An Armenian Wine Tasting

Posted on November 14, 2019 by thewineraconteur

I had the pleasure to attend a wine tasting featuring wines from Armenia.  The event was to raise money in the celebration of the Seventieth Anniversary of The Michigan Home for the Armenian Aged and it was held the Banquet and Conference Center at St. John Armenian Church.  There are four Armenian churches in the metropolitan Detroit area to handle most of the Armenians that have settled here after the years of genocide and forced displacements.   Armenia may be a small country, but they are a proud nation, after all, it was Armenia where Noah’s Ark landed at Mount Ararat.  They are the first nation to become Christian in the annals of mankind and they have suffered ever since, because they are the only Christian country surrounded by people that believe it is proper to kill men, women and children that are of a different religion, and they all feel that enslaving people is just.  In spite of a long history of determination and strife, they are considered one of the first, if not first people to make wine, some of the adjoining countries try to make that claim, but if your religion does not allow drinking, how much wine can be made and enjoyed?  My Favorite Daughter a little while ago, found the perfect gift for me, bottle of Zorah Karasi 2012 from Rind in Armenia. Karasi means “from amphora” the way that beverages were stored and aged centuries ago in large clay vessels (amphorae). Zorah Karasi and their first wine was a tribute to 6,100-year wine tradition in Armenia. During excavations of “Karmir Blur” or Red Hill near the capital city of Yerevan in Armenia four hundred ancient wine barrels were found. The other more interesting find was in the excavations of Areni-1 cave in the Yeghegnadzor region they found the world’s oldest winery and the first historical evidence of wine making on an industrial scale. The vineyards of Zorah in the small village of Rind are in the heart of Yeghegnadzor region and continue the tradition of the earlier vintners of antiquity.

Now as I leave my soap box and go back to discussing the wine tasting.  It was an Armenian affair and it was a fun event.  There was live music to keep everyone festive and it gave me a chance to actually see some of my Social Media friends.  The food was from an outside caterer for the event and there were tables arranged around the room with different Armenian delicacies.  There was a Vegetarian table, there was a Cheese and Charcuterie table, there was a table of appetizers, a table of assorted entrée dishes and of course a Sweet Table with coffee.  By happen-chance, I ended up seated almost adjacent to the table with the Entrée selections, and it takes a lot of will power, not to just keep taking a plate and loading it up with stacks of lamb chops, and of course there were no doggie bags in sight. 

From the original brochure that we received by post, I thought that there was going to be one winemaker featured, of course, it is not the first time that I had been wrong and it won’t be the last either. There were eight winemakers featured and Zorah was not one of them.  There were sixteen wines being featured.  My only complaint was that there was not a formalized wine tasting, there were several tables intermingled between the food tables featuring two to four different wines.  Alas in this setting, it was easy to miss a wine, as you forgot which table you had finished and which table was not finished.  I also realized too late that I could have done the tasting in a more logical (wine approved) sequence.  Fear not, as The Wine Raconteur maintained his eccentric behavior in front of his relatives (there were a few), friends (there were a few) and strangers (there were plenty of new people to meet) as I was arranging a glass of wine and a bottle wine for a photograph.  We were given a wine glass for tasting, but somehow I acquired several and my seat at a dinner table kind of had a wine tasting appearance to it, because I was writing the name of the wine on a napkin and then placing a glass of the wine on the napkin, so that I could go back and forth, between water and crackers to taste the wines several times.

I will start off with two wines, where the winemaker is only represented once at the tasting.  I will start with sparkling wine, as that is usually the first wine that one that I usually encounter at a tasting.  I will discuss Karas Wines Dyuitich Ararat Valley NV; the Armenian diaspora took the Eurnekian family to Argentina and wine making in the Patagonia region.  They have four-hundred hectares devoted to vineyards in Armavir on volcanic soil.  The wine is pure Muscat and hand harvested and pressed and after a twenty-four period of fermentation, the fermentation is stopped by cold refrigeration and then the juice is placed in special pressure tanks for thirty days.  The color was golden with bubbles, but not a steady stream, and the nose belied how sweet this wine was.  It was not my preferred glass of bubbly, but I could see a market for it.  Since I started with the first, I will finish with the last, not in wine tasting procedure, but last for after dinner, a dessert wine.  The 365 Wines Pomegranate NV was a natural fruit wine from the Edvag Group located in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.  365 Wines produce a couple of more different natural fruit wines and they also produce a couple of wines made from grapes.  When I got my first bottle of Armenian wine, I was doing some research and discovered that beyond the local varietals that are Armenian, Pomegranate wine is very popular among the populace.  I saw and heard some grimacing and complaints about this wine, but I think the individuals were thinking that it was a grape wine, but it was lighter and the nose did not remind me of fresh pomegranates either.  The color alone should have been an indication, because it was kind of a rusty brown to my eye and not the color I would have expected, as I know that Pomegranate Juice is what is used to dye Maraschino Cherries.  Actually, as a dessert wine it was not that bad, as it was not as sweet as the sparkling wine from Karas.   There are more wines to be discussed from the tasting.

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A Night at Andiamo

Posted on November 12, 2019 by thewineraconteur

It was going to be the last night that we would see My Favorite Daughter, as all good things come to an end.  She was able to see some of the weather that she misses, since she lives in the dessert, like rain and gray skies.  We have never had that problem since we actually get to experience all four seasons, though some seasons like to last longer than others. 

We were going to meet for dinner at Andiamo Ristorante in Dearborn, which was the old Chicago Road House for ever, if you were a local in that part of the Metropolitan Detroit area.  I was surprised that My Favorite Daughter said that she had never been to either location, and I don’t know how I missed that.  We started off the meal with the House Salad, and I have always been partial to when there is more than just lettuce, kind of like what we always had at home and a Creamy Garlic dressing, and my Bride went with Pasta Fagioli and a heaping helping of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.   My Bride had a plate of Agnolotti, a handmade pasta filled with ground veal, beef and pork in a wild mushroom-basil crème sauce.  My Favorite Daughter and I both had a special version of Gnocchi with Black Squid Ink and lobster meat, it was very tasty, but it was a dry dish, meaning that it had no sauce, which surprised us, and she quickly requested a side of Sauce Alfredo and if I had thought about it quicker, I would have probably asked for a side of Aglio e Olio, but I didn’t and I survived and the dish was still very filling and savory.  We then kind of picked at her Chocolate cake for dessert. 

My Bride started off with a split of Le Grand Courtage Grande Cuvee Brut Rosé NV a pretty pinkish salmon colored sparkling wine and very refreshing.  The winery is owned and managed entirely by women with the intent of making affordable and quality sparkling wine. The wine is produced in Nuits-Saint-Georges and the fruit is harvested from the Burgundy, Beaujolais the Loire Valley regions.  The wine is a blend of Chardonnay, Gamay and Ugni Blanc and produced in Stainless Steel and this split has a screw cap, so there was no “pop” when the bottle was opened.  I started off with Domaine Pascal & Mireille Renaud Macon-Villages 2017.  The appellation Macon-Villages is for the white wines of the Maconnais located around Macon. This particular Domaine has twenty-five acres scattered through the villages of Pouilly, Solutre and Davaye and this wine is made in Stainless Steel for a crisp Chardonnay. The appellation Macon-Villages is a step above the basic Macon appellation.  After the whites came Giuliano Rosati Valpolicella Ripasso Superiore 2016, what some like to call a baby Amarone, because they both use the Ripasso method of laying certain overripe grapes to dry almost like a raisin to concentrate the sugar and then later added to the mix. The wine is a blend of Carvinone, Corvina and Rondinella and aged in oak.  It had a good color, great nose with some dark fruit, and some licorice and ended with a good finish of spices.  A nice affordable wine, that I think I would like better with food as I think it complimented the meal so well. I did see My Favorite Daughter one more time, but just for a quick visit, as she went with my Bride for Sushi and Thai for dinner, the next evening and as I had a different evening planned, so it will be awhile before we see her again. 

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A Full Day with My Favorite Daughter

Posted on November 10, 2019 by thewineraconteur

Royale with Cheese, Delray and Cariera’s all in one day.  I guess I was trying to make the most of seeing My Favorite Daughter while she was in town.  I picked her up and we decided to have lunch first and we went to a popular place that is relatively new in the gentrified section of Midtown Detroit called Royale with Cheese, and I thought the name would slip by her, but she is a fan of Quentin Tarantino and she knew the reason behind the name of the restaurant that we went to and why it is called that.  The area all around the restaurant was packed and we finally found a parking spot, thankfully I grew up in the city and could remember how to parallel park, which is kind of a lost art in the suburbs.  In case you don’t know in France, McDonald’s calls their Big Mac, the Royal with Cheese.  While my daughter was admiring the architecture of the old homes and apartments, I was remembering how this was not even a nice area during daylight, when I was in High School and College, and how things have changed.   I rather stuck out like a sore thumb, as I did not have the required lumberjack beard and it was obvious that I was not a local.  We shared a Southwest Royale Wrap that was marinated free-range grilled chicken, Arcadian Harvest Mix, Southwest Corn Relish, avocado, Cajon Aioli in a flour tortilla.  We also split an order of Royal Fries that had a fresh herb and garlic-Parmesan pesto drizzle with Cajun, sea salt, cracked pepper and smoky barbecue spices. That with a couple of pops (sodas if you are not a Detroiter) was enough to hold us until dinner.  One places the order for the food and pays at one counter and then they give you a numbered sign to take with you and they will bring the order out, and the curious thing was that they told us to ignore the “Reserved” table signs that were on every table.  We also sat under a large mural that was painted, in case one did not relate to the name of the restaurant. 

The reason we were in the Midtown section of Detroit, is that I wanted to take My Favorite Daughter to see a new exhibit at the Detroit Historical Museum about Delray and Southwest Detroit, the borough that was absorbed into Detroit and where I was born and that my children heard countless stories about from all of their relatives and not just Dear Old Dad.  Somewhere along the way, the museum stopped being funded by the City of Detroit and was now run by a charitable organization for the benefit of the museum.  The museum really had not changed that much from the days when I would visit it on a more frequent schedule, as it is next to the Main Library and across the street from the Detroit Institute of Arts.  I was a little disappointed in the special exhibit, as I thought that they had expanded the geographical boundaries of Southwest Detroit from when I was a kid, and that they also neglected to mention some of the other nationalities that were found in the real “melting pot” known as Delray.  It was fun and interesting, but I did mention my complaints to one of the workers at a desk, who seemed interested in my observations.  We then left and took a scenic tour of Midtown to Downtown and then through Detroit as we were going to meet my Bride for dinner.

We all met up at Cariera’s just as they were opening up the doors.  My Bride started off with soup, while we had the house salad.  My Favorite Daughter had the Lobster Ravioli, the ravioli was stuffed with lobster and cheese with a Parmesan cream sauce.  My Bride surprised me and wanted a Deep-Dish Pizza with several toppings.  I went with the Vitello Aragosta, Veal Scaloppini sautéed with asparagus, roasted red pepper and lobster meat in a blush cream sauce.  The birthday girl finished off with a dessert, that we just kind of nibbled off of.  We had a bottle of Brancaia Tre Toscana IGT 2015, which usually on a wine carte will be called a Super Tuscany.  In the Tuscany region of Italy, Brancaia is a new kid on the block as it was founded in 1981 and it has three vineyards, two in the Chianti Classico zone and one in the Maremma area, and they are known for their modern looking labels instead of the more traditional ones that is expected from the region and this wine carries the Toscana IGT designation, while the two vineyards in the Chianti Classico zone is devoted to Sangiovese, the vineyard in Maremma is planted with Bordeaux varietals and some Sangiovese as well.  The Brancaia Tre is a blend, of which eighty percent is Sangiovese and ten percent is Merlot and ten percent is Cabernet Sauvignon.  Two thirds of the wine are aged in oak, while the other third is aged in concrete for a period of twelve months and then an additional two months in the bottle before release.   For a moderate priced wine, even in a restaurant, this wine really delivers a nice experience and pairs very well with food.  The perfect way to end a nice day and all the activities.

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“Asiatic”

Posted on November 8, 2019 by thewineraconteur

Asiatic in today’s Politically Correct society is probably not acceptable, but it is a word that I remember from the great theatrical play and then film called “Mr. Roberts” starring Henry Fonda. It is just a word that has kind of found a hiding spot in some recess of my brain and keeps other words from getting a toehold in my gray matter.  Over the years I have written many times that I do not usually go to Asian restaurants, because of the heavy reliance on Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a food enhancer, that makes me ill, it is also a reason that I seldom eat at weddings, because so many caterers use it as well, and this always drives my Bride crazy; of course there are plenty of things that I do that can drive her crazy.  Well to her credit, she has found a couple of restaurants that do not use MSG, and I will go along, though it is not in the realm of my comfort food.  With Ms. Yoga in town, I met the two of them in the afternoon, after they had gone shopping at P.F. Chang’s.  In the 1960’s Cecilia Chiang had two restaurants, and the second one was in Beverly Hills, California and it was successful.  Her son Philip took over the administration of the business and continued with success.  The first one in Los Angeles was called Mandarette and the newer one was called Mandarin.  Mandarette was a special treat for an Arizona restauranteur named Paul Fleming and he and Philip Chiang created a new restaurant called P.F. Chang’s in 1993 and today there is over three-hundred restaurants across the United States and in twenty-five countries around the globe.  The wok is the star in the kitchen, but the food is all fresh and their credo is “Farm to Wok.”

We were ordering all sorts of food, and I guess before America was doing Tapas, they were doing Chinese food sharing, as it seems that sharing is the norm.  The other thing that really gets my Bride excited, is that she can show the world that she can use chop sticks, and don’t look at me, as I prefer a knife, fork and spoon.  The first dish that I will mention was an appetizer plate, as they didn’t offer it as an entrée, but I did share, and that was Rick’s Northern-Style Spare Ribs dry rubbed with Chang’s five-spice seasoning.  There was an order of Hand-folded Crab Wontons with a creamy crab filling, bell pepper and green onions.  Orange Peel Shrimp with a Hunan chili sauce and fresh orange slices, which I have to admit tasted better than it sounds.  Miso Glazed Grilled Salmon with Asian mushrooms, wok-seared spinach, bok choy and garlic-ginger aromatics along with sides of Shrimp-fried rice and brown rice.  There was enough food to satisfy the three of us.

I can assure you, that we also had a bottle of wine to quench our thirsts, and we knew that there really was an unlimited supply at home afterwards, in case anyone was still thirsty.  The P.F. part of the association assured that there would be some interesting popular priced wines.  We started with Bodegas Fillaboa Albarino 2013 from Rias Baixas DO in the Galicia region of Spain.  Rias Baixas is a relatively new DO in Spain as it was granted in 1988 and it focuses on Albarino.  Bodegas Fillaboa is one of the oldest estates in Galicia and they have seventy-four hectares devoted to Albarino in twelve separate plots.  Bodegas Fillaboa also produces liquors based on their Albarino that has been converted and distilled into three different brandies.    The wine had a pretty golden color with a good nose and complimented the assorted foods on the table.  It is always fun to go out, and I am trying to expand what I eat, the exploring new wines is the easy part.

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A Day of Meze

Posted on November 6, 2019 by thewineraconteur

If any of you are Scrabble players or Crossword Puzzles, the word “meze” is probably a word that you have encountered.  The words origin is lost in the annals of the world, but to the Armenians it means to eat multiple small plates of food and usually accompanied by wine or beer.  The Armenian nation was the first Christian nation and that truly differentiates them from the surrounding countries where they only drink secretively.  The Armenians have enjoyed their lives even under the constant threat of death and beheadings.  So, why do I bring this up?  One of the days Ms. Yoga was staying with us, my Bride had to attend a conference for one of the charitable groups that she belongs to in her church, and I was going to go to my church for their annual bazaar to get some Armenian dishes that we normally don’t have.  

I ended up sitting with Ms. Yoga in the breakfast nook and we began noshing on chips and salsa and stuff like that.  We also started reminiscing about “penny candies” and all the different brands, and some are still on the market, and supposedly one is going to return to the market.  I mean it is great to be nostalgic especially with people that have common memories.  We even started talking about the days of real black licorice, and then, because we were from Canada, I remembered boxes of assorted licorice candies called “Allsorts” from England, but I haven’t seen them in years, but Ms. Yoga says she has seen them down her way, which got me excited.  Well, then my Bride called and found that we were having fun and that I never got to the bazaar, so she went and bought the Armenian dishes that I was supposed to get like Lahmajoon, a delicate thin dough individual size “pizza” that is topped with ground lamb, tomato paste, garlic, onions and parsley, Katah, a breakfast roll that I remember my Grandmother making that was totally labor intensive and was basically butter and flour (though I am sure that there is more to the ingredients, I am just too lazy to look up the recipe), Paklava (the Armenian spelling of Baklava), and Dolma or stuffed grape leaves.  After my Bride brought all of those goodies home, we all got in the car and went to the Cheese Lady that I talked about before and we loaded up on some more cheeses, and I found some Peppadew Dip, and we mentioned that we used to buy stuffed Peppadew peppers in Las Vegas, but then that store closed that we used to go to.  The lady that was helping us, told us that we could get the peppers prepped for stuffing at a specialty market in the same complex that we were in, we were in Seventh Heaven, because my Bride stuffed them as soon as we got home.  By the way, we were all stuffed just from all of this food for the meze, and just a lot of laughing and having a good time. 

It would not be a night of meze, if we didn’t have wine and this would be a terrible article.   We had a few wines that evening and one of them we have had before in a restaurant and then got some more from our wine club was Domaine Laroque Cabernet Franc, IGP Cite de Carcassonne 2017.  The IGP classification replaced the old Vin de Pays to make France align to the other members of the Common Market.   The IGP Cite de Carcassonne is a large area in the Languedoc region and encompasses eighteen communes and allows all three colors of wines.  The average age of the vines for this wine is twenty-five years, and this area has been producing wines from the Sixth Century.  The soil in this area is clay and limestone and hillside vineyards.  The wine is a very pretty red very easy to drink, and it really opened up after the second glass was poured.  The other wine that I will discuss from that evening was from my other wine club and it was Scheid Vineyards Reserve Claret 2012.  I enjoy the fact that they refer to their wine as a Claret and thus avoid the term “Meritage” though I often wonder which word works better in the marketing world.  This Reserve Claret is fifty percent Cabernet Sauvignon, twenty-three percent Petit Verdot, twenty-two percent Malbec and five percent Cabernet Franc.  Each varietal is handpicked and destemmed as they mature to ripening and then each varietal spends two weeks in an open top fermenter.  Each varietal is then aged for thirty-four months in a mix of sixty-three percent American Oak and the balance in French Oak.  The final selection of the wines is then blended and bottled unfiltered and laid to rest for an additional twenty-six months.  There were three-hundred-fifteen cases produced of this wine with a suggested aging potential of an additional ten to fifteen years.  This was an excellent bottle of wine with a nice long finish of dark fruits and a nice balanced offering of tannins that was just awesome with all the small plates.  Just a very fun and lazy day, except for my Bride who was rather busy and hectic.  

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Ms. Yoga is in Town

Posted on November 4, 2019 by thewineraconteur

One of my recurring characters is paying us a visit, actually she is in town for business, but her command center will be in at our house.  Ms. Yoga and my Bride go back long before I was on the scene, but I did meet them both on the same event and we have been having fun ever since.  A long-convoluted story of how the two of them met, which makes them both crack up, is for another time or maybe never, depending on how reminiscences go.  Let us say that it is always a good time. 

My Bride went to the airport to pick up Ms. Yoga, and then she called me, as we worked out a carryout order of Lebanese food.  Even though Ms. Yoga was originally from Dearborn, her family moved out from there years before Dearborn became an emirate.  She was a little hesitant about the food, as the Arabic cuisine is not that good, where she is from, but we know that where we were going to order the food from, it is rather Armenian without the proper zing, but it is much better compared to other Middle Eastern restaurants; and Armenia is considered a European nation.  We ended up ordering Vegetarian Stuffed Grape Leaves, Sautéed Chicken with Hummus, Fattoush Salad, Lamb Sautee with Rice Pilaf and a House Salad as well.  Of course, we ordered way more food, but then I guess we were all hungrier than we thought, and the food was delicious.  Ms. Yoga was amazed at the quality and the amount of food that was packaged in the different containers. 

Well with all that food we had to have some beverages to wash it down, and both of the ladies enjoy white wines, see what I learn over the years?  We started off with a killer bottle of wine Young Inglewood Michael Mara Vineyard Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast 2014.  This is the one wine that is not estate grown from Young Inglewood which is in Napa Valley, and in fact if you noticed, it is not even from Napa Valley, but from the Sonoma Coast. Steve Mathieson of Michael Mara Vineyards is the wine mentor for Young Inglewood and he has a dedicated area that his fruit is harvested from each year, because of the friendship.  The hand-harvested clusters were gently pressed whole overnight and two-thirds of the juice was aged in French Oak, and one-third in Stainless Steel. The juice was aged Sur Lie for sixteen months without racking, fining or filtering. Only twenty-five cases of this wine were produced. This wine had a great nose, too bad that every Chardonnay wine does not, a beautiful light gold color, decent legs and a long finish.  After that wine we had another Chardonnay, Scott Family Estates Arroyo Seco Chardonnay 2016 and another excellent bottle of wine.  Scott Family Estates are actually located in St. Helena in Napa Valley and are under the larger umbrella of Rutherford Wine Company.  Arroyo Seco, which means Dry Creek is in the middle of the Salinas Valley which is located in Monterey County.  Arroyo Seco is known for having heavy fog cover which means that the vines are slow to ripen under the cooler temperatures and harvests have been known to take place in November.  While Arroyo Seco is well regarded and received its AVA in 1983, it is not seen that often, and the largest crop there is Chardonnay.  This particular wine is made entirely from Dijon Clones and was aged Sur Lies in a combination of Stainless Steel and French Oak.  There were seven-hundred-sixty cases produced and the aging potential for this wine is for five to six years, though truthfully most Chardonnay wines in this house do not last that long.  You know that I am not one for descriptors, but this wine delivered great citrus flavors and a nice long finish with just enough buttery oak to make everyone happy.  There will be more adventures and more wine to come. 

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My Bride Gets Some Gifts

Posted on November 2, 2019 by thewineraconteur

My Bride had another birthday, which is much better than not having another birthday.  We celebrate often and she likes to announce that this is for my birthday and stuff like that.  For the two of us, it is hard to buy something special, because every day is special and we tend to shop often.  In fact, for her birthday she went off to Chicago with three of her sisters, a daughter-in-law, nieces and a granddaughter.  They all had a great time and it was good for her to have a trip like that, and they had a chance to ride a train, subways, and busses.  I even got a tin of Garrett’s Caramel Popcorn out of the trip.

My Bride is the type to stay in contact with her old associates, like she gets together once a month with a bunch of ladies that she retired with from a past job and company.  She also goes out with other friends that have retired on a one on one basis.  She went with one of her friends with their usual routine of walking, appetizers and drinks.  I have discovered over the years that she has friends that prefer appetizers over entrées and they were doing that long before the concept of tapas restaurants hit the shores of America. 

Her friend at dinner gave her a cute sign that will reside in the dining room, at least for the moment, unless my Bride finds another location for it.  The sign reads “Good Wine, Good Friends, Good Times” and that is a worthy sentiment.  I think that sums up our life together.  Her girlfriend also bought her another gift, which most people shy away from buying either for my Bride or for me, and that is a bottle of wine.  I think people are hesitant about getting us wine as a gift, because they think we might somehow be offended, but that is hardly the case.  I mean anyone that has read some of the articles over the years that for every “unicorn” wine that I have written about, there are fifty wines that are wines that fall into the daily, everyday classification and ones.  The wine she gave my Bride was Pierre Laforest Chardonnay Pays d’Oc IGT 2016, as she knows that she drinks a lot of Chardonnay.   I could find very little about Pierre Laforest in English and I do not speak French, some wonder if I speak English.  Pierre Laforest offers wines in many classifications and price points and I must presume that they are a négociant.  They are affiliated with Pieroth Wines, while Pierre Laforest is based in Burgundy, the wine was bottled by Pierre Laforest Vins de France GMBH.  This particular Chardonnay is from the Pays d’Oc that roughly corresponds to the entire Languedoc-Roussillon region that is not covered by individual AOC guarantees.  This is one of the largest wine growing regions in France and quality is all over the board, depending on the winery or the négociant, and I am going to presume that Pierre Laforest will be on the better side of the equation.  Pays d’Oc IGP were originally labeled as Vin de Pays d’Oc until 2009 as the European Union is attempting to control the language used for wines and they have basically removed the old “table wine” rating for a more globally accepted name.  I am sure that we will have this wine soon and enjoy it for the friendship that it was given in.

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A 24’th Anniversary

Posted on October 31, 2019 by thewineraconteur

Some would say, it would never happen, but it did; and actually, I think I all but proposed the first night, but that would throw the count off.  We did the entire nine yards and why not and it has been big and grandiose all of those years.  Over the years, there have been times when caution was tossed out the window and other times, we are sometimes a pair of Casper Milquetoasts.  We would like to be Nick and Nora, sometimes Sean and Mary Kate, or Walter and Hildy, a wishful Rhett and Scarlet and maybe even Felix and Oscar, but never the ill-fated and doomed Richard and Ilsa, but I guess The Wine Raconteur and The Bride is right up there, at least in my mind.  Over the years, she has kind of dragged me kicking and fighting into the Twentieth Century and I may eventually get to the Twenty-first Century.  I have learned to try some foods, that I may never have tried, some successfully and others not so successfully.  Which is alright, because when I met her, she was basically a pescatarian and only drank Chardonnay, now she is a carnivore and enjoys almost every wine, both red and white, with only a few exceptions.  I guess we are allowed to have some differences. 

We were going to celebrate the evening with another couple, but at the last minute they had to cancel, and then we cancelled the reservation that we were really looking for, but we will eventually get together with the other couple at the restaurant that we missed out.  We decided to go out, somewhere closer to home and we settled on Hyde Park Prime Steakhouse, a small chain that started in Ohio.  They do an excellent job and a very comfortable setting.  I think that Morton’s is masculine, and The Capital Grille has become more feminine (at least here, because it is in a shopping mall and it is very loud to my way of thinking for an expensive night out) and Hyde Park fits us both very easily.  My Bride wanted Oysters on the Half Shell, which I have never had, I have always had Oysters Rockefeller, so I tried one from her plate and I have decided that I can pass on Oysters on the Half Shell, no matter how pretty the presentation.  We both had Lobster Bisque, which is laced and has some poached lobster added just before serving along with their great bread basket and a slab of butter that is seasoned on one edge and the other edge has Himalayan Pink Salt. My Bride went for a lighter meal that evening and had a Chopped Steak with whipped potatoes and onion straws.  I had the Filet Mignon with potatoes and Bearnaise Sauce, and we also ordered a side of Sautéed Brussel Sprouts with bacon.  The restaurant sent us out their version of Smores, all house made, different but good.

We had to start with a white wine, since we were having oysters on the half shell and then Lobster Bisque and I knew that I wanted to start with a Chardonnay.  We went with the Cave de Lugny La Cote Blanche Chardonnay Macon-Villages 2016.  Cave de Lugny is a cooperative that began with one-hundred-sixteen wine growers and now they are over four-hundred growers.  The cooperative began in 1927 and was the second one established in the Maconnais. The appellation for Macon-Villages is the step up from the basic Macon appellation and Macon-Villages only applies to dry white wines made from Chardonnay grapes.  I would venture to opine that this wine is aged in Stainless Steel because it was crisp and fruit forward offering citrus fruits and finishing with a touch of hazelnuts and some limestone terroir.  My Bride was very happy and content, and after the soup she told me that she was already full, but we went on.  My Bride got very excited for her red wine as we had enjoyed it during one of the virtual wine tastings that we did through Snooth.  She was enjoying Murrieta’s Well Estate Vineyard “The Spur” Red Wine Blend Livermore Valley 2016.  Louis Mel started planting grapes in the 1860’s and they were not just any grapes, but cuttings from Chateau d’Yquem and Chateau Margaux.  In 1884 Louis Mel built and installed in a hillside a gravity flow winery.  In 1933 Louis Mel sold his winery to Ernest Wente and the winery has been part of the Wente Family Estate ever since.  Here is a blended wine that features fruit grown in two of their vineyards.  The Petite Sirah and part of the Cabernet Sauvignon were grown in their historic Louis Mel Vineyard.  The balance of the Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc came from their Sachau Vineyard.  All of the varietals were fermented individually in Stainless Steel, and then they were blended together and aged in French Oak for twenty-four months, of which half was new, a quarter of the barrels were used for the second time and the other quarter were aged in barrels used for the third time.  While the wine is forty-eight percent Cabernet Sauvignon and thirty-two percent of the other famed varietals from the Medoc, there was twenty percent Petite Sirah to give the wine a Livermore Valley zing.  Each time I have had this wine I have enjoyed Black Cherry and to my way of thinking that is high praise for a deep red wine.  I was looking for something a bit softer and I went with the Alexander Valley Vineyards Wetzel Family Estate Merlot 2017 from the Alexander Valley in Sonoma County.  In 1916 we had a bottle of their 1997 vintage and it was still excellent.  The vineyards were established by Harry and Maggie Wetzel in 1962 and they have vineyards on both sides of the Russian River and they grow Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Zinfandel and Merlot and their first vintage was 1968.  The wine spent fourteen months aging in a mix of French and American Oak and it was an excellent bottle of wine, especially for the price and it delivery black cherry in abundance and as I have often stated I enjoy a bottle of Merlot, I always have and I always will.  It was a wonderful meal to celebrate our anniversary.   

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Sweetest Day 2019

Posted on October 29, 2019 by thewineraconteur

Sweetest Day is a rather important celebratory day in this household, because twenty-four years ago when my Bride and I tied the knot, it was on Sweetest Day.  When I mentioned it on Social Media, it got anything from “love” to yawns and stares.  One person that I know through Social Media on a couple of platforms was so intrigued, that she had to look it up, probably wondering, if I hadn’t had too much wine and was creating my own holidays for revelry.  I had always heard that it was created by Frederick Sanders in Detroit, the founder of Sanders Candy Company and if you are from the Detroit area, that name alone will make you smile from all of the sweets and goodies that one can associate with them.  Alas, it was not a Detroit inspiration, but the first Sweetest Day was October 10, 1921 in Cleveland, Ohio which chronicled the events leading up to the date, by a committee of twelve confectioners led by C.C. Hartzell and they began it by distributing twenty-thousand boxes of candy to “newsboys, orphans, old folks and the poor.”  It may have also created the concept of “Pay it Forward,” because it was a day that people would leave extra money to pay for the person behind them a coffee or a lunch, and some people continue that theme.  Eventually it was celebrated as the third Saturday in October, so periodically it lands again on my anniversary date. If you still haven’t heard of it, it is because only ten states really celebrate it, as well as parts of two other states.  Some deride it and call it a “Hallmark Holiday” though they had nothing to do with it, but both Hallmark and American Greetings do manufacture cards for it now, and Cleveland and Detroit are the two major markets. 

At first, we were going to have dinner home, because we had a nice dinner planned on our actual anniversary with an another couple and for some odd reason my Bride thinks that I can get quite carried away with ordering wine when we are out; I have no idea where she gets these ideas.  As it turns out, the closer we got to dinner time, the less excited she was about cooking, so I had to think of some place we could get in.  There is a charming little bistro way off the beaten track that we often go for breakfast and Mimosas, because they remind us the French Quarter in New Orleans.  The restaurant is called French Toast and they are open seven days a week in this little strip center, not even on the corner of two major streets, and they are only open for dinner on Friday and Saturday, they close the other days after the lunch/brunch traffic fades away.  We have been told at times for brunch that there will be almost an hour wait for a table, so people have discovered them for breakfast and lunch.  Just to play it safe, we got there early and there were only about five tables taken.  My Bride ordered the Lake Superior White Fish with lemon brown butter, capers, parsley, tomatoes Concaise, roasted red skin potatoes and asparagus.  I had the Cajun Chicken Fettuccine with fresh pasta, roasted onions, poblano peppers and a Cajun Bechamel sauce with some good heat, beyond the temperature of the hot plate that it was served on.  The manager sent us a complimentary dessert that we shared, because it was our anniversary. 

We also developed a bit of a thirst, having to read the menus and the wine list.  My Bride surprised me and went with the Barton & Guestier Bordeaux Blanc 2016.  Barton & Guestier or in the old days, when the labels said B & G is the oldest wine house in Bordeaux.  They are a negocient with over two-hundred winegrower partnerships, as well as their signature Chateau Magnol in the Haut-Medoc.  The company began in 1725 when the Irishman Thomas Barton settled in Bordeaux and became a wine merchant.  In 1802, his grandson Hugh joined forces with Frenchman Daniel Guestier and a partnership was created that is still going on today.  The wine is a blend of eighty percent Sauvignon Blanc and twenty percent Semillon and the fruit comes from both Entre-deux-Mers and in the Bordeaux region.  The fruit is left on the lees for the initial maceration with half of the wine aged in oak and the other half in vats.   The wine was crisp with a nose of white and yellow fruits and a touch of vanilla, and a nice finish.  My Bride truly enjoyed it.  I went with a new product, to me as I hadn’t heard about it, from the Wagner Family of Wines, produced by Chuck Wagner of Caymus Vineyards.  The wine was Bonanza Winery Cabernet Sauvignon California NV.  In the old days this might have been found in a gallon jug, but the pedigree for it, goes beyond the simple concept.  It is not an inexpensive wine for a Cabernet Sauvignon, but it was very tasty and was better than a lot of basic wines that I have encountered.  I would probably not have it in my cellar, but if it is an option at a restaurant, it was enjoyable enough that I would order it again.  As we were paying our bill, we noticed that our secret little dinner restaurant is no longer a secret as it was almost filled as we left. 

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Two Reds from my Club

Posted on October 27, 2019 by thewineraconteur

The month of October was so fleeting and hectic for me, on so many levels that I almost forgot to pick up the club selections from the Fine Wine Source in Livonia, Michigan.  They were quite busy in the shop, so I had little chance to discuss much with them.   It was one of those times, when I just picked up the selections and took off, which is so unlike me.

The first wine that I will mention is from Vignobles Laurent Mazeau-Bergstrom Chateau de Costis Bordeaux 2016.  The original estate was bought in 1928 by Charles Mallet, the great-grandfather of Laurent Mazeau.  In 1985, the grandson of Charles Mallet decided to retire and he left the estate to his four sons, and the four sons decided to administer their own heritage and that is how Vignobles Laurent Mazeau-Bergstrom originated.  The new estate began with forty-eight hectares and is now over one-hundred hectares, with three different elevations and a mix of several minerals and gravels to impart terroir.  The estate is located in the center of the Entre-deux-Mers sub region of Bordeaux, but that appellation is only for the white wines that are grown there, the reds are listed as Bordeaux.  This wine is a blend of forty percent Merlot, thirty-five percent Cabernet Franc and twenty-five percent Cabernet Sauvignon.  The tasting notes promise a wine with a deep, shiny red color, the nose has powerful fruit and a good amount of tannin for the finish, and it is described as a very well-balanced wine, which to me would say that it will be good with food or just by itself.   

The second bottle is Broadway Vineyards Merlot Carneros 2013. Broadway Vineyards feel that they embody the essence of the Sonoma lifestyle.  In 2002 Jim and Marilyn Hybiske found property just two miles from the Historic Square in downtown Sonoma.  Six of their friends joined them to develop a small vineyard focusing on Chardonnay, Merlot and Syrah.  Work began on the vineyard in 2004 and the first harvest was in 2006.  The results each year got better and better and the wine started being appreciated by others than the original investors and they started to take off.  Since the estate is small, there is only a finite amount of wine that can be produced.  The winemaker for Broadway Vineyards is Philippe Langner who began his career at Chateau Clarke, a Rothschild property in Bordeaux, France.  The three different varietals were chosen very carefully to be planted on the estate from day one to take advantage of the soil and the cool nights and warm days and the area was perfect for the three cool-climate varietals.  This wine was aged for twenty-two months in a mix of new and used French Oak and less than two-hundred-fifty cases were produced.  The tasting notes promise black cherry, blueberry, toast and vanilla flavors, getting more complex as the wine opens in the glass.  It looks like two easy drinking wines that will be a pleasure to serve to company or just the two of us.

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