2014 Taste of California - Oscar/Wine Pairing Party

This year's participants.  The last wine is the label-less Que Será Syrah that Jimmy and I made.  Because 8 was NOT enough.

So every year for the past six years we've had a wine tasting party.  They started out very casual and slapdash and evolved into something with a little more structure.  You can read more about the evolution of it "here" if you wish.

About six months ago or so Leslie and I decided the theme for this year's party would be the Academy Awards.  She and I figured it would dovetail nicely with the region (California).  We fine-tuned how it would all work and then kept the theme secret until we sent the official invitations out (about four or five weeks before the event).  Prior to that she'd done some ground work with determining schedules, so it's not like we just said, "Hey, you're invited," and hoped everyone could make it.  But it was "formalized" a few weeks in advance.

The general guidelines for the party are as follows:
1)  Wines are assigned randomly to the participants.
2)  Participants research their wines and create some sort of presentation, educational/entertaining.
3)  Participants research a dish that pairs well with their wine.
4)  Leslie sets up the menu once all the wines and dishes are announced.
5)  Commence to partyin'.

She puts one of these at each place setting, sort of like a program.

This year, with the theme being the Academy Awards, Leslie's invitation read "Black tie optional".  I donned my black suit and purchased a bow tie, for example.  More on that painful process "here."

We rolled out a red carpet, festooned the walls with stars, cordoned off the front door with a velvet rope, got swag bags for the visiting VIPs, purchased "trophies", and decked a couple of the participants daughters in fancy evening gowns to act as presenters.

The idea was the girls would read an envelope of nominees and then award, for example, the best Cabernet Sauvignon, to a participant.  The participant(s) would then rise to the acknowledging cheers of his peers and the presentation would essentially be the acceptance speech.

The other girls aren't pixelated in real life.  That's just a camera effect.

It was great.  And classy.  But drunken.  Too drunken.  Probably we'll have to make some changes moving forward.  People lose track of the fact that there are eight wines to get through, and the pours get a little 'too full' to make it to the end safely.  By the third course I was more than tipsy.  By the 7th, you couldn't hear the presentations over the sound of drunken heckling.  By the 9th*, well...no arrests were made.  But it was a close thing.

*Officially there were 8 courses, but we cracked open a bottle of the wine we made in November.  That was the fabled one-too-many.

so classy

Leslie and I were randomly assigned Cabernet Sauvignon.  We paired it with filet mignon sliders done two ways...one with a chimichurri sauce and stone ground mustard on artisan bread, and the other a Gorgonzola and Porcini cream sauce on artisan bread.  We then cut the sliders in half so that each person got half of each recipe...or one whole slider.  But seriously, with eight courses nobody leaves hungry.

Here was our presentation for this year's party...

2011 Dreaming Tree Cabernet Sauvignon

Dreaming Tree is owned by Dave Matthews and some wine guy.  Yes, that Dave Matthews.  Dreaming Tree’s website assured us that the wine guy’s credentials were beyond reproach, and that Dave Matthews also knew some stuff.  Liking wine, for example, was listed on his resume.

Dreaming Tree itself is named after a Dave Matthews Band song…”Dreaming Tree”.  But “What Would You Say” if we were to stand here in “The Space Between” “You & Me” and start interjecting Dave Matthews Band puns throughout our presentation?  Doubtless you’d lose patience and “Crash into Me” in your haste to “Say Goodbye” and, like “Ants Marching” we’d lose the lot of you and be left crying, “Where Are you Going?” we have “So Much to Say!” 

But we’re not cliché like that. 

Dreaming Tree’s website is selling a story about their wine.  More so than the wine itself it seems, because while I’m not positive what the wine itself is supposed to be like from their website, I do know, for example, that Tino is an old local guy who doesn’t want to retire, and that Dale is a local fisherman who offered Dave a beer once.  And so on.  Charming stories about the people and places around the vineyard, and of course, back story about why Dave Matthews is a wine expert all litter their webpage along with charming photographs of Dave drinking wine with people, or staring into the middle distance, a visionary wine…liker…guy.  In the background are hand drawn sketches of fish and people and houses and things.  But still no ideas what Dreaming Tree Cabernet Sauvignon is supposed to taste like. 

After much digging I came up with this:  The wine “shows abundant fruit with notes of cherry, blackberry, anise and vanilla. It's soft and with a lush texture that makes it great match for everyday foods.”

I’m not sure that we agree about “everyday foods” But…it is soft, definitely softer than your typical high tannin Cabernet.  It makes it smooth and drinkable and easier to pair with food than the first wine we considered…more about that in a moment.

We also know is that it’s from California.  We know that because Dreaming Tree was as I mentioned, our number two selection for reasons.  For starters, number one did not pair particularly well with the first dish we tried, was a only a little better with the second, but not great with the third (a pumpkin cheesecake recipe that Leslie insisted we start at 10:30 at night and I was still waiting to cool at 1:00 a.m.).   Upon failing this last test, and with mounting panic, Leslie said, “Why don’t you see what their website says pairs well with it.”  So I went.  It turned out that our first selection was a wine from Oregon.  Drunk, we turned instead to a wine that we were relatively sure was not from Oregon, and quite possibly was from California.    

Yes!!  Dreaming Tree is from California!

From our general research on wine pairings with Cabernet we have some nice bullet-point memorizables:

• 1.      Cabernet’s high tannin content lends itself to grilled meats…steaks, chops, and other red meat.  The char on the meat mirrors the bitterness of the tannin.
• 2.      Black pepper counters the bitterness
• 3.      Bitter foods…mustard greens, endive, eggplant
• 4.      Cabernet counters fatty, buttery foods nicely.
• 5.      Earthy herby flavors, dark mushrooms, fresh herbs.

Taking all of the above into consideration we tried five recipes (including those we sampled with the Oregon wine) and were left with two that we felt really paired well.  Instead of settling on one, we have prepared for you…

Petite filet sliders done two ways:  filet with chimichurri sauce and stone ground mustard, and filet with Gorgonzola and Porcini mushroom sauce both served on lightly toasted artisan bread.  

We each felt that one of the preparations paired better than the other.  We’re curious what you’ll find.  Do the herbs and pepper of the chimichurri pair better than the fatty Gorgonzola and earthy Porcini flavors of the cream sauce?

Bon Apetit!

We took an Ellen Degeneres-style Oscar selfie, but without the consent of the other participants I'm reluctant to share it here.  That said, here's a teaser...

Leslie said, "Did we do a selfie?" the following day.  She didn't remember anything after the 6th course. 

I seem more serious than I really was.  My lopsided grin is away from the camera so it's hidden.  I was happy.  Sooooooo happy.

Lily dressed up but was designated driver.

The 2013 Wine & Pairing Party

For the last six years or so Leslie and I have hosted a wine party.  Initially it was very informal and free form, with invitees bringing over various wines they enjoyed and cheeses or charcuterie or whatever they thought might be good, and we'd set it all up and just drink and eat all night.  It was initially just a family thing.  None of us really knew what the hell we were doing, but it didn't matter, because everyone brought wine, and most of the time it was unfamiliar, and we'd finish the evening and have picked out a couple new favorites to buy.

2011's participants...

The party morphed slowly through the years as Leslie and I started ordering wine flights at restaurants (where sommeliers selected good pairings for tasting menus) and we started really gaining an appreciation not necessarily for "wine" (which we really really...really already appreciated) but for the almost symbiotic impact of a really appropriate food pairing on that wine and vice versa. We started gaining rules and structure geared toward 'educating' while 'entertaining' until the party became what it is today.

Probably the first wine that Leslie and I ever tried where the pairing principal was revealed to us clearly was a Sangiovese.  We had purchased a salmon dish at the grocery store that was essentially salmon, spinach, and feta, rolled into a pinwheel.  On the cooking instructions, it said, "Pairs well with Sangiovese".  We bought a bottle of it and were vaguely aware that it was the grape used to make Chiantis...but really knew nothing else.

We cooked the salmon and poured a glass of the Sangiovese and really enjoyed how the flavors played off each other...they just "fit".  We knew what pairings were, and this was a good one.  We resolved to remember "feta/salmon/Sangiovese".

The next night we were watching TV.  It was late and I asked Leslie if she wanted a glass of wine.  She said sure...or possibly just stared at me like, "are you new?" and I poured each of us a glass of the Sangiovese from the previous night.

It sucked.  We almost didn't finish it (but each of us powered through like the champions we are).  That experience more than any other illustrated to us how the pairing impacts the experience.  Served with salmon and feta pinwheels the Sangiovese was spectacular; served by itself it was harsh and acidic like Leslie when she's hungry.  

I'm Batman, bitches!!*
*Not actually Batman...it's Mardi Gras

The guidelines for the yearly (soon to be twice yearly, I suspect) wine pairing party are relatively straightforward.  First we select a region.  (We've done Australia, South America, and this year Italy (since we started doing this by region)).  Next we select grapes from that region.  We pick enough varieties that each guest/couple gets one assigned grape.  The guests select a wine made from that grape, research the wine, and research a pairing.  Each guest brings two bottles of the wine they selected along with one dish (some cooking is often required) to the party.  We pick a theme (two years ago it was Valentine's Day, last year it was Mardi Gras, this year it's "Italy".  We decorate and set up tables and once everyone arrives we take our seats and begin.  

We make up a menu and organize the tasting by dish (salad/appetizer, fish, meat, dessert, for example) before the event.  The menu lists the wine vitals and the dish name.  The first group stands up, presents their wine, talks about pairing choices, pours the wine and serves the food.  The second group preps their food after they've tried the first group's pairing...and so on.

This year's menu

What we've determined is that 1) one bottle is not enough but two bottles is too much.  2)  The invitation list must be held under a certain number lest we all simultaneously black out in my basement, and 3)  Keep open flames away from the paper menus.


The presentations have become increasingly informative and entertaining (but at LEAST entertaining) through the years and at the end of the evening, everyone leaves with a copy of each wine presentation (typically) and a recipe for the dish that paired with it, and I clean everything up while Leslie passes out in bed.  ("That happened ONE time, Jim!")* 

*possibly not an actual quote...possibly it never happened.  possibly.

Sorry for all the background, but I figured I'd turn this into a blog post and OUR presentation would be available for "All the world".  You know...at least the portion of the world that reads this blog.

This brings us to 2013, and our (Leslie's and mine) grape selection for the party:  Sangiovese.  Full circle!!  I'm like the Charles Dickens of bloggers!

Side-note, every time I type "Sangiovese" the spell-checker on Blogger wants to correct it to "Angiosperm"...not a wine drinker, Blogger?

Anyway, on to the presentation:

Sangiovese grape:  2009 La Maia Lina Chianti

Okay, okay, before anyone gets upset and cries foul and starts saying, "You guys cheated last year too!" Yes...yes, we cheated last year.  Yes, the wine we brought was NOT South American, but Spanish.  This isn't about last year, this is about THIS year.  You people have got to let it go.  And Chianti *IS* Sangiovese.  Or perhaps it's more instructive to say that this Chianti is Sangiovese.

As most of you have probably already figured out (and I can't write this after your presentations to be sure, but I assume you'll have done the math) many Italian wines and certainly those Italian wines grown in the Chianti region of Italy (see map below) take the name not of the varietal from which they are made, but from the region in which they're grown.  So although it may seem as if we're cheating like last year, I can assure you we are not.  This Chianti, "La Maia Lina" (which means the little pig) is entirely 100%* (give or take...DOCG requires that Chianti wines have no less than 75% Sangiovese grapes, but no actual percentage is specified on our bottle) Sangiovese grape blood.  

Which reminds me:  Sangiovese means "The Blood of Jove".  Jove is to Italy what Zeus is to Greece, so you're about to drink the blood of a God.  A God!!!  And if the stories I've read about drinking the blood of Gods are any indication, you'll probably all leave our house tonight with super powers (or possibly just feeling bulletproof).  You're welcome.

Sangiovese:  Blood of Jove

Sangiovese grapes are the number one planted grape in Italy.  They account for 10% of all the grapes planted and Sangiovese wines (with Chiantis and Brunello and others) account for most of Italy's wine exports. 

We're number 1!  We're number 1!

Chianti:  The Chianti region, as you'll see from the map, is like the hot pink patchwork midway up the front of the leg of some colorblind Italian stripper's thigh boot.   Actually, Chianti is just the speck of dirt on that patchwork, because the patch itself is Tuscany.  Chianti is the subregion IN Tuscany. 

In fact, Chianti translated MEANS "Speck of dirt on front of stripper's thigh boot". Or something.

Chiantis are characterized in their youth by their predominantly floral and cinnamon spicy bouquet. As the wine ages, aromas of tobacco and leather can emerge...again, like a stripper's boot. Really, Chiantis are like the stripper's boots of the Italian wines.  

The tasting notes for our particular Chianti indicate that it is (according to The Wine Advocate):  "...a soft, sensual wine with generous fruit and an open, inviting personality. The fresh, vinous style is best appreciated upon release."  Much like...class???  Anyone?  No.  Not like a stripper's boot.  Here's where the analogy breaks down.  More like a stripper. Or perhaps a hooker.  That was a trick question.

Taste:  red fruit, strawberry, and raspberry

Nose:  asparagus, green pepper, and red fruit

Overall Rating:  88.
The acidity in Sangiovese wines make them very flexible (again like Italian strippers, but possibly like their boots as well) with food and wine pairings, particularly with Italian cuisines that feature red sauce, as well with as beef, lamb and game.  It pairs well with fresh herbs.  It pairs well with many mushrooms and milder blue-veined cheeses like Gorgonzola.

We've prepared a dish of petite filet with Gorgonzola and porcini mushroom sauce.  

Buon Appetito.