rating (Spectator) to fall in the 90-93 range and continue a nice run for this Napa Valley bottling.

Find this wine for sale at retail on Wine-Searcher.com

Visit the HALL Wines website to learn more – they ship 6 or more bottles for just $1 and offer nice deals to club members.

Further Reading

• Tasting Report: 2006 HALL Cabernets
• Value Alert: 2005 HALL Napa Cab

Sample for review.

Question of the Day: Have you tried HALL Wines lately? If so, what did you think?

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Unusual Wine and Food Pairings Xérès How to Cook with Wine Chenin Blanc Wines Frascati Secco Top Rated White Meritage from Napa Valley Letting a Red Wine Breathe

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Ahh, bacon! That crispy, chewy, salty and sinful cut of pork we all love.

Bacon has disciples far and wide, some of whom devote entire blogs to it. The Bacon Show, for example, posts a daily recipe featuring bacon; the site “101 Things Every Cook Should Cook” has an entire section devoted to bacon. Heather, of the site “Bacon Unwrapped”, chronicles her adventures with bacon, and “Bacontarian” brings you bacon-y goodness from around the Internet, while “I Heart Bacon” conducts bacon reviews.

For those who’ve spent more time eating it than studying it, bacon is cut from the sides, belly, or back of a pig, near the ribs. It’s the fattiness of the meat that makes it so yummy. After the skin is cut away, the meat is cured, smoked, and sliced. It can be cooked in a pan on the stovetop, in the oven, or in the microwave, until it’s perfectly crisp.

You probably know bacon as the star of the BLT (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, in case you didn’t know), and the bacon cheeseburger. But there are so many other ways we can incorporate it into our diets and our lives! Here are 50 ways to use bacon:

1. Make a good old BLT sandwich, of course.

2. Bacon cheeseburgers will make anyone’s mouth water. Meat topped with more meat? Perfection!

3. Bacon-wrapped tater tots would go perfectly with that bacon cheeseburger!

4. Roast a bacon-wrapped turkey for Sunday dinner.

5. Make delicious bacon pastry slices.

6. Add a punch of flavor to your creamed spinach recipe.

7. Make your own hot bacon dressing to use on lettuce, cabbage, or even potato salad!

8. Entertaining? Whet your guests’ appetites with the bacon-cheese fundido appetizer.

9. Indulge in a bar of dark chocolate infused with the flavor of applewood smoked bacon as a special treat.

10. Maple bacon cupcakes will make your mouth water.

11. And if you liked those, try a bacon chocolate chip cookie with maple cinnamon glaze.

12. It’s not real, southern cornbread unless there’s bacon grease in it.

13. Visit The Plaid Mushroom’s e-shop to smother your lips with bacon lip balm made with real bacon oil, refined from bacon. (The link is to a listing that was reserved for a certain buyer, but contact theplaidmushroom to ask for your own listing.)

14. Join the bacon of the month club to have artisan bacon delivered to your door 12 times a year.

15. The beautiful city of Charleston, South Carolina gives us bacon-flavored cotton candy.

16. Enjoy a bacon martini with any meal.

17. Use bacon to dress up your leftovers for a second visit to the dinner table.

18. Whip up a tasty bacon asparagus quiche with Swiss cheese for dinner.

19. Cook bacon into the shape of cups and fill with lettuce and tomato for a breadless BLT.

20. Stay warm by wrapping a giant fleece bacon scarf around yourself.

21. Even if you’re a vegetarian and/or keep a kosher diet, you can still enjoy the taste of bacon salt, because, as the manufacturers say: “Everything should taste like bacon.”

22. If pork-covered pork appeals to you, you may also enjoy the bacon-wrapped deep-fried hot dog.

23. Trim your holiday tree with joyful ceramic bacon ornaments.

24. Add a new twist to stuffed peppers by wrapping them in bacon.

25. Get the morning off to a good start with beer cheese muffins with bacon cream cheese frosting.

26. Impress your guests with deceptively simple bacon-wrapped “crabette” appetizers.

27. A bacon-y take on an Asian favorite: bacon and bok choy potstickers.

28. Weave and bake bacon into edible placemats.

29. Then, use the woven bacon to augment your grilled cheese experience.

30. The Bacon Explosion is to die for!

31. Bacon and date appetizers will be the hit of your party.

32. Bacon egg salad croissants put a new spin on an old favourite.

33. Then, have a bowl of bacon ice cream for dessert.

34. Then use an actual bacon bandage to cover your own boo-boos.

35. Or wake up to cooking bacon with the bacon alarm clock, which is appropriately shaped like a pig’s face.

36. Add it to your bathroom in the form of bacon-printed toilet tissue.

37. Then, use it to wash up afterward.

38. Bacon popcorn is a deliciously salty, crunchy snack!

39. Try your hand at making your own bacon.

40. Enjoy barbecue-baked beans with bacon alongside your BLT.

41. Cook up a bacon buffet  every imaginable party appetizer you ever dreamed about!

42. Corn and bacon chowder sounds like the perfect soup to warm you up on the last chilly evenings before summer!

43. Strawberry bacon spinach salad will make you the star of any potluck.

44. Salty bacon will complement the sweet honey dressing in this imitation crab salad.

45. Try poached pears stuffed with blue cheese and baked with bacon.

46. Or try the same combo of flavors in a pear, blue cheese, bacon pizza.

47. Take a look at this bacon-filled quiche. It’ll really make your mouth water.

48. See who comes out on top with an action-figure wrestling match between Mr. Bacon and Monsieur Tofu.

49. Smooth caramel topped with crunchy bacon: Does that sound delicious or disgusting? Try it and let us know.

50. Try many other bacon dishes suggested by foodnerd, including bacon fluffernutter sandwiches, bacon cups with macaroni and cheese, bacon-pepper-cheese scones, and more!

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Source: http://startcooking.com/blog/395/

Aligoté Port Wines Auslese Inexpensive Italian Sweet Wines Sparkling Wine The Basics on Cooking with Wine Chiroubles

Here’s another one of those offers I feel is laser-targeted at me: Blue Ginger in Wellesley is hosting a dinner featuring Honig wines.

I say laser-targeted because I love Honig’s wines and I love Blue Ginger.

Honig is a Napa producer of a freaking delicious Sauvignon Blanc, a Napa value benchmark Cabernet, and a spot-on higher end Cabernet bottling (Bartolucci). I enjoy the style of their wines year in and year out and they deliver value across everything they produce.

Blue Ginger is hands down our favorite restaurant in town. They always seem to deliver a good time whether you sit in the lounge, sit down for dinner, or attend a wine event.

Here’s the lineup:

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/80c8LyQPmQI/honig-wine-dinner-at-blue-ginger.html

Pinot Nero Wine Preservative: Sulphur Dioxide Soave Clarendon Hills Merlot Clarendon Brookman Valpolicella Spotting a Faulty Wine What is Tannin in Red Wine?

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Source: http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2011/03/the-stew-has-moved.html

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If you work any kind of regular hours, it is easy to feel disconnected from your garden. It has its finest moments when you are stuck in the office. Your flowers are blooming away while you play solitaire over an over-chilled sandwich. The answer is to design your garden around the times when you are around: evenings and nights.

A garden designed to work at night can be a magical place, filled with intimacy, intrigue and wafts of delicious scent. Here’s how to go about making it somewhere you escape to after work, rather than gaze at with regret over the washing up.

Scented flowers

Night-time gardeners have a quirk of nature on their side. Flowers that are pollinated by night-flying insects such as moths need first to be found by them. They signal their presence in two ways: by being pale in colour, so that they show up in low light; and by starting to pump out scent as dusk falls. It is therefore fairly easy to assemble a cast of glowing white, pale blue and purple scented that will do as much for you as it does for the moths.

Some personal favourites are jasmine, Wisteria floribunda, night-scented stock and honeysuckle. For true drama I move the houseplant Epiphyllum oxypetalum – known as queen of the night – outside onto my porch in summer. On warm evenings its huge and dramatic for-one-night-only flowers produce a sweet, heady, almost overpowering scent.

In China and throughout the East its blooming inspires ‘sundowner parties’: you sit, sip Singapore slings, and breathe in the scented air.

Cyclamen

Dark backgrounds

A pale plant shows up so much better against a dark, dense background. Yew hedges are the masters at this, but a privet hedge or even a dark brown fence will throw your pale beauties into relief. In a night garden, you can also use hedges to help capture scents. Any breath of wind will whisk them away, so use hedges to filter wind and help pool scents around seating areas.

Light

You can make all kind of night-time effects with uplighters and spotlights and colour washes, but I reckon it’s pretty hard to beat a string of fairy lights and a few candles in jars for magic. Cheaper too. Solar lights save a vast amount of fuss with wiring but the LEDs they use have a slightly harsh blue glow, so look for ‘warm white’ or those covered in coloured paper lanterns.

Fire and stars

You see little of your garden in summer, but the problem becomes worse as nights draw in. You do need something to tempt you outside when evenings are far from balmy. A fire pit with seating around it makes a wonderful focus for autumn and winter celebrations, and if you treat yourself to a telescope, earlier nightfall becomes something to look forward to.

I just have a bird spotting telescope, but it draws me outside to look at the craters when the moon is half full – blanket round shoulders and clutching a hot toddy – and to just enjoy being out in my garden at such a peaceful time.

Lia Leendertz is a garden writer.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gardening/2011/11/night-gardening.shtml

Ahnfeldt Merlot Napa Valley Five Inexpensive Champagnes How to Choose a Wine Club Vine Training Techniques Merlot Recommendations Under $10 Best Red Wine Regions in the World Beaujolais

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Barbara d Alba Sangiovese Cannonau di Sardegna A Look at Wine Bottles Inexpensive Spanish Sherry Wine Beaujolais Blanc 2005 Cline Cellars Syrah Cool Climate Sonoma Coast

Having grown up on Cornbread Dressing, I had quite a mental block about making Bread Dressing. However, I have to say ,this recipe is quite good and it’s easy to make. So, if you’re still looking for a GF Thanskgiving stuffing/dressing recipe, this is a great option.  If you need to be gluten free and… [Continue Reading]

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Super Tuscans Quincy Burgundy (Red) Marsanne Merlot Basics Of Scoring Wine Great White Wines in The 2006 Vintage

There’s not much in the world that isn’t made better by cornmeal. It adds graininess to muffins and breads, it adds flavor and thickness to soups (just dissolve in a little water and pour into the pot, then simmer 10-15 more minutes), and it takes ordinary pancakes and turns them into beautiful yellow little miracles. I made some cornmeal pancakes last night. And I made some quick blackberry syrup, which sent it into the stratosphere…

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Inexpensive Australian Dessert Wines What Are Organic Wines? Super Tuscans Quincy Burgundy (Red) Marsanne Merlot

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Know Your Wine with this Varietal Table Montepulciano d Abruzzo Albarino Bandol Rosé Reading Portuguese Wine Labels How to Select Wines for Cooking Blended and Varietal Wines

Good luck comes in many forms. There have definitely been times in my life when “being lucky” was a loud and clear experience. However, I look at those little times – the little moments when something just goes your way for no real reason – as the true meaning of luck, and being blessed, in [...]

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Five Inexpensive Champagnes How to Choose a Wine Club Vine Training Techniques Merlot Recommendations Under $10 Best Red Wine Regions in the World Beaujolais Vin Gris

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Xérès How to Cook with Wine Chenin Blanc Wines Frascati Secco Top Rated White Meritage from Napa Valley Letting a Red Wine Breathe Understanding Wine Labels

Sometimes you just need a quick getaway to cure the doldrums of the winter months. And that is what we just did with a one-night getaway to Yountville in the Napa Valley. Continue reading →

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/wine-adventures-in-yountville/

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Littorai is a Sonoma based winery focused on the sustainable production of high end Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Founded in 1993 by Heidi and Ted Lemon, they seek out sites with outstanding potential then let those vineyards reveal their unique character in the wines they produce.

 
I visited Littorai a month or so ago and got a chance to see first hand what makes them special. When you talk about “off the beaten path” in Sonoma it has an entirely different meaning than in Napa. If you think a small mailbox with a family name is charming, try visiting Littorai. They take take it to the next level. Ask for a visit and you’ll be greeted with directions and a gate access code for a property you’d never find on your own with no signage whatsoever.

Founder, owner, and head winemaker Ted Lemon can seem like the grown-up in the room when extolling the virtues of terroir driven wines, balance, and the potential for California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. What resonated with me about his message is that he’s not looking simply to emulate Burgundy in California. He’s looking to embrace the unique characteristics and capabilities of each site and deliver wines that speak purely to that site.
 
When I visited I met with assistant winemaker John Wilson who most recently worked with highly regarded Thomas Rivers Brown of Schrader/Outpost/Rivers Marie fame. He took me for a tour around the thirty acre site – only three of which is dedicated to vines in the form of The Pivot vineyard. The site is also home to Littorai’s winery which is built with hay bale walls and features gravity flow wine movement.
 

 
We tasted through the Littorai Chardonnays first. Ted Lemon has a great line in the video embedded below along the lines of “Chardonnay’s first duty is to make you forget red wine.” These white wines were brilliant and delicious and made me think I should drink more white wine – especially Chardonnay of this style. They’re flavorful and powerful yet elegant and light. Really pretty.
 
The Pinot Noirs showed fabulously as well, each with different characteristics that rang true to the Littorai focus of letting sites speak for themselves. All of the Littorai single vineyard Pinot Noirs are made exactly the same way. The only difference is the site.
 
My only complaint with the tasting experience is that it was a little chilly so it was hard to differentiate the Pinots as much as I’d have liked to. The room felt south of 55F and I like to taste Pinot in the low to mid 60Fs.

 
When I got home I had a chance to sit down and spend some quality time with a 2010 Littorai Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. It was a beauty. Here are my thoughts on that wine:
 

2010 Littorai Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir
13.3% alcohol
$38
 
Aromatically expressive immediately upon opening with rounded edges of strawberry and raspberry fruit, spice box, and tea notes. Elegant on the palate with a touch of acidity and tannic grip, it’s a pleasure to drink.
 
Serious, but not overly so. This wine succeeds in finding the intersection between being terroir-driven and letting the site speak for itself and revealing the California sunshine. A tremendous introduction to the producer.
 
93/100 WWP: Outstanding
 
Lemon was named winemaker of the year in 2010 by The San Francisco Chronicle. Check out this excellent piece by Jon Bonne.
 
Check out this outstanding video with wine director Raj Parr of Sandhi Wines and Ted Lemon from Littorai:
 
 
(try http://vimeo.com/39280943 if the video doesn’t embed sucessfully)
 
Littorai’s wines can be hard to track down. You can do a wine-searcher.com search for retailers in MA that sell the wine but you won’t currently find any. But check out The Urban Grape in Chestnut Hill if you’re in the area. They’ve got a bunch of ‘em. Case club?
 
You can sign up for their mailing list by visiting their website: http://littorai.com

Question of the Day: Have you visited Littorai or tasted their wines? If so, what did you think? Either way, what are some of your favorite terroir-driven California producers?
 

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/MJxhf7iNlg4/littorai-visit-and-tasting-report.html

Bandol Castelli Romani Marsala Wines Paloma Merlot Spring Mountain District wine types Chateauneuf-du-Pape How Champagne is Made

No other part of fruit growing creates more uncertainty and confusion than pruning.

Terminology such as renewal pruning, replacement pruning, tip bearers, spur bearers, fruit buds and growth buds abound and cause confusion and trepidation. And that’s before the question of winter or summer pruning has been raised. So, as it’s freezing out there, let’s deal with winter pruning hints.

Pruning an apple tree

Get yourself a good sharp pair of secateurs and a modern pruning saw with a very sharp blade. Both will last you all your life with care.

Stand back from the tree and take a good look around it first. Then, decide how you would like it to look when you have finished and what you are trying to achieve. Pruning in the garden is often as much about the shape of the tree and how it fits with the available space, as it is about getting maximum fruit crop.

Pyramid shape

Always ensure that you try to maximise the amount of sunlight that can enter the tree. Remember that in the summer there will be a full crop of leaves, which will block out much of the available light. The more sunlight that can reach developing buds, the stronger will be the fruit buds for the next year, and that means lots more big juicy fruits.

Unless you have trained trees, the best shape to aim for is an ‘A’ shaped tree, ensuring the maximum light penetration.

The best fruits occur nearest to the main stem or main branches, so it’s important to prune out long straggling branches with little fruit bud on them and retain the shorter more productive wood.

Generally you can tell fruit buds from growth buds by the fact that the fruit buds are plump and white with a downy covering, whilst growth buds are brownish, longer and thinner.

Most trees will have some dead wood in them, especially if they have not been pruned for a few years. Cut out that dead wood, and very often, you will find that new shoots grow from around the pruning cut, and a replacement can be selected the following year if need be.

Never let a branch stay in a tree that is more than half the diameter of the main stem. Ideally, branches should be no more than one third the thickness of the main stem.

Do not be afraid to make more pruning cuts than you imagined that you would. In the middle of summer, you will wonder why you did not cut more branches out. If you are not very experienced at pruning, then try this: Prune the tree to how you think it should look. Go and make a cup of tea and then come back out and prune it again. After the second pruning it should be about right.

Prune trees every year. It will retain the shape, prevent the wrong thickness of wood in the tree and ensure that diseased or broken branches are removed.

Remember, pruning a tree will never kill it, and will almost always improve it greatly both in the quality of the fruit and the longevity of the tree. Always remove the pruning from the ground around the tree as they will often start to grow fungus upon them which can easily transfer to the tree or fruit.

Imagination is your strongest weapon in pruning. Imagine what the tree will look like after you finish; what it will look like in the spring covered in blossom; and importantly how great the apples will taste next Autumn.

Will Sibley is the Chairman of the horticulturally research focused East Malling Trust.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gardening/2011/12/pruning.shtml

Unusual Wine and Food Pairings Xérès How to Cook with Wine Chenin Blanc Wines Frascati Secco Top Rated White Meritage from Napa Valley Letting a Red Wine Breathe

Why not take a trip down memory lane by visiting one or more of the handful of wineries that have been in existence in the Napa Valley for 100 years or more? Most of these wineries have tours and memorabilia that will give you a glimpse of what life in the Napa Valley was like way back when. Continue reading →

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/a-napa-valley-wine-trip-down-memory-lane/

Sancerre Wine Buying Strategies Wine to Drink with Chocolate Ribera del Duero Mourvedre Know Your Wine with this Varietal Table Montepulciano d Abruzzo

Why not take a trip down memory lane by visiting one or more of the handful of wineries that have been in existence in the Napa Valley for 100 years or more? Most of these wineries have tours and memorabilia that will give you a glimpse of what life in the Napa Valley was like way back when. Continue reading →

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/a-napa-valley-wine-trip-down-memory-lane/

Orvieto Jurançon Bandol Castelli Romani Marsala Wines Paloma Merlot Spring Mountain District wine types

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Oaks Barrels in Winemaking Icewine Champagne Wines Pinot Grigio Pinot Gris Etiquette for Wine Tasting and Serving Tafelwein

Washington Syrah compares favorably with the best in the world. Washington Syrah generally falls somewhere in between the jammy Shiraz of Australia and the more austere Syrah of the northern Rhone. It generally has good acidity and tannins. The common denominators of our favorite Syrahs from Washington have been deep, dark purple color and luscious [...]

Wine Tasting Dinner: 2008 Washington Syrah was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps – Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Shiraz Oaks Barrels in Winemaking Icewine Champagne Wines Pinot Grigio Pinot Gris Etiquette for Wine Tasting and Serving

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Xérès How to Cook with Wine Chenin Blanc Wines Frascati Secco Top Rated White Meritage from Napa Valley Letting a Red Wine Breathe Understanding Wine Labels

We recently made a pretty big switch to our dinnertime routine that has been awesome in the execution but a little difficult in the transition, at least for me. We bumped our dinnertime up an hour. Eric and I realized that if we did this, he could eat dinner with the family 5 nights a [...]

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I had mixed emotions as I was driving to a blind tasting of 2009 Pinot Noir this past weekend. When Wine Zag blogger Adam Japko announced the tasting I was thrilled because I’ve been enjoying so many 2009 California Pinot Noirs lately. But as the night was upon us I looked at it differently than other tastings I’d been to.

Would I be able to pick my favorites out of the line-up? Would I be able to differentiate California from Oregon and elsewhere? Would my favorite be a cheap wine – and make me feel like a fool for spending so much energy chasing after and exploring increasingly obscure producers the past few years?

The line-up included producers I’m familiar with and enjoy like Sojourn, Belle Glos, and Loring. Familiar names like Patricia Green, Melville, and Calera. Some I was looking forward to trying for the first time – especially Kutch. Some old world Pinot Noirs, including a few Burgundies, were thrown into the mix as well. And a low-priced ringer: Castle Rock.

All of the wines in the tasting were 2009s, and the focus was primarily on California. Wine Spectator has called 2009 California Pinot Noir the best vintage ever. 2009 red Burgundy is said to be an amazingly fruit forward vintage. A perfect time for folks like me to explore the region. 2009 Oregon Pinot Noir hasn’t received the accolades 2008 did, but 2009 is a warmer vintage and the wines are more generous on release as a result. More like 2006 Oregon Pinot Noir – which I liked.

The wines were tasted blind in 3 flights with the wines assorted randomly. We knew the wines being tasted and their price points but we didn’t know which of the 17 wines was which.

Flight 1

Thoughts on the flight: Tons of stylistic diversity here. Guessing a lot of these aren’t from California. Probably a couple are from Burgundy or Oregon.
   
Flight 2

Not as much diversity here. Thinking all of these are from California. Good wines but no huge standouts.

Flight 3

Best flight of the night. Diverse and a couple of standout what I’m guessing are California Pinot Noirs.

Winners

The wines from Sojourn, Brewer-Clifton, and Melville showed well for me personally. And Sojourn and Brewer-Clifton showed well according to the group at large.

Losers

Belle Glos caught my eye on the list going in. I though it would be a benchmark wine of sorts that I might even be able to pick out having tried several bottles of their single vineyard wines and detecting a consistent stylistic pattern. But, speaking in March Madness terms, it was upset in the first round. The wines from Oregon (Patricia Green and Montinore Estate) didn’t do particularly well either.

Surprises

A late entry – an $18 Italian Pinot Nero – tied the Brewer-Clifton for wine of the night. Quite an accomplishment for such an affordable wine. And who says bigger wines always show better in this kind of tasting?

Upsets

I’d never tried Kutch but finishing near the back of the pack – and weighing in at $68 – has me spooked. Also, the most expensive wine in the tasting – a $70 Burgundy – didn’t do much to impress either.

Tasting Notes (sorted from my favorite to least favorite)

2009 Sojourn Wohler Vineyard Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast, CA) $50 94 WWP: Oustanding

Tasting Note:

Powerful with ripe strawberry and fresh produce aromas. Caramel notes remain in the glass after a couple sips, but it’s balanced with fresh fruit and layers of more serious structure. Complex. Love it.

Observations:

Tied for 2nd amongst the group, this was my favorite wine of the night, and just a bit better than the Melville Terraces in the same flight. The Sojourn showed a purity of fruit and balance that others were lacking. Pleased to see this producer come out on top.

2009 Melville Terraces Pinot Noir (Santa Rita Hills, CA) $56 93 WWP: Outstanding

Tasting Note:

Ooo – pretty. Pure California. Round. A little heat. Is this Melville or Belle Glos perhaps?

Observations:

I’ve enjoyed Melville’s entry level bottling (~$30) even though they occasionally have some rough edges and a little heat. This one was very nice. Edged out by the Sojourn because I thought the Melville’s fruit was obscured just a touch behind what seemed like a fairly substantial oak regiment.

2009 Brewer-Clifton Clos Pepe Vineyard Pinot Noir (Santa Rita Hills, CA) $60 92 WWP: Outstanding

Tasting Note:

Powerful flavors but balanced nicely with a good amount of acidity. Really nice. With a touch of heat it clings to the glass. But it’s vibrant. This could be Sojourn. Or Belle Glos?

Observations:

I had no experience with Brewer-Clifton prior to this tasting. I hear the winemaker is the same as Melville so maybe it’s not surprising to see them near each other in my rank order. A little on the spendy side but I’d buy more of this if I could find it in the $40s retail.

2009 Domaine Eden Pinot Noir (Santa Cruz Mountains, CA) $32 91 WWP: Outstanding

Tasting Note:

Limited aromatically but radiant and flavorful. Elegant. Pretty. If this is California, it’s doing it in a restrained style. Kutch?

Observations:

A nice surprise here from an affordable producer I’d never heard of. And from the Santa Cruz Mountains too. If this is what I think Kutch would taste like after reading about Kutch, and this wine is quite a bit more affordable, I’ll definitely be seeking this one out.

2009 Sojourn Sangiacomo Vineyard Vineyard Pinot Noir (Sonoma Coast, CA) $50 90 WWP: Outstanding

Tasting Note:

Happy magenta color but the flavors are melancholy. Beautiful nose of black cherry, raspberries, and mushrooms. Secondary flavors of cola and coconut. Long finish. Like it.

Observations:

Another winner for Sojourn and looking back on the notes it sounds like one of the most compelling wines of the night. Would definitely buy again and recommend others check out Sojourn. They’ve got one of the most consumer-friendly mailing lists I’ve come across.

2009 Loring Graham Family Vineyard Pinot Noir (Russian River Valley, CA) $48 90 WWP: Outstanding

Tasting Note:

Dark in color. Caramel, then strawberries and cranberries. Some rough edges. Is this Sojourn? Might be a little much, but it tastes really good. Could this be Belle Glos?

Observations:

A solid showing here for Loring and the tasting notes are not too surprising having tried a number of their wines from this and recent vintages. Along with Siduri I consider Loring to be a bell weather value-priced high quality California Pinot Noir producer. The single vineyard bottlings climb up a bit in price. As with many single vineyard wines I’m not sure they’re always worth it. Another consumer-friendly mailing list to check out.

2010 Calatroni Pinot Nero (Italy) $18 89 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Oregon? Bubble gum. Don’t think it’s got that California Pinot Noir flavor profile. Nice, but not my favorite.

Observations:

Tied for 1st among the group. That’s saying something for an Italian wine in a line-up of stacked California wines costing many times more. At $18 I’d try this one again if I could find it. Very interesting. Try to find it on Wine-Searcher

2009 Calera Pinot Noir (Central Coast, CA) $26 88 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Lively fresh fruit. Highish viscosity. Probably California. Straightforward. Tasty.

Observations:

Tied for 3rd in the group. Pretty much in line with what I wrote when I tasted this non-blind for the first time a couple weeks ago. I like this around $20 and my enthusiasm would increase more closer to $15. Can’t see my way to the 92 point rating and accolades Robert Parker bestowed on this one but it is very good in my opinion.

2009 Friedrich Becker Estate Spatburgunder (Pfalz, Germany) $25 88 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Think this one is from Oregon. A little green and twangy. Low viscosity. Pretty, but not my favorite.

Observations:

Affordable and interesting to try a Pinot Noir from Germany.

2009 Castle Rock California Cuvee Pinot Noir (CA) $11 88 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Very enjoyable and surely from California. Liked it a lot but it lacks some markings I look for in California Pinot Noir flavor-wise. A little dusty and quirky.

Observations:

Pretty strong showing here for a widely available wine that can be found significantly south of $10 if you look around.

Bouvier Bourgogne Le Chapitre Gevrey-Chambertin (Burgundy) $23 88 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Leuden’s cherry cough drops which I tend to like, along with some vegetal components that knocked it down a bit. Is this Grenache?

Observations:

Tied for 2nd in the group. An affordable Burgundy with some things I liked and others I didn’t.

A Tribute to Grace Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyards Grenache (CA) $42 87 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Tied for 3rd in the group. Light in color. Muted nose. Some quirky notes. Germany? Not California.

Observations:

Well this one confused me. I was surprised to see a California Grenache so light in color compared to Pinot Noirs. Interesting.

Lignier-Michelot Cuvee Bertin Gevrey-Chambertin (Burgundy) $70 86 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

Flinty with quirky bubble gum notes. Not bad but quite a few off notes.

Observations:

I think I said at the time, “typical Burgundy: An expensive wine nobody really cares much for”. Nobody at the tasting had anything nice to say about this one and it was the most expensive wine tasted. I know it’s a far reaching generalization to bag on Burgundy and some day I’ll come back and laugh at myself for being resistant to Burgundy’s charms, but this one did little to compel me to go deeper into Burgundy. The Wine Advocate rated this wine 90-92 points.

Belle Glos Clark & Telephone Vineyard (Santa Maria Valley, CA) $43 85 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Notes:

Smoky. Some slight nail polish notes distract. A really nice wine but too many off notes. Definitely California.

Observations:

Wow. What a huge surprise to see a single vineyard Belle Glos show so poorly blind when I’ve found their wines to be so utterly (and reliably) delicious. I will say that the Clark & Telephone is my least favorite of the 3 single vineyard Pinot Noirs they produce (Las Alturas being the favorite, and Taylor Lane being the second favorite).

I was disturbed by this result so I opened another bottle of it the next night at home. While I can see why I wrote the things I did, when tasting on its own there’s no way I would have rated it this low. This wine has a unique style. It’s bold and yes some of the notes are a little less than pure fruit. I’d probably rate the bottle I tasted from at home 90 points. Blind tasting is humbling once again.

Kutch Savoy Vineyard Pinot Noir (Anderson Valley, CA) $68 85 WWP: Very Good

Tasting Note:

For a moment I thought this wine might be corked but it wasn’t. Pungent with fruit that’s muted and dominated by menthol (spearmint?) aromas. Low viscosity. Don’t think this is from California. Quirky.

Observations:

Perhaps more of a disappointment than the Belle Glos. I’d never tried Kutch before and I just finished a month-long search to acquire some. Now I’m wishing I’d shown more restraint. I’ve read that their wines used to be bigger but were showing more restraint in a Rhys-like manner lately. Come to think of it I wasn’t too thrilled with a bottle of Rhys I opened recently either. Definitely interested in trying more but will try my best not to fall under the spell of the pretty label.

Patricia Green Estate Pinot Noir (Oregon) $35 84 WWP: Good

Tasting Note:

Perfume nose. Falls a little flat on the palate. Kind of fake-tasting. Tastes like California but not high quality?

Observations:

Totally missed the mark here. I had a bottle of this (’08 vintage) and thought it was good but typical Oregon Pinot Noir. My tasting note makes it sound like I thought maybe this was the Castle Rock.

Montinore Estate Pinot Noir (Oregon) $28 78 WWP: Average

Tasting Note:

Not from California and possibly flawed. Smells of damp cellar floor or Home Depot near the fertilizer.

Observations:

Well, it wasn’t from California. I didn’t hear anyone else say TCA so I don’t think it was flawed. But it was funky.

Conclusions and Recommendations

What a tasting – full of winners and losers, surprises and shockers. Once again blind tasting proves to be a valuable tool for removing bias and analyzing wines without preconceived notions.

It was reassuring to see the Sojourn wines show well in this blind format. But not just for their brawn (some call them a Cab-drinker’s Pinot Noir) but for the diversity they showed. They’re definitely allowing the personality of each site to be reflected in their wines, but showing them in their best possible light. Like a portrait photographer.

The wines from Brewer-Clifton and Melville, along with some other recent favorable experiences from the region renew my enthusiasm for exploring Pinot Noir from Southern California. They’re often plush and forward but when done well like these they can be quite enjoyable.

Both the Sojourn Wohler and the Brewer-Clifton Clos Pepe showed well with the group.

The $18 Italian Pinot Noir tying for 1st in the group was quite an accomplishment. I liked it (but didn’t love it) and would be open to trying more Italian wine made from this grape.

The Domaine Eden (91 Wine Advocate, 91 WWP) is an intriguing play. I’d like to learn more about them.

If you like California Pinot Noir I’ll be writing up a trip report from a recent trip to Sonoma. I’d love it if you subscribed to the Wellesley Wine Press to hear about those visits.

Question of the Day: What do you think about these results? Or blind tasting in general?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/6V998H28m1c/winners-losers-surprises-and-upsets.html

Reading Portuguese Wine Labels How to Select Wines for Cooking Blended and Varietal Wines Types of Wine Bottles Great Bordeaux Wines Inexpensive Chardonnay from Argentine Gattinara

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2012/05/eat-beat-lemon-tart.html

Five Great Dessert Wines Ahnfeldt Merlot Napa Valley Five Inexpensive Champagnes How to Choose a Wine Club Vine Training Techniques Merlot Recommendations Under $10 Best Red Wine Regions in the World

Most of us depend on rice, pasta and potatoes as side-dish standbys.

However, there’s a world of other interesting grains out there to explore: couscous, quinoa, barley and bulghur, for example. They provide that carbohydrate kick with a twist, and a different texture or flavor is always worth a try. This guide will explain the differences between various grains, and try to inspire you to try something new.

Bulghur

Bulghur, a form of wheat, is the base of taboule salad.

A Middle-Eastern staple and the base of taboule salad, Bulghur refers to wheat kernels that have been boiled, dried and crushed. It is available in fine, medium and coarse grinds.

How to cook it: Put one cup of bulghur in a small pot with one and a half cups of water. Bring to a boil and then cover and turn heat down to a low setting. Cook for 15 minutes.

How to use it: Bulghur is good in salads, pilafs and meat and vegetable dishes.

Couscous

The spongy texture of couscous goes well with stews and saucy dishes.

Native to North African countries, couscous is a grain that’s often served with meat and vegetable stews. Its soft, spongy texture really absorbs sauce or liquid. Couscous granules come from semolina, which is the form of wheat that goes into making pasta. The great thing about couscous is that it takes six minutes to cook. Here’s startcooking.com’s tutorial on How to Make Couscous.

Quinoa

Quinoa is great in savory dishes and as an alternative to oatmeal.
Photo courtesy of Susan at Feasts and Fotos.

A grain native to the Andes, quinoa grains are actually the seeds of a leafy plant. Quinoa has a distinctive crunchy texture, and a slightly nutty flavor. In terms of nutrition, quinoa is rich in protein and it’s gluten-free. Look for quinoa in health food stores.

How to cook it: Bring one part of quinoa and two parts of liquid to a boil. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, until the grains are transparent.

How to use it: Quinoa is great as a warm side dish, mixed with seasonings and beans. It’s also good in salads, like this Quinoa and Black Bean Salad. For those looking for a change from oatmeal, here’s a recipe for Quinoa Porridge.

Barley (also known as groats)

Barley can be used as a base for many side dishes, including Pea Barley Risotto.
Photo courtesy of Kevin Lynch at Closet Cooking.

This grain, which comes from the grass family, is well known for its high fiber and health benefits. It’s important to remember to buy whole barley (or hulled barley), as opposed to pearl barley, which has been processed and is not considered to be whole grain.  Barley is well-known as an addition to soups and stews, but its chewy texture also makes it a great side dish.

How to Cook it: Use 2.5 to 3 cups of water per cup of hulled barley. Bring the water to a boil, then add the barley, cover the pot, reduce heat to low and cook for about 1.5 hours.

This Beef, Leek and Barley Soup from Smitten Kitchen, delicious!

Grandma’s Grain Recipe, makes a big batch of mixed, cooked grains that you can use to make hot cereal, or as a savory side dish.

Rice

Brown rice is chewier, nuttier and healthier than white rice.

Startcooking has tutorials on making white rice, brown rice and fried rice on the stove. It’s also possible to bake rice in the oven, as this recipe for Oven-baked Brown and wild Rice demonstrates. Keep in mind that brown rice is the healthiest choice.

Wild Rice

This is actually a kind of seed, rather than a grain. It’s got a hearty, chewy texture and is even healthier than brown rice, containing lots of protein, calcium, iron and potassium.

How to cook it: Cook one cup of wild rice with three cups of water. Bring the water to a boil, cover and simmer over low heat for 35 to 55 minutes (or until the water is absorbed).

How to Use it: Wild rice makes an excellent warm side dish, and is also delicious in cold salads. Pioneer Woman serves up an excellent tutorial for Fresh Corn With Wild Rice – a side dish she recommends for Thanksgiving.

What are Whole Grains?

Eating grains in their whole grain form (as opposed to their processed form) has been shown to have a host of health benefits. Studies report that regular consumption of whole grains reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and obesity. Refining processes typically remove 25 per cent of the typical grain’s protein and many other nutrients are lost.

Tips on Cooking Grains

• Although most grains will have cooking instructions on the package, here’s a handy guide to grain cooking times.
• Toasting grains before cooking will make them more flavorful. To toast the grains, spread them out in an even layer in a frying pan and heat for a few minutes. Stir them so that they don’t burn.
• Grains can be cooked in water or broth, or a combination of the two.
• Cooked grains keep for 3 to 4 days in the fridge.
• You can freeze any leftovers to use later.

Enjoy!

Source: http://startcooking.com/blog/549/

Serving Wine at the Right Temperature Brunello di Montalcino Silvaner Inexpensive Australian Dessert Wines What Are Organic Wines? Super Tuscans Quincy

Chicken Marsala is the name given to chicken cutlets topped with a gravy made from Marsala wine (which comes from Italy.) This recipe is also chock full of mushrooms! I used a combination of Shitake mushrooms….

…and Baby Bella mushrooms.

For the Marsala Sauce you will need:

• 1 pound of mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
• 1 Tablespoon of butter
• 1 clove of garlic, crushed
• 2 Tablespoons of flour
• 1/2 cup of Marsala
• 3/4 cup of chicken stock

To make the chicken cutlets you will need the following ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons of water
• 1 cup of dry seasoned bread crumbs
• 1 cup of flour (to dredge the chicken)
• 1 1/2 pounds of thin sliced boneless chicken breasts
• 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Step 1

Wash and slice the mushrooms. 
Crush the garlic. 
Measure out all remaining ingredients needed for both the chicken cutlets and the Marsala sauce.

Step 2

Cook the chicken cutlets according to my video on how to make Chicken Cutlets.

As you’ll see on the video, boneless chicken breasts need to be first coated (dredged) in flour, then eggs, then bread crumbs.

Once you have finished coating the chicken, be sure to THROW AWAY any leftover flour, egg, and bread crumbs. Raw chicken is filled with bacteria which makes the leftovers unusable.

Step 3

When the chicken is cooked, remove it from the pan and put it on a dish. Cover the dish with tin foil to keep the chicken warm.

Step 4

Melt 1 Tablespoon of butter in the same pan you cooked the chicken in.

Add 1 clove of crushed garlic….

…and the cleaned and sliced mushrooms, and cook for 1 minute over medium heat.

Stir in 2 Tablespoons of flour and cook for another 30 seconds.

Add 3/4 cup of chicken stock…

…and 1/2 cup of Marsala.

Stir until thickened and…

…continue cooking for another 4-5 minutes or until the mushrooms are tender.

Add some salt and pepper to taste and pour the sauce over the cooked chicken.

Enjoy!

Source: http://startcooking.com/blog/430/

Sparkling Wines Dehlinger Merlot Sonoma County Qupe Syrah Central Coast Falanghina Sherry Wines Barbara d Alba Sangiovese

Source: http://cookingforassholes.blogspot.com/2012/02/tacoquila.html

Auslese Inexpensive Italian Sweet Wines Sparkling Wine The Basics on Cooking with Wine Chiroubles Leonetti Merlot Washington Provençal Rosé

These savory Sausage Balls are great to serve to company! They are a hearty snack or hors d’oeuvre. This is not a light and delicate dish, so you might want to serve them with some fresh-cut vegetables and a healthy dip just to balance out the decadent versus healthy options you provide to your guests!

The original recipe for these savory treats has been around (supposedly) since the mid 1960’s. As a consequence, there are hundreds of variations to the recipe, which I’ll discuss at the end of this post.

For startcooking.com’s version of Sausage Balls you will need:

• 1 and 1/2 cups of flour
• 2 and 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 pound of hot sausage
• 10 ounces of cheddar cheese, extra sharp
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 can of non-stick cooking spray

I recommend using hot sausage because it adds a really nice zing to these sausage balls, but you could use a sweet Italian sausage, or even a spicy breakfast sausage. (Not all sausage meat has the same fat content which in turn does influence the final texture of these sausage balls.)

Be sure to bring the sausage to room temperature – it will make mixing these ingredients a lot easier.

Begin by mixing (with a whisk in a large bowl) the flour, the baking powder and the salt.

Now, remove the casings (the skin) from around the sausage meat and put the sausage meat into the mixing bowl. It is not necessary to pre-cook the sausage meat.

Shred 10 ounces of sharp cheddar cheese. You can use either white or yellow cheddar; just make sure it is “sharp”.

Then dice 1 medium onion. That will make about 1 cup of onions. (I describe how to Chop, Dice and Mince Onions here.)

Add the shredded cheese and the diced onion to the mixing bowl.

With your (clean!) hands mix everything together with both hands. The mixture will feel dry and could take about 4-5 minutes to get everything well mixed.

Spray a baking sheet with sides with non-stick cooking spray.

Scoop out about a tablespoon of the mixture with your fingers, or a measuring spoon. Roll it into a ball about 1 inch in diameter. This recipe will make approximately 5 and 1/2 dozen sausage balls. (This sounds like a lot, but I promise you they will go fast.)

You will have to bake them in two batches.

Set the balls on the baking sheet about 1 and 1/2 inches apart from each other.

Bake them in a 350-degree preheated oven for 15-18 minutes in total. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Remove the tray from the oven and with a spatula or a pair of tongs, turn them over. Return the tray to the oven and continue baking the sausage balls for another 7 minutes.

(They can be a bit delicate to turn. You may need to gently loosen them with a spatula before turning them over.)

Remove the tray from the oven, and if need be, with a spatula, loosen the sausage balls and place them on a plate lined with a paper towel to drain off some of the fat.

The sausage balls are now ready to be served as finger food, warm from the oven.

Preparing in Advance

Once these sausage balls have been made, you can freeze them before you bake them. Roll the mixture into balls as described above, and place them on a baking sheet lined with wax paper.

Cover them with plastic wrap and…

…freeze for several hours until they are hard. Remove them from the baking sheet and put the sausage balls in a freezer bag.

When you are ready to serve them, place them on a baking sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Let them defrost for 15 minutes and then bake them according to the instructions above.

Variations

Some sausage-ball recipes recommend adding 1/3 cup of milk or water, or 1 egg.

Other recipes call for garlic powder or fresh garlic, chopped green chilies, rosemary, thyme, oregano, or Tabasco sauce.

Some suggest that you serve the sausage balls with red pepper jam, or a mustard-mayonnaise sauce, or barbeque sauce.

Then there are some recipes that do not ask you to turn the sausage balls over half way through the cooking time. I think that they tend to get a bit over-cooked on the bottom this way.

Instead of the flour, baking powder and salt, 1 and 1/2 cups of Bisquick can actually be used for this recipe. Bisquick is a pre-mixed base for making things like biscuits, pancakes, and other baked goods. If you are new to cooking and do not have flour and baking powder in the cupboard, a small box of Bisquick may be the thing to purchase. You can always make pancakes with the leftovers! (Be sure to buy the “Heart Smart” version as it is free of trans fats).

Many recipes call for 3 cups of Bisquick, 1 pound of sausage, and 12 ounces of cheese. That’s it. I tried making these and found them to very dry and hard.

***

I do hope everyone at your party enjoys startcooking’s version of Savory Sausage Balls!

Source: http://startcooking.com/blog/339/

Fleurie French Study Says Wine Drinkers May Be Healthier Rioja Top Five Common Misconceptions About Wine Sushi and Wine Cooking with The Right Wine Scheurebe

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Petit Rouge Pinot Noir Nero d Avola Sparkling Wines Dehlinger Merlot Sonoma County Qupe Syrah Central Coast Falanghina

Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dailydish/2012/05/food-fyi-the-cost-of-junk-food-v-healthful-food.html

Top Australian Tawny Port Syrah California Wine Tasting Tour How Cork is Made Sparkling (Brut) Reading Italian Wine Labels Madeira Wines

Source: http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/thestew/2011/03/lthforums-great-neighborhood-restaurant-list.html

Xérès How to Cook with Wine Chenin Blanc Wines Frascati Secco Top Rated White Meritage from Napa Valley Letting a Red Wine Breathe Understanding Wine Labels

Awesome commercials and delicious food. That’s what the Super Bowl is really all about, right? Whether you’re a die-hard fan or just a fan of the party, here are some of my favorite recipes that would be perfect to serve up this Sunday. BBQ Nachos Rueben Dip Taco Skins Buffalo Chicken Puffs Piled High Chicken [...]

Thanks for reading! You can also follow me on twitter and http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CookingDuringStolenMoments/~3/QD0V7v1v1j0/

Bardolino Cava How to Choose Wine Dolcetto Meritage Prosecco Lambrusco

The problem with sleuthing out good wine under $10 is the recommendations usually come with provisos like, “This is pretty good for the price,” or “This isn’t bad for the style of wine.”  Rare is the time that a wine recommendation for vino under $10 is just, “This is a fantastic wine.”

Who can blame the wine recommender for their caveats and written sleights of hand when they’re left to tout the middling amongst the insipid; the redemptive within the felonious?  It’s like the back-handed compliment from the parents of an axe murderer who note plaintively from the front stoop, “He has a good heart.”

Adding insult to this injury, it seems like nearly all domestic wines under $10 are manipulated to appeal to a demographic.  Far too often, they are oak chipped to a formula, softened, vortexed and plumped back up into a wine beverage complete with a label that screams, “Benignly vague and blandly appealing.  I am inoffensive to a large group of people.”

And, forget about pairing under $10 bottles of vino with food.  Do so only if your idea of wine pairing centers on condiments with artificial coloring and HFCS, so duotone are the wine flavor profiles.

When it comes to what should be reliable international value wines, forget about it – most of them aren’t even has-beens, they never were.  France and Italy – I’m talking to you.  For a sawbuck, these are sad, middling, barely potable wines evocative of an athlete whose entire identity is wrapped up in jockdom, but for whom life’s fate never provided him acclaim beyond the local playground. The fact that these wines often taste like a sweaty gym sock may, in fact, be no small coincidence.

Harrumph. 

What I want is what most wine consumers want: A non-spoofulated wine with quality that stands on its own—a good wine at $9.99 that is a good wine, period.  No half-hearted caveats associated with it.  If the wine pairs with dinner, instead of being a digestif, all the better.  Tie me up, spank me and call me Shirley if this mystical and elusive under $10 wine also has any of the following characteristics: Organic, old vines, unfiltered, native yeast, judicious oak, and complexity whilst being food-friendly.

I’m pretty sure I won’t have to have any dalliances in the wine S&M dungeon save for one emerging country.

Recently, I started to see glimpses of where quality, inexpensive wines might be coming from in the future when I tasted through a sampling of wines from the Navarra region of Spain. One $5 bottle of wine was so screamingly good it defied the law of reason. 

And, then, I received a recommendation for Masia de Bielsa’s 2009 Garnacha, a Spanish wine from the Campo de Borja area in the Aragon region of Spain, southeast of Navarre and La Rioja.  Adam Japko, a wino friend and author of Wine-Zag, and I did some horse-trading on bottles and he threw in a bottle of wine in a wine shipment to me and noted, “Curious what you think of this…”

What do I think?  I think I owe you favors to last a month of Sundays for turning me onto a beauty.

Of course, wine recommendations don’t happen in a vacuum and the Masia de Bielsa 2009 Garnacha is no different even if it follows a certain circuitous Internet-borne dynamic that seems unusual even in this day and age of “brand vs. land, there are no secret wine values anymore…” online battle.

Jose Pastor is a wunderkind (30 years old) wine importer with a fast growing reputation amongst wine insiders for his portfolio of Spanish wines that are typically natural in style – producers who farm organically when possible, emphasize terroir, use ambient yeasts, filter sparingly and use minimal oak.  In other words, his wines, and especially his inexpensive wine selections, are the anti-brand.  Or, should I say, “They’re the antidote to brand wines.”  The good stuff. 

Jose’s wines won’t have an end-cap in stores with promotional materials, nor will they follow you on Twitter or ply you with faux-flattery for a “Like” on Facebook. Ditto that for Pastor playing the points scoring game.  He doesn’t do it. The wines and wineries in his portfolio simply represent something good and honest and rely on smart trade buyers who know good juice when they taste it and are interested in paying that forward to consumer’s one bottle at a time.

This formula isn’t a recipe for getting rich, but it is a recipe for long-term, slow-burning growth based on a purity of vision.

When Richard Schnitzlein, a longtime wine buyer in the greater Boston area, took over the wine section at Ferns Country store in Carlisle, MA in early 2011, he started to remake the selection of wines on offer and that meant much more diversity, spreading the selection from two distributors to 14 over a seven month period.

A part of that remaking was to engage Genuine Wine Selections, a wine distributor in Massachusetts, who carries the Jose Pastor portfolio.

When Genuine Wine Selections partner Dennis Quinn showed up at Ferns in the spring with samples to taste, the ’09 Bielsa was a part of the mix.

Enamored, Schnitzlein started stocking the wine.  “Initially (the Bielsa) was a hand sell, but (it) soon became a wine that people were asking for,” he noted.

Japko was turned onto the Bielsa from Schnitzlein and mentioned the Bielsa on his site in June.  A September Ferns promotion dropped the price on the Bielsa from $11.99 to 9.95 and that yielded 15 cases of the Bielsa moving through the door for Ferns including a stock-up from Japko.

Within a week of receiving my bottle from Japko, I had taken to the Internet to find this wine and I bought a ½ case online from Marketview Liquor in New York state who sells it for $7.99 a bottle.

I’ve gifted a bottle to a friend at work, and, well, I’m writing extensively about this vino, too – my own pay-it-forward juju for having been tipped off to this wine.

The moral of this story?  Finding a gem of a wine for $10 or under isn’t a hopeless process, but you do have to sift a lot of muck to find the gold nugget.  In my opinion, you’re more likely to find a gem by keeping your ears open for word of mouth recommendations from wine-inclined friends or a local wine shop then to take to the wine aisles of your supermarket wine section playing brand roulette.  Here, the internet and Wine-searcher.com is your friend, as well.  In addition, Spain is a country that is producing some excellent wines across all price tiers, and my very recent and very anecdotal track record at the lower-end has been very good.  And, finally, it pays to know people.  It pays to know what Jose Pastor is all about, and it pays to know the Richard Schnitzlein’s and Adam Japko’s of the world who freely share where to find the good stuff, even if finding the good stuff requires an Importer in California, a wine buyer in Massachusetts, a generous friend and internet ecommerce.

2009 Bielsa Vinas Viejas Garnacha

Huge, pure nose with mulberry juice, black cherry, orange peel, earth and a meaty savory quality that gives way to an expressive palate with plum, black cherry, spice and fresh squeezed orange juice.  The finish lingers with plum, pepper and earthiness.  This is a varietally correct, gorgeous, natural, unfiltered wine that screams for food and would be a bargain at 4X the price.  Highly recommended.  At under $10 a bottle, you’d be foolhardy not to find this wine.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/shut_the_front_door_a_vinsane_pay-it-forward_drinks_4x_the_price_wine_recom/

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I made this a couple of weeks ago. And suddenly, everything in my life made sense again. Who doesn’t love a BLT? See? Not one person raised his hand. Told ya. Here’s how I made mine.   The Cast of Characters: Bacon, bread, mayo, chipotle peppers, Roma tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, and (optional) cheese and avocado. Let’s do this thing.       I decided to do bacon the easy way: Put it on a…

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We recently made a pretty big switch to our dinnertime routine that has been awesome in the execution but a little difficult in the transition, at least for me. We bumped our dinnertime up an hour. Eric and I realized that if we did this, he could eat dinner with the family 5 nights a [...]

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The ever popular tuna salad sandwich is a standard on almost every sandwich shop menu. Clearly making your own tuna salad is a much more economical option than continuing to support your local deli!

Buying Canned Tuna

One 6-to-7 oz. can of tuna will give you two good-sized sandwiches.  One 6-to-7 oz. can of tuna can cost anywhere from approximately 89 cents to a high of about $3.00 depending on where you shop and the type you buy. Cans that say albacore tend to be more expensive than the ones that just say tuna.

When buying tuna, you are going to have to do some taste-testing to find your favorite tuna. The first thing to decide is do you want it packed in oil or water. Some people say there aren’t that many calories in oil-packed tuna, and they think oil adds to the taste. Others don’t like the taste of oily tuna fish, so they choose water packed tuna.  Not all tuna from a can has the same texture.  You may want to try different types and brands to find the one you like the best.

When I made my Salad Nicoise I splurged and bought imported tuna in a jar (shown below with some capers).  The chunky imported tuna, packed in olive oil, was expensive ($7) but worth every bite.

Plus the imported tuna looked fantastic in my Salad Nicoise!  For tuna salad sandwiches, stick to the less expensive tuna from the can.

Salad Nicoise

Making Tuna Salad

To make 2 tuna salad sandwiches you will need:

• 1-6-7 ounce can of tuna
• 1/4 cup of celery
• 3-4 Tablespoons of mayonnaise
• Salt and Pepper
• Bread

Both the oil and the water packed tuna need to be drained. The safest way is to do this is to put the tuna in a colander.

A second way of draining the tuna is after opening the can, press the lid into the can, so that all the water or oil drains out. You can do this right into the sink. (Be careful of the sharp edges on the lid of the can!)

Using a fork put the tuna in a small mixing bowl. Then break apart the tuna with the fork.

Wash one stalk of celery. Trim off the ends and cut it into thirds. Then cut each third into strips.

Line up the strips and start dicing the celery into 1/8 inch bits. (Dice means to cut into tiny pieces. It is smaller than “chop” and larger than “mince”.) Add the celery to the tuna.

Measure out slightly less than 1/4 cup of mayonnaise and add it to the tuna. The amount of celery and mayonnaise is totally adjustable to your taste. Mix everything together. Taste it and you decide if you want to add a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Lay two slices of bread on the cutting board. Put 1/2 of the tuna on one slice of bread and maybe even some lettuce if you have some in the refrigerator.

Put the second slice of bread on top.

Using a bread knife (one with a jagged or serrated edge) slice the sandwich in half using a sawing motion. Try adding potato chips and dill pickles on the side. They taste great with tuna salad!

Many different types of bread go well with tuna. Pita pockets are a fun alternative to slices of bread. To fill the pocket first cut the pita round in half.

You could then just stuff the pita with the tuna. I like to put the tuna on a lettuce leaf.

Then slide the tuna filled leaf of lettuce right into the bread.

It comes out picture perfect every time!

Enjoy!

Source: http://startcooking.com/blog/105/

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Tim Hayward’s programme on stock for Radio 4’s Food Programme this week extracted a wealth of information about the development of stocks and stock cubes, and piqued our interest in the subject.
Stock is one of those elements in cooking that is apparently simple but which takes attention and skill to make really well. Stock comes in a variety of guises, from a simple broth, to a clear-as-a-bell consommé.

 
It is a culinary fundamental that requires few ingredients and simple instructions – warning enough that ‘experience’ is the unnamed key ingredient. You start off with roughness; bones, carcasses, meat trimmings, crudely cut veg, a handful of herbs and you finish with complexity, savouriness, and a liquid which looks by turns silky and light-capturing. It’s cooking magic.

Professional chefs take great care over their stocks and have their own preferences. Thomas Keller excludes celery from his stocks, as it adds a bitter note. As a nonpareil for decadence, Marco Pierre White ordered in crates and crates of whole chickens, destined only for stock, for his 3-starred Oak Room restaurant. In 2011’s Great British Menu, Johnny Mountain aroused the disapproval of judge Marcus Wareing over his resistance to using fish heads in his stock for a bouillabaisse, stating fish heads had no place in his cooking. Marcus didn’t agree, and Johnny’s dish, sans heads, came off the loser.

It’s easy to see why the professionals take time and intense care over their stocks – they are the root of much that issues from the kitchen, most notably, stocks provide the base for sauces, the crowning glory of many dishes. The job of saucier in the kitchen is the highest in the brigade (pipped only by the sous- and head-chefs. During service, the saucier makes sure the sauces are on hand for the head-chef, ready to apply the final spoonful or drizzle to finish the dish. Stocks are the beginning of the eloquent finishing touch to the dish.

A head-chef applying sauce from, yes, a sauce-pan, to a dish on the pass, moments before being served to a customer

While we’re not delivering restaurant service in our homes, there are some fundamentals that are good to know, some rules which once known, you can riff over.

Dos and Don’ts:
The quality points you’re looking for in a stock are:

All these pointers will help achieve a clear, stock with good body and colour:

A stock is not a dustbin for all the manky veg and leftovers you have hanging around. To produce a good stock, you need good ingredients, but they don’t need to be premium: keep herb stalks and trimmings of meat and vegetables to make your stocks.
In brown stocks, good flavour will come from well browned meat – make sure your beef or veal bones have plenty of meat scraps on them, and that they are well roasted in pre-heated trays. Chicken wings are an excellent base for a brown chicken stock – providing heaps of flavour from a very humble joint. The cooking times will be long; 8 hours minimum for a veal or beef stock. It takes time for the flavours to marry and infuse into the liquid.
For lighter stocks, the cooking time is much shorter: fish stocks will be ready in 20 minutes, vegetable stocks in 45. The ingredients threaten to disintegrate and cloud the stock if cooked for much longer, and the flavour will suffer as a result.
Gelatin is an important component in stock, as it gives the liquid body. Using bones will impart gelatin to the stock, and is a key reason why bones are used, instead of just meat (aside from the cost issue). Fish stocks that use gelatinous bones from turbot and brill are considered the best.

Once you’ve got your stock, the choice is yours as to its use. Glâces and demi-glâces are the first port of call when making restaurant-esque sauces. A glâce is a reduction of the stock to 10% of its original volume. The result is a deeply flavoursome liquid that is used as the base of, or mixed into, other flavours to make sauces. A demi-glâce is a stock reduced to 25-40% of its original volume and is used widely in professional kitchens.

So rather than simply boiling up an old roast chicken carcass, give a little more time and devotion to your stocks. Your risotto (and soups, gravies, pies, stews) will thank you for it. And your sauces will be out of this world.
 

Try making chicken stock from browned chicken wings for a rich, succulent stock that will transform a risotto

Find out more about how to make stocks with our stock recipes:

• Vegetable stock
• Beef stock
• Chicken stock
• Fish stock

Listen again to Radio 4’s The Food Programme: In Praise of Stock

What’s your favourite way to make stock? And what dishes do you use it for?

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2012/03/take-stock.shtml

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Source: http://cookingforassholes.blogspot.com/2012/03/cooking-for-assholes-episode-1-elvis.html

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An excellent blog post popped up in my Flipboard Google Reader feed this morning. It has nothing to do with wine but it was useful, interesting and made me think a lot about the things I write about here on this blog.

The post is about procuring new wheels and tires for a BMW by Chris Parente. The steps Chris went though researching, ordering, tracking, negotiating, receiving and assembling the order were very familiar to me. They’re eerily similar to what we go through as wine deal hounds.

With the exception of installation, I do all of these things when I’m buying wine. Sure, there’s the occasional impulse buy at a local wine shop or grocery store, but the bulk of my buying these days is online, in response to email offers, or winery direct. Like Chris with his interest in specific wheels and tires, once you’ve gone Wine Berserkers you want very specific wines.

What I liked about the post is that he gave specific examples of resources he used and how he went about the process. I can see my way to leveraging his techniques and having a more enjoyable experience by getting better products and service at the best possible prices. Coincidentally, if I had once sentence to describe the mission of this blog that would be it.

What got me thinking the most about his post, though, is the question of whether it’s worth it. Or rather, whether I’m interested in getting into another high involvement hobby. You can tell how much time and research went into tires and wheels for one of his cars – imagine extending that across the entire enthusiast experience. You’ve got to want it and it’s got to be a priority to do it well.

I spend hours each week thinking about wine. Reading articles, blogs, consulting and contributing to CellarTracker, looking for deals on wine-searcher.com. Buying it, drinking it, visiting wineries, attending events – writing about it.

When I need new tires or wheels I just got down to DirectTire and they take care of it. Similarly when I needed a new bike for our 7 year old recently. We just went to a couple shops nearby and bought what seemed to be a good fit for our needs. And maybe that’s fine for the occasional purchase. Spend the time saved burning up the web for the best deal on healthier pursuits. Life in balance, right?

But I wouldn’t mind being more savvy in more domains. And that’s why I enjoy acquiring and sharing knowledge via blogs and social networks. Mainstream publications just don’t cover this stuff in a way that’s as focused on the consumer experience.

You can’t go too deep into too many hobbies. But you can learn a little from someone who’s deep in a topic and can share useful information. Chris does that and reading his post reminded me to try to do a little more of that here on this blog.

Check it his blog here: Work, Wine and Wheels
You can follow Chris on Twitter: @cparente

I’d love it if you SUBSCRIBED to The Wellesley Wine Press

PS This post was written on an iPad with Blogsy.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/LXDniNUTpz4/on-being-enthusiast-and-sharing-useful.html

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The Boston Wine Festival at the Boston Harbor Hotel featured the Wagner Family of Wines this past week. A seminar with six Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignons from 1990-2009 proceeded a paired dinner featuring other Wagner Family wines.

Representing the winery was Joseph Wagner, son of Chuck Wagner of Caymus fame. Along with his three siblings, Joe represents the next generation of Wagner winemakers and is responsible for the current direction of their Pinot Noirs (Belle Glos and Meiomi) and the future direction of their red wines.

Unlike Mondavi, which chooses to market all of their wines under lines bearing the family name, the Wagner Family of Wines contains a fleet of individual brands: Caymus (Cabernet), Belle Glos (single vineyard Pinot Noir) and Meiomi (appellation Pinot Noir), Mer Soleil (Chardonnay), and Conundrum (entry level white and recently red blends).

Recent campaigns seek to tie these brands together. For me, having enjoyed their wines over the years and after this tasting, the common thread is delicious fruit forward wine that delivers value and enjoyment at each price point they compete at.

I’d never been to an event at the Boston Wine Festival before. This is not to be confused with the Boston Wine Expo which is (primarily) a large tasting that occurs in January. The Wine Festival is a series of paired wine dinners at the five-star Boston Harbor Hotel prepared by chef Daniel Bruce.

The evening started off with a sit-down seminar moderated by Joe Wagner featuring six vintages of Caymus Special Selection from 1990-2009. Two Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignons have been named Wine Spectator Wine of the Year: The 1990 ($75 release price) and the 1984 ($38 release price – doesn’t that sound nice?).

Wagner described a style shift in Napa Cab in the late ’80s/early ’90s where many producers stopped trying to emulate Bordeaux in California – Caymus included. Perhaps the most notable difference between Caymus and Bordeaux is how enjoyable Caymus is immediately upon release. A question from attendees along these lines asked what the optimal age for enjoying Caymus Special Selection is. Joe said it was a matter of personal preference. Their wines are meant to be enjoyable on release and to evolve and develop over time. His preference is to enjoy Special Selection at 7 years after vintage.

Caymus has been one of the most reliably outstanding producers of Napa Cab over the past twenty years. Here is a chart showing the ratings Wine Spectator gave their Napa Valley and Special Selection bottlings since 1990 (click to enlarge):

These days the Special Selection carries a retail price of $130 (29,000 cases produced) and the Napa Valley retails for $68 (71,000 cases produced). With these higher production levels they’re definitely available at retail outlets – including your favorite deep discounters. The Special Selection seems to bottom out around $99 and the Napa Valley around $59. If you can find them for less, buy ‘em!

According to Wagner, the difference between the Napa Valley and Special Selection is that the special selection comes from the best lots, has a more substantial oak regiment, and is intended to be a classier wine.

At the seminar we tasted through six Caymus Special Selection Cabernets from 1990-2009. Here are my notes on the wines:

1990 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon
Wine Spectator Wine of the Year 1994

Perfume, florals, caramel, toasty oak, super-well integrated. Slightly skunky – strange. Reminds me of the smell of oak in a cellar. Aged in 100% French Oak 2-3 years.

90/100 WWP: Outstanding

1994 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Sour cherry, plum. Easy drinking. Cellar oak. Lots of sediment.

90/100 WWP: Outstanding

1997 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Huge jump in style here from the 1994. “A stellar year in Napa.” Cinnamon. Pleasant. Right in the middle of the age spectrum.

92/100 WWP: Outstanding

2002 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Nice initially but falls off a bit on the mid-palate. Pretty nose, but I don’t know if I like it enough to see how it’s a $100 wine. Substantial sediment.

90/100 WWP: Outstanding

2005 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Cola, black currant, vanilla, and dark fruit. Really nice stuff. Like this one a lot. This is at the 7 year mark Wagner mentioned and I love it. 

94/100 WWP: Outstanding

2009 Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon

Fresh and inviting. Lively young primary fruit. Cream soda. Quite sweet. Absolutely delicious but this is pushing it even for me. Wow – it’s tasty though. This is so utterly different from the 1990 it’s almost hard to compare. 

92/100 WWP: Outstanding

The trend here for me is similar to what I’ve experienced as I’ve tasted other aged Napa Cabs: There are diminishing returns after 10 years. I agreed with Joe Wagner’s preference that the wine was showing at its best 7 years post-vintage. The wines are good upon release. They change substantially in the next couple years. Then they begin a slow progression into a very soft and less substantial presence than they had on release.

I discovered something interested as I was pulling the Spectator ratings for the plot above. I found that James Laube had re-tasted these wines with regularity as part of retrospective tastings.

Notice in the plot below how all of the re-tastings were lower than the wines were rated on release. It makes me think twice before saving this style of wine for special occasions in the distant future in hopes that the wines improve significantly with age.

Conclusions and Next Steps

It was a treat to taste through these wines and get a feel for how they’ve evolved stylistically and aged. They’re reliably delicious special occasion wines. I brought a bottle of 2008 Special Selection on a recent Disney Cruise we went on. It was gorgeous. Couldn’t believe how quickly that bottle was drained. (Full review of the cruise here if you’re interested)

The Caymus brand is a staple at nicer restaurants, regularly featured alongside Cakebread and Silver Oak. See how it fared in this Steakhouse Cab Blind Tasting.

Further Reading: The second half of this evening where we tasted the rest of the Wagner Family of Wines paired with dishes from Chef Daniel Bruce.

I’d love it if you subscribed to the Wellesley Wine Press to keep in touch.

Disclosure: I attended the event on a complimentary blogger pass.

Question of the Day: What do you think of Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon? What’s your rule of thumb in terms of aging Napa Cab for maximum enjoyment?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/CMY7JeUVhS0/event-report-wagner-family-of-wine-at.html

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Prunus x subhirtella ‘Fukubana’

If you thought there wasn’t much to look at outside at this time of year – think again. Dozens of beautiful trees and shrubs are at their colourful best in December and into early spring and here are some of my favourites.

Flourishing in the coldest part of our Derbyshire garden are some of the winter flowering cherries. Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’ bears flutters of white flowers throughout winter from November till Easter; it’s close relative, Prunus subhirtella ‘Rosea’ is similar with soft pink flowers.

The subtle difference, apart from the colour, which I have noted over the years is that the white form usually has a few flowers virtually continuously during winter unless the weather is exceptionally cold whereas the pink clone has bolder flushes of flowers off and on during this period.

Prunus mume ‘Beni-Chidori’

Elsewhere in our arboretum, Prunus subhirtella ‘Fukubana’ is growing into a small tree bearing delicate, semi-double rose pink flowers sometimes as early as February during mild winters and the Japanese Apricot, Prunus mume ‘Beni-Shidare’, is now a small, distinctly lollipop shaped tree flowering in late winter or early spring when its’ rich carmine pink flowers exude a powerful perfume.

Three , perhaps more unusual choices for flowering winter interest are the Golden Alder Alnus incana ‘Aurea’, Persian Ironwoods Parrotia persica and Parrotiopsis jacquemontii, both surprisingly members of the witch hazel family.

The Golden Alder is a slender, rather smaller tree than wild alders with soft yellow foliage all summer and really conspicuous bright yellow, flushed red catkins often during the harshest weather.

Parrotia persica ‘Vanessa’

The best selection of ironwood, Parrotia persica ‘Vanessa’ has a myriad of breathtaking autumn colours, indeed the clonal name “Vanessa” refers to the genus of butterflies which includes red admirals. During winter it bears clusters of velvety crimson flowers, interesting rather than showy but yet more interest for the winter garden.

Parrotiopsis jacquemontii is a large shrub or small tree, preferring a woodland garden and bears conspicuous creamy white flowers in late winter or early spring, rather like small versions of the American or Chinese flowering dogwoods.

Arguable the finest winter flowering shrubs or very small trees, witch hazels, will break into full blossom during the New Year. As a young nurseryman in the seventies, there were very few varieties available; nowadays you could find over 100 cultivars in specialist collections.

Witch hazels are hardy, surprisingly wind tolerant and suitable for most situations other than shallow soils over chalk. They have one real need, good drainage and they absolutely won’t tolerate wet feet!

Despite all the improvements, Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’ is rightly still a firm favourite with its’ strap-like, sulphur yellow flowers and a deliciously sweet perfume. Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’ is still one of the best red flowered varieties and also has fiery autumn colours but little scent. A recent introduction, Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Aurora’ has especially bold strap like, scented orange yellow flowers and fantastic autumn colour.

Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Pallida’

Looking now at smaller plants, already the first few buds of winter sweet, Chimonanthus praecox and the Nepalese Daphne bholua are just opening as I write in mid December, their perfume is heavenly, you’ll never buy anything that smells so good in a bottle!

Other woody plants will soon burst forth shortly after the New Year, one of my favourites is the winter flowering honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima and Lonicera x purpusii ‘Winter Beauty’ (both completely indistinguishable to me). This tough, hardy, semi-evergreen shrub is one of the very few plants which will actually perform better in a cold, exposed and open situation. There it will become completely deciduous and far showier as the flowers can’t hide behind the foliage.

Connoisseurs might look out for the very rare Lonicera elisae. Sadly this winter flowering species (the first buds are already opening) lacks fragrance but the ivory white flowers are much bolder than Lonicera fragrantissima and, during the summer months the young foliage is flushed with chocolate purple.

Robert Vernon the Younger, is the owner of Bluebell Arboretum and Nursery in south Derbyshire.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/gardening/2011/12/winter-flowering-trees-and-shr.shtml

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